After washing the dinner things, tidying the kitchen up, putting the kids to bed (W was out), and checking email last night, I finally made it into the lounge by about 10pm. After watching a few eipsodes of “Community” - my latest television addiction - I switched the XBox on, and escaped to Monte Carlo for an hour.
Observation one. Getting old is a bitch.
After half an hour of finding braking points around the track, and finally avoiding the barriers, I turned in some half respectable laptimes. Inbetween practice and qualifying, I went to make a coffee, and seriously thought my neck was about to snap off.
Observation two. I can still do it.
Against all expectation I started threading laps together like the video game player of old. Those years of introverted game playing somehow became unlocked, and huge lumps fell off the laptime. The team crackled over the radio that I had pole by nearly a second - shortly before I got cocky and wrapped the car pretty spectacularly around the fountain at the casino.
The race was a mixed bag - either pulling out seconds per lap, or becoming a panic stricken, barrier scraping, late breaking lunatic. Carlos Fandango had nothing on me.
After switching the TV off, locking the house up, and sneaking off to bed, I lay there with my eyes shut, seeing the streets of Monaco whistle past. I also wondered if the muscles in my neck, shoulders, and forearms would ever be the same again.