Que Ser Sera

When I was a little girl my father would sing Que Sera Sera to me. Never has it been more apt.

Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera Sera

And this is on the day when our ‘esteemed’ prime Minister will outline the way forward. Oh, how I wish I had confidence in this government’s ability to steer us through this epidemic. So this morning I sat on my terrace drinking my coffee and singing Que Sera Sera and reiterating my mantra of the last 2 years, ‘it is what it is’  and remembering my father.

I don’t talk much about my father maybe because he wasn’t as bonkers as mum. He was a stable, somewhat bombastic, loving, generous man. With Dad you got what you saw – unlike mum there were no sides to him. He loved people and sport and would follow anything sport related. Thank goodness for mum’s sake Sky Sport hadn’t been invented.  I remember not long after he died I called up my mother and asked her what she was doing.

“Watching football,” she said.

“But you don’t like football,” I replied.

“I know but I am watching it for your father as he can’t.”

I know what she meant. I find myself watching the Rugby which I never liked but Tod loved.

My father adored me and was immensely proud of everything that I did. I was a swimmer in my youth and Dad was my coach. Every morning before school he would take me to training sessions and sometimes after school as well. He would drive me to matches, be on the touch line with a stop watch and I could hear him shouting above all the other parents. He loved it and in the end more than I did. Telling him that I wanted to stop took a lot of courage – it took him a long time to get over it. 

But when I hear that song Que Sera Sera I have this wonderfully fuzzy feeling inside. The song my mother used to sing to me was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Maybe that is equally apt.

What is not apt at the moment is my bridge playing – I am failing miserably. This morning by the time I had finished my two hour online competitive game, I was rewarded with a pounding headache, a stiff neck  and bottom of the league. I have enough time to perfect my game so why am I not doing this.

Well first off good bridge players need to have the ability to concentration. Not one of my best attributes. It was the consistent remarks from my teachers “Roma needs to concentrate more.” Well little has changed. Another trait is that of  controlling ones anger.  It’s a fact that sometimes things will go wrong and banging the table and storming off is not appreciated. I have never been a good sport. Even when we used to play cards with the boys when they were little and I had to set a good example, I hated losing.  Tod and I had to stop playing tennis together early on in our relationship because we would argue so much about whether a ball was out or in. Next is logic. Bridge is a game of logic. It is not a game of rote…..in fact far from it. It requires the use of logic in order to figure out the hands and what’s going on in the play and to defend. To play well you need to visualize your partner’s hand – as well as the ability to count! Oh dear I fall foul of this too. I am not logical as you have probably seen from my blog. And counting well its fingers and thumbs. I also have a tendency to shoot from the hip. And finally there are rules that need to be followed. Never been good at rules.

Note to self: maybe time to find another past time.

Which brings me to my next hobby which is also not going that well. On line Scrabble. I have 10 games going at the moment and I am losing them all. None of this is any good for my self esteem. I need to find something that I can win or at least be good at. I was good at being a mother but my boys don’t need mothering anymore. I was a good radio producer but I no longer have a job.  I am a reasonable cook but dinner parties are out. I was good at netball but not much call for over 65 netball players. 

So I am thinking of joining a virtual choir https://www.thesofasingers.com/ or  https://www.lifefulness.io/

Maybe we will get to sing Que Sera Sera

“Let’s be careful out there”