Disclaimer

No children, tonsils, cricket balls, tennis balls, Lost Ruins of Arnak components, Somerset cricket fans, or Nando’s peri-peri sauces were permanently harmed in the making of this blog. Some parental nerves were lightly grilled. This is considered normal.

After the previous day’s cricket adventure for Ilton — because obviously the ideal preparation for a Grade 4 tennis tournament is playing cricket while still recovering from tonsillitis — Bank Holiday Monday arrived with all the calm decision-making of a family calendar that has stopped asking for consent.

Our son had been unwell during the week with tonsillitis. The fever had settled, the angry tonsil had calmed down, and he was definitely better.

Better, however, is not the same as fully recovered.

This distinction is important to adults.

It is apparently completely irrelevant to eight-year-olds.

We had discussed pulling him out of the tournament. Sensible phrases were used, such as “he still isn’t quite right,” “he needs more recovery,” and “perhaps competitive sport immediately after cricket and tonsillitis is not what NICE had in mind.”

Our son, as ever, did not see the problem.

His body may have been requesting a phased return. His mind had already registered for Burnham-on-Sea.

The morning was deliberately low-key. In our house, this meant playing Lost Ruins of Arnak with our eight-year-old son, who is now getting worryingly good at it. For those who have never played it, Arnak is not exactly a light children’s game. It involves deck-building, worker placement, resource management, exploration, and enough tactical decision-making to make adults stare silently at a cardboard jungle while questioning their choices.

He seems to understand it.

This is both lovely and deeply concerning.

After our peaceful morning of archaeological stress, we left for Burnham-on-Sea at around 1pm. Under normal circumstances, the journey takes about 25 to 30 minutes.

This was not normal circumstances.

This was a Bank Holiday Monday.

The M5, sensing opportunity, immediately turned itself into a slow-moving tribute to national regret. We hit traffic almost straight away, and the journey took nearly an hour. We arrived just in time for registration, which is parenting code for “technically on time, but emotionally frayed.” It quickly became clear that we were not the only ones arriving late. The M5 had clearly decided to support grassroots tennis by delaying several families equally.

The tournament was a 14-player Grade 4 event, played in a 16-player compass draw, with matches as best of three tie-break sets to 7. Two of our son’s Somerset teammates were also playing: Edward Smith and Zach Meehan, which gave the afternoon a nice familiar feel. Less random tennis tournament, more Somerset travelling circus with rackets.

The first round was against Eric Rimola.

Eric is a year younger than our son, but this was no gentle warm-up. Like our son, he seemed to struggle emotionally with the outcome of shots when they went long, hit the net, or drifted out. At this age, tennis is not just about technique. It is also about learning that the ball is an independent object with no respect for your feelings.

It was gritty.

It was tense.

It was not exactly a wellness retreat.

Our son lost in three sets: 7–5, 5–7, 1–7.

There were tears from both players during the match, which probably tells you everything about how much it mattered. Our son was worse afterwards. The frustration of losing, the emotional strain of the match, and the lingering effects of tonsillitis all appeared to arrive at once, like a small but determined committee.

My wife handled the situation this time, which was almost certainly for the best.

I went back to the car.

This may sound like tactical withdrawal.

That is because it was.

I sat there listening to Somerset cricket, hoping for a small piece of sporting comfort. Naturally, Somerset then lost to Hampshire by 75 runs.

At this stage, the Bank Holiday was going exceptionally well, provided the aim was to combine junior sporting disappointment, illness recovery, motorway traffic and county cricket sadness into one carefully curated family experience.

Because I was in the car listening to Somerset’s collapse, I missed our son’s next match against Taliesin Kujawski, who he had already played twice this year. Apparently, this one went much better. A clean two-set win: 7–2, 7–0.

This gave him the chance to play for 9th place.

He was then paired against Jason Emmanuel Suresh, and this turned into another proper nail-biter. Our son lost in three sets: 7–5, 3–7, 5–7.

This was the match where I noticed something interesting.

Our son was probably the better player for large parts of it. He was positive, aggressive, and trying to take the game on. His power play was developing nicely, and he looked confident when dictating rallies.

But in the pivotal moments, the shots were just slightly too long.

Not wildly long. Not “search party required” long. Just marginally beyond where they needed to land.

Many of those shots seemed to fall between the U9 line and the U10 line, which made me wonder whether this was partly the result of recently training with green balls and on a bigger court. His brain and racket are perhaps beginning to think in U10 dimensions, while the tournament was still very much asking for U9 accuracy.

Unfortunately, tennis scoring does not allow for developmental footnotes.

The scoreboard does not say: “Excellent attacking intent, possibly affected by transitional court-size recalibration.”

It says: out.

And that is that.

The loss meant he finished 10th.

He was not happy.

This will shock absolutely nobody who has met a competitive eight-year-old.

After the tournament had officially finished, he had a training match against Sean Adedeji, the number 2 seed in the tournament. They know each other reasonably well, having crossed paths at a few tournaments. Sean is one of Avon’s top players, so this was not exactly a relaxed knockabout against someone holding the racket by the strings.

And, because sport enjoys irony, our son played really well.

The relaxed atmosphere seemed to suit him. There was “nothing at stake,” and suddenly the tennis flowed. No placing. No draw pressure. No emotional freight attached to every missed ball. Just tennis.

He lost another tight three-setter: 7–5, 5–7, 7–9.

But the performance was excellent. Brave, positive, aggressive, and far closer to the player he can be when he is not carrying the weight of the scoreboard around his neck like a small laminated burden.

Against one of Avon’s strongest players, he showed that the level is there.

It just needs to appear more consistently when the match actually counts.

Which, to be fair, is the entire challenge of sport.

Actually, it is probably the entire challenge of life.

From a parental point of view, the day was a familiar mixture of pride, concern, analysis, motorway trauma, emotional support, and wondering whether tonsillitis should come with an automatic sporting suspension.

He had played cricket for Ilton the day before.

He was recovering from tonsillitis.

He was better, yes — but still clearly feeling the effects.

And yet he competed. He fought. He won one match convincingly, lost two tight three-setters, and then pushed one of the strongest players there all the way in a training match once the pressure was off.

Not bad for a child whose tonsils had spent the previous week behaving like an angry committee.

After the tournament, we decided that a well-deserved meal out was required. The usual gravitational pull of McDonald’s was strong, as it always is when children are involved and parents are emotionally vulnerable. But this time we made a bold and, frankly, excellent decision.

We went to Nando’s.

And it was a very good choice.

There are moments in family life where you need peri-peri chicken more than you need further analysis of tie-break percentages, court-size transitions, or whether a backhand at 5–5 should have had slightly more topspin.

Nando’s did the job.

So, all in all, it was a classic Bank Holiday sporting experience: recovering from tonsillitis, cricket the day before, a Grade 4 tennis tournament, Bank Holiday traffic, Somerset teammates, tears, one convincing win, two painful three-set defeats, one very encouraging training match, Somerset cricket losing by 75 runs, and a Nando’s finish.

Some families spend Bank Holiday Monday relaxing.

We chose this.

Apparently.

Rest, of course, remains important.

We fully support it.

We may even try it one day.

Probably after the next fixture.