Welcome to the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, a year-long challenge set by the good folk at Long and Short Reviews that anyone can participate in. Want to see who else is playing along? Visit here and click on the Miscellaneous Musings link near the top of the page.

This week’s topic is going to be short and fun. A bit like me, really.

Types of exercise I enjoy

Oooh, this one is easy-peasy and won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s read any of my bios.

I am a golfer.

Not a very good golfer, mind, but I’m out and damn proud.

Golfing in the winter at Port Fairy on Victoria’s wild south-west coast. Golfers do it anywhere.

It can be a dangerous sport though. No, don’t you laugh. It can! I’ve given myself a few injuries in my golfing career.

One of the most dramatic was a black eye when the ball I struck hit a tree branch which broke off and clobbered me in the face. I dropped like a schoolcase and was convinced my eye had burst because of the masses of liquid pouring from it. It hadn’t, thank god. It was just watering. The black eye was impressive though.

But get this… The ball landed on the green and when I’d finally recovered I putted it in for par (a good score, for those non-golfers out there).

I also managed to smack myself with my own ball once. I was on the eighteenth tee and had had a bad day, but it was the last hole and with it came a chance to redeem myself.

Yeah, right.

My tee shot hit a concrete path edge and ricocheted straight back at me, leaving barely time to turn aside. The ball struck me on the shoulder like a bullet and oh, the pain! It was so bad it outdid the ignominy of being whacked by my own ball.

I don’t usually lose my temper on the golf course but I spat it after that. Picked up the horrible white thing and trumped to the clubhouse in a (perfectly justified) huff.

When the bruise came out it was patterned with golf ball dimples. Very pretty. Not.

Then there are the golfer’s and tennis elbow injuries and the countless times I’ve banged the steel head of my putter into my shin or ankle bone.

A sunbaking blacksnake at my old golf club Glenmore Heritage Valley, NSW.

And snakes. Snakes love golf courses and being Australia they’re not harmless snakes either. I came within a foot of running over a taipan with my buggy in Townsville (north Queensland) once. My other half nearly had heart failure. Mind you, so did I when saw how close I was.

See? Very dangerous sport. But excellent exercise.

You should try it.

No, really. It’s fun. Promise.

What’s your favourite exercise? Book reading doesn’t count!

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