So, about that tournament thing that's happening...

Possible subtitles include:

• a Rugby Widow’s guide to surviving the World Cup
• how I watched more BBC classic novel dramatisations than can possibly be healthy  
• OR: eating cupcakes in bed - yes or no?

Oh HAI Sonny Bill! You can leave your shoes under my bed any day.
Mark Taylor, Waikato Times. Via Stuff.

Hey, so, did you know that there is a big tournament thingy happening in New Zealand? It’s true! Every week you can watch a lot of television with lots of men with really large thighs tackling each other to the ground and fighting over an egg-shaped ball. Also, there is a great deal of hype about! As I have no TV I’ve managed to avoid most of the hideousness and miscellaneous player scandal, which is something that I’m terribly smug about (I am sooo Smuggy McSmugness over here).

On the other hand, my boyfriend is crazy about rugby. He loves it to an infectious extent. My attitude towards rugby changed completely after watching games with Shannon because he loves the game so - there is much ecstatic yelling, and exclaiming over the abilities of the various players... I’m afraid that I’m not really doing a very good job of explaining, but suffice to say, for Shannon rugby-watching is not a passive thing - it’s very much a full-on interactive experience, for him and everyone around him.

Obviously, a lot of his time is taken up with ruggers at present and as I am an impoverished social-sad-sack, this means that I have a great deal more time alone. However! I haven’t been wasting my time! No, I’ve been researching some ways to enjoy the World Cup period for non-rabid rugby fans. Some suggestions:

• Be nice to tourists. It’ll make you feel good about yourself and hopefully be a deposit in your karma bank for when you’re travelling. Also: how would I know about the Skittles bomb* if I hadn’t talked to a drunken laddish South African dude at the Malthouse? 
• Watch one or two games. Try going to a bar that has a world demographic (by which I mean - a Wales game at the Welsh bar, the Brave Blossoms at a Japanese bar). Failing that - try watching the game in a bar with decent beer/cider/wine and food. Don’t try to have a conversation. 
• Arbitrarily choose a team to support and make yourself a really awesomely naff costume. I saw a Wales fan dressed as a dragon and it made me so happy. Also: costumes are fun. 
• Enjoy your widow/widower-hood by watching programmes that would otherwise be relentlessly mocked by your S.O. Watch until your eyes drop out. Watch some more. Curse the new laws that will reveal the extent of your illegal downloading habit to the flat bill-payer if you get caught. Curse the people who scratch library DVDs. 
• Respect other people’s fandom - because it totally sucks when people are down on your fandom. (Chances are your fandom will never be respected, but think of it as another karmic deposit.) 
• Look at a lot of images of really large man thighs. Think about how those dudes could snap you in half, and how tiny your wrist would look in their fist. *giggle* 
• Go and see or take part in some of the REAL NZ Festival that’s running alongside the Cup. The Wellingtonista made quite a good list of Things That Are Happening in Wellington, and I know that The Body Festival is running in Christchurch. 

Truth be told, I’ve mostly been eating in bed, knitting cardigans for summer and watching BBC classic novel dramatisations - but I’m thinking this would be a good chance to sew two more dresses and work on my op-shopping website. Perhaps we should add “generally catch up on your life” to the list.

Lovely reader, do you have anything to add -- ways of enjoying the RWC period? We’re all people with fantastic imaginations and we have another month or so to use them! Woo!



*A shot of Cointreau in Red Bull. Sounds vile.