Bravado and Melanoma

Today my head looks like a ripe strawberry and feels like a baked tomato.

I normally avoid the sun due to my almost translucent, pale blue complexion. But yesterday there was pride involved. There was my fragile ego, a lack of preparation and a fair amount of stupidity.

I started a game of tennis with my 16-year-old cousin at approximately 1pm. Yes I know, the hottest part of the day. And it was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, birds singing, the breeze gently soughing through the leaves, old ladies dressed in white, playing lawn bowls. Idyllic.

By the time it got to 5-5 in the third set I was not only running out of energy, enthusiasm and patience but was horribly aware of the fact that my 2L bottle of water was already empty.

I could have stopped. I could have given in, let him win, suggested an honourable draw but no I continued to play and the sun continued to cook me with it's damned ultraviolet radiation.

My thoughts ran something like - you can't let your little cousin beat you, you're still fit, you can do it, you're at your peak...your peeeak.

I lost the set 12-10.

My pride and my epidermis may never fully recover.