Bouncing babes

Mental note to self… next time ‘pals’ are organising a work fundraiser, RUN A MILE… (obviously this won’t be the advice if the fundraising event is actually running a mile but you know what I mean!)

A few weeks ago, a work chum mentioned that there was an event called the ‘big bounce’ happening locally to raise money for ’sport relief’. The idea of the ‘big bounce’ is that you have teams of four and you have to do a relay race around a course and see how many laps your team can do… oh, and the best bit – the relay race has to be done on giant space hoppers!

Bravely, 4 girls from the office rose to the challenge and said that they would undertake the humiliation of bouncing round on giant toys that most of us grew out of when we were about 7, and, under much duress, another chum and I said we would be ‘reserves’. Actually, I’ve been told that I said I would be a reserve, I’m sure I distinctly remember saying ‘no – not on your life’!

Anyway, yesterday (the day before the ‘bb’) one of the gals came into the office apologising profusely (via email) but saying that the ankle injury she sustained a while back was still a bit dodgy so could one of the reserves take her place. Sadly I read this ‘pleading email’ after the other reserve did so she got her excuse in first! Not sure that going home to ‘bounce around with hubby’ is a valid excuse but nonetheless, she beat me fair and square for speed and inventiveness so it was left to me to fill the final place in the ‘big bounce’. Now I am not a sporty person, not even a little bit, and so the idea of bouncing round on a giant space hopper pretty much filled me with dread anyway, and when you take into account that people, and even worse the local media were going to be there watching, well, we’re getting into ‘nightmare’ territory!

Anyway, the first problem of this morning, what to wear… The ‘bb’ was happening at lunchtime but I still had to ‘dress for work’ so I figured that my emu boots, a little skirt (with leggings underneath to protect my modesty) and a casual jumper were my best bet. Turns out I was the only one who had thought about the practicalities of wardrobe planning this morning, as two of my fellow ‘bouncers’ showed up having completely forgotten about the whole thing, bless ‘em. They came into work in wrap-around dresses, stilleto boots and other such girlie outfits and the look of horror on their faces when they remembered that they were due to be straddling giant red space hoppers at lunchtime was an absolute picture.

So lunchtime rolled around (funny how time never stands still when you want it to isn’t it?) and we made our way to the venue, with me going via home to pick up a jumper to hide the ‘ample cleavage’ of pal in the wrap-around dress – we were a little concerned that in just her dress there would be slightly too much bouncing going on

It actually wasn’t too bad – there weren’t that many people there (I’m trying not to think about the film crew for the local news!) and as a team we did pretty well – managing 13 laps of the circuit and beating the team we were bouncing against by 2 laps

Probably the most amusing thing about the whole experience was showing up and finding all the other ‘corporate’ teams looking very sporty and athletic in their co-ordinating (and branded no less!) tracksuits while we walked around looking like a fashion parade in comparison - if there was a prize for the glam’est team I’m sure we’d have won

It was also very amusing watching my team mates trying to get onto their space hoppers without giving the audience a quick flash! I was less reserved and just ‘hoiked’ my skirt up – leggings remember! – much to the excitement of a couple of pre-pubescent boys watching… who went very red at me pointing out that I was not just wearing tights!

Anyway, in addition to winning our race we also managed to raise over £250 for ’sport relief’ and are feeling very proud of ourselves… off to polish the halo now