I think it's good to keep having 'firsts'.
First octopus cocktail.
First sky dive.
First game of croquet in the rain.
It helps to keep one young, interesting, and flexible.
Or nauseous, scared witless, and soaked.
Thursday evening, Miss Helping Hands decided we needed to play a more physical game than Phase 10 (of which we'd played a looooong, grueling game the night before, when Sam-I-Am stopped in.)
Thing is, just after we'd all gotten out of the gate, so to speak, it started to rain.
Not a drenching downpour, but not a little mist, either.
Just a steady light rain.
And no one seemed to care.
Except for me.
I went in to fetch the new (very pretty black and white) umbrella the prince had just bought for me, but the others...well...they just got wet.
I've got to say, playing croquet with grown-ups is a funny thing.
And when you play croquet with grown-ups in the rain, while holding an umbrella, sometimes you end up laughing so hard you can't hit the ball.
Which makes a nice excuse for your poor playing.
But if you start laughing too hard at someone else's poor playing, things can get ugly pretty quickly.
Such violence in the world today.