Look Mummy, Watch Me !

Almost a year ago, our local cricket club decided to create a women’s softball team.

After a casual meeting and a few glasses of Prosecco, a plan was in place. Women from across our village came forward, all from completely different backgrounds, but with one fairly important thing in common:

None of us played cricket. Most of us hadn’t even lifted a bat in our adult lives.

And I suspect quite a few of us arrived carrying those slightly battered memories of school sport. Standing in a line waiting to be chosen by one of your so-called friends and hoping desperately that your name wouldn’t be the last one called — or that you would be called at all — smiling through the embarrassment whilst simultaneously wanting to fast-forward ten years and skip this phase altogether.

That feeling that perhaps you’re just not quite good enough.

It’s funny how those things stay with you.

Or perhaps that was just what I brought to that first meeting.

I was 51 years old. I am incredibly grateful to be a mother. My daughter gave me purpose and a reason to keep trying to do better. She’s helped me and guided me to see things differently, to take a chance, to give things a go. But I had reached a point where I needed something that was just for me.

And I think any single parent will understand this: there is no one else picking up the hard stuff. Ever. You are very much alone in that, and sometimes you just need some headspace.

But every Sunday, for one hour a week in the winter nets, I found something I hadn't realised I'd been missing.

A group.

A community.

There was no judgement. No competition between us. Nobody trying to prove they were better than anyone else. Just a bunch of women getting together to see if perhaps we could get a little better at something. That was it.

In May 2026, we entered our first matches in the Sussex League.

By then, we'd acquired nicknames.

Mine was Frying Pan, because apparently I hold a cricket bat like the frying pan in Tangled.

We have Elsa, because once the ball is in her hand, she simply cannot let it go.

And then there's Wilma, whose bowling action bears an uncanny resemblance to Fred Flintstone at the bowling alley.

We lost our first three games.

Actually, we didn't just lose.

We got battered.

And yet somehow, we were still having fun.

We laughed.

Then we drew our fourth game.

And then something rather unexpected happened.

We won the last three.

Quite a turnaround considering that when someone first mentioned bails to me, I started looking around for the haystacks.

On Sunday, we had our end-of-season awards ceremony. Some of my teammates quite rightly won awards for things like best batter and best bowler.

And then my name was called.

Coach's Player of the Season.

I was completely blown away.

This was the same coach who had patiently tried to teach me how to catch those impossibly high balls. At one particularly memorable training session, I dropped twenty balls. Out of twenty.

Every. Single. One.

Until eventually, one day, I caught one.

And then I caught another.

There is a little burning feeling of pride that comes with something like that. It’s difficult to put into words.

It just fills you up.

As I made my way home afterwards, I thought about my parents.

I wanted to tell them about my award.

I wanted to do exactly what my own daughter does to me:

“Look Mummy. Watch me.”

And that’s one of the things about losing someone that I don’t think we talk about enough.

It’s not only during the sad times that you miss them.

It’s the good stuff too.

The moments when you’re happy.

When something ridiculous happens.

When you’ve surprised yourself.

When you’re proud.

You still instinctively want to turn towards the people who would have understood exactly what that moment meant to you and say,

Look.

Look what I did.

This morning, I was thinking about them as I took the bins out. Nothing particularly profound.

Just an ordinary Monday morning.

And there, on my neighbour’s bin opposite me, was a beautiful robin.

Completely still.

Staring straight at me.

And in that moment, I knew.

I smiled until it flew away.

It was OK.

They had seen me.