31 beginners turned up and we had EIGHT paddles

Thirty-one people came to my free beginners' pickleball taster on Sunday!!

THIRTY-ONE.

We had eight paddles.

I put a little poster up on the noticeboard on Wednesday. Bright orange, bit of clip art, "Never played? Come and try! Sunday 2pm, court six, all kit provided". ALL KIT PROVIDED. I wrote that. In marker pen. With a smiley face.

I was expecting six. Maybe eight if Pat brought her sister. That's why we have eight paddles, because eight is two courts of doubles and two courts of doubles is what a normal Sunday looks like.

At 1.55 there were fourteen people standing by court six. At 2.05 there were twenty-two. At 2.10 a whole walking group arrived in matching fleeces because one of them had seen it on the Facebook page. I didn't even know we HAD a Facebook page!!

Thirty-one. Eight paddles.

So here's what you do. You stay calm. You smile. You say "we're going to do this in rotations!!" like you planned it. Four on, four off, everyone gets five minutes, swap. Except with 31 people and eight paddles, five minutes on means about twenty minutes off, and twenty minutes standing on a tennis court in October is not the "come and try" I had in my head.

Then Graham went to his car and came back with two old wooden table tennis bats. Honestly not bad?? The ball went everywhere but so did it with the proper paddles. Someone else had a squash racket, which did NOT work, it was like trying to hit a melon with a tennis racket, but she was laughing so hard she didn't care.

Terry walked past at half two with his ball basket and said "told you" and kept walking. Terry did not tell me. Terry has never told me anything except that the lines are on his court.

And it was BRILLIANT. That's the thing. Thirty-one people who've never held a paddle, hitting a plastic ball with holes in it, in the cold, sharing eight paddles and two ping pong bats, and nobody left early. Not one. The walking group stayed until it got dark. Doreen, who is 79, asked when the next one is. Three people asked where you BUY a paddle.

So I'm doing it again in two weeks. And EVERYONE can come. All thirty-one, and Doreen's friends, and the walking group's other walking group. I'm not turning a single person away. I just need to know how many are coming so I can book more than one court, which I should have done the first time, I know, I KNOW. Bev says put a sign-up sheet in the clubhouse. Jake says use a sign-up link and let it sort out the rotations. Terry says don't do it at all.

But mostly I need paddles. If you have one in a cupboard, a loft, a garage, a car boot, BRING IT. We had eight paddles and thirty-one people and it was the best Sunday I've had all year!! Imagine it with twenty paddles.

P.S. If you took the orange paddle with the tape on the handle home by accident, that's my good one. No questions asked. Leave it at the bar.