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We met on the banks of the Yanase-gawa (river). Leigh had invited Bob and Lawrence; I brought the family along. There was a reunion for Miho and Leigh, having not seen each other for over a decade, and a reunion for Bob and I, again about a decade had passed between us. Bob remembered me as the guy who “played basketball in the park”, “worked in Narimasu”, and “got drunk with Leigh a lot”. Which is about right, by all accounts. As Bob, Miho and I chatted about the past and the things we (Leigh and I) got up to, Leigh played frisbee with Ifan and Mika. As the sun started to go down, Miho took the kids home; I stayed with Leigh as planned.

I was shortly introduced to the fascinating, young sport of “frisla”. It stemmed from when Bob hurt his leg and was on a beach in Thailand with some friends. The aim of the game is to remain standing in one point (because Bob’s leg was hurt and he couldn’t move around much), a member of the opposite team throws a frisbee at you and you have to try and catch it. If the throw is too far from you, then it’s your team’s point. If the throw is close enough for you to catch, or you attempt to catch it and touch it in mid air, but drop it, then it’s their team’s point. The aim is therefore to throw it in such a way that it’s on target but difficult for the opposing team to catch. In other words, pelt the bugger at the oppositions’ heads or shins as fast as you can.

I had an unfair advantage of course: I studied geography at Swansea Uni. Due to the university’s proximity to the Gower, the main selection criteria for geography students is not UCAS scores or other such irrelevant nonsenses, but a student’s potential ability to entertain themselves while on field trips. One can often find a troop of Swansea Uni geography students making regular and frequent visits to Three Cliffs Bay to hone their frisbee or bare-footed-rugby-ball-kicking field-trip-self-entertainment skills. This is, of course, as some have suspected for a long time, just an excuse for them to covertly examine the extremely interesting geology of the area.

We went to the local supermarket, bought some food and beer, went back to the river bank and then carried on playing frisla into the night - not for the faint of heart! After that we sat down and chatted.

Time went on and we went our seperate ways. Leigh and I were going to watch the rugby in his house and so caught the train to Uguisudani. En route, I showed Lawrence how to do a No. 3 wristlock; he didn’t get it. Lawrence alighted the train with no increase in his ability to inflict pain on collar tuggers. Leigh and I carried on the train and got more beer when we got to our destination. We ate some really tasty chilli that Leigh had made previously and got the TV sorted for the rugby. WALES WON THE GRAND SLAM!! It was Japanese Satellite TV and so when the game ended and the silverware was handed out, that was it, no after match analysis, expert opinion, or studio debate. That was that and so we went to sleep.

My head, mouth and, well everything really, hurt… we had three coffees each, I took two ibuprofen, and after 20 minutes or so I was right as a torrential downpour. WALES HAD WON THE GRAND SLAM!!

Leigh showed me some excerpts from his book. Thoroughly enjoyed reading those. He can create amazing images with his use of words. I can’t wait to my hands on a copy!!

And that was a very good day indeed!