How can something so small be so incredibly painful?
Your body is like, “Here, I’m rewarding you with a sore, red bubble of liquid for your intense, repetitive actions, enjoy!”
“Oh, and you have to keep it for about a week.”
SO. ANNOYING.
I am currently nursing two blisters, each on the underside of both my big toes, arguably the worst possible place to have them, tell me I’m wrong.
These buggers formed last Sunday, during the first 45 minutes of a football match I was playing in.
But there is more to the story than that.
A load of my mates play for a football team, the ‘Solent Sparks’, in a university ‘Sunday league’ competition, and they were running low on players a few weeks ago.
Now, I like football, but I’ve never been a proper player, but I can run and kick a ball, kind of, so I was like “ohhh, go on then.”
About an hour later, the team sheet come out on Instagram and I saw my name in the striker position… I quickly understood the standard of this competition.
A quick trip to Sports Direct to pick up some new boots, shin pads and socks felt like I was back in year nine again getting all the gear and having no idea, albeit that was the last time I played football properly.
Being me, I had to get the most outlandish boots possible… so, I did.
Also being me, I didn’t get the cheap Sondico socks, instead I bought the Adidas alternatives for the nicer material and to match the Adidas boots I had picked up, mentally I thought the combination would give me extra shooting ability and pace.
Fast forward a few days, it was game time and I was raring to go.
I scored on debut inside the first 15 minutes! An ‘intentional’ chip over the keeper, hitting it first time from a corner kick.
Maybe I chose to the wrong sport to pursue after all.
It felt weird being in football boots again, I eventually got use to my toes being suffocated, but there was a burning sensation around my ankles and achilles.
After many electric sprints up and down the pitch, my socks were like sandpaper to my skin, and when the gaffer brought me off after 85 minutes I was in agony.
I kicked the boots off and the blisters were ripe.
I blamed the stiffness of the boots being new, but then I checked my socks and they had holes in them already! So much for paying more money for quality.
The blisters came and went after a few days, but I had to make a change for the next game.
So, I asked around for advice and the top comments were to cut the bottom of the long football socks off and instead wear white sport socks with the football socks pulled over the top.
So, I got to chopping.
It made no difference. In fact, it made it worse.
The white socks were comfier at the heel but horrendous for the toes.
Constant rubbing from all the sprinting I was doing made it feel like I was dipping my toes in lava each time I took a stride.
I didn’t score a goal. I didn’t have any skin left on the bottom of my toes. But I did enjoy getting out the house and playing some sport. Life could be worse.
Life could be a lot worse.
That’s what I was thinking to myself as I was holding a stein full of beer in the Guildhall Square in Southampton on Saturday night, dancing and singing for hours on end at the Oktoberfest party.
And despite the extortionate prices for a double pint of beer – £18.85 – it was honestly one of the best nights I‘ve had in a long time.
It was just Freddie and I, wearing matching blue, cheque shirts having the time of our life along with hundreds of other civilians dressed up in German themed clobber.
The vibes were brilliant, the singing was loud and the dancing was constant, I highly recommended.
I’ve been pretty flat out with university work at the moment, but I did escape from the city to head back home and have a weekend of chilling with the parents.
On a lousy Sunday morning, me and my mum found the motivation to get art and crafty.
My mum is naturally crafty, she loves it. I am creative, but not quite as good as her, I had the vision though… to make a memory frame from my Glastonbury experience I had earlier this summer.
As we were cutting and sticking things into place, I could see my mum smiling away, “It’s like I’m doing your primary school art homework again.”
We were both happy with the end product, vibrant and colourful, just like the festival, but I know we both enjoyed the process even more, spending time together on a lousy Sunday morning.
I mentioned how university work is keeping my days busy, which it is, but I’ve found a way to keep me motivated through them… vlogging it on TikTok.
I find that if I film parts of my day it actually keeps me on track and not to procrastinate hours away, and it also gets me to do more interesting stuff than I usually would.
One of the more interesting things I’ve done recently was being a guest on a university podcast, chatting all things about being a course rep.
It was chill. Conversations flowed from one to another and before I knew it, I had been yapping for 45 minutes.
Once the cameras stopped rolling, I was leapt on by a dog, a therapy dog, named Nala.
The owner was someone in the office in which I did the podcast in, but it made a beeline for me.
I gave it a cuddle and some back scratches, but then I thought, wait, why has this dog come over to me for?
Can it sense something? Like a sniffer dog hunting down those in possession of drugs.
Or did it just want a cuddle? Like any other dog wants.
Anyways, it was sweet and now I want a dog again.
Read my previous blog here…
