oddballs

We were doing some sorting in the garage yesterday and I discovered another two of my old juggling balls. Or rather, what was left of the juggling balls – the mice had clearly been at them and had feasted on their innards.

I’m still not entirely sure how my collection of juggling balls ended up in the garage – I had at least a dozen which I’ve picked up over the years too. My first set (of four) I got back at university, so were at least 20 years old. I then inherited my brother’s set when he moved out of his student house, so there’s another four. I bought myself a lovely bright set at Greenbelt a couple of years ago, which were ace. They weren’t *quite* luminous, but came quite close.

I’ve got sundry others too – the orange ‘stage’ balls, which are big and bright but go flying if they bump together. A set of proper glow-in-the-dark juggling balls. A large luminous one for contact juggling, and my clear acrylic ball which I also use for photography.

So, I need^[1] some new juggling balls. Or, more specifically, thuds. Thuds are those soft, squishy, multicoloured beanbags. Much better for practising, they have a good heft and don’t roll off when you drop them, or bounce apart wildly when the collide mid-air.

I want to get five too – I can juggle three comfortably, and four with a bit of practice to get my eye in. Never quite mastered five though…

Oddballs do some good deals on thuds, especially when you buy several. Trouble is, which colours to get? I like the multi-coloured ones, but they don’t seem to do the semi-luminous ones like in the photo above…

^[1] for a given value of ‘need’, obv