Pre-season can be a lonely time for your humble football club mascot.
There are no pre-match huddles with the players and no banter with young fans, while even the weekly meetings to discuss how to be more like Gunnersaurus become less and less frequent.
It can be a struggle to stay motivated ahead of the new season, so sometimes the best course of action is to treat the summer break like anyone else would.
At least this is how Schalke's mascot Erwin has responded.
The mascot, who has written regularly for the German club's matchday programme (despite seemingly having no eyes), has been taking advantage of his time off to go waterskiing.
Perhaps he was celebrating no longer being the weirdest mascot around, now that
Partick Thistle's Kingsley has got in on the act.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlm-z-OW6jQ
