uh... ow!

So I just had the most awesome weekend EVER!

 

It started on Friday when I met with the Oxfordian and the Oracle as well as Luke and another friend. It was a nice way to start the weekend, particularly after two hours with my kiddies who are developing a little bit more attitude than I'd like - I'm starting to wonder if letting them use my first name and playing games (I divide the group into 3 sections and we have little contests)and making jokes was the right tactic...

 

From there I went off to meet CG, La and another friend for dinner which was fantastic, I haven't been seeing much of La lately and I'd really missed her.

 

Saturday was a super-busy morning at work, where I got some marking done, but mostly ran around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done. The afternoon gave me time to nap, and then head off to a lovely dinner and then goth-clubbing with some new friends. I may have gone slightly out of control, although there were no hats, I ran around deciding amongst the new friends that they were all awesome people and they can all stay...

 

Sunday morning started badly, when I was woken up at 6am by some rather chatty hadedas outside my window, but ended up fantastically when I got to go mountain-biking!

 

Bear in mind that I hadn't been on a bike that wasn't rather securely bolted to the floor in well over a decade, so it was a shaky start (I can balance relatively well, but steering is a bit of an issue).

 

A few minutes into it I was finally going pretty well, negotiated my first puddle (with some shrieking) and managed to stop veering left as much when I turned a corner and realised that the track had washed away. Whoops. Somehow I managed to prevent myself from flying over the handlebars, but not without taking the bike to the shins in a pretty nasty way. Once I'd stopped shaking enough to get off the bike and walked a bit we got going again.

 

A few minutes later when I'd finally got the hang of changing gears without wobbling and having to stop I heard a loud bang, turned around to see that the person cycling with me had a broken chain. Whoops.

 

So we started walking. And walking. It was a rather warm day, but the place was BEAUTIFUL and it was so nice to be out of the city for a bit! We managed to freewheel the downhill bits. I'm a bit nervous of going downhill (I feel a bit out of control) so I went a little bit too slowly, hit a bump and went for a fly into the grass. Soft landing and nice grass actually!

 

From there we went back to the house, had a lovely lunch, and I learned to pick grapes, play "who wants to be a millionaire?" with a 93 year old and generally sat around feeling quite content, albeit sleepy listening to the conversation. The funniest part was hearing someone yell "Who left the door open? The horse is inside again!"

 

When I got home I passed out for a few hours, and then went off to gym (I figured blood-flow through bruises would help the healing agents get there) and had a great time (I love my Sunday night session,it's such a nice way to start the week!) and went home and had a chat with CG and another friend before I went to bed.

 

All in all a pretty decent weekend!

 

And the best part? I got to spend the day today showing off my bruises - it seems the grass was not as forgiving as I'd thought and right now it looks like I got kicked repeatedly in the shins by a large horse, which I'm happy about because there's nothing worse than hurting and having nothing to show for it!