Spring is Sprung

The sun is out, the birds are singing (even at 2am - one very insomniac bird (possibly a blackbird - I'm not sure...) that was going full tilt when I came back from babysitting last weekend), the breezes are warm, and I've lost my voice... Given that this is the only cold I've had this year, and it has followed its usual course (severe sore throat (which I blasted with a strong hot todday!), move to chest, get better, kick out voice with last gasp!), it's not too bad (and, after judicious application of chocolate) is starting to come back :-)

The glorious weather meant that our final hockey match of the season was played in bright sunshine, which made the 2-1 win feel so much nicer than normal! The fact that we are at the top of the league, however temporarily (about half the league still has another game to play...) is a great team-ego boost as well.

I had my first training with the TKD-Demo team - I'm going to be doing some sparring (choreographed, but should hopefully look very real!), and also one of the skills (which I wasn't expecting, as I've not done those before) - essentially, I'm going to be breaking a board with a side kick (not a wooden one, but a plastic one which slots together, as in this vid (from about 1.26 onwards - it's Bradley and Vaughn doing a pattern before then)) Then Bradley is going to be doing a flying kick over my outstretched leg and breaking another board. We've done it with pads, but it's going to be very different with boards - I envisage a lot of practice over the next few months!

Sunday was spent pretty much in the kitchen - cooking roast beef for the first time in ages, and getting my Yorkshire puds just right - I'm very pleased about that, as I've never done them before! But they rose perfectly and tasted great - and as a bonus, we only ate four out of the twelve, so I've got another 8 bagged and frozen for future use. I also made my pasties for work, and then pancakes for supper, as we'd eaten a large meal at lunch, so didn't want anything major before heading out to TKD in the evening.

Yesterday, I went for another run - this time managing to get out whilst it was light, and we had a lovely trip down by the river - very peaceful and lovely scenery to look at whilst moving through. We covered 1.7 miles in total, but I wouldn't think that more than 0.7 of that was actually running...