Thursday 24 June 2010

Evening off...

Well - I've just been called by the hockey coach, and he has said that he isn't able to get the goalie gear to training, so I have an unexpected night in!

This is a good thing, as I am starting to feel very sore from my first evening at TKD in over six months. Thanks to the generosity of my parents, who have given me the money to cover the fees, I have started training again at my local TKD group. It's a great group - so far they have been very friendly and welcoming. There are a number of significant differences in UK and NZ TKD, mainly around step sparring, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of them. I'm also sure that *next* week, I won't forget all but the most basic of patterns - incredibly embarrassing! The group is small enough that Juniors and Seniors train together for an hour, and then the Seniors stay on for a second hour to continue training - 2 hours a week will help lift my fitness (sadly I can't train on their other day as orchestra clashes - exactly as it did in the UK!) I think it will be a while before I am either competition or grading ready, but that is probably a good thing, and it just feels so great to be training at all (today was the first day in ages that I didn't find myself getting wound up at work, even with bureaucracy frustrations).

We had a Sci-fi Board Gaming meeting on Saturday, with the biggest turnout since we joined. Fortunately it was in a house which could accommodate everyone - if it had been at ours, we'd have really struggled! We had three sets of games going, and it was a brilliant atmosphere.

Hockey went fantastically on Sunday - despite the hideous weather (it rained stair-rods for the whole first half) - we won 5-1, which would place us at 2nd in the league if they ever updated the league table! So all definitely to play for in our last two matches (I don't know if we have another set to go - we've not got any more scheduled, but I don't know if they get half way and then do a second draw)

Orchestra is on the downhill run to the concert - we had a good rehearsal on Monday, and, even though I'm still not confident about my ability to play a number of the pieces, I think that overall we are making a good sound (hopefully, the audience will, too!)

We are now past the Midwinter Solstice, as well as Matariki (the Maori New Year) and the days are getting longer (theoretically - I'm still mainly leaving the house in the dark and coming home in the dark, but I can't really expect to see much difference in the light levels just yet!) At work, we are having a "Mid-Winter Christmas" tomorrow, organised by our CIO. This is a pot-luck lunch (in case anyone thought we were having a free meal at the tax-payer's expense!), but should be a good get together at lunchtime, and a nice way of celebrating the turning of the year.

1 comment:

Wisewebwoman said...

It is simply fascinating reading about winter while summer struggles to get a good foothold here in Newfoundland, Jo!
However our long, long days are delicious, after cards on Tuesday night when we emerged at 10.30pm it was still glorious sunset!
And thank your stars you are so far away from the oil catastrophe!
XO
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