Well, another year over, and another year of scaring my parents with how old I've got...
Still not thirty yet, though :-)
We were in Cornwall for the weekend, as I was taking part in another TKD competition. This therefore involved a fairly major drive in a company pool car, as ours is still in the garage (coming back from a friend's party last weekend, the head gasket blew outside Swindon. Fortunately, the garage we ended up at were taking someone else back from Leigh Delamere Services to Cardiff, and agreed to drop us off at Bristol for only the charge of getting to the services, saving us a serious amount of money...) As it was a company car, John wasn't insured to drive it, meaning that I had to go the full way down to St Austell, (Friday night) then on to Truro (Saturday), then back to Exmouth (Saturday evening) and to Bristol (Sunday afternoon). Not a lot, given the breaks that I had, but I'm not a confident driver, particularly when having to go down country lanes (and one accident just outside St Austell, when we were two miles away from our B&B, meant that I ended up going up a lane which hadn't been mown for a good few months, and had to creep past a badger and a ginger cat). But we made it in one piece, and didn't scratch the car, either. It's the first time I've driven a Megane - one of those cars with the 'arse' at the back - a very ugly car, but actually really pleasant to drive.
The competition itself was great fun; I got bronze in both the patterns and the sparring. I can't really claim a *huge* achievement for this - there were only three of us in my class! Both patterns and sparring were set up as round robins - each of us competed against the other two. However, it wasn't so much that I got a medal just for stepping onto the mat - the patterns were both very close; in both my matches, the judgments went 3-2 against me. The first sparring match was also very close - I was 3-1 down on the judgments, and I don't think that there were more than a couple of points in any of the counters. The second sparring match, I did get completely thrashed (though not knocked out...), by an opponent who, after only having a minute's rest from her first match, was still able to kick me round the head. I still really enjoyed it (that's the blood thirsty side of me talking), and as a club, we did really well, with all 11 competitors getting at least one medal, and we shared 19 between us. (and for those of you who are keen to know what I look like, I'm in the back row, third from the left on the top photo... Stalkers ahoy! :-P )
And the TKD fun doesn't stop here - for some reason our instructor has decided that I'm good enough to go for my green belt next week - I'm having to do a lot of sneaky practice in the toilets at work!
Showing posts with label Car. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Car. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Good News / Bad News
Well - it has been a busy week or so - again...!
On Saturday, I took part in a Tae-Kwon Do tournament. I had been given the impression that it was going to be a 'local' event - i.e. for the three clubs in our area, so I was in for a bit of a shock when I spotted teams from Paignton and London! This was a team event, so three of us competing per team. (There were only four teams in our category!) We came away with a silver in the patterns - these are synchronised patterns, so each member of the team has to perform at the same time and with the same pacing. We didn't get anything in the sparring, but then we were a bit unlucky - I went up first (and lost, though I was later told that both my fights were close things), and the lady from our team who went up second withdrew halfway through the match (she hadn't wanted to spar in the first place and panicked!). So (as it was a knockout tournament, and each round was best 2 out of 3), we were down to the third/fourth play off. I went up first again, lost again, and then the final member of our team went up. She was winning the bout, and then jumped and landed wrongly on her knee, ending up not being able to put any weight on it, and having to go to hospital! (Fortunately, x-rays have shown that it was just badly twisted, and no major damage was done; given that our instructor is out for the best part of a year after possibly snapping a tendon, we do know what problems can come up!!) But I still enjoyed it, so much so that I'm going to put myself up for a single competition (i.e. not relying on anyone else...!) in Cornwall on the 7th June. Overall, our club did really well, winning 56 medals overall.
We also had a fun evening yesterday - Paul Merton is touring with an improv comedy show, and by some fluke we managed to get tickets (it sold out very quickly); I hadn't realised who else was going to be appearing in it; Richard Vranch (who is actually a talented comedian in his own right - he was wasted hiding behind the piano) - and Mike McShane (who has lost a lot of weight since appearing in Whose Line is it Anyway - he is half the man he used to be, but no less funny!). Great fun :-D
We've also had a few less fun things - our poor Skoda is now pretty much broken to the point where it is going to cost more to fix it than it will to buy a new car, so we are off out to get another one with my company bonus this year (huzzah for the change of company financial year which means that I get it 6 months earlier than normal!!). Hopefully this one will last more than a few months.... We are also definitely now on the move again (when we've found somewhere to go...), as our landlady has failed on the mortgage again, and the bank has informed us that they are taking her to court to gain possession of the property (though we still have until August to get out, and she may still pay the overdue balance (though as this is the third time in 6 months, I'm not holding my breath!)).
But I'm confident that we will get both of the above sorted out, and in the meantime, we have so many cinema things coming up! We've already been to see Iron Man (very silly, but great fun as well), are going to Indiana Jones this weekend, and then have films such as Batman, Prince Caspian and Hellboy 2 to look forward to - it's going to be a fab summer!
On Saturday, I took part in a Tae-Kwon Do tournament. I had been given the impression that it was going to be a 'local' event - i.e. for the three clubs in our area, so I was in for a bit of a shock when I spotted teams from Paignton and London! This was a team event, so three of us competing per team. (There were only four teams in our category!) We came away with a silver in the patterns - these are synchronised patterns, so each member of the team has to perform at the same time and with the same pacing. We didn't get anything in the sparring, but then we were a bit unlucky - I went up first (and lost, though I was later told that both my fights were close things), and the lady from our team who went up second withdrew halfway through the match (she hadn't wanted to spar in the first place and panicked!). So (as it was a knockout tournament, and each round was best 2 out of 3), we were down to the third/fourth play off. I went up first again, lost again, and then the final member of our team went up. She was winning the bout, and then jumped and landed wrongly on her knee, ending up not being able to put any weight on it, and having to go to hospital! (Fortunately, x-rays have shown that it was just badly twisted, and no major damage was done; given that our instructor is out for the best part of a year after possibly snapping a tendon, we do know what problems can come up!!) But I still enjoyed it, so much so that I'm going to put myself up for a single competition (i.e. not relying on anyone else...!) in Cornwall on the 7th June. Overall, our club did really well, winning 56 medals overall.
We also had a fun evening yesterday - Paul Merton is touring with an improv comedy show, and by some fluke we managed to get tickets (it sold out very quickly); I hadn't realised who else was going to be appearing in it; Richard Vranch (who is actually a talented comedian in his own right - he was wasted hiding behind the piano) - and Mike McShane (who has lost a lot of weight since appearing in Whose Line is it Anyway - he is half the man he used to be, but no less funny!). Great fun :-D
We've also had a few less fun things - our poor Skoda is now pretty much broken to the point where it is going to cost more to fix it than it will to buy a new car, so we are off out to get another one with my company bonus this year (huzzah for the change of company financial year which means that I get it 6 months earlier than normal!!). Hopefully this one will last more than a few months.... We are also definitely now on the move again (when we've found somewhere to go...), as our landlady has failed on the mortgage again, and the bank has informed us that they are taking her to court to gain possession of the property (though we still have until August to get out, and she may still pay the overdue balance (though as this is the third time in 6 months, I'm not holding my breath!)).
But I'm confident that we will get both of the above sorted out, and in the meantime, we have so many cinema things coming up! We've already been to see Iron Man (very silly, but great fun as well), are going to Indiana Jones this weekend, and then have films such as Batman, Prince Caspian and Hellboy 2 to look forward to - it's going to be a fab summer!
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