Another post mainly about sport...

June is half over already - this is incredibly scary! I've had a lot of sport recently; no hockey, as the matches have been on Thursdays for the last month, and I'm not missing orchestra for anything, however, TKD and running have more than made up for it!

I had the Cornish TKD competition two weekends ago - it was a great atmosphere as 15 of us from our club were competing (plus associated families and supporters); I came away with two bronzes - my patterns one I don't really feel that I deserved, particularly as I mucked up, and only got the medal because I had a bye into the second round. However, the sparring one was definitely mine! My first match was very tough - it was against someone who I've fought before and lost (she is two belts above me); however, as I was really frustrated at mucking up on the patterns, I really went at it hammer and tongs (apparantly quite scary from the sidelines!), and ended up with a draw after the initial two minute round. So we had another thirty seconds, which ended in another draw, then *another* thirty seconds, which was a draw again! So the umpires all put their heads together, and decided to make it a sudden death round; first point to be scored was the winner. I was very lucky in that about a month earlier in the squad training, we'd actually done this, so I knew the tactics :-) Unfortunately, the first time they ran it, it relied on three of the four corner judges actually seeing the point, and only two of them saw me bop her on the head... So they changed the rules, and, after stop-starting it two more times, I finally got them to see one of the points that I scored!

So - through to the second round... The next person I was fighting was three belts higher than me, and I was already incredibly exhausted from the first round - however I wasn't going to give up ;-) We actually had the fight stopped because the umpire thought we were being a bit too heavy handed (ironic given what happened later on...), and after the 2 minutes, it was a draw... (I'm ready to melt into a little puddle by this point!) We then had the next thirty seconds; when that was up, all I could think of was "I don't care if I win or lose, just please not a draw!" I did end up losing it, but it couldn't have been by much, because of the flags I could see, one was for me, and one was a draw (the other two were for the other person).

However, I was very pleased with my performance, and actually quite glad that I didn't get into the next round, as the other finalist was the lady that I'd been losing weight to avoid (unfortunately as there were so few of us competing, they'd lumped together both the belts and the weight categories...). She and the lady I'd been facing started the final, but it wasn't long into it before the scary lady thumped my opponent extra hard (after she'd been pummeling her all over the ring without the umpire stopping it!), and she collapsed... To compound it, the umpire decided to take off her helmet - not good with a potential head injury, and this was verified when she came round about ten seconds later complaining about a pain in her neck and not being able to feel her legs!

Obviously an ambulance was called, and they had a medic on duty as well, and fortunately, by the time the ambulance actually got her into the big white van, she had regained feeling in her legs and was laughing and joking - my instructor said later that she had been discharged at 7.30 with nothing wrong (apart from being annoyed at missing the rest of the competition!).

John and I stayed down in Cornwall for the Monday, and took a trip around the Lost Gardens of Helligan - definitely worth a visit if you are ever in Cornwall - a most amazing story, where the 200 acres of gardens had become completely overgrown following the loss of most of the garden staff during WW1 - the same chap who did the Eden Project was involved in their restoration, and the result is astounding!

Then back up to Bristol Monday evening, and had a relaxing but busy birthday on the Tuesday; we went out to an all you can eat pan-asian restaurant for lunch (we were a bit disappointed that, although we could watch the sushi chef making sushi, we weren't allowed to actually have any of it - it was all for the evening diners! However, they did make up for it with an amazing dessert selection...) and did some shopping (which did include buying some takeaway sushi for tea - I was determined to have my birthday sushi!), and then loads of baking in the evening for cakes for work (I have the most *amazing* brownie recipe - the "Secret" ingredient really does work!).

This weekend just gone has also been manic! All the running training that I've been putting in paid off dividends. The Race for Life went really well - not only did Alice and I run it in a new personal best of 32 mins - helped by having to overtake a whole load of people who went into the "runners" section, ran about 50 yards, then decided to walk, and also by an amazing sprint at the end - I paid for it the next day with thighs that did not want to speak to me! There was also a whole load of my TKD group there (most of them being completely insane and running it in their doboks!), and we ended up having a 'blink and you'll miss it' slot on TV - as John was doing his 'photographer' act (with about 8 cameras) for the post-run group photo, the HTV cameras snuck up behind him. I missed the actual broadcast, and can't catch up on it, so I'm waiting for someone from the TKD group to post their recordings online...

I've managed to raise £249 for Cancer Research as well, which is a fantastic bonus - everyone has been so generous!

I'm really looking forward to the next challenge now - there are a few 10K races coming up in September, and I'm hoping that with a bit of a push, I'll be able to take part in those as well.

Sunday we did manage to grab a bit of a lie-in (finally! First time in weeks!), and I had my TKD grading in the evening. It went reasonably well - I'm a bit disappointed that I fluffed some of the step-sparring (but I've never been very good at them in a pressure situation - I can do them in lessons, but I seem to lose concentration when I'm being examined on them), but when sneaking a look at my grading card (I like being able to read upside down!), I got B's across the board again, so should be getting my blue belt next lesson! (This puts me at the highest grade in the Adult Juniors group, and I'm not likely to grade again before we leave for NZ, so it is a nice goal to have met...)

I also have a nice new toy - an Acer Aspire Netbook - it is a very small laptop (it fits onto an A4 sheet of paper with space all round the outside); whilst it isn't something that I could use to play mega computer games on, it is absolutely perfect for writing stories and surfing the net (when I can get wireless access!) It's also Linux based, rather than Windows, which means that when I turn it on, it is fully loaded within a few seconds - I am able to get a lot of writing done on the 8 minute train journey to and from work! (webpage link - ignore the spelling errors!) There is a possibility that when not working on my story (it's currently at 4,000 words, and most of those have been Twittered to myself), I might even get some blog posts done, which might make my updates a little more frequent than they have been!

Sorry it's been a while

I do keep on meaning to post, but things have been manic, again! I even start posts that get about half a paragraph in draft, and then I get called away / distracted...

The last few weeks have been fantastic for friends, family and laughter. The Easter weekend was brilliant - there were ten of us round the dining room table (immediate family (including my gran), plus other halves), we had roast turkey with all the trimmings, and then played some very silly games - it's like having a second Christmas (including the crackers!) but with chocolate instead of Santa Claus...

I've had a hockey tournament, which was great fun - a hockey team is supposed to have eleven a side, and we managed eight from our club... We managed to persuade one of the organisers that she would like to play for us (and I really don't know how she did it - she was running around organising, then refereeing a match, then coming straight off and playing for us. She has to be in her late forties at the youngest!), so we were nine, with most of our team older than 30. We were playing full teams, where most of the players were under 18. In our heats, we won, drew and lost one game apiece, and our loss was only by one goal - this got us through to the semi finals, where we were soundly trounced! But we were very impressed overall - it's a good start to the summer season which starts next week.

I've also had two fantastic social gatherings - John and I went to a friend's post-wedding party - a slightly delayed reception (by a year...) - we met up with a whole gang of my school friends - the first time for two years that we've all been together. In that time, there have been two marriages and three babies born - John and I are the last of the group who are in a long term relationship who do not have a child (no, that isn't a hint at all - not till we get to NZ and I've then qualified for maternity pay!!). It was brilliant to be able to chat to everyone, progressively getting more and more random as we worked our way through the very generous free wine that Steve had provided...

Then yesterday, a group of us went down to Glastonbury for the afternoon. It was my first trip since I climbed the Tor as a child, and definitely my first into the town itself. Sadly, I wasn't overly impressed - the hippie shops were all very much a copy and paste of each other, though they were all trying to outdo each other with the amount of incense that they could burn... We did find a lovely cafe for lunch, and a fantastic Tea Room that did the most gorgeous scone tea. Plus, it was a wonderful chance to chat with friends, which again got more random (though this time no alcohol was involved!), and did culminate in a discussion of a radio show which included an ongoing sketch about Chicken Man...

I've also made some more attempts to up my fitness levels - I've gone for another couple of runs, and I walked in to work this morning (6 miles, because I took a slightly wrong turning, in 1hr 36 mins...). I'm still hoping that I'll be able to run the full 5K without stopping - six and a half weeks to go! I've also been amazed at the generosity of my family and friends - with only a few donations, they have already met and exceeded my target for fundraising (and my increased target!) I've definitely got a lot to live up to now!

Brilliant Weekend!

I had a friend to stay for the weekend - I've not seen her for 14 years. We were best friends at my first secondary school, which I left aged 14, in really a very bad headspace (the school was rife with bullying, and I was not temperamentally suited to staying at a boarding school). By the time I felt able to think about my time there (without the attendant mental and physical pains - I would get really bad stomach cramp!), we had lost touch. An attempt to get back in contact through Friends Reunited didn't work.

Then, in January, she got back in touch through Facebook. We started emailing, then using MSN, and suddenly the years had disappeared, and it was as though we had never lost touch.

So she came up to visit us on Saturday and stayed overnight - poor John didn't get a word in edgeways as we chatted pretty much non-stop - ranging from general state of the world through to what my ex-classmates are now doing (I can't think of a more fitting punishment than "estate agent"!). It was incredibly cathartic - I was able to lay a lot of demons to rest, and it was actually genuinely interesting to find out what was happening (including the very real sadness at learning that one of the nicer people in my year had died a few years ago from a drugs overdose - not the end that I would have thought for him aged 14).

Whilst I know that my time at that school will always be with me - every so often I will get a flashback, usually from an unintentional comment (a recent one was our hockey coach saying that he'd forgotten about me whilst sorting out the training - that pushed me back to being the only one from my year in our boarding house not invited to a party - the group left from the bus stop opposite my bedroom window...), but I can now accept that what happened, though unpleasant, helped to shape me and is part of who I am.

In other news - my training for the Race for Life is going really well - I went out for a run last night (hooray for lighter evenings!), and went a little bit further than I'd intended. Mainly because I got lost... The outward journey was not too bad, but the last bit got a bit muddy and slightly overgrown, so, when I turned round and spotted a nice paved path heading back in roughly the same direction, I thought that would be ideal! Unfortunately, it very quickly curved away from the route that I had initially taken, and I ended up doing quite a big loop before it rejoined the main pathway (and as it scrambled down the hillside at the end to a three-way path split at the bottom, I was very lucky to get the right one heading back!). But I did just over 2 1/2 miles, and most of it was running, so I'm feeling very pleased with myself.

Time...

Like a winged arrow bears all its sons away...

As it does my posts - when the post in draft is over a month old, it gets a bit silly to finish it as it is! So I am starting again with a bit of a summary of the last month...

Hockey - some great wins... I've not been able to play as much as I liked, with other events on Saturdays and Tuesdays preventing me from getting to matches and to practice. But we are still 2nd in the table with two matches to go - there seems to be an excellent chance that we will go up the league again!

Tae Kwon Do - I had another competition in Feb, this time in Cardiff. I came away with two bronzes, one of which was similar to the last time, as there were only four in the sparring, so, winning or losing, I was assured of a medal (and I did lose, but only by a point, according to my instructor, who was one of the judges). The patterns, however, had nine people in the group, so I had to beat two others to get my bronze - and neither time did I think that I'd done well enough to win, so I was incredibly pleased with that! I've also had the trials for the demonstration team - going round various fetes and fairs in the summer, showing off TKD to the masses. Very pleased to have passed that and got into the team, and even more pleased with my company, who have generously offered to sponsor our doboks, meaning that we won't have to pay for them! (Hey, I asked the MD on the off-chance, not expecting anything, and he turned round and said 'Yes' :-D)

Culture - We had a trip to London to see Sir Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night, which was *amazing* - there wasn't a weak link in the cast, and the Letter Scene (which, particularly when Sir D.J was performing it, deserves the capitals!) was just side-splittingly funny. Add to the mix a brilliant meal in a lovely Chinese, and fantastic company - it was an amazing day.

Culture - We also went to see Watchmen - I really enjoyed the film - possibly a little too much blood and gore when compared to the comic, but certainly nowhere near as much as Sin City! The changes in storyline (which I know some of the fanboys have been screaming about), I felt were completely justified, and fitted the story a lot better.

Orchestra - We've got a whole load of new pieces, including Danse Macabre, which is one of the first pieces which made me realise that I wanted to play in a group, rather than as a solo musician. We've also got the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, which includes as the first piece, the tune from Stranger in Paradise, played first on the oboe, and then on the cor. As the first oboe can't play both instruments at the same time, I've picked up the first oboe part for this, and also for the first two of the Snow Maiden pieces (though I've handed it back for the Dance of the Tumblers, the last in the four dances - with having to do solos in 1 and 2, and having done a simplified version of Tumblers with a slightly different rhythm, I don't think I could cope with that one as well!)

New Zealand - We've had our medical checks, and they have all come back clear, which is a fantastic piece of news. I've also fired my CV off to a number of recruiters, but they've pretty much all come back and said "Let us know when you have a visa". I did find another GIS company (reselling a rival's software) in Wellington, who are very promising, so I'm hoping that they will take me on once we've got the visa sorted...

Microcon - We headed down to Exeter at the end of Feb for the annual Exeter Uni Sci-Fi Society convention - as always, a great mix of people, some really fun talks and discussions (including one on the nature of Fandom with a capital F - I'm sorry, but if I'm not a Fan because I don't tick every box on the list of Fandom (Go to conventions, Run a convention, Slag off other people because they don't fit in to your definition of Fandom, Slag off guests because they happen to disagree with you...), then I'd rather just be a small f fan and enjoy sci-fi in my own way. Here endeth the rant (poor John heard a lot more of it over the weekend!)), and generally an all round chilling time :-)

I've also signed myself up for Race for Life, which I'm a bit scared about - I don't normally run further than up the incline to Temple Meads to get the train! However, it isn't till June, so I've got all the time in the world to learn how to run 5K...

And that is, in brief, the last Month. Hopefully, I'll post another one before the start of the next one, though I wouldn't hold your breath... I'm currently out four or five nights out of seven till the middle of May...!