Bank holiday weekend

I took Friday off work and headed down to a village near St Austell with Anne and James. We stayed with my aunt and uncle Margaret and Jim on my Dad's side of the family. They were extremely welcoming and made wonderful food for us all weekend.

As we were basically surfing a lot of the time, I didn't have my camera, so most of the pictures are of us sitting around! But check the shot of me actually standing up on the surfboard (damn hard)! Couldn't say with fairness that I showed a lot of natural talent, and Anne labelled our group 'remedial paddling', but I loved it. I will definitely be doing it again, possibly not before I leave but I hear the surfing is excellent in NZ.

We had lessons and went to Fistrall and Town beaches. It was certainly useful having lessons in surfing technique, although we did just seem a constant disappointment to our instructor Augusto, who would give us an extra push onto the wave, tell us to 'paddle, paddle, paddle', and then just give you a look when you fell off sideways. Now that's what I call helpful instruction. And he only told us on the second day how to protect your head from being whacked but your or another's board when you fall off. Too late for James who has an inch-long scar on his head! I have got an amazing bruise from someone's stray board as well, but on my thigh.

167 days till I get my plane

Its very unreal.

Anticipation

At the moment I am anticipating various :) things. I think anticipation is more active than waiting, and I'm certainly not wishing away my time.

One of these things is my surfing break I'm about to have with Anne and James staying with my aunt and uncle in Cornwall. Another is my Welsh adventure going in a week's time to Snowdonia for Ieuan and Mary's wedding. They are getting married on an organic farm in the middle of no-where in beautiful surroundings and inviting all their friends to camp and generally have a festival of fun for several days. I've been to quite a lot of weddings and I think this is going to be pretty memorable. And Steve, my ex-colleague and friend I am travelling with, and I don't have anywhere to stay so that makes it even more of an adventure!

I've hardly had a day off work since Easter and I can barely remember what it's like, so I'm giddy right now. Pictures to follow. There are lots of other things to anticipate but I will talk more about them another time.

I love conservatories

Such a long but lovely day today. I'm very happy.

This morning my church (see new website and spot me in a picture!) was having a very much needed tidy-up day. There was a lot of crap in the church that needed to be dumped (like about 40 old chairs and kneelers that were gathering dust in the cellar, and lots of bookcase stuff and an old piano etc etc). It was quite fun, I do like getting messy :) It also just needed a general good tidy up. I started often relatively cleanly by hoovering all the chairs and wiping them down, but then I got embroilled in putting up the Alpha course banner (as I am running the next one from end of Sept). Then I helped bring up v dusty things from the cellar and finally I picked up all the debris from the hedge outside that had just been cut. I was pretty grimy by the end.

Having had a bath I had a great bus journey right to the other end of the line to Patcham to Nicola's parents house who are away at the moment. A few of us had a bbq there and drank Pimms all afternoon, it was fabulous. Then Nic and I sat in the conservatory and longed for conservatories of our own :)