Bizarre weekends...

I have had a strange weekend. Not strange bad or strange good... just strange!

I had Friday off work, and went on a day trip to Malmesbury with a friend - basically it's a sleepy little town in the Cotswolds with an Abbey and not a whole lot else, but much fun was had regardless.
Things I learnt:
- There is a pub that may take forever to bring you food, but the burgers are worth the wait.
- All roads eventually lead back to the high street.
- My sense of direction is good. John's is not.
- Parking is incredibly cheap. 25p for an hour, 50p for 1-4 or £1 for all day.
- They are using the inside of the Abbey as a Christian skate park over half term. This is very cool indeed. Most of the old people in the Church seem to disapprove!


Saturday was an odd day. I decided to devote a majority of it to doing some writing. For years, I've been playing round with the same idea, and it's ended up thoroughly overworked and remained just an idea, never really getting written down... So when I had a new bit of inspiration recently, I decided that instead of talking about how much I wanted to get back into writing, I should just get on with it. Therefore 7 hours were spent in Cafe Kino, a *lot* of vanilla rooibos was consumed, a stiff neck and shoulders were obtained, and I seem to have convinced the guy working there I was a nutbar. The conversation went something like this (whilst purchasing cup of tea number 6, and asking him to restart the router for the 6th time):

Him - What are you doing down there? Writing a book?
Me - Yes
Him - Oh, I was just being facecious...

Anyway, it was good to get started on something, but horrifying to realise how out of practice I was. Everything came out a bit awkward and cliched, but I figure I can work on that later - the most important thing is to get started. So 5,300 odd words later, I've got a beginning that needs a lot of work, and to be followed by a middle and an end... But I have a start, and that's more than I've achieved in a verrry long time. Plus I listened to Bishop Allen a lot which was definately a good thing.

However, it appears the major problem with spending 7 hours writing, lost in your thoughts and with no significant human contact, is that it's actually quite hard to adjust to normal life after... I went to a gig in the evening with a friend, but just couldn't settle into it, so we ended up leaving and eating Ben and Jerry's and watching Dollhouse instead. Dollhouse was disappointing, the ice cream was not...

Then I woke up this morning in a bad mood. No reason. Mostly just feeling tired and irrationally grumpy. I dragged my sorry arse off to Church in an unenthusiastic manner. I don't often get to see a sermon any longer as I'm either away at the weekends or doing youth work. But it being half term, there was no youth stuff happening, so I got to stay in for the whole service. I've being going through a funny faith patch at the moment (which deserves a whole blog post of its own, not a paragraph plonked in here), but today was good. This was followed by looking through the photos of last weeks youth photo treasure hunt with the group which was very entertaining and amusing...

I then cycled down to Boston Tea Party on Whiteladies. I've suddenly realised how terribly unfit I've allowed myself to get over the last 6 months, and I'm pretty horrified. Last year I was cycling to work several times a week (a 12 mile round trip), but after a string of stupid but slightly comical injuries, I haven't been able to for many months. So now I'm trying to build up to that again, and re-realising how much I enjoy cycling (what can I say - I geekily enjoy the efficiency of it). Anyway, the cycling was followed by coffee with a friend. Fun was had, and another member of coffee shop staff now thinks I'm a nutbar (this is what happens when you tell them you have a collection of tip jar photos it would appear).

So I survived the cycle back up the hill, and started cooking. And carried on cooking. I think I cooked enough for a small to medium sized army - Bobotie, yellow rice, flatbread and baked aubergine. Coupled with red wine drinking and Mah Jong playing (and I mean this, not this game that comes loaded with windows), a fun evening was had. And now it's Sunday evening and there's the horrible realisation that I have to go to work in the morning... Bah bah bah... Still, there is much fun planned in the form of pool playing, exciting food cooking, birthday party attending and gig going, all before next weekend arrives so it could be worse...