This Week I……

Hello! Yes, yes, I normally post my random updates on my week on a Sunday, but this weekend is a Bank Holiday, which makes Monday the new Sunday, alright?

Besides, yesterday I was very busy hitting people on skates and turning my skin yellow with face paint, but lets not get ahead of ourselves, more on *that* excitement later on.

Right now I am in Kent doing some family visiting, because a bonus day off is an excellent chance to catch up with people who live hundreds of miles away. That means that my day today is going to include a visit with some super cute Chihuahua puppies. I have no idea if I’ve spelt that right, I’m fairly sure even my spell check isn’t sure how many h’s to put in, but they are super cute.

But any way, this week I…..

Saw some Art

But not the art I really wanted to see. Last Sunday my friend, Roller Derby teamie and artist Kaitlin Ferguson invited me to drop into a private view in a space she was renting out for an installation. It wasn’t her art, but someone else using the space.

Her installation started on Thursday night when I was at Roller Derby practice, I planned to drop in later in the week as I thought it was on all over the bank holiday, but I was wrong and she took it down on Saturday and I missed it. I am very sad as it sounded amazing, a 3D installation based on a pixellated landscape photo.

Kaitlin works a lot with landscapes and produces some amazing installations, you can check her out here.

Dropped 2.5kg on my toe

I know, right? What a week? From art to being a total idiot. When I load weights on a bar at the gym I like to put them in size order because, well because I just do. This means the larger weight on the bar first, and smaller ones in front of them.

This week I loaded a bar with a 20kg plate, and a smaller 2.5kg plate in front of it. Then, as I was taking the weights off, a man came over to ask me if I was going to be much longer on the rack thingy. Because I am totes cool and everything I just casually continued unloading the weights while I spoke to him, grabbed the larger plate and pulled it off the bar, meaning the smaller plate slid off and hit the floor with a thud. Except it didn’t hit the floor, it hit my big toe.

It really hurt, but like I mentioned, I am totes cool, so I obviously just kept talking like nothing had happened and that was TOTALLY what I meant to do. I saved my hopping, swearing, and gently checking all parts of my toe were still intact for a later time.

It was, but I have learnt a lesson and will no longer attempt to be totes cool around heavy things.

Experienced Weird Weather

I’ve heard the phrase April Showers before, but this month has been totally ridiculous. Earlier this week I woke up to this.

That’s a light dusting of snow. Later that day there was hail.

The next day, whilst hobbling home from the gym on my bruised toe, there was blue skies and blossoms.

2 days after that I was sat in a bar. There were windows to my right, and straight ahead of me.

Straight ahead of me it was sunny, the skies were blue, it was a lovely day. To my right it was raining.

HOW DO YOU DRESS FOR THAT WEATHER?

Popped into a new Bar

I don’t think the bar specifically comes with its own weird weather, but it was the bar I was talking about above. Franks Bar in Norwich is in the city centre. It’s a favoured late night hangout with continental style table service and a very relaxed vibe.

Recently they’ve opened a new bar called North, on my side of the city (the North side, you’d be surprised how long it took me to associate the name with that fact, or maybe you wouldn’t). So on Friday night we popped in and checked it out. It has a the same relaxed vibe, table service and is in a lovely spacious venue, so I’m sure I’ll be going back. They also have a tasty looking lunch menu. It’s not open as late as the other Franks, which is a shame as I could see it being a lovely “on the way home” stop off after a night out.

P.S I know that poor lady looks odd stuck at the side of my photo, she was waiting to leap into action and bring me more beer.

Played (and Won) a Roller Derby tournament

So, this is what I was up to when I’m normally posting my weekly diary and telling you about the exciting things I did, like dropping stuff on my feet and experiencing weather.

Sunday I was signed up to play in a Warriors themed Roller Derby tournament. If you haven’t seen 70s film The Warriors you should go look it up on Netflix. It’s a super cheesy cult film about Gangs in New York, and all the gangs have some kind of theme. I managed to get myself picked for the Baseball Furies, which totally came with the best Face paint opportunities.

In the end I opted not to paint my entire face as I seem to spend half my time off track blowing my nose, and I could envisage ending up with a perfectly paint free nose. So I did a half face of paint. Green face paint, that when removed left a faint yellow tint to my skin, like I had jaundice, or a terribly bruise.

There were a lot of high level skaters in all the teams, and it was exciting and terrifying to skate with and against them.

First game was Warriors vs the Rogues, which was a really close game, but Rogues won. Then the Riffs vs the Baseball Furies, which we won.

The final, Rogues vs Baseball Furies was a tough game, and in the end we won by just 4 points, which was pretty exciting!

I also have some very cool new shorts and a Furies T-Shirt to add to my collection of Roller Derby stuff, and as a bonus I got to meet one of my Derby heroes, the Duchess of Crutches, ex of London Roller Girls and now Portsmouth Roller Wenches A Team player, who was our bench coach for the day.

And that was the giddy world of excitement and glamour that was my life this week.

I know, sometimes I don’t know how I stand the excitement.

I hope you all enjoy your bonus day off. Unless you don’t have one, in which case I’m sorry for bringing it up, no really, I am.

How was your week?