Some weeks are dull. You wake up, go to work, go to the gym, eat three meals a day and not much else. Maybe there'll be a pub trip tossed in there or a good book for the evenings. But frankly, not much exciting going on.
Having never done this before, I stuck to the two easiest colour routes. Apparently, I picked it up quite well, using both arms and legs to find the right holds and draw myself ever upwards. But boy was it hard work. By climb number 5, my arms were shaking and I wasn't sure I'd be able to support my body weight on them when reaching for the next hold. That told me I'd had enough, but I was happy with that, as by that point I felt like I'd had a decent workout.
The rest of the week saw me in quite a bit of pain - to be expected from the use of all those unfamiliar muscles, but annoying because we'd done quite an extensive cool down following the climbing. I managed to crack out a 5k run on the treadmill and was super pleased because I got an all new personal best time of 36 mins 10 secs. I know that's not super fast, but I'm happy with it because a month ago I hadn't ever run a 5k and anyway, I've got very short little legs, so running is hard! But other than that, and a delightful little pork and aubergine curry that I made for dinner, Thursday was a quiet day.
Saturday was the next exciting thing to happen this week. For my birthday last year, husband got me Virgin Experience vouchers to go clay pigeon shooting, and yesterday we finally did it. Theres a clay club called JJ's shooting club around the corner from Bluewater in the heart of the Darent Valley. We got to spend an hour and a half with a delightful guide named Ian, as well as another seven old blokes with the same voucher, taking turns firing a shotgun at a combination of Clay's shot in the air.
After some shopping, we came back home for a relaxed afternoon and, surprise, more Asian food for dinner! Sri Lankan curry this time, with plenty of leftovers for my lunch in Monday. Need to keep up my strength for all that Nintendo playing!
Then some weeks, for no reason in particular, are a lot more interesting. New and exciting things happen, largely as a result of planning to do new and exciting things, but they still feel spontaneous and different. This has been one of those weeks, so I thought I'd share it with you.
One part of what made this week a bit different and incidentally, this is not an exciting element, was going on a training course at the Treasury. I go over to Treasury fairly often, so that's not big news, and the training course was pretty dull and absolutely exhausting. But I learned a lot of things that are outside my comfort zone, which are going to radically change the things I can do in my job. So while a tedious and wearying day in itself, it set the week off in a useful way.
Work has been, if not terribly busy, terribly filled with uncertainty due to the ongoing political situation. We don't know who our leader will be from next week, let alone who will be managing our department. I find that I embrace this uncertainty better than some others: it gives me the space to think strategically about next steps, rather than dancing to the rhythm of a ministerial drum at all times. Subsequently, I got quite a lot of things done at the office this week, which makes me happy and left me open to do all my new and interesting things.
Starting with....bouldering! This is a type of climbing, where you don't use ropes and you have to puzzle out what combination of foot and hand holds to use to make the climb. A friend of mine, Aethel, has been doing this for years (she even met her now husband through this activity) so we decided to meet up at a climbing wall in Bermondsey to give it a go.
I was amazed at how popular this activity is. There was a line of people running out the door when we got to the wall, and once inside there was huge groups of people everywhere. The nice thing is that people aren't all climbing at the same time: in fact many people who are more advanced will spend much of their time watching and trying to figure out the best routes up the most complicated climbs. Plus it's a lot of fun just watching people.
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| Aethel's stuffed red pepper...delish |
To finish off the night, Aethel and I had a lovely long walk and catch-up on the way to Borough Market and found a tasty fish restaurant to fill our bellies. A much deserved glass of wine and a plate of battered lemon sole, tasty chips and mushy peas (love a stereotype) marked the end to an extremely fun Wednesday evening.
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| The most enormous fish and chips ever |
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| Happy, tired faces |
The rest of the week saw me in quite a bit of pain - to be expected from the use of all those unfamiliar muscles, but annoying because we'd done quite an extensive cool down following the climbing. I managed to crack out a 5k run on the treadmill and was super pleased because I got an all new personal best time of 36 mins 10 secs. I know that's not super fast, but I'm happy with it because a month ago I hadn't ever run a 5k and anyway, I've got very short little legs, so running is hard! But other than that, and a delightful little pork and aubergine curry that I made for dinner, Thursday was a quiet day.
On Friday I worked from home and was not in the best mood: it was raining all day! I managed to get out for a walk and made the house look a bit pretty, but was otherwise pretty meh until I met husband for a drink at the micro pub in the evening. And then I got a lot happier, as husband had surprised me with a new Nintendo Switch game: Lego Harry Potter. I'm already enjoying playing that a lot. I also made a tasty dinner of veal pizzaiola (essentially veal escalope cooked in a tomato sauce) with fried mushrooms and roasty potatoes. And despite my uncle telling me it looked like a cannibal had vomited on my plate (seriously) it tasted delicious. Picture below #NotForTheFaintHearted.
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| Veal pizzaiola, a la Nicky |
Naturally I had an amazing time. We were lucky in that the forecasted thunderstorm never appeared so we had fine bright weather. I love the feel of a shotgun in my arms and it fits just right with the butt tucked up between my shoulder and cheek. I nailed 23 out of 32 shots, came third in the group (the people who beat me are regular shooters and nailed pretty much all their shots). It was a delight!!! Husband also did pretty well, especially since it was the first time he'd ever fired a gun. And he came out a lot better in the pictures, which I'm not super thrilled about.
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| Husband getting ready to shoot |
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| Ian giving me some instruction pre-shoot |
After our gunpowder fuelled morning, we were starving! So we toddled off to Bluewater and went back to my new favourite Thai restaurant: Rosa's Thai Cafe. A delightful lunch of prawn crackers, thai beef salad, chicken and pineapple curry and brown rice left us ready to face the rest of the day.
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| I luuuurve Asian food |
So that's the end of a quite exciting week (in my opinion). I tried some new things, learned some new things, and had a lot of fun. Tips for readers: if you're planning to go climbing, buy a foam roller to help your muscles stiffening up afterwards. Also, if you're going shooting, never hesitate. Shoot firm and true.
Ciao for now!
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