Mahinda’s Little World

The weekend-before-last was my absolute favourite weekend of the year so far. It was just ace!

I’m very much a sun-loving person, so the fact that it was entirely bathed in glorious sunshine was a major factor…but the company and activities were also toptastic.

So, what did I get up to..?

Friday

This was the quiet one — drinks at the Cornerhouse to celebrate Steve and Miranda’s engagement. Yes, another one. Steve and Miranda are very much fringe friends of mine — part of the big group of CAOSy types that I know through Alsion and Dr. Liz.

Actually, Steve has a double-connection with me. Right at the start of uni, Steve was on the same course as Paul and Mike, and staying in Allen Hall (close to Paul and Mike’s Owen’s Park, and my Oak House). The four of us hung out a lot together, as you do at uni until, just before Christmas, Paul and Steve had a bit of an argument. So, fast forward just over a decade, and Steve turns up as part of a group of people I was meeting at the pub. I was suitably freaked out.

So, engagement. People were there, the conversation flowed, and I eventually cycled back home.

Go Ape!

The undoubted highlight of the weekend. Go Ape! is basically a sort of adventure course centred on going from tree to tree using ropes. Be these rope bridges, swings or cargo nets.

BTW, you’re going to have to make do with random Go Ape! pictures I’ve culled from t’interweb — having almost lost my specs a few times, I think not taking my (camera)phone with me was definitely the correct decision.

So, it was far too early a start — Piccadilly station for some scandalously early (10am?) train. Eventually got to Delamere (lovely little forest near Chester), picking up Andy, Ange (his girlfriend) and some MADwalker types (Gavin, Therese, Becky and Tristan) along the way, and found the centre.

First up, we got fitted with harnesses and given the safety briefing. "Long line loves the tree" was the mantra of the day. Long line did indeed luuuuuurve the tree, in full-on Barry White style.

Next up was a sort of kiddy course, just to get you used to hooking yourself on safely, complete with a little baby zip wire. After that, there were to be four more stations, each ending with a (progressively larger) zip line taking you on to towards the next station. For those of you that don’t know, a zip line is sort of like the thing at the end of the Krypton Factor assault course…a long wire that you slide down at speed. They’re ace!

After the first real station, the instructor left us to our own devices — in real grown-up fashion, it was all up to us. This was at the same time both refreshingly un-nanny-ish, and scary. Especially for someone like me who’s scared of heights.

Not wanting to start you off too easily, the second station featured a few black-graded routes — there were typically 6 or so trees per station, with routes graded from green (easy) to black (scary). I came really really close to completely losing my bottle — I’d had such a strong "must hold on for dear life" reflex that I lost almost all feeling below my elbows. I had to wait for ages, just concentrating on my breathing, before I could continue down the absolute monster of a zip line.

Then, JUST as I gathered the courage to leap off the platform and tensed my knees accordingly, Ange, behind me, calls out "WAIT!" I almost soiled myself, thinking that I’d hooked myself up wrong, and managed to keep myself on the platform. It turns out that she just wanted to check me…panic over. For a fraction of a second, I genuinely thought that I was about to plummet 30ft to my doom. That’s like falling off the guttering of a house.

The rest went smoothly, but still scarily, sometimes directly above the heads of people on the trails below. You got higher and higher — towards the end, there was a cargo net (you leap off a platform and swing into a vertical net some distance away) where you literally dropped 2m almost straight down before the rope went taut…all at over 40ft up (think the top of an average house’s roof).

The final zip line was utterly brilliant, and huge…and then it was all over. The course had taken just about 3 hours, and I could no longer move my fingers. BRILLIANT!

Stomping Around

After the 3 hours of pure adrenalin-fuelled terror, we joined the rest of the MADwalkers for the second half of that day’s hike, through to Mouldsworth (the next station on the line). It was actually the breaking of my MADwalker virginity — I’d been to plenty of parties, and gotten to know loads of the regulars, but am not actually a member and hadn’t been along to any walks.

So, it was nice to finally get a bit of stomping in — I spent most of the walk chatting away merrily with a girl called Susan, who’d been to UMIST a couple of years before I turned up there. Hopefully I’ll meet her again.

Back home, and I had just enough time to have a loooong shower (much needed, to try and release my stiffening joints) before grabbing some wine and heading to…

Party Time

…Helen’s place for her housewarming party, right in the heart of Didsbury village. It was good, and I made some new friends — including getting the number of Danielle, a girl living on Everett Road in a pretty similar houseshare to what we have at Tenby Towers. We promised to invite each other over to house barbecues and stuff. She and her housemates seemed a good bunch.

There’s a moderately long story involving Housemates Paul and Andrew (who were out drinking in Didsbury), me and Ali (one of the girls at the party), but I won’t bore you all with it.

Midnight came, and I had to tear myself away from the remnants of the party, so I could head over to Adrian and Emma’s housewarming party. Unfortunately, that party was dying. Housemates Gillian, Paul and Andrew were meant to go with me, but decided against it when I gave them the bad news. So I hopped on my bike and meandered over.

Got there at 12.30am…to find just Adrian, Emma, Nick, Ann and Rosy left. I’d just missed Pete and Sarah, who I spotted kissing in the street just before I got to the party. Disgraceful behaviour, but it’s allowed

We stayed up a while chatting and drinking Moniack mead. Always a good combination!

Sunday

So, after a Saturday like that, I could be forgiven for spending most of Sunday in bed feeling sorry for myself.

Oh no. That’s just never going to happen.

Instead, I woke up at a scandalously early 9am and dragged my aching bones over to Sale Hockey Club for our annual grass mixed tournament. Much fun, in good spirit (apart from the Didsbury team — BOO! HISS!)…unfortunately, I was playing for Legless (the full-strength semi-serious Sale side) rather than The Dream Team (3rd team and mates, there for the boozing).

A couple of years ago, I ended up as one of two ringers playing for The Rugger Buggers (a team put together by our rugby club)…it was full of mud, we lost almost every match, but it was immense fun

Last year, we got rain, sun, wind and hail…sometimes in the same match! This year, we had yet more glorious sunshine. It was GREAT. Even better, we won the whole damn thing, defeating Leyland in the final.

By that point, I really was aching all over.

Back home, to yet another looooooong shower, and then over to Pete and Rosy’s place for a barbecue and a bit more beer. This time on my bike. Tasty meat, tasty salad, tasty beer.

Life is good.

So, a while ago, I managed to get a small bit of glass into my big toe. I thought it had come out — I was feeling no more pain in the toe, even when playing hockey or badminton.

I had a look, and it seemed that the skin had grown into a little lump over where the bit of glass was…but I reckoned it was still there.

I spent a bit of time with my parents this last weekend, and my mum, being the ex-nurse that she is, attacked my toe with a scalpel and tweezers. AND SHE FISHED OUT THE BIT OF GLASS — HURRAH!

Turns out that it was bigger than I thought (fnirk) — fully 2mm by 1mm by 0.5mm. I’m quite glad it’s out.

I’m currently Fat Mahinda. Okay, so I’m nowhere near my "he’s big, he’s round, he’s bounces on the ground" zenith of lardiness, but I’m not exactly fighting fit. Or anywhere near it.

Over the Christmas period, I cooked two Christmas dinners — Snow White Christmas on December 25th, and Tenby Towers Christmas on January 13th.

Now, we don’t have suitable weighing scales for a turkey (or breast joint thereof), so I used the highly scientific "weight by difference" method:

1. Mahinda stands on man-sized weighing scales, and notes down weight* A.
2. Mahinda picks up turkey and gets back on scales, then notes down weight B.
3. B — A = weight of turkey, including stuffing.

* Rosy, if you even DARE to point out that this should be "mass"… 

That’s all well and good, and it worked a charm. HOWEVER, it really pointed out to me how much good living I was guilty of during the holiday period:

• Weight A (25th Dec): 14st 7lbs
• Weight A (13th Jan): 15st 7lbs

Just under three weeks; about a stone’s difference. Eeek.

So why am I blogging this now? Well, under normal circumstances, I’d have trimmed it down — hockey twice a week and some badminton with work would have taken it all right off. Unfortunately, I’ve not played anywhere near as much hockey as usual, and that’s really shown. Not only am I fat, but I’m fairly unfit right now too. Not good.

I’m not usually much concerned about my weight, to be honest, but thought you lot should know.

This weekend will involve a Go Ape! adventure course session, an afternoon hike, and a hockey tournament…should help! 

… 

P.S. Googling "Fat Mahinda" doesn’t return anything. It will now. 

Now that I’ve blogged this weekend, I thought I’d best blog the last one…which seems like absolutely ages ago.

Friday

It starts. The initial plan was to go out for drinks with Ceilidh Sarah, it being her birthday on Saturday. However, she cancelled as a course meal was organised instead — she’s doing an MBA, and it was the last day of it. Back to her later.

So, Plan B was formulated. It involved Risk, cricket and drinks, all at Pete and Rosy’s. The cricket was technically taking place in the West Indies, but we were resigned to watching it on Pete’s television.

Rosy had just been accepted (ish) on to a PhD course, so we had reason to celebrate (ish). Reason enough to take a decent (ish) bottle of wine over with me.

Anyway, Risk. A strange game, where Rosy basically spent the whole time attacking me, leaving Pete to eventually win the game by wiping me out. It turns out that Rosy wiping me out (or indeed, booting me out of South America) would serve very little purpose. Bizarre.

Sarah (not of the Ceilidh variety) turned up, and we moved on to Monopoly. She won. I was doing well…until I landed on her properties (with lots of houses or hotels) FOUR TURNS IN A ROW. Close to £4,000 and I was out of it. She’s vicious when she gets going, that girl

Then, drunken Scrabble. I came second to Rosy, despite my best efforts. It got a bit silly towards the end!

So, time to head home, at about 2am. But I got into a txt conversation with Ceilidh Sarah, who was out with her coursemates and a bit bored. I ended up meeting her (and her friends) at Withington Library, and heading to a random student house-party in the back streets of Withington.

It was the sort of party where everyone knew everybody…and I wasn’t really feeling at my most sociable. Sarah and I just chatted a lot, before heading off at 5am.

5am. Not bad, considering that I was trying to get an early night in preparation for the last hockey match of the season.

Saturday

Hockey. Chester. We lost. Bugger.

This season was rubbish, and I was pretty rubbish at the personal level. I missed a lot of games, which really didn’t help.

After hockey, it was back to the club for a drink, and later out for the 3rd XI social. They’re very much the drinking team, so I fit in well

The social featured a variety of locations:

1. The Peveril Of The Peak — somehow, we all ended up playing killer pool with random Man Utd fans. Very very random. I bumped into Sam, formerly of MUGSS.
2. Tai Wu — Chinese buffet. Very tasty, and very plentiful. Strangely enough, Ceilidh Sarah was there.
3. Yates’s — Oh Dear. We met up with some of the ladies’ section there. They were very happy, as they’d just got promoted right out of the Northwest league system, right into the Northern leagues.
4. The Ritz — Oh Dear part II: The Return. Well, we were drunk. Crazy dancing happened. Classy.

Sunday

I returned to Sale Hockey Club, to keep Hockey Dave company while watching the Spurs game — we’re pretty much the only Spurs fans at the club, and he takes a lot of abuse when they’re on the telly. I saw dead people, thanks to the carnage of Saturday night.

After that, it was back home, and eventually over to Pete and Rosy’s for some 24 action.

— * * * —

So, quite a drunken weekend. That’s more like it!

Come to think of it, the highlight of it all was nothing to do with that little lot (well, not directly, anyway) — ’twas a hug and a kiss (just on the cheek) from an unexpected source. Well, the source wasn’t unexpected, but the warm embrace was. You take what you can get when you’re me!

You know what I’ve just realised?

I got through the whole of today (technically yesterday, but who’s counting?) without a single phone call, txt msg or personal email. Is that a good thing? Probably not, but it’s definitely a change.

This whole weekend has been very unlike me, to be honest. Friday started off a bit more like it, though — Linden, Mark, Rosy and I had a day of tennis, Pimms, scotch eggs and drinking. Oh, and pool and quiz games and darts and more drinking. And huge food.

Saturday, on the other hand, was spectacularly unproductive. I’d tossed and turned all night, to the tune of indigestion (possibly due to the aforementioned huge food)…so there was a long lie-in, followed by:

1. Lazing around watching cricket and general rubbish ont’ telly.
2. Heading over to Moss Side leisure centre to pay for this week’s badminton courts.
3. Swinging by Workmate Maxine’s place to feed and water Willow, her cat.
4. Getting back just in time to get a call from Twinkle and Carol looking for an emergency babysitter.
5. Heading over to Twinkle and Carol’s place to, if not babysit Hazel (who was very asleep), then at least make sure that the house didn’t burn down while they took Dave to the MRI (he’s fine, apart from a chest infection). Watched Doctor Who.
6. Getting home, opening some wine, cooking some duck and noodles (vaguely hoi-sin saucy) for Housemate Paul and myself.
7. Watching Bangladesh finish a famous victory over the Saffers.

So today, Easter Sunday, was spectacularly uncommunicative. I did leave the house…but only to go as far as the back yard, which I tidied up a bit. Well, swept, anyway, and gave the apple tree a pre-emptive dose of bug spray — it suffers from quite an infestation of woolly aphid, which I’ve been combating over the years.

Cooked a curry for dinner, and have since then been watching cricket, golf, Buffy, and other random television.

I think I should take to ringing up old friends a bit more. I don’t do it enough.

Still, this weekend was kind of necessary — it’d been quite some time since I had a properly quiet weekend, where I could just chill out and relax a bit.

I must be getting old!

So, copying shamelessly from Pete, Rosy and Linden’s blogs…

Two Years Ago

Nothing. I’d not started this thing back then.

21 months ago

June 21st was my first post, and it was drunken. Stuff concerning Eileen, Si and Sarah, all triggered by going out for birthday drinks with Rosy.

Oh, and we played 21. 21 months ago. Spoooooky

One Year Ago

One of my classic posts, posted from my old phone. I shall repeat it here:

Space Raiders are the mightiest of all 10p crisps. FACT.

Linden blows goats on OK Cupid. For pansy juice. FACTORAMA.

We’re in Fab Café for the quiz. It’s good, but we suck at the music round.

Also a post earlier that day while on a lunch break from my First Aid course. That REALLY doesn’t feel like a whole year ago!

Six Months Ago

The October 4th post details one of my busiest weekends ever:

• Friday
  Sheffield Beer Festival to celebrate Wee Dave’s birthday.
• Saturday
  Becky and Paul’s wedding (mostly hung over), followed by random MADwalker cocktail party at Jo’s place. A proper 5-in-the-morning drinking sesh.
• Sunday
  Big Chimp! The filming of. Also very hung over…and probably shouldn’t have been driving at 9am, come to think of it.

That was a serious weekend, that was, and one of my longest ever posts.

Three Months Ago

Mad work, an apology for not blogging Christmas, and that’s about it.

One Month Ago

Belated (by a fortnight!) birthday blogging. On March 4th itself, I was on Shiny Richard’s stag weekend. It was ace!

April Fools’ Day is nearly over now, and I’ve only JUST realised it!

Needless to say, I didn’t play any pranks…or had any played on me, for that matter. Possibly due to me not being awake until mid-afternoon. 

I had to check where the apostrophe went, to be honest, and have gone with Wikipedia’s wise words. I’m very amused at the fact that they’ve even taken pre-emptive action on that page!

It’s also Anne McCaffrey’s birthday. She’s one of my favourite authors, despite the fact that it’s been years since I last read one of her books. This actually ties in with my last post, as my Sky at Night period was pretty much when I was reading sci-fi most voraciously.

Better stop there, so that I can get this one posted before April Fools’ Day is over. 

I’m watching The Sky at Night, for the first time in absolutely ages. It’s a programme I used to watch almost religiously for a period during my teens, when I took an avid interest in that sort of thing.

It’s a 50th anniversary special tonight, with what seems to be Kryten doing an impression of the young Sir Patrick Moore — it’s a "time travel" special.

Oooh, there’s Brian May, in Patrick Moore’s back garden to watch the recent lunar eclipse! You just can’t imagine too many rock stars doing that sort of thing. I forgot he was an avid astronomer.

And now Patrick Moore’s head is floating around, Gamesmaster style. Does anyone reading this thing remember Gamesmaster? Classic television, naturally, featuring first a sarcastic Dominik Diamond and then a manic Dexter Fletcher. Daniel, one of my schoolmates, happened to be the first ever contestant — they had a gaming challenge every episode, in his case a level from Mario Bros. Needless to say, he failed to win the Gamesmaster Golden Joystick…which he blamed on missing a mushroom. He never really managed to live it down!

Anyway, back to The Sky at Night…

There’s an awful lot more snazzy computer graphics than there used to be…maybe it’s because it’s a special episode. It’s quite something how different (yet spookily the same) Moore looks from how I remember him (because anyone on TV you’ve not seen in a while reverts to how you first saw them, naturally). He really must be getting on a bit. 

Now Brian May’s back, talking about the possibility of life on Mars. It’s all getting a bit surreal.

The Gamesmaster’s head is floating around again, this time around Jupiter.

You couldn’t make it up!