I don't know that things have been that busy, but there's been enough to do round here of late to quite distract me from the business of blogging. Life. It goes on. Would you believe?!

Unfortunately I have still managed to spend more time than I feel I should at the computer, and none whatsoever at housework. (La plus ça change...!) Other than the usual provision of meals, and washing of clothes, and gnashing of teeth at children who DO NOT PUT THEIR DIRTY CLOTHES OUT.

A bit of my time lately has been spent organising accommodation and the visiting of far-flung friends on our way home from our skiing weekend. We have decided to take the 'long way home' in order to visit people and places that we haven't seen for a while, or haven't seen at all. That said, I still seem to spend time on blogs, but lately I only seem to have the energy for reading those of people who are far better writers than me. I suppose I am going through a bit of a self flagellation stage with the blogging, questioning the point of it all. I will hold off making any rash decisions and beating myself about the head about it until next term.

Meantime, it's really all go, go, go around here as the term comes to a close (and while I feel like left part of my brain down in Sydney! - honestly, the things I've forgotten about over the past week or so don't bare mentioning.)

So there was the last rep netball carnival (before State Age) - in Kempsey the Sunday before last. We ummed and ahhed about going to watch, but the supportive parent genes won over, and so we drove nearly two hours each way just for the privilege of standing watching netball games in a freezing cold wind that whipped across the netball courts. It was quite possibly training for us parents as well as the girls. State Age in Newcastle - mid-winter - could well be a similar experience.

And there's just been the usual after school madness - which will thankfully ease after State Age when rep netball training will stop. Half my days seem to be spent organising the car pooling, and then doing the car pooling, along with a good deal of zipping here and there to drop my kids off or pick them up. And when I'm not in the car it feels like I'm up and down a ladder on the netball courts putting up or taking down pole padding and goal rings. Yeah, so I can think of things I'd rather be doing...

Really, truly, I can't complain though. These days I do also have the luxury of a reasonable amount of personal sport and recreation - and the opportunity to either injure or totally trash myself!

I do my swimming squad twice a week. I don't usually hurt myself while I'm swimming, but I'll often have some inexplicable niggle. This week it's been my left knee. No idea what - it just niggles when I kick - which is annoying, because my kicking is my stronger point. (Normal people find their arms in freestyle are their strong point - go figure!) And I swam like crap on Monday for our 40 lap (1 km) trial which for some peverse reason I usually really enjoy. Oh well. I still feel all zingy-zing-zing after an hour of thrashing up and down a pool, and I solemnly believe that the endorphins produced do hold me back from the edges of darker things.

I play comp tennis on Thursdays at the moment - well, every second week, and sometimes in between. (Long story, another time...) We'd had some rain last week, and so the court was damp, but playable. Everytime I play I flare up my back/hip area on the left side, usually, which I just put up with because I want to be able to keep playing my tennis. Last Thursday was no exception. But in the last set I did a skid and something that looked almost like the splits (but much less graceful than any gymnast or dancer you've ever seen.) I pulled 'something' somewhere up under my right buttock. (You wanted to know that didn't you!) I managed to finish the set without damaging myself any further, and it's not too incapacitating, but I can still feel it as I creak around the place.

I tested the all important bike riding position with it on Friday and gave myself the all clear, so Saturday morning, CrazyDad and I hopped on our tandem at 5.40am, and rode into town, around the A group course with the community ride, and then home again (after bacon & eggs and coffee.) 90km later.. phew! I was just a bit off the planet the rest of the day - which included working on a BBQ for netball. We came home around 3.30 and staggered up to bed to have a bit of a lie down.

I drank a couple of wines that night to reward myself for Excellence in Physical Endeavours, and woke with a headache on a Sunday that we'd set aside as catch-up-around-the-house day. Needless to say I wasn't much help, and wasted a decadent and snuggle-able sleep-in opportunity.

One thing you might not have figured about me is that I have a striking inability to say no to offers and opportunities to get out to do something active. (This attitude is how I ended up with my husband in the first place - bushwalking, and then canoeing and canyoning, so I figure he can't really complain!):

Monday I met up with a couple of girls who are wanting to build up their bike riding. I only rode a few km with them, but decided I should do the whole environmentally conscious bicycle user thing and commute to and from our meeting point by bike (about 7 km each way) - and to my swimming class and back in the middle of it. (Not being triathlete material, it is probably no wonder I swam like crap!) 34 km on the bike, and that hour (and two kilometres total, probably) in the pool. I slept well on Monday night.

Tuesday I'd accepted an invitation to go walking with someone who is training up for the Oxfam trailwalk. She needed to work on her uphills, so the person responsible for inviting me took us to a patch of state forest where we launched straight into some 400m of uphill (over a pretty short distance I can tell you.) The uphill probably only took us 45 mins out of a 2 hour walk, but I now know that my calves exist, along with that pulled hamstring/buttock thing, and I am feeling unaccountably weary today, and doing a bit of groaning and moaning if I need to bend or squat.. or get up from sitting down... and.. well, walk around at all really. [But of course in the back of my mind is now the seed of madness sown - wouldn't that 100km walk be a box to tick?! - next year?.... ]

I have another chance to do something else to myself at tennis tomorrow. Swimming again on Friday. Riding Saturday morning no doubt, and we really should get down to the kayak club race in the afternoon. And then a mountain bike ride on Sunday.

Meantime, pretty much the only thing I have left to organise for holidays - other than booking cross country ski lessons and some clothing and equipment hire - is for it to bloody snow down in the Snowy Mountains! After the netball of course, because we don't really want to be standing around watching three days of netball in a winterly southerly air stream that has blown 'off the snow'. Even if we have trained for it.

So tell me.. am I mad, or in a coma?.... [ Hey, fellow viewers of excellent British TV fare, I finally got to watch the last episode of Life on Mars!]

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