Food, drink, friends, skates in Diary

Well that was the busiest weekend ever.

On Friday straight after work I drove me and Jay over to Nottingham 60 miles away, checked into a hotel and made our way to a Brazilian restaurant to meet 12 friends for dinner. Sadly they didn't have a 14 seat table so we were split into two which meant I couldn't talk to half of them.

They do All You Can Eat Meat. You have a card and, when you want meat, you turn it to green. When you have enough meat, you turn it over to red. They come round with meat on skewers; ribs, sausages, chicken breasts etc. I decided to have the vegetarian option in my continuing bid to become veggie, plus I didn't really like the look of anything and it was £7 cheaper, which is a big difference for one meal. They brought me the most enormous plate of pasta in a creamy tomato sauce with mushrooms and garlic bread. It was delicious but I could only eat half of it, it was HUGE.

There I was, eating my veggie meal and drinking Coke, while everyone else was stuffing themselves with meat and lager. Simon looks horrified and asked Jay what he'd done to me. Hahaha, as if it was Jay who did it, he adores meat and alcohol!

When the bill came, everyone put in what they owed but it was still about £20 down. After studying it, I realised they'd put "14 guests" and put us ALL down for the All You Can Eat Meat, as well as charging me for my giant plate of pasta! I don't know how much of a greedy pig they think I am like, but it was a bit cheeky of them.

After the giant piles of food, we went to a rock night at the student union. Everyone was struggling with their drinks because they were all full of meat, Jay even went back to the hotel for a bit because he was starting to feel ill!

I didn't get a chance for a proper catch up with Sara because, by that point, there were about 20 of us there and she went home early. But it turns out that she's only been living properly as a woman for a couple of weeks. She's been talking to her doctor for a few months and is about to start getting hormones. She's just officially changed her name by deed poll, so I think she was waiting until that was done before making it official and announcing it to the world. I'm really proud of all my friends, they're all really supportive and were just chatting to her as if nothing was different. It's going to be a long journey but everyone is there to support her :o)

I had a proper catch up with David to ask about his split with Lindy and how he met his new girlfriend. Apparently, they split up because "Lindy is fucking mental" and he met his new girlfriend on a fetish dating site. So there you go, in a nutshell.

The rock night was a load of crap and I didn't dance once, but that just meant I had more time for chatting to All Of The People, so it was lovely.

On Saturday morning, we drove home, dropped off our bags, grabbed some lunch then drove over to watch my roller derby team play in the first bout I've ever watched. It was great fun and I learned so much. They sadly didn't win but everyone was amazing, I hope I can be as good as them one day!

I took a few photos from the spectator stand. Badly positioned, bad lighting and unedited, so they're not very good. Yeah, I have excuses :op

Lining up at the start of the match.

One of our jammers, Miss Thunderkiss (with the jammer's star on her helmet). She's so tall and thin, and very fast! A perfect jammer.

There's a lot of falling over.

I like the tough look on our pivot's face and our jammer whizzing in from the right!

Miss Thunderkiss assessing the situation.

Yay, I loves it :o)

We then had to go straight home because Rob, Angi and Matt were coming round. We had drinks and Chinese food then to bed.

So on Sunday I got up and went to roller derby training myself! Normally the freshmeat (newbies) have to leave after 90 minutes as they do the more advanced stuff then, but on Sunday, there were only 6 people who had passed their 'Safe to Skate' and 15 freshmeat, so they let us stay an extra hour! I Think the people who were playing on Saturday had decided to have a day off, and I don't blame them.

One of the things we have to do to pass our Safe to Skate is 27 laps in five minutes. We had our first go at it, to see what we're aiming for. I only managed 17 laps, which is quite a long way off, but it's not bad for my first attempt. BUT (yes, I have more excuses) there were loads of people on the track who kept getting in my way, and a nut came loose on my skates after a while, so the two front wheels on my right skate were wobbling and was knocking me off balance. I reckon I could have got about 20 laps if the track was clear and my wheels were tightened properly!

I spent the rest of Sunday relaxing in the sunshine, recovering from the busiest weekend ever. I think the last three days was all the summer we're going to get this year as it's gone all cloudy and dull again now. Typical British summer, blink and you'll miss it.