Relief

Well, it was certainly a more relaxing weekend than usual ... I think that was partly because of the emotional come-down after such a stressful week and because of a delightful 18hour power failure we had.

The weekend started on an exceptional high as I found out I got my Russian visa and managed to get my passport back that afternoon. We also finished work early and had a braai at the office to watch the cricket (well, I may have been too busy paging thru my passport to care). And then an absolutely massive thunderstorm started. And apparently killed out power at home at around 16h15. It didn't come back on till between 10 & 11am on Saturday morning!

So Friday night was very quiet and uneventful. I pretty much read my book by candlelight and went to sleep early. Which I really needed after such a dreadful week.

On Saturday I did some shopping and pretty much did nothing much for most of the day ... as I said I was a little emotionally bereft so didn't really know what I wanted to do nor did I care too much either way about anything really.

On Saturday evening, it was @Louiseysch's birthday party, which was a throwback to our youth as we went and ate dinner at the Spur and then went ice-skating. I haven't ice-skated in probably 5years. And it wasn't exactly ideal (I found out afterwards that school holidays started on Friday, maybe that's why). It was crazy-crowded with all these kids zooting past us ... now I can skate, not well, but enough that I didn't fall at all and I'm not hanging onto the banister for more than just the first time around the rink, but I can't stand these people who fly in front of me because I just simply don't have that much control over where I'm going. And mostly because I have no interest in falling, most especially not because of someone else bashing into me. Luckily none of that happened, but it makes for a less than ideal experience. I think I'd prefer to go skating on a close to empty rink ;) A bit like watching movies, really! Anyway, and the fact was that the ice was in pretty bad shape by the time we'd finished dinner, with plenty of deep grooves around. Also, not ideal for someone so not in control of their skating as me. So, I didn't last very long, probably went round about 10 times before my feet were absolutely killing me! But still, I guess it's kinda nice to do these things ever so often to remind ourselves :)

I was going to go to RR for their 8th birthday party after that, but my feet were just killing me so decided to head home instead.

And then on Sunday, I started learning Russian, at home in the comfort of my own bed (love the internet!). I managed to learn the whole alphabet (all 33 letters of the alphabet ... so at least I should be able to pronounce words I read) and later in the day, I learned to count to 10. I'm feeling quite impressed with myself since languages is really not my thing.

And for lunch I headed off to visit @louisabouwer in her new spot. It was a lovely afternoon spent catching up, eating pizza & drinking champagne watching Nicola's antics :) Just what I needed!