Bear blog

Durham's new venue is really very good. Compared to the old one, at least. Big bright hall (made even better by the general absence of people all weekend), smaller smelly hall for unicyclists to get them out from under foot, canteen (which I'll admit to not venturing into, although I hear good things), grass and good weather for outside games, sit-and-watch-tv area for juggling vids, showers, 24 hour space. Kind of.

 

We got up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning to get up there at a decent hour because we were in Philip. It didn't take too long, considering the stops for poos and petrol. Lizzah was handily riding around the carpark looking like she needed a task when we got to site so she carted all our stuff into the hall for us. The Peats had ponced out and got a hotel room for the weekend. I was not impressed.

 

Alby and I cracked on and got some honest to goodness practice done. It's so nice to be able to juggle again after the summer break but the backs of my thighs aren't half feeling it. Eight clubs worked well, and we even managed to get a couple of reasonable video clips of it working which I may or may not post somewhere for people to criticise. The pattern looks better than it feels although I'm still gurning my way through it all.

 

During the games, whilst no one was watching, we tried again with seven club ultimates. Taking on board all the wonderful constructive criticism we've had over the past year ('floaty, like' and 'throw more accurately, and be better at catching') we finally got a semblence of a pattern going. It's still ugly and very very short, and Alby is desperately trying to keep his face out of harm's way, but it's infinitely better than it was on Monday.

 

We got our best ever run of six clubs back-to-back as well. A whole five (possibly six) catches. Unbelievable. The Durham air is obviously terribly beneficial to this sort of activity. 

 

In amongst the pwnage, we enjoyed the company of Tom and Dr Helen, Alby went mental on hammering people's backs for them, I used my unicycle (much to Barnesy's amusement as I wobbled my way round the hall), Miark threw things at me, I spectacularly failed to be good at four clubs but managed to acquire an impressive bruise for my troubles, I met The Missus who turned out to be very nice, and we went for a wander around the world's most shut town. The chippy didn't even open until 6.30. I mean honestly! We ended up having to descend on some poor woman's tiny little restaurant and watch her flap her way through more orders than I'm sure she'd previously taken in a year.

 

(To be continued. I'm going to bed.)