Catch up

The first of the big weekends is over. For the most part, it was great. Saturday's trip out of town was a lot better than I was expecting, though there was a severe lack of single, attractive females for what was supposed to be a wedding reception, albeit an unorthodox one. Offhand, I can think of only two. One girl, a brunette, might well have been interested, but she was completely mashed, so a conversation never took off despite a few attempts (and by the end of the night, I was none too sober myself). There was a blonde girl there who was a lot more interesting to me, but she seemed to be more interested in chatting to the bride all day than socialising. The brunette was more my typical choice, but the blonde had this funky vibe going on that I like very much in the same vein as V or QC3. It's a pity nothing happened there. Despite that lack of action, I still had a great time catching up with old friends and a few guys from the stag weekend that I thought were good company.

On Sunday, I found myself at a pub quiz which I always find fun. I probably had too much to drink for a Sunday night, but still had time to briefly chat to USHW who's been a bit quiet of late. USHW was asking about the Pretty Blonde situation, but that's still a complete mess. Friday's a work's do though, so who knows? [Optimism alert!]

On Monday night, I met up with a few mates to catch up and have a couple of drinks. The city was dead. In each of the bars were entered, there were three or four small groups at most. Still, it was good to catch up and have a couple of drinks, though I am glad that I can have a fairly early night of it tonight.

There are two fairly big nights this coming weekend and next week I should be back to the gym (though I have been saying that for far too long). I shouldn't have an excuse next week not to go – the hamstrings will have had three or four weeks to heal, so light work on the treadmill and cross trainer is very do-able. Plus, I'll have my new iPod case, which will a lot more suitable for taking my iPod to the gym.

All in all, things are going well. If I could only figure out how to get my wireless network card working in Kubuntu, I'd be a very happy man.

YAY!

I heard today that my phone company is going to send me a replacement phone! About fucking time, too. The anger has gone!

A change of scenery

I've used this template ever since I stated blogging and I fancy a bit of a change. Something cleaner, crisper and uses the whole screen.

I'm off to browse for suitable templates. If you happen to know of any that you think are cool, then please drop me a line.

The social calendar

The next few weeks are going to be interesting. While I've nothing planned for this weekend (apart from playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on the PC which is quite an interesting game), things are going to get a little busier over the next couple of weeks.

Next weekend, I've got a wedding to go to. Wedding's are always good fun, and this one should be no different. It's out of town, so I've got a hotel room booked and travelling with friends. That same weekend, a mate's coming home, so once I get back home from the wedding, it's out again with G.

The weekend after that is the monthly work's bash. The Pretty Blonde thing is still unresolved, and to be honest, will probably remain unresolved unless we meet outside of a work environment... and I still have to figure out if she's dating too.

The night after that, I'm meeting up with a few ex-work colleagues which are usually drunken, fun nights.

And then the weekend after that (again), one of the guys from work is leaving on a career break to Australia, the jammy get. That's another night in the pub with people from work, though this one's likely to be a mixed crowd (my current work colleagues are all male) and will hopefully be a good laugh.

All-in-all, that's a fairly busy few weeks worth of social activity and I am looking forward to it.

More dreams.

I didn't sleep well last night. I injured my leg again playing footy, quite seriously, so I was in and out of sleep all night as my leg often woke me due to discomfort.

The kind of half-sleep I got all night long probably meant that my dream was kind of weird. V was in it, as was QC3 and a girl that works in our department. Some of the details are now fading rapidly, but it appears that I was on a series of dates with V. Midway through each date, something weird would happen that would mean we'd have to cancel or move elsewhere. When this happened, as we moved to anew venue, V would then turn into QC3 or work girl (all three women have a similar kind of look which, admittedly, I like). Then there'd be some kind of weird journey through many doors that all led to different places, rather like Monsters Inc. We'd end up getting split up and then when we found each other again (sometimes my date found me, sometimes I found my date), the girl was always V. This happened a few times, each time was slightly different, before I woke up. I can't remember if the dream actually ended or, if it did, how it ended.

It was a nice dream, though. It reminded me of my friendship with QC3 and especially my all-too-brief friendship with V, though the presence of work girl is slightly puzzling as, apart from being extremely easy on the eye, there's no spark there. However, waking up in a good mood is always a good thing, and especially when you've got an injured leg and can barely stand!

It's also made me wish that V had continued to build our friendship after I came home and also that I'd taken my chances with QC3 when they had been there. It's more the thing about V though that's filled my thoughts this afternoon.

Gah!

The guy I was out drinking with on Saturday night sent me a text message today. He was confused about why I didn't make more of an effort with the girl I accidentally elbowed on Saturday night.

"She was very cute and there was something between you", he said.

He was right. She was very cute. I didn't sense anything between us, though. That's half all of the trouble. I never see the opportunity when it's right there... it's only after it's gone do I get that moment of recognition.

Footy.

Played footy today, injured myself. Twice.

I pulled my hamstring (again) and something incredibly wrong with my heel.

Arse.

This time, I'm doing the rehabilitation thing correctly: two weeks rest, then build up strength for another few weeks with some light gym work and then I might consider a return to football.

Meh.

I was out with a mate of mine, FP, last night in one of the trendier bars in town. He was tagging along at someone's work leaving bash and I was, well, tagging along with him. The early part of the evening was good, but there were only four of us, all guys. We were having a decent conversation and a couple of pints and things were going well.

Once the core party showed up, everything went downhill. FP works in the travel business and a lot of the people in that industry are very, well, insular. I've always found it hard to socialise with these people. They make it hard to get into conversations, which are invariably always related to their jobs and because the pool of people is so small, everyone knows everyone else, even if they work for different companies. Usually, I'm useless at this kind of thing anyway (I much prefer meeting people in smaller groups) and the last thing I need are barriers being put up when I'm trying to join a conversation.

I think it says a lot for that group of people that I got a nicer reception from a girl I accidentally elbowed in the back than I did from my mate's colleagues.

Well...

I went to see the doc, and he was quite upbeat. He gave my leg a good going over and said that he couldn't feel any tenderness in the muscle, plus I was showing no other signs of properly pulling my hamstring. he was at a loss as to what it could be, but suggested I followed the normal routine for hamstring recovery which is essentially to rest it for a few days until the pain has gone (it had gone even before I went to see my GP) then start exercises that will build up strength in the leg again.

I think that's where I had gone wrong. I'd given the leg plenty of rest and stretched it out, but the original injury had weakened the muscle and I've not done anything about strengthening it since. So, that's what I have to do.

Luckily, my GP said that some gym work would help, so that's not going to stop me from signing up to the gym again as long as I keep and weight work very light with lots of repetition, rather than low repetition and high weights. I can still do the cross-trainer, treadmill and cycle, too. Yay!

Fitness

Well, the football match has come and gone and my leg, as pessimistically expected, didn't last the course of the game.

I've never been injury prone and having played all sorts of sports regularly and semi-regularly over the last twenty years (post-puberty), injury is not something I've had to deal with. I think, once, I overstretched my groin muscle, but that was rested for a few weeks and has never troubled me again.

Since September when I started playing football with the guys in work, this hamstring issue has been a recurring problem. No matter how much I spend warming up or how much stretching I do, the hamstring invariably tightens at some point and it's rare that I can get through two games in a row (weekly) before doing the injury again.

I'm not entirely sure if I've "pulled" it in the proper sense of the word. There's a little bit of pain initially, but it's mostly a discomfort thing and I end up just going into goals or something to protect it. I'm going to see the doctor on Tuesday to see if he can offer any advice. I'm not sure there's much he can do beyond recommending me for physiotherapy, but at least my private health insurance through work means I should be able to get it sorted fairly quickly.

It would be nice to be injury free again so I can continue playing football, but I also want to get back to the gym too.

WTF?

Last night was one of our usual monthly works bashes. Some food and lots of beer and a bit of craic with my fellow employees, both current and previous team-mates.

We arrived early and found a good spot in the bar, and settled in for some fun. Pretty Blonde turned up, too, but with my previous deduction that she has a boyfriend, I wasn't that interested in her presence.

Usually, we're in a position where we kinda catch each other's eye every now and again (which was why I thought she might have been interested initially), but last night was slightly different. Given our respective seating posititions, Pretty Blonde was pretty much in my line of sight for a good few hours, during which she was staring in my direction quite a bit.

So, I'm kinda confused again about Pretty Blonde. At first I thought she was interested, then after seeing her on St. Val's day walking around the town with a boyfriendy-looking bloke, I changed my mind and ruled out any thought of approaching her outside of work. Now, with this seeming renewed interest on Friday evening, I'm really not sure what's going on! But my plan of action hasn't changed any way - I'm not trying it on with Pretty Blonde (or any co-worker I find attractive) at a works bash. I'll make my/any move outside of a work environment and despite PB's recent interest, I'm still fairly certain she's dating someone at the moment.

Yummy.

Ah, the beautiful Jessica Alba aka the future Mrs. Ruuude. There's no reason for posting it other than it's a fabulous picture of a woman I've admired* for years.

* lusted after

One week on.

OK, so I found some exercises on the Internet that have helped my hamstring to heal a little. They're not exactly what I was expecting, but they so seem to be doing the job, plus I've been freezing the leg and taking anti-inflammatory tablets, too.

The big test is on Friday when I play another football match. With any luck, I should get through this one because, barring any last minute emergencies (like last time), I should have sufficient time to warm up before kicking the ball about.

I think that's been the problem all along - because we're playing during work hours, there's a rush to get to the hall, get changed and then get as much playing time as possible which means that warming up time is very little. When I was doing the gym with GC, I never had any issues with injury (though admittedly, I don't stretch as much during gym work as I do during a football match).

I still haven't been down to renew my corporate membership, though. I'm hoping that a spell at the gym should also help my leg (provided I don't tweak it again in the near future).