Vampires Beware!

See that big bright thing outside? That’s the sun that is! It’s been out and about for the last few days now and it’s about time too. Spring is actually here now, I’m sure of it. I’ve had a load of daffodils in the living room brightening things up for the last week and there’s nothing more spring-like than a big vase of bright yellow daffs. The best thing is that it’s so warm too; there’s been some sunshine over winter but it’s never been warm enough to sit outside in a t-shirt in and enjoy. I tried doing just that over the weekend but this cold is still lingering and I’m doing my damnedest to stop it turning into a chest infection.

It’d be nice to be able to say the extension is going up as quickly as the grass in the front garden, but in truth progress has been slow. This is mostly through no fault of the builders, it’s Building Controls  who are holding things up. They seem to change their mind as to what they want as often as they change their socks, so most of the time at the moment is spent waiting around for them to come back and tell the builders they can actually do some work again. On the plus side, there’s no more hole digging. The foundations are in, the sewerage pipes encased and blockwork has started to go up. ‘Going up’ is entirely relative at the moment though, as they’re still below what will be ground level, but up is up and I’m happy. All that’s left for us to do now is to order the flooring for the house and trundle back up to Bristol to pick up the kitchen. I’m still hopeful that by my birthday we’ll actually have a house to put it all in.

Extension Progress

Extension Progress

Our Tang Soo Do club held the first grading of the new year on Sunday, and while I wasn’t grading I still turned up and pulled my  dobok on in support. I was really glad to not be grading thanks to being ill, but I still did my bit by helping out with some il soo sik dae ryun and ho sin sool, and held boards for the kyok pa (breaking). I got a meaty kick in the hand during the breaking which wasn’t much fun, as well as embarrassing myself. The re-breakable plastic boards (which actually take a much stronger and more accurate strike to break than a piece of pine) can be set to a normal break, or a half break for the kids. I had to try to reset one for a half break so decided to just break it on my knee. WHAM – no break – these things are tougher than I remember! To save any more blushing I give in an extra-strong whack on my knee…. and the same thing happened. Oh dear. Looking back I should’ve just played it like I was showing the guys who’ve never had to break before how tough the boards are, instead of what was probably turning red and laughing. Everyone passed during what was quite a tough grading, and for a while I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t doing it too. Only for a very short while though, I’m not stupid.

We had a big group lesson afterward with all the guys from Falmouth who came across to grade, which packed the dojang. It’s always good to get everyone together to train though, we did some enjoyable takedown work and in a bit of a break from the norm we did some traditional Korean wrestling. There’re not many times where being one of the biggest guys in the club is an advantage; this was one of them.

All that remains for today is what to get for lunch to take to the park and eat, it’s far too nice to stay in :).

1 Response

  1. Hey-look at that! How exciting! Keep posting pictures!!!

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