Adrenaline Rush

Must go to bed soon as I'm getting up tomorrow (Saturday!) at 5 something in time to be picked up at 6. A friend and I are off on a bike ride with our group. This one is a 'cane ride' - as in a ride predominantly through sugar cane farms, with the emphasis on fitness and distance rather than on technical mountain biking skills. Depending on where we ride, we get a very different biking experience. Thursday afternoon I had my best ride ever. Switchbacks (zig-zagging paths up steep ascents), rivers, rocks, drop-offs, bridges. The adrenaline rush is incredible, and I come home and sort of glow for about 24 hours after. It's like all my adult life I've been waiting for this, and I just didn't know it. Although I've been keen to get into bikes for a few years, I had no idea what mountain biking would actually entail. I think I am someone who has a real need for physical thrill and challenge. When I was a child, sailing provided me with a somewhat similar experience, but that ended when I left school (other than the odd day casual sailing with the family). The biking is filling a gap I hadn't managed to identify before.

My euphoric mood from yesterday's bike ride came to a sudden halt this afternoon when Stephen, at a party, took rather a nasty fall on his own bike ('bike' = black plastic toddler's push-along bike) at a birthday party. The house has a large gently sloping tarred drive along the front, and I idly noticed that Stevie was having fun scooting along it. Five seconds later I looked again to see him hurtling down the other (incredibly long, and much steeper) section of the driveway, curving down towards the bottom of the garden. He must have rounded the corner and just kept going. It just never occurred to me that he would do that. Stupid of me. I started running, scattering glass of coke and keys as I went, but there was no way I could reach him in time, and he landed hard on the tar. Grazed and bruised arm, shoulder, and cheek, and a nasty little cut above the eye. I need to watch him more carefully. He is so independent and capable I can forget he is so little and inexperienced still. I am neurotically careful with Bad Stuff like Swimming Pools and Cars, but tend to be a bit too relaxed with other things. These things happen to kids, but this incident was totally avoidable if I'd just been keeping a better eye on him. Anyway, got to just learn from it and move on, I guess. Visit to the clinic, magic glue on his cut (so much less traumatic than stiches), and an x-ray just to check the wrist (no fractures, huge relief), lollipop. No major damage I suppose. I hope he is not scared of his bike now!

Life is incredibly full and busy. Lots of good stuff, but really, really busy.

We spent several hours last Saturday at Lauren's first gymnastic 'levels' competition. It was fun, and quite a lot more formal than the casual ones she has attended in the past. Different gyms from all over the province sent gymnasts. It was fun to see all the teams in their club colours. We were all thrilled when she received a fifth place (out of 13 in her section), and we were also quite surprised at the result, as she got a disappointing score on beam due to her omitting a couple of steps in the routine. This meant she got into the medals (six medals for each section) and got to stand up with the other medal winners.

Other than gymnastics twice a week, Lauren also still does ballet (also twice a week), and recently joined a Cubs group, which meets on Tuesday evenings. Add to this three school extra-murals (hockey, sewing club, and an academic extension group), and recorder and choir, also at school, and she is a very busy little person. Seems to thrive on it though, and fortunately homework is currently something she can dash off without much trouble in between all of this. A couple of weeks ago, she joined me on her first 20ish km bike ride - one of the events at the Karkloof Classic MTB event. The ride was several km longer than planned - an enormous swarm of bees caused the ride to be detoured along unprepared tracks strewn with logs and other obstacles. I was so proud of how well she did. Peter did the 10km ride with Robyn and they also had fun. I'm hoping Robyn will soon feel confident enough to come on the slightly longer rides.