Phuthu Stay Phut, Don't go!

We’re on a group ride in the valley of 1000 hills and I’m riding along the dead flat road, minding my own business, taking in the scenery around me and then all of a sudden – and I really mean all of a sudden – my handlebars and Binki Bonker’s handlebars are interweaving like koeksisters and I’m sliding and bouncing all over the ground watching my bike do the same thing two metres in front of me. It.all.happened.in.slow.motion.

I wouldn’t have thought my man was to blame had he not turned around quite so suddenly and said “Sorrrrry” with a guilty grin on his face. He felt real bad. He was bunny hopping into puddles and splashing Tania and Bink Bonker and somehow his actions set in place a chain reaction. The events unfolded like so: Tania sees imminent drenching of muddy water and swerves across into Binki, Binki swerves into me and I go break dancing on the gravel.

The suspect

The evidence.

A close-up of the evidence. Ewww!

This wasn’t sore but just thought I’d show you the evidence whilst you’re having breakfast. Hee Hee! Aren’t you glad I spared you the photo of my grazed buttocks? Yes, I see you nodding.

Emla – this is an anaesthetic cream which is great because you can clean the grit and dirt out of the wound without pulling your husbands chest hairs out.

This was the sore part: not the actual injection but the bruised feeling in my arm the next day. Apparently, it’s a side effect of Tetanus injections so if you ever get one, don’t feel alarmed if your arm feels as though you’ve just been shot with a paint ball gun the following day. Also, if you plan on doing the Tetanus shot yourself, remember that it’s a subcutaneous injection so you need to pinch the skin slightly and aim the needle at a slight angle. You don’t want the needle to go into the muscle.

If you haven’t had a Tetanus shot in the last 5 years or if you’re a paddler or mountain biker or someone that just likes to roll around in mud puddles or thorn bushes for the hek of it (psychos), it’s recommended that you get a jab.

As my man says, we’re all in between falls – mine are just more frequent than his.

This makes me

Want to get

Another one

of these..

Have you ever fallen asleep at the dentist? Neither have I. Well, except for yesterday – that’s the only time I promise.  I went to get my amalgam fillings replaced so it was quite a long appointment but besides that, the dentist had a TV in the roof of the theatre which I thought was pretty darn impressive. Somehow the peripheral view of  drills and spit-sucker-uppers protruding from my mouth made watching TV somewhat testing.  National Geographic also knew that I was going to be sitting in a dentist’s chair that afternoon and so they kindly scheduled a 2 hour documentary on Great White Sharks! Yip, just for me because they know how much I like sharks.

And just as a great white flung it jaws open and sunk its teeth into an unsuspecting duck floating on the water, the dentist asked,  ”Are you all right there Louise?”

“Uh uh uh huh” I mumbled, still reeling in shock that the poor birdie was a birdie no more.

And that’s when I just closed my eyes and drifted off, unable to deal with any further trauma. Can you blame me?

Little did I know that the anaesthetic would only wear off at about 9.30 that evening – a secondary trauma in itself! Do you know how mortifying it was when I looked in the mirror and realised that I could not, despite Olympian effort, flare my right nostril? It really messed with my sense of symmetry. But at 9.30pm, I could finally drink a cup of tea with a 100% retention rate, I could smile without looking like Elvis and lastly, I could flare both nostrils to the same circumference. Man, that made me happy!

Why are my trips to dentists always so eventful?

Superjerm actually wrote the article below a couple of weeks ago but I didn’t publish it because I thought that the cooking bug that I contracted all those weeks ago (that he talks about below)would have disappeared by now and the lust for cooking would be null and void. But I’m proud to say, tis not the case. *Gobsmacked expression*. I’m still cooking up a hurricane and so herewith, I present to you, Superjerms personal account after the first week of my cooking bug:

I’m not sure how it happened but the Phuthu lady’s passion for cooking has been awakened……!

I doubt it’s the numerous cook books we have in our bookshelves, the recipes she posts on her websites or the take away saturation levels we’ve reached…….perhaps she thinks I am wasting away and needs to fatten me up a bit!

From someone who’s most adventurous cooking escapade was tossing a few frozen crumbed pieces of fish plus a few spuds in the oven to someone who cooks better than Nigella!

So, for the past week, I’ve had 5 course meals every night, I’ve already put on 5 kgs and am budgeting on another 5 by the end of the month! My scale whimpers when I look at it and our dishwasher groans at all the dishes it has to clean!

My diner now consists of:

Starters
Some tasty soup – pea and bacon, carrot and ginger or broccoli & lemon

Post starter
Deep fried Halloumi

Pre Main
Yummy home made fish cakes with coriander and spring onion dip

Mains
Better than Mama Lucianos home made meat balls and sauce.

Post main
Fillet with Avo on couscous and red wine jus

Pre-Dessert
More of all above

Dessert
Too packed to even eat a smartie

Every night is something new and exciting, can’t wait for tonight!

Little does he know that I’ve also had my eyes on a delicious pair of leather boots from Zoom for the past month. It’s called “cooking-for-boots”. Hee hee, just kidding.

Dear Diary

Please forgive me. I have an addiction. And I am in love..

..With these legs..

…and calves …

..and forearems

All these dedicated, determined, hard-working, gorgeous thigh muscles.

And just in case you didn’t get what thighs are, I took a representative sample of the study population.  I thought you gals may have needed further explanation.

It’s a pleasure.

So I bet you’ve guessed what the addiction is right? Yup,  Le Tour de France . That race with a whole lot of thigh going on. But thighs aside, I really just love this epic race, it’s such a tactical race and it’s always nail-biting stuff to see how things go down. What really makes me happy is when some guy wins who has never smelt glory in any major bike race before. Their glee, utter glee makes the butterflies in my tummy do a little jingle. I also love it when they hitch a 2 second ride when they pick up drinks from the car. Hee Hee!

I am also having a slight infatuation with these eyes..

They’re so sparkly.

Yes, Alberto Contador‘s Irises, Corneas and Pupils. That’s them right there.

And, then there is The Schlek brothers. Aaah, their love for each other, it’s just too adorable. It makes me want to have 50 children in the hope that at least 2 of them will become whipass cyclists and then ride the Tour De France together, win stages together, get overwhelmed by emotion, hug each other in the end and then make their mamma cry for a week.

But wait…

O Armstrong, Armstrong! wherefore art thou Armstrong? I had withdrawal symptoms for 4 whole years.

But I feel much, much better now thanks.

Diary, I’m already missing the race for next year. Can that at all be possible?

Nope, I wasn’t snuggled up in bed, reading my book, listening to the fireplace crackle or drinking tea. But my goodness that sounds good! I was, if you can believe it, doing something far more exciting. It involved sunshine, soul and a whole lotta zoom. Zoom lenses that is.

I was here, oh yes I was, I got to see the most breathtaking sunrise over Durban harbour. I held my breath for a long time and then I fainted.

No. Not really. I’m not that silly.

Just a little bit silly.

It was part of the Worldwide Photowalk. The idea is that all across the world, photographers gather in groups and take photos for two hours. Don’t ask me the relevance of two hours, I have zero clue but I’m sure I’d feel like a better person if I knew why. Then if any of the photographers get some great pics, they can put forward their best photos and compete for the best photo competition.

I don’t know much about photography. In fact I know nothing, zippo, zilcho. Superjerm is trying to teach me but for fear of him going grey prematurely, I limit the number of questions I ask to 50 a day. Often, I ask the same question 50 times: What the hek is Aperture?  It’s complicated.

But what I do know is that I like taking photos of my man taking photos. My cowboy. I love cowboys.

And he likes to take photos of other people taking photos. Like this one. He called this one “Urban Cowboy”.

He called this one “Urban Cowboys” . Note the plural

And this is “Cowgirl”, not suburban or urban or peri-urban cowgirl, just “Cowgirl”.

Have you figured out that we all had to don Cowboy hats?…Yee-Haa? Yee Haa!

And then after taking 1 million photos, Cowboy and Cowgirl rode off into the distance, leaving only a cloud of dust behind them. The End.