A weekend of excess ....

Phew - it's been a good weekend (mostly), but I honestly feel like I have consumed way too much. Too much food. Too much drink. Too much sun.

Friday afternoon I shot off from work to go mountain biking. I was going to post some photos up here of how glorious the trail looked, but unfortuately, they're currently stuck on my phone and I can't download them. I rocked up to the centre to find it really quiet, which was how I wanted it, but I still felt a bit nervous about going out on my own. Of the few other people there, they all seemed to be the usual guys who know exactly what they're doing with their bikes, competent and kitted out to the nth degree. I didn't mess around, just put my bike together and got out of the trail away from anyone seeing me doing something stupid. Actually once I was on the trail I barely saw a soul. They'd been logging in the area recently, and where this had crossed the trail it was sometimes really hard to actually work out where it went as it because practically invisible, but away from those mercifully short sections, it was generally in pretty good condition. Certainly better than the last time I was here, when it was a foot deep in mud!

I started to race round the first circuit, and soon realised that I'm not yet as fit as I think I am! The climbs were really taking it out of me - legs and lungs burning, and not helped when my chain was occasionally jumping which threw me off my rhythm. Once I slowed my pace a bit, I found it easier, and stated to enjoy the downhills and all the drops, jumps and turns. After about 45 mins, I tore out the end of the trail feeling pretty chuffed and stopped at the car. Checking the time, I debated quickly whether I had the time and energy left to try for a second circuit, and so headed back into the woods again.

The second attempt started better as my pace was steadier, and I had the advantage of the trail being fresh in my memory this time which helped to pick out the lines to take. However, it quickly became apparent the skipping chain on the first lap wasn't a one off, and the problem started snow-balling as the chain started jumping off completely or coming slack and sticking with alarming regularity. I persevered for a bit longer, before jumping off to inspect it properly, and finally realised that part of the chain guard (a piece of plastic that I never bothered to strip off when I first got the bike) has snapped and jammed between the wheel and the rear cassette, preventing the wheel from spinning freely. Not the best thing having a bike that can't freewheel properly when you're out on singletrack that deliberately goes up and down hill.

Since I didn't have any tools with me, or anyway to fix the problem, I limped on a bit further on the bike, until I got a section that would be absolutlely impassable with the bike in it's current condition (i.e. everytime I went downhill and freewheeled to any extent, the chain pulled slack, and I'd then have to put in 3 or 4 full turns of the pedals to pull it taut again before I could actually put any power in with the pedals). At this point I was close enough to the end of the trail to decide to risk using one of the wide open logging trails to try and run paralell to the trail and find my way back to the centre. 5 mins later I made it back to the car grumpy, but relieved, and with just enough time left to grab a shower and shoot off to meet the girls for dinner.

Dinner was lovely but, my god, it was rich! Couldn't finish all of either my main or dessert, despite the fact that I was absolutely starving when I got there. It was great seeing the girls though and catching up on the going's on at my ex-work. Made it home about midnight and collapsed into bed.

Yesterday I was up bright and early at 7 for the wedding. For once I was out on the road on time and over with Jo and Lissa in plenty of time to get changed and get some make-up on before we left for the church. It was a beautiful day, both in terms of the weather and the service and reception. The bride looked ravishing, the speeches were emotional and the venues were lovely.

The food was pretty good, if not the best for someone on WW's, but I think it was the free-flowing champagne and wine that was the killer. Because I wasn't pointing, having worked quite hard all week to earn my day off, I paid no attention at all to what I was drinking, and since I've been drinking far less anyway since the start of the year, suffice it to say that it all got the better of me, and I was quite ill when we finally made it home, before passing out in bed. I'm pretty embarrassed by that, although at least I didn't do anything stupid at the wedding itself.

All in all we had a glorious day:

The picture at the very top of this post was taken just after Jo had flashed her pants at me for some unknown reason - hence my slightly traumatised expression!!!

Weigh in's tomorrow morning, and right now I feel like a total heifer, so I will be extremely surprised if I've lost anything this week. Guess I'll just have to get my head down and concentrate next week. The one nice thing I have taken away from this week though is that my confidence in myself is definitely on the rise. I had lots of nice compliments yesterday, and I now just casually accept them and thank the giver of them. I also noticed that I didn't have any moments yesterday when I felt self-conscious (well, apart from when I started to feel very drunk and didn't want to do anything stupid lol), and Lissa commented this morning that I seemed much more self-assured, especially larking around in front of the cameras.

Anyway - I'm exhausted so I'm going to head for bed now. The final test will be tomorrow when I climb on the scales - I will report in tomorrow.