All Change

I have a few problems with my planned activities over the following week...

My guest for next weekend has had a financial crisis and isn't coming to the UK after all. This means that (a) she won't be here on the Thursday and Friday which I've taken off work, (b) she won't be joining me to fly at Airkix on Friday afternoon, and (c) she won't be joining me for the Torture Garden Rubber Ball special on Friday evening.

I can probably unbook my holiday on Thursday and save it for another day, but as I've got Airkix booked I will be needing to go to that (no cancellations, no refunds), so I'm going to have to keep the Friday off - and either fly 12 minutes all to myself (greedy!) (and tempting!!) or find someone who'd like to buy some of them from me (I intend to fly 8 or 10 of them, but it would be nice to have some company if anyone else wanted to buy the other 2 or 4). The problem with that is that it's a 2pm flight, so it will probably have to be someone without a job, to have Friday afternoon off on less than a week's notice... which doesn't tend to be people who can afford indoor skydiving.

Friday evening is TG's Rubber Ball special, for which I currently have four tickets - one for me, one for my guest, one for Helen, and one for someone to keep Helen company. So at this point I need to sell two of those tickets - any takers?

The week that was...

Saturday (last weekend) I went to Raindance, with libellum, flippit and fire_brand. The music was fantastic - I could have danced all night on any one of five of the dancefloors (drum and bass, happy hardcore, hard house, old skool, and um, something else), and half the night on the sixth (90s cheese).

The drunk guy who stuck his hand up Fliss's skirt was less fantastic. Especially when, after I grabbed his wrists to stop him groping her, he headbutted me in the face and nearly broke my nose. I hate drunks.

So, we left relatively early (4am), and headed back to the House of Monkeys, where we found a sleepy denari just finishing an epic video game mission. We chatted quietly for an hour or two, then all headed off to our various beds.

Sunday we got up late and had breakfast, then we had roast dinner not that long after it. So that was filling. Then we set fire to things and whirled them around, as per video already posted. I really need to spin fire more often, I keep forgetting how much fun it is.

During the week I've been steadily coming down with the lurgies of doom that everybody else has already been attacked by. I had Tuesday off work, and seriously considered taking Friday off too but decided against it in the end - work has been busy lately and I don't like taking time off unless I really feel like I need it. Speaking of work, on Thursday we had an excellent strategy meeting in the afternoon. I can only assume that I'm now fully into pointy-haired manager territory, when I leave a four hour meeting feeling like it was an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

Last night I went flying again - this time for 8 minutes (4 x 2 minute slots). It was really good - I spent the first couple of minutes just arsing around, rather than trying to learn anything, which put me in a really good mood for the rest of the session. skorpionuk and dakeyras were with me as part of his birthday present, as was pieces_of_ele as part of her mission to do everything possible in the six days remaining before she heads back to Australia (via the USA). They all did really well, and had lots of fun too from what I could tell.

In my other slots I practised some of the things I've been trying to learn recently, and roamed around the tunnel touching the wall wherever the instructor pointed at it as quickly as possible, which was fun. I get in and out of the tunnel by myself now, rather than being helped in and out, which helps me to feel a bit more competent. In the last session we did 'stability training', which was hilarious... the instructor got me to fly in the middle of the tunnel at about head height, then got me to do a serious of increasingly absurd actions; nazi-salute sort of movements, putting my hands on my head, putting one hand on my hip (didn't manage that one, it's bloody tricky!), and so on. Oh yes, and 'doggy paddle' - good lord that was silly. It's really hard not to flail your legs around when you're doing that with your arms :) As Col's flight was a birthday present, Bec paid for a DVD of the occasion, which should also feature my inane activities - I'll try to get some clips posted up at some point.

The next part of stability training was when the instructor started wandering behind me and 'stealing' the airflow from underneath various bits of me. It's quite disconcerting when (for instance) one of your legs suddenly loses all lift, and compensating for it was an interesting challenge. This part of the session culminated in him putting his feet centrally underneath me, with his body facing me but his back arched so much that his torso was nearly horizontal, and then spinning around underneath me in a very disconcerting fashion. It felt quite a lot like being in a small dinghy on large swell waves - odd rolling sensation. I did a very credible job of not falling out of the air, although I did giggle quite a lot when he came into view at such an odd angle beneath me.

I was pretty pleased with the whole session really, and was on an endorphin/adrenaline high all the way back to London and to steerpikelet's birthday party.

Said party was fun in places, but my adrenaline did wear off fairly swiftly, so I gave Ele a lift home and headed back to my bed at about 4am, where I stayed until gone midday today. The cold/cough seems to have quite a thorough foothold now, so I'm probably going to spend the rest of the weekend lurking in bed and sulking. Boo, germs. On the bright side, I have a lot of shiny new books to read.