It's just after 4pm on a Sunday and I'm about to embark on a week-long holiday to Scotland. But now, I'm procrastinating from preparing a presentation on the infinitely exciting topic of "Takeover Offers and Schemes of Arrangement (Time Table and Key Differences)".

Grr....

On the plus side though, I've had a lovely Saturday - the weather (which never fails to dictate my mood) was cold and crisp and sunny and Emma my lovely house mate had dragged me off to the nearest sports centre to force teach me to play squash.

Friday night flatmate conversation:

Emma: "You better like it - I want someone to play with."
Shu: "I'll like it if I can hit the ball."
Emma: "Are you likely not to hit the ball?"
Shu: "Erm... Sometimes I can't see balls when I'm tired. [attempting to excuse poor hand-eye coordination]"
Emma: "What ... GO TO SLEEP NOW THEN!"

So, ordered to bed shockingly early on a Friday night, I was completely ready and wide-awake at 10am (and praying that my hand-eye coordination wouldn't completely fail me) when we trudged off to play the next morning. But it just wouldn't be a typical weekend for us without some sort of drama happening.

When we arrived at the squash court, there were BLOODSTAINS on the floor. Apparently someone had an accident in an earlier session. Yup, great introduction to the very safe sport of squash for me.

Emma dragged a member of staff over (who arrived with a roll of tissues) who kept saying "Oh but it's dry, you won't slip so you can play!" and it took quite a bit of effort not to strangle her despite our insistence that this wasn't the point. At all.  Finally, another more sane member of staff arrived and directed us to the next court which was free. And we could finally start playing - blood-free.

After about 5 minutes of swinging the racket and missing the ball completely, and another couple minutes of sky-high wild shots, I finally got the hang of it and surprised myself by being able to rally a few shots. It was actually quite good fun! (And yes, because I can hit the ball I am liking squash very much).

Unfortunately, distracted by the bloodstain episode, we had forgotten to stretch or do any kind of warm-ups. With the result that I woke up this morning and nearly killed myself getting out of bed. Surprisingly, my arms were fine... the burning aches concentrated in my lower thighs and for some reason that completely bewilders me - just below my butt. Which meant that I couldn't bend over or sit properly for the rest of the day, which must have looked extremely weird to Emma when I woke up, said hi, made a cup of tea, walked over to the armchair and spent about 5 minutes lowering myself down in extreme slow motion.

Very dignified way to end a weekend...