Friday Nights

We have a routine on Friday Nights, SJ and me.  Firstly there is the trampoline lesson to go too.  SJ started trampoline lessons when we lived in Staffordshire and she soon got the hang of them.  There were moments of worry when some warm up exercises involved forward roles, because of the weakness of the neck bones connected to the spine it is always a worry when SJ does anything that involves forward roles, but she had an x-ray years ago and that didn't show up anything untoward.  That was when she was about thirteen or fourteen, so she will have been going for a few years now.  When we moved it was one of the first things that I found out about.  I am so glad that we did, because SJ one her first gold award for competing in her first competition!  I was very very proud, not least because, as always, I was fretting that she wouldn't get the sequence right, I couldn't remember it, still can't, or that she would loose her balance and topple off, even though, touch wood, she never has.  Once again SJ surpassed expectations and when the time came gave a near perfect performance.

After the trampoline lesson we normally have a couple of drinks at our local pub, The George, this can be before or after we have tea, depending on how we feel.  In the summer this may carry on to a couple more, but generally we are back home by about 8ish.  You meet some very interesting people in the pub.  Both locals and holidaymakers. 


Some Friday nights are different and every now and then there is either something going on in the village or there are people about, who we know, or get to know and can be part of their Friday night's entertainment.  SJ loves these Friday nights the best.  So much so that sometimes I am desperate to go home but have to stay out longer......honest, I HAVE to stay out longer, as she is having such a good time.  Over the last few weeks there has been an auction at which SJ bid, though I did have to hold her hands down when she started bidding for a stuffed dog that was bigger than she was, twice over.  When the auction was over we had been chatting to a guy who, as it turned out, did magic card tricks!  What a bonus.  

Then another Friday was the annual Bonfire Night, which has to be decided according to the tide.  It has to be a night when it is just one tide!  I know nothing of this!  It was only recently that I discovered the significance of know about tides coming in and out, when SJ and I had gone for a walk, which is always a painful experience as one of us doesn't like walking, and it isn't me! Anyway on the return journey SJ was beginning to slack off and I kept on trying to tell her that we would be caught out by the tide.....what was I thinking.  SJ has no concept of the consequences that would make...so we did get caught out and had to climb onto an old shipping ramp and clamber through property that is not public etc but then it added to the excitement of the walk and SJ does remember it, so I can always use it as an example of what might happen.  Bonfire night was amazing and SJ loves to collect glasses in the two local pubs, The George and The Beaver, she can collect up to six now, three in each hand?

Then this Friday night we went out as usual and ended up playing drinking games....Ring of Fire? and Catch the Bus..... never heard of them......no nor me.....but we did have a great time and do you know what I love the most.....is that SJ is doing what teenagers who are over 18 do...going to the pub.......having a few to drink, though Malibu and pineapple juice is not altogether rock and roll or the sort of drink that students would drink but she is there and she is doing it and she is having fun and chatting and meeting new people .......who are nearer to her age than I am.

Course it remains to be seen how long I can keep up with drinking games at my age, especially when I lose the round and have to drink the disgusting combination of drinks in the centre of Ring of Fire........gross.....I can still taste the Malibu....but hopefully she will be going on her own when all I want to do is curl up by the fire.  Which will happen, but not yet!