Apologies - meant to blog last night but the time simply got away from me. d and I went to Cardiff, my girl still streaming with the resurgence of the Boomerang Flu, as she had her first British hen party to go to.
This was her, ten minutes before she had to be out the door
It was gonna be a good night, clearly.
We booked a hotel in Cardiff to have somewhere to retire to at the end of the night, checked in and went to dinner. When we came back to the hotel, it had acquired a couple of bouncers.
Bouncers in some heavy-duty gear. Police bouncers, in fact. Along with a man who clearly liked having his hands behind his back as a restful stance in stressful situations. One of the cops was pulling on a latex glove as we pushed past them into the hotel.
There was what's been described in the news as a 'heavy, armed police presence' in Cardiff last night, because some gentleman enthusiast had a BB gun.
So - perfect night for a hen party, then.
There were about 18 of them in total. I walked d to the first stop, turning on my MapMyWalk app before we left the hotel. Turns out, MapMyWalk's GPS - or my phone's - can't cope with Cardiff Queen Street. It was baffled by the route I took, which was basically two straight lines in the drizzle. As d was introduced to the...uniqueness...of a Valleys hen night, I buggered off back to the hotel room to write. Then as midnight approached, and on a Cinderella principle, I went down to a local nightclub to collect her, and as many of the revellers as we could find, and eventually, with occasional bathroom breaks and burger bar breaks (none for me), we wound our way like a mostly pink-shirted herd of cats through the streets, avoiding the cops, to the pick-up point. I'm reliably informed a good time was had by all...except, just possibly the mystified twentysomething guy who ended up wearing the knickers of one of our party over his jeans. I have no idea, don't ask.
When we finally got back to our hotel at 2am, having gotten everybody to a place where they needed to be, we almost staggered to the lift.
It went 'bing.'
A big cop was standing in it, with an equally big bike.
'Evening all,' he said - yes, really - as he tried to manoeuvre the front wheel out through the lift doors. I have no particular explanation as to where he'd come from, or why he felt the need to have his bike with him.
'Vive la France!' It was the first thing I could think of. He walked his bike away, muttering about 'bloody drunks.'
Today, we've spent the day for the most part wandering from shop to shop in a furniture fantasy, and eating - had a French breakfast, and a Mexican dinner. Tonight, came home and pedalled the bike, but not for long. I'm fairly sure if I'd turned the MapMyWalk on throughout the course of the day, I'd have clocked up maybe a few kilometres, from store to store and department to department, but hey, who knows, because I didn't do that.
Tomorrow's a whole new day, with whole new opportunities to walk my ass off and eat sensibly. Tried to do that today - ate some bacon, but avoided the sumptuous boudin noir, which is insanely rich and fat-filled, and in the Mexican place, went for simple things, nothing deep fried, and not too much. So I feel pretty good about where we are, and there are still two more days before the weigh-in.
Now - important snoring to be done before the morning. To the SnorePit, Batman!
