Way of the Weekend: Episode 3

Sunday

7am- Wake up 3 hours ahead of time for the second day in a row despite not getting home from hospital until 2.30 in the morning. What exactly is going on here?! Go back to sleep for the required 3 hours after brief moment of insanity where I consider going to church with Ian who has been hassling me about getting some healing for my knee since Tuesday.
11am- Wake up after the apparent 4 hours my body required, take my time getting out of bed. Get on the Tornado and suss out the accuracy of rumors of a gathering at Heather's between lunch and church, gossip is unusually accurate, consider going before remembering I was coerced into doing the talk at Mosaic (Youth Church) this Sunday night and that I haven't written the talk yet due to a day trip and a visit to the nice people at the hospital.
1pm- Emerge from spiritual trance which I entered in procrastination, um, I mean preparation for my talk to go eat lunch. Sunday Dinner!! I love Barbara's cooking, almost every Sunday we get a roast for lunch and it is amazing!!
2.30- Re-enter spiritual trance after eating lunch and doing the dishes.
4pm- Start getting worried that I won't be able to watch the football because of needing to finish talk.
4.30- Worry increases slightly.
4.50- Worry has upgraded to a panic!!
5pm- Leave talk one third finished and go watch the first 5 mins of the football. Australia vs. Brazil. Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!
5.10- Pry myself away from the football after the uh, planned 10mins and a quick discussion with James about the wisdom of changing my topic to procrastination or values based decisions and winging it. Make a values based decision and return to my work.
6pm- Leave talk now 3 quaters finished to watch the start of the second half. Return in the knowledge that we are playing well and have the slimmest chance of a draw which is what I was hoping for.
6.20- Get called back out because Brazil have scored, 1-nil... it's a respectable loss to the reigning world champs.
6.30- Have a sudden brain waive and remember that as Mosaic starts at 6.30 and my ride is not going to get there until closer to 7 and as I am the speaker and no one there knows that I am actually coming they might be getting a little bit worried at this point. Call a panic'd Jill, update her on the situation, reassure her I will be there just as soon as the match has finished (no need to stress her with the detils of my preparation) before going back to my room and finishing the talk.
6.35- Get a call back from Sonja who asks if I would (read: informs me that I will) be ready when Jill comes to get me instead of waiting for Mim. For the sake of world peace, noise pollution and the intact-ness of my ass; I agree to this "suggestion". I watch the rest of the match. Some bloke called Fred scores for Brazil off a flukey rebound. 2-nil. The score's not that important really, I mean, it's all about sportsmanship and representing your country and having fun right? ...bloody Fred...
6.45- Jill arrives to pick me up. "Don't worry, it's ok, just avoid Sonja" she tells me. As it turns out they rearranged the order of the service so that not only would I be there in time but that I would have some time to settle and for them to pray for me... nice to know your loved... bit embarrassing to let them down...
7pm- Jill pulls a bunch of leaders out of the service to pray for me.
7.15-Start talking, begin with the story of dislocating my knee and Mim "fixing" it, everyone kills themselves laughing and I deliver the line "so tonight I'm going to talk about laughing at other peoples misfortunes" more laughter, clapping etc, do my talk which takes far less time than anticipated and come to a surprised end what I hope was 10mins later.
8pm- Soccer!! (we actually started before 8 but it was at about 8 that the match really started to get going) I played a great game on an injured knee -Ian said I was playing better injured than I had fit- and made good use of my head (did remember later that the head injury card they gave me at the hospital told me to avoid 4 things; large meals, well lunch wasn't that large, I mean, I could have eaten more... physical exersion, football... but it was my come back game!! knocks to the head of any sort, look- I scored 3 great goals with my head and one of them was the winner and I'm fine so just drop it. And alcohol, that rule I did stick to but I don't drink normally so I'm not sure it counts...
10pm- Get a call from Trueman who wants to go to Wendover woods. Why not? Wendover here we come!!
10.30- Get to Wendover woods with Truem's and Megan and wait for Heather and Andy to show up. The woods are closed to cars at nite so we parked at the golf club down the road who happened to have left 2 golf buggies out. Curious by nature I inspected them and started pretending to drive one by putting my foot on the accellerator... and that's when the trouble started.
As I pushed the accellerator down the hand brake clicked off automatically and the buggy started rolling backwards down the hill it just happened to be parked on!! I slammed on the brake and stopped the buggy performing a quick search for the hand brake... can't find one. Try releasing the brake, resume rolling, place foot back on brake. Try pulling accellerator pedal back as far as it will go, release brake, roll, brake again. Hmmmmmmm... "Trueman?" ...no response... "TRUEMAN?!" ...no Trueman... Uh-Oh...
After sitting there like a lemon for about a minute I realise there are destructions on the dashboard... "TRUEMAN!?!" ...damnit!! Take a quick look round to make sure no one can see me and start reading destructions. Get to the second last in a series of very random instructions and miraculously it informs me that I need to flick the forward/reverse switch into neutral. Quick search of the dashboard reveals switch, flick switch to what I assume is neutral, take foot off brake..... buggy stays exactly where it is!! (whew)
Run off to find Trueman and kick his ass for dissapearing on me!!
10.45- Andy and Heather rock up. Andy and I climb through a garden on a hill and jump the fence at the top to get to Trueman and Megan, Heather walks back up the hill and comes back on the road, encounter the fabled stinging nettles for the first time during the climb; I still have a scab on my foot a week later. No, really.
11pm- On our walk up to the woods Truem's, Andy and I pull ahead and fade into the darkness before the girls notice what we're doing and then slip off the road. 5mins later 2 very nervous girls walk past our hiding spot calling out abuse and pleas for compassion and maturity... AS IF!!
11.10- Stalk stealthily up the side of the road towards the clearing the girls have chosen to sit in the middle of presumably so we can't scare them... realise two things; 1st- we picked a very bad spot to do this as there is no cover what-so-ever on either side of the road and no way to go through the bushes without announcing our presence more effectively than a brass band. 2nd- that's not going to matter because the girls couldn't see or hear a truck if it had happened to go through that clearing.
11.20- have managed to sneak a good 150metres up the road without yet being seen and am now sitting 5metres away from the other 4 (Andy and Truem's have already "reconnected with the girls) Heather is sitting facing away from me and Truem's and Andy have cleverly put themselves on the other side facing me so that the girls are looking at them, Megan does seem to be wise to their trick though and is keeping vigilant. I walk out of the bushes with Megan looking straight at me, unfortunately for Heather she freezes and only gets off a warning half a second before I scream and grab her causing another rather noisy period of screaming followed by abuse directed at any males in the vicinity.
11.30- Reach the woods and listen to several of Andy's brilliant ghost stories (which he has the amazing ability to make up on the spot) Have a bit of a chat, scare the girls again, more ghost stories, scare girls, chat, walk, ghost stories, scare girls. 2hours later we decide that it's time to go home and sleep. Walk down the massive hill to the golf club -serious;y consider the possibility on the way that we have taken the wrong path as none of us can believe how much longer it seemed to take to leave than it did to get up there.
1.30- Get back to golf club, say goodbye and head home to bed after a great but very long and tiring day...