round and round

So on Thursday night there was a dinner at the foyer. It was the usual crowd, a propos a few - the basketball chicks, Erwan & Manu, Katrin, who I hadn't seen in a while, and most importantly Ashu as cook. We had some bbq'd tandoori chicken and another chicken curry, which was all pretty good. It was also kind of farewell for Liz before heading over to Vancouver for summer. Good craic.

On Friday I had lunch with Tortue and Liz in town, which was nice. Later in the afternoon I went for my second (and first proper) pyhsio appointment. He put me through a bunch of exercises designed to make my knee work under some static pressure, which also put my lower calf and quad muscles to good work. He seems pretty confident I'll be back running around in short time, which is good.

I had grand plans to do, like, "stuff", on Saturday, but mice, men, and all that. Mostly I just bummed around, watched football, played FIFA. And sweated. It has turned hot all of a sudden here, and even sitting around in a singlet, I was in stuck-pig mode for not insignificant intervals. On Sunday I got off my bum a bit, did some shopping, had some lunch and headed out on the bike (having received the OK from the physio on Friday) with my iPod. I rode up to Betton and back along the canal, by pedometer 33-odd km, by bike computer about 35. Interestingly, its my hip flexors that get tired/sore with cycling, not my quads as it probably should be.

After my ride I wandered by the braderie (giant communal garage sale) around the corner and caught up with Erwan, who was manning a stall with his brother-in-law Bernard and father-in-law Thierry. After a brief family meeting, we headed over to Bertrand's (brother-in-law) place, just 100m or so from mine, to meet Arnaud and watch the Australia-Brazil game. Australia played OK, and probably didn't deserve to lose by 2 goals, but could not claim to have earned a win. Brazil were underwhelming. After that we headed back to Manu's parents place, 200m from mine in the other direction (small world), for an apero before the france game. To recap, participants included: myself, Manu & Erwan, Arnaud, Manu's sister and husband, Manu's mum & dad, grandma, and 3 little ones asleep upstairs. We had dinner, a summery help-yourself type thing with salad and cold meats, and watched the france game, with Erwan, Arnaud and Bernard particularly on edge. France were unlucky to draw, but were nonetheless unconvincing in attack, and fatigued noticably towards the end of the match. Why Domenech waited until the 90th minute to put in subs for a tired Zidane and an ineffective Henry, is beyond me.