Happy Days Part 2

Well here we are, part 2 of our very busy weekend and by far the absolute best part. You'll see why in a moment. Just in case you haven't seen it you can catch up with part 1 here, as you can see, it really was fabulous, but Sunday really was the icing on the cake.


Continuing the birthday celebrations of the previous week, D's friend was in for a big surprise starting at 9am when we all rocked up to the local golf club for breakfast (and there was a fair few of us). I caused much bemusement with my breakfast order because I wanted a vegetarian version of one of the standard breakfasts. I'm not veggie, but I really can't handle all that grease first thing in the morning, but the confusion my order caused was, well let's just say, I wasn't expecting it to be quite that complicated. Still, once the poor girls had got their heads around it, all went well and my breakfast arrived as ordered and was very yummy indeed. Now I apologise here, as I left my phone in the car so you are just going to have to imagine the breakfast, which dependent on how hungry you are whilst reading this may or may not be a good thing.

Anyhow, breakfast done we all headed off to our main destination of the day with the birthday boy still completely oblivious as to what was in store. That in itself was quite a miracle, given that several people had let slip what was happening, but thankfully he hadn't managed to compute it, and so a surprise it remained.

Our destination for the day was Lee Valley White Water Centre where we were booked to go white water rafting. Now, I know it wasn't my birthday, but it may as well have been because I have wanted to do this for a very long time now. That said, I had spent the two weeks prior to the main event absolutely convinced I was going to die (obviously I didn't or I wouldn't be able to tell you about it). The park was used for various events during the London 2012 Olympic Games, and if you take a look at their website you will see that there are a multitude of things to do there, it really is worth a visit.

We had a quick intro, telling us where to go to collect our wetsuits, change into them and then where to take our belongings. All the usual boring, but essential stuff and then we were off. Getting into the wetsuit wasn't quite as horrendous as I thought it might be, but being an oompah loompah, I did have a few inches of extra material on my arms and legs; perhaps they need to make petite wetsuits...perhaps they do already. Anyway, I managed to get in it and then headed out for the main safety briefing and instructions, plus a helmet and a buoyancy aid (because safety first). Our instructor, Jen was absolutely brilliant. She had a wicked sense of humour, was slightly bonkers and pretty loud, but above all, she was brilliant at her job and made sure we were good with the basics before letting us hit the rapids. Actually, you can't hit the rapids until you pass the swimming test, which involves jumping in floating down a wee rapid then swimming across a strong current to get out, then you get to do the fun part, and it really is fun.

Please note: this is not us, we all looked much better - honest!

I was so nervous, but once we got paddling I was so focused on putting my back into it, keeping time with the person in front and listening to the instructions Jen was shouting to us, that I totally forgot about being scared, but boy, was that paddling hard work, especially for someone with rubbish upper body strength, like myself. Needless to say, when I got the opportunity to ride up front and not have to paddle, I jumped at the chance and that's where I stayed for the last two runs. Now, let me just say, it wasn't entirely down to me being lazy, it was also because it was awesome! You get such a buzz because when your boat is paddling hard into the rapid the front of the boat goes into the wave, which means you go into the wave too, it's so exciting. However, I was absolutely shattered after such a physical afternoon that after bailing out and swimming to the side of the lake, poor D had to swim back out to come and rescue me as I literally didn't have the strength left to swim anywhere. I am such a lucky girl, I'm pretty sure most men would have left me floating in the lake whilst they peed themselves laughing at my dilemma, but not my man, thankfully, he is an absolute star and after a cuppa which he kindly got for me (everyone else was on the beer), I felt a whole lot better.

I can honestly say, I had the best time ever white water rafting and I will definitely do it again, but there are also a lot of other activities that I want to tick off my list of things to do before I'm 50. I just have to find something that's going to be as exciting.

So that was my weekend, music, drinking (soft drinks, I was driving) and white water rafting, all in good company; what more could a girl ask for?