Keuq

I have a thing for good bags.

By a good bag, I don't mean that it has to be a certain brand but rather that it has to be made well. This means its made from material that I can toss around and not worry about it getting dirty / torn / spoilt, preferably water proof, distributes weight well and preferably have lots of compartments. The type of bag that usually fulfills this criteria - messenger bags. Unfortunately, as with most good things in life, they aren't exactly free.

Just after I graduated from law school, I finally decided to get myself a red crumpler. I remember thinking for ages about whether to get it. I went back to the store a few times, thought about it for an even longer time and then finally decided to get it.

I never regretted buying that bag. Its followed me to countless places, always has just enough compartments for everything and sits pretty comfortably on my shoulder.

Then I discovered that there were other brands for messenger bags, like Freitag and Timbuk2. I did consider getting a larger messenger bag from either brands but could never quite justify it. Sure, the Freitag had plenty of compartments and was definitely tough. I also really liked the concept that they were made from recycled material. Therefore, each and every bag is different. However, when I finally went to their flagship store in Zurich (which btw is very very cool, being built out of old containers), I tried umpteen models and didn't really like the way the bag sat on my back. It just didn't feel comfortable in contrast with my crumpler. So I ended up getting a small cycling bag that can be strapped to my bike frame.

Today, I completed my "triumvirate" of messenger bag brands. I got myself a Timbuk2 from a cycling shop in Hong Kong. I had initially gone there to get winter cycling gear and a pair of road cycling shoes. Fortunately or unfortunately, I got distracted by a rack of Timbuk2 bags. One of the unique things about Timbuk2 bags is that you can choose the "paneling" of each bag. You have three panels in all and the shop had decided to "custom" the middle panel with old-school Chinese posters. I'm a complete sucker for old-school Chinese posters, I've always wanted a larger messenger bag and the price was really good (20% off). I made abit of fuss about some loose stitching inside the bag and got an additional 5% off. All in all, I got a medium sized limited edition Timbuk2 bag for approximately S$150. Score! (Btw, just in case you guys were wondering, I did manage to get all the other winter cycling gear I needed)

I know, initially, I did think the price was a little steep, especially since I already had a messenger bag. It seemed unwise and even a luxury to have two messenger bags. Ultimately, due to the size difference, they will serve different functions. Further, internally, the two bags are built quite differently. And even though I have been working for awhile now, aside from a short few months at the start of my worklife, I've never really carried a proper working bag. Finally, I tend to use bags for years. If I get half as much use out of the Timbuk2 as the crumpler, it'll be worth it.

We'll see. For now, this should suffice in curbing my messenger bag lust...

The past week felt like an "Indian summer", with temperatures reaching a high of 29 degrees Celsius, so much so that I abandoned wearing a pullover outdoors.

I think that was the last warm period proper though as temperatures are now properly low twenties or below. The weather turned quite suddenly (albeit the Hong Kong observatory did give us some warning), leaving us scrambling for cold weather cycling gear this morning. We had to improvise abit as we're still short of arm and leg warmers but at least we have ear warmers now!

Even though I only did a really short ride this morning (for my bike fit), I felt the chill. Brrr.

Definitely need to get some winter gear for riding and cycling. Not really looking forward to the open water swim tomorrow in this temperature. The sea should still be warm but it's the standing around before and after the race that I'm worried about!

Ah well, the only silver lining I can see now is tt at least it's not hot and stuffy in the office as I plug away on this cold Saturday afternoon...

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I remember when I first got to Hong Kong, one of the first condiments I missed was sambal. Sambal with kang kong, sambal with stingray, sambal on the side, sambal...

As a substitute, some well-meaning people proffered me the chilli oil that can be found in all Hong Kong restaurants but it just didn't cut it. I thought it wasn't as flavourful and spicy as sambal. It didn't help that the stuff is swimming in oil and that was all I could taste.

Fast forward about 15 months and I'm hooked on that stuff! Its tasty, flavourful and goes with many dishes. I've also figured out how to minimise the oil I consume when I add it to my dishes. I do realise that not all chilli oils are created equal but I definitely like the Lee Kum Kee one and the one they serve at Fook Lam Moon (restaurant). So yeah, its my sambal replacement.

Now if only you can use it to barbeque stuff...

By "bad feelings" here, it was in relation to my ride or my botched ride this morning.

I've been doing weekend rides on the south side of Hong Kong Island fairly regularly this year. This usually means riding from Wanchai to Tai Tam or Shek O and sometimes back to Wanchai. The south side ride is a "rolling" ride, which means lots of hills, but that's not the tricky part about the ride. The tricky part of the ride is that most of the road is single lane, which means you have to manage to traffic on the ride. Its a toss up as to what's the worst things that can happen to you on the ride - (1) To have a bunch of cars / trucks / buses stuck behind you and one or two or all of them are blaring their horns at you; or (2) To have one or two or all of those vehicles trying to "squeeze" past you and consequently squeezing you into the side-barriers; or (3) Being stuck behind a bus on the middle of a slope and having to unclip as having to clip back on a climb isn't the easiest thing to do.

Today, all of the above happened to me. On the first climb alone, I got "squeezed" a number of times, to the point that I had to unclip and try to re-start on an incline. I think after the second unclipping incident, I started having a bad feeling about the ride. After a few more similar incidents climbing up the Stanley slope, I decided I was done for the day as the bad feeling grew stronger.

I guess, ultimately, you could say I just didn't feel safe on the roads today. The two people I was cycling with went on, but I stopped before Tai Tam and caught a taxi back. I didn't even want to ride back, that's how unsettled I felt!

Considering that we started at our usual time, I'm not sure why traffic was heavier than usual. Its autumn here now, so if anything the traffic should actually be lighter as the beach-going season is over. Whatever it is, I'm still trying to get the "bad feeling" out of my system. It was abit of a nerve-racking experience but this doesn't mean I'm giving up riding. It just means that I have to adjust traffic expectations and do more defensive riding. I'm riding to my race tomorrow so maybe I'll give the south side another shot post-race...

I think the number of times I've trained with the tri club over the past summer can be counted with my ten fingers. Performance was generally abysmal during those sessions - the humidity and stifling heat made it hard to breathe during the run sessions and the swim didn't offer much reprieve as the water would usually be warm.

After a two month layoff from summer training, I just went back to training this week. It's been two full sessions out of two and so far they've been pretty good! No issues with breathing, getting the heart rate up on the run and swim has been quite enjoyable. Based on the times i clocked when we did ten sets of 400m intervals, it looks like I never stopped training. Even before summer, I didn't rmr managing to do 1:40 per round! (granted tt ultimately I only did seven sets in all) The cold weather is indeed masking my lack of training and hence i've dubbed it the "cold weather" bonus.

Whatever it is, the cold weather is making training much more enjoyable, which is just in time as the Phuket race is not far off now...

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I am slowly coming to appreciate how a drink can enhance / complement the flavours of a dish. I know, not exactly an earth shattering revelation but something worth noting, since I've always viewed a drink as something to chase away the blues or simply to quench my thirst.

Aside from the standard stuff like white wine with seafood or ice cold beer with sambal everything, I've finally discovered what's the perfect complement to sashimi and that is ice cold draft Sapporo beer. Given how much I love eating Japanese food, in particular sashimi, this is a very important discovery for me. Prior to aforementioned discovery, there's always been the nagging thought at the back of my mind that nothing quite goes with sashimi. Scalding hot tea kills the freshness of the taste, white wine doesn't cut it, definitely no reds simultaneously and even sake doesn't quite do the trick.

Then came my birthday dinner at Inagiku about two weeks back, where I actually wanted some sake but they didn't serve any in manageable portions, so I had to go for the next best thing - ice cold draft Sapporo beer. In any case, it was something I would have wanted to try as the taste of draft beer is usually unbeatable. Then came the freshest sashimi that I've ever had in Hong Kong, served on a bed of shaved ice. When washed down with the ice cold draft Sapporo beer, it was one of those food ephiphany moments. The ice cold draft Sapporo beer not only enhanced the freshness of the sashimi perfectly but complemented it perfectly. Unbeatable.

So henceforth, the perfect drink with sashimi is ice cold draft Sapporo beer. It'd be interesting to see if any other draft Japanese light beer has the same effect but for now its definitely draft Sapporo beer.

Not a bad discovery at all on the day I became 27. Definitely becoming older and wiser. :P

I've been trying to get back into training mode in preparation for the big Phuket race by doing long runs (one a week). This weekend will mark the beginning of real training - riding, weights (?) and club training.

Given that my last run was a week ago, I thought that I should wake up my legs a litle in anticipation of real training. So the housemate and I trekked up to Bowen road to do a quick run. The weather is significantly cooler now and it was nice to be out and about while HK was just waking up.

The run was a little easier than I thought it would be. Then again, it was about half the distance I've been running and the cool weather sure helped. I hope it's a good sign for the next month of training!

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Cold rainy days inevitably makes me crave for a hot piping bowl of noodles and not just any noodles. Specifically, kway teow noodles dry, teochew style.

One more reason to be glad that I'm going back this weekend. :)

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This weekend, I went back to being a weekend warrior (sadly, my work schedule has consigned me to that breed) and I was pleasantly surprised but what my body remembers.

There was a big tri race today and since I had done squat, the name of the game on Saturday was to "wake" the body up and just do some light exercise. To do that, I decided to finally go for a game of soccer with some finance guys. They play every Saturday and I've been receiving an invite every week but I've never made it. Given that it would be my first game since I moved to HK and I'd be the only girl there, I almost bailed. In the end, I still dragged myself to Sheung Wan for the game and it ended up to be pretty fun! Aside from the fact that it was a beautiful day, more importantly, my body remembers. I can still kick and keep. I played outfield for abit to do the "waking body up" thing, then shifted to between the sticks to give the team abit more balance. It worked out pretty well - positioning, handling and reflexes are mostly there and I loved the moments where I made a clean catch, tipped the ball away and distributed well to get the game going. Those are the moments you live for as a keeper, where your world simplifies and just becomes about getting the ball and you get it. Pure bliss.

The part that my body isn't so happy about remembering is that keeping can sometimes be quite painful, especially when its a hardcourt pitch. I made one frantic save, diving onto the floor, between a bunch of legs to grab the ball and in consequence ended up with some spectacular bruises and small abrasions on my left hip, both elbows and right knee. So maybe playing soccer wasn't quite the perfect warm up for the big tri race on Sunday...

Moving on to the big tri race, it was ITU Hong Kong age group race today. For many triathletes in Hong Kong, its the "IT" race of their season. For me, it was training, since I really have done squat (save for some emergency running this week). I had changed categories from the olympic distance to the sprint (half the OD distance), so I knew I wouldn't suffer too much during the race. Despite having not bricked (i.e. swim, bike and run consecutively) in weeks, I was glad that my body still remembered what was required for it in a sprint distance! I had good transitions and my body seemed fairly comfortable with shifting from one discipline to another. I'm sure my timing won't be spectacular but the bottomline is I came in feeling fairly good about myself. It would have been a good day for a "target" race in terms of timing, given that aside from the choppy waters, the course was mostly flat and the day wasn't too hot. But ah well, I'm just glad to have completed given my complete lack of regular training over the past few months.

The best part about tri I think, is the satisfaction that comes post-training / race. When I walked to the post-race lunch, I could tell that although my body was tired, it was satisfied with the morning workout. It clearly remembers all the pleasant but tiring Sunday morning bricks its done and missed them! Hopefully, I can build some training momentum from this race and get ready for the Phuket race. It will be a "target" race, not because I'm aiming to set a personal best or go under previous timings (I can't anyway, its my first time) but it is still a "target" race because it will be the first time I've done any race longer than a sprint distance! The distance will be one and a half times an olympic distance so it'll bode well for next year if I come out of it feeling alright.

All in all, a good weekend. Nice to know that I can get a soccer game in this country and good to know that secretly, my body seems to enjoy triathlon. While I'm not sure if I can play soccer regularly here (Saturday are usually reserved for tri training and/or rest), its a good option to have for those days when I'm itching for something different from tri.

Before this post becomes yet another one that only remains written in my mind, I should mention that I went surfing last weekend. My first time in Hong Kong!

While Hong Kong is not quite known to be a surfing spot, there are some waves to ride on in winter and before some typhoons. I've been meaning to do this since I got here and so I was really pleased when my colleague informed me that there would be decent waves on Saturday afternoon.

I must say that Hong Kong waves aren't quite anything I've tried to surf on before, even though I concede that my experience is quite limited. They are hard to read, mostly dumpy and there are far too many people in the water (surfers and swimmers). So the odds are that even if you manage to catch a good wave, the chances of killing someone with your board is pretty high. It didn't help that the board I rented was abit dodgy (one broken fin and had stability issues). In short, I didn't manage to stand in the one hour that I was in the water. I did enjoy hanging out with my colleague and other surfers though and the water temperature was just right.

I'll definitely be trying this again. One more thing to do in winter! :)

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It seems that everytime I'm determined to return to regular training again, something will pop up to derail me. If it's not work, it'll be health issues.

First, it was the flu and now I am having a mystery allergic reaction to some insect bite of sort, which has left me with puffy ankles that occasionally become annoyingly itchy. Hence, no training, even though itu is literally round the corner. Bah.

It's not the first time I've had this reaction, so I know I need to be patient and not exacerbate matters. This means no sweat and chlorine and hence no training. Given that I want to train quite badly, it's terribly bad timing on the part of the allergy. I'm hoping it will go away soon. In the meantime, I'm digging deep and trying to master my impatience...

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Apparently, in Hong Kong, the mid-autumn festival here marks the end of the stifling hot humid weather that we've been subjected to for the past few months. The housemate informed me of that small nugget of information when I commented on Sunday (the day after the mid-autumn fest) that it seemed the weather had cooled down.

So far, it seems that the cooler weather is here to stay. The humidity seems to have gone away to bother some other country, which makes walking to and back from work so much more enjoyable. Come another month or so and I will probably have to pack away the slippers and bermudas and break out the winter wear. Most importantly, I'll have to take out the winter training gear.

I remember last year shuddering at the thought of training in winter but somewhere in January, I decided to give the tri thing another shot and I must say that I ended up enjoying it. Sure, it took some getting used to having your ears and nose frozen off while cycling, still swimming outdoors (albeit in a heated pool) and the usually-calm sea becoming a washing machine. But at the end of it, I definitely became better at navigating cross-winds, dealing with choppy waters and the cold. In fact, I quite enjoyed training in the cool weather, so much so that when summer came back, I found out that I was no longer a tropical athelete.

Training has definitely taken a backseat for the past few months. Work has racheted up a few knots in terms of load and intensity and I've had to rearrange some priorities in my life. The weather hasn't helped. As a result, instead of attempting my first olympic distance triathlon next weekend, I have changed categories to the sprint distance. Even then, I'm not quite sure that my body will be up to it, due to a run of poor health that I've encountered. That said, with the cooler weather and hopefully a better handle on work, I'm still hopeful that I will somehow kickstart my training for the Phuket race. The distance for that race is one and a half times of an olympic distance so I better put some proper training in. Otherwise, I guess it'll be a beach holiday for me.

We'll see. I recognise that there's only so much I can do with limited time and energy to spare for training. While, I'm not going to stress myself, I'd like to have a good winter of training again. Otherwise, there will definitely be plenty of other winter things that I can do to enjoy the season like hotpot and hiking!

If anybody remembers, T8 (T10 and blackrain warnings included) mean that we don't have to go to work. So far this year, all the T8s we've gotten have been on weekends, which means that they have been utterly useless and with October approaching, I thought we wouldn't get a "useful" T8 before this typhoon season ended.

Turns out I assumed wrongly, when Typhoon Koppu came calling. It started out as a severe tropical storm off the Philippines, so since Sunday night, a bunch of friends and I have been tracking the course of the typhoon with great interest. For awhile, we thought it was going to be another "useless" T8 but one thing led to another and by 5 p.m., the office was chasing us home. This morning, when I woke up, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the T8 was still up and may only be lowered at 10 a.m.. I guess some off time is better than nothing!

Not that the T8 is making much of a difference in terms of my worklife, since I had to lug work home but at least I am not in the office and have bought myself some time for some of the deadlines.

What are the odds of one last "useful" T8 before the end of the season?

At swim training, the club has two lanes, which the coach has dubbed the "fast" and the "faster" lane.

Since I've joined the club, I've always swam in the "fast" lane (i.e. for beginners and intermediate swimmers). During breaks, we would watch the swimmers in the "faster" lane, cutting through the water efficiently and quickly. I suppose I had some hazy aspiration that one day I would be promoted to the "faster" lane but given my current form (which I'm sure I've regressed), I didn't entertain one whit of hope that the "promotion" would be anytime soon.

But at the last training, I got a taste of life in the faster lane, not because I've improved miraculously over the last few weeks but it was probably out of sheer necessity seeing that my lane had become overpopulated with newbies, so much so that I spent alot of time during the warm up trying not to get my teeth kicked in! I think the coach could sense that I was immensely frustrated and ready to go home so he "promoted" me and two other clubmates.

It was quite an experience. For one, I felt like I was just learning how to swim again. I could barely see the "bubbles" (i.e. person) ahead of me and was definitely well and truly outlapped. What was supposed to be 8 x 200 m worth of pulling, just became one long pulling session for me. After about 30 minutes of doing that, the coach hauled me out (I probably looked like I was going to drown) and gave me a rest. It was only then, that I realised that I must have put in quite a hard shift as I clambered out of the water breathing pretty hard.

Despite being dead last in the lane, I must say that I enjoyed the experience. I've realised since I came back that I haven't quite enjoyed my swimming. I don't think I had become complacent or anything, just that I wasn't that motivated because even after a six week hiatus, I was still somewhat faster than most of the swimmers. Being in the faster lane however showed me that I really have alot more work to do if I want to swim more efficiently and quickly over a long distance.

For now, I'm looking forward to my usual work out in the fast lane. Life in the faster lane was interesting but I'm definitely not ready...

There's a saying that "you can't choose your family but you can choose your friends" and I beg to differ simply because sometimes your friends can become like family.

I first realised that in Singapore when my parents went away. My friends were a huge source of support, especially when there were nights after a long hard day of work, where I just wanted some company instead of the quiet of an empty apartment. I could count on "I" to be up for anything or C for a beer and sambal everything. Irv and E would always be quick to offer me a homecooked meal and the warmth of their apartment or I could usually get Boy out for a teh ping somewhere.

Here in Hong Kong, I've been similarly blessed with friends who have become like family, people I know I can count on if I need a hand or a listening ear or just some homecooked food. Aside from GV, L and the Housemate, I sometimes forget that some of my tri club people can be like family. I was reminded of that today. Basically, a tri club mate had a bike accident on Saturday and as the news passed around, you could hear the concern in people's voices, people wanted to help or just visit and be there for the tri club mate. Today, phonecalls were made and emails were sent round to organise visits, gifts and cards. Even though she hadn't been coming for training that regularly over the past few months, we still cared and we wanted to be sure she was alright. Even though it took a somewhat unfortunate incident to bring some of us together, those who visited today still had a relatively good time at the hospital checking in and hanging out with her. And I know that if anything happened to me here (touch wood), these people would probably do the same for me. I must say that its sometimes good to know that even in a foreign place I have people who will look out for me the same way as some of who I count as my closest friends in Singapore would.

In short, I've realised again that I'm very blessed indeed, that I have chosen friends who can be like family. :)

Sometimes the fate conspire and you end up with having nobody to hang out with over the weekend as they're travelling for work or have visitors or are getting married in a different country. By the time this weekend swung around, I was a little bit gloomy and not quite looking forward to it.

Turns out though, I just had to channel my loner self and this weekend worked out quite well.

Spent a fair bit of time training, a little bit of time racing and some time at the beach. I got to work on each of the tri disciplines this weekend and it culminated in a small race this morning.

After the race, I cooled down by soaking myself in the water-covered steps at Repulse beach and just started beaming to myself. The skies were blue, there was a slight breeze and post-race satisfaction. Hong Kong is a great place, with tons of things to do but with all the dashing about, sometimes I forget how it is also a beautiful place to be. So I just sat there for half an hour, taking it all in, watching the other competitors and breathed. It was a great day and a great place to be in.

The best part about having no concrete plans this weekend was that I just really rested alot and if the rest of the day goes according to plan, I might actually rock up to work not feeling wiped out from the weekend!

By "the Season", I mean the triathlon season and by "Part II" I mean that I have finally sort of begun training for the upcoming major races in the 2nd half of this year.

So I've been off for about two months since my last big race in May (?) Sure I did some training in June but it was spotty at best as I battled with a nasty round of flu and work. Then work completely took over my life in July and after that I went off for a short holiday. Now I'm back and trying to get back into shape. This has been going on for about a week now.

All I can say now is that its painful. Aside from getting the body used to multiple training sessions a week again, the intensity of each club training session has been upped by the coach and the summer weather here has been terrible to train in. I think the last factor is the biggest contributing factor in making me wanting to give training up till autumn comes around, the humidity is stifling and the heat is ridiculous, to the point that breathing is a chore and within 10 minutes of either running or riding, I'm sweating buckets already.

Right now I'm just trying to hang in there and complete each session's program. I'm also trying to get back my running and swimming form. On the side, I've been doing some weights training and went for a ride this morning, which was my first ride in about a month. It took me to Tai Tam and back (approximately 36 km of rolling hills), which at many points, I cursed the hills and the heat but somehow made it back home without taking a taxi.

Although re-starting the season has been painful, I think the time away has been good for me. I've come back mentally refreshed and perhaps better prepared for the pain and suffering that triathlon throws my way. Rest (even if enforced) is always good and I'm hoping that this will help me hang in there mentally when preparing for my two big races of this part of the season, being the Hong Kong ITU in mid-October and the Phuket triathlon in early December. Both will be firsts for me in terms of the distance, olympic distance and longer than an OD, respectively, so I'm really going to have to be as disciplined as work and my body permits to make sure I can survive those races. I hope to do them properly as that will allow me to better assess whether I want to go on with this sport next year and go for a 70.3 somewhere next year.

We'll see, for now, I'm just going to try to survive the beginning of Part II of the Season!

Well more accurately, it should probably be "going to gaga" but "going gaga" sounds more exciting?

Anyway, what happened was that on Thursday night, a colleague invited the housemate and I to go support her friend who was competing in a Lady Gaga look-alike competition at a club called Finds. Thinking it would be good fun to go watch males and females try to look like Lady Gaga, we agreed to go.

There was dinner first at the Lovely Corner, which is a really great place for cheap Nepalese food in Soho. There's no corkage, lots of space and the owner is a really friendly and nice guy.

After that, we adjourned to Finds where the competition had begun. The hosts were from Channel V (a music channel I believe) and the whole point of the competition was to select five lookalikes to go to Macau to meet Lady Gaga where she's due to perform. I don't really know how flattered Lady Gaga would be to find herself faced with a few drag queens who allegedly look like her but oh well that's her problem, I was just there to see the show and it was a pretty good one. The competitors took quite alot of effort to dress up, they were put through a standard question about which was their favourite Lady Gaga song, to which they could then choose to sing or dance. Some of them were pretty good but some of them were terrible.

During the intervals, they played Lady Gaga's songs (duh), which is pretty good clubbing music. I also quite liked Finds (my first time there) and if their DJ is always this good, I'll probably be back.

I don't have a habit of packing lunches to work. In fact, I can't remember if I've ever packed lunch to work before but I did today.

What happened was the housemate cooked an extra portion for a friend but the friend didn't show up to collect the lunch, so I got to take it to work. So lunch was a portion of pasta, with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and sausages.

Aside from the fact that it was a really nice change from the usual options, a major bonus was that it was pouring during lunch and I didn't have to jostle with the crowd downstairs for my usual rainy-day lunch at the food outlets in the building. Score!

Now to hope that there will be other opportunities where I'll be the lucky beneficiary again...

The past weekend was a really lazy one:

1. Slept in on both days of the weekend, which hasn't happened in I don't know how long (I think).

2. Did massive amounts of eating very good food and drinking copious amounts of alcohol

There was oysters galore (my new found food interest - At Oyster C and Zuma), very good Japanese food (Zuma champagne brunch on Sunday), great local Hong Kong food, some very average wannabe Katong Laksa (actually prima paste based) and excellent portuguese food (on Saturday night with GV). Some of it was washed down with copious amounts of champagne and/or prosecco and/or gin and tonic and/or sangria.

All in all, my tummy was full and happy for much of the weekend. :)

3. Somehow, despite the copious amounts of alcohol consumed, I managed to not get hungover. Pacing and stomach-lining is everything!

4. I also got to watch the most recent Potter movie for the second time, which was an interesting experience. I spotted some stuff that I didn't see the first time round, didn't freak out at some parts that initially I jumped at during the first watching and still freaked out at other parts. All in all an enjoyable film.

5. Felt slightly guilty at the end of such an indulgent weekend and did a few quick sets of body weight training.

In short, it was a really really great lazy weekend, with excellent company (housemate, colleagues who have become good friends, GV, clubmates, etc.) I really should do this more often!