Motorbikes & How Netball Really Went

Things are wrapping up here! I will never have another Tuesday on this farm. 

I fell off the motorbike tonight and nearly crashed it. What happened was I went out on the bikes to the end of the farm (in motocross boots, helmet, goggles, and my new Kathmandu thermal shirt!). I'm not exactly adept at controlling motorbikes yet and hills are the bane of my existence. It would have been fine if I hadn't managed to stall half-way down. Adam and Sam were already eons ahead of me down the hill and  it went like this:

Oh no. Maybe if I just let out the clutch and the brake and add some gas…Oh NO that is not the way to do it. I could probably get going but the grass is wet and I'll slip braking. If I get going I will hurtle down the hill and crash. Hm. But you can't be afraid of trying things forever. Okay, let's go. 

Something like too much gas and a successful release of the clutch happened and the bike lurched sideways and freakin' went off the edge of the hill and wondrously fell over. I wasn't too embarrassed about falling but I was hoping the boys hadn't heard my pathetic girl scream. They did. I may as well have alerted the media and that's when Adam came up to help me drag the bike to the top. After another minor incident where the bike got stuck I practiced turning on the top paddock and left Adam and Sam to be awesome on their own. I was happy to practice though. It wasn't like last time I rode a horse and I wanted off because it wasn't enjoyable enough anymore to put work into practicing. I decided before I move closer to the equator and buy a motorbike that I'll need to have practiced up in the States. 

Speaking of equatorial habitation… after the netball game last night (which has way too many rules to be of much interest) it was freezing cold outside. Tracey watched my head make it's typical retreat into my jacket and shoulders and I commented how I had a headache coming on from being so tense from the cold. She lovingly responded hadn't I grown up in New York and shouldn't I be used to it by now?

"Tracey," I began emphatically. "Just because I lived there doesn't mean I adapted or like it. I gave it a good shot for eighteen years. I've put my time in!"

"You need an African desert, man." 

Then we huddled in the back of the bank bus (their bank manager, who is a month younger than me by the way, brought a bunch of clients to the game) and absconded with the cashews. Once those were requested we commandeered the Greek tsatziki chips and refused to surrender them even when someone asked where they'd gone. Instead we maturely giggled and snuck stealth handfuls out of the bag and hid the bag when it was our stop.