Time for Me

The hen weekend was a blast - just what the bride-to-bee wanted. There were 12 of us in 2 cottages by the beach in west Wales and we spent the entire weekend drinking wine, eating amazing food and celebrating being girly. It was a revelation for me as I can't remember the last time I was on my own for a whole day without having to be somewhere for someone. I could just be there for me which was so blissful! I had no mobile phone signal in the cottage, only when walking on the beach so I had plenty of time to just be by myself (and with the rest of the girls!) and be a girl myself - not a wife, not a Mummy, not a daughter, just me. I had forgotten what it was like to just be me and, well, what a nice girl I can be! It was good to go out and just take the things I needed and not have to cart around coats for the boys, wipes, nappies for Little Pickle, snacks for all and sundry and a pushchair! I had a wallet, cash and a phone and a jacket. All mine, just for me. It was very liberating and I spent the first few hours quite off balance and thinking that I had forgotten something or someone or that I should be thinking of someone else. It took me ages to realise that it was just me on my own. I liked it.

We spent Saturday doing outdoor activities like archery, clay pigeon shooting, pistols, baseball nets, crazy golf, scalextrix, go-carting and the competitive side of me came out. I thought I would be great at the baseball (decidedly average), good at scalextrix (crap), OK at archery (crap), good at crazy golf (good and terrible = average) OK at go-crarting (poor), good at pistols (average to poor) and OK at clay pigeon shooting (absolutely amazing!) I was disappointed with my overall performance (joint 7th) but chuffed to bits with my clay shooting! I was awesome and scored 56 points where the second placed person scored 26! Thank goodness for the performance which bucked up the rest of my scores! I will clutch on to that victory for a while and try to forget my crapness in the other things. I may become a markswoman. Shame I loathe and detest guns really! I was quite touched early on in the day when a bloke from another team who I know from about 20 years ago when I lived with my parents, came up to me and asked if the other girls knew about my "sporting prowess". I used to be good at sports in school but I had not seen Chris for years and years and was surprised he remembered me let alone that I was into my sports! That comment boosted my ego at the start of the day and made me all the more disappointed by the end!