Friggin' busy weekend

This was one of those weekends where one just rushes from one thing to another without a break in-between. It's great for making life interesting but not very restful. A brief summary:
Friday night - Recover from the week, Caron only arrived home at 20:30 and we watched a bit of the England vs Tonga RWC match but couldn't keep our eyes open so we only saw about half the game.
Saturday - Shopping for food for Sunday and a mask for Caron's end of year function. I had an altercation with an imbecile in the parking lot who just couldn't be bothered to park in a parking bay thus impeding traffic around the parking lot. On one hand I should have just kept quiet but on the other, the sheer laziness and inconsideration to others that this shows just gets me going and this led to a bit of a scene. As we were leaving another guy turned up and asked what was going on and immediately picked up the altercation where I left off which made me feel a bit better. When we arrived home I welded up an addition to one of the tables in the workshop to hold a bicycle rack so that I can work on bicycles more easily. Fiddled with the gears on my road bike and repaired the puncture on my mountain bike. This is not a trivial task, getting the tire off was difficult enough but getting it back on was a nightmare. You need at least three, preferably four hands to do this because as soon as you get close to lifting the last bit of the bead of the tire over the rim, it sort of moves around the rim. Eventually I used a backpack tie down to secure the tire so I could use both my hands to work from one side but it was very frustrating. By the time I had finished this, it was time to get into the tuxedo for the masked ball which turned out to be ok as end of year functions go. There was one memorable occasion at the event, if only for the bad taste it left in the mouth. The comedian who was hosting the evening decided that it would be cool to have a competition to see who had the largest stomach and you'll just have to believe me but it wasn't a pretty sight all that blubber wobbling around. And this just before the main course was served. Ughh, enough to make carrots and celery unappealing let alone an eisbein. We escaped early and got home around midnight.
Sunday - Up early for a race - 60km mountain bike race with about 10 extra km to the start and back. What a fantastic race, for some reason I much preferred the second half, possibly because I didn't fall off the second time around. There was one particularly steep section and I chose the wrong gear and where I tried to change down, the chain slipped off the chainset so I was left spinning the cranks at 150rpm as I fell sideways. I didn't even have time to get my feet out of the clips but no harm done to anything other than my ego. Spent about 40 minutes trying to catch a girl in front of me, always good inspiration, but she would pull away on the hills and I would make up a bit on the downhills so it took ages. I eventually caught her only to have her puncture and since she didn't have a pump or repair kit or anything else actually, not even a camelbak, I stopped to help but the puncture wasn't repairable unless I wanted to spend about 40 minutes on it so I gave her my pump and hoped she would wait at the finish and give it back. I really enjoyed the second lap of the race for some reason, possibly because I was just racing on my own overtaking the odd cyclist. I finished in a time of 3:18 so at a guess, I would say that my time without the stop would have been about 3:08 but it is very difficult to tell. Retrieved my pump at the end from Melody Johansson and met the two Jasons. Jason had come 4th overall in a time of 02:20 almost an hour ahead of me, other Jason did a very respectable 02:50 something putting him somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes ahead of me. On the way out I was telling Jason about helping Melody when she drove past us in a car so I pointed to her and Jason was so busy trying to see into the car that he almost cycled into the back of another car. Very funny from my point of view. Cycled back to Jason's house and drove home barely able to keep my eyes open. Washed my bike, prepared the lamb and chicken for the weber later on and had a 20 minute nap before the family arrived at 15:30 - all 18 of them. I always find it incongruous that I, as the token vegetarian in the family, almost always end up cooking the meat at these family type functions. The family has about 5 birthdays all within 10 days so there was lots of present swapping but the book that we gave my nephew, Harry Potter and the something of something, didn't go down so well with the parents. I can't quite fathom the objection but then I'm not a parent - maybe it is another one of those imponderables. Family finally left just in time for Caron and I to watch the Springboks vs the USA which they won comfortably. It is going to take all week to recover from this weekend.