24 August, 2006

End of summer, start simracing!

My summer holiday has ended, school has started and so have the simracing leagues. But first, let me tell you what I've been up to. First I flew to England with nobody but my 14-year old sister for company to go and visit our Uncle and two of our three scottish cousins-via-marriage. We stayed there for ten days before driving back to London Stanstead airport...where we missed the check-in by one hour. This is when things get eventful, folks! Luckily we had Grannie and Grandad to keep us company/look after us/buy us another plane ticket, but this plane didn't go to the local airport but to one on the other side of the country on the east coast. So mum and dad phoned a friend back home who agreed to drive us to the train station where we'd hop on the night-train and arrive at Kristiansand the next morning where we'd leave for Denmark for our family vacation. Confused yet? No? Well, my sister has a boyfriend and she hadn't seen him for a good...i dunno...two weeks? She was feeling quite distraught (oh, please) so she got dad to change our train tickets to take us all the way home to Stavanger on the west coast.

Our seats on the night train was very (and I mean very) VERY inadequate. BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T BLOODY RECLINE SINCE THEY WERE UP AGAINSTE THE FUCKING WALL! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Ahem, sorry about that. So, I left in search of two vacant seats next to one another so I could catch some sleep in a highly comfy foetal sleeping arrangment. Dad picked us up when we eventually arrived and I went straight for the bed, where I stayed for a long time before I got woken up and told to pack my stuff for Denmark. Enya (my sister) wasn't coming since she so badly wanted to be with her boyfriend. Fine by me to be perfectly honest, it saves me being squashed together in the back seat with her and my other little sister like a tin of sardines. We arrive in Kristiansand sometime later and catch the boat to Denmarkland. Here's a map which I hope will settle the confusion induced by this last paragraph...

We got to the apartment we rented and in our two weeks there I went karting in the wet (drifts ahoy!), went to legoland (great pictures ahoy!), went karting in the dry (speed ahoy!), went to the zoo (lions ahoy!) and just hanged around (TV ahoy!). Then we travelled all the way back to Kristiansand and onward to our hut on a relatively small island in Mandal. My other sister came over with her boyfriend on the second day before I left on the third day to take the train home by myself. After a good month away from my hometown, my bed, my computer...I was feeling rather homesick. I got home, lugged my bags the 0.7 miles/1.2 kilometres (mainly uphill), had a shower and REEEEEELAXED! The rest of my holiday was spent here at home, sweet home.

I've already had one race, that being the dLeague race at Le Mans. But I retired before half-distance with a broken camshaft, so I didn't feel like it was much to shout about. I was also supposed to race in the NGPLS opening round at Kyalami this Tuesday, but school (and waking-up-at-7:30) induced fatigue plus the fact that we only had one server with limited room for drivers meant that I sacrifieced my spot so fresh and happy drivers could race instead of me. Next Thursday dLeague will be racing at Oulton Park, so stay tuned! Meanwhile, here's one of my many shots I took at Legoland (I'll post a link to the full gallery when I get that sorted out).