Sunbathing can be so tiring

Although it was supposed to be a quiet weekend it certainly didn't feel like that - possibly three nights drinking didn't help!

Friday we ended up in a place called Waller - some 40 minutes drive north-east. We met up with Laura and Chris and their Houston Burger Club to enjoy a burger at the Hill and Grill Bar. It was literally a tin shed in the middle of nowhere . It was so in the middle of nowhere that people were able to smoke in the bar! The burgers were just OK (we had to do a ranking of them), but the place did seem like fun, only downside was its distance from Houston. Since I needed to be up at 0530 to go for a run with Amy's running club we left at just before 11pm.

The next morning I managed to drag myself from my pit and make it on to the bayou. The guy who organises the running is an English teacher and so he told us a really good story - partly based on reality and partly imagination. It certainly made the running easier! He said that he has been trying to get his kids at school to do it and so he also set us some homework to come up with a story for this weeks run! I still haven't worked out what to tell.

The rest of the Saturday was spent by the pool - perfect :)

Saturday night Amy, John and us went around to Bill and Marah's for dinner. Marah is Lebanese and prepared us some wonderful traditional food. We also got to take away some home grown cherry tomatoes, a cucumber and two homemade jams (peach and plum). It is our turn to be host next month and cook something traditionally Scottish - curry?! We all had to be up for cycling at 7:30am the following morning so we didn't get to bed too late.

When I woke up on Sunday morning I immediately saw the living room window had condensation on the outside - not a good sign in Houston as that means intense humidity. In the few seconds we were outside our clothes where sticking to us - yukky. However, it was actually better cycling as it created a 'breeze'. At our break point we treated Bill and Amy to 'Soreen Loaf' that I had taken back from the UK at the beginning of May. Soreen is like a fruit loaf only more dense and one small slice to equivalent to two small bananas - so way more energy than we needed. Stuart and Bill saw a snake on the path - I missed it again, I am so jealous because I have never seen any wildlife on our ride but all the others have. By the time we got back I was down to my last drops of water so I think I need to take an extra bottle next week it is just too hot now.

It was quite as sunny as Saturday so we didn't sit outside by the pool all day! Laura came around in the afternoon for a swim but the heavens opened and we had quite an exciting storm while we sat under the covered area. Stuart decided to collect the water in buckets and put it in the pool to top it up a bit. It was incredible how quickly the buckets would fill. Eventually it passed and the air temperature and humidity dropped immediately so we jumped in the pool which was steaming and felt like a sauna - so nice! We finished the evening with a BBQ and some great strip steaks Laura brought along - we haven't been doing enough BBQ's recently - especially as it is corn on the cob season. We sent Laura away with all our recycling as in her neighbourhood she gets points for the amount of recycling she does. Fine by us as it save us a 20 mile round trip to the recycling centre!

Last night was the wine dinner and the food, wine and company was great again. Although I was feeling the wine this morning when I woke at 5am to go to master swim. It was evil, but had to be done. I got to use my new swimming fins and only suffered minor cramp in my calves this week. By the afternoon I was feeling a little sleepy but fortunately the office is quiet just now so we can all get on with things quietly.

I took some photos in the garden one of our wonderful pink flowers in the back, which are now looking a little sad after we had another storm today. Actually today's storm you could watch it coming from the office. The day suddenly went to night and the wind picked up closely followed by torrential rain and thunder and lightening. I rang Stuart to tell him to take the lilo in because I thought it was going to blow away! The other nature photo is a dragon fly - there are lots about just now and they seem to posse on anything they can sit on the top of things like the car aerial and twigs.

The other development is that our pool man was sacked this week and we now have a new one. Basically the last guy was being utterly unreliable and was taking the landlords money but not turning up! The new one seems keen so fingers crossed it stays that way, plus he is meant to be fixing the pool light that has never worked since I moved in!!

Right early night tonight so night, night.