holiday + turning a 1/4 century :)

My holiday started in Frankfurt and ended in Strasbourg...I did a lot of hiking (and got a couple of nasty blisters), explored small towns in the Black Forest Area, and had a really fun birthday weekend in Strasbourg with friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends.

In Germany I explored Frankfurt, Heidelberg and Baden-Baden, then hiked through the Black Forest region via Lake Mummelsee, and ended up in Freudenstadt where there was a strange carnival thing going on!





I made my way across to Strasbourg at the end of the week...it's a beautiful city, and met up with Orianne to prepare for our joint birthday celebrations (she turned 26 on the 17th, and I turned 25 on the 18th - aaaaaaahhh!) Orianne used to share a flat with Jo & Steve in New Zealand, before I lived there!

These are pics of a hike we did about 45 mins outside Strasbourg...was fun to meet everyone and luckily they all spoke good English (my French is a little rusty!):





When decorating the table we decided we deserved a crown each seeing as we were the birthday girls :)

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Scottish mix

I just decided I haven't put up enough pictures of Scotland, especially of my trip in the summer - I was flicking through them and made some collages of the best shots. Most of the pics are taken by Marcel, as my camera died last year, but I got a new one for Christmas so no excuses anymore!


I'm looking forward to a week away from the world of tennis - flying to Frankfurt tomorrow, then heading to the Black Forest for some hiking (and possibly skiing if there's enough snow), meeting up with Jo & Steve, and heading to Strasbourg to visit friends of theirs over my birthday weekend. Holidays are great :)

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Dancing

Working one Saturday in every 3 or 4 is really not a bad deal... I can train in the morning with spin/gym, then take the matchplay squads in the afternoon, go out in the evening, and recover on Sunday! I put one kid into the 'Sin Bin' for 10 minutes for throwing his racket, then allowed him back only to see him do it again 5 minutes later...that was the end of his session.

Met up with Gav, Jen and a couple of Gav's friends in the Scotsman Lounge, where a band we really like were playing (they often play in Finnegan's too). Murdoch joined us, then Emma and Sonia, and later on the four of us went to Finnegan's and then Drop Kick Murphy's (where the same band were then playing!) It was a really fun evening - danced till my feet were sore and then walked home to finish them off completely :)

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