Look who's surfing the internet...

Bella !! Checking out Kait's conversations on Bebo :)

I went with my girlfriend Les, to a Simply Silver one day jewellery class on Saturday at Inverlochy Art School - isn't this the coolest house for an Art School...

Check out the tiles in the entrance foyer, doesn't this look like a quilt - gorgeous...

Here we are being shown a few of the key components for making a ring... once you've measured the length of silver needed to make your ring/bracelet - you need to cut - the hacksaw has the finest of blades that snaps very easily...

after cutting your silver, you then begin the hammering, letter punching or whatever to create the design in your piece, the more you 'hit' the harder the silver becomes, so you need to anneal the silver to make it soften.

The anneal process can occur a number of times, before you get to the next stage of shaping your ring/bracelet...

Here is the ring I made - three images to show the writing I stamped - please visualise the words as 'level'...

Here is the gorgeous bracelet and ring that Les made - very cool !

And three images of the bracelet I made, to match the ring - though in a thinner silver band... again imagine the lettering is 'level' - though I reckon it adds to the quirkiness and originality :)

Was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday, catching up with a favourite girlfriend, learning a new craft - could be addictive ... certainly can get some fast results.

Sunday was spent doing the 2nd stage of the Rangitikei Active Duathlon series, after last months adventure of entering the Long section, Sis-in-Law (Leigh) and I decided we would enter the medium course 2k run, 10k bike, 1.5k run - the course layout was way better, the hills were still undulating however manageable, the weather was warmer, though we got heavy rain on the bike section.

Our aim was to ensure we bettered our times from when we did the same distances in our first duathlon (April 09, in Wellington) - at that event we both did 1hr 12 min - today Leigh did 54.39 and I staggered in 3 minutes later at 57.07 - we were stoked. Leigh's a machine, she jogged both run sections, I managed to jog 3/4 of the first run section - I was coming last at the end of the first run section, at transition I crawled to my bike and peddled like crazy to try and catch up to Leigh (and the others), I managed to pass two people (yeah, I wasn't last anymore!!) but couldn't catch her - she was in my sights the last kilometre before transition to the 2nd run section - by then my legs were not happy, I was wet from heavy rain in the bike section - so I decided to power walk the 1.5km - I tried a couple of times to get the shuffle jog into action - though the shins were screaming NOOOOOO. So I walked. And I still came in 3rd to last for our section - I was stoked...

Here's Leigh coming back at the end of the 2nd run to egg me on to the finish line :) the runners behind me are from the Long section run!

The training focus for this month is going to be more gentle jogs with Kait a few times a week (she's keen to be my jogging buddy) and get some good quality shoes to help with the damn shin splints. (I used to get them wickedly when did aerobics, and you'd think after been a couch potato for nearly 2 years that would have rested them enough - but NOOO).

Next event is July - round 3 for the Rangitikei Active series.

Hope you too had a great weekend.