Hazy memories of a night to remember,

NICTA had it's end of year Christmas bash yesterday afternoon. While the food was good, the party itself was nothing to write home about (yet here I am, writing about it). Most people left soon after the formalities, in most cases, back to the office - quite disappointing really. Not to stand by and see our much anticipated Christmas party cut short, Phil and I decided to kick on, thus beginning an 8 hour, 2 man pub crawl of inner north Canberra.

I have never seen time fly by so fast. The Christmas party ended at about 3pm, and I swear, in the blink of an eye, it was 11pm. It was my concern about getting work done the day after that ultimately brought proceedings to a close (and the call of last drinks at the Wig'n'Pen). T'was a night to remember, though unfortunately, a night largely forgotten as I nurse myself through the after effects this morning.

Interestingly, it was not just my head that hurt this morning. One memory of my previous night's escapades came flooding back in an instant as I sat up in bed, only to be forced to lie back down by a sudden throbbing pain in the upper part of my backside. It took only a moment for the memories of my rather bumpy bike ride home to come to the fore. Given my intoxicated state, I wisely chose to stay off the roads as I rode home from the pub, instead opting for the bike paths. The problem with bike paths is that they are quite dark, and while I do have a light, it would be fair to say that in my blissfully and drunkenly unaware state, I wasn't exactly paying full attention to the threat of any potential impedance on the track ahead. It is therefore no surprise, as I came racing down a hill towards an intersection, trying to make the green light, that I made the unfortunate mistake of assuming the transition from the bike path to the road I was crossing included a ramp allowing me to simply roll onto the road. In truth, there was a ramp, but it was about 3 metres to the left of where I thought it was, and so rather than the smooth road crossing I was hoping for, I experienced a rather abrupt drop in altitude as my bike rolled (rather fast), over the gutter.

This may not sound that bad, but taken unawares, a gutter drop can really do some damage, particularly when your body's momentum moves forward as the bike drops, and your arse bounces off the nice cushy bit at the back of the seat, and lands on the narrow, and significantly less cushy bit at the front. My entire body shuddered as I found myself quite literally wedged by my own bike seat. Ironically, while my alcohol consumption was clearly to blame, it was also what saved me from the harsh reality of just how painful this was. In the murky haze of this morning's hangover, as I sit in my chair with a slight forward lean, and with a cushion, I am all too aware of the pain now, and have more than enough evidence to remind me of what was clearly a night to remember .... I think.