Sunday we set off to go to the lecht to ride the lift accessed trails with the Cartlidge family and Richard.  Lainie strangely was quite on the way there, only once ever have I seen her in this state, and that was 2 years ago driving to Orciere Merlette when she had her first go at skiing….. odd.  It was to be Lainie’s first go at proper trail riding, she was strangely not her normal chatty self.

Once arrived and baby camp set up in the restaurant we set off up the hill on the lift that the British history museum might have interest in as well as any corrosion experts out there.

It was the girls and I who went first.  I took Lainie down to give her a few pointers on technique, speed and generally being rad.  She took it all in her stride and took off down the hill!  Think she is a bit of a natural and was whizzing down the hill with out a second thought, with most importantly a huge smile on her face!

We took it in turn after this to look after Sophie and Ellis whilst other rode.  It fell on my turn that Ellis was to be fed.  My lovely daughter decided she wanted to fidget alot whilst I was trying my best to get the spoon into the small opening that is her mouth.  I failed, she had ants in her pants and was a nightmare to keep clean.

I was a little scared of mummies return as I thought a bollocking was going to happen for covering her daughter in orange mush.  but she laughed – phew.

As the runs progress, things turned from nice amicable riding to racing, elbows out, and mashing the cranks to try and overtake each other – even from the start

To anyone who has not been – the tracks are good, they are not to technical but the more you ride them the faster you go and you get a real sense of achievement as you notice yourself progressing throughout the day.

Above is Euan on the exit of the rather large berms with Rich ‘pro elbow’ Bannister hot on his tail.  Lainie called it a day after 3 runs as she felt tired, it was her third day biking on the trot.  Lara advised her that this was wise as the dreaded ‘one last run’ always ends badly.  Lara announced ‘one last run’ and off she went back up the hill with Euan and I.  The wind was rather strong in one direction so going one way you jumped a lot further than expected, and then once a corner was turned you tried jumping and went no where. 

On the ‘ bigger than expected jump ‘ direction, Lara was highly tuned into her ‘gnarlyness’ and somewhat over cooked a jump with me following behind.  All I saw was a flash of wife high in the air, then spread across the floor seconds later.  It was the next bit that scared me most – she swore using words high up the severity chain.  This means it is bad!!!!  After a while we work out it is her hip and hand.  End of biking. (it was ok though as it was the last run anyway!!!)

We walked back up to the lift as we were closer to the top than bottom and got the lift down.  Poor thing was in a lot of pain so home and curry it was.  She was wincing a lot, on close inspection i diagnosed a badly bruised hand and reckoned it would be a week or so and should keep it moving lots.  We all know women are slight martyrs with the pain stuff and milk it a little.  I gave her sympathy.

She slept sporadically last night with the odd yelp when she rolled over.  I set off to work thinking she might have a hard day with a sore hand but nothing a few nurofen shouldn’t solve.

I returned home after work to find this:

The pain had gotten worse during the day and Lainie took her to A&E where an X-ray confirmed the middle Metacarpal was broken in two places.  I felt bad.  I have taken a mental note to always remember that my wife is in fact ‘hard’ and probably a lot harder than myself in pain suffering.  God knows how I forgot how she coped during labour.  If I was thinking I would have looked backed to that and then saw the pain she was in with the arm and then come to the conclusion she would have shattered it all the way up to the shoulder!

So, Poor lara has a cast for the next 6 weeks – any ideas on how i should decorate it?  I will look after don’t worry mums, and Ellis is about to get a lot more daddy feeding time, so get ready for some more baby covered in food pictures!