Netball, Cast-less, and more Spiders

The weather here has been absolutely fantastic -- perhaps the best it has been since we arrived.  Clear blue skies, dry and about 80F.  Fall returned today but it's still nice so far.

We had another nice weekend.  It was focused on friends rather than "activities".  We were finally able to get together with world traveler Siow and his wife Celine on Friday.  On Saturday, we had a wonderful dinner with some UK friends from Nicole's school (and the mom also works at RR).

No fancy pictures but I'll share what I have.

Well, after spending last week holding a tarantula, it was inevitable that we would have a visitor in the house.  As expected, no one was that interested in holding this one.  I did a little research, and found out that these are "good" spiders and are "harmless" UK house/garage spiders.  It's breeding time and this is likely a male in search of a mate (passed on the gender check).  Needless to say, so what.  Not too keen on having this guy in MY BEDROOM.

We did perform a catch/release.  This was spider #2 (of 3) that we've found.  Maybe I should start tagging them to see if it is the same persistent bugger who keeps coming back.  I'll have to toss it over the fence next time.  :-)

Saturday morning was Nicole's first netball game.  I'm really glad that she has signed up for this as well as club [field] hockey.  She's on the far side, in the middle, with a green jersey.  It's good for her to meet friends and interact in different ways.  No volleyball here so she's mixing it up a little bit.

I must say, I got quite a chuckle out of this.  Not sure why they can't play basketball.  It must date back to the olden days when they didn't want the ladies to move around too much (or heaven forbid, perspire).  It reminded me of stories from my grandmother (born in 1910) when she played basketball:  no dribbling, girls are restricted to certain parts of the court, fairly tame on-ball defense when shooting, etc.  Oh well, it's all fun.

Netball uniform (complete with skirt!).

before removal

And after.  Quite a quick process (so much for slow NHS).  His arm is still a little puffy, stiff and weak.  Should be fine in a few days.  Glad he could take his own shower tonight!