Ooooh, the ’09 CUAFL season starts this weekend and our first game should be against St John’s 2nds. Despite looking comfortable and taking an early lead, they beat us last time in quite torrid conditions. So we’re eager to repay the debt, and more.

With Skinny teaching English in China and so many new faces, it’s almost like a new team. (Long) gone are the likes of Julian, Yauser, Mikey and Mantis to be replaced with the very capable Duo, Jonno, Jake and Shu. Have been very impressed with the latter – he has the ball winning ability of Yau, the salmon leap of Mikey, the exuberant energy of Julian and can pick a pass too. We have a new centre back who seems to be a good calming addition and also Bear is back and looking to regain fitness in the second team and we have Swish and others finding form. It’s a bit early to say, but this squad could be the strongest so far…time will tell, but we really should be looking at promotion this season.

We’ve had two matches in the run up – the first against the 2nd team (half of which were fringe first team players) and then against Hughes Hall. We won both quite convincingly (8-4 & 8-2) and I scored three and four goals respectively. It’s a good start, but the league is often much more treacherous and we’ll be tested far more vigorously. Can’t wait though!

Am aiming to start doing some boxing/kicking training (lost count of how many times I’ve tried!). There’s a single free class on the 20th Oct, so will try to do a bit before that and then take it from there. I think it’ll help with my overall fitness as well and can execute fancy kicks on the football pitch.

Last night I cooked a delightful Mapo tofu dish (incidentally, ‘mapo’ translates to old lady with pocked face). Found a recipe online and adapted it to my taste (or rather what was also available in my larder) and the results were remarkably sweat inducing but very tasty. Unsurprisingly, Kat benefited and even had some to take away for lunch. 

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