Sunday 18 January 2015

Travelling Pink

Pink is not my favourite color. Pink is the color that the manufacturers of motorcycle gear use to try to tell you that something is for women, regardless of whether it fits a woman. Pink can be a little cliche at times.

But pink can also be pretty cool. One of my favourite animals is pink .. wheee piggy!!

And sometimes you have to be brave to wear pink. Pink can make a statement about who you are, just as it made a statement about Ally from Shybiker recently.

Actually pink often makes a statement about Ally, that she is a person who is proud of who she is and is not afraid to let people know it. A few months ago, before I got busy and stopped blogging, Ally posted a fun outfit on her blog about her plan to send her pink boxing gloves to bloggers around the world. Oh I thought that sounded like awesome fun, I put my hand up.

I got the gloves and was all excited about doing a fun post. I had plans for all sorts of posts, I needed a break from all the study and this would be the perfect reason to get back to my blog.

Then my world dropped out from under me, and for a while there everything was just too hard. And to tell the truth it hasn't stopped yet. I've just been soldiering on, just going to work and trying to keep up with my lessons at Uni. Doing what needed to be done. Then I looked at the post where Ally used the gloves, she'd been going through a rough time too when she made the outfit with the gloves. So I thought it's time that I got back up and have a bit of fun myself.

I got on the bike!

I haven't been for a ride in months, there were networks of spiderwebs on him. Not to mention the layer of dust an inch thick. When I got on him, I was a tad nervous, butterflies were doing acrobatics in my tummy. I managed to get the bike from the back yard to the front, then across the road and park while we put away the car and lock things up. I was wondering if I could even ride anymore, I was so nervous!

By the time I finally got to the end of the street my butterflies were gone and my heart was soaring!

We went for a short little ride, to a little town called Narromine about 60km from home. There's a new little cafe opened up here where we'd been for a work Christmas party and we decided that it would be a nice little ride to go check out what their lunch is like. It's called the Soul Food Design Depot and the building it is in was an orange packing warehouse. The outside of the building is still exactly the same as it was when used for oranges (I think there's a heritage listing involved there).


But inside has been renovated and feels cool and inviting when you walk in the front door. They have some art on display by local artists as well, and it's for sale. Some of it was pretty good too.


This is just half the building, but the back half is kinda empty with a couple of very large tables and some interior design things for sale, again some nice things... gonna have to come up here for some shopping with a full purse and a car to load up.

The food was, nothing spectacular but still very yummy.


Mine was a lamb wrap, with the most tender lamb that I've had in a long time, and freshly squeezed and locally grown blood orange juice. Very refreshing. We'll definitely come back to this one.

Once we'd refuelled, ourselves not the bikes we hadn't ridden far enough to need fuel in the bikes, we headed back towards home.

We had spotted a few things that we thought would be good for photo shoots. Terry thought that some of the freshly plowed fields would look awesome as a back ground, and everything was just so green as we've had a lot of rain out here lately. So we took the first turn off towards home and started looking for places to safely park the bikes with a nice field in the background. With not a real lot of luck.

We'd gone maybe 10km's up the road before Terry said "Umm .. this doesn't look familiar to me, does it look familiar to you?" Hmmm

Then he said "Have we gone over the river yet?" ... no, there's big bridge just outside of Narromine that we have to cross, and it's not this far outta town, and no we hadn't crossed it.

Then he said .. "I think we are on the road to Warren" ... ahh well that's only bout 80km's out of our way.

"Let's turn around eh .."

So after a very dodgy U-Turn on a gravel driveway we headed back towards Narromine. It was only about 2km from town that I recognised another gravel driveway that we'd done a U-Turn on a couple of years ago when Terry had missed the same turn off. Hehe, I did point it out to him, he wasn't impressed but did have a giggle about it with me.

So on the right road and we didn't see any fields with a good place to stop for a photo shoot. But all was not lost, on the way out I had decided that we would stop at the bus stop for some pics. This bus stop is in the middle of farm land, at a cross roads which is kinda surreal when you see it out here in the middle of nowhere. And there was plenty of room to pull off the road.


Time to get the gloves out!!


Terry said we needed one on the bike ... ok ...


"No no no .. one with you with the gloves on" he said.

Oh ..

Before I post this pic I guess I should warn you, I had my hair done. I'd been wanting to get it done for a while, A real fashion cut and a completely new color. One of the girls at work recently had her hair colored similar to this and I loved it, but felt kinda guilty spending the money on it, and being frivolous at a time that just seemed so inappropriate. The girls at work talked me into it saying that I deserved something for myself that would cheer me up. Ok I did it, just three days ago, and I love it! Hope you do too :)


So for someone who doesn't really like pink as a color, I think I'm using it an awful lot lately eh .. not all of it is pink though, there's a lot of purple and a bit of blue and yellow and orange as well.

So now Terry finally told me what he wanted .. a pic of me on my pride and joy having fun with some new riding gear ...


Truth be told, those gloves made it kinda hard to get a hold of the handlebars. And I don't think I coulda turned my blinkers on and off.

Now just a couple more pics .. the bikes in the lovely Australian outback after a lot of rain ...


Everything is looking so pretty at the moment, where normally it's just kinda brown.

Then Terry wanted one of just me, he said this photo looks flattering, I dunno but my hair looks nice and bright in the sunshine even though it's helmet hair, so lets just go with it.


And then there's just one more pic, this is what happens when Terry gets too smart ..






Nah it's all in fun, I didn't really hit him :)

This has been a fun post, it was a fun day out. And it's been great to write something that isn't academic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

23 comments:

  1. Hi Brenda and welcome back. Its been awhile.
    A ride always cheer me up if I'm not feeling the best. Its nice and grren out there at the moment, most of my memories of Dubbo are brown dead feild of grass, wheat and so on.
    Chin up girl and keep on blogging.

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    1. Thanks Steve, it has been a while hasn't it.
      I really should have gone for a ride before now, but really the weather hasn't been great, lotsa rain surprisingly, hence the lovely greeness of the countryside at the moment.
      I promise to do better at keeping up with what's happening in blog land!

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  2. Hi Brenda, good to see you back on both, your two wheeler and the blog. And despite all the work and study you didn't lose your good spirit. Kudos to you! So, you're usually not into pink either, but you love a statement? I am totally with you on this, and the gloves seem to match your new hair (love the short cut). Terry snapped a cool looking picture of you. Have it printed and put it on display. It's great!

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    1. Thanks Sonja,
      Sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and make a statement just for a change. I've never been afraid of change, I find it exciting. I guess you'd be the same eh :)
      Dunno bout printing the pic out, but I do have it as my desktop pic for the time being :)
      I've always loved your hair and wanted that kind of really short pixie look, just had to find the right haridresser to do it.

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  3. Great post Brenda, and I am glad to see you blogging agin. We missed you.

    Great haircut too. It takes a lot of confidence to rock those colors, but you wear them well.

    Take care and blog when you can.

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    1. Hi Brandy, thanks.
      I love the colors, they've brightened my life. And the great thing is that the looks I am getting are mostly smiles, I like to think that I am putting I little bit of happiness into people's days when ever I leave the house lately :)
      Like I said to Steve, I promise to do more blogging!

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  4. I love this, Brenda! Love it love it love it. My goal with the gloves is to inspire people toward joyful whimsy and you reached that destination! You travelled emotionally and physically to a new place, carrying silly pink boxing gloves with you. I'm proud of you. The prose is beautiful and the pictures are lovely. So nice to see. Thanks!!

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    1. Thank you Ally, for the nice comment and for the opportunity to share in the adventure of the pink boxing gloves.
      I loved doing this post so much, and it has lifted a little of the weight off my shoulders.
      Oh I wondered about my writing to tell the truth, I've been writing academic for a while now and I wondered if I'd be able to go back to the chatty style that I liked to write in on the blog. I think I've kinda got a cross between the two, I actually went back and put in words like 'gonna', not to mention writing in the first person feels wrong now.

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    2. I understand. I have to write professionally for my job and, obviously, in a more formal style. I find writing on my blog a relief from that. Your experience of deliberating switching linguistic gears is amusing.

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  5. I love your hair, Brenda, and I love that the gloves inspired you to take all these pictures!

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    1. Thanks for dropping in Sheila.
      Sometimes it just takes a little inspiration to make a world of difference :)

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  6. What a fabulous post! I love what you did with the gloves- you took them on a big adventure. Lovely to hear the joy they brought you when life has been so hard! Your hair looks fantastic by the way!x

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    1. Thanks Kezzie, and ta for dropping in to read my post on the fabulous gloves of the world.
      I do like adventure, and I think the gloves are addicted to adventure now :)
      Yes I'd been putting off doing the post for a little while and now I'm so glad I did it, the whole thing has helped to put my life back into perpective and to remind me of the things I love to do.

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  7. Popping by from Ally's blog to see you having all that fun with the pink gloves that quite frankly look like they were made for you : )

    bisous
    Suzanne

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  8. I am so glad you posted! I have been wondering where you'd gotten too! As for pink I think it rocks. I love your hair it looks fabulous! Pink & purple are two of my fave colours, I shunned pink gear for awhile, but bought a summer weight jacket with pink and I love it! Loving the pink boxing gloves.

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    1. Here I am Dar!
      Thanks for the compliment :) Lucky you found a pink jacket that fits, do you have a pic of it anywhere, I looked at your recent posts and couldn't see it, but I might have been looking in the wrong place.

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  9. Great post!! Love following these pink gloves!

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  10. Brenda, great to see you back on the bike and in the blogosphere. Before I retired I often used a bike ride as a circuit breaker to deal with work and other pressures. Always worked for me!

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    1. Hi Theo, thanks for dropping in and the lovely welcome back :)
      I agree with you about the circuit breaker, think I need to go for another ride soon!!

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  11. Great post! I popped over from Ally's blog. I love your hair, too. I'm glad to see the pink gloves inspired you. Sometimes a bit of silliness is what you need to drag yourself out of the muck. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hi Kathy, thanks for popping over.
      I agree, what's it all worth if you cant still smile :)

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