Outdoorsy Types

On Wednesday, we bought a car. It is green and has a CD player. It is also almost as old as the 16 year old Bluebird which Welshy is currently taking care of for us. It means that now we can go places and do exciting things without them taking four hours longer than they should due to public transport.
So yesterday we went to Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. Was great! So many birds (guess who forgot binoculars AND camera...) and so much loveliness. Trees and reservoirs and geckos and tuatara (they're dinosaurs. No, really!) Oh and for those of you, Snoo, who don't believe, please look at Tuis on the website! ;) (Don't worry, we are getting evidence together for you...) So yes, was grand.
We then drove on to Porirua just to find out what it was and went shopping. After much wailing in one shop about how I clearly wasn't Kiwi shaped, I finally found a pair of jeans that fit perfectly (but were way too boring to buy) and a lovely pair of brown trousers with a blue pin-stripy-ness going on that *almost* fit. Close enough anyway! So I'm happy. :) Husbink is a little unconvinced that they go with the *new shoes*...but he will see!
Today has been the first proper nice weather in about ten days, maybe longer so we had to continue our oudoorsy thang and get on them there mountain bikes. Which was all well and good in theory but we really are lunatics when it comes to these things. Somehow, we seem to have this belief that we are not, in fact, beginners. Yes, I have spent most of my life commuting to school or work on a bike but that was in Cambridge. And the defining feature of Cambridge? That's right, ONE hill... (No, the cycle bridge and Hills Road/Mill Road bridges DO NOT count!) And Husbink apparently spent his life cycling up and down wee hills as a child but he hasn't done any since I've known him. And that's seven years. We did, three years ago, when last in the southern hemisphere, have three little adventures on mountain bikes. But really, nothing to fully take us out of the beginner category. So today when faced with a range of options, why did we decide "Medium" was the way to go? I at least had the sanity to not allow Husbink to be aware of the medium/hard tracks...but really. We need "Easy". Little climbs where you then have the satisfaction of a long gentle down. NOT six kilometres of basically uphill with a couple of terrifying downs to give you a break followed by three kilometres of DOWN. (ok, so actually, that last bit of down was mostly fun, my kind of mountain biking until the scree at the end when I panicked and nearly died...ahem). Besides the stupidity of doing far too hard a track for our first outing, we also nearly lost our marriage over it too. You see, my chain fell off. After I'd followed Husbink's advice on how to deal with ups and downs and the best way to change gears. Now I'm tempted to go into all the details but perhaps having both forgiven each other it would be unfair of me to rake over the details here, however comical they might be. Suffice to say, there was much male bravado on one side and much untrusting, whingey wiffle on the other. (Ultimately Husbink did fix chain and I did swoon at his wonderfullness)
So I'm hoping it rains for a couple of days now...Any more of this outdoorsy stuff may well kill either me or my marriage!