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RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

AMY'S BIRTHDAY & GETTING BACK ON TRACK 13^thSeptember 2007
Guest Journal from Diana Matheson

I know that almost all of you already know that today, September 13th, is Amy Walsh’s birthday. I think it was her 30^th, but she isn't talking, and it it may have been her 22^nd. I often get her age and Brit’s age confused.

We celebrated the birthday with a trip to a spa down the street. Six of us went, on the recommendation of our therapists Judy and Erin, as the pressure points, and knuckle cracking, and punching they do is apparently meant to be beneficial to our tired legs. I am sorry if my description of the treatments is not more lucid, but I am not sure of the technical terms for what they did to us.

Basically the session we received included work on our hands, arms, feet, calves and knees. Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience, except for Brit and myself. The foot-rub hurt so much it caused me to break out into a sweat, and Brit and I both felt abused by the pounding of a back massage we received. The punching technique they used caused the stools we were sitting on to lurch forward with every blow. I am told this is relaxing though … very relaxing.

Brit and I seem to be the exceptions in protesting the abuse against us, as Amy and others enjoyed it all, and the staff went again today for the fourth time I think.

We finished off the day with a vegan cake for the birthday girl which was wheeled in after dinner. Amy doubled checked with our translator and the staff, that the cake was in fact vegan. It was, except for the eggs. This sounded good to me, but it turns out that vegans are still vegans on their birthdays, and Amy resigned herself to just serving the cake. Don’t worry though, the cake still managed to get eaten.

Other than these highlights, it was a quiet day. We had a recovery session in the morning with a little extra training for the subs. Everyone is in pretty good spirits despite being pretty tired from the night before. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and getting treatment from our therapists.