The ‘To Do’ List and a Spell of Nostalgia

 

Snap shots taken in Cranworth Road, Worthing

 

There was a ‘To Do’ list on the top of the desk diary page for today but not until after the 6.30am Wednesday swim. I had taken the two new pairs of goggle that arrived yesterday to test, to see which I would wear next Sunday in Brighton. Once a couple of small adjustments were made I tried the first ones for twenty minutes and then after a word with Steve over the lane rope,  I decided not to irritate myself further and wear that pair anyway and leave the others for some other time. The only thing wrong with the goggles was that they are very pink but I can live with that and anyway it could only annoy others since could not see what I looked like. Compared to the old ones everything was very bright and clean and clear, and that must be a good thing. 

After the swim we had time for a trip to the coffee shop before my first appointment. That was with my doctor whom I had asked to refer me back to dermatology at the hospital since another little scabby thing was on my forehead that was on the exact spot that the first one was removed from. I have had a number of little things removed and they are the result of sun damage caused in long distant events, when I have been out in the sun every moment of the day. Putting sun block on doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference because when you are sweating like a pig it, doesn’t stay on, it gets wiped off or washed off by the sweat. I did have beautiful skin when I was young but now it is a mess on every part of my body that has been sun burned time and again. 

Whilst I was there my Doctor brought out the result of my recent blood test and told me that my cholesterol level was not good and that she thought maybe I could try some Statin’s! I asked if she thought that rather than do that, I could try to get my weight down and see if that made a difference before taking any further steps. She printed me out a low fat diet which I politely took. However, I do know what I should cut down on, so I will try to address my weight issue hoping to avoid taking any new medication. I have seen my race photos of late and thought that I should shed a few pounds, also my wetsuit is tight across my chest, so I will cut out the increased amounts of ice cream that crept in during the summer for a start and see how that goes. Being lighter should help my running as well no doubt about that. The other danger is that my husband is also fattening, just being near him is fattening. Being happy is fattening too. 

I rang Steve to tell him and he did admit that we had both been doing a bit of naughty eating during the summer and we would both cut down a bit. Whilst on the phone he asked me to go home to pick up some paper work that he had left behind when he left for work earlier, and could I drop it in to him at the warehouse before I went in to Worthing later. 

My next appointment was with Ursula, who every now and again tints my eyelashes for me, she also tints my eyebrows and this last thing makes Steve roar with laughter because he knows that my eyebrows are sparse to put it kindly. When ever I tell him I am going to Ursula, he tells me to take the magnifying glass so that she can even find my eyebrows! Even when I was a child I did not have any eyebrows to speak of and this is a little strange when you take into consideration that I have always had and still have, a very thick head of hair, a mop in fact. I doesn’t notice when I have it cut short but it is plain to see right now since I have been letting it grow again, so that when I go out, I have something, apart from my nails that I can make look half nice at least. 

The next detour was to home to pick up Steve’s missing papers and take them in. When I got there he has another little job for me to do since my writing is better than his God awful scrawl, that was just to mark up a large crate with a readable address before it was picked up to go to Hong Kong. 

Then I was off into Worthing to take Alice to visit her nice Uncle Martin at The Bike Store. Alice is my best bike and her Uncle Martin is the owner of The Bike Store, and the one who measured, selected and set up my new bike for me some time ago. I had rung yesterday to see if I could bring her in just for a quick check over before the event looming on the horizon this weekend. The young Stanley that I had spoken to the previous day, had not left that message, but Martin said it was an unexpected pleasure to see Alice and myself and that he would make sure she was race fit! He said that I could pick her up about the same time tomorrow. Martin has always looked after me very well I am happy to say. Stanley is also doing the triathlon on Sunday. Obviously Stanley won’t have any trouble with the bike section of the race but he told me that he had only had four or five swims since deciding to do the event. I just hope it does not include a rough sea like there was in Worthing of August 28^th! 

When I left the Bike Store, I suddenly decided upon an impulse to do a little drive around memory lane. I had not planned to do that, not for a moment until it happened.  I am a Worthing girl and The Bike Store is quite close to a lot of my old haunts. For a start I drove past Beach House Park where I often played as a child, very often on my own, I was never short of imagination. Then I drove a little way further and turned down the nice wide tree lined Farncombe Road where I used to help my brother with his paper round and sometimes took that road when on jaunts to the beach with friends or cousins.  

Having got that far I turned right, along Lyndhurst Road but did not go as far as my junior school where I was unhappy much of the time. Instead I turned off to the left down Cranworth Road, where I spent most of my childhood at number 17 and my post school working years until I married. I made several more turns, past my old doctors surgery, and back up Homefield Road that backed onto Cranworth Road. After that I turned right into Lyndhurst road again, passing the other end of Beach House Park and the hospital, then passing by the old Gas Works where my dad worked when he came home from the war, and continued and up High Street, where the other place that he had worked until he retired was, but has since been lost in redevelopment. 

I have been to Worthing thousands of times and yet on this one occasion I felt a little emotional for some reason. Once back into Warwick Street and around Steyne Gardens, I made my way home along the sea front passing the run section of Worthing Triathlon a couple of weeks ago. It was then that I thought that the nostalgia spell, could have been because during that run I had been thinking that my cousin John and I used to play Leap Frog along there in the summer when we were kids, we would go the complete length of the promenade and back doing Leap Frog; no wonder my legs are strong. Neither of us had any parental restrictions during the summer holidays because our parents were both out at work. How the world has changed, but still we survived and were never total hooligans and were brought back to heel once Mum and Dad got home from work in the evening.