Seeing the back of 2020

It has been tough to stay focused the last ten months, and I don’t suppose that I am the only one thinking that during this time, when so many hopes and dreams were brought tumbling irretrievably down, smashing in a thousand pieces as they hit the bottom, what a disaster it has been. We triathletes saw every race we had entered cancelled or postponed until 2021. All that training to be on top form when our races came along, dreams of doing well slipping away. That is what I have tried to drum firmly into my head; that those events are still on the table, but instead of being five or six months away as they were in winter of last year, they moved to being eighteen months away. If you were in the 20-25 age group that won’t have made much difference because when you are young you have your whole life ahead of you and don’t give losing one year much thought. It is different at my age of course.

 

When you have been lucky enough to live a healthy life right up to celebrating your 80^th birthday you also consider every extra year, that you are able to continue doing the things that give you the most satisfaction in life, as a bonus and I’d be a great big fat liar, if I said that have never wondered how many more years I will be blessed with. Sure, I have all my race dates moved forward onto the 2021 calendar and entered in my diary, added with notes about where Steve has booked for us to stay when we go for our three early summer Ironman corp. races in Europe all three in May.  Venice-Jesolo 70.3 then Poreč 5150, then Graz70.3. 

 Then home for other events in June including the 30^th Anniversary of the Windsor Triathlon. Steve and I have competed in that Olympic distance race almost every year since it started right up to 2019 when it hissed with rain for most of the race. That was dramatic enough, because I was briefly knocked out by a thump in the back of my head during the swim just after the second turn point. When I spluttered to the surface, the first thing I saw on the bank of the River Thames, was Stephen ripping his shoes off to jump in to save me. I was ok though; it was a fright for him I know. He wanted me to get out of the water then and ther,e shouting at me from the bank and he would have hauled me out if he could have got hold of me, but I stayed out of reach and told him that I was not stopping. Thankfully spectators and competitors are kept apart, by the barriers and Steve shouted at me all through transition not to go out on the bike but I just kept telling him that I was ok, there was no damage from the clonk on the head. I promised him that I would take it easy on the bike and I did. He was waiting to see me get back to transition 2 on the bike, and to keep him happyish, I kept my jacket on the go out on the run section. It is a truly great event, a true spectacle, what with the swim in the best known and most iconic river in the country the great River Thames and the whole event overlooked by the most stunning Windsor Castle and part of the run is on the Long Walk in the great park. With my fingers, toes, legs and eyes all tightly crossed, I can truthfully say that I am so looking forward to spending the weekend in Royal Windsor to do the 30^th edition of the marvellous event.

 

Having just finished that last paragraph I have just heard on the radio that we British people have been strongly advise not to gather in groups or even to celebrate the New Year’s Eve indoors, and the passing of the dreadful disease-ridden year. We are told to stay at home and hold true to the lockdown for the safety of ourselves and of others. 

                                                    Steve and I this time last year

A family tradition, at this time every year, that Stephen and I scribble out two lists each by hand. The first list is all the things that we hope and pray will come to pass. We put everything on the list that sounds like it should be on the hopes and dreams list, right down to the last line where we write that we will make an effort to end the Christmas tide binge of finishing up any chocolates and yummy gifts that friends and family gave us as presents and get right back on our strict eating habits where we eat very carefully and healthily for the five weekdays and then allow ourselves an indulgence or two on Saturday and Sunday, and then firmly back to steady-up days during the next five days. So, wishing that we will get to all our planned events comes high on that list, as does health and happiness and other reasons to be cheerful.  The list includes our family and other loved ones as well, and the health of people we know that are suffering, that friends who have been in hospital, that they will be restored to health. To be able to make people who love us, proud of us, in as many ways as possible. Do good where you can. That list will be placed in an envelope and placed at the bottom a drawer safely.

 

The second list is the one where we list all the things that we hope to see the back of. There are so many things to squeeze on that horror list but at the top will be this killer virus. When we have got to the bottom of the second list, we will go out into the garden and burn it. I know, it sounds like witchcraft doesn’t it, but it isn’t. It is just a way to make the point that we need to rid our lives of certain things like bad habits and attitudes the need to spread love and not hate. Be kind and not a complete arse.

 

 

 

Getting by without

 

About the only way that the Christmas that just slipped by us, was like any previous ones, was that it had equal amounts of absolute trash on TV compared to the past. It is a time when you have to be very selective according to your own tastes. Speaking for Stephen and myself, I must admit to having watched more TV this year, with all the social distancing, than any other time in my entire life.  Being a pair who normally go to the cinema and the theatre a fair amount, that has been a major down side. We would often go out with friends, mainly from the swimming pool group, who meet regularly to swim, with others who belong to the two triathlon clubs; Trinity which is our club, and is mainly a swimming club these days funnily enough, and the now huge Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club, both of which were founded by Steve and I, that have their home at Littlehampton Wave. This brand-new swimming and sports centre had only been open, for barely one year before the rot set in during the early months of 2020.

 

This has meant that we have been deprived of our swimming for the most part, the first discipline in triathlon of course.  Lots of our friends have been sea swimming even when it is now so cold. Steve doesn’t want me to join in any of that, since he knows how quickly I can get very cold indeed, without stepping into the English Channel at this time of the year. He worries about me since I have had pneumonia a couple of times after getting very cold, I seem to do that, quite quickly, and so his foot is firmly down on that count.

 

 

Linked very closely to the swimming set, was the loss of our social lives that closely revolved around our sport of thirty years, triathlon. As with any club, the group throws up birthdays and they must be celebrated. That was most often done after the Saturday evening club swim session when we would go and have a meal together, or nip into the little local art hour cinema; The Windmill, that is staffed by volunteers, half a mile away from the pool. Sometimes low key and other times involving dinner and theatre in nearby Chichester to see the latest productions at Chichester Festival Theatre that are often pre-London openings. Chichester is only a twenty minute drive from Littlehampton.

 

Thank heavens then, that the West End theatres started to stream previously recorded productions on TV for a small fee, or sometimes free which was amazing. Over the Christmas period Stephen and I have settled down for something like that most evenings. Most notably for us, were two of the biggies from the show world that we had been to see a number of times in London, when it also involved dinner and a night out in a West End hotel and travel costs. The first of these great shows was the 25^th Anniversary concert performance of Les Misérables, filmed at the Royal Albert Hall. That was marvellous and also had a long encore section in which previous stars performed, and there were emotional speeches from Cameron Mackintosh and the shows great writers Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. The recording was from 2010. Last night was indulged ourselves further with another 25^th Anniversary of a West End production this time filmed in 2016. This time it was Miss Saigon which I think we have seen with nearly every cast change since the opening. I’m not sure who cried the most but it could well have been Steve even with being so familiar with the story. We had both cried floods when we saw Madame Butterfly at the ROH a couple of years ago too; the two versions of the same story equally heart-breaking.

 Chichester Festival Theatre