Naughty Moments

Budding graffiti artist young Jeffery famous as jeffs_jaunts on Instagram

It’s true that we all have naughty moments occasionally. When it is our pets we think it’s funny. It generally is, though on Sunday when my cat indirectly caused me to trip over on the paving outside in the garden, I gathered a handful of cuts and bruises. My daughter’s young dog Jeffrey who is, still a puppy is always making people laugh with his antics and his very own Instagram page: jeffs_jaunts.

Yet sometimes it’s the grown up people who surprise us all with the odd fit of the funnies. I have mentioned a solid new concrete wall fronting a set of new farm buildings in Angmering Park Estate which they tastefully painted a soft green to cause a lesser amount of complaints. Well, that was the proverbial red rag to the bull to the locals wasn’t it? They started very quickly to pick up one of the trillion-million-gazillion pieces of chalk that are everywhere on the surface there abouts or indeed along the whole of the South Downs where flint and chalk are happily married. There is no need to bring spray paint with art supplies so readily available for low talent level graffiti.

Not guilty, its a greeting TO us

This diary of mine is full to bursting with triathlon training details and nature study notes made while my husband/coach, run 28-30 miles per week, on the normally extremely well managed estate. Our time to run is dawn, when it is most quiet and most beautiful in the early light, as is Arundel Castle seen in the distance from a number of places, where it catches the first rays of the sun on its turrets, crenelations and stained glass windows.

We were there again this morning hoping to get our run in before the rain that was not forecast to arrive until past 8 am. It was looking threatening when we arrived with a quite impressive shelf cloud to the North West. None the less we started off on the most standard of our run routes that starts close to the new farm building, passing the new graffiti wall that folk are so enjoying, and traveling along The Monarchs Way and looping back over the hills and downs, by the gallops and back to the start.

My daughter and son in law also pass that way sometimes walking with young Jeffery while the talented professional photographer Jacqueline takes the most wonderful photographs as they wander. We had discussed the graffiti with them on previous meetings, particularly the funny ones about Jack Upperton who robbed the post coach close by in 1771, was sent for trial, and sentenced to be hung in Horsham. After death he was tarred and placed in a fitted metal gibbet to be hung at the scene of the crime as a deterrent. 

Who me?

 During our first chat about that with Jacqueline and Martin all noted that the graffiti was incorrect since it its original scrawl it said Jack Upperton hung around here * and gibbeted.

I have now discovered that my daughter and son in law went there for one of their outings but decided not only to correct the mistake themselves but to add a greeting for us to see when next we ran by! “Hello Steve and Daf” plus a funny little fat running creature.  Naughtiness indeed.

The information that went with the Garmin route print off shown, gave us two new PB’s. Best mile and best kilometre were in there somewhere as we ran today, probably on the downhill back to the start.

  

      

Ups and Downs

As if the printer coming the end of its short life yesterday was not annoying enough, as Steve carried the dead thing out of the house to the car, he tripped over in the garden with it in his arms. We had both wasted time trying to bring it back to life and enough is enough after all. A new replacement is on order but not expected for a couple of days.

One of our friends who we have known since we founded Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club thirty years ago responded to our birthday greeting by saying that he would call in to say hello and to bring back some DVD’s that I had lent him at the same time. We have missed seeing him during the plague season since not only did we used to see him three of four times a week at the pool where we all swim but he more often than not, joins us every time we go to the theatre, sometimes the cinema, out to dinner, and he even comes on holiday with us sometimes, usually to a triathlon event. Photos today of our time in Haugesund, Norway at this time last year when Anthony celebrated his a birthday there a year ago in happier times. the shot below is Anthony and another friend Birgit who also came along on the trip. they are walking back after Anthony's birthday lunch.

 

Like us, he is multi faceted. One regular thing he does, that we do not do, is that he is a member of Worthing Musical Theatre, that put on a show twice a year. Not this year though, since the show in March ‘Our House’ was postponed until September and that must now be in question also. I used to belong to an am-dram group in Worthing when I was in my teens so we always go to see Anthony’s shows.

Because of the present situation he had said that he would let us know when he was coming and so we opened the garage door, so that he could come in that way straight into the back garden and we could sit and talk there whilst still keeping the distance.  It was so lovely to see him in person even though we have been in email and FB contact. It was good to have the freedom to have a good talk even though it is not the happiest of times from him having lost his dad right in the middle of all that has been going on around us, making more problems to shoulder, on top of the bereavement.

It is strange how much harder the death of a parent is than anybody even thinks about before it happens. When it comes right down to it, it is something you have to very slowly get used to rather than get over. Emotions are all over the place you don’t ever really get over losing somebody you love no matter what, even if they were a worry in their later life, you can’t stop missing them, there is no magic ‘off’ switch to take the pain away.

So we sat in our windswept garden all talking at once, as you do with friends that you have missed. Our little cat didn’t like us all being outside and made a pest of herself scratching at the kitchen window to get out with us. Steve went to get her at one point and plopped her on my lap so that she didn’t feel left out but actually she is not a lap loving cat and won’t sit still like that although she does like being carried. In the end I put her back in before I got scratched in the struggle.

It would have been better to have left her inside because after another period of scratching the window she eventually got out and seeing the open garden door followed by the open garage door she shot out, across the garage compound and under the distant fence. I went after her but she saw her moment and was gone. I tried not to make a fuss saying the obvious; that she would come back when she was hungry, but I was worried due to her having been in lockdown with us for four months.

When Anthony got up to go and walked through the garage with Steve for a final few words, I hurried in the house to find a bag of cat treats to try to lure her back with. I was not as calm as I was pretending and trying to move quickly in sparkly flip flops I tripped up on of the ornamental steps in the garden and fell down with a skid and a crash. My skin is so thin that I knew there would be some damage and for the time I just gripped my bleeding elbow keeping it covered until Anthony was gone.

When Steve came back he took his well know nursing role for the cleansing and making good treatment of my wounds. Its nothing terrible just a couple of plasters on three corner tears and a bandage on the elbow to hold it in place for a bit. Everybody worries about me because falls at my age can be problematic but thankfully this time just a couple of cuts and no aches or pains. All things must pass. 

To run or not to run

 

After a blustery night we were not sure if we would get a run in today since we are both getting a bit long in the tooth to deliberately go out and get soaked through to the skin. We have had several drenchings in the last ten days and none were intentional. I know that there are athletes and sports apparel companies for that matter that follow the doctrine ‘Either you ran today or you didn’t’. That is not a way that I have ever followed and I will not be put down by those who say that to me. The simple rule is to be sensible if you are not in the first flush of youth. So if it is raining stair rods before I leave the house for a training run… I don’t leave.

If on the other hand we go out for a run and whilst we are running, rain comes along, then that is just too bad and we have to poke up with it. The same goes when we are racing. If we have entered a race and traveled a long way to get there then yes, again we will carry on and do the event.

Last year at about this time we had gone to Haugesund in Norway for the Ironman 70.3 event. We had made a holiday of the trip and three friends had come along with us. We all really enjoyed our stay, it was a most enjoyable and very interesting holiday even though the choice was made because of the event and the touring around to visit this place and that, were extras.

However, on race day it was dreary to start and pretty soon turned into the very worst of summer weather with frequent downpours while we were making our preparations. It got gradually worse until there was a thunder and lightning storm of biblical proportions. We are not talking a single streak of forked lightning. We were surrounded by the light show. Still we got our wetsuits on and walked to the start and while the thunderstorm progressed, we completed the swim. One of our friends got out before the swim was finished. The foul weather continued and my gears packed up working at all on the bike leg, when there were still streams washing across the road in some places. It was a disappointment of course but those things do happen from time to time and they are nobody’s fault. In fact I felt more sorry for the race director and his team and the marshals that I did for myself. Sure it’s a long was to go and quite an expense to get a DNF behind your name on the results. So there we have it, we only run in the rain if we have a very good reason.

Windsor Triathlon had pretty awful weather last year too but for an event when you have traveled and invested in a journey you get on with it and make the best you can of the experience. 

When we woke today the sky was mostly blue and although some dark clouds did gather and the wind was strong, there was plenty of sunshine too and the colours of the downland were intensified for having been refreshed. We did not get wet and the ground was a bit softer for having some rain without being horribly muddy.

Yesterday after all our training sessions, I sat and did some sewing and listened rather than watched a fabulous concert that Steve had recorded for me for such a time. It was called Hollywood in Vienna and it was the music of Hans Zimmer , the concert was held and recorded in 2018. As I said I did not sit down to watch the performance but still saw quite a lot of it all the same. The music was excellent and I had not seen the guest singers or soloists before. Even though I listen to Classic FM, who do play film music and even have a programme at the weekend called ‘Saturday night at the movies’, I was not familiar with all the music. I love to have music on whilst I am working or writing.

Today has not been so peaceful after the training because our office printer decided to misbehave and that made Stephen very cross. He tried his hardest not to make me feel that it was my fault because I have so much printing that I need doing, and it doesn’t help that I am useless with problems like that. So I have to leave it to him mostly but he did well not to totally explode, though it got close a couple of times. He even had me sit down and read the stage by stage internet instructions for servicing the blankedy-blank machine, which was a little tedious but a trouble shared is a trouble halved after all.

My theory is that some of these devices are deliberately made to not have long lives. A new printer is on the horizon now having wasted a couple of hours messing with the curs-ed thing. Ho hum.

Below are my succulent little Shiraz variety of Mangetout. 

Every day for a while I think.

Change is in the air

The change in the weather was probably brought about by the prayers of the people who were horrified at the madness seen in the hoards on the beaches, who in the few lovely days were seen wandering about with beer bellies hanging over their shorts they had had since they were a size or two smaller. These strange members of the population seem to be unaware that there has been a national emergency. It must be a very large rock for so many of them to hide under. They seem to have changed nothing in their everyday lives during these times, and maybe it will dawn on them more slowly that our life and times will have changed permanently in the long term. Maybe I am the odd one out but I don’t see things returning to the old idea of normal, not soon, not later, not ever.

For a start we know for sure that there are a multitude of things that we took for granted a while back. We may have missed some luxuries for a while but then the penny dropped and we saw that we didn’t need those things after all. Mind you, it has always been a mystery to me that so many people actually like to just go out shopping. They leave home not needing anything new in their wardrobe or their sitting room; yet when the weekend comes, they go shopping most of them don’t even know what a shopping list is. Shopping is a social thing to them not a necessity.

In our home we make a shopping list as the week progresses and before all this lockdown, (that seems to have drifted right our of the window) we would then have gone to the one or two shops and bought those item only or are we the only people on earth who do that?

We did go out today for a while. It was my first time out of the house not wearing sports clothes and intending to go for a run. Today was a mild panic excursion due to that fact that it was the birthday of a young friend who has swum with us in our club sessions for thirty years and we could not miss sending her a card. The funny thing was that we did not have her address in our book because we have always handed things like birthday and Christmas cards over by hand at swim sessions, never posted them in all the years.

So having made the effort to drive round and pop a card through our Katie’s door we drove to my daughter Jacqueline’s house in the same area and had a little chat with her and her husband Martin who is the saint who has brought us shopping when we could not get a delivery slot. We didn’t go inside their home but instead we had a few moments in their garden which was a pleasure that we have missed these past four months. 

We have missed them, that’s for sure. Loving embraces are something we have had to train ourselves to do without. We all have longer hair, apart from Steve due to the fact that I cut his hair for him. Jacqueline and I have lost touch with our hair colour. I have also lost my long artistically manicured nails and I don’t feel that I will resume that habit any time soon.

It was strange to me to be out and about at that time of day, lunchtime more or less, and I was not impressed with the general public's idea of social distancing at all, even though we were in our vehicle, it looked like times had not changed. My life and values have shifted to a more firm place that I think I prefer.

Having got home again its a little late to start writing my diary page but I had better quickly include that it was raining heavily first thing today and so we opted to run around the block a half dozen times rather than go out in mud and dripping trees in the woods. The run didn’t amount to much but everything is something as we say. We got in the hot tub to warm up as soon as we got back and then had a warm drink before going on to the indoor exercise. Briefly that was 15 minutes Tai Chi, 30 minutes of Qigong, and hour of ballet workout which is more workout than ballet actually and finally an hour turbo training up in our little box room.

I have started a new embroidery project and I added to that. My embroidery is a bit of a mad thing, free hand stitching that usually works; I rarely get to a point when I am not happy with it because although it is pattern free I think about it carefully.

Battle of Bournemouth Beach

 

                                                 

After watching the astonishing behaviour of the general public who had poured to the beach in Bournemouth I have to say that I am totally disgusted that anybody could conduct themselves so badly. My feelings are as follows:

No matter how hard that they have found to lock down and I can see that it must have been more difficult for families with children. It was wrong to invade a beautiful beach and it was an invasion. Then to disobey all the guide lines that have been set out for starting to come back to a near normal way of living. There was no visible social distancing being practiced or even hinted at. There was an unruly hoard shown on TV. The report said that many of the people were visitors who had traveled by train although many had arrived in their family cars. 

Setting aside for a moment that the weather was indeed a marvellous hot sunny day and that the children may have begged parents to take them to the beach. The parents are still supposed to be the responsible guardians of those children. Taking them to Bournemouth beach when obviously it would be crowded with people from who knows where, many from London that has a much worse Covid 19 virus record than the South East and the South West, was endangering their own family. What were they thinking?

Worse still they left all their litter behind on the beach. 40 Tons of it. To quote Eamonn Holmes, who was talking about this behaviour himself on TV this morning, “It looked like a pigsty” It did look like a herd of pigs had left and that is what had happened. It was a jaw dropping sight. A massive group of people had made no attempt to take their rubbish home or at least take to the first litter bin they could fine with any space in. So yes; they are pigs. Can you imagine what the inside of their homes look like? Some residents said that people used their gardens as a toilet. Disgusting and downright inhuman. 

On Wednesday Steve and I went to Littlehampton beach briefly for a swim. The promenade was full, and cars were circling every car park and road leading to the beach for parking spaces. Even so it did not begin to look as bad as the television report from Bournemouth yesterday.

There could have been no pleasure in even being there on the lovely sandy beaches of Bournemouth with so many in the crowd. The public toilet facilities are few and could not have hoped to cope with crowds of those proportions, so we know where most of them went to the toilet don’t we. Pigs. I am ashamed for them because they can have no shame for themselves.

Mr and Mrs Impetuousness

 

Mr and Mrs Impetuousness.

Most run mornings, I don’t know how far we are going to go or which route we will take, that sort of thing I leave entirely to Steve to plan. After driving to Angmering Park Estate, which is not a formal park like the ones found in towns; it is a quite extensive, the land covers 6750 acres and the estates history goes back to the Norman Conquests. 

So with that amount of farm and woodlands available, it’s easier to see how we get to run in such beautiful countryside where it is easy to stay on the estate and get nice long runs in with so many choices of route.

Once Steve has parked Violetta, on the patch of chalk that was recently added to make the corner space just off the road, where dog walkers, runners, mountain bikers and horse boxes park up before they set forth, we start our run.

 

This morning I got out of the van and turned toward the Monarchs Way path into the woods but Steve stopped me and indicated that we were going to go off in the opposite direction. To me that meant that we were going to do another 8 mile run. As we go along our way every run day, I ask Steve to let me know when each mile is clocked up on the device on his wrist that is not very big but gives us a multitude of information, geek stuff that runners love. 

So we started off in running to the west for a little bit before turning into another section of woodland. We have taken that route quite a few times now when going for 8 miles. The big surprise of the morning for me was that when we got to the distant point behind Patching Church, instead of turning to run on and make a nice circular route,  Steve stopped at one to the gates and turned us back the way we came, making it a there and back run for a change. It is odd though, that having always gone in the one direction that it looks so different running in the opposite way. As a result it took 3.40 mins longer on the outward leg and so yes, it does gradually climb, not steeply but enough to make a noticeable difference as you go though.

We were both glad that we had opted to wear less clothes this morning because even that early, 5.20 am start, the day was threatening to be another hot one with not a cloud in the sky. I actually prefer to be completely covered running through the woods to save my poor old thin skin from lashes by brambles etc. it was too hot for long sleeves and tights today though.

 

 

After we had completed our 12^th 8 mile run during the lock down season, Steve drove us both around the extended route home. It is a little tour, through single track lanes then eventually meet the main road again where we then slip into Arundel just to make sure that its still there and because we like to, no more reason is needed. Arundel is a lovely little country tourist town that is usually packed with visitors in the height of summer but not this year of course. The Castle usually opens at around Easter. I like to get a visit in myself early in the season most years but that is on hold, like so many peoples lives right now.

When we got home we both checked our email and found a message from Ironman, telling us that we could have a priority entry for any of several races next year including one that was new to us. Ironman 70.3 Venice. We had both read the message and I had made coffee and brought it in the room when Steve bowled in and said “Lets do it”! What could be nicer to look forward to. So before you could say knife Mr and Mrs Impetuousness had signed up for the race on May 2^nd next year. There will be more about this another day I dare say.

Bike, Beach and Birdy the Bagel Bandit

 

Bike, Beach and Birdy the Bagel Bandit                                      

Early this morning, Steve and I drove a few miles away from home; no more than five actually, where we have a favourite quite, undulating section of road where we used to live along time ago. We are warm enough in short sleeved bike shirts there, doing our workout even so early in the morning. We got a good few laps done and were packed up and home again in time for breakfast; if breakfast was something we ate; it isn’t. So we just had coffee once we were in.

We had planned to take the rest of the day easily apart from a bit of this and that about the house and garden. There is always a wash to get in the machine after a bike ride, but with all the exercise we do, more simply; there is always some washing to do. Steve suggested that I might like to do some sewing, and that is always an option. He knew that I wanted to finish the latest pair of summer pants that I needed to finish off. They were well on the way to completion having got all the machine work done. I quite often finish a garment with a little bit of embroidery somewhere, I generally finish trouser bottoms for myself in that way. The pants hems were already tacked up, as were the slits in the side of the lower legs. So that was what I set about doing; a long line of little French knots down the side of the splits to the ankle, all around the hem and back up the other side of the lower leg.

I had been listening to Classic FM, seated at the bay window at the front of the house while Steve got to work in the kitchen with some dividing and preparing of some newly delivered food items. While we were out cycling, we had left two packets of bagels on the work surface ready to slice in half, make a half turn to prevent them being difficult to part when the time came and put into freezer packs.

Our little black cat Birdy had the run of the house when we were out. She is a very fussy eater and doesn’t eat anything unless it is wet, either prepared in gravy or jelly or something. Sometimes when you present her food, she will just lick the whole meal until it is completely dry and then walk away leaving the lumps of fish or meat to turn to stone before I put it on the bird table for hungrier creatures. So for that reason we had not given packets of bagels a second thought, they are dry and they don’t smell tempting. That turned out to be a mistake. When Steve came to do the bagel preparation he discovered that there had been an assault on one plastic packet. There were five bagels in each bag and three of them in one bag had bites pulled out of the bagels. The plastic was not even punctured but there were bite sized pieces hanging loose inside. The taste of the plastic must have been enough to stop her gallop. What a contrary little madam. 

Later I had just heard Alexander Armstrong talking about a young Welsh boy Treble, Cai Thomas, who was taking the world by storm. He played the boy singing, Ombra Mai Fu, by Handel from his album and that had the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing right on end as he held the first note. Steve came in the room and I made a SSSSSHHHSSHHH sign to him and he sat down and listened with me to the lad, in equal awe.

When the boy’s track had finished, Steve asked me how I felt about going down to the beach for a sea swim. He went on the say that we wouldn’t need wet suits because he had checked the water temperature and it was over 16 degrees. I had just finished the first leg of my pants embroidery, so the timing of the suggestion was excellent. We quickly scuttled about changing into swimming togs, gathering goggles and hats and throwing on our old towelling dressing gowns. The beach is only two miles away.

Littlehampton beach was more packed than we had ever seen it. There were more people than there are on a sunny bank holiday weekend. There was not a car parking place left anywhere and I am keeping quiet about where we parked Violetta. Steve had grabbed my old fins so that I would be able to keep up with him. You couldn’t put a pin between the people on the beach at the main tourist favoured section closest to the river. We went further along until it was not quite so crowded and walked onto the beach and down the shingle close to the water.

We had a heavenly swim and with both of us without wetsuits and me with the fins we were able to swim together. It was over an hour before the high tide time but the current was running strongly. We went further out from the beach, so none of the visitors were out that far. I find it alarming how little thought strangers give to the danger of our very strong current. There were families with younger children wearing or with holding buoyancy aids. I though they were too far into the water and actually saw one mother grab her child by the foot as it started to drift quickly out on a receding wave.

For Steve and me, it was so lovely to be able to get a half decent swim in on such a beautiful day when there we not much wind, the waves were not very high, and the sea was such a welcome addition to our day. 

Polishing up the run training picture

On the way home drive-by of Arundel Castle from the South East

Polishing up the run training picture                                   

It was the third week in April that we introduced a new run into our triathlon training schedule. We have been on a steady build of runs during this horrible time when the only reason we left the house at all was to go for a run. Before that we had slowly done a little more and a little more running during the period then when we were not able to go swimming with all the pools and leisure centres closed.

Previously when work was part of our lives there was less time for training although we have historically always done our training in the mornings, apart for the club swim session on Saturday afternoon. Its all changed now of course. However, we are both agreed that it is a much nicer life style with Steve home most of the time and we quickly started to feel much better in ourselves without long hard work days and/or long driving days that started early and finished late. Stretching and mobility had been neglected because with only so much time something has to give.

Apart from the fact that we have not gone away anywhere for the pleasure of our planned event season, it is just like being on holiday. We are nicely rested and have time to loosen up tired old over worked muscles.

So upping the running was the choice. We played with the new idea quite a bit with a lot of 6 milers and a few 4 mile runs building up the weekly load. We were doing more 10 km per week as well. Loads of classes on TV kept us nice and loose and relaxed instead of tightening our muscles. We have to bear in mind are not young any more. Early nights and no outings also helped.

The first time we threw in the new eight mile run on April 21st that Steve had carefully planned to be in a quite different area from the usual, it was fairly slow 2.09.17,  yet for us it was something to smile about. We did the same run again two days later in 1.56.48.

After the after the third, forth and fifth eight mile run during the first half of May, we slipped in a half marathon, a distance that we had not done in training at all this year. We would have done on that week in Ironman Graz, Austria, had it not been postponed until next year. We were very happy with that run.

On June 9^th after a complete rest day, we ran our usual Sunday run route; that is just short of 10 km, to a point that was five miles out, so fairly close to the usual finish. We  there turned around, and ran the whole route that far backwards to making a nice ten mile run for a change.

Our run this morning was the third best of the eleven eight mile runs that we have done during lockdown. The only downside of more than doubling our weekly run mileage average to 25-28+ miles is that our turbo training has been harder, but that was to be expected.  According to the Garmin Forerunner read out, we have run 30.5 miles in the last seven days. 

We have enjoyed the very early time schedule enormously, and the especially early alarm call to mark the summer Solstice was rewarded ten fold with the best sunrise we had seen this year. This photo was just the start of the spectacle.

We had half expected the cloud cover to blot the whole thing out, but it was gob-smackingly awesome. The fact than half an hour later, we were totally drowned didn’t even begin to spoil the thrill of that view; right at the top of the South Downs near Parham. We were stopped in our tracks with the beauty of the sky that had turned into a wall of fire, even though it darkened over soon afterwards. We were prepared to get wet on that run and Steve had put a big pile of  bath towels in the back of the van and we both took our two dripping squelchy top layers off as soon as we got back and just wrapped ourselves in the a couple of bath sheets size towels. We had to ring out our things before chucking them in the back. We were still back home again before any of our neighbours were up, so no funny looks at the towel clad pair of us entering our garage. We climbed in our hot tub and sat there until we warmed up again.

We didn’t do much else on the Solstice day but we did watch a movie recommended in an email from the BBC on i-player. It was Andrew Garfield in a film called 99 Homes. The movie got the ‘Different’ vote, and had us both saying that he was so marvellous in that quite uncomfortable story, that we had better look out Hacksaw Ridge, that had blown all the critics away and got him a truck load of nominations. We had missed that entirely due to our life and pressure of work at the time that it was out in cinemas. We intend to catch it as soon as we can now.

Practice Makes Perfect

 

Practice Makes Perfect

That is a great old motivational statement don’t you think? For me it goes way back into my early childhood memories. My first dancing classes with Miss Wendy at Glendale School of Dancing taught me so much and not just that practice really does make perfect but also that imitation is not just a form of flattery but more importantly that you can learn so much but watching, copying and repetition.

My first tap class involved listening too. Of course ‘listening’ works better if you want to know how things are done. The class is the place to start and not private lessons. In a group you are with other people who want to learn to do the same things as you.

The class started with a short set four heels and four toes; one heel at a time starting with the right foot, tapped on the floor in front of you and then the other and repeated, then there were four toes when the right foot tapped the toe on the floor behind the other foot, again left, right, left, right. Later, came the arms, where for the heel steps, the opposite arm came forward with each tap while the other are when out to the side. Then with the toe taps, the arms go from side to side but with one arm higher and the other coming half across the body.

Good Toes Naughty Toes

There you have it the first basic step of tap dancing. This is for four or five year olds. Kids pick it up in no time. At the first ballet class the thing I remember learning was sitting on the floor with legs stretched out in front and when the music started we learned about good toes and naughty toes. The good toes were pointed and bad ones were flexed. Anybody reading this would at the very least, wonder where I was going with this, or else think that I had lost the thread of life and slipped into la-la or ga-ga land. No, I haven’t lost the plot after sixteen weeks of seeing nobody except my husband and cat inside the house. 

This was women only run in Richmond Park that my daughter and I did together 

 It was more that during our indoor ballet class that Steve and I have been doing regularly two or three times a week following instruction from the New York City Ballet work-out, that the voice over of ballet master often says to keep watching and trying to do what the dancers on the screen are doing but not to try too hard, not to stretch too far. The gentle voice simply say that with repetition week after week that it will get easier and once you know what the movements are and do not get left behind, that you can then emulate the form. It is a slow process. The message is little and often piece by piece you will gradually get the idea or see something you didn’t get before.

It is the same with anything, you can’t run before you can walk and you can’t run fast or long, without running slowly to start. You can’t run a marathon without gradually getting the miles under the belt. When people ask me for triathlon advice from the absolute beginner point of view, I tell them to join a club. That it is because it is so much easier to learn anything when you have other people around with the same idea.

The Human Race Eton Dorney Lake is excellent for lady beginners, closed road and lake swim.

Years ago I used to give a Ladies Beginners Running group weekly once a week in the park or on the promenade in summer time. We started with a walk together, chatting as we went so that everybody was comfortable. Then we stopped and did just a little stretching, nothing hard, just a gentle stretch. Then we would try a run of just thirty seconds and a one minute walk and repeat that. The ones in front would walk back to the slower ones before jogging on again. We didn’t go far, it was light hearted and fun. We did another little stretch at the end. We built that up to a one minute jog and a one minute walk, re-grouping each time on the turn back walk. Gradually the walk section got less and less and then the run got further. We kept that going being very careful not to scare the women away and by the end of eight weeks they were already getting together to have a midweek practice set in small groups on their own.

 

With triathlon, the hardest thing to learn from scratch is the swimming and that does need the person to keep on keeping on. Changing from breast stroke to front crawl is not easy and I am speaking for myself there. It took me four month to confidently swim a mile in the pool. The breathing is hardest to get to grips with and until the swimmer can relax and start to breathe in a normal pattern, as they do walking through the town or standing chopping vegetables they don’t get very far. Learning to completely exhale is the secret. You cannot get your lungs full of air if you have not blown all air out. Slowly does it.

Swimming is the most technical to learn from the beginning too. Beginners who try to teach themselves front crawl tend to look around to pool and try to copy somebody else but they are only seeing the recovery and not the more important catch-pull-push phase that goes on under the water and that so important exhalation. As well as in the water, swimming in front of a mirror is most helpful to get the arms and breathing working better. In our ballet class the voice often says, “And don’t forget to breathe”.

In lockdown, that Steve and I are still in for a while yet, we are doing two to three hours per day training. Still highly motivated. Still got our eyes glued on the future.

Celebrating the Summer Solstice.                                                  

Without being too picky or exact, I have always chosen to celebrate the Summer Solstice on June 21^st and the winter one bang on December 21^st I know that the fully correct moment is when the sun stops traveling north, the longest day, and the complete opposite in winter. I do like to make a big enough thing about those two, although I also like to mark the spring and autumn days too, I am pretty much with the druids about mid winter, spring, summer and autumn. My husband is happy to go along with this just to help make me happy, as he did today having set the alarm for 3.52 am. We left home at 4.10 am and got to the road called High Titten that leads up onto the South Downs in Amberley, where we would park up. All carefully planned.  So at 4.30 am we then had ten minutes to get to the best position by 4.40 am. The first section is a steep hill that we have for the last 25 years called ‘Christopher Reeves Hill. The reason we have called it that was a simple motivational story. We were in the early days of leading and coaching Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club and we included that hill right at the beginning of the hardest of our club run sessions. The thought we offered our runners was, that instead of moaning about how hard a hill it was to get up, that they should say to themselves; ‘How lucky I am, to be strong and fit enough to get up this hill and to think about how much Christopher Reeves would love to be able to do that hard run, instead of being stuck in a wheelchair paralyzed from the neck down after the horse riding accident that had ended his movie career in about 1995.

This morning at our ages of 70 for Steve and 80 for me, we hiked up to the top of our Christopher Reeves Hill. Still thankful to have the fitness to do it. Steve had worked the timing out perfectly and the lowest part of the sky was already every shade of flame, orange and purple. When we left from home we had talked about the weather forecast and said that there was a chance that the rain would have reached the area by the time the sunrise was due. We carried on regardless, hoping that we might just catch the moment. 

We were more than rewarded for making the sacrifice of an ultra early start time by catching the best sunrise of the year. There needs to be cloud for the best colour show doesn’t there?

There was also a weird rainbow behind us and another prism of colour to the South. We stood and gawked, wondered and pretty much worshiped the display as it changed colour and intensity by the second. I once read a line out of Albert Camus’s diaries, where he said “Nature abhors miracles that last too long”. I think of that so often because it could not be more true; how many times have you struggled to get the camera out to catch an image and when you have it all set up the wonderful light had gone or the bird had flown or the butterfly vanished?

There was heavy cloud today and rain correctly forecast. We were out for an 8 mile run after the sunrise. Steve forgot to ‘pause’ the Garmin and so our finish time today includes all the photographic and wonderment moments and makes it read as the slowest 8 mile run of the season. Mind you it was a hard run on a dangerously uneven rough flint and chalk surface. Flint is so hard on the joints and muscles and chalk, once the rain starts is lethally slippery. The run was all hilly and quite varied since the top and lea side of the downs is mainly farmland. We ran through huge fields of Wheat and also Linseed that was just starting to come into flower, and once more wondered how the crops could grow in such rock hard ground. 

As we changed direction on our run at about three miles, which equalled the point of no return today, we saw that it was without doubt raining over the sea and was well on it way to catch us at our most distant point. When the rain first started it wasn’t too bad and at least I had worn a light shower proof jacket.  However, shower proof does not seem to mean deluge proof and by the time we turned again with three miles to go to get back the van it was sheeting rain and the wind was doing a good imitation of an autumn gale. Once back up on the South Downs Way, that is a high point, as indicated by one of the old trig points, it was blowing really hard and we were both soaked to the skin and I could hardly see for rainwater dripping into my eyes as well as running off my nose and squelching in my trainers. 

The number one place to go for the summer solstice would have to be Stonehenge as the Druid celebration shows when thousands of people turn up just for the craic. Stonehenge is my favourite ancient monument in the entire UK. There are lots of other places I love well but for me the stones are truly spiritual. The Stone Age, Newgrange in Co. Meath, Ireland, is marvellous too, that is a winter Solstice gathering place and equally mystical. Of course in England and the rest of the UK we are littered with marvellous places to visit or just gaze at as you pass, as Steve and I have done literally hundreds of times, and Steve has never once told me to ‘stop it’ when, as I always do without fail, say boldly ‘All Hail the Stones’, as they come into sight! Mad. I know. Castles, Cathedrals, The Angel of the North, hill carvings…. Love them all. I don’t think that I have any friends who would be at all surprised at this revelation. 

Newgrange , Co Meath, Ireland a stone age burial vault