Rubbish

Due to our long life in the world of antiques, we have long had a home rule that no further items can be brought home unless something is moved out to make room for the new piece. During our recent business restructuring we have lost storage space for old files etc. Initially Steve brought them home, so he said, as a temporary measure and piled boxes and boxes of ancient files into our garden shed. There they stayed during the winter and would have stayed forever had we been normal people.

But spring rolled in and we needed the bikes that were imprisoned behind the roof high piles of boxes. This has forced a rethink. We both decided that there was no option but to hold a grand sort out of every room in the house, as well as loft, garage, and shed. This has been in progress for some time now. Every week Steve has been digging away and filling the back of our car with an assortment of rubbish that was no longer wanted.

We have over our forty years together squirreled away so much useless stuff in our home, that we are at the point where the choice is; to knuckled down and sort the good things, from the things that have not been touched for years and that are obviously just taking up space and will never be used again. For a start we have a loft that is packed solid. There is a whole wall at the far end of the eaves that is entirely boxes of books. We cannot even get to that right now. This week Steve has been turning out the garage and this morning whilst I was otherwise occupied, announced that he had filled the car and that it was ready for me to take to the tip.

There, under a dark grey cloud hangs another story. Steve has been barred from the tip. This happened because he was witnessed on a couple of occasions, throwing the rubbish in the wrong pile. We all know that times have changed as far as visits to the tip are concerned. Everything must be placed in the correct container. There must be around twelve different stations at the Littlehampton Community Tip, as well as the recycling units and the containers for donations of clothing for charities.

It used to be a fairly pain free job to go and throw away the things that you have discarded. This year the council has implemented a new system and it has been firmly put into place in this area with complete disregard of the residents. The hours at our local tip were 8am until 5pm in winter and 8am until dusk in summer. The new system not only has much shorter opening hours of 10 am until 5 pm but the whole place is also closed completely for two full weekdays per week. That varies from town to town here abouts. With our closures being on Tuesday and Wednesday and with the tips eight miles away in Worthing or Bognor Regis being on other days. There is now a queue literally a mile long that starts before the opening time and in no time backs up to the main road causing chaos there as well .

It is not then surprising, that there has been and outbreak of fly tipping in the nearby countryside. That the formally efficient running of the tip has been forced by economy cuts to lower its standards is not an excuse at all, but it gives the obvious reason; because the less nice people in the community who have not checked on opening times before hand, and may have hired a van to dispose of their rubbish after home building works, and who then get to the tip and discover that it is either closed or that they will be charged an exorbitant amount of money; £4 an bag for rubble, will then just go and find a quiet spot to empty the van or their big car boot. It’s not right either way.

When I sort out any of the cupboards I carefully place the throw away stuff in order of the waste containers, so that when I open the boot on arrival at the tip, there will be any ordinary household rubbish from out waste bins easily reachable. Then behind that are garden sacks and behind that wooden items. Everything in its place, and a place for everything.

After Steve called me to say that the car was ready for me to take to the tip, my heart sank as I looked at the way it was loaded items of all sorts were just stacked in, all mixed up, which meant that instead of it being a five minute job when I got there, that it would take fifteen or twenty minutes to waltz around to the various distributions points. Today, including sitting in the queue listening to Classic FM to keep calm, this job took nearly an hour.

When I got home I was greeted by a sweetly smiling husband who asked me if I had had a nice time. I warned him that I was not best pleased with him and that he should save the jokes for another time since my first job was going to be to walk calmly to me desk and place him on the ‘Things For Sale In Littlehampton’ Facebook page. He looked crestfallen for a few moments and then asked if it was coffee time yet. My response was to walk up to him and stand in the nose to nose, toe to toe position and tell him that I did not like him very much at the time and it would be best to stay clear for a while. He asked if I was really going to sell him and how much was I going to ask. I told him that the wording would be, ‘Man for Sale, any reasonable offer considered, buyer collects’.

Looking After Your Own Health

The person I hold responsible for my own personal health is me. That has to be the truth of the matter doesn’t it? There is nobody else you can honestly blame if you are not as healthy as it is possible for you to be. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. The buck stops with the person you see in the mirror.

What I try very hard to do, is not to eat at all during the day, on week days. I have drinks, and there again I am trying to hold back my coffee addiction and to that end I have just made up a jug of iced tea, no sweetener in that. I have a second brew from the speciality mix on the desk now. I buy tea from a shop in Burgundy (OK, I am tea snob as is my husband). Milk does not feature in these beverages hot or cold.

Steve and I have a big salad on the table for dinner and we have salmon or chicken or something as light, perfectly cooked by himself to his own unquestioned whims. The top favourite main ingredient of the salad is Lambs Leaf as we call it in the UK, or Feld Salad as it is called in Germany, Nüssli and Rapunzel are other names for the same thing around Europe. We vary the dressing and quite often I make that myself.

 

Very often I have told friends that even living in the same house as Steve is actually fattening because he falls of the wagon every now and again and wants me to join him so that he doesn’t feel so bad. We are on the straight and narrow right now, because we are at the start of the triathlon season and as you get older you need to try to make it easier for yourself any way you can. One way, is to get whatever training you can get done in, in whatever time you have available and the obvious other way it to try to keep your weight down to a sensible level.

 

The other day, I did tell Steve that I still love him with the love handles because my love for him is not about appearance, it is about the person he is, and I like the person he is. We like each other. We are without a shadow of doubt best friends; we are the person the other wants to be with a much as possible. We share major likes and dislikes. So the image we see of each other is not off putting. The truth remains though. We could both do with being lighter. So our five days of eating very healthily, is coupled with our inner monsters that dream of a cake in the tea shop on Sunday morning after our run and a bag of jelly snakes each when we go to a movie.

Steve does not drink any alcohol at all and never has. He never did start that with the rest of the guys, even though he went with them to the pub after swim training in his teens. I do like a glass of wine with a meal but don’t have one with every meal and anyway, I am a serious lightweight drinker, having had quite enough hangovers in the very distant past, including one that lasted three days after a friends twenty first birthday party. A gang of my friends thought it was about time they made sure I got drunk. For a while I tried to do what my friends did but I was always so ill afterwards that I soon dropped out of that pattern. I have never understood why anybody would go out and get drunk intentionally.

My efforts are devoted to trying to keep doing the sport that I love, including trying over and over again to drop a few more pounds. One failure is not absolute and I will stick at it and get back on the healthy wagon each time there is a bump in the road. Let us be sensible; I am seventy seven year old and that is no time to relax and give up just because I am not the pretty young girl I once was. That is a huge danger isn’t it; to say ‘Oh what the hell pass the crisps and slob out’. Not for me.

On Tuesday, I went to see the nurse at the doctors surgery just to get her to take a look at the nasty gash on my shin and decide if I should keep it covered or let it dry out in the air. That should have been a five minute appointment but for all the talk about the state the NHS is in, she did an amazing thing. She checked on my records and gave me a serious dressing down about not coming in often enough. She took my blood pressure. She had a lot to say. She made a couple of appointments for tests that I had not had. I was surprised actually, because of course, I think I am pretty damn fit for my age and she agreed with that, she knows what I do but argued that that did not mean I could forget my age and ignore all the normal tests that are recommended.

 

So in that light, I can only pass this message on to a couple of friends that I am worried about you because you are overweight and you are waaaaayyyyy younger than me. Get your act together, because you my friend could be a lot better at your sport if you were lighter. I know people who have stopped participating in the sport that they so enjoyed for years because they are overweight, too heavy to continue; and let us not be politically correct here, lets stop all that politically correct nonsense and use the ‘F’ Word. Fat. The weight did not stop you enjoying your sport, YOU did.

Our friend shown here is Anthony Forsyth. We have known him since he was racing as a junior. He is now a Pastor, he is married and has five children and runs in 100 mile races. He was like many of us over weight for a while back there in the past.

Health and Safety in Question

This morning Steve carefully placed a waterproof plaster over the wound on my shin that was the result of rushing around like the proverbial Blue Arsed Fly, in the dark, in the garage compound at silly o’clock last Sunday morning.  The need for the plaster was so that I could do my swim today. The swim was ok. Then I had selected a pair of crop tights to run in afterwards so that nothing would rub on the shin. It looked like a beautiful summer day outside but it was still a bit parky, so I wore one thermal long sleeve base layer and a very lightweight jacket for the 5km run loop that we had driven up to Arundel for.

 

Steve makes use of the ‘Parking Angel’ to a degree that I think is bordering on abuse, asking her to save a spot for him either right in front of Osteria or a few yards away in front of Pallant of a Arundel or the Arundel Butchers, both right by the war memorial there at the foot of the hill. She is a sweet lass though and almost always meets this requirement presumably in gratitude to his belief in her powers.

So we pulled up at Pallant to walk across to our start line which is a metal bar in the pavement outside the door of the Post Office. I absent-mindedly wandered straight over it, only to be called back by Steve and accused of false starting.  I asked if that meant a yellow card but he said it was a red card offence.

We started our run anyway, ignoring the fact that I was disqualified, heading off down Mill Lane and along the road side of the moat footpath. Up on the bank in a sunny spot we noticed that the resident Swans had made a nice nest and one of them was sitting there patiently awaiting a delivery and ignoring my friendly greeting as we ran past on the other side of the water.

When we got to the huge metal gates at the entrance to Swanbourne Lake there as a stand off in progress. There were three Canadian Geese standing in a line across the open entrance with their backs to the road and with their heads raised in a toffee nosed fashion, presumably to make themselves look taller and more fearsome to the small army of ducks that faced them.

 Duck spokesman: This is our park and you can’t just waltz in and boss us about.

Centre Goose: WAS your park shorty.

This incensed the group of ducks who began the Coin, coin, coin chorus at top volume fluffing themselves up to greater size.

The geese closed ranks a fraction and held their ground waggling their tails slightly.

We ran along the outside of the railings the last few feet and turned in behind the Geese speaking firmly as we approached.

US: Break it up you lot, don’t you think there are enough wars in the world already?

There was a lot of quack-quack quacking and a bit of Whack-Whacking and more of the silly Coin-coin coining but the war was over for at least a while and a kind of peace was restored.

The rest of the run was uneventful, if you discount gawking at the fabulous scenery there abouts. It really is so pretty but if you are running it is also a hard climb up to the Hiorne Tower, where we were chased and barked at by somebody’s poorly trained dog that we ignored and thought it served the owner right that he had to chase after it to get it back. The dog must have thought that we looked like much more fun than his hapless owner.

 

Our main entertainment this morning however, was that whilst we sat in the low window seats of Osteria drinking our coffee, a work party of Oiks who had been working on the building opposite and had started to take down the three levels of scaffolding. Some were on the top level and one guy was on the street. He was CATCHING what they were dropping down into his skilled hands. Scaffold poles were held from the top level so that the lower end was 8-10 feet above Streetman’s hands and then one by one they were dropped and stacked. Smaller items were being passed through the upper window space. The staff of several establishments around the square stood with their jaw’s dropped in complete awe at this dangerous display but a right bunch of likely lads. The building they were working on was above the towns new burger restaurant.

Once the circus-like spectacle was over we left for home and a couple of hours of office work. All I have on for the rest of the day is a trip to my sports massage therapist which will be painful.

That Loose Screw

More and more frequently people who I do not think of as being included in my inner circle, tell me to my face that I am mad. It is pointless to argue I feel, since they have, in my opinion not a clue what they are talking about. The reason they think I am mad is quite often because I carry on doing as much sport as I can, and that is actually a lot less than I used to do. For all of us life has its ups and downs and health wise these days there are more downs than there used to be its true.

There is something in what they say, but it is not ‘Mad’. At least it is not barking-at- the-moon-absolutely-stark- raving mad. Still, even I sometimes think that it might be more on the level of a slightly loose screw. Meaning not anything that hurts anybody else to any great extent, but there have been moments when I have questioned my own reasoning. Early yesterday morning things happened that did remind me of one area in my thought processes that is questionable.

Not that I would want to put myself on a level with this great man, but it reminds of  reading about the travels of Captain James Cook (I always loved stories of travel and exploration) when it was noted that sailing close to the shore of the east coast of Australia, that some of the aborigine people that they saw on the shore took no notice at all as his ship sailed past them and it was later concluded that they had the attitude of ‘Take no notice and it will go away’, with creatures and things that they had never seen before.

 

There is something along those lines that sometimes goes on in my own head. What happened at about 5.45am Sunday as we rushed around to get off to drive to Woking to support a friend in her first event. Steve did what he always does when we have to get away a bit sharpish, which was to give me a count down to departure. This is quite simple. The first thing will be the warning, “Fifteen minute to departure”. I don’t find this annoying at all, in fact I can work with this method. Then, “Ten minutes to departure” and so on. Always the full sentence, not just 15… 10… 5. I had put some things out the night before in readiness for the rush, and did quite well until I checked and did not have my camera.

There was a speed of light rush around to my desk, then to the place on the side where it is most often and a mad rush to the office upstairs. All were fruitless and now I was holding up departure, so I gave up my search and rushed out through the garage and into the parking area at the back where Steve was sitting in the car waiting. In my haste I tore around in the dark to the passenger side of the car, opened the door with a jerk and hit my shin hard with the nasty point of the car door.

Here is the nutty bit. At times like that I do not scream “Ooch, ouch” and swear a bit. I held the shin for a few seconds and then got into the car. I did not make any attempt to see what the damage I had done was, although I knew full well that I had hurt myself. I did not look at it once dawn broke, nor when we arrived in Woking. There was not even a peep when I visited the toilet before checking on our athlete’s progress. Not at any time during the morning before, during or after the triathlon and not when we drove to Costco at Sunbury to do a usual shop there. On the way home we visited our dear friends Andrew and Sharon Shaw, to see how the work on their fabulous house was coming along. We got home at about 4.30pm in the afternoon and then I took a look at the gash in my shin and by that time it looked a lot worse than it actually is because it has bled into my jeans a bit. 

 

Another example of this strange affliction was years ago when I had traveled to Perth Australia on my own to compete in the World Triathlon Championships in November 1997. I stayed for about ten days in the home of a client/friend of ours who offered their home to me since they were away in the UK. Then I stayed with other even older friends the rest of the time that included the race period. My friend took me to the race venue very early in the morning in the dark and made sure that I was with my crowd before he left me there. I had traveled lightly because there was a limit and I had a bike and all my sports kit already. I had not packed a pair of old shoes to walk to the swim start.

There was a mile walk, in the dark along the road but with hundreds of other athletes. In the darkness I tripped up a curb and a sickly shudder passed through my body with the pain but I did not look to see what I had done. I had my wet suit on and was holding my hat and goggles. The toes on my right foot were agony. I did not look until the race had finished some hours later. There were a set of swollen black and purple jelly babies attached to my foot where once were darling little pink toes.  

When my friend David picked me up later he was horrified. A few days later I flew to San Diego to meet Steve. The next week we were entered for Ironman California, Camp Pendleton. Steve had not wanted me to even start that race but gave in after telling me that I could do the swim, and the bike and then stop and not finish. I didn’t do that but at the first aid station I came to on the run, I asked if there was a medic anywhere who could strap my toes together for me because they hurt. Amazingly there was somebody and so I took my shoe off and displayed the offending foot. “Whoa” he said. “Those toes are broken” and asked if I was sure that I wanted to carry on. Anyway he did tape the toes together and I did manage to get to the finish line and was very happy to get a Hawaii Ironman slot too.

  

I’m thinking that I am going to try to be more careful and more sensible in future.

I am not twenty one anymore after all.

Woking Sprint Triathlon

We had such an early start today with the alarm going off at 5am. We didn’t waste any time at throwing a cup of coffee down our throats to get on the road to support our newest triathlete Christine Holyoake, she was competing for the first time at Woking Triathlon. Having dipped her toes into multi sport at the Frosty Aquathlon swim run, a few weeks ago.

The first impression we had when we arrived with 45 minutes to go to the start of the event was; what a lovely base for a novice triathlon. There was plenty of free parking and good signage, a nicely laid out transition area. All this held at a very smart branch of Freedom Leisure that has a lovely park setting. The officials were doing a good job of shepherding a group of people many of whom looked like beginners, as was the lady that we have been helping along the slippery slope into triathlon from a running background. Christine had her husband Roy and daughter Emily who is in her early teens and had come along to cheer on the brave lady facing a new sport to raise money for the Chestnut Tree Children’s Home in memory of a recently deceased dear friend. 

 

The event was very well organized by Fullstream Events with the support of Freedom Leisure staff which is the same group that operates our home pool in Littlehampton. The waves started on time and having watched Christine on the first few lengths of her swim and seeing that she looked comfortable, we trundled round to watch our friend exit from the pool and into Transition 1. 

Christine, having been chased through some transition practice with us did so much better than on young man in a very smart Royal Welsh tri suit with Prince of Wales feathers emblazoned over him and bearing the motto Ich Dien. He had not had the same training as our girl evidently, since he jogged out of the pool and into T1 where he dried his hair with his towel and took the top of his tri suit down to his waist. I was a bit worried momentarily. Then he rummaged through his bag and found his heart monitor and did that up around his chest. Then he struggled to get the wet tri suit back on over the top. He put on his shoes and socks and number. Then he rummaged through the bag again and found a bottle of water that he drank from. Then he found an energy bar which he ate whilst he stood there. Then at last he put on his bike helmet and lastly he found his gloves and took ages getting them on. He had not, I swear to you, been told by anybody that his transition time would be included in his total time for the event. He was enjoying himself though, but a little too casually.

The bike ride was well signed and well marshaled and went out through pretty woodland and common ground roads. The run was all within the parkland at the rear of the leisure centre. 

Christine had the biggest grin on her face throughout the two lap 23km bike course and then as I had told her before hand, found her legs felt like they belonged to somebody else at the start of the run but pushed on regardless of the pain and discomfort that was evident in the photos that I have deleted!

She was almost in tears with the sheer joy of reaching the finish line and is now I think sucked totally into the heart and spirit of her new sport of Triathlon. She looked a very happy woman afterwards and has spent the afternoon going around collecting all the pledges from those who signed up to sponsor her in memory of her friend. 

She has entered Worthing Triathlon on July 2^nd. Standard distance, with a sea swim.

We will be working on that. Meanwhile her results today.

3^rd in her age group 50-59years

16^th female

Swim 400 mtrs 9.46

T1 2.07

Bike 23km 51.30

DZ Dead zone? At the traffic lights? 1.22 deducted

Run 29.00

Total 1.36.38

Christine Holyoake is the same age as I was when I did my first triathlon 26 years ago and stronger I think. 

Thanks Will

If only he were still here and alive

And had the centuries survived,

I’d like to give the man a hug

See him give his beard a gentle tug.

I’d like shake the great man’s hand

For plays seen on evenings planned,

Tell the bard I’m filled with pleasure

Burned in my soul to forever treasure.

Thank you Will, your plays were great

Hook line and sinker, you sealed my fate,

From childhood I have been your fan

Did your mind make me what I am?