When I was lucky enough to be sent The Original Gazillion Premium Bubbles Incredibubble Wand to review, I imagined trying it out on a gloriously sunny afternoon running barefoot around the garden, entranced by magical, fragile, giant bubbles. It didn't quite turn out that way. It was overcast and chilly - the sort of afternoon when watching a DVD snuggled under a blanket might seem more appealing. Despite the lack of a perfect day, we could not fault the bubbles. They certainly lived up to their part of the picture in my mind.
The kit contains a doughnut shaped tray, the Incredibubble wand with detatchable handle and a bottle of The Original Gazillion Premium Big Bubble Solution. It retails at £12.99. There is currently a special offer available at Argos where the Gazillion Incredibubble Wand and the Gazillion 33-in-1 Incredibubble Wand can be purchased together for just £19.99 (see link below)
To create enormous bubbles, simply pour the Gazillion solution into the tray, dip the wand into the solution and wave the wand.
The children wasted no time getting started. It was a little tricky at first to get used to such a big wand and how to manoeuvre it without the film of bubble mix popping but they soon got the hang of it.
The packaging boasts the ability to create "Huge! 10ft Bubbles!" The wand design and the formulation of the Special Super Strength non-toxic Blue Gazillion Bubble Solution make it possible to make this claim. We probably got close to 10ft long sausage shaped bubbles but once they left the wand, they reformed into smaller, but still impressively giant bubbles that seemed to defy science with their existence as they hung in the air contorting under the opposing forces acting on them.
It was utterly mesmerising and in terms of bigger, better, bubble blowing fun, it was beyond compare.
I probably should not have left the kids to their own devices. Eight year old Addy decided it would be fun to try and get her little brother's head inside a bubble. It was a great effort that resulted in a soapy headed little brother. The bubble mix is non toxic but clearly doesn't taste very pleasant judging by how much spitting my poor son proceeded to do to get rid of it!
The children did not stop their bubble-tastic fun until the whole 16oz bottle of solution was completely used up.
There is only one more day of term after today with the promise of a relaxing Easter break tantalisingly close.
But I cannot enjoy any of this.
My poor little boy is sick.
It started last night when he got into bed with me then vomited explosively.
I have not felt rested for some time because the whole family have been plagued with persistent coughs that always decide to be their most irritating during the hours when the comfort of sleep is so desperately needed. Every night I optimistically hope that this will be the night I manage a good uninterrupted night of blissful slumber. Last night certainly was NOT the night.
Stripping beds, turning mattresses and cleaning vomit off walls, carpets and furniture are not activities of choice for the early hours. My husband took care of a slightly dazed 5 year old while I put sick drenched bed linen and pyjamas into the washing machine and tried to keep myself from falling apart.
The trusty sick bucket is at hand now. I have a little more work to do to get the house back to where we were before the whole sorry incident began. I have even managed to get a some sleep so I don't feel quite so broken.
I am so sorry that my little man will miss these last two days of term. I know there are lots of fun activities planned for the children that he would have been so excited by. All that really matters though is taking care of my brave boy and getting him back to his happy, healthy self.
He is sleeping now... an angelic face at peace. The sick bucket at his bedside reminds me that the peace can be shattered in an instant.
The sick bucket is ready. I am ready. The sun is still shining.
I had my first Cadbury's Creme Egg of the year today.
This particular creme egg was included in the goodie bag for a Colour Run organised by one of the sixth formers at my children's school to raise money for the charity Sarcoma UK. I waited until after I completed the run before indulging in the sweet chocolatey goodness and I did enjoy it - everything tastes better when you feel that you have earned it.
The race was two laps of a course through the school grounds (about 5K in total) and included colour stations with teenagers pelting runners with a range of colourful powders as well as a wet, soapy, long sheet of plastic for sliding on.
I was running with two of my grown up daughters, my future son in law and my little ones: Addy (7 years) and Dylan (5 years).
I fully expected to have to stop after one lap because 5K is a long way for little legs. However, such was the excitement about turning clean white T shirts into a multicoloured mess (not to mention skin and hair) that they both happily opted to complete both laps. Dylan, who is a big fan of the TV show Power Rangers, declared himself to be a "Rainbow Ranger".
One of my daughters took a rather unfortunate hit of bright red powder right to the face. It was in her eyes and mouth and and did require a good rinsing with a water bottle I had taken with me to stay hydrated. I'd had quite a lot of wine the previous evening and thought it wise to have some water to hand. I'm glad that I did.
We did our best with the slide but I don't think any one of us quite had the technique despite some sterling efforts.
I received the most lovely Mothers Day gift from my seven year old daughter yesterday. She gave me a little handwritten voucher to be redeemed for a massage.
She has been learning the art of massage at school as an initiative to promote positive touch by a teacher passionate about the benefits of both giving and receiving massage - benefits that include reducing anxiety, helping with focus and building relationships on trust and respect.
When I was ready to redeem my massage voucher, I put on some mellow music (a Michael Buble CD did the job) and lit a candle that had been part of a thoughtful gift from my grown up girls that made feel, with every tear that ran down my cheeks, how blessed I am to be their mother.
Scene set, I sat comfortably on a bean bag and let my little girl work her magic on my back, arms, hands, head and shoulders.
The massage was wonderful. I am an absolute believer in the healing power of touch. It was without a doubt restorative but the connectedness with this little human being that I brought into the world (and love with all that I am) was indescribably good.
As a family, we are no strangers to touch. We hold hands and we cuddle... a lot. However, I do think that making time for massage could have enormous benefits.
At the end of the session, she thanked me for allowing her to give me a massage as she has been taught to do. Learning to give and being grateful for the opportunity to give is so important and I was glad to be reminded of it.
I don't tend to celebrate Valentines day. The following week is my wedding anniversary so I put my romantic efforts into that occasion instead. My husband did give me red roses and I gave him and the kids red foil wrapped heart shaped chocolates but my greatest Valentines pleasure is buying reduced to clear merchandise in the days following and using them to set the scene for the anniversary celebration.
That didn't happen this year. Immediately after valentines day, I left my husband and my red roses and took the children off for a few days of visiting with my parents. By the time my anniversary weekend came around I had no '75% off' table confetti/ light up ballons/ cuddly toys/ love crackers etc and no plan.
No plan isn't quite true. I had arranged for the little ones to have a weekend sleepover with their big sister to give my husband and I some much needed time together. I thought about how best to spend this precious 'us time'. I considered a stay at a hotel with a spa or a dinner for two at a nice restaurant. In the end, the most important thing was the actual time together so keeping it as simple as possible was probably our best bet. I tidied the house and we bought a few treats for a special home cooked meal. The one thing that we both really wanted to do was to drive out to some beautiful countryside and go for a run.
When we were planning where to go, we made allowances for the fact that it was a bit wet and windy by choosing a forest run. I imagined compacted forest paths sheltered by trees. Arriving at our destination, we realised our mistake. The route we had selected was actually exposed heathland with gorse bushes and steep hills. The drive through the forest to get there had been beautiful and now, here we were in this bleak landscape being battered by wind and rain. Oh well! No point turning back. Off we went!
The weather did ease off a bit and we had wrapped up warm so that wasn't too much of a problem. The hills drained all the energy in our legs but we weren't here to set any speed records so we didn't mind having to stop and walk. The worst part was the mud. So many different kinds of mud. A whole pallette of mud from black through to pale yellowy grey with all shades of brown in between. Sticky mud. Sloshy mud. Deep mud. Vast oceans of mud sucking at our feet with every step. It did cross my mind that we could be in a luxury spa right now having a very different kind of mud treatment. We ran. We trudged. We slipped. We slid. My husband fell over in the mud with fairly amusing consequences. Were we discouraged? No! We were having the best time. We were loving it.
It took us nearly an hour to complete the 5 kilometer circular route - an hour of torturous bliss!
We had a wonderful weekend. My valentines roses even had some life left in them to provide the romantic touch that I'd failed to do with my usual post valentine bargain hunting. The only slight niggle was the state of my mud caked trainers. I feared they would never be the same agaiin. After leaving them drying for a week, I thought that the best way to clean them would be to put them on and go for a little run in the hope that the mud would just fall away.
Today, the sun was shining. I put on my once purple trainers and marvelled at the little dust cloud produced when I tied the laces. I planned the route in my head - out the back gate, across the football pitch to the path that runs around the hockey pitches, through the car park, into the woods, across the meadows onto the footpath that leads back to the road, down the road and back to my house. It was a perfect plan apart from the into the woods and across the meadows part. My trainers are muddier than when I started.
I put these two facts together and came to a logical conclusion to give up coffee for Lent.
Had I known how horribly unpleasant withdrawing from caffeine would be, I would never have considered going cold turkey like that. I would have devised a careful plan to cut down gradually over a suitable amount of time and gently beat the addiction into a manageable habit. I entered into my " give up coffee for Lent" plan with ignorant optimism and found out the hard way how it feels to suddenly be deprived of a substance to which your body has become overly familiar with and possibly reliant on.
The first day without caffeine was absolutely fine. No adverse effects. No cravings. It was day two when the headache hit. The headache could not be ignored. The headache lasted three whole days. The headache was not even the worst of it.
I thought I must be coming down with flu. My muscles ached with a deep niggling ache that made it almost impossible to get comfortable or to have a restful nights sleep. The ache bore into joints as well adding to my misery. I didn't want to do anything and doing nothing was still ridiculously difficult. These symptoms persisted without any other signs of flu developing.
It was during the night when sleep eluded me and I feared I might never be at peace in my own body again that I started searching the internet on a quest for find answers for my malady.
Caffeine withdrawal. It was as simple as that.
I could have abandoned my self denial plan and launched into "moderate coffee consumption" but I was worried that that might lead straight back to over indulging to a dangerously high degree. I decided to persevere... to remember the relentless aches that had plagued me for days and use than as a deterrent against returning to my old ways.
The aching muscles and joints subsided about a day after the headache lifted. I didn't feel fantastic but I was OK.
There are still many days before Easter and I am not even going to think about drinking coffee until the period of Lent is over. In the meantime I am drinking occasional cups of green tea or decaffeinated coffee.
I miss the smell of coffee and I miss the ritual of a coffee break (green tea break just doesn't have that same impact) but I am convinced that what I am doing is for the best.
I had promised my five year old son a treat for being good. He had his heart set on a certain ovoid confection that is not just chocolate but a toy as well. He wanted this with an almost angry passion. He wanted it with an angry passion that I felt his choice did not really justify (unless they happen to be on special offer). He wanted it with an angry passion that was completely forgotten the moment he found himself in the magazine aisle.
My little boy's eyes were wide with excitement when he spotted one particular colourful glossy comic complete with free gift. We bought it. He loved it. I was happy that he was happy and it was great that he was reading but I wasn't 100% convinced that it was value for money.
I was very interested to hear that a brand new comic was being launched based on the popular CBeebies Andy's Adventures. I was delighted to be offered a complimentary copy of the first issue to review but my delight paled into insignificance compared with my son's reaction to receiving it! He literally jumped for joy.
We are very familiar with Andy and his Adventures. The hat, gizmo, backpack checklist that Andy completes before his adventures is a routine that has often featured in make believe play at home. A big selling point of Andy's Amazing Adventures for us (and I'm sure for many others) is the dinosaur content. My son is a self proclaimed dinosaur expert and wants to be a timetravellingdinosaurzoologist when he grows up (as well as an astronaut like Tim Peake). This new magazine was pretty much guaranteed to be a hit with him. I can be a little harder to impress, especially when it comes to making decisions about what to spend money on, but I absolutely loved it.
The first issue is 36 colourful pages printed on quality paper and packed full with a really good mix of activities including a story, games, drawing, colouring and making. It is very well laid out and interactive with stickers to add, boxes to tick and little pictures to colour to show an activity has been completed. Andy's very expressive face pops up regularly with speech bubbles for encouraging words and fun comments. The magazine is created in association with the BBC Natural History Unit which inspires confidence that the content is more than simple entertainment and provides notes for parents explaining the learning theory behind the fun. In summary, it is a very appealing publication with real value.
I gave the magazine to my son when he got home from school at 3.30pm. Apart from a brief interruption for tea, he did not put it down until bedtime.
He independently followed the instructions to make his own wearable gizmo and hat and showed them off with pride. He hadn't quite done it right and actually stuck the hat to his forehead with Sellotape which was at least quite enterprising. We played the game together as per the instructions using the mini dinos and T-Rex grabber included as a gift on the front of the magazine. He won. Of course!
Flicking through the magazine now I can see there are still plenty of activities left for him to do including cutting out and making a Dino land for the mini dinos. That should keep him busy tonight.
Coincidentally, Dad had been at a Dinosaur Talk that evening with local amateur enthusiasts. When he came home and asked his son what he had been up to, the reply was this:
I travelled back in time 65 million years and saw a triceratops!
I think that was time well spent.
Andy's Amazing Adventures on sale from Wednesday 10th February 2016, priced £2.75
Last year, my husband and I bought a house. Not a house to live in, or to holiday in, or to rent out for profit. We bought a house for our daughter to live in. Don't get me wrong, she does make a contribution to cover the mortgage repayments but it is well below what we could expect from the market rental value. We bought a house for our daughter to live in because she was desperately unhappy with the accommodation she could afford in London where she works - unhappy to the point that it was making her sick.
For the last couple of days, I have been at the house providing access (and tea) for a couple of chaps who are fitting new double glazed windows. The upstairs is all done and looks fantastic. Rotten window frames and glass dripping with condensation are gone, much like the London room misery. Modern, clean, efficient double glazed units make everything seem much brighter.
Out with the old, in with the new.
It is a lovely little house. Once I got over the fact that a 2 bedroomed end terrace house here in Sussex cost as much as a 4 bedroomed detached house back in Shropshire where we lived previously, I began to really enjoy the whole process of property purchasing. I spent many happy hours on the Rightmove website perusing possibilities. We viewed three of those possibilities and fell in love with one. The house reminded me very much of the first house I ever bought (many years and a husband ago).
I call the twenty years I spent married to my first husband "the missing years". My current husband, the love of my life, was at my first wedding. If fate had aligned itself in a slightly different configuration, he could have been at my wedding as my groom. We could have begun our life together twenty years earlier - experienced buying our first home, starting a family. It didn't. We didn't. I can't regret any of the twists and turns of my life but I also can't help wondering about the missing years. We filled in a big chunk of the missing years when we unexpectedly started a a second family. We joke that we have a 100% extra free life - 100% supporting our grown up children and trying to find time for ourselves, plus 100% meeting the demands of our two growing children and throwing ourselves into family life. Of course that second 100% is not really free - we can get incredibly tired and over stretched - we pay!
Buying the house, so similar to my first starter home, provided another opportunity for a buy one life get one life free experience. It was an electrifying thrill to be handed the keys. We opened the door on a "what could have been" and filled in the missing years with cleaning, decorating, fixing and best of all, sourcing essential furniture on a very tight budget. We achieved an incredible amount in a short space of time so that it would be ready for when my daughter's London lease ran out. We made a home. We made a home then returned to our actual home filled with furniture and memories collected over time. We returned to our actual home feeling a wonderful sense of connectedness and with hearts less justified in their yearning for missing years.
The missing years were not wasted years. My husband and I both lived full lives doing the things we wanted to do - just not together. Our togetherness now seems to make anything possible. We have so much living to do in whatever time the Gods see fit to allow us. If the price is that I sometimes feel tired and over stretched, that is a very small price.
It is the last day of January, which also happens to be the birthday of one of my friends - a very special friend. I am fairly sure that the birthday card I sent him will not have arrived on time, which pretty much sums up what the whole of the month of January has been like. I have never felt on top of things emotionally or physically, I have been unable to sustain much in the way of productivity in either a practical or personal sense and the days have lumped one atop another in a gloomy, suffocating mass of mostly bleurghh-ness (best description I can manage). I think maybe that is just what January is.
This January has also been punctuated by the deaths of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and now Terry Wogan. Although I can never claim to be a fan of Terry Wogan, his presence in my life via his radio show (played in the car by my dad when driving me to school) and the annual Eurovision song contest hosting, is undeniable. It seems as though the fabric of "influential celebrity figures in my life" is being eroded quicker than I can adjust. And I haven't even mentioned Grizzly Adams!
It hasn't all been bad.
There have been some beautiful sunsets and the days are getting noticeably longer.
We enjoyed one almost perfect snowy day (perfect because the snow lasted for one day and was gone)
I have managed to do two parkruns with the time for my second improving by 2 minutes. If only improvement were linear and sustainable, I'd be achieving my goal of a sub 30min 5K well before my next birthday (a birthday that I am very excited about this year on account of plans that involve running and four of my daughters and foam).
There have been plenty of good moments (and although many of them involve being snuggled up in bed under my duvet that does not in any way make them less valid) but overall I am not sad to see the back of this January.
So to finish, a very happy birthday to my special friend, and goodbye January.
Let me try and make some sense out of the jumble of thoughts and emotions that are compelling me to sit down and contemplate plates. Contem-plate. Oh dear!
Back in 1985 when I started to make a home with my first husband, my mother-in-law presented us with a whole lot of "bottom drawer" stuff that she had been collecting for her son. Included in this was a set of crockery. Please don't get me wrong - I was very grateful for everything, especially considering we had very little money at that time - but I did feel that I had been deprived of the pleasure of choosing the things I wanted in my life. Things that I would be using every day.
The dinner set she provided wasn't even that hideous. This was many years ago but I remember them being a sort of magnolia colour edged with a double border of pale blue and pink and with a mass produced 'hand-made' rustic feel (forgive the contradiction but it is the best way I can describe them). They were OK. They were fine. We ate many meals from them. Did they make my heart sing with joy every time I set the table or washed up? Absolutely not.
I had dreams... modest dreams in the scheme of things... dreams of a simple but elegant lifestyle of everyday luxury... a lifestyle that for me was embodied by the epitome of classic design that was the Imperial Blue Denby dinner service! I would look longingly at displays of it in shop windows and department stores.
I did eventually become the proud owner of a starter set and was given a few pieces to add to the collection but no amount of crockery could fix an unhappy marriage. I lost interest in more than just the blue Denby. Over the years there were breakages but I held onto what was left and never completely fell out of love with them or what they had stood for.
The whirlwind of my second marriage has not allowed a great deal of time to dwell on the subject of plates, blue Denby or otherwise (disregarding a few notable exceptions: Inca Plates, A Tale of Two Plates, Dinner Party)
In 2008, I cooked Christmas dinner for a large contingent of my extended family. I went to IKEA and bought enough plates and bowls so that every place setting matched. It was a lot of plates and bowls.
I have been using the same plates and bowls ever since and no matter how many of the inevitable breakages we had, there were always enough (more than enough!) for our needs. Until now.
I still had four of my original Imperial Blue Denby dinner plates tucked away at the back of a cupboard so I pulled them out as a stopgap until I could find a new matching set of replacement plates. The emotional response to the Denby was still very much in evidence.
I think that for the most part, I have achieved the simple, elegant lifestyle I always craved and with my second husband it is (again, for the most part) joy filled and wonderful. My Imperial Blue Denby plates no longer represented an aspiration but were more like old friends... old friends I was very happy to have at the table performing the everyday task that comes with being a plate.
I had to take my car to the garage for a service today. Whilst I was in town I had a long overdue (simple and elegant I hope) haircut and a mooch around the charity shops. It felt like fate, or a rare alignment of old dreams and new reality, when I spotted in a charity shop across the road from the garage, a stack of twelve Imperial Blue Denby plates in three different sizes, in perfect condition with a modest price tag.
The blue Denby had always had the power to make my heart sing but never so much as in that moment. Added to the surviving pieces of my original collection, it made more than enough for a complete dinner set
Here they are, purchased, washed and draining on my draining board along with another of today's charity shop finds - two crystal sherry glasses to replace my glass of choice for port which met with a shattering demise over Christmas.
The restoration of my Imperial Blue Denby dream will most certainly warrant a toast with a glass of port tonight.
The daffodils are blooming and Xmas and New Year already seem like dim and distant memories... yet it is still only the first week of January.
Since moving house last year, blogging has taken a back seat to the long emails I write regularly to my mum to let her know how I am getting on. Exercise has also taken a back seat (most recently to an unhealthy preoccupation with the vast selection of entertainment on Netflix). I intend to remedy both of these situations.
I will still email my mum (and just try and tear me away from season two of An American Horror Story) but I will make time to sit at my computer and write. My husband has entered me into my first triathlon (not counting the tandem triathlon that we did together back in Shropshire) which is a huge motivation to get out running, cycling and swimming... so that takes care of the exercise deficiency.
I have already completed my first timed 5K run of the year (although I'm having to pinch myself that that actually happened) and although it was, what some would say, a pitifully slow 38 minute 5K, it was still 5K and it was a start. This blog post is probably the literary equivalent of a 38 minute 5K, but again, it is a start.
It has been some time since I put my name forward for a review product. The upheaval of moving and settling into a whole new life has left precious little time for such things. However, when the opportunity came along to review Bugs in the Kitchen, a new game from Ravensburger featuring a Hexbug Nano, I could not resist.
Until quite recently, we were proud owners of a collection of Hexbug Nanos. I found it endlessly fascinating watching these little robotic toys scurrying around in their authentically bug like manner. Unfortunately, my children had an out of control painting session one afternoon whilst I slept, exhausted and oblivious, on the sofa. My son in law discovered the havoc wreaked with poster paint and chubby brush. To say I was not best pleased when he awoke me with the news would be something of an understatement. The Hexbugs were not the only things that had fallen victim to the colourful destruction and ended up in the dustbin. I have regretted my hasty decision to bin everything splattered and covered with paint but cleaning walls and furniture took priority... and my anger needed venting!
The scene of the above crime is in a house that no longer belongs to us. We have a new home now and bygones could be bygones. It was time to get reacquainted with Hexbug Nanos and what better way than as part of a game for all the family to enjoy.
We played Bugs in the Kitchen during our Halloween fun (there might be a few clues in the photograph!) There was a minimal amount of assembly to do before we were able to play. The pieces all fitted together nicely to create a robust game that did not need to be disassembled to pack away.
The object of the game is to trap the Hexbug Nano that is busy scuttling around the 'kitchen'. Each player has their own trap and wins a token every time the bug lands in it. The first player to win five tokens is the victor. The bugs are guided into the traps through a cutlery maze consisting of moveable components. A dice is thrown to see which cutlery item you are allowed to move. A strategic rotation of a knife, fork or spoon will open pathways in your favour or block routes to an opponents trap. I actually found it quite difficult to visualise the effect of a move and more than once disadvantaged myself and watched helplessly as the bug scuttled off into another player's trap - the Bugs in the Kitchen equivalent of an own goal!
It is a fast paced game with lots of excitement guaranteed by the unpredictable Hexbug. Even with my dubious tactical abilities it was a lot of fun. The kids quickly disregarded the rule that the first player to gain five tokens is the winner. They kept playing until all the available tokens had been awarded, counted up to see who had the most and then started all over again.
My little Addy goes to 'Magic Club' one evening a week at her new school. She loves it. She especially loves it because dad takes her to and from school on the back of our tandem bike, weather permitting. As I watched them ride off together this week, I was reminded that I never published the post I had written about the Tandem Triathlon I took part in with my husband during the summer before we moved. It was a big deal for me so rather than deleting the draft, I have published it here for my benefit more than anything. If you choose to continue reading, be warned, it is a bit of a long one! Alternatively, here is a little video of Addy practising her magic tricks.
Tandem Triathlon
We had a plan, my husband and I - a plan to find a moment of calm amidst the chaos. A weekend somewhere lovely away from the demands of the family and work - time for us - time to recharge and reconnect.
It didn't happen.
We did, however, have a date in the diary to compete in a Tandem Triathlon. For want of a better plan, that was to become the time for us.
We had not trained properly for this event.
My husband was to do the 1K swim. He is a strong swimmer. This was never going to be a problem.
He is also a good cyclist but our trips out on the tandem to see what we could do have been few and far between. We hadn't even come close to attempting the 35km demanded by the triathlon and we were slightly concerned by a problem with the gears that may or may not have been sorted by the local bicycle shop.
The run was my responsiblity. My running training had been virtually non existent but I had completed a 5 mile fun run recently which gave me a bit of confidence. I have NEVER run after a bike ride of any length... let alone a 35km one! I was desperately in need of that confidence having suffered a nasty injury to my right leg in an oversized wellies and slippery deck related incident.
The bruise in its yellow phase!
Competitors were encouraged to dress up and decorate their tandems if they desired. We didn't have time to come up with an elaborate plan. I grabbed the artificial flowers that had been used to decorate my car on my wedding day (I could never quite bring myself to bin them) and hastily taped them to the handlebars. Perfect.
The triathlon took place in picturesque Bishops Castle in South Shropshire - picturesque and hilly. I don't know why but I had the impression that the competitors would be mostly long bearded, dressed in the style of Morris Dancers and possibly smelling slightly of incense. I couldn't have been more wrong. Admittedly there were a few couples who had embraced the dress up element of the competition but there were some serious looking lycra clad athletes too.
We signed in, wrestled the bike off the roof of the car and tried to organise everything we needed for the various stages of the event. It was warm and sunny so plenty of water and suntan lotion were among the necessities.
Before long, it was my husband's time in the water. I watched him for a while before going to the transition area to wait with the tandem. It was a very shallow pool. My 6' 4" husband looked quite ridiculous standing in it waiting for the cue to go. His swimming style did not have his usual effortless grace. This may have been attributed to the fact that his arms must have been scraping the bottom of the pool with each stroke!
It was a beautiful day and it was lovely chatting to the other competitors waiting for their partners to emerge from the pool complex ready for the second discipline. The transition was quite relaxed and then, we were off.
I love being on the back of the tandem. I can't see a great deal and have to have total trust in my husband but that isn't difficult at all. The countryside was whizzing past me and I was smiling at marshalls and other tandems coming back the other way. It was glorious. We were picking up a good head of speed going down the hills and that gave us enough momentum to climb up the hills without too much of a problem.
Then the hill happened.
The hill that went on forever.
The hill that saw our speed drop so slow we were barely moving.
The hill that required every bit of effort we could muster just to stop ourselves from rolling backwards.
But we made it. Somehow, we made it.
The bad news was that we would have to climb that hill again. Not all the way to the top but about three quarters of the way up was the run transition. My leg muscles were screaming. The idea of getting off the bike and running after climbing that hill a second time seemed impossible. On top of that, after the run there would be a further 5km on the tandem to reach the final finish line. I didn't even want to think about it.
So I didn't.
We were on our way again in a landscape that rewarded you with some downhill for the uphill exertions. The sun shone, but not too much. It was wonderful. I was loving it again.
Going up one hill, we were overtaken by a shiny red high performance sports car that made a throaty roar as it accelerated past us. This somehow added to my elation.
Unfortunately, my elation could not last forever. I had been worried about my injured right leg and had maybe been allowing my left leg to take on more of the strain for that reason. My left leg decided it had had enough. My knee started to hurt. My knee continued to hurt. The hurt intensified. I wanted to cry. Our dodgy gears were behaving fine but my knee was a different story.
I thought that if I was able to stretch my leg for a while it might ease the pain. I took my foot out of the toe strap, off the pedal and felt wonderful relief as I straightened my sorry limb. We also felt the disconcerting bumping of the toe strap hitting the road with every revolution of the pedals. Vaguely reminiscent of my husbands awkward swimming style in the shallow pool, we were losing our rhythm and at risk of coming off the bike. Lovely as it was to have relief from the pain, my leg had to go back on the pedal.
I was reassured that the pain had disappeared as soon as I had changed position. It was back now, with a vengeance, but I felt more confident that it was just muscle cramping and I could pedal through it. We free wheeled when we could so I had the chance to stretch it out again and it felt great. Mostly, I put up with the pain and prayed that I wasn't doing any actual damage.
When we got to the hill for the second time, my emotions were all over the place. I had the pleasure of knowing that this part of the bike ride was nearly over, the excitement of knowing that my leg was soon going to be free from the crippling constraint, fear that we still had to make it up the hill somehow and the absolute leap of faith that I would somehow still be able to run.
I could only push up the hill with my one good leg. Three legs pedalling failed to do what four legs had only just managed to do the first time. The bike did literally reach the point that the upward forces were less than the downward forces. We stopped. We walked the bike up the hill and I was hugely gratified that I could in fact walk! Maybe I'd be able to run. The gradient of the hill became slightly flatter at the turn off into the forest for the run transition so I bravely suggested getting back on the bike to ride in with dignity.
I made use of a portaloo. I gagged on a warm, gloopy energy gel. I grabbed a water bottle and I was off. I was running. Slowly, but I was running.
I knew the run was though forest trails which is my favourite kind of running. What I didn't know was that it was through forest trails up a mountain. (Maybe it wasn't exactly a mountain but it was a very big hill). My leg didn't feel too bad but my heart was pounding and I was so hot. I drank sips of water, ran when I felt able and walked (briskly) when I needed to. This was going to be a slow 10K but at least with all this uphill I was guaranteed some downhill where I could hopefully make up some time.
My run/brisk walk strategy degenerated into a slow walk/drag strategy. Even the feeding stations with their generous rations of jelly babies, crisps, biscuits and drinks could not energise me. But I was still standing and slowly making forward progress up the incline that just kept inclining!
Looking rough at the halfway point selfie
Eventually, and not a moment too soon, the gradient flattened out. I had reached the top and saw before me a plateau. A gently undulating meadow plateau. It was what I had been working for and there it was. My slow walk/drag turned into a shuffling jog. I shuffled and I jogged and my heart sang. A short way further and I could see the inevitable downward gradient. All I had to do was let gravity carry me down the hill to the finish. I might even make up a bit of the time I had lost on my ascent. How could I have known that the pain I had felt climbing the hill would be insignificant compared with the pain of coming down?
As soon as the downward gradient became noticeable, my left leg seized up completely. Bearing in mind this happened mid stride and was as shocking as it was painful, I did well not to fall over. With a series of comedy hops to keep upright, I managed to slow myself to a stop and then tentatively tried to take my weight on my left leg. It was having none of it. I was quite scared for two reasons: firstly, had I done some real damage here that I might never recover from and secondly HOW THE HELL WAS I GOING TO GET DOWN THIS BLOODY MOUNTAIN?
The limit to how many swimmers could fit into the pool at any one time meant that the race was organised with staggered start times over a long period of time. There was never much of a sense of competing with anyone other than yourself and the spread of other competitors throughout the entire course meant there was not a great deal of camaraderie or support available. I was pretty much alone up that mountain. Alone and in trouble. All I could do was man up and face the challenge of getting down. I rested. I massaged the offending limb. I eventually braved walking. It was an awkward walk but it sort of worked.
All the way down the mountain I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to be running but was also grateful that I was at least moving in the right direction. I may have looked like an extra from a zombie apocalypse movie, I may have been grimacing, but I was making progress again. Dragging my bad leg painfully behind me, hop limping... I was making progress.
After a long, torturous time, my spirits lifted when I recognised the terrain that I had run through at the start of the ordeal which meant it was nearly over. My mind was taken off my trials when another struggling runner caught up with me and walked with me for a while. We chatted and commiserated with each other and then the finish line came into view. I encouraged him to go for it and do a good finish. As I watched him muster all his energy to pick up pace I decided to take a chance and do the same. The elation of seeing the finish line combined with the brief respite that the company had given me combined to give me super powers when I needed them most. By 'super powers' I do of course only mean coming back from the Walking Dead to the elevated status of Broken Runner... but I was mrunning. I felt amazing. I felt like that shiny red high performance sports car that had overtaken us on the cycle ride. I let out my own throaty roar and it was over. My husband waiting in the transition area was paying no attention. My triumph was mine alone.
We still had the 5km bike ride to the Final Finish before this triathlon over. There was no way that my leg was going to be fit to pedal. Using the tape we'd attached our 'fancy dress' flowers with (resourceful!), my husband fixed the toe strap so it would not hit the road with every revolution and I 'one-legged' cycled the final stretch.
I would love to say that crossing the final finish line was everything I dreamt it would be but I was in far too much pain. We did not stay for the celebrations which included a BBQ and a Ceilidh (which to my shame I had pronounced Sea-Lid anyway). All I wanted was to have a nice hot bath and to rest in the comfort of my own home... which we did.
This was supposed to be 'time for us', my husband and I... time to recharge and connect. My leg may have let me down badly but honestly, it ticked all the other boxes. Would I do it again? Definitely. But next time, I might just do the swim and let him take on the run!
Since moving, I have had very little direct contact with my dad. My mum emails regularly, comments on Facebook statuses and reads this blog. Now I know that my parents share everything and communicating with mum is indirectly communicating with dad, but it can never be the same as direct contact. I will be visiting them shortly which will facilitate the sort of exchange that my dad does best: a hug that might be compared to the embrace of a boa constrictor, a chat about nothing and everything and probably a fiver slipped into my hand. This is how my dad communicates. It does not translate well into the sort of electronic communication that we have to resort to now I live too far away for the weekly visits we used to enjoy. Until I see him again, this post is dedicated to my dad.
When I first arrived at this house and my father in law came to have a look around, he commented that there were no birds in the garden.
It was true. For such a quiet, idyllic, woodland location there was a distinct lack of any sort of life in the garden apart from the massively overgrown hedges, shrubs and trees.
The neighbouring garden was beautifully neat and a bird feeding station was always busy with feathered visitors. Clearly, there were birds around somewhere... just not in my garden.
I bought a bag of bird nuts and a feeder which I hung in a tree near the kitchen window (after I'd pruned it to manageable proportions in scale with the setting and thus began the pile of trimmings that now occupies a sizeable portion of the bottom of the garden).
It did not take long for the first adventurers to discover the new food source. It was a delight to see the garden coming to life. What we were lacking in interest from good planting, we were making up for with an enchanting variety of little birds. I bought a second feeder for fat balls. (Fat balls! Really! Couldn't they have been called Energy Rich Bird Cakes or something. Fat balls just brings out the juvenile, too easily amused side of me!)
I wouldn't want anyone to think that this was becoming an obsession but a third bird feeder was purchased. In my defence, it was a matter of necessity because my father in law brought round a huge bag of bird seed and the feeders I already had were not suitable for seed. The three bird feeders hanging in one small tree were soon rarely free from hungry birds.
Washing up takes much longer now. My attention is continuously drawn away from the dirty dishes and out of the window to see who is feeding. I have a Garden Bird Identifier book on my windowsill and often I will abandon the soapy suds, dry my hands and frantically search the pages trying to name an unfamiliar species. I am becoming quite the expert!
The most abundant variety is the dainty, delicately hued Blue Tit with the more thuggish Great Tit a close second. I had heard of Coal Tits but had never really understood the difference between them and the other Tits until my book helped me make a positive identification. How many times can I say 'tits' before the juvenile rears its mindlessly giggling head again? I must say it one more time because today a pair of Marsh Tits came to see what was on offer. (Thanks again trusty book!)
A Nuthatch generated a bit of excitement. I'd never seen one before and it seemed very exotic to me. It is a greedy feeder, tugging at the nuts to pull them through the mesh. Chaffinches and Goldfinches wait their turn in the branches and a little Wren has not quite plucked up the courage to feed while I've been watching but hops about on the periphery.
Feeding on the ground below to pick up any dropped scraps are Dunnocks, a Robin and the occasional House Sparrow. Sparrows were always so abundant when I was a child growing up in the seventies. I don't know when or how those squabbling flocks of 'spuggies' disappeared.
As well as the small birds, I have seen Pigeons (which are somehow hard to get excited about - sorry pigeons), Jackdaws, Jays (love them) and for me, the Holy Grail of birdwatching.. a Woodpecker. This was a Green Woodpecker and I quite literally held my breath when it settled on the trunk of my apple tree. I have only seen it once but I can always hope that it will return.
I feel slightly guilty that I may have stolen some of the birds away from my neighbours' bird feeding station but the guilt is quickly buried under the glorious feeling of absolute pleasure it gives me every time I look out of the window.
I'm not sure what the rules and regulations around here are with regards to garden fires but the voice made by the primitive urge in me to be master of the raw power that is fire was considerably louder than the voice of the upstanding citizen wanting to abide by any rules.
I lit my fire.
There was plenty of fuel for my fire given the pile I have amassed from my mission to tame my wild garden with hedge trimmer, loppers, saw and secateurs. A few crumpled up A4 sheets drawn on by the kids, a handful of dry dead wood and one match was all it took to get things roaring in the incinerator.
I fed my fire. I fed my fire with hawthorn, brambles, apple tree and oak to name but a selection of the varied diet available. The fire responded accordingly.
Some of the trimmings fell into the flames as though returning home, giving themselves readily to be undone by the heat. Some hissed and screamed, resisting their undoing. Some burned with pure ferocity while others failed and billowed stinking clouds of smoke and ash. I think that amongst the assorted offerings dropping into the fiery pit there was a metaphor for every emotion I have been experiencing since my husband's words - I've been offered the job in Sussex - turned my life upside down. Every emotion relived and dealt with.
I have barely made a dent in the pile of garden waste.
I've always loved having a long, relaxing soak in the bath: scented bath products, candle, glass of wine maybe and music. For a long time, my music of choice would be the album Come Away with Me by Norah Jones. For me it was perfect bath music. I listened to it so often that if I ever heard a track outside of my bath time, I would experience an echo of the feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that accompanies one's ablutions and was exploited to the extreme by Hitchcock in the shower scene of the classic movie Psycho.
I am now smiling as I remember a short video I made a long time ago for a competition to win a Macbook Pro. The brief was to recreate a scene from a movie using potatoes. (The competition must have been sponsored by a 'potato related' company, I can't quite remember). I attempted, with my limited editing skills and equally limited artistic ability, to recreate the famous shower scene. I did not win the Macbook but I did have a such a good time making "Psycho Potato".
Norah Jones no longer provides the soundtrack to my bath time. Instead, I listen to a podcast entitled Welcome to Night Vale. My daughters introduced me to this little gem. It is in the style of a community radio broadcast set in an unusual town where events such as a portal opening during a PTA meeting to allow flesh eating dinosaurs to pass through and cause bloody mayhem, are not uncommon. It is entertaining but at the same time, gently challenges your belief in self, society and existence. Welcome to Night Vale! The real magic of the show is the combination of clever scripting and the beautiful voice of Cecil Baldwin who narrates it... a voice more mellow even than Norah Jones singing Come Away with Me.
I used to listen to the podcast in bed but there were two problems with this: my husband hates it and the soothing tone of Cecil Baldwin sent me to sleep almost instantly. Listening in the bath is perfect. I don't generally tend to fall asleep but I can achieve a wonderful level of relaxation and enrichment (especially when the glass of wine option box is ticked). There is a segment during the show called 'The Weather' which consists of a song or instrumental piece (that usually has nothing do with the weather!) It is just the right length of time for me to wash my hair so I don't miss any of the main show. This makes me happy.
Last night, I couldn't sleep. I put on the podcast hoping that Cecil could work his magic but he couldn't. I don't feel as frazzled as I thought I would this morning but I am weary. We only have this week to get through before our half term break begins. I am very ready for that break.
I feel that we have achieved a milestone having nearly completed the first half of our Michaelmas term. Now, we need some time to process all the changes that we have been dealing with since we first arrived here at the tail end of August. We need a quick life audit to see where we are and where we want to be. I am hoping for some 'two episode long' bath times.
Yesterday, the sale of my house in Shropshire completed.
On one hand I am really pleased about this. The lawn does not stop growing because we are not there to mow it and who knows what problems we might have suffered if it had remained unoccupied through the cold winter months.
On the other hand it represents the end of an era and I have to let go of a house I loved.
It was not a perfect house. The rolling programme of maintenance and repairs took up a lot of our time and energy. The garage door was the bane of my life and pulling in and out of the drive could be tricky at times. It was not perfect but it was such a good home for us: the home that my husband and I made together, the threshold he carried me over after our wedding, every room echoing with wonderful memories.
We have a new home now. We don't own it but we will be here for the next three years at least so I am happy to invest time and energy to make it the best home it can be for us. It is much smaller than our old house so I was delighted that it managed to accommodate nearly all of the furniture I had collected over the years. Even my very large mirrors fit perfectly into their new settings. I had to get rid of two big comfy leather sofas (they were very old and tired anyway), a dining table and chairs (I had two sets and kept my favourite) and our Eminent Solina F225 (Charis made sure she had a farewell organ session while she still could). A super king sized bed that my husband had made was repurposed as shelving.
Being surrounded by familiar things is comforting and I am taking ownership of the garden by trimming, pruning and generally hacking at anything that looks even remotely overgrown.We may have downsized but I am determined to make that a positive force in our lives.. a way of living a simpler life free of clutter and confusion. It is almost working!
One thing I thought I would really miss from my old home was the greenhouse with its grape vine. It had become a bit of a tradition to harvest the grapes and make grape jelly for our Christmas day breakfast. The new house does not have a greenhouse but it does have a grape vine. Today, I made grape jelly.
I love that I can carry the good things from my old life into the new. I love the challenges that relocating and downsizing have forced us to face. Now that we are settilng into our routines and thinking about the future, I know that I am going to love discovering new traditions and ways of finding fulfilment.
The sale of my old house represents the end of an era but I am more than ready for the start of a new one.
