Anna came from Auckland at midday today, I don't when she came from Bangladesh.
The world economy is off to hell in a handbasket and she wants to open an Indian restaurant in my building. Her timing is impeccable, her courage unassailable.
She bought plans, drawn up by her daughter the architect. I bought my builder.
She bought baskets of Indian and Thai food for me to try.
I took her and her daughter to lunch at the cafe opposite the golf course, where over tea and a scrap of A4 we outlined the terms of a contract.
It was straightforward and easy, and the salad I had for lunch was delicious.
I was wondering today how Shakespeare would have coped with Blogging...apparently his spelling was appalling.
I was also wondering about Glory Holes.
Not the hole persay, nor the function...but the fact that someone had bent his intellect to the formation of the word.
I mean, after a lifetime of work Henri Bic at least gave his name to the ballpoint pen...other great men have perhaps contributed one maybe two words to the English language, and recieved recognition for the doing so.
The point of all this, is that Shakespeare, and I'll type this slowly so that you don't miss it...contributed 2035 words to the English language.
He put 'UN' in front of words so that their meanings were made opposite...like unkind, unlock, untie...sheesh I wish I had thought of that.
And when you say
"he vanished into thin air"
"you have to be cruel to be kind"
"I waited with bated breath"
"he's my flesh and blood"
"it's a forgone conclusion"
"he was a tower of strength"
"To thine own self be true"
Or if you use the words critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, well-read, zany, barefaced, eventful, or excellent...Well, you are actually qouting Shakespeare...now aren't you the clever one.
Meanwhile, tonight, thanks to Anna, I was in Butter Chicken heaven.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
11 days 6 hours to go.
I woke this morning to find the earth was breathing normally for the first time in a while.
It was sunny, it was cool, and the wind had gone. It was 6a.m, too early to get up, so I read for a time. Bill Bryson's study of Shakespeare. I like the way he tells me stuff that I didn't know, with a gentle humour, and with words that I can understand.
At 7.30 am I swing my legs out of bed, and am immediatly reminded of the 22.2 miles that I ran yesterday. My thighs hurt, and the tape to hold my right knee stable pinches.
I grit my teeth and peel it off in one long tear.
My knee has held up, and for that I am grateful.
I put the billy on to make tea, and then settle into the day.
Check the emails, have a shower, pull on a pair of black shorts and a grey tee shirt.
I settle back on the sofa with my bare feet up on the hardwood chest that I put there to put my bare feet up on.
I am writing a letter to my friend Julia who lives in Melbourne...I don't send her emails, I write her letters, not many I have to admit, but I like to take the time to touch her with my words and to let her know how special she is to me.
Julia, you see, was my first girlfriend. I was 14 and she 13... It was a lifetime ago, but what we had back then still sparkles like magic between us.
Meanwhile I have to go and stand on the cold concrete in the bathroom, cos my feet hurt. Yesterday was Sunday, and my last long run.
Mike came with me on the bike, and while I suffered just the same, my time was 14 minutes quicker than last week.. I start to feel a little gob of self assurance about this race.
Tonight I go swimming with my kid, I go through my sets with ease. Despite the leg fatigue I'm getting faster.
I have 11 days and 6 hours to go.
It was sunny, it was cool, and the wind had gone. It was 6a.m, too early to get up, so I read for a time. Bill Bryson's study of Shakespeare. I like the way he tells me stuff that I didn't know, with a gentle humour, and with words that I can understand.
At 7.30 am I swing my legs out of bed, and am immediatly reminded of the 22.2 miles that I ran yesterday. My thighs hurt, and the tape to hold my right knee stable pinches.
I grit my teeth and peel it off in one long tear.
My knee has held up, and for that I am grateful.
I put the billy on to make tea, and then settle into the day.
Check the emails, have a shower, pull on a pair of black shorts and a grey tee shirt.
I settle back on the sofa with my bare feet up on the hardwood chest that I put there to put my bare feet up on.
I am writing a letter to my friend Julia who lives in Melbourne...I don't send her emails, I write her letters, not many I have to admit, but I like to take the time to touch her with my words and to let her know how special she is to me.
Julia, you see, was my first girlfriend. I was 14 and she 13... It was a lifetime ago, but what we had back then still sparkles like magic between us.
Meanwhile I have to go and stand on the cold concrete in the bathroom, cos my feet hurt. Yesterday was Sunday, and my last long run.
Mike came with me on the bike, and while I suffered just the same, my time was 14 minutes quicker than last week.. I start to feel a little gob of self assurance about this race.
Tonight I go swimming with my kid, I go through my sets with ease. Despite the leg fatigue I'm getting faster.
I have 11 days and 6 hours to go.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Gropey, Frolic, Squalid and the gnomes of the MogoDron.
I was thinking about that part of the brain which deals with failure the other day.
I don't know about other peoples brains, but in my brain there is a committe of gnomes who run the psychosomatic dept. They deal with my neurosis, my stress levels, inner demons, that sort of thing.
Right now, and for quite some time now, there has been an ongoing battle between them, and my will, over the rights to my success or failure.
I picture them sitting around up there thinking of ways that will make me give up on this quest for athletic endeavour.
"I know" says one, whose name is Gropey, "lets make his nose bleed"...and so they do.
"well that didn't work" says another whose name is Frolic. "lets turn him into a dithering idiot, and then block up his nose with snot"
"Hey lookit that" says another whose name escapes me cos now I'm a dithering idiot, "He doesn't even care that half the lightbulbs in the house have blown, and the dishes aren't done....eeewww and what's that he's eating"
"I know" says another called Sqaulid"lets peal half the skin off his arse" "nah" says another "we tried that before Christmas, lets peal it off his penis"..."WooHoo.. now that got his attention"
And then came MogoDron "well boys" he drawls "what I suggest"he says, pausing to put his feet up on the desk, while spreading his elbows and clasping his hands behind his head, "is that we keep those lascivious and salacious thoughts that he has, but halve his ejaculate...we can then use the spare protein to make his nails hurt"
So they do.
Now with one long run and two long bikes to go, I am teetering along a physical tightrope. I have lost 12lbs, my right knee hurts, I am physically brittle and psychologicly fragile, but I am almost there. I take an almost perverse pleasure in the amount of punishment I can inflict upon myself. In two days time though I can start to be nice to myself again. I am looking forward to that. I will have beaten the gnomes.
I don't know about other peoples brains, but in my brain there is a committe of gnomes who run the psychosomatic dept. They deal with my neurosis, my stress levels, inner demons, that sort of thing.
Right now, and for quite some time now, there has been an ongoing battle between them, and my will, over the rights to my success or failure.
I picture them sitting around up there thinking of ways that will make me give up on this quest for athletic endeavour.
"I know" says one, whose name is Gropey, "lets make his nose bleed"...and so they do.
"well that didn't work" says another whose name is Frolic. "lets turn him into a dithering idiot, and then block up his nose with snot"
"Hey lookit that" says another whose name escapes me cos now I'm a dithering idiot, "He doesn't even care that half the lightbulbs in the house have blown, and the dishes aren't done....eeewww and what's that he's eating"
"I know" says another called Sqaulid"lets peal half the skin off his arse" "nah" says another "we tried that before Christmas, lets peal it off his penis"..."WooHoo.. now that got his attention"
And then came MogoDron "well boys" he drawls "what I suggest"he says, pausing to put his feet up on the desk, while spreading his elbows and clasping his hands behind his head, "is that we keep those lascivious and salacious thoughts that he has, but halve his ejaculate...we can then use the spare protein to make his nails hurt"
So they do.
Now with one long run and two long bikes to go, I am teetering along a physical tightrope. I have lost 12lbs, my right knee hurts, I am physically brittle and psychologicly fragile, but I am almost there. I take an almost perverse pleasure in the amount of punishment I can inflict upon myself. In two days time though I can start to be nice to myself again. I am looking forward to that. I will have beaten the gnomes.
Monday, February 9, 2009
That puddle, my dear, used to be me.
Mike was away so I cajoled my kid into biking with me through my first 20 miler. The most she'd previously pedaled was the 3 miles to school and back.
It wasn't altruism, the thrill of the challenge, nor threats of dire consequence that got her out there either....Nope, it was 20 bucks folding cash...well, at least the squirt didn't make me pay in advance.
So at 9 a.m. on Sunday off we trot from the ex's place.
I had managed to procrastinate a good hour away in purposless dither, and now the heat was starting to bite.
A flat 5 miles was followed by 5 miles of hill up to Glen Massey, and the kid was finding that she was having to earn her money.
Time and again I lose sight of her, and half expect to find her sitting under a tree somewhere...but then there she would be, waiting on my side of the road, water bottle in hand...the comfort of that is immense.
The heat climbs into the 80's and then into the 90's as I plod along.
I cross the road to run briefly in the scant shade of the willows that line the banks of the Firewood creek. The tip of my tongue starts to burn, like it does on the bike.
I tip water in, and it then leaks out. I feel like an old bucket. After two hours my toes blister, my bum chaffs and my resolve narrows and then shrivels to the size of a raisin..
At 17 miles I send the kid on ahead to the dairy. At 18 miles and with 2 miles to go, she stands outside the shop with two cold cans of coke. I rip the tab off one and swill it in one gulp, it bubbles and froths and I spew it back up...my kid watches aghast at the raw bodily functions of her father. I'm just thankful I'm not standing on Mrs Singh's linoleum. The second one stays down. The last two miles, I have to say, were a freakin' nightmare. Like boiling a frog. I was burnt, I was chaffed, I was tired beyond belief, my feet hurt, and Voldemort and the deatheaters were pattering along behind me...but finally I was done. I lay cooling on the soft sanctuary of the ex wifes sofa, drank two beers and then went home to sleep the afternoon away.
Now, I have never tasted Lambic beer even though I have been to Belgium and have stood on the great folly that was Waterloo, which is just down the road from where the beer is made. On Sunday 18th June 1815, some 40,000 Lambic drinkers were put to the metaphorical sword...although a fair number were blown to smithereens by being fired at point blank with cannon....victims of a combination of outdated battle tactics and misguided heroism.
French soldiers, on Napoleans orders, would form into squares of 100 or so men, muskets and bayonets bristling they formed a formidable barrier to both charging soldiers and cavalry. Wellington however, didn'nt send either men or horses...he rolled up cannons, pointed them at the squares of men, and ordered them to surrender...they wouldn't...chivalry and commonsense having apparently traded places ...the carnage that followed the lighting of the tapers was a sickening sight to behold....and made for one of the bloodiest battles of recent recorded history.
The ghosts of decapitated soldiers still stalk the escarpement at Mont St Jean, and to walk its field is an eerie experiance still. After 193 years people who visit, still cry there.
Lisa drinks Lambic, and on Sunday as I studied its providence and manufacture I tried to conjure the taste....of both.
It wasn't altruism, the thrill of the challenge, nor threats of dire consequence that got her out there either....Nope, it was 20 bucks folding cash...well, at least the squirt didn't make me pay in advance.
So at 9 a.m. on Sunday off we trot from the ex's place.
I had managed to procrastinate a good hour away in purposless dither, and now the heat was starting to bite.
A flat 5 miles was followed by 5 miles of hill up to Glen Massey, and the kid was finding that she was having to earn her money.
Time and again I lose sight of her, and half expect to find her sitting under a tree somewhere...but then there she would be, waiting on my side of the road, water bottle in hand...the comfort of that is immense.
The heat climbs into the 80's and then into the 90's as I plod along.
I cross the road to run briefly in the scant shade of the willows that line the banks of the Firewood creek. The tip of my tongue starts to burn, like it does on the bike.
I tip water in, and it then leaks out. I feel like an old bucket. After two hours my toes blister, my bum chaffs and my resolve narrows and then shrivels to the size of a raisin..
At 17 miles I send the kid on ahead to the dairy. At 18 miles and with 2 miles to go, she stands outside the shop with two cold cans of coke. I rip the tab off one and swill it in one gulp, it bubbles and froths and I spew it back up...my kid watches aghast at the raw bodily functions of her father. I'm just thankful I'm not standing on Mrs Singh's linoleum. The second one stays down. The last two miles, I have to say, were a freakin' nightmare. Like boiling a frog. I was burnt, I was chaffed, I was tired beyond belief, my feet hurt, and Voldemort and the deatheaters were pattering along behind me...but finally I was done. I lay cooling on the soft sanctuary of the ex wifes sofa, drank two beers and then went home to sleep the afternoon away.
Now, I have never tasted Lambic beer even though I have been to Belgium and have stood on the great folly that was Waterloo, which is just down the road from where the beer is made. On Sunday 18th June 1815, some 40,000 Lambic drinkers were put to the metaphorical sword...although a fair number were blown to smithereens by being fired at point blank with cannon....victims of a combination of outdated battle tactics and misguided heroism.
French soldiers, on Napoleans orders, would form into squares of 100 or so men, muskets and bayonets bristling they formed a formidable barrier to both charging soldiers and cavalry. Wellington however, didn'nt send either men or horses...he rolled up cannons, pointed them at the squares of men, and ordered them to surrender...they wouldn't...chivalry and commonsense having apparently traded places ...the carnage that followed the lighting of the tapers was a sickening sight to behold....and made for one of the bloodiest battles of recent recorded history.
The ghosts of decapitated soldiers still stalk the escarpement at Mont St Jean, and to walk its field is an eerie experiance still. After 193 years people who visit, still cry there.
Lisa drinks Lambic, and on Sunday as I studied its providence and manufacture I tried to conjure the taste....of both.
Monday, February 2, 2009
I now know how toast feels
There is something about making hay.
It's a preparation and a planning for hard times and inclement weather to come.
A laying aside.
It's the value and pleasure that fatigue,sweat, sun, toil, comradeship and laughter can give you on a hot summers day.
That, and I like the smell.
So on Sunday we made hay. It was good hay too. Man sized bales, that were tightly packed and strung tight with green twine. A testament to the honesty and integrity of the man who cut and baled the grass.
It was a pleasure to grunt with the effort of lifting them.
We started at 7am, there were five of us. The air was still cool and the humidity was in the teens. We worked through until 3p.m when it wasn't.
The barn was full with laughter, the smell of beer and fresh hay when I left them. They had money in their pockets and I had hay...one of the greatest exchanges I think that I have made.
I then meet Mike, for the first of my long runs. 15 miles.
I havn't got a lot of time left before this race, but I have had pretty much continous improvement, and only one day off with a cold. My weight has dropped 10lbs and I can maybe wring another couple out of myself before March 7th.
My legs though are a dead weight from the bike with Ant the day before. For the first time, I have made his eyes sink back in his head with fatigue, and made his normally calm facade taut with the effort of climbing the hills... I am biking stronger than he is.
Today however I am paying the price...I learn later that he was too tired to do more than a short ride...while I am out suffering through 15 of foot.
Mike chatters away, he can do this because he is on his mountain bike...while I haul myself up the road through the mile bush grunting monosyllabic replies. I have loaded him up with toilet paper, water bottles, a change of clothes, vaseline, money and cellphone...even though there are no shops or coverage where we are going. I am slow...real slow, but the hours and hours on the bike have given me a residual strength that I find heartening.
The humidity is uncomfortable, and soon I have run out of space to wipe the sweat off myself, so with the bottom of my wet singlet I just spread into a sheen around my face.
At half way I wring it out, and put on a dry one. It is soon as wet as the first.
It's an interesting feeling reducing yourself to a pile of soggy ash in a fraction of the time that it takes upon a bike. In 2hours 20 I am back on Mikes doorstep swilling tea with him. I Didn't use the toilet paper, money or cellphone...but felt security in having Mike and they with me.
I have to say though, that after today, I now know how toast feels.
It's a preparation and a planning for hard times and inclement weather to come.
A laying aside.
It's the value and pleasure that fatigue,sweat, sun, toil, comradeship and laughter can give you on a hot summers day.
That, and I like the smell.
So on Sunday we made hay. It was good hay too. Man sized bales, that were tightly packed and strung tight with green twine. A testament to the honesty and integrity of the man who cut and baled the grass.
It was a pleasure to grunt with the effort of lifting them.
We started at 7am, there were five of us. The air was still cool and the humidity was in the teens. We worked through until 3p.m when it wasn't.
The barn was full with laughter, the smell of beer and fresh hay when I left them. They had money in their pockets and I had hay...one of the greatest exchanges I think that I have made.
I then meet Mike, for the first of my long runs. 15 miles.
I havn't got a lot of time left before this race, but I have had pretty much continous improvement, and only one day off with a cold. My weight has dropped 10lbs and I can maybe wring another couple out of myself before March 7th.
My legs though are a dead weight from the bike with Ant the day before. For the first time, I have made his eyes sink back in his head with fatigue, and made his normally calm facade taut with the effort of climbing the hills... I am biking stronger than he is.
Today however I am paying the price...I learn later that he was too tired to do more than a short ride...while I am out suffering through 15 of foot.
Mike chatters away, he can do this because he is on his mountain bike...while I haul myself up the road through the mile bush grunting monosyllabic replies. I have loaded him up with toilet paper, water bottles, a change of clothes, vaseline, money and cellphone...even though there are no shops or coverage where we are going. I am slow...real slow, but the hours and hours on the bike have given me a residual strength that I find heartening.
The humidity is uncomfortable, and soon I have run out of space to wipe the sweat off myself, so with the bottom of my wet singlet I just spread into a sheen around my face.
At half way I wring it out, and put on a dry one. It is soon as wet as the first.
It's an interesting feeling reducing yourself to a pile of soggy ash in a fraction of the time that it takes upon a bike. In 2hours 20 I am back on Mikes doorstep swilling tea with him. I Didn't use the toilet paper, money or cellphone...but felt security in having Mike and they with me.
I have to say though, that after today, I now know how toast feels.
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