Category: Uncategorized

Ye olde teeny tiny hill doth defeat me no more

I’ve invented a new word. I’m sure others have used it before so maybe I didn’t really invent it. Anyhow, it’s un-festive. It does what it says on the tin and describes how I feel at the moment. I’m not grumpy nor am I in a bad mood. I just feel un-festive and any ho-ho-hos that emanate from my lips do so through gritted teeth.

It’s that time of the year. Everything seems so hectic. Children are excited, adults are stressed, traffic is abysmal. But worse than anything, people keep asking what I’m doing for Christmas. “Working” is the answer. It’s not exactly exciting is it and if I’m honest I’m quite resentful about it. I don’t have any business feeling this way. Someone has to work Christmas and, after all, I knowingly and willingly signed up to a vocation that involved 24/7 cover and that means everyone taking their turn and sharing the roster. I last worked Christmas in 2013 and it was super quiet. I ended up being able to stay at home all day on Christmas Day and was even able to have people over for lunch. I’m not expecting it to be busy this year but not quiet either. This still doesn’t explain the resentment. Nonetheless, I will pitch up to work donning a Christmas outfit and probably everything will be absolutely fine on the day.

It’s not as if I haven’t got anything to which to look forward. I have a fabulous ski trip to Switzerland in early January and the cycle trek in February. It’s not even that I haven’t had a great time recently. I’ve had several weeks of celebrations with colleagues and friends that have set my social calendar alight. Last week alone I had a function nearly every day. Tuesday was just a brilliant day as my friend who has not been well had her birthday and a small group of us treated her to a helicopter trip over the harbour to a vineyard for lunch. She was feeling good that day and was super-excited to sit in the front of the chopper with the pilot on what was one of the most beautiful days of the year. The harbour put on a spectacular display. On a day like that it is one of the most glorious places in the world. The lunch was at a lovely spot overlooking this incredible place and the food and wine were delicious. In those hours there was no illness, just friends having a great day out, away from the mundanities of life.

Wednesday saw me babysitting for some friends. For some reason their 5 year old thinks I am the bees-knees. No sooner had they left for their night out than he was out of bed and beside me on the sofa. I won’t confess to them that I was secretly disappointed when I arrived to find him already safely tucked up in bed so this was fine by me. We sat and chatted about his hopes for Christmas. He has some very specific requests – that his trampoline be round and red, with a handle; preferably he’d like a drum too and that he be allowed to leave cakes for the reindeer just like he did last year. I tried to negotiate carrots but he wasn’t having any of that healthy food nonsense. He gave away some trade secrets about family life which made me snigger and then, like any good auntie, I yet again answered his question about why ladies have boobies. Setting the alarm for five more minutes out of bed was a minor coup for me as he couldn’t really argue when it went off (although I may have been conned into changing it to seven minutes but no-one need know that). He agreed to go to bed if I went with him for a snuggle. He was most indignant that this meant my taking my shoes off so as not to mess up his bed despite the fact it appeared to already be full of mess-creating felt pens without their tops. He then equipped me with a “blankie” just like his and as he was about to go to sleep he enquired innocently if I had anyone to snuggle at home. No, I said. This induced him to jump out of bed, go to his cupboard and find me a small cuddly dog to take home as a present, so that I had something to snuggle when I was on my own. How touching was that? He also gave me a half completed dot-to-dot colouring book and a dried up felt pen and instructed me to bring it back to show him when I’d finished it. Bless him. What a lovely boy he is shaping up to be.

Presents from a five year old
A second hand cuddly dog for me to snuggle and a half used colouring book. These are the best gifts ever because they were given with such love and good intention

The following day was a choir concert in the Town Hall. This is an a cappella choir in which a friend sings, along with several other people from work. Usually this concert is a bit tedious but this year it was genuinely lovely. Not only was the singing really good, the theme was love and so they sang some really great tunes. There were also some other performers including the usual obligatory school groups who made everyone coo. We won’t mention that in the last few bars of Only You by Yazoo, sung to round out the first half, someone’s phone started ringing in the audience. It may have been mine but I’m still in denial at the embarrassment.

Friday was a really great dinner followed by the musical version of Sister Act. What a fabulously fun show just before Christmas. I don’t know what it is about singing nuns but they have a certain something that makes everyone happy. On Saturday we had our departmental Christmas party and for the first time we were requested to wear outfits. The rather flamboyant “Gary” whom you have met in previous videos insisted upon this and it would be fair to say there was some reluctance. Such is the nature of our team that every single person nonetheless rose to the occasion and it may be strange to say so about something so seemingly trivial, but I felt proud of them. It just seemed to me that this stood testament to the fact that ultimately everyone embodies the team spirit and as their leader, I can’t want anything more from them than that. The following day was the Christmas function of another department in which we also work. It was out in the country at their director’s home and was a lovely informal and relaxed affair with great weather, company and food complete with a bouncy castle fire engine and tractor rides for the children. Finally, after all these functions I had a well earned day off partying and then yesterday, again, there was another evening do for yet another team to which I contribute. Again, more lovely people who were generous hosts and with whom I am delighted to work.

So, throughout all of this, how has the cycling been going? Well I have been out on the bike a few times and done more of the same which basically means I have again mainly cycled on the flat. I feel like I can build up distance but I am still fretting about hills and gears. In the gym, my training sessions are now focussed on improving my cardio abilities in readiness and we have been pushing the tension on the static bike in multiple short stints followed by going all out on the rowing machine. I’d secretly rather do the cardio work than kettle bell swings anyway but don’t tell my trainer this. A colleague at work who is a triathlete has offered to take me cycling over Christmas to show me how to deal with the gears. This is terribly kind but also incredibly scary. The man is a machine and I cannot imagine how embarrassed I will feel donning my lycra and showing myself up in front of him. Hopefully he will forget this kind offer… However, today I have had a minor achievement. I won’t spoil all but will let you watch the video which describes it. Suffice it to say that the title of this post gives it away and you’ll be proud of me.

Finally, I have had some discussions with Variety this week, the charity organising the trek. They have set up a Facebook group of the people partaking but so far no-one but me has joined so I have no more info yet on my fellow cyclists. I have also booked my flights which is exciting but means there is no going back now and that is scary. It is actually only just over 8 weeks away. While there is no fundraising target as such for this trip, we do have opportunity to raise money if we wish and I sort of feel I would like to try to do that given how much effort this cycling business is taking from me! The purpose of the fundraising is to purchase bikes for disadvantaged school children in New Zealand. While this wonderful country in which I live is acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful and progressive in the world, it nonetheless has a problem with child poverty. Some of the children I see at work come from the most challenged families and so to be able to help in whatever ways I can is a true privilege, whether that be through my work or charitable ventures or both. Just $200 buys a child a bike. Even better, I can choose the low decile school to which I donate the bikes, which could be in my local community or anywhere else of my choice and furthermore, I can go to the school in person to deliver the bikes. This is a very tangible form of fundraising and being able to see the end result will be tremendously rewarding for all my efforts. If you feel you can donate, I would be extremely grateful. If you can’t donate, please just continue to support me in other ways. Your kind words and encouragement are enough. My fundraising site is here.

Until next time, enjoy your festivities or un-festivities and whatever the crazy season brings to you and yours xx

A Beautiful Day

Believe it or not, I once went skydiving. It was circa 2002 and I was travelling around southern Africa in a truck on a small group adventure holiday with a fantastic company called Drifters http://www.drifters.co.za. We’d had a great but tiring time wilderness camping alongside a river where we’d been kayaking and in the desert where we’d hiked sand dunes and spotted dangerous wildlife. Now we were arriving in the Namibian seaside town of Swakopmund renowned for its adventure activities. Drifters owned a number of inns around southern Africa so the grass roots down and dirty experiences of camping were intermittently broken up by a night of relative luxury. A good shower, proper bed and a bar were most definitely the order of the day in Swakopmund. As it turned out, the inn was run by the man who had been the guide on my first Drifters adventure to Botswana some years previously. It was great to see him again and reminisce about our previous capers and the group involved. It is an odd thing, holidaying with a bunch of strangers. You live in such close proximity to them for a few weeks and get to know them well and yet you then part ways and never see each other again, despite promises of reunions. These days there would be Facebook groups and the like of course but it’s still an unusual form of friendship.

Over a few beers that evening, the following day’s activities were planned. The strange German couple decided they could not rest unless they revisited the desert road we had travelled along en route to Swakopmund in search for these weird looking plants called the Welwitschias which are almost unique to Namibia. Seeing these things was almost their raison d’être and they were unamused that the spring-like weather meant that there was greenery in the desert which had hidden them. Everyone else, however, was bound for quad biking the giant sand dunes in the desert just outside the town. This sounded dangerous to me but it also seemed like a prerequisite and the thing you had to do while in town. So it was. In fact, it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it and even had a certificate for a time to prove my bravery.

However, that was not all. I’d managed to be talked into doing a skydive. I think the rest of the group was a bit surprised that when the guide enquired as to who wanted to do it that I was the first volunteer. I’d always wanted to do one and couldn’t imagine that there would be anywhere better than this town where the desert bordered the sea. Up I went at dusk to 12,000 feet in a plane with a man called Michael strapped to my back. He was friendly and had induced confidence in me despite his dodgy moustache. In my opinion moustaches on their own should be relegated to the plughole except, of course, during Movember when they can be justified in the name of charity. I forgave him for this however as he seemed like he knew what he was doing and would make sure I was returned alive and intact to the UK at the end of my trip. I had phoned my mother the night before. I hadn’t spoken to her since the start of the holiday due to us being out in the wilds and it had cost me £16 because I’d stupidly told her about the impending jump and then spent most of the call trying to get her to stop sobbing. I knew this was likely to be a once only experience for me so I’d paid extra to have a videographer jump as well. This was in the days before Go Pros and the like of course and so he literally had a video camera strapped to one side of his helmet and a still camera to the other. He operated these with wires which he bit down upon at the right time. There would be no sound at that height but he would capture plenty of shots and footage. He jumped first then Michael and I shuffled to the open door of the plane. I sat with my legs over the edge and he shoved us through the gap. We were off. It was indescribable as I experienced his massive but momentary lurch of my heart and stomach into my mouth but then we were lying prone, floating through the sky and it was just absolutely incredible. I was thumbs up all the way down, the videographer laughing and giggling, Michael shouting in my ear about how well I was doing and me responding accordingly with big grins and hand gestures. Then Michael pulled the chute and we settled into a seated position, spiralling ever downwards towards the sand-covered earth we call home. It was sunset and a clear day. I could see out to sea but all the time below us was this crinkly sandy surface, each of the teeny tiny imperfections being one of those giant sand dunes which I had ridden up early in the day.

As always for me, the ending was not perfect but rather comical and it turned out to be a befitting way to punctuate the exhilarating yet emotional experience that went before. On hitting the ground, I fell face down and by default Michael ended up spreadeagled on top of me with the chute engulfing the two of us. Safely rescued and back on our feet, we went into the office to watch the video footage and I was asked whether I wanted it set to music. I instantly knew that the only appropriate sound track to this video would be A Beautiful Day by U2. It must have been recently released because we had listened to it endlessly in the truck where the CD collection was somewhat limited. We would be driving along and when it came on we would all sing it at full voice, even the Germans joining in occasionally. In the days and weeks following this holiday, I would watch the video frequently, both in amazement that I had actually done it, in a show off sense to my mates and whenever I felt like I needed a laugh. I haven’t seen it for years as I no longer have a video player and this has been a reminder that I must get it digitised so I can watch it again.

And so it was that yesterday was also A Beautiful Day. Nothing so dramatic happened but every so often you have a perfect day just because the circumstances conspire with you and not against. Black Friday 3 did not happen so I awoke in my own bed in my own house after a short but justifiable lie in. I stepped into the indulgent rainforest shower in my gorgeous new en suite which is now complete with the windows unfrosted so I can stand there looking out at the beauty of this fabulous place where I live. Then a friend came around with a Christmas tree for me as they sell them near her house and she has a car big enough to transport one. She brought her daughter but no amount of manhandling by them and supervision by me was going to make the tree stand upright. Cue a phone call to another friend to come and give us a hand. By the time he arrived we’d got it sorted so then we were free to sit in my lounge and drink café frappés and Lewis Road Creamery chocolate liqueur (just try it!). The doors were open and it was a wonderfully balmy day outside with one of those ink blue skies and just enough breeze to offer relief and to deliver a faint whiff of jasmine.

In the end, we parted ways and I went to visit my friend who has not been well. It is no secret that she is undergoing chemotherapy. As much as she doesn’t like to talk about being brave or of it being a battle or she a victim, it is a deeply unpleasant experience nonetheless and she has impressed us all with her resilience and positive attitude. I like to think about keeping things as normal as possible for her. After all, she is a friend who happens to have cancer, not cancer which happens to have a friend attached to it. She is at the same point in this current chemo cycle as when she was at her worst in the last. I have tried to check in with her daily by text to make sure she is OK and she has seemed fine but it was still a really fabulous surprise to me to find her at home ready to go out as she was feeling as well as she could be. We had a lovely lunch in a trendy cafe overlooking the water and she ate the most she has in ages. I was so pleased as this meant she was up for the truffle fries and I could help her finish them… They just happen to be a weakness for both of us. After that, we mooched around some trendy but expensive shops where I happened upon lots of things I’d buy except for knowing that Christmas sales are just around the corner and I hate buying things that then get reduced! We retired to hers to watch some trashy TV while trying a cocktail of Chambord and sparkling wine to try and re-create a wonderful raspberry drink we’d had in times gone by. Actually, I seem to recall an evening after a day working in Nelson when we had a Chambord cocktail at the Rutherford Hotel followed by a meal including truffle fries at Hopgoods. Or maybe that was the time that Hopgoods had only ordinary fries on the menu and I sulked like a teenager. It was certainly the night that we retired to her room to drink a bottle of champagne and when we phoned a friend to come and join us he showed up in his dressing gown as he’d already gone to bed!

Now, many people have asked me why I’m doing the cycling trek. Well, no one reason really. I like a challenge and I like to do my bit to support charity, especially ones with a focus on children and local ventures. However, more than anything, I’m doing it because my friend suggested it. She supports this particular charity, Variety, but she is obviously not up to a cycle trek at the moment so I thought, why not? Why not do it for her and at the same time for me and the charity. Despite being unwell, she has been so amazingly encouraging and has never wavered in her opinion that I can do it. I know she will wave me off with a variety of crazy face masks, muscle lotions and chocolate just as she did for my last overly ambitious venture. Thats what friends do for each other. So, I set off from her place resolved to have another go on the bike.

So far I have cycled only on a quiet track in the bush near where I live. This time I went along the Auckland harbour water front on a shared cycle path and pavement. It was much busier and being a sunny day, there were people everywhere – walking, skating, cycling, just wandering; locals and tourists, adults and children alike. There were also hazards like pavement works, cars, ramps and so forth. But, it was absolutely fabulous. I loved every minute. Yes, it was flat again, but it was the furthest I’ve been so far at 15.3 kms and there was enough of a breeze to relieve the heat from the sun but also to make it a bit challenging as I had to pedal a bit harder.

Auckland is the most picturesque city and I feel lucky every day to be allowed to stay here. There are those from outside who pour scorn on our city and its inhabitants, referring to us as JAFAs* and criticising our traffic and housing prices. Well, where else could you cycle from one stunning beach to another with the glittering blue waters right next to you, looking out to sail boats and an island volcano and most people giving you a friendly wave or hello? The traffic may be heavy and the housing prices high but show me a city where they aren’t.

After coming home, I put all 150 ornaments on my Christmas tree, each one a reminder of such-and-such a market, holiday, friend or family member. There are Aboriginal baubles from Sydney, reindeer with conical hats from Vietnam, metal hearts from Cardiff Castle, gingerbread men bought by one set of nephews, a shiny silver handbag from my sister and a festive foot made out of flour from another nephew. The whole thing is a construction of sentiment and, in my opinion, this just makes it even more beautiful than it is anyway. Bugger those who have to have a colour scheme or the right shaped baubles. Sod off to those who say my tree isn’t right as it doesn’t have tinsel. Christmas isn’t about trends, design and showing off. Christmas is about family, friends, reflections, memories and looking forward. Yes, this may be soppy and so to lighten the mood, I’d just like to add that if my mate J doesn’t offer to swap his inflatable reindeer costume for the departmental Christmas party for my ever-so-small Little Bo Beep Santa dress, then he may no longer be on the Christmas card list. As he would say, this is no deterrent as I haven’t sent cards for years, preferring to donate the money to the Auckland City Mission! Actually, that’s just a cover up for being hopelessly disorganised but from bad sometimes comes good.

So, I hope you all had A Beautiful Day! Do let me know in the comments what makes a perfect day for you. I’d like to think of the blog as a conversation rather than a diatribe.

xx

PS The Germans never did find the welwitschias but we happened upon one in the car park of a campsite a few days later and they were grudgingly happy

* JAFAs = Just Another F***ing Aucklander (sorry mother but at least I spent another £16 on phoning you to let you know I survived the sky dive!)

 

 

 

Successes and failures

It turns out that cycling is vaguely enjoyable. I like the whizzing along on the flat picking up speed but I have to keep reminding myself that so far I have been out on the bike only three times. I have not yet tackled hills, very long distances, punctured tyres, chains

coming off, me coming off and so on.

I think I managed about 9kms yesterday and 13-14kms today. I’ve tried using my little odometer today and that said 13.6kms. In contrast, Strava seems to think I did only 0.5km so there’s something wrong there and Map My Ride said 8.14kms but it looks like neither app had good enough GPS signal. I’d say 13-14 would be about right and that is scary as it took me an hour so by that rate, the 90kms day in Sri Lanka is going to take 6.5 hours if (and that’s a massive if) it’s on the flat. Hmmmm.

My video explains my progress on changing gears and using the brakes (in short, very little) but other things I don’t really understand include what do you about those times when the wheels are going round so fast that you can’t pedal at all? Is that OK? It seems a little bit like cheating but it’s a welcome break from pedalling.

My current cycle track has a teeny tiny incline. It may as well be Everest as I just can’t do it. It just feels so hard and I end up hopping off my bike and pushing it. And even coming down is a nightmare as I have to use the back brake and my bike skids all over the place. I must be so unfit and yet I have been going to the gym regularly. I feel like I’ll never get to the point of being able to cycle uphill as I can’t see I can get hugely fitter in such a short time.

In other news, I bumped into a colleague who expressed surprise at my doing the trek. She’d heard it through the grapevine. She was keen to point out the phrase saddle sores to me. No, never heard of them… Then I was telling this to another colleague who declared it could be a lot worse as I could get diarrhoea as well! That’s a new disaster theory at least. I’m up to 8 catastrophist now. They’re on a list in my phone as now there are so many of them I can’t remember them all! Shortly after this, I bumped into a mate I would consider to be sporty and she said to me, “you know Helen, I really think you’ll do it”. What a confidence booster! That will keep me going a while longer anyway.

So, the weekend plan is to cycle both days and try to do a bit more each day. Next week looks like a total disaster on the cycling front as I have so many pre-Christmas functions to attend. I will never be ready for this trek!

I have at least one friend…

I work with some fantastic people and I truly mean that. It’s a strange position to be in as I am the boss on one hand and a friend on the other and it constantly amazes me that my colleagues let me wear these two hats at the same time and yet still seem to like me. One such colleague is a man we shall call Gary* (*Names have been changed to protect identity). Actually, I wanted to call him Dave but he insisted on Gary. If I’m honest, he doesn’t look like either but I indulged him.

Now, let me make this clear, Gary is, ahem, a bit of a show pony. He loves the theatre and has previously been an actor on a prominent New Zealand television show (in as much as any programme in New Zealand could be described as prominent). He has also been in a stage musical, with our whole team trotting out one night in support while he strutted his stuff in a wet suit, flippers and fairy lights (honestly). We even managed to get the quieter staff members dancing in the aisles. Gary should be proud of this as it had never happened before and never since.

Gary is larger than life and working with him is a laugh a minute. When he first approached me for a job a few years ago, it was quite unexpected but it has been just wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t spend all our time having fun but there’s a real art to being able to use humour to manage the stress we experience in the workplace. There was a period of time when Gary went to work overseas and I missed him. Since he returned a few months ago, he has certainly made his mark again and it’s like the parallel universe of my professional life has become even more exaggerated. Fortunately, he’s extremely sociable and has helped organise my social life. We’ve been to some very strange plays – there was the one where the gay man decided he was straight then changed his mind again; a British farce including a dog which disappeared from stage; A Streetcar Called Desire and then this fabulous show at a secret location called the Pleasuredome where we entered via a mock-up of a New York alleyway including a hooker called Doris who wanted to befriend me.

One of the things Gary is most famous for is making the very most of work conferences. His various social media channels are full of tales and photos of his “confrolidays”. To his credit, he frequently presents at these conferences but this goes unnoticed by his envious audience. Some of the confroliday antics I have shared with Gary have included:

  • A tour of Warsaw in a communist fire engine
  • A Michelin starred degustation meal in Athens comprising dry ice, mojitos masquerading as carrots and a course called Silence of the Lambs where a sheep’s brain and tongue braised for 2 days were served in a gold spray-painted sheep’s skull (see below)
  • Having to decamp to a posh bar en route to a conference in London as it was in a building opposite Parliament and the roads and pavements were closed due to the Queen being driven down the streets
  • Being mistaken for his “wife slash girlfriend” on a tour of the old town in Jerusalem and then us taking 4 hours to get through security in order to leave Israel whereas we’d had no trouble getting in
  • The strangest meal ever in Amsterdam where we were in beds and the entertainment was very fruity
  • Me falling asleep at every show he took us to during a conference to NYC but managing to stay awake for all the singalongs at gay bars until the small hours of the morning

Consequently, I knew that Gary would not hesitate to help me out when I thought it would be a good idea to have a friend star in a video for my blog. In fact, he was almost too keen – his tongue was hanging out and a few beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He hot footed it over to my office almost instantly to be filmed. However, what I was not banking on was Gary making a confession, and a blunt one at that, about his beliefs regarding my cycle trek…

So, ladies and gentleman, I give you Gary. Do enjoy it as much as he did!

Me and Gary
Gary and me at the Pleasuredome
Silence of the Lamb
Silence of the Lamb. The brain is on the plate. The tongue is in the painted skull. Weird, but extremely tasty and a very clever name

I.am.a.cyclist

Yes, it’s true. I have been out on my bike. Ergo, I am a cyclist. Clearly I’m a very bad cyclist with an awful lot of progress to make in a terribly short time but I have at least managed to banish the massive hurdle of actually getting on the bike. And, it felt ok. I’d even be willing to go as far as to say that there were parts of it which I quite enjoyed. I loved getting up a little speed and whizzing along with the wind whipping through my hair and flying insects going up my nose. No doubt if someone showed me a video of my ride, I’d look like a very elderly tortoise creeping along painfully slowly but it seemed fast at the time.

I went to a water pipeline track near where I live which I think is just over 6 km return and I enjoyed it so much that after making a quick video, I did it again! So 12 km down. If I could only work out how to use my little cycling equivalent of a pedometer then I could provide more stats but even that defeats me. It is freaking me out that everyone on this trip to Sri Lanka will be really fast and I’ll be left for dust at the back, becoming ever increasingly shiny and damp while it gets dark and they abandon me to the tigers. Do they even have tigers in Sri Lanka? I could look in my guidebook but I’ve no time between cycling, renovations, working and having small disasters.

If you carry on past the water pipeline track, it makes a turn into the bush and becomes more sloping, eventually ending up at a steep hill of switchbacks. I’m told the trek involves “the occasional hill”. I’ve no idea what that means but hopefully not steep hills of switchbacks. So the next step is to extend my cycling to include the sloping, but definitely not the switchbacks. The trouble is, I’m terrified of even the slightest incline and not understanding the gears is making me panicky. What is it with the gears? I’ve mastered them in the car, so why not the bike? And why are there so many of them?

Anyway, the video I recorded while on the cycle track is a gem, mainly due to my deeply suspicious looking around for strangers. The others are ones I’ve been slow to upload but explain the various issues with the exercycle, bike, car, renovations and life in general.

Until next time…

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50 dogs and 48 cats

Well I had a lovely weekend in the capital with my mates. It was just a chilled affair with great company, lovely food and some fabulous purchases. What else do you need? Firstly, we stayed at the newly opened Sofitel which was just wonderful. I can highly recommend it. The rooms were dark and moody, the service polite and generous and the gym hidden away in the dungeon where every good gym should be. I felt I should do some cycle practice so after waking on Saturday, looked in the hotel directory for where the gym was situated. Having failed to find it under G for gym and F for fitness, my heart jumped for joy because this meant there was no gym… Sadly I was wrong. It was listed under S, obviously – for Sofit, a play on words of course which, grudgingly I admit is quite clever. I even took a selfie next to the sign which I doctored. I hope you enjoy it. The best bit about the Sofit cycling experience was that there was a screen on the bike which took you on a journey through the French countryside so it seemed a teeny tiny bit like actually cycling. Not that I would know as I have not cycled in the real outdoors for almost a decade.

Shopping mainly consisted of frivolities – some beautiful knee high suede navy boots, some smart reading glasses as you can’t have too many, 2 identical lipsticks so that I would qualify for the free gift for spending $x, 2 Christmas tree decorations, 3 hats and a skateboard. You read that correctly.

Dining was top notch – Loretta’s (OMG the salad with tahini, the orange marshmallows and the raspberrycello), The Larder (lamb meatballs with mint), Floriditas (a new wine for me called something I’ve forgotten), Shepherd (wow, the savoury custard with bacon and eel), Museum Hotel (cava at a favourite old haunt) and probably several other places I’ve forgotten. However the real highlight was on Saturday evening when we took ourselves off to the Welsh Dragon bar. This gem has been a highlight of visits to Wellington in years past and sadly we’d got wind of the fact it was closing down. Originally some public conveniences and situated in the middle of the road such that its address is “middle of such and such street”), it has been the southern hemisphere’s only Welsh bar for a long time. Run by Mike and Jo, ex-pats from Swansea, it is full of Welsh memorabilia – flags on the ceiling, tea towels on the walls, rugby souvenirs, Welsh maps with pins to show where visitors have come from and so on. It is nothing fancy. Your feet stick to the floor and sometimes you get a faint whiff of urinal. But, they have the warm hospitality you’d expect of my compatriots, they stock Brains beer and Penderyn whisky and they even sell Welsh cakes. I have very fond memories of the Rugby World Cup in 2011 when we gathered there before the opening match for Wales against South Africa (we were robbed by the way when the refs deemed James Hook’s high penalty kick out). We all dressed up and even my mother hit the bar that day!

So what a shame it is that Mike and Jo are relocating to Featherston. But Mike was there and, as usual came around to chat to everyone and told us that they are opening a wine bar called The Dragon Inn. It will serve tapas which will be Welsh themed and called taffas (for those who don’t know, Welsh people are called Taffs). It just so happened that Wales were due to play the All Blacks in Cardiff this morning so the plan was to see the bar off in style with a lock-in to drink the bar dry and watch the rugby. We weren’t up for an all-nighter but we did grab a Merlyn cream liqueur and signed the visitors book one last time. The new owners are rumoured to be planning “something Celtic but not necessarily Welsh”. What a shame, but how fabulous to be in town the weekend the dragon roared for a final time. As much as I love where I live and have no plans to return to the UK, it was a little piece of home and I feel like I’ve left a small sliver of my heart behind there. I will definitely try to get to Featherston at some point.

So, I’ll leave you with a Mike joke. The answer will be in the next blog, although do feel free to put the answer in the comments. By the way, if you enjoy the blog, please sign up to follow me and share to your Facebook or Twitter feeds. Thanks!

Here goes: “There were 50 dogs and 48 cats. How many didn’t?”

 

A day in the life of…

Sometimes I wonder if the Bridget Jones books were written about me; that Helen Fielding had perhaps set up some sort of elaborate spying system in my life ready to document all the ridiculous little disasters that beset me. Not that BJ would be a bad role model – she was after all very endearing. But I do after all have some professional standards to uphold and turning up to work with 2 sets of glasses on my head or late because I’ve forgotten to take my work clothes to the gym with me so I’ve had to divert home again, is probably not good enough. Not bad enough to be reported to the Medical Council but annoying and irritating for others nonetheless.

And so it was that Thursday and Friday unfolded. There were no massive disasters. No house fires, no financial crises, no deaths. Just lots of little things that seem to only happen to me and cluster themselves into a day when I have something I really need to do. In this case, the goal was simple – get to the airport to fly to the capital for a weekend with some friends. My mate T has not been well and a weekend away was just what the doctor ordered. She’s a doctor herself so it was self-prescribed but no need to tell the Medical Council about her either… Anyhow, I’m left with this sense of shame that if someone who has been so ill could get to the airport on time and without any scrapes, why couldn’t I have achieved even this small feat?

So what were the obstacles in my way that hampered any semblance of progress? I’m going to keep you all in suspense and submit you my latest video which says it all. Just a word about my videos

  • I don’t know why the thumbnails sometimes appear sideways
  • I think I’m gradually working out how to look at the phone during filming so I don’t have wandering eyes
  • Yes, they’re a bit long but I do like to chat
  • I don’t like watching or listening to myself so I hope I post the right video with the right text
  • I haven’t worked out (no surprise there) how to edit them

So, it’s 8 minutes long but even I think it’s a ripper. However, when I recorded it, I forgot a couple of very excruciating yet crucial details: every time I mention running, jogging or rushing, you have to picture me doing so with one hand on the back of my dress trying to hold up my knickers. Yes, I’ve lost 15kg recently and they’re somewhat

loose, a fact I only discovered when I decided this week that it was time to get summer-ready and ditch the tights… Then later in the day, while shopping, I managed to career into and knock over the whole Jo Malone perfume stand. For those who can’t be bothered with 8 minutes of me wittering, do enjoy the selfie taken in the fabulous hotel toilets. You can rest assured my under garments were secured at the time.

Enjoy!

“I will get you a motorbike”

Now, you only have to look at me fleetingly or spend more than 1/2 a second with me to realise that I am not the sportiest soul on earth. In fact, I generally hate most sports. I quite like ski-ing but it’s not like you can do it every day. I like walking but really only when the weather’s nice, there are no hills and there’s a nice cafe at the end in which to undo all the good I’ve just done. I did a bit of kayaking at Uni and quite liked that but I was too scared of drowning to pursue it. I enjoyed badminton for a while but a nasty man called Bob was horrible to me so I stopped going and I could never go back after I acquired a gardener from the badminton club and she sacked me. Yes, I was sacked by someone I was paying. It’s like those children who sack their parents… Not that I would do that as Mr and Mrs E provide too much comedy to forsake them.

Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yes, I remember now, hatred of sports. I previously mentioned Mr Williams from junior school. I never bonded with him as I preferred advanced calculus to sports and that’s saying something. Then there was Mrs Bowen at secondary school who laughed when I signed up for the school ski trip. So, it’s safe to say that I don’t like sports. I wish I did. Wouldn’t it be great to flounce round a tennis court, onlookers admiring my back hand, not a bead of sweat on my forehead and making it look so terribly easy? And imagine surfing? Oh to have the bikini body of one of those dudes. But, time has passed me by and never having got “into” a regular sport is definitely something I’ve put on my list of things I won’t repeat next time around. It is so much harder as an adult to take up a new activity and you can almost hear people spouting forth on the topic, in hushed conspiratorial tones. “Have you heard? She’s into sailing now but it won’t last long”.

And so it was that last year I found myself on a charity trek in Vietnam to raise money to improve water sanitation in rural communities in the far north of the country. I took it on as a challenge. I wanted to do something focussed outside my work and it was with a charity I’d supported for a while which meant I was also able to meet my sponsored child, a privilege I will never forget. The trek was 50 kms over 4 days. It was tough – very tough. I did as much training as I could fit in around my work, my plantar fasciitis and my sprained ankle but nothing could have prepared me for the wet weather conditions, humidity, leeches and heat. The first few days were spent travelling with the group and guides to the trek location and visiting some charity projects in the region. The New Zealand-based and head local guides that were with us were experienced, professional and extremely supportive. The more novice Vietnamese guide was a young man who was a real hoot but quite naive. We were chatting one evening and he said to me, “do you actually do any regular exercise?” A bit taken aback, I defensively said, “well I do some walking and I’ve been practising”. Imagine my retort when he responded with “I shall get you a motorbike”. So, I set off even more determined. I would show him. Yes, I was slower than everyone. I lost the treads of my boots after 4km and despite increasingly desperate measures to tape them back on they were finally removed when they became tripping hazards and so I walked the remaining 46km with smooth-soled boots, slipping and sliding on the mud and in the rice fields. But, I did it, and I raised more money for the charity than any other person. I was proud of myself. Incidentally, the last day’s walk ended up at a rural cafe. I asked the staff if I could leave my boots in their bin. “Just leave them outside” was the response. I duly put them on the front doorstep and when I checked again a few minutes later, they had vanished.

And so it is that I find myself signed up to a cycling trek when I have never really cycled. My nearest and dearest appear to think this is a great idea. The deeply cynical side of me thinks they can’t wait to hear about H’s latest disasters but really I know that they are genuinely supportive of this newest ridiculous escapade. Then there are the many people who have proferred the idea of using an e-bike. I doubt very much such a thing exists in rural Sri Lanka but even if it did, I wouldn’t use one. The whole point is to be challenged and out of one’s comfort zone. If it was something I did every day then it wouldn’t be fun. But then there is the next level of supposedly useful advice. “You will have to train you know”, “It’s going to be hard” and “It’s a long way” are my favourite quotes from these doom mongerers, some of whom have appeared genuinely concerned. Others have fallen about laughing with an evil look upon their faces. The obvious response would be “no shit Sherlock” but I’ve been surprisingly restrained, probably because at this point even I can’t imagine completing all 468km without resorting to the support vehicle. But, as with the young Vietnamese guide, I will show them. And no, no motorbike will be necessary thank you very much.