Fred Despair and Ginger Bodgers

We’ve threatened to do this a for a few weeks now, and finally we’ve done it. We’ve been out to dancin’ lessons! More specifically, we’ve been to a Ceroc lesson. Now, as many of you know, I can shake me hips, and fling me arms around, but I end up looking like a jelly fish on the boil. I’ve seen people doing this stuff on and off for years now, and had the greeneyed god of envy on my shoulder as I watched them jiving across the dance floor. My version of the mash potato didn’t have a chance. Click here for a bit of video.

Anyway, we turned up far to early, so went for a drink (non-alcoholic!) before signing up. There were no forms to sign that said “if you do this and maim or kill yourself then it’s your own stupid fault”, so how hard can it be? I’ll tell you. I was terrified! The first move looked like an entire dance to me, and we had four to learn in 45 minutes! Anyway, I told each woman as she turned up that this was my first night, so please be gentle with me. Unfortunately I went wrong with one of them, I hadn’t realised that she’d turned too much so instead of putting my hand on her hip I ended up putting it in such a place that I think we are married now (between the hips). Anyway, she gave a little surprised yelp and I apologised profusely! I don’t want to be seen as a dirty old man on the first session! (Yes, yes, nor any other).

Well the moves went on, and I was told I was looking petrified by one woman – I told her there was a good reason for that. Well the good news is, I managed to work it out in the end. Cath had it easy and just had to be led – well she always was easily led, eh Julie? – so she found it very enjoyable.

We’ll be back next week because looking back we had a great time. In the mean time I’ll be looking at the free DVD and practising my steps all week like that woman from Strictly Ballroom!

Oh, and next time I’ll remember to smile.

Does anyone know the ogo-pogo?

Views of Spamalot

Well would you believe it? Our friend Jane was in the old smoke this weekend. She’d just finished working on a cruise around the coast of Scandinavia and the UK and had been driven by a friend from Portsmouth to the Royal Lancaster Hotel near Hyde Park. She was only here for two days, but we packed loads in. Sunday we mooched around Islington and fell into The Steam Packet (I think that’s it), then wandered down to our favourite bar – oh the shame of it! It was closed! What to do? We wandered into the Angelic down the road. This is one of those pubs that have turned trendy (has a smoothie bar as well).

Monday was Jane’s birthday. She was so eager to get off and do some sightseeing that she had no time for breakfast! Either that or she already knew what it entailed – porridge. So she was out early to negotiate London Transport’s bus routes to get down to the office of her new company behind Buckingham Palace before heading out to the Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Now, that’s all well and good, but the highlight was going to see Spamalot in the evening. This is a West End production mainly based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail and starred Dr Who (Tristan Farnen?) Peter Davidson as King Arthur. Now, you will all know that I’m pretty rubbish at reviews so I won’t even bother. Suffice to say that it was absolutely brilliant – I haven’t laughed so much in ages! Jane was pleased because she recons that it makes up for her taking us to see Borat

Anyway, she left Tuesday morning for Heathrow and then Cranbrook where even now she is probably getting over her jetlag. It was great to see her again, and here’s to our next meeting in a snowy ski resort!

Catching a Wave

Last night we joined a couple of thousand people at the Royal Festival Hall to spend the night with Brian Wilson. What a night! Although Brian is still not 100%, and probably never will be, he put on a fantastic show that quickly became the best concert I’ve ever been to. He’s not one of those musicians who denies his past – I’ve been to too many concerts where you only get to hear the latest album, or only the solo work (Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen was the most disappointing). Brian started with Rock and Roll, and finished the same way, the set was like a greatest hits with a set of his current work in the middle. By the end of the evening the place was in uproar as everyone danced by their seats and in the isles – everyone singing along in the harmony sections! One little old lady seemed to go bezerk and started some sort of headbanging dance with body jerks. She’ll be feeling that today!

Brian was as cool as a cucumber, was drinking coffee halfway through Good Vibrations – now that’s relaxed.

An absolutely brilliant night, and one I’d repeat any time. The Beach Boys songs are so “up” that you can’t help but have a great time!

The Power of Cake

Ouch! We cycled from Wainfleet in Lincolnshire to Cambridge in, well Cambridgeshire, today. You wouldn’t expect anything less of us, would you. We were thinking about going all the way to London, but we had two 11 pound bags on our backs, and we aren’t as fit as we could be.

The ride started easily, and we got to Boston within the hour. At a place called Sutterton Roundabout we pulled in and had our first sandwich and cake (that’s a Toffee Muffin – with real toffee). Now that area on Lincolnshire makes the prairies look positively hilly, and so it was that the GPS mounted on our handlebars only wavered between -3 and +2 metres above sea level! Following the local dust storms in a field at Tydd St Mary (woah baby tornado!) we rode on towards Wisbech – Market Town of the Fens. I’ve no idea what it looks like because there weren’t any signs to the town centre, so we took the ring road through the middle of town (I know, ring road, you’d think it would go around town, wouldn’t you? But don’t forget that this is the Anglia region.

My backside was beginning to get very sore now. The bag on my back was heavy, the head wind from the south was making the going difficult, and the saddle was unforgiving. Actually, it is still pretty iffy now as I sit here on the sofa in the flat in Islington.

Following Wisbech we ploughed on through fields of cauliflowers, onions and gladioli (yes, really) until we entered Norfolk for a while. This was a complete surprise as I hadn’t realised a quick jaunt into this county was on the cards. Next was Ely. Now, what was interesting was that following the cake, I had the power in my legs to ratchet the speed up to 20mph, but by the time we got to Ely I was down to 13mph.

England’s third smallest city, Ely was founded in 673AD and has a huge cathedral. This is a great place to eat sandwiches and cake (chocolate cake that is. Cath went for Pecan pie though we had both ordered muffins – cake confusion).

Now my backside was in pain from the seat as we powered on towards Cambridge. I was pleased to see that we were only 16 miles away, so the miles thundered by until we rode into the city centre. With no road signs pointing to the train station we were amiss until we spoke to a local girl who pointed us in completely the wrong direction. After talking to another couple from the US, we eventually road onto the forecourt.

There were no trains leaving Cambridge station because of maintenance works.

You may understand our immense and huge disappointment when we read those words. Luckily there was a bus to the closest station with a service. Unluckily they didn’t take bikes and they were about 20 miles away.

Bugger.

Well, there was nothing for it. After cycling for over 90 miles there was no way we were going to let another 20 get in the way, so we hired a taxi van and took it to Audley End station. Well – what did you expect? A quick ride to Liverpool Street Station in London and we were on our way, cycling to Islington and home. Too tired to eat proper food, I downed a tin of soup (which is obviously not food, it’s drink), and Cath had some instant pasta thing (the British equivalent to Kraft Dinner).

So, not quite Wainfleet to London, but a great ride anyway. We got to see a lot of flat land and rode through three counties – Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, and still had enough money left over for a fish supper (or something).

Julie’s Ironman Report

WOOHOOOOOO!!! I am so excited I can barely believe it!! heehee!!!!! I lost my goggles halfway through the swim — so that was really interesting!! I thought to myself — well at least now I don’t have to look at all those creepy weeds at the bottom!

I went out too fast on the bike — I was feeling really great so I pushed it. Consequently, about halfway through I started to have some GI issues and knew if I wanted to be able to climb Yellow Lake and then run a marathon I had to act quickly. I slowed right down and got my heart rate to the pace at which I trained at (no duh!!) and started burping almost immediately — this is a good sign by the way!! It meant my nutrition was back on track and my body was able to digest without getting backed up. Also — after three years of biking around, my left rear bottle cage decided to break on race day!!!!! A guy who biked passed me told me it was broken and that I was about to lose a water bottle. Ok – no problemo, my aero bottle was just about empty so I squirted the contents of my loose bottle into it and then tossed it in the ditch.

I had a great run!!!! I can’t wait for next year!! heh-heh I signed up for 2008 — you knew I would!! I had a bit of stomach trouble on the run,so I had to slow my pace so I could burp — this was particularly crucial. The run is not as forgiving as the bike. It’s either burp or puke — fortunately I was burping — but it was close!

Lessons learned: Calm down and GET THAT HEART RATE DOWN after the swim. DO NOT PUSH IT ON THE BIKE!!!! Capitals are for my benefit! My run was great –those long runs I did in June and July had prepared me really well. For the first time, when I was running, my heart rate was actually lower than what I trained at. I believe the trouble I had during the bike prohibited me from not only a faster bike split, but slowed my run as well. Regardless, I raced the race and made the right decisisons to finish!! Even better, I have a new PB for the Ironman Canada course.

I was so happy my swim time was the fastest yet too!! It was a fricking melee out there. There was one lady that stopped swimming and started freaking out. When I came up to sight I overheard fellow swimmers shouting encouragement to her. So I followed suit — I don’t know what happened to her ..

I think there were 2700+ people competing. The swim was a real savage mess — I was happy I was mentally prepared for it. There were many times I had to actually stop swimming — the whole path was choked with stopped or very slow swimmers. The bike portion was congested as well — drafting was virtually impossible to avoid — there were just too many bikes on the road. This was the first race I was in where I had to brake continually to avoid riding into other bikers!! Hopefully they initiate a wave start next year!!

My hero Lisa Bently won!!!!!!! Mike couldn’t make it to the race, and I didn’t see my Mom or my bud, Gord (bike guy) all day. The only time I saw somebody I knew was the last mile of the race — a sales rep from one of the companies I deal with for the store — We are actually good friends, so it was awesome to see him!!!

Well — thanks Jase for checking up on me!! And Cath, I wish you all the best for your big race!!! Just keep a positive attitude and nothing will get you down! Like one of the posters that a spectator held during IMC said: “Believe in your dreams”

Good luck Cath — but above all, you have the time of your life on race day!!!!!! I’ll be watching and rooting for you!

Take care guys! (My muscles are a little better — I can bend slightly at the knees now! WHEEE!!!!)

Julie

Installed

Right then, we’re installed in the Radisson Hotel in the middle of Hamburg – opposite the Banhoff (train station). I’m using the free wireless internet to let you know that the support people have taken Cath’s bike away, and are putting it back together after the travel. It seems to be in one piece – so that’s good! We have spare inner-tubes and such like in my little box of tricks, so we should be ok there.

I laughed to myself earlier, one of the things about going to a new country (well, fairly, we were last in Hamburg in ’98) is trying to work out how to flush the toilet. Sometimes it takes longer than others – especially the automatic ones, where you are looking for the button/lever,/stick. Anyway, we’re sorted now.

It was a pretty good journey, and if the plane hadn’t come in 30 minutes early (eh? It’s only a 70 minute flight!), the connecting bus would have been there. No matter, time for a sarnie (sandwich Julie), and a coffee. When it arrived, w took the GB team bus that was parked next to the bus for Team America. We did the international distress signal as we drove past and laughed, but I think everyone else thought we were having a fit!

Well Cath’s on the phone to someone at work at the moment. Once that’s done she’s going to register and then don her rubber suit for a quick swim in the dock (could be posh, so I’ll call it a quay) before grabbing something to eat.

Believe me, there are a lot of GB team uniforms knocking around at the moment!

So that you know, I have been reliably informed by Cath that she starts at 8:10 UK time on Sunday.

(By the way, Team America – if you wondered what that was about, look on www.imdb.com)

In-flight Movies

I’ve just bought some DVD’s on a 3 for £20($40) deal from HMV. Now there are usually great bargains when they do this, and this time was no exception. I managed to bag The Magnificent Seven (with all the trimmings), House of Flying Daggers (trimmings again, and a double pack of The Producers (original and remake – counted as one) so I’m pretty pleased. Now, we don’t usually get much time to watch films, so I had a couple of DVDs on the shelf waiting to be watched; one was Pan’s Labyrinth. Don’t mistake this with Pan’s People. This was not what I expected at all – I was thinking it would be something closer to The Labyrinth; it was pretty gruesome in places. I haven’t hidden behind my hands for a long time, but some of the scenes set in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war are pretty horrific. The story is centred on a girl who is surrounded by monsters, both human and mythological, that make her life a misery. She retreats into the fairy tales that she loves while carnage is taking place around her. It is definitely worth watching, but not for kids.

When you’re on a flight, you either watch the movies, or you read or you sleep. I generally can’t sleep, and find it hard to read if there is a tv on, so invariably I watch the movies. Fly Zoom, being a budget style airline doesn’t do the screen in the back of the seat with movies on demand, so you get four titles, one after the other, and a chance to buy the headphones to listen to them. I’m not going to bother doing a proper review, but here are a list of the movies I saw and a line about what I thought:

• Spiderman 3 – watched the mime version because I didn’t get the headphones out. Made no difference as I could still easily follow the plot. Was pretty good, actually better than the other two that I did also listen to.
• Freedom Writers – I don’t know if all Zoom flights must have a “teacher goes takes the worst class in the worst school and brings the best out of them with hugs all round” movie on each flight, but it was very similar to Take the Lead that we watched in January with Antonio Banderas. It was quite good, and helped the time pass by. Would probably have rented this
• Shrek 3 – 1 was better, 2 not so good, 3 too many.
• The Guardian with Kevin Costner was pretty good, and definitely passed the time. It was about a high school swimmer who joined the US Coast Guard. Kevin Costner played the hard guy with problems following a dodgy assignment. Was pretty formulaic, and got a bit stupid in the last five minutes (like Leon did – mind you, that was a a good film.)

When you are on a plane, you have a lower quality threshold – yo uare just after stuff that makes the flight go more quickly, so it’s great when you get a couple of movies that are really good like Waitress and Wild Hogs – this was the best road movie I’ve seen in ages, and Blades of Glory was great as well – hmm, I’m into mindless movies on planes, does that say anything about me?  Now, when we were in Fernie we saw that the Simpson’s Movie was on. I can always sit down and watch the Simpsons. When I couldn’t get a job for 18 months, The Simpsons marked the end of my nominal day’s work (reading up on things, job hunting etc), so I’ve seen quite a few of them. All I can say is the movie is absolute rubbish. It is so bad that we almost walked out of the theatre. There’s supposed to be a joke a minute, but I have to say that I must have missed loads of them. Thank goodness we didn’t watch it in Islington (£8/$18 per person, kerchinnng!)!

A walk in the park

Well Cath and Nichole managed to complete the 5km run around Regent’s park without getting out of breath. It was a great day out, if a little tiring after the 60th birthday party in the home counties the night before.

Apparently they chatted so much that they had lactic acid issues with their jaw the following day. So I can confirm that they both finished the course, and that the money raised from you (thanks very much for donating) was well and truly earned. The one thing that made me smile was that after the thousands of women had run/walked/ambled off, I noticed that half a field full of the men left behind were lining up to be served at the burger stand. hahaha. Mind you ladies, you don’t get off scot free (what does that mean? why scot?), a whole load of women in different groups turned up very late indeed for the start – a couple started only five minutes before the first runners completed.

Anyway, like I say a great time, and at the top of this post is a photo of Cath and Nichole limbering up for the 5km conga that followed.

Eleven Lords a leaping

Well, maybe not eleven, closer to three with a fourth on the cusp. “What on earth is he talking about?”, I hear you say. Well we only doggone went to watch the ballet at a famous London theatre called Sadler’s Wells last Thursday.

Now, I’m not one for a load of swans dying all over the place, and the nutcracker sounds too painful, so I was surprised when I was cycling past Sadlers Wells on the way home from London to see a poster for The Tree Musketeers. My memory of this was Oliver Reed and such like drukenly bouncing their was across the French countryside keeping the queen out of danger. So I thought, well, if it’s going to be ballet, it’ll be all the more interesting so see people leaping about with swords and flagons of beer – and they did!

We got there 20 minutes before the start and had two large glasses of red wine before wandering up to our seats. On the way up, we spotted Jane. You know Jane. Jane! Bungle? Zippy? Rod, Jane and Freddy? (For our Canadian brethren, click here and start singing doo-do doo-do dododo-doo-do… along with the rest of us)  She was wandering around looking almost exactly the same as when I saw her when I was a kin (I didn’t tell her this. Hi Jane, I remember you from Rainbow when I was still going to school. Wouldn’t do her ego much good). Well she came and sat down behind us, and for the first 10 minutes gave a running commentary. “I think that’s David”, “Do you think so”, “Yes, I’m almost sure”. “Oh that was nicely done”. That sort of thing. I thought Cath was going to swing for her at one point.

Well ten minutes in, it all quietened down, and Cath fell asleep. I kid you not. She missed the whole of the first half, and only just woke up in time for the oranges. Now, walking to the bar at the intermission, I told Cath not to worry as I’d ordered two glasses of wine. Were were out after all. “Ah”, said Cath, “So did I”. So we there we sat. The two of us with four glasses of wine on the table, and the elderly couple at the next table giving us daggers because they thought we one of those lost generation of young(?) alcoholics. Self consciously, Cath managed both of hers, well they did cost a fortune, and we couldn’t take them home, and I had to leave my second one as I was desperate for the bathroom.

Anyway, out of the bathroom, into my seat, and straight-away we are in the second half. Lots of dancing about. Some dramatic flights, and more than a little bit of come-hither-ing.  Swords clashed, pretend wine was spilt, the queen’s honour was saved in a humorous Shakespearean manner, and then it was all over bar the bowing.

We had a thoroughly great time. I surprised myself by enjoying it even though it was actually my idea to go. And I found myself pirouetting down the street back to Angel station, though that might have been due in part to the wine.

Well, I hope I have given you some insight into the sublime evening we had.We’ll be tackling Shakespeare next with a pepperami and a couple of litres of Cider.

Bottoms up!

London to Woodstock

Friday’s trek to Oxfordshire started badly; you didn’t have to worry about Cath cycling to Woodstock. I cycled on Cath’s tri-bike from Islington to Paddington Station down the Marylebone Road. Nerve-racking doesn’t come into it. The gears are set up differently to a normal bike, so I did most of the ride in the same gear, and it was only when I wasn’t far from Paddington that I worked out how to do them.

Cath on the other hand was having her own problems. She had to let seven underground trains to go by before she could squeeze onto one. She ended up getting to Paddington Station so late that we missed the train to Oxford we had booked the bike onto. So it was a fraught 20 minutes before we could find another one that would be prepared to take the bike. By then we decided that we would get a mini-van taxi from Oxford Station to Woodstock as we were likely to be late for our meal booking in the local pub. A bit stressy eh?

We left the stress behind in London, and the (slow) journey to Oxford and taxi transfer were very easy. Woodstock is a quaint old Cotswold type village that is still in the 19th Century, as is the Bear Hotel where we stayed. The only way you know you’re in the 21st Century is the number of cars parked up. A quick meal (in an almost dead pub, so no worries about the reservation) was followed by sleep.