My Big, Fat Biking Blog!

Another Acorn 100k Bike Ride has been and gone. My main feeling, now that most of my body parts have returned to normal: relief! The biggest thing I notice year on year, this being the fifth annual bike ride, is that I no longer do anywhere near sufficient training beforehand and consequently, not only do my legs ache by the end but also shoulders and other body parts not appropriate to mention here. Rest assured, when my beloved took the bike from me in the car park after the finish line had been crossed, I really never wanted to see it again - till next year!

It's funny how the whole event has evolved over the years. The first year we organised it (2007), it was designed as an Acorn Challenge in the same way that we had trained and run the Great North Run and walked the Lyke Wake Walk (42 miles in 24 hours across the North Yorkshire Moors). We had run a half marathon (most of us not even having jogged in the park until we started training), walked through the night and day in horrible wet conditions on what is known as the Coffin Walk and now we were going to cycle.

Some of us (well, me actually) hadn't swung our leg over a bike saddle since 1975 - thinking about it, I expect that is only true of me as I strongly suspect I am the old lady of the Acorn Committee (feel free to disagree!). Anyway, bike borrowed (in my case), extensive training done and off we went. At this point, I thought that cycling was nowhere near as hideous as walking in the dark and the rain with a guide on the moors who admitted at about 4.00am that he thought he might be lost!

The first year of the Acorn Bike Ride, we had some fabulous non-cyclists who donned (or not) the lycra and rode a selection of bikes from tandems to ones with baskets at the front, to mountain bikes to swish road bikes. Some of these non-cyclists raised a phenomenal amount of money - mostly, I suspect, because their friends simply did not believe that they would finish!

Since then, the Bike Ride has evolved into more of a cyclists' event with lycra-clad musclemen and women hurtling round the 100k route at high speed. There are still plenty of enthusiastic amateurs who trundle round and enjoy the day - or at least till the pain really kicks in just after the very bumpy bridge at Aldwark.

Anyway, we had a great day on Saturday and we raised (we being the cyclists, marshals, sponsors, technical and medical support and everyone who cooked, served, washed up, car-parked and registered) £28,000 which is indeed an amazing amount of money. The only thing for me which would have made it even better would be if everyone wore a helmet. I know they're hot and uncomfortable and they give you 'helmet hair' but the roads are dangerous and everyone on the organising team is conscious that one accident involving a rider without a helmet would be one too many.

So back to practising the golf (getting worse), playing tennis (probably getting worse) and doing pilates which I still don't really understand in the 'is-this-really-exercise?' sense. Till next year...!

It's Murder on the Dance Floor

Last night, my beloved and I went to a ball. Actually it was rather special, not least because we went with dear friends, but also because we went in evening dress - he in black tie (rather than blacked up!) and me in a frock rather than the ever-increasing supply of fancy dress costumes we now own. We were both relieved we could still get into the appropriate gear as we haven't worn black tie for a while and once zipped into my frock, which hasn't had an outing for a couple of years, I suggested that I might try the other frock but my beloved wasn't up to the unzipping and rezipping task so - decision made! The skin-tight fit of my dearest's evening shirt, coupled with various stains (not sure if this is black make-up or red wine or a combination of both) suggested that this wardrobe item might have to be replaced before further outings and, indeed, one of the studs on the shirt gave in during the course of the evening. He claimed it had taken refuge in his underpants but later examinations proved that not to be the case, so new studs too.

The setting for the ball was fabulous - a spectacular marquee in the grounds of a castle, pink champagne, amazing food and a great, great band. I love a bit of brass and all this band lacked was a jazz trumpeter which obviously we could have provided had child 3 not been under canvas doing his Duke of Edinburgh expedition with child 4 and friends.

We love to dance. If there's music at a party, we are up for it so a great band and a disco and we want to be on the dance floor. And although we tend to embarrass our children at every other opportunity, the dancing can't be so bad as even they will dance with us. So as soon as the music started we were on the floor. Now at this point I need to explain that we were slightly older than many of the guests but we can generally hold our own, but once on the floor, I realised that we were dwarfs in the kingdom of very tall people. When my beloved and I got married twenty seven years ago, I didn't think, 'I've married a short bloke", but it would appear that either we have got smaller (a distinct possibility in the vertical though not the horizontal sense) or people have got much bigger. At one point, when I was rocking and rolling round the dance floor with Harrogate's finest dancing solicitor (don't know how good he is at the legal stuff but he is a top dancer!), a very tall bloke commented favourably on our moves so I took the opportunity to ask him how tall he was - six foot seven! And later we bumped into the son of one of my tennis playing friends and he is six foot six. And this is just the men.

On the female side, the physical enhancement may well have had some help. There was a moment when I thought we had landed in silicon valley and I don't remember certain parts of my body ever achieving the sort of right-angled jutting that some of these young ladies were demonstrating. Ah well, gravity will get them in the end and I suppose, as in boxing, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Anyway, great party, great company and this morning my knees are reminding me that no amount of tennis, cycling and pilates prepares them fully for a night on the dance floor in stilettos - till next time.

Golf - or beware of what you wish for!

Each year before Christmas, when I am dashing around buying presents for children - mine and other people's - and wondering whether we can accommodate all the people I seem inadvertently to have invited to stay over the festive season, I write on the blackboard wall in the downstairs loo things that I think my children might like to buy for me. The original idea behind this was that when they were little (rather than nearly all taller than me now!) they could chose something like a tea-towel or tennis balls and know that they had bought me just what I wanted.

Over the years, the blackboard list has evolved somewhat and as the children have got older (and some of them even off the domestic payroll), the Christmas suggestions have moved onto a larger scale. The blackboard list was the reason that child 3 and I have supported Newcastle Falcons for the last few years. The Christmas wish was to see Jonny Wilkinson play and child 2 got us tickets to see the Falcons at Kingston Park and we have been hooked ever since. The fact that it took us two and a half seasons to see the most famous No10 in the world (because he was always injured) and then he decided to move to Toulon (now there's an idea for next Christmas's list!) is neither here nor there. The sound of the crowd singing the Bladen Races when they score a try (so not actually that often) gladdens my heart.

For the last three years, amongst the list of 'Mummy's Christmas Wishes' was golf lessons. There are a number of reasons for this - child 3 plays golf, granny (yes, she of Coco fame) plays golf and one day my knees will finally refuse to career round a tennis court and I might want to take up something other than bowls. I freely admit that I was not really expecting to get golf lessons but the children decided to take me at my word and bought me a course of lessons.

The golf pro who is teaching me has the patience of a saint. I don't find ball games easy although I seem to have spent rather a lot of time playing them and it is sheer determination and stubbornness that makes me refuse to give up. Anyway he is a kind man and compared to the tennis coaches I have paid over the years, unbelievably tolerant. The tennis coach is an altogether different beast. From the churlish red-headed coach who taught me when I first took up the game in my early 30s and announced that coaching housewives was his idea of hell (thank you!) to the feisty, furry Frenchman who is the present incumbent, they are generally short on patience and long on putting you in your place; as in, "Why are you standing there on the court?" Actually the FFF usually suggests that if it is a nice day we could just forget the tennis and have a nice glass of rose and he does have a point!

Back to the golf: lesson 1 involved me learning to hold the club and I can do that now with all my fingers and thumbs in roughly the right places, and attempt to hit the ball. The first lesson also included a video of me next to (though only on screen) Ernie Els. The differences in our swing were pointed out but all I could think was 'when did my bum get that big!' Lesson 2 (golf pro was late and I thought he must have decided to pull a sickie rather than teach me - quite understandable in the circumstances) and I can now hit the ball about 75 yards, but only sometimes.

Each lesson is interspersed with me practising a lot in the garden. The bit of lawn at the front is now full of divots but I have inadvertently dug up a few dandelions in the process so it's a sort of golf/weeding multi-tasking. I hit balls from the front of the house towards the field gate and then back again in the certain knowledge that I can only hit the ball so far. .. until I managed to sky one over the house narrowly missing the conservatory... now that could have been very bad.

Lesson 3 was a marked improvement but of course, subsequent practice with the full swing allowed on some shots demonstrated that actually I was getting worse. So lesson 4 which should have been chipping (no idea what this means but nothing to do with potatoes, I am thinking) was putting right all the mistakes which I couldn't self-correct. Now he has told me that next time I have to come not wearing jeans and with a full golf bag (child 3's not mine) because we are going on the course. I am feeling out of my depth on all sorts of levels - the number of shots it will take me to get anywhere near a hole means we probably won't get on a green in lesson time, I don't know how to chip, putt, get out of a bunker or anything else, and I don't have anything to wear in the trouser department and I don't want to look like Ian Poulter... Help!

Anyway that's the current state of the stationary ball game and updates will be available as we go along - five more lessons booked. Incidentally, I have been tweeting about my golf and people as far away as Australia have felt the need to comment on my remarkable (!) progress. Thank you!

A Bit Fuzzy Round the Edges

A few years ago, a dear friend of mine emigrated to Australia and, although she lives in a stunning house overlooking Sydney Harbour and has a most wonderful life there, once a year she feels the tug of Blighty. The time of year that makes her go fuzzy round the edges for life in Yorkshire is when the crocuses are in bloom on the Stray in Harrogate.

For me, now is time of year of year when I go fuzzy round the edges. I hate the winter (as you may know by now) and the autumn makes me sad - although it is usually such a hectic time, crashing headlong from Halloween to Bonfire Night to number 1 daughter's birthday and then Christmas that I don't have too much time to be maudlin. I do love the summer when the children can be outside all day but the absolute best time of year is now and if I could bottle it and keep it for those dark days in each New Year, I would.

Without being too Fotherington-Thomas ('hello clouds, hello sky!'), our village green has been ablaze with daffodils, the woods down are lane are blue with bluebells (well, obviously) and my tulips are out in the garden. I am a sucker for tulips and dig most of them up after they have finished flowering, and then bag them up in separate colours so I know what I am replanting in the autumn. So why in my most tasteful flower bed do I have lavender coming up next to double white tulips and three orange ones? Anyway we also have the national collection of dandelions in the lawn so we will be addressing that problem this week - again. However, if we remove all the dandelions, will there be much grass left in between? They never ask that on Gardeners' Questions!

So it's very early on Easter Sunday and I have just been to the dawn service on the green in the village (not the most regular churchgoer but I like this one) and now I will hide the Easter eggs in the garden for what is the highlight of the children's Easter. If egg-hunting were an Olympic sport, this would be a national centre of excellence. Visitors look on amazed as my children (and anyone else's who are here) put their running shoes on and line up at the front door, ready for the dash into the garden. Handicapping is based on last year's performance which usually means that child 2 goes last (eagle-eyed sprinter with 22 years of experience under her belt - don't bet against this one!) Anyway it takes me ages to hide the eggs and a ridiculously short time for them to come back with their collection. But they never find them all and it makes weeding the garden all the more rewarding when you find a random egg weeks later.

A Strange Tale from Cornwall

We (my beloved, child 3 and I) have just returned from a brief trip to Cornwall. My lovely brother in law lives in Penzance with his two boys who are similar ages to my twins so an excellent time has been had by all including much beaching, eating and drinking and even some rather haphazard tennis.

Cornwall is a treasure chest of memories for me as it was where my earliest holidays took place - at a beautiful - and unspoilt, in my day - resort called Carbis Bay. My brother in law was happy to indulge my need to reminisce by taking me there - on the tiny train line that runs from St Erth to St Ives, the idea being to have a morning and hefty lunch in St Ives with a visit to Carbis Bay either on the way or the way back. As chance would have it, the train refused to stop at the Carbis Bay station and so our first attempt at reliving my childhood holidays rather failed to get off the ground.

Our second attempt was an early morning trip there by car, leaving three boys in their beds until a more civilised hour (actually their idea of 'civilised' differed somewhat from ours but anyway they slept on and we were on the beach at Carbis Bay at 7.30am.) The trouble with going back is that often the reality does not live up to the childhood memory. But Carbis Bay beach did not disappoint and it was as long and stunning as I remembered.

My last clear memory of Carbis was March 1967 when we were staying at the hotel (which is considerably larger now and full of Saga residents) when the Torrey Canyon went down on the Cornish reef. We went down to the beach every morning to pick up the dead gulls and guillemots which were washed up on the beach covered in oil. At the time, this was the biggest vessel ever to be shipwrecked on the UK coastline.

I looked up what had happened that fateful day in March and really, you couldn't make it up! The master of the tanker decided to take a shortcut on his route to Milford Haven with 120,000 tons of crude on board. His plan was to cut through between the Cornish coast and the Scilly Isles. When he realised he was too close to the reef, he instructed the helmsman (who was actually the crew's chef) to change course, but the helmsman was very inexperienced (probably better at cooking than steering) and couldn't work out whether the tanker was in its equivalent of manual or automatic. By the time, he had worked it out, the Torrey Canyon was on the reef and leaking its cargo of crude oil into the sea.

The prime minister of the time, Harold Wilson (who had a holiday home on the Isles of Scilly and therefore perhaps a vested interest) decided to call a cabinet meeting at Culdrose, the Royal Naval station in Cornwall, and the decision was taken to bomb the oil in order to set it alight and burn it off. This plan had two fatal flaws - firstly, even though it was bombed with 42 1,000lb bombs, 25% of them missed their target proving that the Armed Forces can't even accurately hit a stationery target, and secondly, the high seas kept putting out the flames. In the end, 120 miles of Cornish coastline were seriously polluted along with 50 miles of French coast.

Some time later, the British government decided to sue the owners of the Torrey Canyon for the desecration of the coastline. The only way they could do this was by serving a writ on the Torrey Canyon's sister ship which happened to be in Singapore. So a British solicitor working in Singapore was instructed to get on the Lake Palourde (the sister ship) and attach a writ to the ship's mast. He was allowed on the ship by the crew because they thought he was a whisky salesman and so the writ was successfully served. The French government tried to do the same thing but only succeeded in chasing the Lake Palourde by speedboat.

Anyway, Cornwall is as wild and beautiful as I remembered and, although it is very different in some ways from my early childhood, it is a most wonderful place and I hope that child 3 has some good memories banked from his first trip.

'That's where the music takes me...'

When I'm sitting at my computer I don't usually listen to music as I find it too distracting but, if it's a really mundane admin job, there's nothing like a trot round YouTube for some good tunes. And what I find is that music can transport you to some great memories like nothing else.

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to matter whether a particular song is by a favourite artist or genre, if that was the song playing when something great happened, it stays with you. And playing it again takes you right back there.

For instance, I can't listen to 'Fly Me to the Moon' without remembering a certain group of would-be Rat Packers including my beloved blacked-up as Sammy Davis Junior (after he had eaten all the pies, obviously) giving it their all with some very dodgy words at a party a couple of years ago. Likewise, I realise I don't look like a regular fan of The Cure but, finding ourselves in a restaurant in Temple Bar in Dublin a couple of years ago, I felt the need to stand up and duet 'Friday I'm in Love' with a dreadlocked waiter. Of course, when I have had a drop or two of the black stuff, I totally believe I know all the words which when sober, strangely, I don't! Eighteen months or so later when we were back in the same restaurant in Dublin, daughter number 1 spotted a short-haired waiter who looked familiar and asked him if he had once had dreads. He had and yes, he did claim to remember the painful duet with her lunatic mother - or he said he did, which was very polite! At Christmas, the same daughter bought me a t-shirt with some of the lyrics of 'Friday I'm in Love' on the front and even though I strongly believe that women over a certain age should not have things written on their chests, I wear it - though never on a Friday.

I suppose I should be glad that I didn't stand on a chair on that occasion, unlike my recent birthday when I felt the need to stand on the chair and make an emotional speech on the wonderfulness of my family. Luckily I didn't go on too long and everyone's attention quickly turned to the aforementioned Rat Pack group who sang their latest single (!) 'Sweet Caroline' - which is another song I shall remember for perhaps not the reasons that Neil Diamond intended!

So in the words of the tall blond one in Abba, 'thank you for the music' - and the all great memories it brings.

Singing for the Brain!

Sometimes my life takes me to interesting places and events, but sometimes the most memorable are just on the doorstep. I was asked to write an article about the following and I was so moved by the experience that I wanted to share it in my blog...

If you walk past Christchurch on the Stray on a Monday afternoon, you will hear the sound of joyful singing. Step inside and you will see a group of men and women, neatly dressed, singing well-known favourites with such enthusiasm that you might think that you have dropped into a rehearsal for a performance of a singing group. But this group is not rehearsing, they are singing for fun and this is a weekly singing session organised by the local branch of the Alzheimer’s Society.

About forty people are sitting in a semi-circle around pianist and conductor David Andrews, who was for many years director of music at Harrogate Ladies’ College. David keeps up an easy banter with his ‘choir’ and they listen and laugh along with his jokes. Looking round the room it is impossible to tell the carers from those who have dementia - really. Once the music starts, everyone is singing, tapping their feet, clapping in time or whistling. One lady tells me how her husband, who was once a professional cricketer, has forgotten how to sing but whistles perfectly in tune, which he does for me to demonstrate!

David leads them in a selection of songs which are familiar - ranging from wartime favourites to popular folk songs and showstoppers. They sing wonderfully and it’s impossible to listen to their voices soaring in ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ and not feel uplifted. 

I am introduced to the group and it is explained that I am going to write an article about them. They are invited to tell me their experiences, to come and talk to me. And they want to do this. There is no shyness - both carers and their partners want to talk to me because their voices are so rarely heard. One lady tells me how her husband has just moved into full-time care rather than be at home with her. She explains that because her family don’t want to be involved, she is unable to continue to care for him on her own. “I had hoped for another six months but I just can’t manage anymore,” she says with obvious regret. Another tells me how, as soon as her husband had been diagnosed, her best friend cut off all communication with her. Dementia is not a condition where friends and family rush to your door to help. 

“Sometimes I’ve had a bad day before I come, but the singing really lifts my mood,” says one carer. One of the important aspects of the group is the opportunity it gives carers to share their burden and talk about their problems with other carers - people who really understand. “You can’t explain it to other people,” says another. The loneliness of the carers is something they bravely bear. Very little conversation with their partner at home, friends and family reluctant to get involved - “It’s wonderful to see a friendly face.”

David tells me how he was surprised by their extraordinary sense of humour. This is repeated again and again in the conversations I have that afternoon. There is laughter and a desire to enjoy every minute of the session. One carer tells me that, for the gentleman she looks after, all the days of the week are the same but singing is Monday and his face lights up when he knows he is coming singing. After the sessions, he can visualise the faces of the other members of the group and he loves to see the younger people who come along to help. Others talk about how they sing the songs when they get home. One gentleman treats me to a word-perfect solo of “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’” - a song he has known since a boy in Scotland and when the session ends, two gentleman sing a duet - spontaneously and perfectly - and with such pleasure.

One lady who has early onset dementia and is in her fifties tells me how proud they are of their group and that people from other branches of the Alzheimer’s Society come along to see and hear them in action. There is a really good feeling in the room - from the people with dementia who relish the opportunity to sing and enjoy the music and companionship, to the carers who also find a release in the singing and respite in the sharing of their experiences with other carers who understand as only they can.

I come away from the session lifted by the mood and the music, aware that I have been a part of something very special and joyous. As we leave, one lady whose coat I fasten, tells me that when she first came along, she was afraid and really thought she couldn’t sing and now every week it’s the best day of her life. Whatever the magic is that makes this so special, I know that I will never hear the poignant words of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” without remembering the wonderful ‘choir’ at Christchurch on that Monday afternoon.

“If happy little bluebirds fly above the rainbow, why, oh why can’t I?”