Like a bad penny, it’s back!

From the makers of Mongoliando.com and Superclunk.com, I give you LADFROMTAD.COM

Howdy folks!

After a year-and-a-bit in the wilderness, it is back. What started life as Mongoliando.com (2012 Mongol Rally) and evolved into Superclunk.com (Peruland 2014-2020) has now returned as a Blighty-based ramble-on-a-thon.

I thought long and hard about making a comeback.

My good friend and writing guru, Neil had always encouraged me to be creative, plus a chance encounter with two (both) of my old blog readers made me think, “Sod it! Why not?”

There have been a few changes since my last scribblings.

This time I am flying solo.
Last time (and the time before), I had a back-up crew.
My brother Danny (Shine Creative) did all my web design.
My friend Roberto (Sad Robot) did all the website magician stuff.
All I had to do was type some gubbins and press “Publish”.
Sadly Mongoliando.com and Superclunk.com have both gone…

However, from the smouldering ashes rises Ladfromtad.com!
This time it is different. I have set up my own WordPress site (all on my own, and not without hiccups). I am having to learn fast, but a challenge is always exciting and mistakes are always good learning opportunities. Please bear with me. (e,g. I cannot underline title headings, so for now these are in bold italic!)!

It will be an ad-hoc kind of frequency this time, not weekly, more likely monthly-ish. I am working this out as I go along!

Strange old times…

Not going to dwell on the old Covid-19 matter. It has been around a while now, staying longer than Arkle and the mother-in-law combined. It has affected us all and has been a right royal pain in the ar$e. At the time of press, us 3 are all in the grips of the dreaded lurgie, although the ladies just tested negative, so I am the only “unclean” right now. (Stop press: Negative test this morning. Fingers crossed for another one tomorrow!)
After almost 2 years of dodging it with hand gel, facemasks, social distancing, visors and avoiding handshakes/snogs/hugs/any kind of human contact, I do feel like I failed, but I guess it was inevitable (and living in a caravan, when one of us brought it home, it was only a matter of time afore we all got it!) It feels like a dose of flu, I have had my jabs/booster and just have a constant, annoying yet pathetic cough, headache, breathlessness (at night) and a sore throat. Roll on end of isolation/negative test time! My first sick in 29 years, but I was never going to get to 30 in a pandemic was I?!

Why ladfromtad.com?

Good question.

Mongoliando.com was a means of promoting our Mongol Rally back in 2012.
The rally and writing a blog was a voyage into the unknown, I learned a lot.
It was originally intended as a kind of rolling blog for during the rally itself, but as we quickly discovered that wifi was sketchy on the road and writing a blog was a bit like an irregular morse code message dubbed by Norman Collier!

Mongoliando.com evolved into Superclunk.com when we headed back to Peru in 2014.

It was a regular Monday morning slot, which was in essence my observations and thoughts about goings-on at the time, living and working in a very different culture, mixed in with other random nonsense and a bit of nostalgia. (Basically a worrying insight into my mind). At times it became a bit dark and for a while it was a weekly whinge (noise/neighbours/traffic). I would have been a hypocrite if I had written that everything was Pisco-Sours-&-Guinea-Pigs-on-the-beach-awesomeness all the time. The blog machine rolled on weekly without fail, bar the wheels falling off twice, I jumped off social media too, becoming a digital hermit!

Then, the start of the pandemic seemed like a good time to dust off the blog, so it was just a bit of a frenzied countdown to escaping Lockdown Peru and fleeing back to Lockdown Yorkshire.

At that point in time I always said to myself that I would be better spending time looking for a job, than writing online bobbins, but then when I finally got a job, I didn’t have time to write a blog.

Now, after a fair old while, I am keen to get scribbling again, so here it is!

Ladfromtad comes from my brief and unillustrious time at West Bank RLFC.
A teammate called Ady was running the ball in and just before he got flattened by 2 hefty forwards, he shouted “LADFROMTAD” offloadING the ball straight into my paws and I ran in a (very easy and impossible not-to-score) try 🙂
The name stuck afterwards, until I smashed my ankle in Tenerife and stopped playing for West Bank 😦

Writing a blog is not a simple task for me, I really love writing, but it is a very fine line between writing something which might be interesting without being narcissistic.
It is a blog, not a blag, nor a brag.
Social media is how the world revolves today and that is a difficult pill to swallow sometimes for luddites like me. The worlds of TikTok, Instagram and Influencers totally baffle me. It is not my world, but then again here I am writing blah, blah, blah, for what?

CHOOSE LIFE!

If I ever step over the line, please slap me down!

Reflection – In the next blog.

Peru?

Legs falling to bits and dipping my toes in the choppy waters of CX

Up to March 2020 I had been training my ar$e off for the Lima half marathon, actual proper training, rather than the jumbled spontaneous mess that I usually call running. Training hard at altitude (7660ft above bath water).
I had BIG (and potentially overambitious/catastrophic) plans…

Then, Covid 19 rocked up!
From March 16th 2020 I was limited to running on my rooftop, a 12-step stretch of slippery floor tiles, but with the bonus of seeing El Misti and Chachani at dawn (when running northwards for a dozen steps, the southwards aspect was not quite as spectacular). So, I (mistakedly) thought that an hour each morning on my roftop was sufficient for ticking over, with the effects of training at altitude and when I got back to Blighty, I would soon be flying again, surely?

How wrong was I?!

After 2 weeks running round a field, I immediately ramped up training to 50 miles per week and immediately got crocked, which led to the old familiar “train – get crocked – rest (never long enough) – comeback – train – get crocked” repeat cycle. Time to dig out my pushbike!

Unfortunately I had done my usual “flog everything I can on ebay because I am skint” trick, so then had to track down a second hand push-iron (in the middle of a lockdown/pandemic/bike drought) and found one just as we came out of lockdown. Then, having sold my turbo trainer as well, I had to find a new turbo trainer to get onto the magical, mystery world of Zwift! Basically beating myself up in my shed. Infinitely more fun than an old-school turbo trainer. I thought a solid winter base would springboard me into peak fitness early season, but I faffed around too much on the road and trained like a (lazy) fool, so soon lost my way and any fitness gained in the shed, very quickly!

I am not really a cyclist, more of a runner who cycles when crocked, but having done this off and on for 20 years (minus the previous 7 years in Peru), I thought about stepping up my cycling, as basically my running was buggered!

It was my mate Steve (my cycling guru of the last 20 years+) who planted the seed of having a crack at CycloCross (CX, or simply Cross) a long, long time ago. I knew a few lads from Pudsey & Bramley who ran and did CX, then did just CX, when they couldn’t run. I love cycling on the road but the fear of getting squashed by an impatient Range Rover driver is always there and it is not the same buzz as running up and down mountains.
CX sounded different (although I knew very little and foolishly had never actually seen/watched it). The word “brutal” was bandied about a lot, a warning sign?

(This video by young Superstar Cameron Mason sums it up perfectly!)

I was working at Heineken at the time and they ran a CycleToWork scheme, which I took full advantage of. I now had a bike, but no idea and 2 weeks until my first race.

Steve kindly gave me some essential skills masterclasses.
(I did accidentally sign up for a training day in Bradford, but when I turned up, was asked where my child was, as it was an event for under-12s. I beat a hasty exit!)

It was now time for my first CX race.
Bishop Burton, Beverley for the first leg of the Yorkshire CX league, absolutely bricking myself!

(To be continued)…

Work!

At the time of the last blog (October 2020), we had only been back in the country for a month and the novelty of unrationed tea and Pukka Pies was still a novelty (and still is!) I hadn’t found a job but imagined that I would walk into something in no time.

Returning when we did meant that we flew back into a lockdown soon after, then another lockdown, at a time when there were not many jobs to be had.
I applied for all the supermarkets, but they wanted mouldable 16-year olds, not cranky old 49-year olds. Only Morrisons replied (10mths after I applied!)
I had thought that teaching might be an option, but the local language schools had no jobs (nor students). Of all the TEFL/ESOL jobs I applied for, the only response I got was a one line rejection from a school in York.

8 years teaching experience in Peru was basically seen as an extended jolly, and I can kind of see why. It was an absolutely brilliant, brilliant job there, but the experience carried very little weight in an English speaking country (England!) People generally thought I had been teaching kids nursery rhymes.
Plus my shortcoming of not having a degree was always going to be a problem. My hopes were raised when I got an interview for an Academic Mentor at a (very) local school, but the job had in reality already been given to an insider!

Following my traditional route of going back to jobs, I managed to get a few hours, once a week, at my local Costcutter, a job I had done 15 years previously, selling fags, booze and pies to the local populace. It was just good to be working again.

Then I landed a job back at the Brewery, in a new, cutting edge department making space-age home dispenser kegs, which was pretty cool, but just like the last time (and the time before that, and the time before that), the shifts starting to grind me down. Great boss, brilliant set of lads, occasional drama but crap hours.

Things started well, but I could see all the signs again, but I dug in, grafted on and kept my head down.

I did start doing some part time work at a local Physio clinic for a good friend, which was brilliant and flexible enough to fit round my shifts. (It was a bit of a dream of mine 20 years ago, but didn’t quite happen). I also took a Tai Chi teaching qualification in Manchester (the furthest I had been since coming back) which was a brilliant event and a real eye opener for me; someone who is not bendy enough for Yoga and too forgetful/dizzy for meditation. Tai Chi sits somewhere in the middle and as it is something you can’t rush, it is good for slowing oneself down 🙂

By chance I saw an old mate at a barbecue (my first social outing in almost 2 years) and a door, that I thought had been slammed shut, suddenly swung open again!

To be continued…

Conan the Librarian (part I & II) – In the next blog.

Fleabay, a business model on how to lose money! In the next blog.

On the wagon.

New Year’s Eve is always one of those dangerous times when one thinks about changes, most of the time they are spontaneous &/or irrational.
On NYE 2020 I gave up 3 things (in order of increasing stupidity):

I) My smartphone.

II) Coffee.

III) Beer

Why oh why, you may ask?

I have one problem, (that is a lie, I have many problems, but I have one BIG problem), that is MODERATION.

Moderation had always been my nemesis, achilles heel and general all-round problem with everything, in life.

Drinking, training and most things I do in life have always been victims of this and I somehow never learn.

I gave up my smartphone as I was spending too much time distracted and mindlessly wasting time, despite dropping off FB and the like years ago.(Although smartphones are very bloody useful at times, and it is a bit of a bane pressing each key 3 times to write a message!)

I gave up coffee as a result of stubling across a one month scheme called “Limitless 30/30” who promised the ability to “Eliminate Stress, Build Mental Resilience & Dramatically Increase Your Energy Levels In Just 30 Days”.
It worked for me!
(See THE NATURAL EDGE if interested).
I love coffee and was a proper caffeine addict, but having got myself down from my 2004 peak of 12 cups a day, to 4 huge mugs a day, I was sleeping so badly, all the time, that I had to do something about it. In the space of a week I just made it weaker and weaker and weaker, to the point that it was just brown water, and stopped!

Beer and alcohol was slightly different.

I love beer and I especially love getting wrecked.
I had my last drink at midnight on 31/12/20.
I don’t miss beer, but I do miss getting wrecked.

It was easier to give it up completely, than to try to “cut down”.

I have always liked drinking, all my life. Work, rugby, travel, running, any opportunity, but not regular tippling, only on a weekend warrior basis and only heavily. The lure of “a pint” (singular) never really interested me, but the potential of a skinful did. Apparently this is called “Grey Area Drinking”. I know people who drink way more and more often than I did, who had no problems at all, but it had become a problem for me, personally.

Lockdown and Zoom meetings with mates kind of highlighted a problem to me that I already knew about but ignored completely. The Zoom bar is always open, there is never a queue and the beer is CHEAP! Drinking at home is dangerously cheap.

(I still do a weekly Zoom with my mates, it has been going for almost 2 years now. A weekly exchange of nonsense on a Sunday night!)

When I first moved to Arequipa, I lived on my own for a few months, as the girls were still up in Lima.
I used to plan everything around a big weekend session, on my own, in the house. It never ever interfered with work or training, but it was what all roads would lead to, a weekend of beer, which wasn’t a problem in itself, but the comedown was.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were a plummet into a big black hole, which I struggled to climb out of in time for the next weekend, and then repeat the whole cycle again and again…

I had some extremely dark times in Lima, times I never want to go back to, but these were nothing compared to the times in Arequipa. You always think that a change of scenery, a new job & a new start will solve all your problems, but the old $h!t is still there, always waiting in the wings.

I have nothing against booze, I had some amazing, amazing times on the lash and wouldn’t change a thing if I could do, (well, maybe not smashing my ankle in 1994 would have been better), but for me alcohol just wasn’t working, nor helping.
The booze brought on increasingly dark clouds, which weren’t shifting.
Financially, nowadays I simply cannot afford justify spending £4+ on a pint, especially as one pint leads to many pints.

It wasn’t a difficult transition, giving it up, my main worry was that something else would drop in its place, but thankfully nothing did.

Christmas (2021) was the hardest bit. The festive season does unwittingly revolve around booze and when you are not drinking, you almost feel detached from it, almost like you are missing out. It is hard to explain sometimes. A bit like leaving a lover, that you still love, but sometimes needs must.

Sincere thanks to the good friend who helped me through it.

Like I said, I have nothing against alcohol.
If you drink, drink and enjoy.
If you don’t drink, don’t (and enjoy).
It is your choice.
Just because I have given it up doesn’t mean that you have to, (or not!)
Salud 🙂

New wheels/The Mystery Machine!

When I first went to Peru in 2004, the one thing that I sold, which I really didn’t want to, was my old Ford Transit “Breadvan”. An ancient relic I bought from an old bloke who lived on the edge of a very steep hill outside Halifax.
He had crashed his caravan coming back from Spain and stuffed all the remains in the back and just wanted rid. So, after a dicey test drive on black ice in January 2002, I paid £999 and drove away in a rear wheel drive, non-power steering 2.5L diesel bus.

My brother James, is a Carpenter, and with his help we built it into a really cool, basic, but comfortable campervan, in which I toured the country and helped with numerous house moves. It was an ace van, I miss it.

Fast forward to 2022 and financially without a pot to p!$$ in or a window to throw it out of, the prospect of being able to ever buy a house/get a mortgage are realistically slim, so with a bit of money that we had saved up for a house, we decided to look for a new Breadvan, (for cheap holidays and weekends away).

Prices have gone up since 2002, but with a low-end market awash with “First to see will buy” thrashed and trashed bargains, I had to be careful. I almost did get my fingers burnt with a Transit which “Ran beautifully“, “Never missed a beat” and “100% reliable. Drive away today“, which (after buying my one way train ticket and doing a HPI check) the owner called me at the 11th hour to say that “An engine warning light had suddenly come on, but doesn’t affect the running“. I gave it a wide berth.

Then, perhaps part luck/part destiny, a mate at work told me that his sister was selling her van. I had to check it out.

To be continued…

Raiders round-up.

Double joy at Craven Park for the mighty Barrow Raiders.
I) The Raiders got promoted to the Championship after winning league I, (trouncing West Wales 76:0 in the last game).
In the pre-season friendly, the Barrovians beat local rivals, Workington, 24:12.
(Coach Paul Crarey also scooped the League Express 2021 Readers Poll League 1 Coach of the Year award and winger Tee Ritson was voted League 1 Player of the Year.)

II) Adding to the joy, the ladies’ team just got promoted to the Superleague!
Big season for both teams ahead.

The Ziggers (Barrow FC) are hanging on in there and might just hopefully survive the drop, fingers crossed!

Regarding SuperLeeds United, it is, as always an emptional rollercoaster/nervous breakdown over the course of 38 matches. Have we done enough to stay up????

Top reads!

I am the slowest reader in the World, but I love reading.
Read a lot of books in the last year, here I will list some highlights, gems and absolute classics.

Starting with “FASTER! LOUDER” by Boff Whalley.

I first joined Pudsey & Bramley AC in 2001. I wanted to join a local club who specialised in fellrunning and who didn’t take themselves too seriously (but who did take their running seriously). P&B ticked all the boxes and it was the start of some awesome away trips (running, mountains, boozing, camping and SuperNoodles). An absolutely amazing club. (I owe some subs!)

Gary Devine was club captain at the time and the team was very strong. I had to run out of my skin to be a team counter, but I did sometimes manage it.

Boff is best known as guitarist of the anarchist collective that became Chumbawamba, but there is way more to Boff and Chumbawamba than Tubthumping and John Prescott.

I won’t give any of the story away, but if you are interested in punk, alternative culture and/or fellrunning, check out “FASTER! LOUDER” as soon as physically possible!

And finally…

To wrap up this nonsense, here is my favourite youtube video of all time.
Not a new one. Will find something different for next time.

LIVING LIFE TO THE FULL/THE JOY OF A SUCCESSFUL WHEEL CHANGE!

That’s all for now folks.
A bit of catch-up waffle this time, next blog should be a bit more streamlined.
Not sure when next blog will be, watch this space!

Cheers
Johnny