LADFROMTAD.COM

Morning folks

I trust this blog finds you in top form and fine fettle.
Ambling aimlessly into Autumn promted me to scrawl a 4th blog of the year.
Not really taking full advantage of my WordPress subscription, such procrastination does make me wonder how on earth I ever managed to patch together a weekly version of this claptrap back in the day.
Perhaps there was more going on in daily Lima life than in sleepy North Yorkshire?

Anyroad, here is a wrap-up of the latest Taddy bobbins.

Carry on camping.

After the best British summer since dinosaurs lived on Blackpool Beach, we had only managed to get away in the Mystery Machine once this year, so I squeezed the life out of what was left of a semi-decent forecast and did 2 trips in 2 weekends.

The first sorte was up t’Lakes, my first time back home in 4 years.
(More in Raiders Round-up).

The second jaunt was up to the White Horse, not Northern Canada, but to North Yorkshire, a visual spectacle we can just about see from our gaff and an area I had never been to, and what a place.

The North York Moors is normally an area whizzed through en-route to the East Coast, but it is well worth a stop.
Quick plug for Jill in the Sutton Bank Visitor Centre, who was an absolute star!
Giving us loads of info, maps (and discounted Kendal Mint Cake), visitor centres are normally places I would avoid like the plague, but this was a bit different.

A chilly old night caught me out with my one-season sleeping bacg, but gave way to a gorgeous dawn and cracking day for a walk.

Striking camp broke all records for faffing, dawdling and taking excessive time to pack up, but we did manage a quick sprint round the White Horse itself, without getting moved down by a glider.

Well worth a visit 🙂

LC summary.

It has been a funny old year in the/my world of sport and not funny-haha.

After kicking the ale into touch and even ditching coffee, there were not many vices left, so I had BIG running plans for 2022, however C19 had other ideas…

After 4 GP visits, 3 hosital visits and seeing 2 speciailists, I am not really any the wiser. I am not entirely sure what “Long Covid” is?
Defined by the NHS as “signs and symptoms that develop during or after COVID-19 and continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis.“

I got it in the New Year, wasn’t especially badly with it, but never quite recovered from it. A good analogy I heard is that it is like being a crappy, old clapped-out phone; never fully recharging, battery running out quickly, not quite advanced enough to receive updates, but just about getting by.

(I sold my Nokia and have now entered the 21st century with a smartphone, but that is another story!)

In August I thought, enough is enough and started doing some very, very steady training, jogging/cycling to/from work and actually started to think “I am over this $h!t now”, I was keeping my heart rate as low as possible and even thinking about racing in 2023, which was a mistake as Long Covid then roundhoused me and put me on my ar$e again!

The Pulmonologist said that I have “Autonomous dysfunction which is “when the autonomic nervous system, which controls functions responsible for well-being and maintaining balance, does not regulate properly.”

The Cardiologist said that I might have minor heart block which is “when the electrical impulses that control the beating of the heart muscle are disrupted.”

So, I am awaiting further tests on my ticker and seeing the Lung Lady in December.

When I go to bed, pretty much exactly 4 hours after laying my weary head down I wake up unable to breathe. I don’t have asthma but the only thing that seems to work is to use Lina’s inhaler. My watch tracks my sleep and it is always 4hrs after I hit the hay. Off to the Quack this Tuesday, (after getting a rocket off the receptionist for using someone else’s medication. It was that or not breathe, so it wasn’t really a hard choice to make for me!)

There are people far, far worse off. I occasionally go on a forum called “Covid for Endurance Athletes” and some of the folk on there are in a very bad way, but in all manner of different ways. This bloody virus manifests itself in so many forms, or not at all. It is bizarre!

Life begins at 50?

Physically, I am not quite sure about that statement.
Mentally, no comment!

I have never been ill, ever or in such bad shape, but hopefully that will change.
Inconclusive sums it up. watch this space…

Let it go…

A few years back the Nipper told me a joke.
Q: “Why can’t the lass (whose name I have forgotten) from Frozen hold a balloon?”
A: “Because she would let it go!”

For much of my time in Limaland I was in a complete radge, things would wind me up (some were justified) and a lot of things frustrated me. Difficult to explain, but stuff you don’t get on your jollies, it’s the nitty-gritty stuff you get when you live in a place; red tape, traffic, noise, the usual suspects, but you make your bed, etc…

My good mate Lloyd, who I first went to Peru with in 2004 has lived in Lima a l-o-n-g time now and he is still completely sane, testament to his character. He used to tell me “Let things go…” when I was having my usual grumble, to which I replied “Yeah, yeah” but didn’t take a blind bit of notice, continuing my “Falling Down” life…

He was absolutely right!

“Life is not linear” is a phrase I once heard somewhere and dismissed it as b0ll0ck$, but now I realise it is right.
If you do things A, B & C , does it get you to D?
No, you generally do A, B & C then get rhubarb crumble, if you are lucky, or back to A, or arrive unexpectedly at R.

It has only me taken me about 10 years to finally work this out…

8-double-0-9, the Angler’s Line…

In the absence of running and pedalling, I need something new to enthuse over.

Going back in time, when I were a lad, growing up in Cumbria, before the days of PS3s, Tetris and Blackberry phones, most of the lads from the village went fishing. It rained most of the time, as it does in the Lakes. None of us really knew what we were doing, we rarely caught any fish, but we always had a laugh.

Fast forward to 2022, when I realised that I wasn’t going to racing (running nor CX) any time soon, I got my thinking cap on for an activity that was:

a) Cheap
b) Local
c) Doable.
d) Maybe something that the bairn might enjoy too.

So, we have been doing a lot of fishing have me and the bairn, with mixed results, but it has been a lot of fun 🙂

Boat fishing in sunny Whitby, getting nowt in Tad River, getting muddy at Malton and cleaning up at the Mushroom Pond.

Angling ain’t everyone’s cup of chai, but it is keeping me sane right now and mackerel is tasty when you’re hungry and fish and chips are over a tenner!

Peru reflection – Part I.

A lot to ponder about.
Next time…

Raiders round-up

WHAT A SEASON!

After being promoted, the Raiders were favourites to go straight down again, but they came out of the blocks in a winning mood and kept on (generally) winning to finish in 4th spot, gaining a place in the Play-offs.

Drawn at home versus Batley Bulldogs, it was a golden opportunity for the girls to watch their first ever rugby league match and an excuse for a flying trip to the South Lakes (Peninsula).

The Romans never quite made it to Barrow in Furness, nor is there a direct route (without a boat, or locally sourced submarine) and Audrey Roberts was once quoted as saying that “Alf took me to Barrow in Furness, it was like going to the end of the earth, then driving 50 miles further!”

With this in mind, we set off at the crack of dawn and thus arrived ridiculously early, but there was a special deal for early arrivers, a £5 tucker voucher, which we reinvested in some hefty meat and tatty pies. Securing a great spot in the sunshine, with a pitch side view picnic table, life was good, but a huge black cloud dispelled my “It won’t rain today” theory and we retreated to the back of the stands.

The Raiders were without 5 of their forwards and Captain Stack, who being a Bobby, was down the Old Smoke for the Queen’s funeral, so we were up against it. Batley are a big side and after what seemed like a first half war of attrition, Batley broke the deadlock right on the hooter and despite a spirited second half by the luckless Raiders, the Bulldogs ran out winners 18 points to Barrow’s 8.
(After unexpectedly beating the Featherstone Flat-Cappers, the Bulldogs booked themselves a place in the final against the formidable Leigh Centurions, but it was one-way traffic and Leigh went up).

Barrow FC and SuperLeeds are both on winning ways too right now, long may it last 🙂

Part II of our little adventure didn’t quite go to plan, does anything these days?

We had booked in at a campsite in Ulverston called “Candlewyck”.
The website looked ok and booking had been simple.
After pitching up and dashing straight out to get some outstanding fish and chips at Priory Fishery, we headed back. It was raining and getting dark.
Primary investigations didn’t reveal any toilets anywhere, but just next to us were some big bell tents (like a teepee) which had a toilet tent behind.
A portaloo is better than a bush, so we presumed it to be the ablutions facilities. The young ‘un was inside the toilet tent when, like an angry tornado, the owner marched up “What are you doing? You can’t use that. It is for the yurt users and they pay £120 a night for a minimum of 2 nights…” Which continued on a loop, until I managed to get my question in, “Where are the toilets then?”
To which he replied “Don’t you have your own?”

I must have looked nonplussed at this point, as our van is just about big enough for 2 diddy folk (the girls) to sleep in, then it’s full.

“I’ll have to charge you” was his retort and demanded £10 on the spot.
I offered to clean it myself, but he was so radged by this point, and Valentina was a bit scared of this shouting man, that I coughed up and bit my tongue.

It put a dampener on an already damp evening.

There was nobody else on site, the portapotty wasn’t especially clean to start with and we all sat like naughty children in the awning until dark.
Next day I went to try and clear the air, but there was still tension and when I emailed, I never got a reply.

If you do decide to stay at Candlewyck campsite in Ulverston, take your own khazi and pay £20 to sleep in a field, or go elsehwere!

No more Cumbria?

On the 1st of April 2023, Cumbria will no longer exist, (not an April Fool’s day joke!)

I was born in Westmorland, which became part of Cumbria in 1974, now it is reverting back to Cumberland, Furness and Westmorland.

(Westmorland and Furness includes Barrow-in-Furness, Eden, South Lakeland, and Cumberland includes Allerdale, Carlisle, Copeland.
Cumbria is the third largest ceremonial county in England by area.

What is the big deal?

Could you imagine telling the folk of Yorkshire or the Lancashire populace that they would no longer have an identity?

A sad day it will be.

The only good thing that might come out of it all is a possible resurgence in Cumberland Westmorland Wrestling?

Trick or treat???

Always read the invitation, or better still, ask!

We all rocked up at a Halloween Fancy Dress party recently, only to discover that the adults weren’t dressed up (bar us two and one other).

The offshoot was that some little kids got scared and we probably won’t be invited back next year!

RLWC 2021

Next time.

And finally…

Life is short, enjoy yourself 🙂

That’s all for now folks.
More nonsense next time.

Johnny & the ladies x

Good morning folks

I trust this finds you in top form and fine fettle.
3 blogs in 8 months!
How I ever used to manage to keep this nonsense going as a weekly publication, I’ll never know, but here it is, a special birthday edition.

Today I am Hawaii 5-0, how the handbag, kettle, partridge did that happen?

Since the last blog, a lot and not a lot has happened.

• First family trip away in 4 years.
• Barrow RL are 5^th in the league.
• There was mini, but very delicious heatwave. (If you could guarantee that for a month every summer, I would happily take it, even with the 1 hour of pretending to sleep whilst tossing and turning all night). All those years of sweaty gurning in the Peruvian mountains actually did me some good!)

Lockdown mindset.

Covid 19, Novel Coronavirus, SARS CoV-2, call it what you will, first reared its ugly, ugly head on New Year’s Eve 2019 and the World has never really been the same since, although we do seem to be turning the corner now.
In Peru we were about 6 weeks behind, I watched the news obsessively as the giant wave crossed the Atlantic and crashed down on Latin American shores as we quickly went into full lockdown and generally not knowing what was going to happen, bad times, curfews, a horrible feeling of everyone being suspicious of everyone and everything, almost like a police state, governed by clueless politicians and worry mongering by the toxic press, all creating a general hysterical paranoia, times best not revisited (and uprecedented use of the word “unprecedented”).

We fled Peru for Blighty in September 2020, advised by the Embassy that after September nothing was guaranteed and set up shop in the caravan, flying pretty much straight into a UK lockdown, then another and what felt like a tentative and almost discouraged release back into society.

I worked part time in a busy local mini market for a while and like most places, masks were asked to be worn, but the amount of abuse I got just for asking if people had a mask was unreal.
“I’M (deleted expletive) EXEMPT!!!
Sorry for asking.
(Do masks even work? Who knows!)

Some people went back to normal life quickly, others held back and some stayed in lockdown mode, I was one of them and it was a bloody hard mode to get out of.
Stringent self-imposed routines. Monday night 8pm food shops (to avoid crowds), buying petrol at weird hours at 24hr garages, shopping almost entirely online, (although no panic buying, I never did understand the whole loo roll frenzy, some punters must still have a spare room stacked to the roof with the stuff!)

We are social beasts, no man (woman or child) is an island, we all need human interaction to flourish. So why has it taken so long to (finally) get out into the world again?

Is it anxiety? Is it a “Digging into the trenches” scenario? Did the lack of human contact make us forget how to interact and react? I have no answers.

I found myself making increasingly lame excuses just to avoid doing anything, passing up on some brilliant opportunities in the process

Obviously, we have to go to work, (unless we are WFH) but it took (me)  forever to do seemingly simple things, getting a bus/train, going into a café/boozer/restaurant, going to a party, the previously illegal act of a handshake or a hug…

I am just grateful that we are all hopefully getting there now (and also grateful for my weekly Sunday Zoom with my mates, a lockdown hangover remnant that is a good one!)

Cooking on gas – Part i.

I wouldn’t say that the van was a Pig-in-a-poke purchase, but it was definitely done without any research, when all my facts, figures, research and countless reviews read were all based on Transits, Movanos, Trafics (one “f”) and Vivaros.

The Nissan Elgrand was not a van I had even heard of, but it was too good a deal to pass.
Driving back from Wantage on that inky black night was a blur, pulling into Trowell services and watching as 25 quid didn’t really lift the petrol gauge from empty did make me wonder.

Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. And the petrol crisis hadn’t even started back then.

I did seriously think of flogging it on immediately, but the mileage was so low, and it looked to have loads of potential, although none of my conversion plans would seem to fit.

Then, an LPG lightbulb suddenly appeared!

I looked around and found a wild variety of prices for conversions, but the funnel of good reviews and common-sense lead to a bloke called Simon at South Elmsall. It was all he did and he had done 600 Elgrand conversions, owning 2 of his own. The only problem was that he was booked up solid for 6mths. I booked in for June and spent 6mths not really going anywhere and constantly thinking about selling it!

6 months passed, I took it down and 3 days later I was heading back up the A1 with my second fuel tank full of 79.9p per litre LPG. The future was looking bright…

L-o-n-g Covid

Without harking back to my old weekly Peruvian rant (noise, traffic, corruption, moan, moan, moan), I will have a quick whinge about one thing.
We all got C19 in January, the girls bounced back and none of us were really ill with it, but I found my breathing was not working, not asthma, just not being able to get a proper lungful in or out. 4 GP appointments got me referred to the hospital, in July, for a Spirometry test, where you blow into a snorkel tube and machines measure your lung capacity. I now have to wait a few more weeks to get my results. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of chaotic current things, but a big deal for me as I can’t really run nor cycle, without my heart rate going through the roof, even on easy stuff, and easy stuff is all I can do.

Most of my life I have been into running and also cycling (when I was crocked and couldn’t run) and it does become a way of life; training-racing-training-racing-getting crocked-comebacks-training-racing…

Training isn’t just haphazard randomness, every session has a reason, a purpose, an objective, but the wheels fell off my training in January and it really has left me lost, with no goals, no rudder and absolutely no spark whatsoever. Like rueing over a lost lover, will it actually do any good?

I have been going to the gym and swimming. Swimming I am crap at (even after 9mths of pouring my heart and soul into it when I did my first/last/only triathlon in 2004), the gym is hard graft as it is something that I have always avoided like the plague (the gym, not hard graft before you say it), but now my membership has run out, I have to find something else, until I find out whether I can ever get back to “proper” training.
All I really, really want is to get back into the fells. Not breaking records nor winning races, just long days in the mountains. I still haven’t been up to the Lakes yet, there is an irrational by nontheless very deep fear that I just won’t be fit enough.

(In the meantime I did however buy a bargain haul of weights off Fleabay for 99p. The advert wasn’t clear, but I now have enough weights to set up a medium sized leisure centre).

Always wear your skid lid!

I always have been an advocate of wearing a lid on a pushbike.
Helmets are much lighter, comfortable and affordable these days.
I took a spill on the way home from work. afew months back.
Your typical Audi pulls out, rider overcompensates, catch a pothole and go down like a sack of spuds, luckily on grass, whilst taking advantage of the roaring tailwind and going too fast scenario.
The driver drove off, (she hadn’t actually done anything wrong to be fair, but must have seen/heard me crash. I was lying winded on the grass when 2 worried looking blokes asked if I was ok. They said they had heard a big crash sound effect noise.
“Fine” was my automatic response, as I remounted winded and wondering what the massive crack noise had been.
When I got home, the helmet showed me the source of the sound.
Better a knackered lid than a knackered head!
Always wear your lid.

The Alpinist

I won’t say anything about this film, except that it is truly brilliant.
As part of my “getting back out there” I went to the cinema with my friend, Dave B, to see an amazing film about an incredible climber called Marc-Andre Leclerc. If you haven’t seen the film, do so at your earliest opportunity.

50, not out.

Still going, not at a place where I expected to be, but having done lots of things I had never dreamt of. Zero bra$$ but a lot of memories 😊
Lessons learnt?
Too many for this blog, don’t want to tip it over the 10,000 word mark!

Gone fishing.

Not being able to run/cycle suddenly freed up a lot of free time, but free time is useless unless you fill it, so I started thinking, what can I do that is:
a) Cheap-ish.
b) Local.
c) Inclusive (whatever that means!)
d) Might be fun…

I am a bugger for going back (in life, to jobs, places, past hopes, and dreams) and came up with fishing!

As a young lad, growing up in South Lakes, there wasn’t a lot to do.
Different times, definitely simpler times.
The Lake District hills were just a bit too far away and I was pretty shocking at football.
I did go to watch Barrow RLFC, but that was only once a fortnight.
We used to pile round to Clinton Davis’s house as he had a dartboard and a diddy snooker table, and then one day, one of us got into fishing and we all followed suit.

All of us started with a completely useless Woolworth’s starter set, which we all used for everything. We never really caught much, we fell in the water, we got tangles, we got cold and wet, but we had a brilliant time!

When I took up mountaineering, fishing sat on the back burner and then one night, someone stole all my fishing gear from my shed, miraculously it was insured and with a voucher for £2000 I went to a fishing shop in Wigan (the closest shop which the insurance company dealt with) and surreptitiously exchanged it for £500 cash, which I probably spent on beer and fancy shirts!

Like many interests, pastimes, hobbies, and sports, unless you do that activity it is mind blowingly boring to talk about, unless you are also into it.

It does feel like an absolute luxury just to go to a local pond or river and just sit there all day, chilling out and maybe, just maybe catching a fish now and again.

The Nipper had shown an interest, so she comes along too, and it is good fun 😊

STOP PRESS: Going boat fishing off Whitby for a birthday treat, what could go wrong???

Summer holiday weekend away.

Our last holiday was a 3-week summer whirlwind from Peru-England-Peru, back in 2018.
A flurry of fish and chips, visits, an odd session or two and shopping for forbidden fruits unavailable in Peru (generally shoes, long sleeved shirts and replacing worn out running socks).

With our new set of wheels, we kept putting off and putting off the maiden voyage (until the gas conversion) and we finally managed a weekend away mid-July.

Cooking on gas – Part ii

First time filling up with LPG was always going to be a bit of a mini test. It is a slightly different procedure and there aren’t many places around to get it.
(As expected) we were later away than planned, and a bit stressed so when I came to plug in at the motorway services, it just didn’t work. I noticed the previous LPG customer had only put in £7 worth, and I could only get 37p in!
Friday night, busy at the pumps, had to pay my 37p, then try again.
Slower than a snail on a sloth’s back on Valium.
It took me 15mins to get a tenner in, then, when I came to unplug, disaster!

The pump pulled out the adaptor which pulled out the main fill valve, so there was a loud BANG, the rush of escaping gas and I was left with a frozen hand and a dread that I had made a massive mistake with the conversion.

A quick call to Simon confirmed that it was safe to drive, but only with the tenner of LPG I had trickled in, and the rest would be methadone/champagne cocktail priced E5 petrol.

Bit of a blow (literally) but fixed a week after, free of charge.

Onwards and upwards to the beautiful Saltburn-on-Sea, a place I don’t think I had been to and an absolute gem of a place.
We booked in on a small campsite, which wasn’t quite on the sea.
I asked the friendly owner about getting to the coast and she gave me instructions but we got out wires crossed and she thought I meant driving and therefore told me it would take 15mins.
We set off down a trail at noon and an hour later were in a farmyard and then after patching together snippets of paths until we arrived in town. I asked a lady “Which way to the Front?”
“Which front?” she replied. “You’re in Skelton.”
Is that good or bad I wondered to myself? She took pity on us and gave us detailed directions After crossing a busy dual carriageway and negotiating a manic country lane, we ended up going through the picturesque Valley Gardens, where I kept repeating myself with “On a normal day this would be a brilliant walk” as we all trudged on in silence.
After about 3hrs, we could finally see the sea and came out of a sheltered path into the full brunt of a northern gale!

A very brisk walk up and down the pier was followed by a long walk to an amazing Chippie (Church Fish Shop) and then to the last bus, which we had missed by 10mins.

So, I caught a bus (any bus) in the general direction of where we were staying, then double-tabbed it for an hour uphill, to collect the van and finally collect the girls.

On the way home we marched up and down the diminutive Roseberry Topping, which was jam packed but very worthwhile 😊

Raider’s round-up.

The mighty Shipbuilders keep on winning, normally under nail biting circumstances, taking some good scalps in the process (York, Widnes, Bradford Northern).
The possibility of the play-offs is a tantalising dream.
Stand-out performances from me coming from the evergreen Maltese utility back/kicker Jarrod Sammut and flying wingman, Tee Ritson.

Onwards and upwards!

And finally….

10 years ago today, I celebrated my 40^th birthday in the middle of the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Gobi Desert, with a group of ralliers and warm lager, after an epic day of river crossings and torrential rain (in the desert).

One day I will write a book about it, but for now, here is the 15-minute film we made (with HUGE amounts of gratitude to fellow rallier, Matthew P, for  his editing skills.

Hasta la proxima amigos.
Cheers
Johnny & the girls

Good morning folks

I trust this finds you in finest fettle.
After taking 2 years to resurrect this blog, it has only taken 5 months to write a sequel. Apologies, time management and lameness are my only excuses.
So, here is a second dose of sardonic hyperbole from the makers of Mongoliando.com and Superclunk.com…

The key to writing is short and often, get it down on paper/off your chest, not (like this farce) adding and updating and adding and updating.
A mate at work asked me if I was still writing my blog and shamed me into pulling my finger out and putting this episode to bed!

Many thanks to all of who you commented and gave feedback for the last blog, it is more appreciated than I can say in words. Thank you.
I did have one suggestion to make it into a podcast, which caught my attention. Podcasts are a brilliant invention, (which I used to plug to absolute death when teaching). It would save readers having to plough through all this I guess? I have zero experience in the actual recording tech practicalities.

We did do a handful of Vlogs when we were in lockdown Arequipa and they were good fun/impulsive nonsense.
Any thoughts?

Since the last blog a lot and not a lot has happened.

A l-o-n-g winter of pushbike commuting, which gratefully turned into spring gave me daily sunrises that never bored me.

The Nipper turned 8.

Winter came.

Then went…

Then came back again.

Tadcaster Bridge celebrated its 5th anniversary.

We got some new wheels 🙂

But not a right lot of rock and roll
Thence follows a wrap-up of other goings on…

Covid overstays its welcome :-(

Coronavirus first knocked on all of our doors around March 2020, March the 16th to be precise in Peru and it pretty much refused to leave us alone, a right royal pain in the ar$e. Whatever one’s views, it affected everyone and everything, everywhere.

Myself and the girls finally succumbed to the bug in January of this year. Lina and the Nipper seemed to shrug it off very quickly indeed. Although I didn’t actually feel especially ill, it went straight onto my chest and set up camp there. A familiar daily pattern started taking shape.
– Wake up 3hrs after going to bed, feeling really short of breath.
– Use Lina’s inhaler, which sometimes worked and then didn’t.
– Toss and turn until dawn/alarm, feel absolutely $hagged all day.
– Struggling with anything which required any slight effort (e.g, stairs, talking).
– Not exactly asthma-like symptoms, more a feeling that I just can’t get a proper lungful of air.

I went to see the GP (I), who told me to be patient.
My blood SATS levels (the amount of oxygen in the blood) kept suddenly dropping, especially at night.

So I went back to the Quacks, GP (II) sent me for blood tests and x-rays, which subsequently showed nothing.

Spent another month feeling wrecked, so went back again to GP (III) and was given a course of steroids, which did nothing, then went back again and GP (IV) did a “Sit-stand-sit-stand” test which showed up an alarming drop in my SATS and suddenly it felt like someone finally believed me!

The Doc then told me he would refer me to a lung specialist and not to do any exercise until I saw them. So I waited and waited and was told my appointment was in August!

I am not ill-ill, nor sick enough to be off work, but just mega frustrated that I can’t run, (my longest ever time not running), or do any proper exercise, which in the grand scheme of things is no big deal, I’m not about to pull on a Team GB vest and there are people a whole lot worse off, but running is a big part of my life.
We all have our likes-vices-addictions.
If you were told to stop playing darts, stop smoking a pipe, stop going line dancing, stop buying crap on ebay, stop following Accrington Stanley, stop taking Crystal Meth, stop going to swinger’s parties, stop watching repeats of The Professionals on UK Gold, or all of the above, (in which case you have bigger problems than my mild malaise), it is a bit of a kick in the pants!
I gave up the ale and coffee over a year ago (& chocolate over 30yrs ago), so I can give things up, but I am finding it hard not being able to do something that I have done most of my life.

It is funny how you come to identify yourself with your life’s passions.
I am a runner, as it is probably the only thing I have ever been any good at. Not naturally good or even gifted, just through hard graft, but in all honesty I do have to go back a couple of years to find a patch when I was actually training properly and racing hard, right up to the start of the pandemic.
The “leaking bucket of fitness” philosophy is now going to be tested as the holes I had been patching over recent years are now gaping open and the bottom of the bucket has fallen out completely.

“Be patient” is the mantra I am now following, but it is bloody hard.

I’m not looking for sympathy. There are people a whole lot worse off and people who have lost friends and family to Coronavirus. We all want to see the back of this bloody virus.

In the meantime, to give me some kind of focus, (basically to stop me going mad), I have gone right back to my youth and taken up fishing again, which is a different story for a different blog.

Stop press: Although the Doc told me to do no exercise until I see the Specialist, as my appointment is not until August, I thought I would start doing light stuff, so I am now doing a bit of a swimming, pretentding to know what I am doing in the gym and some very, very, very light jogging, which all feels good but it bites me on the ar$e later in the day/the next day, almost like some kind of divine retribution for trying to get fit.

In short: Long covid turns you into a whingeing bloody hypochondriac!

However, this article by a local runner called Rose George hits the nail right on the head, perfectly! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/01/marathon-runner-long-covid-athletes

Cyclocross reflection.

(A bit long-winded, I got carried away).

On the weekend before we all got Covid, I did my last CX race of the season, finishing off a whirlwind of mud, crashes, trashed bike, mud and crashes, and it was absolutely bleeding ACE!

I have 2 people to thank/blame for getting me into this crazyar$ed sport.
My mate and cycling guru, Steve S and a bloke who I bought a car off, Rich C, (a friend of Steve and king of the course hecklers), both accomplished and seasoned riders, unlike this clueless newbie.

I won’t bore you with all the details, nor a blow-by-blow, turn-by-twisty-turn account. It was a hell of a buzz and a steep/overhanging learning curve. Most of what I knew from riding a road bike had to be ignored, forgotten or to simply do the opposite. (For example, on the road on a hill, you stand up out of the saddle. Try that on a muddy XC hill and you’ll be spinning faster than Benny Hill and going nowhere fast!)

The fact that I was at the very, very top of my age group (40-49) added to the fact that my age group rides with the 16-39s along with the fact that most of these riders were at the absolute top of their game all added up to the fact that I was dipping my toes in very deep shark-infested waters!

In a nutshell everyone rides laps of the course for around 60 minutes, but the number of laps is determined by the time of the leaders first 1-2 laps, BUT if you are behind the leader/winner when they finish, even if it is by a yard, you stop, whilst if you are in front of said rider, you get a bonus lap.

As someone totally obsessed with the weather, this went into overdrive on the week leading up to each race.

Race 1 – Bishop Burton College, Beverley.

The season kicked off in balmy East Yorkshire in a brilliant race organised by the bloke I bought the car off. Steve kindly gave me a lift and a shedload of tips, but I was still absolutely bricking it right up to the off, despite having a shiny new bike and a mud-free, hurdle-free course.
Bone dry, with a sandpit obstacle course and countless climbs.
Missing “the kick” at the start of the race became my trademark and after 200m I was about 100m behind tail-end-Charlie (who was in fact me, I mean the penultimate guy). My first crash happened so fast that I didn’t even know it had happened until I was on my back in the sand, (“sand, I hate sand”) with my bike clipped in on top of me, like an upturned beetle.
Managed to pass 3 riders, making me not last, but plenty passed me.
I was the very last rider to finish as I was a few inches ahead of the winner as he crossed the line, so I got a bonus lap!

Race 2 – Shibden.
(Working, couldn’t get day off).

Race 3 – Thornes Park, Shakey Wakey.

I hadn’t been here since I ran my first ever 1500m track race in 1987!
The girls came along to support, on a decent day on a very, very tight and technical course. Fell on the warm-up. Held my own in the race, wasn’t last.

Race 4 – Myrtle Park, Bingley.

Got a lift with Steve and Angela, which was brilliant as parking was ridiculously tight and their company calmed my nerves, as I knew this course had “DISMOUNTS”. A dismount is a part of course which cannot be ridden, you have to get off and run, plus there were ramps/hurdles, which I had been practising at home, but was still crap at!

Had a heavy crash on the warm up and gashed my leg on a barbed wire fence.

Didn’t feel like I was “going” in the race at all. Great course, mediocre result, wasn’t last, just.

Race 5 – Temple Newsam, Leeds, The-swamp-in-the-storm.

I had somehow managed to lose the car keys the week before the race. Not normally a problem as we had a spare set, but the girls were at “Go Ape” on the same day and we were sharing the car but a good mile apart.

It was a diabolical day. It had p!$$ed down all week and was blowing a proper hooly on the morning of the race. The course was under water at the bottom end and my bike started making strange noises on the warm-up.

Many riders have 2 bikes and a dedicated pit crew, so they ride in, swap bikes and grab a clean bike, and repeat until end.

I didn’t have a pit crew or a spare bike…

One good thing was that there was a fair bit of running, which was a break from getting drowned and slip-side-crashing. My chain came off and would not go back on. My poor bike was an autumnal collage by the end and washing it by headtorch after the race followed by not quite drying it out properly would come back to bite my ar$e.
Didn’t finish last, but was glad to finish.

Race 6 – Pontycarlo Racecourse.

Back to one of my old work haunts and the course that produced Filthy Luca Cumani’s 1998 Derby Winner, High Rise, on a stormy, extremely windy day.
I had been warned about parking being miles away from the start, but I had recently purchased a set of “rollers”, perhaps the most terrifying contraption ever invented for 2 wheels. Imagine riding through a trail of vaseline on tyres made of soap and you are close! Was well warmed up, which was just as well as it was blooming freezing. (I did see a bloke wearing a t-shirt carrying shopping back from Freeport shopping outlet, Tough sorts round here!)
A very fast course with headwind-tailwind-headwind-tailwind and 2 horrible u-turn descents/climbs, which I fell off on most laps.
Had a decent race, didn’t finish last.
Thanks to Kev F and Rich C for support.

Race 7 – Yorksport, York.

My most local course and a beautiful day. I had been training well and all the planets seemed to have aligned nicely beforehand.

Then, I crashed heavily about 3 minutes into the course and winded myself trying to avoid a crash and crashing myself. Banged my head too, but as skid lids are compulsory, I cannot use that as an excuse.

Found myself long, long last and had to pull out all the stops to get round.
Didn’t finish last, but finished.
Thanks to Badger and Shoresyman for support/heckling.

Race 8 – Pateley Bridge.

After covering myself in Fiery Jack and tempted to pop a Diamox, with the girls in tow, I was ready for a “proper” CX course.

Mud, hills, off-camber slopes, woods, rocks and more slippy, slippy mud, on the edge of winter in the highlands of Nidderdale, spent as much time on my ar$e as I did on my saddle. brilliant day out 🙂

My bike started really playing up, but finished, as did I, and not last which was a bonus. This was thought at the time to be the last race of the season, which was fortunate as my bottom bracket was shot to pieces (post Temple Newsam). BIG THANK YOU to Steve for sorting me out, sourcing the impossible-to-find parts and fixing it. I owe you!)

Race 9 – Peel Park, Bradford.

Back to where it all began! (I accidentally turned up for an under-12 training day here, after thinking it was for adults, so went straight home!)

Accompanied by the girls, on a proper winter squall of a day, (it was January), I faffed around so much that I almost missed the start and definitely missed the kick. A very technical course with one running climb. Took 45 minutes to get into it, with a very focussed last 15 minutes. The season was finally over, which was just as well as Covid struck us all the week after, bugger!

Massive thank you to Steve, Angela, Rich and my 2 girls, who showed true dedication to the cause in some truly foul weather!

CX is a brilliant sport, amazing fun, inclusive and friendly.
It does remind me of the fellrunning scene, which is coincidental to the fact that a lot of fellrunners double-up in both sports, or make the natural progression to CX. Highly recommended!

Raiders round-up.

IF I had written this blog on a regular basis, this would have been a different story. Barrow RLFC got promoted last season to the Championship and came out of the blocks faster than Ben Johnson, challenging for league leadership at the beginning, playing some extremely exciting (but ridiculously nerve racking) rugby, then it all went downhill and the winning start turned to a long losing streak, but they have hopefully started to turn this around now.

The strongest team in a long time, good management and a loyal following.

Onwards and upwards 🙂

SuperLeeds United somehow managed to stay up, miracles do happen 🙂

Peru reflections.

Next week.

Adios to the Clunk 😦

Next week.

Lockdown mindset?

Next week.

New wheels!!!

Keeping a long story short.

I was always on the lookout for a van or a van project.
When I first went to Peru in 2004, I sold almost everything and although belongings are just basically “stuff”, the one thing I really didn’t want to sell was my old Transit breadvan, which with the help of my carpenter brother, James, we made a brilliant (basic) campervan for about £200.
(Although with hindsight, it would have disintergrated into a pile of rust within months!)

I just happened to mention my van plans to an old running mate called Les, who said that his sister, Sue, was selling her Nissan Elgrand (I had to look it up) and wanted a quick sale.
Les did say that it was “more muscle than van”, but it never registered in my mind. Everything looked tempting and a deal was done via email. Train tickets were hastily booked for the next day. York to KX via underground to Paddington to Didcot. A completely blind sale with no escape route.
What could go wrong?
Since coming back to Blighty the furthest I had travelled was to Skipton (to buy a pushbike) and Manchester (for a Tai Chi trainer course), so going to the Old Smoke was a bit mindblowing and at the age of 49, my first every trip to the big city on my tod!

All went well until the Tube part. Being colourblind I was always dubious about the Underground, I had even considered jogging across town to Paddington but I only had 41 minutes from train-to-train and couldn’t risk getting lost. A bad start was made by getting on the right line in the wrong direction. I wasn’t sure if my ticket would let me get off so I stayed on dithering until halfway round the Circle Line before getting off and changing directions. After 29 minutes I was back where I started and was starting to panic as my other ticket was fixed to that train. I got to Paddington with 1 minute to spare and after running on to the platform shouting “DIDCOT? DIDCOT?” I was pointed to the futhest platform away and just made it before it set off, two minutes after the time on my ticket.
“This is the 13:44 to Bristol Temple Meads…”
Bristol? Bristol? That is not near Didcot!
“… Calling at Blah, Blah, Blah and Didcot…”
I was picked up at the station in what must have looked like a voluntary kidnapping and drove back to Sue’s. I had a test drive.

I had only driven an automatic once and that was a long time ago.
It looked the part, the cash was burning a hole in my sky rocket and it was getting late, (it was January and going dark at 4pm).

“I’ll take it”

After sorting out which part of the V5 was mine and parted with the readies, the keys were mine and although the temptation to drive back without tax or insurance was huge, it was wrong and besides, I had left the insurance left with just a “PURCHASE NOW” button for Lina to press on my laptop at home. (This is one of the many ballaches of not having a smartphone).\
The laptop at home wasn’t having any of it, so I endured a 45 minute call centre call, then sorted my tax out, so by 6pm I was away and soon completely lost, in a van I barely knew how to drive, with 2 Shetland ponies at home who like their tea around 6:30pm!

It had been a long day already and driving along A roads with names of places I had never heard of, I longed for a “To the North” sign or similar.
The M40 somehow led to the M1 and although Northampton is not very northern, I knew that Tamworth was about halfway. At what seemed like midnight I rolled in home, more than a bit wired (without coffee, having foolishly given it up a year ago).

It seems ironic that the prize of petrol seemed to go up and up and up from the day I bought the van, as it is a greedy 3.3 litre V6 guzzler (“more muscle than van”) and although I am booked in for a LPG conversion in June, I do have moments of panic (usually at the garage after the pump has gone past the £100 mark), when I just think “Shall I get rid and buy something smaller/more economical?”

I am still not sure, but I do love it, especially the Japanese telly which cannot be changed from Japanese. In fact knowing Japanese would be a BIG help as all of the instructions are in Japanese, as the Elgrand is basically a convertible, imported people carrier that changes into a van, a bit like an A-Team meets Optimus Prime mobile, but carrying Japanese tourists and not Hannibal, Face, Murdoch nd Mario Baracus). I am still saving up for enough petrol to actually go anywhere, but on short forays it drives like a beast and as an ex-Bongo owning mate said, the fuel consumption is equally dire is you drive it like a fairy or thrash it like it’s stolen!

I have a terrible “purchase guilt complex” which basically means that if I buy anything, I feel guilty as hell. I got the van for a knockdown price but its running costs (with the scandalous price of juice these days) are not great.
Currently looking at Plan A and Plan B, watch this space (or eBay van sales).

eBay, not a way to make money when skint.

Next time…

And finally…

To round off this shambolic nonsense, here is a fine musical interlude, which is coincidentally the namesake to this blog, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Babyshambles.

Thank you for your patience and next time will be a much more fettled affair.

It’s goodnight from him and it’s goodnight from me, goodnight.

Hasta la proxima, baby.

Johnny and the girls