free food!

Denise found this giant carrot in the veg patch: and we didn't even plant any carrots! It did us for two dinners, and very tasty it was, too.

Kayaking, would you believe!?

Saturday was a busy day. I came into Edinburgh to get my watch back from the repairers, then went for my third golf lesson, and then ... ta-da! ... went kayaking!

OK, golf first. Really starting to improve my swing, and the boss says I can have a go with a wood next time - BIG stick! Looking forward to that!

Denise's colleague, Robin, is a former competitive kayaker and registered trainer, and he took us to a stretch of the Union Canal near Ratho, Edinburgh for my first taste. Kayaking is said to be the best way to get close up to wildlife in New Zealand, so we wanted to have a go to see if I would be able to do it. I asked my prosthetist about it, and she said no way could I allow either of the prosthetic legs I have to get wet. There is a cover I can get, but I would need to go and pick one up from the Astley Ainslie SMART centre, once they'd ordered one in. I have a couple of other bits and pieces I need to pick up, so I'll do that in the next few weeks.

The upshot was, I wouldn't be able to wear my leg in the kayak. This raised a couple of issues: firstly, what to do with the leg once I'd taken it off, and secondly, how was I going to get in. No. 1 was easily solved - Denise had to wait until I was in the boat, so she could take my leg and lock it in the car :-) The second ... well that was fun. I decided that, since the kayak would be about 2 feet below the edge of the canal when it was on the water, I would have to kneel down on my abruptly terminated leg, and step in with the good un'. Result ... no splashes, no moistening of the clothing, and only a little loss of dignity. I slid in OK, but then it was like the first time riding a bicycle - i.e. very wobbly. I kept pulling the paddle too far back, so it scooped itself under the tail of the kayak, trying to drag me over (or rather, under), and I was certain I was going to go in. Once I'd sorted out the defects in my technique there, I started to gain confidence. By the end of an hour, I'd paddled almost two hundred yards down the canal (well, maybe a bit further than that) and maybe paddled four or five strokes before it went into the inevitable spin. These things are designed to turn quickly, and sometimes it's hard to stop them doing so. Well, once I'd stopped being terrified, this all became part of the fun. I was knackered after an hour of this tho' but!

The hardest part of getting out was actually sliding back in the kayak to release my intact leg without capsizing. Once my good leg was free and underneath me, getting out was relatively easy (well, Robin was holding the boat steady against the canal-side). All I had to to then was to wait for D to go and get my leg for me...

Golf

Denise bought me some golf lessons for my birthday. Since we're surrounded by golfers as neighbours (with only Kaye not a player) so it seemed a good idea to find out what the heck they were all on about.

Also, D knew that I play golf games on the computer, and very much like the Tiger Woods game on the Wii, which has a real bash at making at least the mechanics of the game realistic, with the Motion Plus thingy plugged in. The graphics aren't great on the Wii, but I do like the control method. Yep, very realistic. Too realistic! As a result of which I play Army golf - left, right, left right ... except that it's nearly always left.

The thing is, she's seen me playing it, but couldn't she hear my 'Meldrew-esque' mutterings and cries of anguish as the damned pill goes haring off into the trees and out-of-bounds for the umpteenth time? Every time I play, the character that's supposed to represent the golf professional keeps popping up to say "looks like you're having a bit of a problem. Why don't you switch to the easier [less realistic] control method". It's as bad as that damned paper clip (if ther were emoticons enabled on this blog there'd be the one with the red face here)!! If I'd wanted to play with that setting, I'd have used that setting. I want to try to learn how to use the realistic method. Now leave me alone to get on with my game! Bloody annoying. At least now I've had a lesson I can hold the controller properly and avoid some of the worst hits.

Anyway, my first lesson was on Saturday, which got me started with my grip and my stance and hitting a few balls. It went a lot better than I expected, and I actually managed to hit a few balls down the range in more or less the right direction (give or take a degree or 20), and I even got them going some distance with a couple of the shots. Several people had said to me that I wouldn't even hit the ball on my first lesson, so it was nice to prove them wrong, and to exceed my expectations. I just listened to what Andy the golf professional told me, and benefitted as a the result.

I went up to the driving range for a practise last night (Wednesday), and again I was managing to hit it a lot better than I'd hoped at this stage. I like it when you get that metallic 'tink' sound and you know you've hit the sweet spot (or as near to it as I can get it). Going to the range after work yesterday was great: it's floodlit at night which makes it much easier to follow the ball after you've hit it than against a bright white sky (as it was on Saturday). Out of the 50 balls, only about 6 went along the ground, 1 went flying out of bounds to the right (hope they don't have any greenhouses over there!), and about 5 went in exactly the direction I wanted, even if those didn't all go very far. I would say about 20 of them went up and away for quite a distance.

I'm looking forward to having a go with the big drivers and with the pitching wedges at either end of the range of clubs, but I'm not going to just go to the range and have a go with them, I'll wait till I've had the lessons covering them, so I've got just a bit of a clue as to how to use 'em. For my practise, I stuck with a 6 iron, which was what I'd used during my lesson.

I do have a problem with my follow-through though, which I'll need to find a solution to. Because of my false leg, I can't balance myself with my right toe after I've transferred my weight onto my left through the swing. I can't complete the rotation very easily as a result, at the moment, but I'll work out a way of doing it. I had been using my non-sprung leg on Saturday for my lesson, but I had 'sporty' on last night, and found it a lot better, if not perfect for the job.

The other problem I'm having is that I'm using muscles that I've never used before. My forearms pumped up like Popeye's! As I type this, I have a several lumps of cramped muscle in each arm that I have spent all my waking hours since my practise session trying to massage away. How can you get cramp in the back of your hand?! Crazy. I'll just have to keep practising until those pains go away ... ;-)

Renault baddies

Well there you go. What did I say? Renault got off very lightly indeed with a 2 year suspended ban, and no fine. Briatore deservedly got banned indefinitely from any involvement in an FIA sanctioned motorsport event (including driver management). The radio this morning was saying he was banned "for life", but that's not the same thing as "indefinitely". Indefinitely means: until the FIA changes its mind. I think if they'd wanted to permanently exclude him, they'd have said so directly. They'd never want to back themselves into a corner like that.

I still feel that if it had been McLaren in the same situation, they would have had a very heavy fine as well as the suspended ban, if not an actual one or two year ban. There are reasons for this approach though: Renault are an engine supplier, as well as one of the few manufacturers still in F1, so banning them wasn't an option; banning the likes of McLaren, on the other hand, as an engine customer, would have caused less upheaval. File under 'Conspiracy theory' ;-)

Vandals in the neighbourhood

I can now reveal, since he's owned up, that it was one of my Wednesday night drinking buddies that knocked over the bit of the neighbours' wall! I've said nothing so far, but it was funny, so I'm glad to be able to tell the story.

This bit of wall has been unstable for a while, but last Wednesday, as we were parting company outside our house, a Certain Someone started poking it with his toe, and down it came. It was originally the square bit by the gap in the wall for the gate, and this and the gatepost had broken away a little, as the old mortar crumbled. It was one of those fairly simple jobs that had been put off for a while, because it wasn't worth getting someone in for. So .... it stayed like that ;-)

John's (oops, give-away) toe poking knocked out the last bit of mortar, and the wall came tumbling down. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a huge collapse, but it was quite a few kilos of stone. My god, was he embarrassed! Oh, but it was SO funny at the time, and his face was a real picture: guiltily looking around like a school-kid caught in the act of causing trouble. Honestly, as the man gets older (he's happily retired) the younger he behaves!!

Reality

I've been saying recently that I think I am about ready to attempt walking up a hill, on the basis of being fitter due to my energetic walk to and from work. Hmm. Let's get real here. As Denise pointed out to me the other night, any walk up a hill is realistically going to involve an 8 mile walk over terrain that will be uneven at best. This rocked me back on my heels a bit. I'd been thinking in terms of 4 or 5 miles, to be honest, and 8 seems a bit of a ... well, a hill to climb.

We dog-sat Hyper for Malky & Fiona the other day, and took her out on our usual one and a bit mile loop. This is on broken footpaths with a cinder surface, and I was shattered by the end of it.

Denise is right. I'll have to prove I can walk eight miles on the flat before I can attempt any hill.
Very, very depressing.

Denise the hero

Coming into transission after huge hills on which her chain came off: and she still did a great time considering what a beast the course was!

F1 better off without Briatore?

Never liked Briatore, and maybe F1 is better off without him in the paddock sowing discord. He comes across as a bully, and as someone with ideas above his station. He spent half his effort trying to take control of F1 from that wee barrow boy and his "nazi" pal. Hmm ... maybe there was a place for him after all.

Renault will get a nominal fine, so as not to frighten them away. That would be another manufacturer team out, which is to be avoided at all costs ... apparently. We know the manufactures have wrung all they can out of F1 and are leaving, but Renault are one manufacturer that seems committed to F1 (even though the teams 'benefiting' from the use of their engines are not all that impressed). What was said when BMW, Toyota and Renault joined Ferrari as manufacturer teams in our sport, taking over the Garagistas (as Enzo Ferrari disparagingly referred to the private - mostly British - teams), was that they weren't there for the sport, and would only stay for as long as it benefited them. And now BMW and Toyota are going (Toyota will keep denying it until the last second), so the last thing Big Bad Bernie and FOM want is to scare Renault out of the championship by having FIM level a fine at them that's commensurate with their wrongdoings. Nicking designs, bumping into a wall to block the circuit at a hairpin, and team orders are one thing, but Briatore and Symonds could have killed somone. Realistically the punishment should be draconian, in proportion to the offence, and Renault should be excluded from the sport for a year - even if those responsible have left the team. But we know it won't happen.

Wednesday night is pub night

Peter Higgins came out with a good one on Wednesday (16th). Martin F and I were still laughing about it yesterday evening when we met for a quick pint before catching the train home.
We were talking about Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd dying, and all the recent celebrit deaths, and Peter says, "there's people dying now, that never have before".
It took us a while to work out that he'd left a whole clause out from what he meant to say; that there are now more people dying that we grew up with and are familiar with, than ever have before.
Good point, badly made.
You might guess he had the rip taken out of him, and he stumped off to the toilet saying "you're all a bunch of bastards!"

The RX ("Rex"?, "Rexxie"?)

Denise took me out in the RX-8 on Saturday. Under hard acceleration it sounds like Col. Straker's car from the Gerry Anderson TV series UFO: a mix of the exhaust note and a turbine noise from the engine itself. Very strange. It's quite a bit more comfortable than the Lotus was ( a bit?! ), and is nice and quick, as it should be with 230 PS / 235 bhp on tap. The styling's a bit Thunderbirds too, I think. As we noticed when we looked at one when they first came out, there are nice styling cues throughout the car, using the cross-section shape of the rotor as a motif: it's seen in the seat head-rests, in the rear central reflector, and elsewhere. Circles are also used.

I was surprised to see that although the display looked very similar to the one on my Mazda 6, there is no trip computer. Maybe Mazda didn't want to terrify owners by displaying the dismal fuel consumption. Not an issue for Denise, with her 3 mile journey to work and the occasional trip to the airport; it really shouldn't be a buying decision issue for someone buying a powerful sports car anyway. If you want fuel economy buy a small diesel ...