Any dream

"Baby I've been thinking about a trailer by the sea
We could go to Mexico, you, the cat, and me
We'll drink Tequila and look for sea shells,
Now doesn't that sound sweet?"

Dreams have a shape like clouds, and every time you look up they've changed or moved or become something else, sometimes fading out to nothing.  And my dreams slowly become the most flexible fluid plans imaginable.

On the wall at home now is an Academic Year Planner.  And my word there's a lot of days on it, a lot of spaces, almost daunting but not quite.  Visually it's inspiring all that emptiness that's mine, all mine, mine to fill.  I've never had this before; a life free of Ought, Should, Have to.  And it's funny because I was talking to a rider in the changing rooms last night about post London, and she's excited too by a life similarly free of those obligations, of the future which isn't just a chance or an opportunity to be and to do but a very real place with all those things you can do because I Want, Like To, Can.

On the planner is a six week rough chunk labelled New Zealand. A friend is working for me on flight options out and back with all the flexibility in the world.  And the rider from the changing rooms has offered me use of her parents house in the South Island.  And it would be foolish to decline because there will be a washing machine (I am ever practical) and harvesting of pears and grapes, and it fires up my passion.

And Joshua Cadison brings me the words ...

"Jessie paint your pictures about how it's gonna be
By now I should know better, your dreams are never free
But tell me all about our little trailer by the sea
Jessie you can always sell any dream to me
Oh Jessie, you can always sell any dream to me"

Too tired

So tired from the weekend yet still hauled myself out of the office and off to the climbing wall tonight.  There's obviously one hell of a huge part of me who has the bit between her teeth and wants, one way or another, what it takes to keep building or at the very least maintaining a level of fitness which will help me to get what I want out of the next year.  The rational part of me is a little afraid that I'll probably end up injured.  But at the end of the day, exercise maintains a certain level of contentedness, and exercise with other folk is sublime.

And tonight was perfect, climbing as part of a threesome.  Which means you do slightly fewer climbs but also means that while you're belaying or simply watching you get to chat with folk.  Also, given how knackered I am from the weekend it means that we got to be sure I didn't fall asleep belaying.  Unfortunately I'm so hyper now what with the good times I'm not sure I'll actually sleep.  Ooops.

And the Beautiful South bring you:

Let it rise up in the morning and take us for that walk
Let it do the talking when we're too tired to talk
When we're too tired to talk
 

Material Girl

This weekend I have mostly spent cooking.  With a sneaky bike ride completed at Cannock Chase on the way home.  It was part of the deal.

I reckon I live pretty much 85% of my life in the present, 10% in the future, and 5% in the past (does this add up?).  Obviously recently stuff changed with plans to become some kind of middle aged itinerant and perhaps I'm looking ahead more than living in the now, but that's not the norm for me. 

This weekend had me a little bit in the living in the past zone.  Many reasons.  I responded to an urgent request for a cook to look after a group of volunteers on a training weekend.  For the Waterway Recovery Group, an "organisation" I've been involved in intermittently for the last 21 years of my life.  They've seen me at all manner of stages of my life, and it's through them that I met my now dead husband way back in time now or so it seems.  And some of them never knew me before I was with him, which sometimes I find a little odd as it feels like I've known many of those good folk for pretty much ever. 

Anyway, the thing is, the reason I'm able to become a wanderer for the kind of period I'm planning is because of Dave (late husband)'s death.  His life insurance ensured the mortgage was paid off, and it also left me with enough so that I can do this, so I can buy the van and so I can manage without earning.  Having said that, I'm a saver too, it's not all ill gotten gains.  And his heart would have expanded at the thought of me doing this.  He'd have been proud of me, and he'd be so goddamn pleased to see me so happy.  He would have approved.  Which, actually, isn't that important because my mantra on these occasions of "The Dead Don't Get To Have A Say" applies, whether the dead would or would not have agreed with my decision.

I don't know why I wanted to just jot that down as an acknowledgment to what has made this possible.  And no, I'm not lucky, but in some ways, perhaps fortunate.

And because it's about the money, we're singing along with Madonna:

"Experience has made me rich ..."

Enormous wellbeing

Despite having given my three months notice in, I have to say some days, and in fact more so since giving in notice, I really do love my job.  Love it.  I will  miss some stuff here.

Yesterday took part in a conference call with the providers of the funding and our "Head of Marginal Gains" - which in itself is a very cool job title to have.  We talked athlete profiling and Project Rio.  Which seems even more remote from me than ever since I definitely won't be here in 2016.  The plan was next for me and Mr MG to head off for an "off site" meeting at Manchester Climbing Wall to discuss the way forwards.  What actually happened is that call over we did indeed stop in the office to talk about what next.  At the moment that Mr MG said what we really need is to get the CEO in front of a whiteboard ... the CEO knocks on the door (he's so polite), comes in, picks up the dry wipe pen and off we go with the planning of the next step.  Ended up with a wind surfing chat (well, they did) and off me and MG trundled to Manchester climbing wall for tea, cake, chat and good times climbing.  I love that I work in a place where everyone does stuff outside.  I love that I can stop at traffic lights, feel a bump against my bike back wheel, turn round in order to berate the person and find myself saying hello to our cycling Finance Director instead, and benefit from a shared part of journey home including banter.  I do love my job.

Climbing last night, I was in a lazy old mood.  After running Monday, cycling to work and back Tuesday and walking Wednesday it's not that surprising I guess.  Explained to Mr MG that I was in chilled type mood, and indeed he was wanting to do some routes where he could succeed so between us we agreed a lazy plan.  And because he's a sports scientist he can always find a good rationale for such changes in attitude.  Conditioning.  Apparently doing reasonable volume of easy stuff can be chalked up to Conditioning.  So we mostly conditioned, chatted and put the world to rights.

And today I have agreed to a 2009 van with 40,000 miles on the clock but with air conditioning.
I have also asked the boss what the chances are of Bradley winning the tour. My lips are sealed.

And I leave you with a bit of Blur.

"I feed the pigeons I sometimes feed the sparrows too
it gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing (parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge
there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it (parklife)"

My Own

Well, I have taken the plunge.  Ordered a van.  Decided that trust pure and simple was the way to go and placed in the hands of a total stranger the task of sourcing the van.  And once that decision was made, harder decisions then had to be made over upholstery (Royal blue & pale grey), flooring (sparkly bits), worksurfaces (charcoal grey), bed type, seat type, air conditioning (yes please), and the job as they say was a good un.  It should be with me for the end of August.  I'm excited.

Lonely planet guide to New Zealand arrived last week and Eccles library has given me food for thought with travel books now scattered around the dining room, amidst guinea pig cages, bikes in bits, climbing ropes and the normal paraphernalia of my every changing life.

And we're looking at something like this:

http://www.teahupoo.co.uk/gallery_2.html

And all is indeed well with the world, with today's lyrics from New Order:

"I would like a place I could call my own.
Have a conversation on the telephone."

Mmm, a place of my own.  With two double beds.

Boxing Gloves

Unplanned bike ride in to work today, courtesy of accidental early morning awakening and a sense of unrest in general.  For which exercise is possibly the only way forwards.  The run yesterday although making me smiley and calm somehow didn't carry through to this morning, and confusingly finding myself not even aching, well, what was there for it really?  On your bike.

And I'm setting off thinking, OK, you've got 45 minutes, 45 minutes to get this out of your system, to think hard or to beat your body into submission.  And by glorious coincidence I managed to do both.  One of the joys of simple straightforward exercise is head space.  I don't get that so much on the mountain bike where my head is crowded by concerns relating to the consequences of falling off and how to avoid such unnecessary evils.  But running or road riding, yes, I think as I go along.  Sometimes I also hum.  Sometimes there are tunes inside my head, and sometimes oh yes, I sing out loud.  But today I largely breathed.

I seem to have a psyche where I forget to push on.  I mean, I start with good intentions, focus, determination and think OK on this ride I will push it on particular sections, until my lungs and legs both protest.  And so I start, but then I get distracted either by the thoughts in my head or something around and about and I simply forget and find myself once again in spinning mode.  But today I was saved by a skinny man with hairy legs and a red rucksack.  For as I stood at red lights they turned amber and as they did so, he scooted on by.  So I set off in chase.  As you do, and indeed it was a bloody marvelous workout, because catching him was simply not achievable but getting nearer to him was, and as he reached his pace, I struggled to maintain the same distance, but made myself struggle and kept struggling and everything hurt and the hurt was good.

And swizzling through my head is Aztec Camera:

"Ambition and love wearing boxing gloves
And singing hearts and flowers"

Don't stop

This is not my body.  No really, this is some alien stranger.  And most definitely not me.  I am soft and cuddly and have curves.  Somebody has made a substitution and frankly I'm suspicious.

From somewhere unknown after a few weeks away from the indoor wall, without doing anything different, special or intense I was suddenly able to lead 6a climbs.  And felt alive. I was looking at my arms though as if they belonged to somebody else.  Some weird person who has competent wiry arms which can be trusted to both hold and pull, to grab and pinch.  Nearly said lift and separate but clearly I'm thinking of something else.  These weird arms could climb, could almost leap upwards and heft this stranger's body upwards.  They were unbelievably trustworthy and I thought at the time it was just a teeny bit weird.

So, unaccountably annoyed with myself tonight and unable to contain the general feeling of irritation I realised exercise had been missing from my life for ... well, maybe as long as three days if I'm honest.  But as I'd already spent significant time seeing if retail therapy could lift my mood time had pressed on.  I know, I thought, I'll go for a run, that'll sort the bitch in my head out and calm her down.  Trainers were selected, and out the front door I stepped.  To find that really sploshing June evening rain had just begun.  No matter, I'm going to run.

Plan was to take the 5K route I know well, and to do it at the pace of someone who has only run once so far this year.  To try to do it at a speed which meant I wouldn't stop for breaks, something my legs and lungs would survive.  And about fifteen minutes into the run I was a) drenched and b) smiling.  Run, Forrest, Run, thought I.  And I ran and I ran.  And suddenly I looked up from my running reverie.  I was in Worsley.  This had not been part of the plan at all.  Somehow on a run I have done dozens of times, right near my house I had actually managed to get lost running.  But all was good, I took advantage of another bit of cross country track I know reasonably well from cycling, and trotted on home.  To find my restful pace had been in the vicinity of an 8 miles an hour pace.  Which was weird, because I am not that person.  Not one of those weird fit people.  Definitely not.

And Queen is bouncing round my head.

I feel alive
And the world, I'll turn it inside out yeah
I'm floating around in ecstasy
So don't stop me now
Don't stop me
'cause I'm having a good time
Having a good time