Blog 9 – update
Gooday to all reader (s- hopefully), there’s a hint in that, maybe more later. It’s one of those times when you think your topic is all set and you’ve been day-dreaming catchy one liners (nothing yet), and all of a sudden the world around you take a spin extra and your well organised life – I wish – is thrown into chaos.
It used to be that we, the parents of these ‘lucky people’ -Arthur Askey, 1940s + standup comedian- would make and execute the plans, plans full of symmetry, cohesion and thoughtful attention to detail. Now I’m on the wrong side of (not saying) all the above duties have been stolen from us and the NYPD (new young parents/persons delegated) are running the show.
It all started many moons ago, before our lives changed irrevocably, when we organised a special holiday for ourselves and our two daughters who are still in England (we have two more in Oz -more about that later), a cruise to the Norwegian fjords. We’re not taking great, great, great great etc. daughter of Odin for obvious reasons.
As life progresses things change and the holiday is down to a trio, and the trio have been putting lots of time arranging things. Well, it’s more like arranging things for Dad, bless ‘em. I have been ‘reminded of loads of stuff I hadn’t forgotten, stuff like passport, tickets, baggage, outings, drinks package (after paying for everything I’d forgotten I had enough over for a bottle of fizzy water every day) and with all my problems, the extra necessaries. So, to the end the treasures (truly meant) bought dad a life raft in which to store not only the kitchen sink but all the washing up to go with it, made very lightweight, I could carry it upstairs – no chance of carrying it down.
So as well as this, older daughter has a new passion -open water swimming!! As opposed to closed water - don’t ask me not a clue until I’m invited together with youngest child 30+ ‘but will always be the b…. he doesn’t like being b… but life is like that int it. Trouble is he swims like a dolphin, graceful and can be very fast. Of course he’s up for it big time, there goes no.1 excuse. By a cruel twist I’d just had delivered – nobody goes to the shops any more do they, well not unless you buy your exotic swimwear from the sally army fashion store, need a quick vape or want to shave your chin – a rush vest – yeah another new invention to wear. I got this in prep for my big getaway to the land of oz. By wearing this rush vest ‘with matching swim-shorts’ you have UV and all the other letters and numbers equivalent to factor 50. One downside, from the knees down you’ll burn to bu…… But silly me we’re in the wonderful season known as summer -to the new who have never experienced British weather, this means lots of cloud, frequent rain and a high temperature of 18’C – not a lot of sun protection required here then.
So it would appear that me summer swim war will be great in oz -they have real summers there and spiders and snakes and grandchildren with parents, LOL - joking kids honest, temps in the high 20’s, maybe o’well mustn’t complain.
Older daughter has all the survival kit – heated suit, mobile bonfires, thermal underwear, beanie hats gloves scarves et al, and that’s just for going in the water.
Talking about the water, ‘open water’ is just that it’s the wet stuff out of doors, you know in the fresh air, no brick walls dressed in shiny tile just grass and mud so you have to get back in the water to wash off the slime before taking off your already mentioned swimwear in exchange for (enormous drum roll) a DRYROBE. What a terrific piece of kit.
I was told, as a jolly along word of encouragement, that the outside (outdoors, fresh air etc) temperature was 18’C only to be told that the water temperature was a little cool at – you’ve guessed it – 18’C.
The open water swim appears to be mainly for the ladies who are appropriately!? dressed in one piece swimming costumes or bikinis. Are they superhuman or what?
Well I followed the instructions given about getting used to the ‘cold’ water and managed a few stokes of the arms , turned blue as was ‘advised’ to go and get dressed(I thought I was),and discovered why the ladies wear the DRYROBE, it is a lined fleecy filled dressing gown, warms you in seconds, presuming you’ve removed your wet clothing, fabulous piece of kit, all the ladies around the lake were wearing them
Older daughter strikes up with a local witticism regarding the ladies’ attire – DRYROBE on – guess the rest!!
On that note, I’ve come to the conclusion that I ought to stop and start again.
It’s no good – brain dead – will power depleted - give up now -start tomorrow
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