Next time I will listen

I kid myself that I have psychic powers. No. What I’m really trying to say is that I have an inner voice. This inner voice rings alarm bells when things don’t feel right. It has premonitions. It comes up with ideas that are so clever I sometimes wonder if its actually me. The only problem is I generally ignor it.

I pulled up in Richmond the weekend before last to do a spot of shopping in between dropping Emma at a bowling party and picking Kathleen up from drama. I like to check out the shops in Bridge Rd, not necessarliy to always buy. I had time to kill that day. As I parked the car I had a weird premonition that I would meet someone I knew. Sure enough, as I was pulling out of my parking spot half an hour later a close friend wandered into view strolling up the other side of Bridge Rd with her new boyfriend (likely found on the internet, but that’s beside the point).

I was at slalom training last night with Rosie. Despite the down pour of rain we had during our session, we had a lot of fun. Our coach set up a little course for us and timed each of our runs. Rosie is generally faster than me. (A fact I find difficult to swallow). On one of my runs I went really hard and cleared all of the gates to beat Rosie and others in the group by a good three seconds. I basked in my victory, which was short-lived because I didn’t listen to my inner voice. It said, “quit while you are ahead”. I actually felt really tired and didn’t feel like doing another run, but when our coach announced we had time for one more each, I went for it anyway. On the third gate, my hand slipped on the draw stroke and I knocked myself on the helmet with my paddle. This action not only slowed me down a couple of seconds, it was noticed by everyone in the group who launched into fits of laughter. They were still laughing when I completed my run and paddled back up to join them. “Did you notice what I did?”, I asked sheepishly. “Oh yes, it was hilarious!”, replied my coach. “What did it look like?”. “Donk!”. The coach and Rosie delightedly demonstrated knocking themselves in the head with their paddles. “Do I get points for entertainment value?”, I enquired. I laughed along with everyone else despite my embarrasment (laughter being fairly contageous), but I regretted the run. I should have listened to my inner voice. 

‘Adrenalin City’ or ‘What Some Parents Go Through Whilst Supporting Their Children In Sports Of Their Choice’.

Hello Possums. I hope you had a good weekend.

I took my daughter Rosie up to a river in country Victoria for a slalom kayaking race. We both entered it. I had not paddled this river or anything like it for about twelve years. I have been training in slalom technique for a year now but I have never attempted to approach slalom gates on rapids before.

In a past life (before kids) I was a white water touring paddler. Slalom is very different to touring. In slalom much more precision and forward planning is required. The course was a difficult one because the Australian Institute of Sport were using it for national junior team selection. Competitors lined up from Victoria and interstate. The selectors sat on the banks filming contenders’ runs. There was quite an audience.

I wondered what on earth I was doing there. Had I been given a number greater than one hundred and thirty-one I would have chickened out for sure. As it was my number was one hundred and twenty-four. I was up before Rosie! I couldn’t chicken out. I did it for her. On my first run I missed a third of the gates (there were eighteen). But I got down the course and handled all the rapids okay. My second run was better. I still missed the hardest gate and I capsized on the second last gate and went through the last two upside down. But I rolled up and finished the course. I was thrilled. My time was way longer than any of the junior champs. And the competitors in my age group are all ex-olympians or world champs. But both of my runs were personal bests! (One because I’d never done it before, and one because I cut eighty points off my original time).

My friend Bree had come to watch. She was equally excited for me and super encouraging. She wondered if I would be awarded the gates that I went through upside down. Laughing, we went over to the score cards to check. One of Austrualia’s most famous olympians was there checking the junior contenders’ scores and he overheard our conversation. 

Bree: I think you deserve to get those gates because your boat went through it. Yeah sure it was upside down, but it still went through!

Me: Um, maybe not. Oh look here’s my card. I’ve been penalized for it. I suppose your body has to go between the gates.

Famous ex-olympian: Its your head.

The famous olympian may have had a wry smile. It was hard to tell. He is a bit of a remote character.

On the second day. Rosie and I arrived after a fun night and good night sleep at Bree’s. However, we were shocked to learn that the course had been changed. We ran to check it out. It was very different and equally as difficult, perhaps even more technical in places. I had pre-race heebie jeebies like you wouldn’t believe! The self talk went something like: What the f#*k am I doing here. Inside me I was feeling like the donkey who won’t even advance towards the carrot and has to be bodily pushed forwards with its hooves churning up the ground in protest. In the water, one of the junior girls from Victoria said to me: are you going to do it? Wow, I’m so proud of you! I did a quick warm up and launched myself at it. Had it not been for Rosie I would never have done it. As it was, someting akin to primal fear came to my aid. My concentration sharpened to a point never before during a slalom run. Usually I banter with the judges as I take the gates, but this time I was one hundred percent focussed on the course.  

At the end of the run I was overwhelmed. I took off my helmet and burst into tears. The women who paddled before me was very encouraging: You looked great. You’re paddling well. You can ferry glide, just get your angle right in the big rapid next time, ferry out to the first and back for the second. You’ll get those gates for sure next time.  Bree was ecstatic. I was a proud mess. I had only missed two gates and got through most of the others cleanly. I cut my previous best time in half – three personal bests in one weekend! 

Messages in the sky

I took my girls (that’s four), my friend Tony and his daughter (that’s a total of seven bods) out for a sail on Bucket, our catamaran. Bucket is affectionately called Baby Hoby at our sailing club because she is the smallest hoby cat in the club. I often take large groups of kids and friends out on Bucket. The serious sailors always laugh. “You have quite a handicap there”, they have been known to jibe as they pass me weighted down with passagers in a race. They can’t understand my point of view of sailing in a race without a competative bent (that is, just for fun). The conditions on this particular day were not as windy as the day before and there was less of a swell, so I took my boat load out for a long sail into the bay far from the club. We were enjoying the gentle sailing and the children were singing Disney tunes in harmony when the shark-spotting plane flew overhead. This little plane is very distinctive. It is tiny and bright yellow with a little spoiler-thingy at its tail. It flies over the bay near us at around four or five in the afternoon every day. It usually flies straight over. However, last year it circled in the air a mere fifty meters out from the club. Police swarmed the beach and instructed swimmers to get out of the water. A seven meter white pointer had been spotted. Up in the clubrooms there was a lot of excitement. A race had just finished and the race officials up in the control room, with a first storey view across the bay, were certain they saw the large dark shape. Our children, who were playing near the boat ramp were determined that they saw its fin surface near a power boat too close for comfort. It was very exciting. I texted all my friends and acquaintances the news. My brother’s reply was the funniest: fish and chips for everyone! From Bucket we watched the little yellow plane. “That’s the shark-spotting plane”, I said for the benefit of our guests. “Last year it circled about there because a seven meter shark was spotted”. Just as I said this the little plane’s engine changed pitch and it did a turn. Oh shit! I thought to myself. “Ready about”, I said clamly to my crew. I quickly turned bucket around to head back for shore. I was on a beautiful straight tack to the club. However, right at that point in the drama the wind dropped! We were still over a hundred metres out. For once I was wishing I didn’t have the extra weight on the boat. With just one or two people she can fly. Poor Bucket laboured with her boughs deep in the water. “So a seven meter shark. That would be almost three times the length of this boat”, Tony pointed out. “Ah yeah”, I said. This I already knew. The wind picked up. As I sheeted in the sail and Bucket started moving with some speed I noticed the little plane flew off in the other direction. My eldest daughter commented on this fact. She and I had both been secretly antipating the plane’s movements in a state of unspoken but shared anxiety. Had it completed its circle and not just done a U-turn, our panick would have been acute.  As it was it was just mild heebie-jeebies. But I made a bee-line for the shore anyway. That was enough sailing excitement for me for one day. Today when I was jogging along the beach I heard a plane in the distance. I looked up expecting the shark-spotter, eventhough it was only midday. Out in the bay I saw Bucket’s colourful sail. The hub was out there with Emma and one of her friends. The tide was out and thousands of funny little soldier crabs were socializing on the sand. I passed the young man I noticed last night with a magnificent tatoo on his back and a torso to die for, but he was too far out with the low tide to catch a repeat of yesterday’s smile.  A little dog ran with me for awhile until his owner called him back. The sound of the plane got louder and I could see it was not the little yellow plane at all, but a biplane towing a large message on a banner. I watched it approaching waiting to read the message. It was written in large red letters on a clear background: “OLD FART BRIAN JONES TURNS 60 TODAY”, it said. My first impulse after laughing was to share it with my kids, “Hey guys you have to come and see this”. But I knew it would be gone before I got back to the house. This time it was just for me.

We’re on!

Good morning Possums. Well, the wind has dropped – finally. It rained over night but its sunny now. Ita has sent me a text – we’re on!

I’m in my riding gear (funny little stiff shoes and all) feeling happy as pie. Just eating my porriage and then we’ll be off. She says she’s found a really nice seventy k route. That should be enough I reckon for a start.

At this time last year we rode heaps of times. The weather I recall was hot. Snakes were coming out early. The kids spotted a black one on the beach track and I ran over a dead one accidentally whilst on a ride with Ita. We were just coming to the start of a gentle hill and I had flicked down in my gears, trying to get as much speed on the flat in my approach as I could, when I passed right over this thing. I thought it was alive and it gave me such a scare that I literally jumped two feet in the air. The problem with this adrenalin-induced jump was that I was cleated in. So the jump was cut by the weight of the bike. I didn’t fall but apparently it looked hilarious, if Ita’s reaction was anything to go by. At the time however, I did not laugh. I was still recoving from the shock of suddenly being eye to eye with this thing – heart attack material, Possums…

… gotta go.

The Team is Back (sort of).

Hello Possums. Have you ever been rogaining? Its a sport where you navigate through bushland to pick up check points. Its like orienteering, except you choose your own route, its an endurance event and it runs into the night time. My rogaining partner Meg and I are competing in our first rogaine together since she gave birth to her first child. Her baby is now one and he is joining us in his baby back-pack for his first rogaine too.

Meg and I make a mean team. We walk, unlike some of the other competitive teams who run, but our navigation is pretty hot, we have excellent route selection strategies and we often make good time in the night sections. We used to enter to win. We used to eat on the run. We used to walk until we almost dropped.

Our usual competitive practice might have to soften a bit this time I think.

I wonder if we should stick a baby-on-board sign on her back pack?

Holiday Highlights 2: Canoeing on the Dordogne

As you know Possums, I’ve been back in Melbourne for a couple of weeks after a six-week adventure in Europe with my family. I took thousands of photos and I’ve condensed them onto a spiffy little slide show with music on my lovely Mac laptop. Yes, I am in love with my laptop. I love it and was distraught to not have been allowed to take it away with me… Anyway, the slide show has proven to be very handy and just as easy to share as a photo album. It gets a viewing with different friends almost every day and we have even scored a dinner party invitation, with the condition that I bring it.

One of the highlights of our holiday was spending a week in the south of France, near Montignac and exploring the Vezere and Dordogne valleys with their beautiful villages, spectacular medieval castles, limestone caves and wide, pristine rivers. We discovered that many of the French spend their summer holidays in this area too and when we were there, summer holidays were in full swing. Just look at the number of paddlers on the Dordogne River the day we paddled it:

As you can see the countryside is spectacular, but in addition to this you would occasionally pass a medieval castle. This is Montfort:

(and that’s Kathleen and Rosie in the green canoe on the right).

There were also small pebbly beaches where you could stop and have lunch along the way. At the first small beach we passed, holiday makers had set up deck chairs and towels. Children splashed and floated in the water and played on the shore with the pebbles. As we passed Kathleen said,

Look at these people swimming in the river. They don’t know how to live. They need to come to Australia and see our beaches.

At the end of our trip all four girls had lots of fun swimming in the river. They spent ages in it while their father went with the canoe hire person to pick up our car. Their favorite game was jumping in upstream and floating back down to me in the current. I think they started to understand. If we had more time we would have canoed another day and seen the next section of the river. The whole family agreed that this was one of our favorite days.

Its spring and cyclists are everywhere in Melbourne.

Well Possums, I’m officially in training now. Like last year, I have signed up for Around the Bay in a Day. This is a huge Bicycle Victoria event. Thousands of cyclists participate. Last year I found it thrilling to be part of such a huge event. Heading off in amongst the throngs of other cyclists had a quality of excitement about it that is hard to describe.

I’ve been riding my bike in to uni. It was sunny today but there was a freezing southerly wind blowing. I had been fooled by the sunny appearance of the morning and had only worn riding shorts and Tshirt. It took two hills before I really warmed up, and even then my fingers poking out of my fingerless gloves stayed frozen for most of the trip.

I mentioned this to a young woman I was sitting next to in my morning class. She agreed about the wind and told me that she also rode in today. She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick, black, stretchy band.

I don’t know where I’d be without this, she said.

What do you use it for?

She popped it on her head. Ah, ear warmers!

Yep, and when I warm up, I just pull it down like this, she said modeling the action of pulling it down to her neck.

The ride to uni is a 30km round trip for me – good for general fitness but I really need to start thinking about doing a couple of long rides in the lead up to the event.

I’m part of the uni team and we have official team jerseys, which I think is pretty cool. Last year there were about 200 riders in the team. The jersey made it easy to recognise other team members and I enjoyed riding with various members along the way.

After my morning class, I went to pick up this year’s jersey at the uni bike shop. I walked into the shop and said, hi can I pick up my around the bay jersey here?

Can you? the guy behind the counter retorted with an ambiguous grin.

Well, I thought I could…

He smiled, name? I gave him my name. ID. I gave him my drivers license and he remarked pointedly about the photo, with not a small hint of sarcasm: Oh great hair cut!

Um yeah, well that isn’t a great shot, I said sheepishly.

He ticked my name off the list. We have a problem, he said, you’re down here for a medium and I think you’re a small.

Oh, um well it doesn’t matter if its a bit loose, said I.

Yes it does, he said seriously and he began to explain the physics of riding jersey design. So try the small on, he said handing one across to me.

What right here?

Yeah, just over your Tshirt.

OK.

See, you’re a small, young Bindi Nestor! He said this smugly and quite cheekily I thought because I’m not young and he was probably about my age too.

Once that was settled, he was on for a bit of a chat. He started explaining his philosophy to me about running the training rides for the uni team. His main focus was on riding etiquette and team building and he explained his strategies for achieving these aims in detail. I had been looking at the training ride dates and was intending to get to at least one of them.

I was thinking of doing the training ride last Sunday but I was too busy, I confessed, the weather was great, it would have been magnificent!

Nah, it was crap – huge head wind, he corrected me. Our conversation was drawn to a close by the arrival of some more customers into the shop.

Well, I might see you at the next one, I said as I turned to go. He waved, but was already attending his new customers.

I laughed as I walked back to my office after these two encounters with cyclists. I don’t know why. I just think its funny how sometimes your days have themes about them. Weirdly, I felt like I was a member of some sort of underground cycling community.

As I was riding home a cyclist traveling in the other direction, who was decked out in lime green and white matching riding gear, had the classic massive thighs and toned upper body, smiled and nodded a greeting to me. I returned the gesture. There is something in the air. Cyclists are out in force, and Melbourne is buzzing with it.

Australian Flora

Hello Possums, one of my favorite Australian plants is pictured above – the Black Boy (Xanthorrhoea). I did think better of putting the common name in the title of this post (who knows what type of weird internet searcher it could attract!). Black Boys grow in semi arid and coastal regions of Australia. The Grampians National Park is an example of both. Despite being in central Victoria, it was an ancient inland sea that has been uplifted and folded.

I love Black Boys because each one looks as if it has its own distinct personality. They are so person-like that you feel their presence as company as you walk. This does sound strange, doesn’t it? But if you have ever been there you will understand. And if you’re the sort of person that talks to plants anyway, you will probably understand too. If you have wikka beliefs, its likely you will also get it. My great grandmother was wikka incidentally.

The Black Boys are often the only thing in large expanses of bush land that survive bushfires. If you are from Victoria you will know that the Grampians area suffered from a massive bushfire last year. The photo below shows me amongst the black boys trying to blend in as one of them, but also the barren landscape of the bushfire aftermath even eighteen months later.

Compare this to the area directly across the road where we begun our walk up to the summit of Mt Abrupt:

This area missed out on being burnt and has retained its undergrowth. When we were there the heath was blooming in shocks of red and pink, but November is really the time to come if you’re into wild flowers. Many people pilgrimage to the Grampians at that time for the display.

The kids walked incredibly well this year. As well as the hike up to Mt Abrupt we did the Wonderland circuit which has been rebuilt after the fires. The kids were blown away by the view from The Pinnacle and virtually ran back down. I forgot to bring my camera on that walk though, so here are a couple of shots taken on the ridge before Mt Abrupt:

First day of winter

Hello Possums. Well, its the first day of winter! Where does the year go? Honestly, the months speed up as the year progresses. November and December always whizz by. But where did May go? Goodness, if that’s the pace of things already, what’s it going to be like in November. We’re all going to have to start training like astronauts so we can resist the extra g-forces (or whatever) as time speeds up.

I think its fantastic that we have had some early snow falls here in Victoria. Last year there was hardly a season to speak of. Even so, I did get out for one weekend of back country XCDing and snow camping with a girlfriend. It was virtually the only weekend worth bothering for, and we happened to get lucky because we’d had the date planned since the previous March. Here is a pic of us skiing Mt Nelse in the morning showing the nice conditions, including blue sky and a bit of sun (I’m the one finishing the run down the bottom) and one of me in the evening enjoying my warm gear and a cup-a-soup (sorry about the quality, they are scanned and converted from pdf).

Next weekend (June 9-11) is the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and this has traditionally been the opening of the ski season in Victoria, although for many many years there has hardly been precipitation, let alone snow. That’s why everyone is starting to get excited!

I used to be up on the ski fields every Queen’s Birthday, but these days we have a different tradition. With a group of old skiing buddies and our families we head up to the Grampians. It’s been so long that there has been snow worth skiing on the Queen’s Birthday weekend that we have given up. Instead we stay in a massive sandstone farmhouse on a working sheep farm and from there head out for day walks in the Grampians. Those who aren’t up for walking stay on the farm and tend to the orphaned sheep, and generally muck around on the huge property. There is plenty to do.

But this year looks like the year for skiing!

Blast from the past

Hello Possums, at my first slalom race on Sunday, there was a paddler there who I did an outdoor education course with in the early nineties, Rob. I hadn’t seen him since then, but recognized his face and voice, and even remembered his first name! He didn’t recognise me, but did remember me when I re-introduced myself.

We chatted on and off during the day and watched each other’s runs when we could. Both of us knew a lot of other paddlers there. I also knew quite a few parents-of-paddlers, so it was a social day as well as being great fun on the course – the river was at its best level for about ten years they reckoned!

He came up to me at one point in the day, and we ended up talking about recent paddling we’d been doing. He’d taken a group out from Warrandyte just the day before apparently and he said,

So I actually thought of you yesterday! I didn’t remember your name, but I remembered your face (we’ve both aged since then of course). But when I was at the start of the paddle I thought to myself, ‘yep, a good river level’, because you told me once that Warrandyte wasn’t worth it unless the river is at least over the first step (which it was). How amazing to now bump into you today!

Yes, Possums, how amazing. And for the life of me I don’t remember ever saying that to him! Isn’t it weird how people remember the oddest things! Your past has a habit of coming back to you randomly and by chance in forms molded by other people’s subjectivities; forms almost unrecognizable to you…

He had remembered my outdoors-focussed self and in so doing so conjured her into life again. These days, life is much more complex. The parenting and researching self get more of an airing. I had forgotten about that carefree self he had kept locked in the time-warp of his memory.