33 - 1/3 of century

Thanks to you all for my lovely cards, texts, calls, messages and pressies. I felt truly valued and joyous surrounded by almost all fishy cards with the exception of the sheep poo card! I had an amazing day. I have said it before, but since turning 30 and deciding that single middle aged people should do exciting things on their birthday that don’t include children the plan was made to go kayak surfing. I love kayak surfing. Anyone who has seen the autoerotic asphyxiation marks around my neck from the Croyde weekend of surfing knows just how much. The strangulations marks incurred through cag wearing in saltwater were just beginning to fade, so time was to tune them up a little. I think it gives the patients confidence to see their acupuncturist looking as though she indulges in strange sexual practices (hmm is that what fuels the thriving patient population, is that why I am sat emailing not puncturing???).

Anyway so decided to got down to Bournemouth to kayak surf because after all I had braved Nottingham’s radioactive white water course when I should have been listening to the Dalai Lama but skived off for the afternoon and anyway there were no coaches to teach and too many stoppers to brave a lone trip. I woke early to great to start of my 33rd year, came downstairs and opened my cards and present from Sylvie (many cat/rat Chinese horoscope beautiful jade bracelet) before a session of power yoga (thanks Lisa an enduringly useful bday present from when I was living in NZ!) before heading to the 6.30 BNI breakfast meeting. Joyfully greeting the other fellow members of the breakfast club I managed to cause chaos to the president who twice dropped everything, in astonishment perhaps, at my unaccustomedly cheerful demeanour.

Anyway to the surfing Warren picked me up and we headed down to Bournemouth reefs collecting a few picnic things on the way. We arrived to find no surf. A mill pond. So making the most of it we headed up the cliffs and had a picnic in the sunshine. Picnic over we decided to do a little fossil hunting and clambered around across very strangely crumbly rocks finding what are probably limpet fossils and stashing them in my handbag. I was doing a bit of a toddler destructive thing and ripping up rocks with my bare hands and throwing them down the cliff when I realised that what I was standing on, 40 feet up a cliff, was the same stuff I was trashing with such ease. I nervously and cautiously, causing only a small landslide, slid down the cliff. Finally we saw a wave and so headed back to grab the boats; past the barbed wire, past a sign saying watch out for landslide and then past a “these cliffs and very dangerous don’t climb” sign.

We got onto the water and paddled to where the wave had been, but nada. We paddled along the coast and found some more waves breaking in the middle of the sea and so we tried to catch them but wherever we went the waves weren’t. Elusively slipping further and further away from us. It was like Greek gods tempting us further and further out to sea, come hither small paddlers, a little further, a little deeper. Before we got sacrificed to the sea monsters we decided to give it up and paddle back in. It was gorgeous, the sun was shining, sky blue, crazy steep rocky cliffs towering above with their deposition lines clearly showing transporting you back through the ages. The elusive waves rolling up in the sea and pulling great strands of kelp from the beds with sun shinning through the wave made the most incredible picture. It was glorious but surf free. As we paddled back we saw a lone surfer catching waves so we enthusiastically paddled over to join him but as we arrived the waves went. We left him bereft of waves and paddled back to shore. There we met some sea kayakers who were paddling all the way round the coast to raise money. One of them was a one legged, ex Santa Claus, sky diving Aston villa mascot Para and it was his journey, but this was relayed to us second hand, and somewhat fragmentally, by his South African support driver. He (the support driver) was from Wilderness on the Garden route. Lovely place with wild ocean, white sand beach, stunning emerald forest with lakes and mountain. All in a single place. Love to live there. Saw a giant jellyfish there being eaten by land snails. Not necessarily connected to this story. Let’s face it the description of the day is pretty random. Anyway to wrap this up as the tangents are getting steep, we finished off the day by having a delicious Thai dinner with my sister and her funky new beau in Southampton.

Just wanted to share what a lovely day I had and love to all the world but especially my friends….oh and any prevarication to delay getting back to writing my dissertation.

Generic hard drive update

My hard drive had a failure I never really fixed it as I used a generic drive. Needs a firmware update that doesn't exist. Lenovo own Hitchachi why should they be compatible?

Black eyed peas turned into skwonky crunchy nose. It will never be the same and there is only one person to blame. He who would be rescuer.

I boarded at New Year and got into the half pipe, dropped in on the vert.

I have been at Kew doing research and I may well be rejecting the null to accept my H1 for those of you not in the know that means I WAS RIGHT.

I have been treating patients of a wide variety, I have had my first conception and my first death. All in the same month. Life and death part of a cycle.

I study I teach I don't pay council tax and still get student rates at the movies. Now is that a great reason to defer or what? Oh plus an extra year of slacking and pretending to be working very hard.

I have an allotment after 5 years on the waiting list and planted my first crops - garlic, shallots, bergamot, mint, basil, chamomile.

I climbed a tree, paddled bare sea toes in Feb, paddled a kayak in Jan, blew bubbles in the park.

So that is me, what about you?

Oh but best of all off to Monaco to see a friend, St Maxime to see my pares and Auron to play in the snow. I was going to go and study - write up results but now I have too many fun things planned. Oh bugger.

Black eyed peas

I can't even remember my last post it seems a long time and most probably is. I have been enjoying the summer. I have had a couple of kayaking trips the most fun being the surf one. I have been out to France to stay with my parents for 10 days which was wonderful First time I have been out there not working just enjoying myself. It was wonderful lots of sunshine and good food, nice people.

We spend a few day on the Isle D'Or - Port Cros - a national park. We took long strolls across the island scented with Mediterranean herbs and accompanied by the sounds of the cicadas. We snorkeled the first day but the weather was choppy and so we did not make it all the way round the underwater nature trail which was a shame. I did a dive in the park without doubt one of the most beautiful dives I have done. Enormous wrasse, a half foot nudibranch (I know the goggles make things look bigger but they were still huge). As we descended to a very deep depth it became incredibly cold and was not prepared for it. We were down at 37m with some beautiful corals. As we ascended back towards the surface you could actually see where the thermocline was, a shimmering haze in the water like a mirage. It was a great relief to pass through it from water at 13 degrees below up to 24 degrees above. I was the only person on the dive along with a dive master. I panicked when I got in, first time I had been like that really close to just swimming for the surface I didn't think could breathe could not get enough oxygen in. But I stuck it out forced him to make eye contact with me, must of thought me a weirdo but hey who cares. Sadly I think we had descended too deep and a few hours after the dive I realised I had again perforated my eardrum. This necessitated a trip to the french docs who took it all very seriously. Ahh oui oui oui you must see the specialist today. Well I didn't as I was due to go home the next day and thought I would visit here. Saw my GP here and he was very dismissive as expected. I think my hearing is returning! Hmm must get back on here and finish off the point of it which was the black eyed peas or the post won't make sense but I am off kayaking in a minute so more later...

Oh and so I don't totally forget http://www.herbalacumen.com/ my new website.

So back to the black eyed peas and giving them a run for their money. This weekend was spent at the Tryweryn a grade 3 white water course with dam release. It was great we spent two days there the first was with teacher Tom doing a lot of breaking in and breaking out and trying to make the right eddies or at least those that we had planned to do. A useful exercise. the last time we came here Nick led us and we just paddled down without worrying too much about eddies. The second day we decided to paddle alt he way from the top of the course back to the campsite so having appropriately juggled the yaks and cars we set off. Spent a lot of time at the top of the course practicing what we had been taught the day before but then set off down to the BIG features. I was extremely anxious but as usual also exceptionally determined. Not to be outdone by the 3 strapping big men I was paddling with I endeavoured each of the features. I didn't try and do the breakouts down the big features but just rode them. Down the ski jump where Arthur has been trapped in a stopper the day before going round and round like in a washing machine. Down the massive feature under the bridge that I have done twice before but never upright and I rode it with my head out of the water the whole way down and broke out at the end hoorah. Down past the standing wave and through the drops below. There was just one last feature chapel falls which has a very dangerous stopper that must be avoided at all cost. I made a beautiful breakout just above and pleased with myself dropped down right away from the dangerous side. I got through the wave at the bottom and then tipped over. I was trying to roll back up but had got wedged against the wall and on my third attempt to roll I started to come up and in charged Arthur at full pelt to rescue me. His boat made firm contact between my eyes and I dropped back into the water, shocked and dazed I abandoned my boat. On emerging at the surface began yelling Arthur Gorton you have battered me again - this is not the first time a rescue attempt has left me with injuries. I began to swim for the side and spotted a tree trunk I could grab but as I reached out something hit the back of my head and I turned to see a throw rope just out of reach, turned back to the bank and the tree was out of reach.A Canadian canoe was in front of me and I reached that just as we began some more small drops and so I was carried dazed further down the river leaving boat and paddle and other paddlers far behind. Luckily the Canadian canoer had presence of mind and dropped me off beyond the falls, fortuitously just opposite the camp site. Sadly on the wrong side. The other paddlers did finally joined me as a sat in a bewildered battered heap. They had my boat and Arthur had managed to rescue my paddle and leave it with the Canadian canoes further up. I set off with my boat and ended up hiking all the way back to the falls, the site of my shame and back along the road.

Outcome, despite little sympathy at the time and even the occasional protestation that there was no sharp blow between the eyes the twin black eyes that occurred in the next days have proved beyond doubt the guilt of one rescuing destroyer! (although I do appreciate it was well intentioned)

Wet and wild in Wales

So Monday, day of freaky weather and where do I head Wales. Through storm and rain I headed out towards the River Dee for my first white water kayaking lesson with a super guy called Matt. Sadly I opted to take the toll road which meant I missed the M54 and it was not until I arrived at the end of the M56 that I realised my mistake by which time I was running 30 minutes late and had lost my blue tooth headset. I did finally arrive in Langollen in the pouring rain about an hour late. We pretty fast got on the water accompanied by storms and wind and driving rain and started with some simple break in and break out on some fairly gentle stuff before moving onto the rapids. My first upset, read upside down, resulted in what can only be considered an absolute stunner of a roll appreciated mostly by myself but also by my coach – fast and effective and as first roll on true white water very impressive. It was shortly followed by a more abortive capsize where I swam and the boat shot off without me as my coach dragged me to the shore. The water levels continued rising from 4 on the gauge when we arrived to 14 when we got out for lunch as more and more logs came flowing down the river. We went back and practised some more with another successful roll and then set off to a grade 3 rapid where I upside downed again. This time I rolled beautifully and then found myself stuck in a wave and then swum again. By this time the water was really powerful and I scarcely got to the edge and Matt set off after my boat with instructions not to leave the bank but to follow him down stream. I did follow but got to a junction and tried to cross the shallow water but got swept away and finally managed to cling to a tree and haul myself back out. I made my way backup the channel to fin Matt with a boat on either shoulder ploughing through the water that had swept me away. He expressed great surprise at my roll halfway down a grade three rapid and apparent surfing of the wave. I was unaware I was surfing – something one tries to do. I thought I was just trapped. By this time I was covered in contusions from rocks and scraped, stung and scratched by brambles and at this point we stopped for lunch.

By the time lunch was over the water gauge has disappeared completely and we decided to head off to higher valley with aim of paddling some calmer rapids. After about 20 minutes and driving through two big floods we came to a stop in a village where water was pouring through a hotel and the fire brigade were present and turned back. The Dee at the centre was far too chaotic to try when we got back and so we headed to a canal to work on some other skills such as preliminary cartwheel. The canal has a viaduct over the river so we were able to sit and watch the flooding beneath and chew fat while dicing with canal boats as Matt showed off his skills to the clumsy great boats chugging past. I had requests to perform as he did but was not able to oblige. By this time it was 7opm and shattered I left the river. Matt unzipped his dry suit and stepped out in his bone dry fleecy under suit much to my envy as I peeled off wet layers.

It was a good day although I did not prove my prowess on the river or even tackle any of the rapids I had hoped to in an upright position but Matt was lovely and claimed to be impressed by my first attempt on white water. I took the more direct route home through more and yet more rain. I am left wondering just how I will get on with my first white water trip planned for next weekend. I hope I am up to it; I would not like to spend as much time the wrong way up this time. I am practicing hard all the things he taught me in the vain hope that I will spend less time on my tail and more time with my head above water and body clear of the rocks. Hoping also the battered legs will have healed and will not get re abused on my next adventure on white water. Wait for next instalment!

NB specially for my monther - feedback from coaching
:
I was pleased at the speed in which you picked up new ideas and concepts, your other sporting
experience and natural agility helped with this.

1 day 4 32 on 5-6-7

This year I decided more to escape it than celebrate it and went to Milton Keynes. Not the obvious place to escape anything but actually a place of much fun. I went to AirKix where you launch yourself into a tunnel with air circulating at up to 170MPH and fly. I was a buzz. When you hold the right position you just stay suspended in the air. It you lengthen you move up the tunnel and arch you come back down. If you set your hands slightly as an angle you start spinning. The flights were only 1 minute each and I got only 2 but it was worth it for every second of this unique experience stretched out. I wish I could afford an hour in there. It is the equivalent of three free fall sky dives and you don’t have the unpleasant sensation of the ground rushing up to meet you. That is the part of the whole free fall experience which has so far not yet appealed.

Having free floated in a tunnel my friend and I rushed onto our next activity which was wake boarding. I can snowboard I thought I can probably wakeboard. They set us off first of all with a knee board – very different to a snowboard. You kneel down on a platform on the board you are then handed a piece of tow rope with handles and you wait. A clicking sound comes from above then you are yanked viciously from the platform, saturated with water as you scream and hauled off down the lake at high speed. As you approach the corner you aim for the between the buoys with dire warning of dislocated shoulders should you allow the rope to go slack. It does and if you had any sense you would let go there but pride has you holding onto until the snap comes and you are ripped from the board, dragged along the water a short way and mercilessly dumped. There follows a very long swim in a stinking lake then a long walk back to the starting platform again. I did actually get eventually around 3 corners but the fourth continued to elude me and when the wake board landed on my head after one hour and fifty I decided that was as close to my two hours as I was going to get. My friend had long since sensibly disappeared into the warm showers.

The egg on my head was complimented by the dullness after excessive wine consumption that evening whilst reliving the days fun and watching the flight DVD a couple of times. The ripping pain served to remind me of my birthday treat for several days and the cold which was clearing up before hand lingered on another week but it was worth it. I am 32 childless and making the most of it!

Surfing - UK!

I have never really surfed before. I body boarded at 14 years old in San Francisco which was fun. I body surfed with no board in Brisbane which was like being thrown repeatedly in a washing machine, which was not fun. Kayak surfing now that truly was fun. I am a coward particularly so about cold water so when I woke at the allotted time of 5 am I looked out into the half darkness and having arrived just 5 hours previously decided to get my bearings before committing to a icy dunking. I got up and wrapped up well and found my way to the beach. It was just getting light, the waves were pretty big and it was quite chilly. I had the entire beach to myself and I began to walk, to pick up shells and to study the rock pools. I found a spot on a rocky ledge that had a perfect chair of sea moss and sat down high up on the end of the beach to watch the sun come over the dunes. As I watched the kayaks finally piled down and I was relieved that I was just too late to go back and get changed and haul my kayak down too. This brief respite giving me time to observe what on earth one was meant to do in a kayak on the sea and to obtain a bigger, thicker, longer wetsuit. I had purchased one that arrived 3 hours before departure for Croyde but sadly it was too big. The waves in fact had settled down a great deal before the kayakers got on and it was beginning to look like it might be fun.

After breakfast we set off into Woolacoombe to look for wetsuits for me, kayak boots for Andy and supposedly that was all but everyone left the shops with a bag of funky surf clothes. Oh apart from me who managed to find a single wetsuit that fit and was HOT pink not I looked hot in the wetsuit you understand but that the wetsuit was hot pink, not panels of pink but virtually entirely pink. Neon, bright, stabilo marker pink. Knowing that this item was to be worn with a black spray deck in an orange kayak I had visions of a giant baby coming and hoovering me up as through I were dolly mix floating on the sea. We took a long and gorgeous walk back along the coast before preparing for the afternoon surf.

Afternoon surftime and somewhat apprehensively I hauled my kayak the mile to the beach and was very nearly too knackered to get in. I did though and started really relaxing into just being on the sea and bobbing over the waves. Andy took me under his wing showed me how to pick a wave and the turn around and paddle paddle paddle. It was such a buzz when you got on that wave it was the most out of control I have felt in a long time. Shaking, scary, exhilarated out of control. As the afternoon went on that I started too feel I had some small measure of control, just digging the paddle in a stern rudder and holding it fast you could feel the massive power of the wave thrusting you shoreward. I had multiple abortive upside down experiences. I had been quite freaked because I can't roll outside a swimming pool and I thought I would really have trouble but it turn out I don't mind so much bailing and swimming to shore and emptying the boat and beginning again. It would be easier to roll but it was fine. Everyone pretty much got dunked and bailed at some point. Well probably not Andy but everyone else.

Next morning I was up at 5 and raring to get back in the surf. Having nearly killed myself getting the kayak back and I really mean I was ready to leave the great hunk of plastic to whoever would be kind enough to steal it from my weary shoulder. I had hatched a cunning plan when visiting the burrows for a BBQ the previous evening as there is public car park right by the beach so I strapped my kayak back on top and drove it to the beach much to the amusement of the burly strong people who heaved it onto one shoulder and laughed in the face of pain and exhaustion. Hey well two of them just paddled in 24 hours Devizes to Westminster and are truly superfit. The rest I don't have an excuse for it except just strong nutter people. Anyway kayak was driven to the beach than dragged across the sand down to the sea which two hours after low tide is a long way. The waves were big. Really big. It was a buzz, I just hung out near shore just getting through the waves that was enough, that took everything. One of the kayakers came over and said well done to me. I wasn't sure why, maybe just surviving this long the right way up. Then I looked back and saw how far out I had come and when I looked around I suddenly saw I was out wit the big boys and far too terrified to turn around and surf back. I was getting to go over really huge waves but before they had broken which was very cool fun just riding up so steep and throwing weight forward to go over the top. Until a really big one got me. I rode up the wave and saw it break just as my tip got to its tip and I toppled backward and swam. I was conscientiously trying to follow all the instructions offered two slightly conflicting items. First never get between the shore and the boat (it is heavy when full of water) and two let the boat get washed back in. Only problem was the boat getting washed back in was slower than me getting back in and both of us were being fast washed onto the rocks. We did make it out and then back into the water where I hung out keeping close the dead seagull shore marker for not getting washed onto the rocks. The only real surfing I did was backward and oh my that was thrilling, completely unintentional of course. Just when not paddling fast enough forwards you get caught and taken back to shore backwards. Sadly did not have the presence of mind to put in a bow rudder. Oh well, I didn't topple again and remained snug and warm in my rash vest, fleece jumper, wetsuit and dry cag.

That afternoon after a morning on the go karts where I won the kiddie race and came pretty low on the adult one I headed back to the sea this time with a body board and surf board, well between myself Dave and Peter. Body boarding I quite got and had a lot of fun with, the surfing I caught a couple of waves and I even managed to kneel up a couple of times so I was proud. After that though I was too tired to go paddle as well and the waves were choppy and not much doing. Got showered and warm and observed a while instead. I had great diligent plans to go at 5 the next morning last opportunity and all that but when I woke at 4 there was a gale blowing and the trees and caravan were being buffeted so rather than re enact a mini version of the perfect storm I nestled back into bed a slept a while more.

I may only have paddled twice but I have the aches and bruises of a more intense encounter and enough pleasure to last. Fab weekend, booked to go back again next year.

Powderking Wow

They call it powderking and king of powder it most definitely is. I have never seen so much powder; I have certainly never tried to ride so much powder. Turns out it is a rather different skill to the kind of iceboarding I am used to. Now give me a foot of powder and i can ride the powder as good as the next chick but this was not a foot of powder it was several feet of powder and if you slowed down or leant forward or took a turn too tight or if your legs just gave out you were buried. You were digging yourself out from the piles of snow and god forbid you got lost in a bowl or as my sister did in the powder under a tree. Well board stuck in the pile of powder round the tree, head stuck in the snow free section under the branches in a compromisingly upside down fashion. Amazing mountain, very few groomed runs and free reign to go through trees and carve out your own path. I mostly watched people do that on unfortunate occasion I did loose the less deep tracks of others and find myself in deep misfortune carving fresh tracks for a short period before plunging headfirst usually down the slope and spending a sweaty 10 extricating myself. I did daringly attempt some seriously powdery ungroomed runs and took over an hour to get down what would take ten minutes well for anyone there but me! No to be fair the weekdays I was there were populated by locals and other super competents who rode powder like they were born to it and most probably were. On the Saturday when I went with niece and sister we were amongst other less able snowboarders and I was delighted to watch people struggling down the ungroomed slopes and was able to shout words of encouragement from the chairlift. I was determined not to stoop to the low comments such as I had shouted at me like keep you weight back and your nose up - yeah I get that in theory it is the implementation I was struggling with. In fact going downhill on powder was absolutely fine could get moving at high speed downhill without much issues the only trouble came when I got freaked out by my speed and tried to turn or stop. As the week went on I did improve greatly although still preferring to ride the groomed slopes and play in the extensive powder just off those slopes so that when your thighs burned so bad you couldn't adopt the stance any longer you could shoot back onto groomed slope and make some gentle curves back to the lodge. So much more to say about a fantastic 10 day break in Prince George but the powderking thing had to be first out.

The New Year, New Life, New Stuff

New Year well, went out to France to my pares pad in St Maxime - wicked. Went with Ed and we arrived late on the 31st. Walked into St Maxime town centre only to discover well nothing. The French don't really do New Year. Prior to departure I had said to Ed I don't think we will go to the Irish pub, no way I am travelling all the way to France to go to an Irish pub but nothing else being open we called in. It was open and lively. We spent a Bonne Annee drinking with French people and the Annee itself kissing French people. I enjoyed it more than Ed I think. There was a medieval feast going on with a French speaking jester who I presume from the laughter was jesting in French about well who knows what, love maidens and ladies I suspect from my limited French. By the time the Bonne Annee had occurred we were hungry so in stilting French I requested some food and was told une assiette de viande was an option. So yes people I welcomed in the New Year gnawing on wild boar sausages, legs of wild turkey and well lamb, pig, beef.... wish I had a camera so could display the ex veggie chowing down on just about every animal known to the French as food matter except horse, perhaps that was not medieval?

Spent a lovely rest of the trip drinking eating and lazing in the winter sun. Glorious.

Since then been to the snowdome boarding, cirque du soliel and the craziest up a mountain. We decided to take a stroll up Pen Y Fan. My second trip up there thank goodness because otherwise I would not have known there would have been a lovely view at the top. On this occasion we did have a camera but the idea of extracting it from its waterproof case whilst holding on for dear life with both hands to the rock in hurricane strength wind on a rocky outcrop in the sleeting rain seemed perilous to say the least. It was MAD. Lots of waterproofs, a running nose and luckily a guide who knew where he was going. It was exhilarating but crazy to be on top of a mountain in those kind of storms in January. Surprisingly as, if not more, enjoyable than being up there in the summer sun which was my last visit. Shorts and t-shirt on this occasion would have been considered suicide.