This week marked another first: a sea swim in the local bay, SOLO!
I was a wee bit apprehensive but it was actually really lovely! And free! But seems odd that I just rock up – I’m used to arranged lake swims!
I’m back to the gym too, strength work to help the knee. I have set 
down he gauntlet with a UK client of mine to lift the whole stack on the leg press, see who gets there first. I’m up to 144kg so far – the whole stack is 190kg! He is on 140kg so it’s anyone’s game!
My working week ended with drinks and laughs with the rowing club masters on Friday evening. They are such a great crowd, and we are already planning our off season mountainbike adventure, which should be another heap of fun. I seriously think I will need a new bike for it though, my £70 HALFORDS special won’t last much longer! It only just got me through the Clutha valley one earlier this year! Its lovely to leave a pub afterwards and it still be light outside too, it’s now light at 5am and goes dark after 9:30pm.
This weekend I had to do my NZ First Aid course, a bit frustrating, since my UK first aid at work is still valid. Apparently they aren’t transferable, even though they are both with the Red Cross. Mark and I joked that perhaps people get sick differently here. In all seriousness I actually expected some local variances but in reality it was all pretty much identical. There were two differences. Here if someone consumes a poison there’s a number that you call, 0800 POISONS and they tell you what to do next. Thats a neat idea. The surprising difference was the choking first aid. Here, you do 5 back slaps, then if that hasn’t dislodged it you do 5 ‘chest thrusts’, which is basically the heimlich manoeuvre without the upwards motion. I found that really surprising, as UK first aid got rid of this quite a long time ago.
Such a shame that it was such a beautiful day out on Saturday and I was shut into a training room with 15 strangers and rescussie-Annie, her son and her baby!
It was still sunshining though when I got out of there and all weekend, which is good.
We made the most of the Sunday sunshine and I started my day with a lovely long row. We went to the furthest most point we can, up river, about a 90 min row all told. Always striving for better, I was being coached all the way and today my footplate was moved closer to me. Wow that made a huge difference. It meant that I no longer had to lean back as much, but it also meant that I had to quicken my final pull on the arms to keep up with everyone else’s stroke. Basically, it changed everything. I will have buns of steel in no time! My butt knows it did some work when I got up on Monday morning!
Straight afterwards I went orienteering with Mark. He usually runs it but he’s injured, so he walked it with me today. After some muddling we got a wee rhythm going, I read the map and directed, he went to get the check points. It was in the sand dunes on sandy point, down in the pony trekking park, lots of horse jumps and so on, and a belting hot day.
We were against the clock and you had to get as many as possible and be back to the finish within yr allotted 1 hour, or you lost ten points for each minute you were late. I used my phone as a timer and a compass, and we were back with just over one minute spare, but we weren’t able to find some of the check points that were thick in the bush. Over 500 points roughly, in total. I have no idea if that is good or bad, but we had fun! Not sure Mark likes my walk pace though!
Last one of the season so we ended with a barbecue, beautiful!
Sunday evening was exciting, we got tickets for a sell out show at the local theatre: 7 days live. It’s a TV show that is a little bit like ‘Never Mind the buzzcocks’ and is really funny: a quiz show based on current affairs. They go on tour and you get the full uncut version, minus TV restrictions, as well as a stand up comedy show from each of the team members.
It was an utterly hilarious evening. The ‘ask the minister’ was our charismatic mayor Tim Shadbolt who really is a funny guy, and was telling his own rude jokes too! (Our mayor is quite famous, google him!)
Melanie Magowan 