Mothering Sunday

Early morning in the Olympic Park

In the morning we all went for a swim in the London Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park, which opened to the public earlier this month.  It is one of my favourite buildings from the Olympics, and looks much better now than it did then, because the wings of extra seating have been removed.  It is beautiful inside and out, and I filled my camera with photos.  Cam shrieked when I asked him to take some photos of Graham and me, and we had a little smooch for the camera.

The children bought me presents (Cam this book, and Olivia a scarf with flamingos on it, inspired by my abiding love of all things flamingo) and made me cards, and Graham bought me daffodils and croissants.  I didn't have to lift a finger all day

In the evening Graham and I popped down to the local pub to listen to some live music and enjoy a pint of beer.

What more could anyone need? Perfect.  

Olympic ambitions

It's all Tom Daley's fault.  Really - it is.

I saw this picture on Instagram, and it reminded me that the Olympic aquatics centre opens to the public in just over a month's time.  For a split second I thought to myself 'it might be rather nice to have a swim in the Olympic pool', and then the thought faded as I remembered that I hate swimming.  Plus I can't really swim either.  I can float and tread water just enough to not drown, but I can't swim properly and the only 'stroke' I can do is basic doggy paddle for a few metres.  

The last time I did any amount of swimming was when I lived in Queensland, Australia for 9 months in 1995.  It was probably a condition of my visa that I had to swim while I was there; you can't be in Australia and not swim.  Any swimming I did was either snorkeling or splashing around in the sea though, so my 'not drowning' technique was perfectly adequate.  I can't actually remember the last time I went swimming in the UK.  It may have been as a child, with my parents.  I skived off every school swimming lesson at secondary school.  

I have never taken my own children swimming.  When they were toddlers I really wanted them to love swimming and be good at it, and I knew that the quickest way to ruin that would be for me to take them.  So Graham took them, and taught them both to swim at a very young age.  It is one of my greatest parenting achievements that they both swim like fish now, and love it, despite having me as a vehement, non-swimming, role model.  They are baffled at my dislike of it.  My parents have a pool in France, but I don't swim in it when we visit them.  Occasionally if it is really hot, I will sit in the shallow end sipping a cold glass of wine, or float for five minutes to cool down - but I'd rather be sitting in the shade reading a book and watching the others swim.

And yet...when I thought of the Olympic aquatics centre and how I would probably never swim there, I actually felt a little bit sad and regretful that I don't have a life skill that every other adult in the UK seems to have.  I remembered how I thought I hated running until I actually gave it a go.

"Right!  I'm going swimming tomorrow!" I announced to Olivia last night.
There was a long pause.
"You are?"
"Yes.  I'm going to give it a go."
"Wow."

I rummaged in my cupboard and found a swimming costume I bought over five years ago for occasional floating in the pool in France.  Olivia stood next to me, wide-eyed, as if she couldn't really believe I was going to go through with it.   She claimed never to have seen me wearing that swimming costume.

"You'll need googles," she said.  "Do you even have goggles?"
"No.  Do I really have to wear goggles?"
"Durr.  You can't swim without goggles."
"Okay - can I borrow yours?"
"I use Dad's second-best pair...but I think he's got a third-best pair somewhere that you could borrow."

Being a spoilt Londoner, as well as the Olympic aquatics centre just a ten minute bus ride away I also have two pools within walking distance of my house.  I have never swum in either, despite having lived here for fifteen years, but this morning after I took Olivia to school ("are you seriously going through with this?" was her parting shot as she got out of the car) I walked to the closest one and paid my three pounds (I don't even know if this is good value?  Is it?  It seemed pretty good to me).

In the changing cubicle I discovered that my swimming costume didn't fit.  I have - entirely accidentally - lost over 9kg in weight in the last year through running and working shifts, and the costume was gaping horribly.  I suspected that it would gape even more once I got it wet.  Happily, I discovered I could use the bracelet from my locker to clip the straps of my swimming costume together at the back, and this made it fit much better (although admittedly it left me looking like even more of an amateur - as if I didn't even know how to wear my locker bracelet).

The lanes in the pool were marked slow, medium and fast.  I got into a slow one, which only had two other people in it, and set off - not entirely sure whether I could swim a whole 25 metres in one go.  It turned out that I could just about manage a length of doggy paddle - and I stood up at the far end, heart pounding, feeling extremely pleased with myself. 

I had not expected everybody else in the pool to be so friendly.  Everybody chatted during the pauses at the end of the lengths.  There was much consternation and interest at my (lack of) swimming technique, and one man said, after watching me thrash up and down as hard as I could, "how come you're going so fast, given that you can barely swim?".  Polish Paul, in my lane, tried to show me how I could swim with much less effort. 
"This way, you won't be tired!" he said.
"I kind of want to be tired though," I replied, "I'm here for the exercise"
"No, no no.  You want to just glide up and down.  Don't wear yourself out.  I am an expert at gliding!"
As well as meeting Polish Paul, I learnt that the elderly lady in the green costume is known to everyone as The Fish, and that Mustafa, who is sixty this year, learnt to swim for his fiftieth birthday.  I suspect that if I turn up regularly at this time, I might become known as Crazy Doggy Paddle Woman.

I managed twelve lengths in total (not in one go - I stopped between each one), and when I got out, my arms and legs were trembling with tiredness ("you see - you should be gliding, like me!" said Polish Paul, as I rather shakily said goodbye).  

Graham's third-best pair of goggles

I think I might go again.

Race weekend

The race weekend begins on Saturday when we drive up to the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham with a car full of kit.  The children are staying with their grandparents for the weekend, which means that the race bike doesn't have to suffer the indignity of travelling on a bike rack, it can sit on its very own blanket in the back of the car.

The gleamingly clean bike (in bits) on its special yellow blanket in the back of the car

The day before race day

There are three important things G has to do on the day before race day: registration, racking and race briefing.

Registration takes place in the main building at the National Water Sports Centre.  Most people, including G, are wearing club sweatshirts.  The lady at the registration desk knows G's swimming coach and makes a special fuss of him because he is the only competitor from his club, East London Triathletes.

At Registration

The nice registration lady gives G his race number, which he will wear on a belt around his waist all through the race.  He is also given his timing chip which he will wear on a strap around his ankle all through the race.  The timing chip records his finish time as well as his times for each separate discipline and at various other points around the course.

His race number, which he wears all through the race.  It has his name too, so people can cheer him on!

Once registration is done, we go back to the car and G gets everything ready for racking.  Racking means leaving the bike in the bike racks ready for the race the next day, and also leaving the bike kit (helmet, bike jacket, socks and special clippy bike shoes) in the Bike Transition. 

Transition is where you switch from one discipline to the next.  In Bike Transition you peel off your wetsuit (you will be wearing a tri-suit underneath), and swimming hat, put on your bike kit and load your pockets and your bike with snickers bars and water bottles.  In Run Transition you take off your bike kit and put on your running kit (a new pair of socks and your running shoes - still wearing your tri-suit).

Getting ready for racking, G has to be very organised and concentrate to make sure he is leaving everything he needs in the correct place.  Triathlons are complicated!  Luckily G is a very organised person, so this bit is trouble free.

The back of our car, full of kit being prepared for racking.

We take the bike to the bike racks and G is pleased that the slot for his bike is easy to remember - at one end of the second row.  He won't be dithering in Bike Transition looking for it amongst the hundreds of others.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of bicycle in the bike racks. Early in the afternoon - the racks filled up much more as the day went on.

He leaves a labelled bag with his bike kit in at the Bike Transition, and another labelled bag with his running kit in at the Run Transition.

Then G heads back into the main building for an hour long race briefing.  He finds out important things like what time he has to be in the water ready to start the swim (5:50am) and what will be available at the feeding stations on the run course (bananas and water).

I stand on the balcony of the main building, admiring the view of the lake (usually used for rowing races) and wondering how far the swim actually is.  When G comes out of his race briefing I ask him.

We leave the Water Sports Centre and drive into Nottingham to check in at our hotel and get everything ready for a very early start the next day.

Everything he needs for race day, laid out on the hotel floor the night before

Race day

We set our alarms for 3:30 am.  G gets up and makes himself breakfast: muesli, wholemeal bagels with peanut butter, and fruit smoothies.  I make a pot of coffee and put it in a flask for later.  At 4:15 we leave the hotel and set off for the Water Sports Centre.  We are there in plenty of time, and G goes to the bike racks to check that everything he needs is in the right places at Transition, and to pump up the tyres on his bike.

The sky was dark and the moon still up when we got to the Water Sports Centre at 4:45am

We go into the main building and while I sip my flask of coffee he inches his way into his wetsuit.  Swimming wetsuits are made quite differently to surfing or diving wetsuits.  They are eye-wateringly tight, and take a good ten minutes to put on.  I watch everyone else wriggling into theirs, and rubbing vaseline around their wrists and ankles to stop any chafing.  Seeing hundreds of men peel themselves into skin-tight wetsuits is a bit much at this time in the morning, actually.  I sip some more coffee and avert my gaze.  Wives are applying suncream to husbands' ears and necks, and I put some on G too.

We head down to the lake and I say goodbye to G before he heads into the competitors' area and lines up at the edge of the lake.  I am suddenly utterly overwhelmed by the enormity of what he has to do, and burst into tears, but he is grinning his very widest grin and looks ready to take on the world.

And he's gone. Spectators outside the competitors' area at 5:40am, just after I said goodbye to G

The start of the race

The race is a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2 mile (marathon distance) run.  He is hoping to do the whole race in twelve and a half hours.

I next see him early in the afternoon, about a quarter of the way into his run.  I stand on the grassy bank with loads of other supporters and shriek madly when I see him running towards me.  He is pleased to see me, is still beaming, and high fives me as he runs past.  The next time I see him, about an hour and twenty minutes later he is still looking good, although the grin has faded a little.  He has one more lap to go.  I move closer to the finish line and start to get very excited and nervous.  He is nearly home, and it looks like he is going to be much faster than he expected.

I finally see him coming into the home straight at 12 hours and 3 minutes - a full half hour faster than he expected.  The grin is back and I shriek with excitement again and shout to the world how wonderful he is.

He did it!

I push my way through the crowds and press myself against the railings separating the spectators from the finished competitors.  We have lots of sweaty kisses and he disappears into a marquee to collect his medal and eat some pasta.

Later still, he retrieves his bike, wetsuit and other kit and comes through to the spectators side wearing his new t-shirt, his medal...and that big grin!

His brother and sister were also there to support him and we all tell him how amazing he is and how very, very proud of him we are.  Tears are shed (mostly by me) and dozens of photos are taken.  It has been an amazing weekend, which we will all remember for the rest of our lives.

G, with his incredibly proud brother and sister

~~~~~~~~~~

The race, though, is just one day. 

The training for this race has been a full year of complete dedication and focus on G's part (on top of seven previous years of competing in the usual shorter-distance triathlons), as well as sacrifice, compromise, thoughtfulness and determination.  It is for these qualities that he gets my admiration and pride.  He has truly been an inspiration to me.  Nothing with value comes without hard work, and the race day is a celebration and illustration of all that hard work.

Our summer adventure in numbers

C tries his first snails: "I can see why the hens love them so much!"

• number of times son ate snails: 1
• number of snails eaten: 6
• his rating out of ten: 10
• total miles driven: 2,448
• days in France: 21
• days in Switzerland: 8
• number of strokes daughter could swim when she arrived in France: 0
• number of continuous lengths she could swim when she left France: 26
• number of long walks done: 5
• longest distance walked: 12km
• highest altitude walked: 2,021m
• number of mornings I had a croissant for breakfast: 20
• number of calories that adds up to: we won't dwell on that
• photographs taken in France & Switzerland: 1,471
• photographs uploaded to Flickr: 395
• castles visited: 3
• castle towers walked up by me: 0
• glasses of wine drunk at the village fete: approx 3
• glasses of muscat drunk at the village fete: not quite sure; perhaps 3
• jars of plums bottled: 9
• jars of fresh tomato and basil sauce bottled: 7
• words of German that I understood on arrival in Switzerland: 3 - "Ein Bier, bitte"
• words of German that I understood when I left: approx 23
• number of times I actually said "Ein Bier, bitte": 0
• number of times I used the car once I arrived in Switzerland: 0
• number of funicular journeys: 2
• number of train journeys: 6
• number of bus trips: 4
• number of tunnels I drove through: at least 65
• number of precipitous viaducts I drove across: more than 100
• longest tunnel I drove through: 6.872km
• highest altitude driven at: 2,210m
• number of rostis eaten: 3
• number of calories that adds up to: probably more than the croissants
• number of borders crossed: 4
• number of times our passports were checked: 1
• amount in Swiss Francs it costs for a permit to drive on the motorway: 40
• number of Logis hotels stayed at: 2
• number of times I wished I'd had a satnav: 0
• number of times I felt smug about travelling across Europe with just maps: 74
• number of cowbells purchased by son: 2
• euros I had left once I'd paid the last motorway toll at Calais: €0.21
• books I took with me: 14
• books read: 11 (bit too close for comfort)
• hours it took us to locate our hotel in Nancy: 2
• number of knitting shops visited: 2
• number of sewing shops visited: 2
• number of vide-greniers visited: 1
• number of local markets visited: 5
• number of visits to the extraordinary chocolate shop in Interlaken: 5
• number of bears carved out of wood that daughter took photos of: 17
• number of times I cooed over the view: at least 350
• lazy home-based days we've had since we got back to London: 7
• number of weeks left before school resumes: 1

Searing temperatures in Place Stanislas in Nancy

Happiness is a glass of chilled pink and a good book

The fairytale Schloss Oberhofen on Lake Thun

O at a funicular station above Interlaken

C heading down a mountain

C and O, with the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains in the background

France and What would Michael do?

Well, I have loved this voting lark!

As I suspected everyone voted for different things - the travellers wanted to hear about France, the chefs wanted to hear about the cake book, the people related to Michaels want to find out about the Michael story, and the crafty types want to hear about sewing.

But I think the greedy readers who want to hear about everything shall be declared the winners! France and Michael first, then sewing and cakes.

~~~~~~~~~~

We went to Paris for a week and then on to South-West France, where my parents live, for a second week.

I was good at French when I was a teenager and I visited Paris a great deal on exchanges and school trips. In my twenties I worked there for a little bit too, and when G and I were newly going out together he used to catch the Eurostar on a Friday night and come and stay with me for the weekend. Pure romance. We love Paris. If I didn't live in London I would live in Paris.


The children had never been there before and had come up with a good list of everything they wanted to do:

• see the Eiffel Tower
• go on the Metro
• visit the Louvre and find the Mona Lisa
• eat lots of pains au chocolats and drink Orangina
• go to Disneyland

G and I had lists of our own, which looked a bit like this:

• walk up to Sacre Coeur and drink in the view
• sit in a cafe and people watch
• go to Parc de la Villette and the Cite des Sciences
• stroll through parks
• eat amazing food and drink fabulous wine
• go to the Musee d'Orsay and look at everything
• buy French stationery
• prowl around bookshops and look intellectual

G, outside a cafe, practising his French shrugs.

We were there for six days and we managed to do everything on everybody's list, plus several other impromptu things. Disneyland was horrible but everything else was magical.

By the time we got on the train to head south we were shattered!

C on our last day in Paris, waiting for a metro. Just look at those bags under his eyes!

Our second week, in the South West, was a complete contrast. We did almost nothing. I don't think I've ever had such an idle holiday. The peak daytime temperatures didn't drop below 35 degrees the whole time we were there, but despite my hatred of hot weather I had a fantastic time.

In the cool of the early mornings and late evenings I sat outside knitting, or reading, or chatting with my parents. In the middle of the day we played our favourite board game in the cool thick-walled house, and read, knitted or chatted. In the late afternoon everyone went for a long swim in the pool and I sat on the edge, knitting, reading and chatting (I hate swimming). Occasionally we ventured out to the croissant shop or a market or a restaurant, but not in a terribly energetic way.

During our week of extreme idleness G and I had plenty of time to admire my father, Michael's, approach to house and garden maintenance. In a very old, rambling, rural house with a large, lush garden there is a never-ending stream of tasks to be done.

• cutting the grass
• keeping the fridge stocked with wine
• putting new tea lights in the lanterns each day
• testing the pH of the swimming pool
• fixing a new hosepipe with connectors
• treating the centuries-old beams for munching beatles
• bringing in the chair cushions every single evening without fail
• mopping up spills and croissant crumbs so that the ants don't take up residence

Happily my father is not a martyr to these many jobs. He is great company and likes nothing better than to drink a glass or two of wine and chat with family and friends long into the evening. But nevertheless, everything that needs to be done to keep the house a delightful place to live, gets done.

A baby lizard rescued from the perfectly pH balanced swimming pool.

The best illustration is the old wooden, homemade stool that Dad picked up for €2 at a second hand fair. G or I might have bought the stool and then would have taken it home and put it into use straightaway in the front room or a bedroom, marvelling at the bargain. But Dad bought the stool and when he got it home took the time to treat it with two different types of wood preserver and was so that it shone like a new conker and would not stain. There is a thoroughness in the pottering sort of tasks he does which makes their house such a wonderful place to live.

So G and I came home with a new phrase which we have been asking each other ever since. "What would Michael do?"

Well, he wouldn't leave half-unpacked bags lying around our bedroom for days. Nor would he leave the kitchen floor unwashed or six-month old cobwebs up at the top of the windows. He would sweep up the mess in the yard left by the nesting birds and he would wind a little bit more of the flourishing clematis around the trellis every single day. All those little things have been uncharacteristically done on time this week after one of us muttered "what would Michael do?".

Mind you, we still haven't fixed the door knobs that have been broken since before O was born (yes, really; seven years). This meticulous attention to detail does not seem to come naturally to us. But we are trying.
.

And I'm sure that my father is delighted that after thirty-seven years I have finally understood that a little bit of care and attention to the more mundane of life's tasks is well worth it. He's probably been trying to tell me this piece of wisdom for years, but you know what children are like. They never listen.

Dad sawing a branch for C to make a wasp trap

Our obsessions

All four of us at the moment have some serious obsessions going on.

• G - the usual swimming. He was up at 6am this morning in great excitement as he had a swimming lesson at Swim For Tri's endless pool in the old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. He came home this evening with a DVD of his lesson for the rest of us to admire.
• C - the Jiggy McCue books by Michael Lawrence. He was first lured into them by the most excellent title of the first book The Killer Underpants. We've bought C several books in the series now, and as soon as he gets his hands on the next one, he is immersed - barely surfacing to eat. There was much joy today when we found the last 3 he hadn't read, all in the library - that has just saved G & I about £20 at Amazon. He'd read one by bed time.
• O - hama beads and more hama beads. I ordered some more from Bead Merrily this week as our stocks are already running low. She has switched production to decorations for the Christmas tree after a stray comment of mine. The tree will be entirely dressed in hama beads at this rate.

My current obsessions, as ever, are multiple.

• aprons - I have recently made two for me, and last night made a small scale one for O from some very cute fabric that came all the way from Japan. O was charmed and looked so very, very sweet pottering around all day in her apron, that I fear I am just a small step away from making Mother and daughter matching ones.

• nutmeg - I'll put it in anything I can, and am now even basing family meals around recipes that contain nutmeg. The smell is so heady and exhilarating, and I just love the little brown, brain-like appearance of the nutmeg once it has been grated a little.

• posh chocolate and sewing books - really, what's not to like?

Swimming kit

I have mentioned before that I am not a great swimmer, or even an enthusiastic one. I do, however, live with three very keen swimmers. G took O and her friend swimming this morning, and it struck me as they were getting their things ready, that there was an incredible amount of swimming stuff that they were packing to take with them. I then thought I should probably refer to it as 'kit' not 'stuff'.

While they were out I had a rummage and the extent of the 'kit' I found was astonishing. Here is a list of what G and the children have:

• a wetronome - a strange little device that the swimmer fixes to the strap of their goggles, and which then beeps in their ear at regular intervals to tell the swimmer how regular their stroke should be.
• goggles - I found seven pairs, and suspect there are more around somewhere. When I learnt to swim, goggles weren't even mandatory.
• fins - we have four pairs and G is considering buying more.
• hand mits or paddles - again something that G feels he needs more of
• pull bouy - to stick between your knees in order to practise arm technique
• goggle counter - another device to fix onto your goggles which keeps count of how many lengths you have swum
• wetsuit - for open water swimming in lakes or the sea
• wetsuit bonnet - for when its so cold that your head would get dangerously cold, but not so cold that you sensibly stay at home.
• wetsuit socks - ditto for your feet.
• pool shoes
• stopwatch - to time your lengths or long distances
• wall chart - to be stuck to the fridge to monitor your best times
• water bottle - these breed in our house. We must have nearly a dozen by now. Why do you need to take extra water swimming??
  

And of course, this list doesn't even mention trunks (or swimming knickers as my father-in-law calls them to much hilarity). I found four pairs of G's, and he said there were at least two more pairs that I hadn't managed to track down.

And in case, by any chance you are thinking "sheesh - they really must have all the swimming kit it is possible for one family to own"...take a look here.