walkies, birds and trees

Nine mile (15km) walk yesterday, around yet another stretch of foreshore.

Three birds that live in different ways. A magnificent black thing with a flesh-tearing beak.

A long-beaked urban scavenger, probably originally designed for wading through molluscs and eating  them.

And the one that looks like a burnt-out Concorde is, I believe, a new caledonian shag.

Good skies. Splendid dead tree.

Weird tall solitary tree.

The cellmate standing beside a life-form akin to the lesser young Albert, originally spotted in 1970.

outdoors

Last week I chopped up one of the two falling-over trees. Not ideally how I want to spend my time, but neither do I want to be surrounded by jungle. And the tradesman option would be almost as much work, except that you also get to pay. I used a chainsaw-on-a-pole, a great contraption.

The sawing was the fun part. The bundling up was a pain.

The weekend walk was a 5-hour affair, on level ground and in bright sunshine for a change.

knackered

Walked for 4 hours up the river in hot sunshine. Decided to get the ferry back. Luckily the bliss partner pointed out that it was an express service and we needed to change ferries half way. Otherwise I would probably have stayed aboard and ended up on the other end of town.

Whenever my bliss partner and I go to Europe, we take different routes, on different days, and different airlines. So we're not exactly a typical couple who fuss over each other and do everything in step.

Anyway, when I got off the first ferry, I realized the partner hadn't remembered to get off. Last I saw of her, she was deep in conversation with the lady sitting next to her.

So I drove home without her. She eventually got a bus home and went straight to sleep, while I climbed trees in the garden - I don't want to piss myself off by telling you why, but all I'll say is that the garden cancer monster vine that I spent a week slaying in January, has metastasized at the other end of the garden. I googled it, and found out that they can grow a metre a day! So today I was up a ladder scraping the trunks and poisoning them with glyphosate. Its next move will be to drop all its cluster bombs, but by then I aim to have put up nets to catch them.

After mowing the lawn I cooked dinner in the pressure cooker. An organic chicken, with olives, prunes and root vegetables, herbs and garlic in a wine sauce. Big success!

Anyway, I've been on the go all day, and it feels great to be knackered. Tomorrow we've to go and see New South Caledonia's answer to Benny Hill. It's strange being with someone who was famous last century, when you've never actually seen his TV shows but people keep asking for his autograph, and other celebs and politicians stop him for a chat. For a change he hasn't invited the deifheids, so I'm going to go along. He's a very nice guy and a great host, in the conventional sense. Keeps your plate and glass filled, while regaling you with show biz gossip. Whereas I'm the sort of host who makes sure you have absolutely everything you need, then says "right, I'm off, enjoy yourselves!"

yochi taiga

People are either in the yoga or tai chi camp, but not both.

In Embra I taught myself yoga but I neither understood nor enjoyed it. But I was sure it was better than tai chi, which was for fairies and space cadets.

In Glasgow I became a tai chi fan, and looked down my nose at self punishing yoga types.

On moving to NSC I drifted out of tai chi and back into yoga classes, and stayed there happily for years.

Last night I thought I'd see how much I could remember of the tai chi form. I got stuck at several points, and had to use a book to remind me, but I finished it over about an hour. I thought today my legs might be knackered, but in fact there's a spring in my step. It's very strengthening. I followed that up with some yoga this morning. Maybe they can co-exist after all in the same person. Maybe they can balance each other up.

last day of freedom

Friday. Angelo Dundee just died. I'm the lucky one because I'm alive! Blessing-counting time.

Today is the last day I can "work from home". As soon as you wake up, you remember that bowl of DIY muesli soaking overnight in the fridge, and you jump out of bed. I followed up with one of the few precious jocko tea bags, then did 2000 steps on the stair master.

Now I was warmed up, I moved to the gym machine, and excelled myself without injury. The first picture shows today's peak settings for the triceps pull down. The machine's original weights are the black ones selected with a pin. Because the steps between them are too gross, I added a home made board on the top, for smaller weights so I can fine-tune.

Today's triceps exercise showed a huge improvement, partly through use of some mental imagery which doesn't belong on a family blog.

Next, the hamstrings. I use much lighter settings for them. You'd think it would be the other way round, because hamstring muscles are much larger than triceps. But it's also to do with the gearing of different pulleys.

Next, I'm doing Quads, and a careful bench press taking care not to reactivate an old elbow injury. Starting settings:

At the end of last year I lost my list of New Year resolutions. One of them was to use the gym twice a week, instead of once in a while. If I follow up, then according to my theory, I'll end up wanting to push people over (triceps), give them a kicking (quads), and run away (hamstrings).

There's still half the day left, and then it's the weekend!

volcanoes, mushrooms, planks

Near the end of the NZ time, I had a great day out with some outlaws and their in-laws, all good people and hardly deifheids at all. What fun! All my training in misanthropology went out the window.

We walked up a couple of extinct volcanoes, and came to this. What is it? If you need a clue, Vinnie's Moll's guess was ingenious but wrong: "some kind of antipodean putting green, where you have to hit the ball up onto a mushroom instead of down into a hole".

Rory planking on a "mushroom".

Rory's fit auntie planking.

Rory planking on a cannon.

Rory planking over a drop.

Rory planking on his dad.

Albert using his dome as a beacon, to guide helicopters to the landing pad.

more NZ attractions

Staying at the mother outlaw's place, it was cold to start with, but I found some warm clothes in a wardrobe. The cellmate wasn't pleased with me wearing her mother's gear. Not because of the cross dressing aspect (she's used to that), but because of the disrespect to someone who's not dead yet. Fair enough. Tact doesn't run in my family.

Yesterday 5 of us went out to the coast for a walk. I tried out the excellent free Photosynth app by Microsoft, for pasting together panoramas from several pictures. You can get multiple fingers into one shot.






Last night at the brother outlaw's place I tried another new beer. I wonder how it got its name. It was stronger than Albert's home brew, and more bitter.






If the excitement ever flags, we'll have to use this coupon:

long march

Saturday. Today we did our longest walk ever, 20km through forest and scrub, and along beaches, all in semi-tropical conditions. I couldn't have done it without the Chinese marching weed, green tea. I had a big flask of it with me, and when that ran out we used cafes.

At the place where we had lunch, the builders were doing alterations with drills and a power saw. They're great planners, the New South Caledonians, always managing to cause maximum inconvenience and reminding the paying customers that they're not a priority.

Conversation was impossible, the cellmate was getting a sore heid, and my tinnitus was going off the scale. But we'd ordered lunch and we were too starving to start looking for somewhere else to eat. Rather than accept things as they were, I nipped out to a chemist and came back with paracetamol and orange foam earplugs. Perfect peace.

Now, the cellmate is quite a bit younger than me, and in some ways fitter. But I'm pleased to tell you that by the end of the day, after 5 hours of walking, wading and scrambling she was stumbling and semi-incoherent, while I was ready to do the whole thing over again. When we got home, she went directly to bed, while I did my yoga routine, to ward off cramps and stiffness. The Thai fish curry I made was a big success, and now I'm in bed with the fan on, too hyped to sleep.

Some of the beaches we passed were chockers with power-boat folk, drinking and lying around on deck. I took some pictures to show you how clear the water was (don't let the boat people distract you).




Just to be clear - this is the part of the photo that you shouldn't let distract you:





These people were in serious discussion. There was a person in the water behind the boat - all you can see is a hand, holding a cigarette up to keep it dry, a conscientious smoker.

another walk

Did a three hour walk on Saturday, all the way round a lake. Even though there were only few points where the lake was visible from the track, what I enjoyed was the variation of scenery along the way. You know (or maybe East coasters don't) how they say Arran is all Scotland in miniature? Well this was almost every kind of New South Caledonian terrain compressed into 9 kilometers. By the time I realized I could take photographs as proof, the walk was nearly over.






Unlike most national parkland here, where dogs are banned because they eat the indigenous wildlife, this one allowed dogs. The bloghound would have loved it.

first yoga report

Yoga report

• Yesterday I did just the poses I usually do, which isn't many. The military ones - Warriors and Salutes.
• Today I used a yoga for dummies kind of book, to jog my memory about other poses I had learnt years ago and forgotten. I followed two of their routines, and I'm well warmed up (knackered) now. I especially enjoyed the table top, with the variation where you reach back and grab the free foot with the free hand.

Tai Chi report

• None yet. One thing at a time.