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Learning to Swim at Seventy

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First steps (or strokes)

I’m not actually seventy just yet. “Learning to Swim at Seventy” has more of a ring to it than “Learning to Swim at Sixty-nine and three-quarters”. I am learning to swim though.

A lot of people are surprised that I can’t swim. I did spend about twenty years at sea and most people assume that seamen should be capable of swimming. I used to rationalise my inability to swim by saying that being capable of swimming would prolong the agony. Why swim around for an hour and then drown anyway. Just get it over with. Besides, we had life jackets.

I began to feel I was missing out. Last summer we had a holiday in Croatia. We cruised around the islands on a small (thirty-five passenger) ship. Every day we would anchor in a bay, to allow us to go swimming. Diane loved it. I only watched and felt I was missing something.

As part of my Christmas present Diane paid for a series of swimming lessons at our local leisure centre.

I started the week before Christmas. Our instructor, Sue, asked me a few questions. Was I afraid of the water? – no not really. Could I swim at all? – again, no not really. With that, she gave me a float and told me to get in the teaching pool. The teaching pool at The Malden Centre is great in one respect. It is a maximum of one meter deep. This greatly reduces the possibility of drowning.

The first exercise was learning to kick holding on to the float. Kicking was easy. Kicking, moving and breathing, all at the same time, less so.

Over time, I started to improve. The first thing I had to learn to do was how to stand up. Initially I had a great deal of difficulty in putting my legs down when I wanted to stop. When I wanted to swim, they would sink. When I wanted to stand up, they would float. I also needed to learn to breathe air rather than water.

I find it easier to swim on my back. Breathing is easier this way. But, I veer off to one side.

The main disadvantage of the teaching pool is that it’s depth reduces to less than half a meter. This means that, especially when swimming breast stroke, your feet end up hitting the bottom.

Nevertheless I am improving.

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A Wasted Day

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Day 28 Nov 23 2024

We had been having a problem with the van. Water kept appearing on the floor. It wasn’t obvious where it was coming from. I called the Maui campers helpline and they suggested taking it to their Queenstown branch. As Queenstown was on the way to our destination Te Anau, we said that we would.

Lake Wānaka

We spent the night at a campsite in Wānaka. After having had breakfast and a look at the lake, we set off for Queenstown. We would have liked to take the Crown Range Road via Cardrona. But, Maui stated that we would not be insured on that road. So we went the long way round.

While the lowland route was not without its charms, it was not as attractive as the Crown Range.

We arrived in Queenstown round about lunchtime. Everyone there was very pleasant and helpful. So we left the van with them while we headed off and found lunch. After we came back they said that they had found a problem with the water pump. We assumed that they had fixed it. Said thank you and went on our way to Te Anau. We didn’t test it.

The route we took down the side of Lake Wakatipu was really attractive. At the southern end of the lake we found a small town called Kingston. Because we live in Kingston-upon-Thames, we felt we had to visit Kingston-upon-Lake Wakatipu.

We found an attractive village, a cafe and a stream train.

The train is called “The Kingston Flyer “. It runs every Sunday during the season from Kingston to Fairlight and back again.

Afterwards we headed to Te Anau.

We arrived at the Te Anau Top Ten Holiday Park. We parked up and connected the electricity. Then, we switched on the water pump……

They had managed to make the leak worse.

It probably wasn’t a completely wasted day. We got to Te Anau. We booked a trip to Milford Sound for the next day while we waited for the van to be “fixed”. I also bought myself a bottle of New Zealand whisky.

Australia New Zealand, Travel, Uncategorized

A Weekend in Margaret River: Weddings and Local Delights

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Margaret River – weddings and the recovery.

We arrived at Margaret River on the evening of the 31st. We dropped our bags at the apartment (Margaret’s in Town). After doing some basic shopping, we went off to say hello to the family. They were already out here. It was only supposed to be a brief hello, but we ended up staying a couple of hours.  We got back to the apartment and went straight to bed.

Day 6, 1/11 – Exploring

Today, we went exploring the region around Margaret River. Diane had read about the stingrays that live in Hamelin Bay. She also watched videos of them. So, we set off to find them.  We had a paddle in the bay, looked very closely for stingrays, but alas, did not see a single ray. The best we managed was a poster by the jetty, where they are supposed to congregate.

The nearest we got to stingrays.

We did see a couple of whales, probably humpbacks, breaching off beyond the reef. Though Diane does not consider that to be “seeing a whale”.

Lunch time beckoned. We had been told that the White Elephant  Café, at Gnarabup beach, was very good, so we headed there. Something we are finding out about West Australia is that everything happens earlier than we expect it to. The White Elephant opens for breakfast at 7:00 a.m., much earlier than I would expect a beach café in the UK to do and closes at 3:00 p.m. We nearly missed lunch.

I did some more paddling while Diane went snorkelling, completely ignoring the signs. Her ability to avoid wildlife continues, fortunately.

Didn’t find a shark, saw some fish.

Later on, we discovered the delights of Royal Haze, a local beer.

Day 7 – The Wedding

The reason for our trip finally arrived. Rob and Georgia’s wedding.

I spent the morning trying to remove the creases from my suit and shirt. Then, I walked up the street to find something for lunch. We settled on pies from a local bakery. Then, we wandered back to the apartment to get ready.

Scrubbed up OK

The wedding was held at 4:30 p.m. at a resort outside Margaret River called Tana Marah. Rob and Georgia arranged a bus to get everyone there.

While waiting for the bus, we met this guy.

Our grandson was quite impressed when we sent him the photo.

The wedding took place in a eucalyptus grove. Quite a romantic setting.  The flowers looked great. They were all native Australian flowers.

Green frog, found by Diane

The reception went well. Rob had sourced various beers from local breweries, Georgia’s stepfather, who works in the wine industry, sourced the wine. Both did a good job. The venue did excellent food, and the D.Js played good music. What more could we want.

Bride and groom showing us how to do it.
Diane getting down to it.

The bus came back to collect us about midnight. A good time was had by all.

Day 8 Recovering

A recovery session was organised for today. At a place called the Beerfarm. It was quite a way out of town. We couldn’t find the WA equivalent of a 131 bus, so we got a taxi.

An old shearing shed has been repurposed as a brewery and bar/ restaurant. The beer was good, as was the food. I would definitely recommend the place if you are in the Margaret River region.

Another beer tasting paddle.
All their beers. some weren’t currently available
A better use for a shearing shed?

After lunch, we decided to head back to Margaret River.  The taxi back proved useful for Diane’s search for wildlife. 

Being in Australia, one of the things that was on our “must do” list was see a kangaroo. We asked the taxi driver if he knew where we might find some. He basically said they’re everywhere, but if we went down a specific road, we would almost definitely find some. Did we find them? Follow the next exciting episode…..

After all of yesterday’s excitement, we were tired, so we just came back to the apartment and chilled.

Australia New Zealand, Uncategorized

Whale Watching in Fremantle: A Missed Adventure

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Day 3… 29/10/24

Fremantle…..or will Diane ever see a whale.

We didn’t have a plan when we woke up this morning. Probably because we weren’t sure how we would be feeling. 

We are here for a wedding, as you may remember. The groom’s brother posted something on WhatsApp. He mentioned having gone whale watching off Fremantle and said he had seen Humpback Whales. One of Diane’s ambitions is to see a whale. When she read that our day was decided. A whale watching trip was booked.

The boat left from Fremantle at One o’clock. Perth Railway station is about a five minute walk from the hotel. We decided to take the train. It takes about 30 minutes. The trains are basic but comfortable and air conditioned. As you arrive into Fremantle there is a good view of the container port.

I don’t suppose that anyone other than me would be that interested. Way back in the day, I was a Merchant Seaman. Fremantle was one of the ports I visited quite often. It doesn’t look as if it has changed too much since then. The ships are bigger, and there are more cranes. But, it is still recognizable as the port I used to visit.

Maersk Forteleza

That wasn’t why we were here. Neither was buying clothes in charity shops. We were walking down Market Street looking for somewhere to have a coffee. We passed an Australian Red Cross charity shop. Diane disappeared. I knew exactly where she had gone. After a quarter of an hour, she reappeared with a blouse and a grin on her face.

We also had a trip into a shop selling opals. The ladies who ran the shop told us a lot about their product. All very interesting, but I don’t think anything caught Diane’s eye. We did buy something for ‘Tilda. I hope she will like it. It has an opal chip rather than a proper opal. Hence, it was a lot cheaper.

Then disaster struck. While we were having coffee, Diane took out her phone. She wanted to find out where to go to catch the whale-watching boat. On it was an email telling us that the trip had been canceled. Will Diane ever get to see a whale?? 

We decided to explore Fremantle instead. 

When I said that Fremantle hadn’t changed very much, I forgot something significant. The event happened in 1987, or more exactly in 1983, when Australia 2 beat the American yacht. It became the first yacht, other than the United States’, to win America’s Cup. This meant that Australia’s defense of America’s Cup would take place in West Australia. To be more exact, it happened in Fremantle. Overnight, Fremantle transformed from a pretty sleepy commercial/fishing port. It became the trendiest spot of waterfront property in the entire world. The yachting community descended on Fremantle to watch and take part in America’s Cup.

The area along the river front, which had been quite run down, was transformed into high end apartments. It now features expensive restaurants and high end coffee shops. That has quietened down but the effects can still be seen and felt.

One of the by-products of this activity is the Little Creatures brewery. As it was about lunch time we decided to visit. Tasting paddles seemed to be the way to go. I chose the ten sample paddle. That is about eight or nine more beers compared to what was available in Fremantle the last time I was here. It seemed to be an improvement.

One of them was Swan Draught. It was about the only beer that could be bought in WA 40 or 50 years ago.

The ship used to buy it canned for the trip home. It was known as a hangover in every can. It wasn’t too bad. Most of them were quite drinkable, the Freo Lager and the Pacific Ale were very good. As was the pizza we had to eat.

Diane was more conservative. She had the four beer paddle sampler.

Having had lunch, we continued our wander around Fremantle, or Freo, to its friends.

It still has quite few traditional Australian pub/hotel buildings with balconies all the way round.

This is actually Fremantle Market

We bumped into the West Australian Premier, but he didn’t seem to want to talk us, so we ignored him. We couldn’t go whale-watching. There wasn’t much else to do in Freo. We got the train back to Perth.

2021-22 Awaydays, Football, Sport, Uncategorized

(Volunteers’) Away Day 2022

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I haven’t posted anything for about a year and a half. It is possibly the time to rectify that.

Our trip to Crewe Alexandria on Good Friday (15/04/2022) was designated the Volunteers’ Awayday for this season.

I have been volunteering on and off at the club for a few years now. I hadn’t actually intended volunteering this season. However, we had a major problem with our ticketing arrangements at the start of the season. One of the consequences was that the season tickets were not sent out on time. Season ticket holders were asked to pick them up in person from the stadium. Not having anything better to do on that particular day, also because I hadn’t actually been to our new stadium I decided to wander along.

I collected my ticket and had a look round the club shop (I ended up spending about £100). It may have been a ploy by the club to get us all into the shop. As I was leaving I bumped into an old friend, who I used to volunteer with back at Kingsmeadow and who I hadn’t seen since COVID-19 curtailed the 2019-20 season. We said hello, and got chatting. Then he said “Are you doing anything for the next couple of hours? Could you give us a hand with some advertising hoardings?”. I wasn’t, so I said yes, and ended up as part of the work party volunteers team.

My reward was a trip to Crewe, with lunch and a match ticket thrown in.

The trip up to Crewe was fine, the lunch was fine, things started to go wrong, as so often this season when the football started.

Actually the first half went quite well. Our on loan striker, previously known as a waste of space, scored a decent goal on about the twenty minute mark. We went in at half time, one nil up and on top without ever looking dominant.

It started to go wrong fifteen minutes into the second half. Our striker who we were thinking might just be OK, made a suicidal back pass to our ‘keeper. It was intercepted by their centre forward and we were back on level terms again. Every one was silenced, even the Crewe fans, a collective “WTF”. The heads dropped, two minutes later we were two one down.

That was probably the moment we were relegated, at least in my mind. We tried to get it back, but the belief had gone. Deep into added time, while pressing ineffectively for on equaliser, we gave the ball away and they scored a third. And that was it.

The full horror show highlights? Are shown above.

It was a long depressing trip back to SW19, only brightened by the landlord of the Alex inviting us volunteers back for a pint.

Travel, Uncategorized

LOCKDOWN?? UK DAY118

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Day118 Sunday 19/07/2020

More lockdown easing. Today we went to Painshill Park. A c18th landscape garden set between the A3 and the M25. Neither of which existed at the time of it’s creation. Actually the A3 probably did, but it would have run through the centre of Cobham rather than bypassing it. And it would have be known as the Portsmouth Road. Considering that I have lived in this area for 35 years this was the first time I had visited. Surprisingly t was also the first time that Diane had visited as well, and she has lived (almost) all her life in the area.

The park was laid out by an Anglo-Irishman the Hon. Charles Hamilton. He started in about 1738 and ran out of money 1773 and was forced to sell. In the meantime, inspired by two Grand Tours and his art collection he laid out a spectacular landscape garden populated by follies.

For a more information there is a Wikipedia entry and the Official Website. Click the links to find out more.

I was highly impressed by it. Entry at £9.00 for adults isn’t particularly expensive.

Probably the best way to give a flavour of the place is to post some of the pictures I took.

I can’t really comment on their catering as the facilities were only partially open, but I had a good mascarpone ice cream before we started our walk and we finished off with a cup of tea and a scone under the trees.

Covid-19, Football, Uncategorized

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYs 89 – 97

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Days 89-96 are a bit of a blur.

Day 97 Sunday June 28th

There hasn’t been much activity on the blog recently mainly thanks to these two …

Finn on the left and Sol on the right.

Diane’s daughter Aimee gave birth to them in the early hours of Sunday the 21st. Diane and I got to see them for the first time yesterday. Because of Covid -19 restrictions we couldn’t visit them in hospital, so we had to wait until they came home. The babies seem fine, but Aimee and Andrew are knackered. ‘Tilda, their proud big sister is happy, although she was initially a bit disappointed because she was expecting a little sister as well as a little brother. After she met them she was fine.

Nanny, Mum, Finn (and Me), not sure why Sol missed out on getting his picture taken.

By the way Finn is called Finn because he is the twin that Aimee “knew” was a boy, and they already had chosen that name. Sol is the twin that “should have” been the girl, so he didn’t have a name when he was born. He spent a few days known as Twin One (he was the first to be born), before being named Sol, because he was born on the Solstice.

Other (non-baby) stuff

What else has been happening? To all intents and purposes lockdown might as well be over. As far as I can gather new cases of Covid-19 are nowhere near zero, in fact in England they may well be rising again, but the clown(s) in charge of our country are acting as if the disease has been eliminated. Communication has been confused to say the least. Pubs and restaurants are re-opening next Saturday (4th July) which BoZo will almost certainly try to dub as Independence Day.

Over the past week we had about half a million people on the beach at Bournemouth. This caused the Police to declare a major incident. BoZo told us to use our common sense. They (and the Liverpool fans celebrating winning the Premiership) all took their lead from the common sense that Dominic Cummings displayed back in April. How the authorities plan to enforce the distancing requirements on pubs I have no idea, and I suspect that they don’t either.

BoZo was last seen doing press-ups to show that he was physically, if not necessarily mentally fit to lead the country

Liverpool became Premier League champions on Thursday, without actually having to kick a ball. Manchester City lost to Chelsea to leave Liverpool with an unassailable lead. I haven’t watched much of the football since it restarted. Partly because I’m not that fond of watching football on television, partly because I’m not that interested in The Premier League and also because the artificial crowd noise is just that, artificial. It is just random noise. Yes they ramp it up if there is a goal, but you don’t get the round of applause for a bit of good defending, or the collective gasp when a shot goes just wide.

Two wonderful new baby boys make all of this seem better. I know that Aimee and Andrew are going to have their work cut out looking after them and Matilda, we will do what we can to help.

Covid-19, Uncategorized

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYS 83-87

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Day 83 Sunday 14th June

Grow bags are the new toilet paper.

We have some tomato plants that need potting on. Over the years, I developed a very good system for growing tomato plants. However, it does require grow bags to make it work. The pots cut into the grow bags and the wire cane holders support the canes, Everything fits into a plastic tray to keep things neat and hold water.

The system in use, two years ago.

Yesterday we tried B&Q, there were none available. Today, we went to Woodcote Green, again none in stock. “ Sorry sir, we might have a delivery Tuesday next week.” Amazon doesn’t have any available.

My conclusion; the part of the population that hasn’t taken up baking has started growing their own tomatoes instead.

Having failed to find any grow bags, we bought some plants instead. Then we took our sandwiches up to Farthing Downs.

After we had eaten our sandwiches, I did something I hadn’t done for a long time. I lay on my back in the long grass and watched the clouds drifting across the sky. It was slightly hypnotic and very relaxing.

We were very organized before we went out. There was a lasagne already assembled, all I had to do was stick it in the oven and have a gin while it cooked.

Day 84 Monday 15th June

I re-potted the tomato plants into larger pots and did the same for the peppers. Meanwhile, Diane was playing with the new pond cleaning kit she bought yesterday. It has two nets, a brush, and an extending handle. Our pond has never been cleaner.

Lockdown Haircut V3.0

Day 85 Tuesday 16th June

With the lockdown conditions over whom you can meet and where you can meet easing, Diane took a trip to deepest darkest Hampshire to see how Aimee, Thing 1 and Thing 2 (she is expecting twins very soon) were getting on. The idea was also to give Aimee a short break from ‘Tilda, who can be an over energetic three year old. I went to work.

Work was work, albeit a reasonably productive day. Aimee, ‘Tilda and the twins are all doing fine.

Day 86 Wednesday 17th June

Another day at work. I also went back to my house to check that it was still there and to cut the grass.

We visited the allotment for the first time in a few days. We have not needed to go up quite as often recently, because we have had a reasonable amount of rain in the past week or ten days, so we haven’t needed to water every day. Our raspberries were beginning to ripen the last time we were up. We were hoping that a few more would be ready to pick. We picked two ice cream tubs full — and one strawberry. Our strawberries have not been particularly successful, so far.

Day 87 Thursday 18th June

Breakfast was home-made granola (recipe here) and allotment raspberries, delicious.

I thought about going to the local McDonald’s drive through (as it is McDonald’s should that be spelt thru?) but when I saw the queue decided to get a sandwich from Sainsbury’s instead.

Diane is having second thoughts about our choice of wedding venue. She explains why in her latest blog post.

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Lock-down UK. Days 15 to 17

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Loo rolls left: You can find them in Sainsbury’s now.

Day 15 Tuesday 07/04/2020

I am still trying to get my work computer to work. I spent most of the morning talking to various IT *help* desk type people with no success. I also spent quite a while responding to emails that were telling me that they had solved my problem. Passing my problem onto someone else may have solved the problem for you, but it hasn’t solved it for me.

Eventually it was agreed to try the possible solution that I had suggested about a week ago. I would go into one of our offices. Then, I would connect directly to the Local Area Network using a cable. This would check if that would reset the logon. There was only one minor problem to that solution. Due to the current situation, all our offices are closed. It was eventually agreed that I would be given access to the Croydon office and telephone support on Thursday morning.

I sorted out some work that I could do without the computer. This was planned for Wednesday. Then I went to the allotment for the afternoon.

Allotment time

The allotment has been our escape hatch during this period. We often take our lunch up with us and have a picnic. We are set up with all mod cons. A portable gas stove and kettle to make tea. There is usually a packet of biscuits, unless we have eaten them, and a bucket for emergencies. (It is apparently very good for the compost heap).

Tea time

We planted a few seeds and dug over one of the beds in preparation for planting runner beans later on. We decided we would like a flower bed in front of the table where we have our lunch. So, we made a start on that.

Day 16 Wednesday 08/04/2020

Apart from a couple of emails on my phone, which I don’t like having to do. It is not that I dislike email per-say. I just don’t enjoy answering anything that requires more than a yes or no response using my phone keyboard. Anyway we managed to confirm the access arrangements for Thursday. I was all set to return to full existence. Having sorted that I went out and did some actual work.

When I got back home we decided to go to the allotment to make sure everything was watered. We also finished off our little flower garden.

We found a lot of flower seeds in the shed. I also brought some from my house. Most of the packets were past their use by dates, but we sowed them anyway. Hopefully some will come up. We also planted a pair of roses that Diane found in Poundland. Then we went home for an early night. I had to be up bright and early the next day for my (or my computer’s appointment with destiny).

Day 17 Thursday 09/04/2020

My alarm went of at 06:30. I was already awake. Diane had woken up even earlier. She had kindly brought me a cup of tea up to bed. I was washed dressed and breakfasted by eight o’clock and set off for Croydon. One advantage of this lock-down is, that if you do have to drive anywhere, driving is a doddle. New Malden to Croydon in twenty minutes. Normally it would take at least an hour at eight a.m. Also, when I arrived at our offices there were parking spaces, unheard of.

That was where the smooth sailing ended. Security told me that the office had been unlocked, great, but I needed a swipe card to access it. My ID card does not have swipe access, because I don’t need it. I very rarely need access to our offices. If I do, there is always someone there to give me the access that I need. Provided everyone isn’t working from home. A facilities engineer was sent from central London to let me in. Even with lock-down traffic, he took about two hours to get to Croydon. I called my telephone support person to tell them that there would be a delay. They said fine, they didn’t have all that much to do anyway.

Eventually my engineer arrived, and let me into the office. I plugged my machine in (fortunately I had the foresight to bring my own cable). I switched it on, typed in my password, and it let me log on. Problem solved in less than two seconds. We ran a couple of other checks to make sure that everything was fine, which it was.

I spent the rest of the day typing in the last weeks reports, and doing my expenses. Boring, but I now exist again.

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LOCK-DOWN UK DAY NO 4

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Loo rolls left: one fewer than yesterday but still sufficient.

So into day four of lock-down UK. The first day that I didn’t have any work to do, that is because I don’t work on Fridays. So in theory, it shouldn’t have been any different from a normal Friday. However, I couldn’t go out for lunch. I also couldn’t meet up with my football friends to discuss tomorrow’s game. It was a bit different though.

As some people know Diane and I decided to get married about five weeks ago. We ordered our engagement ring the following week and were due to pick it up today. Obviously with things being as they are. we couldn’t travel down to Worthing to collect it. The jeweller sent it to us special delivery and it arrived before breakfast this morning. We are now officially engaged. It has been posted on Facebook, so it must be true.

In other news, Boris Johnston has tested positive for Covid-19. Boris Johnston is our Prime Minister, in case you had forgotten. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has also tested positive. So it can happen to anyone.

Back to important things. We are planning to get married next summer (2021). We were supposed to go up to Scotland next week. We wanted to look at potential wedding venues. That obviously isn’t going to happen now. So we had a Zoom meeting, at lunchtime, with one of our prospective venues. we decided probably not. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had bought shares in Zoom last year.

After that we decided to take our daily exercise by walking up to the allotment. The allotment could be the most immaculate allotment in the history of allotments this year. We haven’t done a lot of planting yet. However, it is definitely looking better after a bonfire and some tidying up.

Bonfire time

We also had a rather nice sunset.

We had a rather nice stir fry for supper, although we would rather have had an engagement party. That will have to wait.