We all know that sinking feeling of the return schlepp from a holiday; there's no other option and no alternative than to leave but you'd give your right arm to stay one more day. Please, please, God, don't make me do this. Well, he did and here I am back in Cardiff.
Meeting up last night for a last drink with Mauro, Paddy, Seamus, Olivier and Maarten was lovely; we started at a small and bijoux cocktail bar called Kactus and then moved on to a Dutch bar where the barman looked uncannily like Jeremy Clarkson. I had one eye on the time because I had an early start this morning but it was a lovely and relaxing evening all the same.
The flight home was uneventful and the commute from the airport outside Cardiff to the town centre was grim, given the cattle truck state of the Arriva train I caught. The weather in Cardiff is at least 15 degrees below the temperature on Fuerteventura and 10 degrees below what it was in Cardiff only yesterday. This made it a doubly depressing return home.
At times like this, there is only one solution: hit the town and extend the holiday. Look out Cardiff...
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
To the gays...
There is something about the company of gay men that can sometimes be unpleasant; a sour bitchiness that can riddle an entire evening that, otherwise, would have been magical. Of course, at it's best the reverse is true of gay company; an honest but glittering wit that pervades everything, lifting the whole mood and sparkling with a shared and humorous outlook on life.
I'm happy to say that last night was the latter. There was Mauro, the Italian who has a natural talent for doing cutting but hilarious impersonations of me; Seamus and Paddy, the Irish guys who seem to have a limitless and inexhaustible appetite for partying; Olivier, the lovely French guy who, like me, is a fan of AussieBum underwear; and Maarten, the handsome and charming Dutchman who doesn't stop dancing.
We chatted, laughed, drank, danced and flirted until 4am this morning and then all met up on the beach again today and started over again. It's at times like this when you feel so glad to be alive. We're all meeting again tonight for a last drink together as, starting with me at lunchtime tomorrow, we all fly home over the next two days.
Let's raise a glass to the gays...
I'm happy to say that last night was the latter. There was Mauro, the Italian who has a natural talent for doing cutting but hilarious impersonations of me; Seamus and Paddy, the Irish guys who seem to have a limitless and inexhaustible appetite for partying; Olivier, the lovely French guy who, like me, is a fan of AussieBum underwear; and Maarten, the handsome and charming Dutchman who doesn't stop dancing.
We chatted, laughed, drank, danced and flirted until 4am this morning and then all met up on the beach again today and started over again. It's at times like this when you feel so glad to be alive. We're all meeting again tonight for a last drink together as, starting with me at lunchtime tomorrow, we all fly home over the next two days.
Let's raise a glass to the gays...
| Today's run at 18:28 | |||
| Distance | 4.19 km | Time | 25:03 |
| Pace | 5:59 min/km | Cadence | 79 spm |
| Comments: Warm & sunny. | |||
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Relatively speaking...
Compared to some gay men, I am butchness itself; although, we're you to stand me next to Bruce Willis, I dare say I'd look a little fey. There are many parts of Wales where I've been told how English I sound; whereas in Cardiff I sound like a proper Welshy. In the last couple of years I keep being asked if I've any Spanish in me (cue joke)... but never by a Spaniard.
So many aspects of our lives are relative. "Today has been the best/worst day evah..." until the next one. Measurement is a comparison and so often in this life the comparison changes; things move on, develop, shrink and grow.
Add to the mix our own perception and memory and you arrive quite quickly in the territory where all the summers of my childhood were golden stretches of uninterrupted sunshine and all the winters were crisp and white and "proper" winters.
Indeed, relativity is the very reason that Seamus could question my portrait of him in my blog of a few days ago as having "the gift of the gab", protesting that back home in Ireland his family consider him to be the quiet one. A taciturn Irishman, now there's a thought!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...
So many aspects of our lives are relative. "Today has been the best/worst day evah..." until the next one. Measurement is a comparison and so often in this life the comparison changes; things move on, develop, shrink and grow.
Add to the mix our own perception and memory and you arrive quite quickly in the territory where all the summers of my childhood were golden stretches of uninterrupted sunshine and all the winters were crisp and white and "proper" winters.
Indeed, relativity is the very reason that Seamus could question my portrait of him in my blog of a few days ago as having "the gift of the gab", protesting that back home in Ireland his family consider him to be the quiet one. A taciturn Irishman, now there's a thought!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...
| Today's run at 18:28 | |||
| Distance | 4.19 km | Time | 25:52 |
| Pace | 6:11 min/km | Cadence | 79 spm |
| Comments: Warm & sunny. | |||
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Nostalgic queens...
Today started well; clear skies and blazing sunshine with just enough of a breeze to tickle your body and cool you down. Today was going to be the day that I changed my factor 30 for a factor 15 but with the sun so fierce, I decided to stick with the factor 30.
By lunchtime the sun had started to disappear in a haze of sand whipped up by the strengthening breeze. It was soon obliterated altogether by grey cloud and by about 3pm the breeze had strengthened further to gale force strength. By rights, I should be spherical and highly polished, such was the abrasiveness of the sand whipped up by the high winds.
With the sand stinging every part of me, no sun and a drop of a couple of degrees in temperature, it was time to put some clothes on, cover up my sandy crevices and wend my way home. With that, I had an offer to walk the 2km or more back with the guy from Manchester that I met yesterday.
We seemed to hit it off, mainly through a shared sense of humour. It's difficult laughing when every time you open your mouth you eat a kilo of sand. We battled on against the wind, passing time by reminiscing about Cardiff back in the day when (as my friend Carlos would say) children were made out of wood. There's nothing like a pair of nostalgic queens...
By lunchtime the sun had started to disappear in a haze of sand whipped up by the strengthening breeze. It was soon obliterated altogether by grey cloud and by about 3pm the breeze had strengthened further to gale force strength. By rights, I should be spherical and highly polished, such was the abrasiveness of the sand whipped up by the high winds.
With the sand stinging every part of me, no sun and a drop of a couple of degrees in temperature, it was time to put some clothes on, cover up my sandy crevices and wend my way home. With that, I had an offer to walk the 2km or more back with the guy from Manchester that I met yesterday.
We seemed to hit it off, mainly through a shared sense of humour. It's difficult laughing when every time you open your mouth you eat a kilo of sand. We battled on against the wind, passing time by reminiscing about Cardiff back in the day when (as my friend Carlos would say) children were made out of wood. There's nothing like a pair of nostalgic queens...
| Today's run at 18:39 | |||
| Distance | 4.22 km | Time | 25:32 |
| Pace | 6:03 min/km | Cadence | 79 spm |
| Comments: Warm & sunny. | |||
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
The dome of St Pauls' it is then...
A day of hazy sunshine and gusty winds made for an odd day on the beach. There weren't as many people there because, I think, of the weather. This meant that it felt more relaxed and easy going; gone was the cut throat attitude to get a good spot.
I got talking to a guy from Manchester whose face seemed vaguely familiar. Turns out he used to live in Cardiff ten years ago. Another guy I spoke to, also living in Manchester, once worked in Cardiff and so we spoke of the many changes Cardiff has undergone in recent years. It seems another day bejewelled with coincidences.
Walking back from the beach was tough going tonight. The sand seemed softer than usual and therefore made for a bit of a slog. That, coupled with a head wind for the 2km hike, meant my calves were in knots by the time I got back. I've been trying to work out why my run every night has been such a slow and laboured affair - knotty calves after 4km a day in soft sand may just be the answer.
When I was a kid I remember reading in (I think) the Guinness Book of Records, that for a human to match the jumping power of a flea, he (it's always a he) would have to be able to jump over the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. That's one helluva jump. Unleash the energy tied up in my knotty calves and I'd have no trouble. To use one of my favourite phrases, I've got calves like an angry tranny...
I got talking to a guy from Manchester whose face seemed vaguely familiar. Turns out he used to live in Cardiff ten years ago. Another guy I spoke to, also living in Manchester, once worked in Cardiff and so we spoke of the many changes Cardiff has undergone in recent years. It seems another day bejewelled with coincidences.
Walking back from the beach was tough going tonight. The sand seemed softer than usual and therefore made for a bit of a slog. That, coupled with a head wind for the 2km hike, meant my calves were in knots by the time I got back. I've been trying to work out why my run every night has been such a slow and laboured affair - knotty calves after 4km a day in soft sand may just be the answer.
When I was a kid I remember reading in (I think) the Guinness Book of Records, that for a human to match the jumping power of a flea, he (it's always a he) would have to be able to jump over the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. That's one helluva jump. Unleash the energy tied up in my knotty calves and I'd have no trouble. To use one of my favourite phrases, I've got calves like an angry tranny...
| Today's run at 17:48 | |||
| Distance | 4.17 km | Time | 24:34 |
| Pace | 5:53 min/km | Cadence | 79 spm |
| Comments: Warm & sunny. | |||
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