Freedom and goodbye pants

Joe’s just gone off to camp for a week. It’ll be like a rockstar going into detox – no xbox, pc, cell phone or ipod for a week. He should have a good week again. They’ve opened a new camp in Squamish and the location looks superb:

http://www.campsummit.ca/sc/index.html

I’ve let him take my guitar. He asked me last night and at first I gave him an emphatic NO. It’s my guitar, you know what I mean? I know I can’t play anything on it, but it’s still my baby. Anyway I had one of those ‘take a step back’ moments where I put myself in his place. It’s just a guitar, he can play it way better than me, it will increase his cool factor by at least a million percent, he’ll remember the summer he played guitar by the campfire. If it picks up a scratch or two, big deal. Good memories are priceless.

It’s been a good week work-wise. We got soaked at the start of the week, and then it sorted itself out and went back to gorgeous. I’ve been doing mainly tours and courses this week, but did a kids camp yesterday to cover Kerstin who needed to take the day off. And what a kids camp. The kids in the morning were a bit of a drag – really whiney boys. But the girls in the afternoon were just awesome. They were absolutely up for any game and the wetter the better. I’m testing out a load of new games that I’ve found and the kids loved them. At one point we had seven people on my kayak! Two kids on the back, two on the front, me in the cockpit, Kaylene on the back, Erin (one of the beach crew who was out for a paddle and wanted to join in the fun) on the front. My spray skirt was under water and I was bracing like crazy but we still managed to keep the boat moving. Kaylene even stood on the back deck for a short time. And the kids were screaming every time we almost tipped. Good times.

I did a Level 2 on Thursday night with just one guy. He hasn’t paddled for a while but because he’s paddled before they let him skip the Level 1. He was really good so we’d nailed the rescues by 19:15. I did a roll and he asked me how I did it. I asked him if he wanted to give it a go and he said yes, so we had a rolling lesson. I showed him how to setup before the roll, then the setup under water, and then the big stroke to bring you up. He tried it and almost got his first one. I gave him a change to make and he tried again, and he nailed it!!!! I almost jumped out of my boat I was so excited.He missed his third but then got his fourth. Then we moved on and finished the course. Top night.

Last night was the first of the Concerts in The Cove. Me and Linda went down with a ton of food (and a heavily disguised bottle of wine). Martin and Neda came along and then John and Suze, and then Jack and Lorraine. The music was good but more kind of background really. It was a gospel choir and they were ok but not stunning. But it worked as we were having a good laugh chatting. Beautiful weather, mountains as a backdrop, sat in the park, good friends….perfect.

Sad news: I’m having to finally retire my favourite pair of shorts. They’re ripped beyond even North Shore acceptable standards. I’ll just keep them for knocking about the apartment. I bought them in Debenhams in Preston six years ago. They’ve been absolutely hammered since moving over here (shorts-only from April to the end of September).

I’ve been getting excited watching the Tour de France again. The races have been awesome so far. But the friggin Canadian TV coverage is driving me nuts as usual with 10 minutes worth of adverts every 10 minutes of coverage. The last two nights I’ve given up before the finish and looked at the results on the BBC Sports website. I try to go the distance but the bastards just grind me down….same ads over and over again.

Look before you dunk

We’ve got a problem in The Cove at the moment. Bloody huge Lions Mane jellyfish are floating around. They are nasty stinging bastards with really long tentacles. I went to roll last night and just as I was about to roll over I noticed a huge patch of red about a foot under the water. I just managed to stick my paddle in the water and push myself back up at the last second. I almost kissed a jellyfish. I’ve kissed some stuff in my life, but that’s pushing it….

On a funny note, one of the beach crew – Jack the cheeky Glaswegian – played a bit of a joke on me. He put a pair of very brief red knickers (apparently they floated up on the beach) in the inside pocket of my pfd (lifejacket to you non-kayakers). Trouble is, I didn’t even know I had an inside pocket. So I never noticed. He told everybody and they’ve all been waiting for the last couple of days for something to happen. And I’ve been paddling around with a hot thong in my jacket. At the end of my lesson last night he couldn’t wait any longer and shouted over for me to look in the inside pocket of pfd. It took me a while to even find the inside pocket. Nice knickers, I’d like to know the story….

All’s well and all that bollocks

We went to see Shakepeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well last night. It wasn’t in some crusty old theatre but by the water in Vancouver: http://www.bardonthebeach.org/

All in all t’was a very good night indeed. There were sections where I had absolutely no idea what the hell had just been said, but I got the gist and even had a laugh in parts. The very cool thing was that when the doors were open on the set itself you looked right through them to the beautiful Vancouver nighttime skyline. When we went to get a drink just before the show started the guy who served me asked where I was from. So I said “Manchester” and he said “what part”, so I said “Failsworth” and he said “I’m from Whitefield”. “Get outa here” I said. And then he launches into a big moan about Vancouver, even though he’s been here for 20-odd years. Jeez, another bleedin moanin Brit.

Speaking of Brits I was supposed to meet my new British Airways pilot mate for a paddle this morning as he’s in town on another stopover. Long story short – I was there, he wasn’t. Tosser.

Well that was wierd

So the rib thing seems to have fixed itself. I really thought this was going to be a long term issue – the pain was that bad. I went to the doctors and had x-rays yesterday and they didn’t show anything, so the doctor said it was probably just a pulled muscle that sorted itself out. She didn’t know what muscle or how it could happen but what the hell. It came on really quickly and went just as quickly. I’ve been for a run and done some rolling and it still doesn’t hurt so game on.

Apart from the rib affair it’s been a great week. Me and Kaylene did our first Kids Camp this week. Great bunch of kids, brilliant weather, plenty of laughs, and good paddlers. My hours are well down at the moment though as the Level 2 camp in the afternoon was cancelled. It’s been good working half a day but it sucks money-wise.

Went for a hike/run with Lorraine this afternoon straight after the Kids Camp. We hiked up Baden Powell, Old Buck, Bridle Path, Empress Bypass, then my secret local trails. Good pace, plenty of hard hiking and decent running. We were out for around 1hr45mins which is ok. It’s a nice easy break back in for me. As soon as we got back into the Cove we went for a swim. The water was bloody cold at first but soon became bearable. I need to work on my front crawl again.

We’re off to see a bit of Shakespeare tomorrow night! Every summer there’s a series of Shakespeare plays done on the beach at English Bay. Should be interesting. And the Concerts in The Cove start next Friday night! Woohoo!

Ok look, it’s not hardcore but

it was great fun. Originally it was me and Kaylene going roller blading around the sea wall in Stanley Park, then Lorraine and Kerstin tagged along. So it was me and my 3 girlfriends. Now I may have looked like the gay boyfriend…but so what? I fell on my arse big style a couple of times – good job I had my wrist guards on (this isn’t sounding any better). Ah what the hell I had a laugh, and considering it’s about 5 years since I last used my blades (in Cleveleys!) and I’ve only done it 5 times, I was happy with the ride. I need to work on my braking though – mainly because I don’t have any at the moment.

Perfect weather, Vancouver was packed for Canada Day, the beaches were packed, big waves coming off the ocean…..brilliant!

What next?

I have no idea what I’ve done, but man it hurts. So long as I’m moving around I’m ok, but once I stop and sit down I’m in trouble. It’s focussed around the base of  my left ribs and the pain spreads right across my chest. I went for a bit of a run last night but it was rubbish as I couldn’t get a decent breath. When I lie down the pain is mental, and trying to turn over in bed is a bit of an event. Bending down kills me, sitting down kills me, standing back up kills me….WTF????? I can only think I did it rolling last Thursday. I took out one of the big fat beginner boats for a laugh and rolled that. I didn’t feel anything – no sharp pain, no snap or pop (or even crackle) but something has happened and it isn’t good. It’s feeling very long-term right now as it hasn’t gotten any better. I’m managing to work though so that’s a positive. Roll on Thursday.

Let’s go fly a kite….

Well it finally happened, and it was one of the most physical things I’ve ever done. It was high tide when we got there so there was no dry land practice with the kite. An intro to putting the kite together (lots of pumping up), a lesson on how to do a self-rescue, and then we were in the boat and riding out into the sound. My instructor, Andrea, was very impressive - she was steering the boat with one hand and flying the kite with the other. Once we were far enough out that I wouldn’t get in the way of the pro’s (which was quite some way) she got me to attach the kite to my harness and drop into the water. The golden rule of kite boarding is if anything happens to the kite and you can’t control it, let go of the handle. I soon forgot that one and quickly found out how it feels to be a torpedo. Man, there is so much power in that thing. After a couple of bollockings from Andrea for not letting go (really, she didn’t mess about) I got the message. And I also started to get the hang of it. The big problem with the first lesson is that you’re learning to control the kite while it drags you along the water. In order to get the kite off the water you need to get your feet in front of you and on the surface to provide some resistance, and that is bloody hard. I felt like I’d been treading water for 3.5 hours. It’s very cool when you get it launched and you’ve got the kite at an angle that’s powerful enough to drag you without the torpedo effect. So all in all I had an awesome time. I was knackered at the end. Andrea says I’ll be on the board easily in my next lesson, but really there won’t be another lesson as I can’t afford it. Top experience though, and strongly recommended! As I was so far away from land Linda only managed to get one photo of me just about to launch the kite:

Oh, and we went to see Transformers 2 tonight. My advice? Wait to see it on DVD.

Wet ones and thoughts on being 50

The weather took a hell of a turn today – it LASHED down. We had one school in the morning, split into 2 groups. One group went hiking to Quarry Rock while the other went kayaking for 1.5 hours, then change around. 1.5 hours to get 23 double kayaks loaded with grade 6/7’s on the water. It’s a challenge. Plus the weather kicked up and we had an onshore wind blowing at us. The waves came up, some of the kids couldn’t paddle against the wind – 50m and we were towing them! It was a challenge but being the awesome guides that we are, we rose to it and kicked its ass.

I did a tour yesterday with just one person on it. She’s here on a ‘research trip’ checking out Vancouver as a possible place to emigrate to when she’s finished in the RAF. Apparently I’ve got a Canadian accent now. That’ll be news to the guys that I work with – I still have to translate stuff to them. She’s not keen on the Canadians, those that she’s met haven’t been very friendly, and she finds the Canadian accent grinds on her. And there aren’t enough pubs – her and her future husband don’t like the Canadian thing of going to each others houses. That was in the first half hour of a 3 hour tour. It felt like a long time……

So I’m 50 on Thursday. It’s not a big deal to be honest. Well actually I guess it is as there are guys I went to school with who haven’t made it this far. What does amaze me is that it’s only 10 years since I was 40. It seems like a lifetime ago, things have changed so much. Apart from not being as fit as I was at 40, I’m very happy with life at the moment. I’ve got some great friends, I live in the place that I was destined to be in, and I’m married to a woman who amazes me more the longer we’re together. The old adage You’re as young as you feel is absolutely true. I don’t feel any different, certainly don’t feel older. So there’s no massive wingding party planned. Linda’s working, I’m supposed to be working but it may yet be cancelled, and we’re trying to economise anyway. Has it been a good 50? To some tune. Over the years I’ve met some awesome people, loved and lost, dumped and been dumped, hurt and been hurt, fallen off and gotten back on (lots of times in many ways), learned loads and forgot plenty, done loads of stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time but probably wasn’t, accepted that hindsight is bollocks, and always always always done it with passion. ‘Cos if you can’t be passionate about it then what’s the point? Here’s to the next however many!

My new favourite thing

What an awesome weekend! We drove to Squamish on Saturday morning, to be at the rafting place for 09:30. Coffee and fresh muffins when we got there, then on to the old school bus for a 20 mile trip up the river. Most of the journey is on old logging roads so it’s bumpy as hell, but the scenery is just magnificent and really gets your juices going for the trip. There were 8 of us altogether so we filled the boat. Safety talk when we got there, and then we’re in. They have a guy in a river kayak who follows us as the safety boat – and when you see the water that we’re in you can understand why. If you fall out there’s no way that the guide can leave her job guiding the boat to sort you out. We hit some great rapids fairly quickly, and then came to a section with an optional cliff jump. I was going to leave it as optional too, until Linda got up and started climbing the damn cliff. Dammit! So I climbed up with Linda, Raffs, and a couple of others. And it happened again – I got to the edge and just bloody froze. I fully intended to jump but my legs weren’t for moving. There were a couple of other boats from another party and they were all yelling “JUMP JUMP JUMP…..”. That really helps a lot. I yelled back “I’M FOOKIN TRYIN” (sorry kids). Eventually my legs gave in and I launched off. Stupid brain. The next bit was exceptionally cool. We hit some Class 2’s and were given the chance to swim down. Me and Linda were overboard before you could blink. It was awesome, bouncing around in the waves, lying on your back, feet first….just flippin wicked. Then we were back in and ready for the big stuff. Apparently we were in Class 4 which felt pretty big to me. It was wild fun – big walls of water, huge drops, coming at you from all sides. And all the time the guide is yelling instructions while you’re laughing and whoo-hooing. Every time we came out of a big section we pulled our paddles out of the water and high-fived each other over the middle of the boat. Cheesy? Maybe, but at the time it’s the right thing. We stopped halfway down the river for a pull-in where they’d laid on snacks and drinks. Then another big section of water and it was all over. And all too soon. We’d done about 14 miles on the water and it was the most fun I’ve ever had…….so far.

The kite boarding didn’t go quite as smoothly. I turned up, but the guy who was supposed to be taking me out has injured his foot. He said he’d arranged with another guy to take me out, but of course the other guy had no idea. I turn up at Squamish Spit and nobody has any idea what’s going on. Bunch of tossers. So I’ve rearranged for next weekend. In one way it’s not a bad thing as the wind wasn’t as strong as it should be. Even with this cockup it was still a wicked weekend. And I’d do the river rafting again in a heartbeat. But not the stupid cliff jump.

Another BC weekend

2 shifts on Saturday. The first was a quickie in the morning, a recovery refresher in the morning which only takes an hour. Interesting guy – he’s a pilot for British Airways and was on a 24hr stopover. He wanted to rent a kayak and go for a paddle but you can’t go out on your own unless you can prove you can get back in your boat after a capsize. He’s paddled before, but never done the capsize course. So the kayak shop relented and agreed that he could go out on his own if he did the refresher. It was a good session, just me and him. He’s originally from the south east of England but now lives in the French alps. He’s back again in a few weeks so I gave him my email address and we’ll probably go out for a paddle.

I did a Level 1 Intro in the afternoon. It was ok, but at the end of it I didn’t feel like I’d done my best. I don’t know why, everybody was very happy and grateful, everybody was paddling well by the end, but I just felt like I hadn’t given it the effort that I usually do. Next time I go out I’ll take my lesson plan with me and really do it to the letter.

Last night we went to see UP – the 3D version. What a brilliant movie! The opening is like a mini-movie all on its own. It’s funny, touching, and sad. Linda was in tears, and that was just the start of the film. The rest of it was very, very funny.

Today me, Linda and Raffs went for a hike up The Chief at Squamish. It’s a massive block of granite that towers over the town and when you go to Whistler you can’t miss it. There’s a really good trail that winds its way around the back. It’s steep but fun, even has some ladders in it. The view from the top is wicked – a stunning 360 degree view of mountains and the Howe Sound. While we were up there Linda told me what she’d bought me for my birthday. She wanted to do something special for my 50th and she has absolutely nailed it. From where we were on the Chief I could see where we’ll be next weekend (that’s when it kicks off), so that’s why she let it slip. This is going to be a long week.