Relatives from afarrrrrrr.

TODAY

Today I see Mum’s brother and his wife, David and Eve, whom I have not set eyes on since 2001. The reason, mostly, is that THEIR house, in Northampton, is 18,562km away from MY house, in Napier. They are absolutely lovely, genuine, kind human beings. Successfully retired and in their early 70’s, they are travelling to New Zealand for the final time. We lunch at the Mission, which is where you should always lunch if you need rock steady reliability of cuisine for overseas visitors. I find it very relaxing being amongst this group of family. (Apart from Dad, who zones out and fidgets on purpose which means I have to kick him in the left ankle to alert him to the fact that he must PLAY the GAME for an hour or so, his success rate with in-laws being NOT GREAT-but that’s all normal). I find it SO relaxing that I let my accent, that constant niggling sink for self-esteem because I sound so geekster and pathetic to Kiwi ears, slip back into its full force natural English. I find this so liberating I nearly cry. I have my once a decade thought about selling up and moving back to the UK, I’d fit in SOOOOO much better there….And David says with a club card one can get a pint of reserve cider for ONE POUND FIFTY! Man, it’s worth it for that alone!

After delightful food and wine in the Hawke’s Bay sun, I say goodbye to my uncle and aunt for what is, on balance of probabilities, forever.

TOMORROW:

Hawaii.

 

 

 

 

What I did on my birthday.

I have a little sleep-in today. Glycogen outlays at TWO bike races over the weekend have made my short legs weary. Plus, it’s my birthday. Lano, well trained after nearly five years into it, pours me a wake-up champagne. I remain adamant, in the face of extensive questioning, that I DO NOT want, under any circumstances, to go restaurant-ing today to celebrate. I point out, with exaggerated flinging of bedcovers and WHY ME LORD hand gestures, that the organising of birthday dinners always leads to massive over-consumerism, a small lot of besties becoming a giant hoarde, all of whom then feel obliged to buy presents and I, NO SIR!, am not the slightest bit interested in this plastic calendar chicanery. Besides, as I wag my index finger like the wicked witch of the west, remember that the host shouts the grog! REMEMBER? Lano does remember, and runs off, out of my way, to have a shower.

People ring me up (only the people that I want to hear from, now that I have quit Facebook, which is fabulously satisfying) anyway, to ask where the party is. NOT THIS YEAR I say, and once the shock wears off, they wish me well and hope I have a nice day in the sun, booze emoticon, booze emoticon, heart, heart, RUV YOO emoticon, yadda yadda yadda.

After half a glass of Krug, however, I am feeling pretty fine, and demand to a Craig now fully dressed and trying to escape into the garage that I would VERY MUCH like to be taken for lunch THANK YOU and to GET HIS A– back here at 11.45am to pick me up. There are no objections from the defence counsel so I bound around the house feeling ultra super birthday-ish and play all my favourite birthday songs on every speaker we own. It’s heavy on the Abba and the Neil. After three coffees I do all Loretta’s parts to After The Fire Is Gone. Conway Twitty LIVES ON in my kitchen and it’s just me and him up there at the Opry and, and, and….and I even get a good twang going on some Ms Ronstadt. Phew!

Time to get some work done. I hoof it into town, gobble a glass of Bollinger and some delightful asparagus thing at Mister D as per my demands from earlier, scoff two more coffees then make a run for the ‘Stings to a meeting. I have my black widow sharebroking outfit on and I think it has the desired effect. A nice man beside me sweats a lot and looks nervous when I speak, and I feel a bit reticent and make a conscious attempt not to be so intimidating. But I cannot deny my meeting style, it is what has gotten me THIS BLOODY FAR in the first place, and so I let loose, giving it straight, hammering reality home, in my Caroline Elizabeth Ritchie way.

I am 38. I am on fire. I feel young and fit and fantastic. I am ONLY 38. My God, it dawns on me, the best really is yet to come. OH YES.

WINNING AT RAMBLERS!

BEGINNING

Because I was out being fabulous last night, I do not “…catch this morning, morning’s minion, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding.” I am more like a sick parrot needing an aqualung. I lie in bed, quaffing rice risotto, toast, gross tomato soup from a can, anything salty, until the last possible moment. I then hiff the bike into the back of my car, pull on my new skintight kit in record sports-dressing time, mindful not to have a mini-crisis over any thigh bulges, and creep off to Havelock North.

MIDDLE

Because I feel like my head needs a holiday from my brain, I have zero expectations for my race. At the start I tune out, take the pressure off, create some slack. I ADJUST MY PERSPECTIVE. I am out for a training ride, this afternoon, ok, just to burn a few calories, think about my upcoming trip, muse over life’s fun little distractions… I am relaxed, now, and must be satisfied with simply being at one with the bike and reciting my oh-so-healthy mantras as I go around.

Of course, this is all exposed as utter claptrap as soon as we hit the first steep hill. The boys are easily winded today, it seems, and even though my mouth is as dry as the paintwork on a Datsun Sunny 1983 which has been left out in the desert for thirty years, I feel strong. I am carbed up. I can get this. The tigress comes out to play. I forget all about the three Chardonnays and how my left designer stiletto got bloody stuck in a drain grille. Teasing the winemakers at the bar vanishes completely from my mind. The only thing in my universe is the urgent, urgent need to make one crankset revolution, then another, then another.

I cross the KOM line first at the hardest part. The boys are buggered. Three of us make a breakaway and we get to the turnaround. “Let’s work together!” I shout, and they nod. But it’s downwind most of the way home from here and I can sniff blood. I rudely abandon my own suggestion and with 19km (madness) to go, take off. I pass some blown out E Graders. I do not let up. I hammer my quads into the asphalt. With 5km remaining, I start really hurting. A group is catching me. NO!! They get closer and I panic for a second, but gasp a sigh of relief as they flash past; A Graders on their second loop. Phew. The B Graders then come up too, and in a moment of ridiculous-ness I try to attach onto the back of them. If pain wasn’t splitting my collarbones away from my shoulders I would have lol’d. But leading an F Grade race at Ramblers is NO LAUGHING MATTER and I affix my VERY SERIOUS cycling face and power along the last hundred meters of Middle Road in icky nauseous agony. I push the Corsa over the finish line, just like Marcel Kittel would, 1 min 23 seconds ahead of anyone else.

END

The effort has made me feel pretty sick and I wonder which is better, throwing up now on the side of the road or when I get back to the car. Mmmmmm, such corporate decisions for a Saturday. But it passes and we spin back to Lucknow School for coffee and biscuits and tales of glory and woe.

I play Goodbye To Love, Carpenters, quite forcefully, if it is actually possible to play Carpenters forcefully, on the way home. Tony Peluso whips his sensational fuzz solo and I think, well, it’s probably goodbye to F Grade, at this rate. Imagine what I could do if I actually took this seriously! I aggrandise my road race dreams until I get to Clive, then, starving, the food fantasy game takes over from cycle-life goals and emergency curry, hot chips and lemonade iceblocks dance like sugarplum fairies in my thoughts. What a day!

 

Speedy

Hike & a new label.

When I’m NOT cycling around Hawke’s Bay, ((increasingly infrequent as have finally bought bib shorts (SO LUCKY YOU GUYS – NO SAUSAGE LEG WITH THIS PAIR! WOOP!) and must commence emergency upper thigh tanning)), I like to imagine names that describe my temporary part-time-d-ness. Very cool things lie ahead, but for now, I have found myself just a TEENY VEENSY bit underutilised and must fill this gap, immediately, so that I do not go into a metaphysical goddamn DITCH. I settle on Adventure Lifestylist.

Adventure Lifestyling is very fun, because you get to roam around all day, do awesome free stuff in nature and come up with fantastic ideas for WOW COOL collaborative businesses while a lot of your friends are hate-slaving in the corporate junkyards just to keep heads bobbing above the mortgage, the car finance, the school fees, the endless designer dress purchases and Everyone Else’s Expectations.

Today Brena and I hike up to Sunrise Hut. We are fit and do the incline in 1 hour 30 mins. It’s freezing and gale force at the top so we sit inside and nibble at vegemite-tomato ketchup-mustard sandwiches (me) and sensible well-balanced wrap (Brena). I get too cold eventually, (grew up in a snowstorm but can’t pack a hat and gloves ROFL) and we beat it down the hill. We see nobody, at all, the whole time. Magical.

I have a fab drive home and indulge in a little squirt on the bends. My passenger minds not at all and I am filled with fresh air endorphinated slash petrol-head Adventure Lifestyle satisfaction. The WOF is due on my car tomorrow so I drop Brena off and zip down to the local testing station. Worn front disc brake rotors! Inner circumference tire fatigue! The S passes, OBVIOUSLY, a lady’s car is her castle and must be maintained in pristine racing-stripe condition at all times, but I plan my constructive explaining carefully as I phone home (full vehicle disclosure relationship) to explain how, on earth, that sh-t could POSSIBLY have happened….

Oh the serenity.

Checking for goblins.

Bombing at Ramblers!

How to TOTALLY SUCCEED (SUCK) at bike racing – Auntie Carrie style!

• Diet heaps pre your event. You want to be nice and weak. You have a sunshine holiday coming up, after all, and so what if you’re slow on the bike? Those bikini shots will look HOT!
• Make sure you evaporate all the glycogen in your legs by fasting and going for “fatburning” walks on the same day as your race.
• Don’t eat dinner the night before, either, that’s for losers – a flat stomach in your four-way stretch lycra is ultra important.
• Race men with twice as much muscle mass and experience as you – it’s SO FAIR.
• Wear too many layers and sauna yourself to death on the course – it’s WEIGHT LOSS DARLING!
• Panic fifteen minutes in front of the gun at the start and eat 100 grams of sucrose.
• Take 2 caffeine tablets for ADDED EFFECT.
• Feel soothing waves of nausea flow through you as the countdown begins.
• Boost self-esteem by watching the elderly and people on tandems fly past you on the flat sections.
• Ta da!!! YOU ARE A WINNA!

A bit more cycle-amore and a SURPRISE.

Yesterday – from jaws of defeat to coolness victory

Yesterday. Awoke in bad mood. Everyone irritating, everyone for the CHOP! I know why this is but sometimes nature will just not be denied. Neither can I beat my physiology on the upside and once I get on the bike and spin out to Apley Road with Tracey things improve dramatically. It is a perfect 24c, wall to wall sunshine and little waves of endorphins start to spiral through my bloodstream. I feel strong. These are the days when you know you have improved. You spend all winter freezing and cursing and getting coated in truck spray and nothing happens. Now, mistress of the universe, sporting iron quadriceps, I RULE THE ROAD! I crank up the self-worth boosting hills, (inner audiences knows you tried) and bend low on the drops down the steepest bit, racing the Corsa to an Auntie Carrie world record top velocity of 75.6km/h. The speed is thrilling, my face centimeters from skin-shredding tarmac. I decide that risk taking turns me on.

Craig comes home from work and announces (after a purely HYPOTHETICAL chat the night before about how a lack of spontaneity in relationships gradually makes them crumble day by day) that he is taking me to Hawaii for 5 days as a surprise for my birthday and three cool friends are also booked in to join us.

Excellent.

Today

In a fabulous frame of mind. Go running. Say “Good morning!” to all I pass. To some “Hello strangers!” Quite loudly in fact. Jovial Carrie is back.

 

 

Fatbikester adventures.

Revelation

I feel like the lady on Antiques Roadshow who found a Roman nobleman’s twisted band of gold, his betrothal ring, one thousand years old, in her backyard. She picked it up right there, from the everyday dirt in which she had grown onion, leek and broad bean her whole life.

I “discover” this coastline, next to which I have lived for about 27 years, and it is magical.

That wagging feeling.

Part of the magic lies in the fact that it is Monday, and because I am still, underneath, programmed to the corporate calendar, I feel a bit naughty sloping off whilst the suited and pantyhosed timeclock victims assume their positions in the game. 

In the old days 

Brena and I hop astride globular-tired fat bikes at Clifton and shimmy-roll along the beach to Cape Kidnappers. I’ve never been, either on this bit of sand or to the Gannet colony above which attracts tourists. Those things weren’t cool when I was growing up in Hawke’s Bay. We were much more concerned with important life moments such as whether Ryan had a car, was he going to buy me a ticket to the ball and what would he want in return, mmmmmm, and how ANNOYING it was that Ryan’s Dad had one of the first ever cellphones in Hawke’s Bay and therefore we couldn’t bloody determine his location when Ryan would call him to try and get a margin of safety timeframe, which was MASSIVELY inconvenient when I went over to Ryan’s house.

And in the present…

But the beach is gorgeous now. I FINALLY get what this is.

After spending 218km on my road bike this week, I’m tired, (and tender), but we shift down and spin over pebble and rockpool. We wade around a little promontory and sit on the slipfall to pause for the tide to ebb. We fix the universe up, right as rain, between us while we wait, and I eat all my marmite and mustard sandwiches an hour ahead of schedule. OH WELL! Godwits, gulls and later gannets fill the viewfinder, with lark overhead, and we hum and splosh our bike-y way across shingle and crag and nature’s miscellaneous ocean-rubble to the shelter at the end of the line, underneath the Cape. This whole time, in two hours, we do not see a single person. THIS is the magical bit. I do not quite go into raptures about the scenery in itself. It is stunning, no question, however I’ve seen nature be a lot more dramatic. Gawped at Yosemite. Spied enormous glaciers plastered onto the side of the Canadian Rockies. Ogled two hundred acre bowls with untouched waist deep powder snow. But I had to share those things with troves of strangers and that takes the shine off and pops the bubble of mystique.

Clifton beach is more of a quiet little achiever. It is sleepy and unhurried and not pretending. A strip of honest beaut Kiwi saltiness right under our noses. Perfect.

So fat.

Hey universe.

Compulsory pano.

End of the bikey line

Too many horn jokes to mention.

Did a little trek up.

These guys were so cool. Gannets – just like us.

 

TOUR TIME! Cycle racing in gorgeous Hawke’s Bay, life now perfect again.

Prelude

I crush yesterday’s sorrow. I turn its misfortunate pleading inside out, throw it down and grind it underfoot. I caffeinate early. For today is race day. RACE DAY!

Race!

I have arranged to meet Tracey at the start line of the 50km Tour of the Bay. She has been mumbling things during the week like “Haven’t ridden much” and “Just been eating and drinking since I got back” and “I’ll probably struggle”. I don’t believe a word of it and sure enough, in the first 30 seconds, she gets low and powerful and mean and turns into a she-tiger on a bicycle. “LET’S GET A GOOD POSITION!” she says as she takes off, smokin’ me into the distance and vanishing into the lead bunch. You do not get to be 10th in the world at long course age group triathlon for nothing. I hang onto these ultra-serious types for 15km before they drop me, like a dead wombat going backward, at the first Tuki Tuki climb. I push my heart rate into the 190’s, all I can give, but they roll away from me.

This is the mental F–k You moment in my race. I am on my own. I know there are riders behind but I can’t snap a visual on them. I know I should sit up and let them pull me in so I might latch on and my competition will begin again. I know that this is my chance to rest. But, alas. I am genetically wired for sufferance and misery, in the proper Scottish way. I punish myself on into the wind. They catch me, slowly, at 21km. I get a psychological boost, though, my two main Ramblers rivals are in the group! Aha! It is just the small mind game I require. If I am able to KEEP ON for the next three climbs I shall rescue this. I KNOW I can hit it with this lot on the level. I massacre myself into the hill triplicate, 191, 193, 193. My eyeballs vibrate. I suck down sugar, warble the pain songs in my head (COUNTRY ROOOOOOOOOADS, TAKE ME HOOOOOOOME) then tuck in behind some big dude doing 42km/h on the Haumoana downhill. I’m flying. The last flats stream by. I mistime my sprint finish, DAMMIT, but I PR every segment and cross the line as the 6th overall woman home and FIRST in my age group! YES!!! Tracey has nailed 2nd overall female, bettered only by some upcoming world champ. (Or similar).

Afterglow

Drive home, fingertip control. Tunes are on. We are in good voice. Steering the S is now a piece of smoothly baked cake after clinging on to the finicky thoroughbred Corsa all the way around the valley. I sit low in the S, much lower than the bike, which is pleasing. I carve the corners back to Napier in a slow-mo racing line. Now relaxed, my mind wanders. What if I could only have one, the Corsa or the car? I love my children so equally, how would I ever choose between?

Start line!

Start line with Tracey Chatterton.

Tracey has form, and also gear.

Phew all done!

Hitting the bars.

The day before a bike race and the hmmmmms take hold.

Do stuff

I clap out some work that I have been researching for a client and then bugger around with the column until I’m tired of IT, a little tired of LIFE and AWFULLY tired of myself. I take a break and concoct what I call my Bludger’s Espresso – three teaspoons of Moccona No5, filled a third of the way up in the mug with boiling water and a slosh of almond milk on top. As per usual, I drink half of it, then declare coffee the antichrist and tip the rest down the sink. Because I am a science person by trade I berate my inner being a little for polluting the Bluff Hill water supply with my wasted beverage, but more because I could have created the same stimulant effect on my central nervous system by simply inserting 150mg of anhydrous caffeine into my bloodstream by oral route A. Idiot.

Time out

I distract myself from column writing further by reading a few pages of Anatomy Of An Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. I have been snatching at it before trying to go to sleep and to cure periodic insomnia at 3am when even thinking about ponies doesn’t work. And right now seems a pretty good time, too. Riveting, (to me), about how we have medicated ourselves into oblivion. Like Big Food, which keeps us atherosclerotic and cancer ridden because there is lots and LOTS of money in doing so, Big Pharma has fucked us all up with “psychotherapeutic polypharmacy”, (this book is, ha ha ha, not for the nervous). This is the stuff supposed to cure all the mental illnesses they haven’t actually proven we have yet but is actually making everything far, far worse, and the evidence blows my head off. I read-stare, wide-eyed, thanking the universe I do not and will not have children and therefore the future decision of whether to have to put them on drugs that will kill them and leave them lifetime zombies is not one I shall ever have to make. PHEW! Column-ing seems WAY SAFER by comparison so I finish it with a sigh of unsatisfaction and frolic out into the day.

But the day sags, for no reason whatsoever.

Over-analyse it

Tour Of The Bay tomorrow so time to degrease my bike chain and shine the frame with some of Craig’s ultra expensive international polish. Also, I need to wash my car and coat and buff with same. I do none of it. I avoid cleaning of any kind. I am lazy, procrastinating and possibly hazardous. I get upset at dinner over nothing at all. Maybe it’s nerves. I cry in the car on the way home. It’s a one in three-year event. Perhaps I need to buy a cat or adopt a greyhound or something. I am nearly 38, after all. Craig hands me his hankie, (and I make a mental note to be grateful for this one but BURN the rest of them – arghhhhh handkerchiefs, surely the spawn of fashion and hygiene satan!) As he does so he cheers me up, “Only 52 more years to go!”

It’s an old financial planner’s joke, but it seems to do the trick.

One perfect day attracts another – reaching for buoyancy.​

Oh yeah

I wake up feeling extremely magnanimous. Hawke’s Bay in spring has this effect on people. You peel your eyes open and upwards to the kind of morning that makes you suspect you have been ported to California and are about to saunter all the way down Market St, onto the Embarcadero, to breathe in a bucketload of CAN-DO salty golden San Fran fantastic-ness. This day is on fire from the minute it clocked in.

Fitness File

I go running, early, in full makeup. Someone might see me, one of these days, and it doesn’t pay to look second rate. No way dude! The jog is awsome. I’m not supersonic, but I love it. Nothing razzes me. I see bits that jiggle in shop window reflections as I trot by, but today they bother me not at all. I fly past coffee bars and businesses. I make grandiose plans as the endorphins hit. I stab at the air occassionally while padding over the concrete, keeping time to George Strait and Charley Pride and Billy Ray Cyrus, to puncatute my CRITICAL POINTS as I give an inspirational passive-indexing TRUTH speech to a crowd of 500,000 or rip apart the wrongs of my financial rivals at a showdown on CNN.

I go biking to Snapper Cafe with Brena. It is completely brilliant. We have a 20% headwind on the way out and the 80% whips us home after we lunch on toast and tomatoes, (special order). On Hardinge Rd I pretend I am at the track cycling Olympics for delusioned, pathetic people who just started racing in F Grade. It works because I have a wickedly vivid imagination and an incredible abillity to suspend belief. I get out of the seat in my biggest gear and see what I can do. I get the Corsa up to 56.5km/h on the flat. It is my greatest living cycling achievment! My heart thumps unflatteringly against the lycra, trying to escape its boring ribcage confines. I gasp like a guppy on dry land and grin like an internet pussy cat.

New thing!

We call in to Fishbike at the end of the ride and try fat bikes, me for the first time. OMG! LIKE OMG! I instantly fall in love with these wide-cloven beasts and wonder if cycling is a multi-faceted addiction, like how scoffing plain old innocent dairy milk then leads you down a certain sugar-encrusted rabbit hole to Snickers and Mars Bars. Brian takes my picture as I circle around in my socks. Brena does wheelies and front wheel stands like a demon and I just look on, like a nanna, and go whooooooooa. Cycle-life, GOTCHA!