Time for rehab

My indoor season came to a close after the BMAF indoor champs, I hadn't entered the Worlds in Budapest due to the clash of dates with my wedding anniversary, something I dare not miss (or forget!). As it happens, I was in no real state to be competitive anyway, so I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it, I've had enough practise at being a good loser, and anyone who knows me knows I like winning, I just don't do it often enough.

Training switched to the gym, partly because I had all the strength of a 4 year old, and partly because too many parts of me were hurting and needed rehabilitation. I set about the latter at my physios, boy that woman knows how to make me hurt, as she dug into the charred remains of my hamstrings and calfs and I bit into the pillow, it was difficult to believe it was doing me good. Two days later though, the special talent known as walking was restored.

By the weekend I was aching from shifting weights all week, so I was looking forward to the rest. The wife had other ideas though. After a quick trip to HomeBase (B&Q didn't have one), I returned with a new electric chain saw, in order to attack the trees at the rear of our mansion. So Sunday was largely spent 5m up my ladders slicing branches left, right and centre. As you've probably guessed, the day was not without incident. Despite my efforts to get the branches to fall away from me, each one managed to hit me squarely on the head or shoulders. After 4 hours of this, I was somewhat battered and bruised, but I saved the best two for last. The last two branches fell on me, one bounced and hit the washing line reducing it to scrap metal, and the other dissected my fence into tooth picks.

A chainless VFR800A6

I was glad to get back to work, although, as my Facebook friends will know, this did not go too well either.  Now I suffer the ignominy of loving  Ducatis, beautiful Italian motorcycles built for the Mediterranean not for the Welsh climate, and as a result I'm on first name terms with  just about all of the RAC operatives in South Wales, so to allow me to actually get to work more often than not, I bought a Honda VFR800A6 Sport Tourer for reliability.

So Thursday, what does the Honda do, snaps the chain, leaving me to spend a merry 3 hours sat at a motorway roundabout waiting for the boys in Orange. This happens whilst the Ducati is knackered and the car is off the road  having god knows what done to the fuel injectors. Between them, our fleet on vehicles make me look positively fit and I'm a good deal cheaper to run.

Talking of cheap to run, the week concluded with a trip to the last remaining proper sports shop in South Wales (Run and Become) in order to provide my eldest daughter with a new pair of spikes. She's probably catching me up now as her training is progressing well, so this will only push her further. Mind you I'm not sure if I can afford any more kit with all the extraneous expenses coming my way. I attempted to comfort myself with the last of the 17 year old Speyside single malt, but this raised a question, do you pour yourself a double and come back for another or save the extra journey and pour a double double and just get on with it?

I'll also be raising a few glasses over the next couple of days as my lucky master friends jet off to the World Indoor Championships in Budapest, right now I'm just hoping to recover from another day's tree felling, all the best everyone.