Alagna sunshine
So now I remember why we came back…. a sea of green on the lift map app, and a stream of gondolas heading up by 08.15.
No messing from the guide Andrea, and we aimed straight for Indren and this so far unseen freeride paradise. The cablecar was rammed… but we got the second car up to Indren. The warning signs are quite clear…
A short walk up to the right,
and we were off..
It was quite a long morning…
with some long and icy traverses
but Andrea managed to find some lovely powder…
We ducked into Gressoney for lunch at the Morgenrot,
and once fortified with pasta and rocket fuel soaked sugar lumps, we cracked on…
a final dive into the Bala valley, from the top of the cable car, and then it was time to hit “der Shopf” for an excellent bombardino and to share some love with the English Setter
and so it begins…
One of the pleasures of an organised modern life is the ability to measure one’s progress. This is a ‘feature’ of education, work, and pleasure activities, although I used that latter phrase reservedly. I’ve just completed the first block of training, and the first week of block 2. I’m struggling to measure the ‘progress’, at least in any useful terms like feeling ‘better’ about myself, fitter, or leaner. I mostly just feel tired. And that’s when I don’t feel absolutely fucked, like I did on Saturday. A particular peril of being a semi serious runner is that one recalls races undertaken in the past, with rather more clarity than one recalls the training. So it was that I attempted to run a 15k cross country, with hills, and lots of mud, on the back of a late-ish Friday night out and no supper. Suffice to say that my legs started to protest around the 9k mark, and by 12k I had to stop and walk a few times. The encouragement from the mostly older men who trundled past was as depressing as being overtaken by one of my fellow club members, who I’d last seen shortly after the start.
As for the IM training, Block 2 has kicked off with a significant uptick in effort, and a sneaky 50% increase in repetitions in the gym work. I had to dig rather deeper into my energy reserves than I was expecting, and made extensive use of the more motivating tunes on my ipod (thanks UKF Drum & Bass!) The one upside is I have another week of ‘cross-training’ (aka skiing) to look forward to, although I suspect I’ll have to swap out an ‘easy’ week, rather than a ‘hard’ week, to compensate.
zen and the art of annual planning
so I’m in the middle of planning next years audits. We have a small team, hampered somewhat by a lack of junior staff to actually conduct the work.
no worries though, the boss has decided we can deliver 7000 hours of audits. We have a capacity of 4000 hours. Planning is thus a balance between theory (what we _could_ do, with the staff we’d like to have, assuming we have them), and practical (we don’t have enough people for Q1, never mind the rest of the year.
cult of tri
There comes a time in your life when the unconscious search for meaning intersects with one of those inspiring moments that are often referred to as blinding. I think the ‘blinding’ reference is as much to do with the loss of direction and general confusion that comes with lack of sight, as it is to do with any great sense of unified purpose.
However, one of those moments occurred in deepest darkest Brixton Village… a friend of mine (a respectable runner in her own right, but a self-confessed tri newbie) convinced me of the merits of entering for an Iron distance triathlon.
Having just watched The Master, and thus filled with the spirit of self discovery, albeit through the pursuit of endorphins rather than hooch, we discovered that there is “another way”. A Sunday service, if you will… but at the altar of the tri-bar…. bowing down before the gods of early runs… and anointed with the spirit of open water.
This is our church. We welcome all disciples who are prepared to leave their souls at the door, and prostrate themselves in front of the three spirits: Swim. Bike. Run. The Unholy Trinity.
This blog will chart my progress.
Welcome
City touring\
Another weekend was looming, so I hit Google and typed in Jo’burg nightlife. Quickly found jhblive.com, which lead me to pastexperiences.co.za, who organise various tours around the city. I’m not really a ‘tour’ fan, but figured I’d meet some interesting people… and be able to tell my colleagues what they’re missing out on, as, to a man, they haven’t really explored the town where we all work.
Another early Saturday am start sees us meeting up outside the Legislature Hall, where our erstwhile guide Jo started to give us the rundown on what we could see. The next 5 hours flew by, sometimes at ground level thro’ the hustle and bustle of Saturday Shoppers, sometimes from the heady heights of the Carlton Tower, sometimes from the cultural island that is the Joburg Art Gallery, finishing up in the historic drinking den that is the Guildall. I guessed right- the group were at least as interesting as the guide, a mix of visitors and enthusiastic locals. All in all, a fascinating start to the weekend, and I eagerly await future trips!
Check them out at: joburgtourguide.blogspot.com
You know you’re in South Africa when….
You’re woken up at 3am by a slight knocking noise on the patio door betwixt bedroom and garden…. and you lie in bed stock still and sweating for the next 30 mins as you strain your ears and look for any signs of movement in the garden. Panic, moi?
You book tickets for an event online, as you don’t want to have to queue at the venue to collect the tickets. (Queueing seems to be a way of life here). The confirmation email comes through with the words THIS IS NOT A TICKET plastered all over. WFT? So I can have my credit card ‘securely debited’, but you (computicket) can’t actually send me a ticket. They have the audacity to suggest that I can ‘avoid queues at the venue’ by going to ‘any branch of Checkers or Shoprite, in addition to any branch of Computicket’, If I was near a bloody branch, I wouldn’t have ordered the tickets online, would I? This is firmly in the category of ‘malicious inconvenience’ – and I wonder whether (if there _was_ a trading standards in SA, which I doubt), whether there would be a case to answer that CompuTICKET’s name is misleading, as it does not actually _provide_ tickets. Eish!
Update: It gets better (i.e. worse). I booked for motor racing at Kyalami, tomorrow. The ‘non ticket’ comes back with the disclaimer, in small print, that I can’t actually redeem my ‘non ticket’ at the venue. I can _only_ go to some grocery store, which I now have to find, en-route, tomorrow. If anyone has a botnet I can borrow to DOS computicket, please contact me at the above address!
Unlikely events
So I see this car drive past the other day with “I Fix Your Computer” on the back window. As it’s been 2 weeks without internet, and I’m starting to twitch slightly, it registers in my subconscious….. and a few days later, a nice chap called Ari pitches up, and after nearly an hour of cursing and lateral thinking, he finally gets my HTC Wildfire and Windows 7 to remember how to talk to each other. He also scubadives. What a great guy. And all for the cost of about 2 months internet access here in the technological backyard that is South Africa. oh well.
Time for Church?
So it’s Sunday in Jozi… and after a bit of breakfast and wrestling with the Bullworker (gotta keep exercising whilst my foot is crock), I decide to hit one of the local ‘tourist’ spots / locals weekend breaks.
A few minutes cross referencing the big binder that the relocation company left me, along with my newly purchased maps and atlases, and CoPilot on my HTC Wildfire, and I think I have the correct Lion Park programmed in. (only in South Africa would there be a risk of programming in the _wrong_ lion park as a destination!)
I’m out by 09.30, and it’s a grey and not wildly inspiring day. Road are quiet, except for what seems like every 2nd road junction, where the local ‘skalums’ are flogging todays newspapers (actually quite useful), fake shades (potentially useful), and various car type gadgets, some of which even I don’t recognise. Keeping windows closed, and resolutely staring ahead, seems to be the best cause of action.
It only takes about 30 mins to get out to the Lion Park – 115Rand (about a tenner), and I’m in. I decide to ignore the ‘shortcut to lion camp’ signs, in an attempt to build up some anticipation, and am rewarded by finding a Long-tailed Widowbird. Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly close, but impressed to both spot him whilst driving, _and_ be able to find him in the bird book afterwards.
On to the ‘camps’ – first up, the hyaenas – clearly a warm up act, who didn’t dissapoint (probably as they’d just been fed, and were somewhat territorial – the alpha male was nearest the fence, and didn’t appreciate having his lunch disturbed by anyone).
Next up, a pair of cheetah – some nice photos ‘eye to eye’ (through the fence), and then off to see the lions. It wasn’t immediately clear where the enclosure started or finished, as there were several sets of gates, none of which seemed to be keeping the lions _out_ of anywhere, as much as to keep the different tribes separate.
It was getting close to weekly feeding time, and the sense of anticipations amongst the lions was matched by that of the customers. The cats were on the whole more disciplined than the guests – they mostly kept away from the entrances, and moved on when they were shouted at – unlike some of the cars, who would stop the first time they got close, which was usually by the entrance. The lone guard had to wave his stick and shout…. the lions seemed unperturbed.
One couple, who had parked up their shiny Toyota pickup, with what they thought was a good view of the forthcoming feeding session, were a little shocked as one of the lionesses leapt into the back for a rummage. The initial shock soon turned to amusement and a great camera opportunity, until the cat got her claws into the liner in the bottom of the flatbed… doubtless there are some irreperable claw marks in the material now.
A couple of other cars got some special attention – I had noticed the ‘customers advised to remove spare tyre covers’ sign on the way in… one well decorated SUV quickly regretted his decision, as he was chased through the camp by one of the young males.
Home, via one of the larger malls… slight timewarp, and somewhat reminiscent of Fairlane mall in Detroit. Picked up a few more essentials (including a decent showerhead to replace the rather paltry one in the flat), and, hopefully more usefully, a card and flyer from a dive shop. The satnav behaved itself all day, which was appreciated, and I was home in time to see both the end of the Moto GP at Valencia, the start of the NY Marathon, _and_ catch the Grand Prix. Now all I need to do is sort the _atrocious_ picture quality of local satellite TV – have been _very_ spoilt by Freesat, especially Freesat HD, back home.
A lazy Saturday in Jozi
Thought I should try out the car, and the satnav (CoPilot on my HTC Wildfire, with local maps, so no punitive data charges). It all started quite well, and I was soon on the main N1 into town. And then the heavens opened. Boy, when it rains here, it _really_ rains. Even the minibus taxis (aka “matatus”) slow down. After 5 minutes when it sounded like I was being stoned, the rain stopped, and by the time I got downtown, the roads had dried up… as, for some reason, had the satellite signal. Heading into the CBD with no guidance from the satnav was _not_ part of the plan… I manage to find somewhere where I’m not the only car parked up to pull over. Restarting CoPilot seems to fix the problem, and I follow the directions to Absa Towers…. There aren’t _many_ cars in the city on this quiet Saturday afternoon, and there is a particularly distinctive (i.e. noisy) GM SUV with central exhausts, and not much in the way of silencer fitted, that keeps on appearing in my rear view, then blasting past in an appealing, if worryingly repetitive, roar.
I decide not to hang around in the CBD, and head up to Sandton and the more refined airs of Nelson Mandela Square. Unlike the local malls, one has to _pay_ to park here, although the pricing scheme isn’t really designed to dissuade, as it ranges from 12 Rand for the first hour, to 20 Rand for > 8 hours… I seem to have come into the ‘hotel’ end of this mall, and pass the sort of shops that are _only_ frequented by those whose expense accounts aren’t troubled by further review, and those for whom taste is inversely proportional to price tag. I wander on, past some expensive looking jewellers and ornament shops, such that I have to re-check the exchange rate (are Montblanc really going to sell many 20,000 Rand fountain pens – I’m not sure I’ve seen those in Canary Wharf, never mind Jozi). After I’ve wandered for a while, I seem to pass through an invisible, but nevertheless perfectly real, socio-demographic barrier… rather like a rainbow, you can see it’s there, just not where it starts or finishes. I get some more essentials, including a bird feeder, and some maps, and grab some lunch. Being South Africa, even the rather cheesy ‘africa theme’ restaurant (Lekgotla) has excellent steak, and I’m also impressed by the smoked trout starter. Geoffrey, the waiter, is from Kenya, and seems genuinely pleased that I can say not only ‘thankyou’ but ‘you’re welcome’ in Swahili. Fortunately, he is more than happy to continue the conversation in English…. although if he’d told me that Black Label beer was brewed by Carling, I’d have asked for something local.
I head home to set up the bird feeder, and catch the tail end of UK/NZ rugby…. no surprises on the final score, but a nice warm up for the SA/Ireland match tonight. The bird feeder was astonishingly cheap, at 9R99 – and is the flimsiest thing possible, but does, at least, appear to be complete. Unfortunately, I can’t actually reach _any_ of the branches in the trees in the garden. The new ‘ipod to hifi’ cable comes in useful – I had thought that a 6foot cable was excessive, but I lassoo, and then tie down, a suitable branch, and thread the bird-feeder on.
Newsflash – a ‘bakkie’ has won ‘Car of the Year 2010’ in South Africa. Apparently, this is a ‘bakkie’ nation.
[jump forward to tomorrow – the birds here are pretty quick, and there already a couple of birds on the feeder at breakfast. I think one is a Grey Tit.]
I spend a bit of time getting the new sim card to work properly – it seemed to take MTN about 6 hours to initialise the card for data access, and, for all I know, phone access, but as of tonight I am partly back in contact with the rest of the world. Hopefully, the data-modem stuff will work too, but will try that tomorrow. In view of the early start on Monday, I try to get an early night… and regret leaving the phone on!
The Accidental Auditor's Blog 