Lazy week
I sent my first Postcrossing card last week and got an email yesterday from the correspondent to say that it had arrived at its destination - Berlin - and that she liked it. This reminds me that I got another name and address last weekend, in Finland this time. I meant to send a card on Monday, but I've had a lazy week and just haven't got around to doing much at all. I am intending to release my first Bookcrossing book soon, when I remember to take it out somewhere with me. I could take it to the WorcNet session in Skipton tomorrow and leave it there in the hotel lobby. Or would it just be picked up by the hotel staff and put into lost property. Where is a good place to leave a book? A library perhaps? No, too obvious.
Yesterday I booked a place on a 3-day writing seminar with Bill O'Hanlon, which is being run at the Northern School of NLP from 13th-15th. I am drawn to it and it has cropped up at the right time.
Paul and I got some cycling in at the weekend. We only did about 14 miles on Saturday, firstly because I wasn't feeling up to doing more, and secondly because I had booked on an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) taster session at the Lotus Therapy Centre in Otley, which was having an open day. I volunteered to be a guinea pig in the session, working on the pain in my neck. I'm afraid to say that the session made no difference to the pain at all, or only at the time. The technique itself induced relaxation and some degree of 'altered state' whilst I was performing it, which did of course reduce the pain and headache which I had at the time. It did not last though.
On Sunday we set off on a longer ride. I still didn't feel up to it, but we need to get the practice in. I came to realise in the course of this that it isn't my fitness level that is the problem; my lungs and legs are perfectly up to coping with the distances, albeit at a slower pace than I used to be accustomed to. The problem is the discomfort in my neck and arms that cycling causes. My physiotherapist says that this is positional and I agree. I've decided to give up on the drop handlebars and have flat bars fitted. This feels a little like defeat, although Paul has been telling me that various men he knows have done the same because they can no longer physically cope with riding on drops.
We did almost 40 miles on Sunday, up and down hills. As usual (for me) the downhills were the difficult bit. I actually had to stop and rest on one downhill stretch - ridiculous! We went to Ilkley, then along Beamsley Lane. Beamsley Lane was busy with cyclists and quite a few irritable car drivers too. One car sat on my tail for about half a mile, aggressively revving and trying to overtake on blind bends. We cycled out to Storiths and the Buffers cafe at Back o' the Hill Farm again (see earlier post), then continued on alongside the River Wharfe to Barden. At that point we decided to carry on to Burnsall. It was a beautiful day - one of the many sunny days we have had recently - and we rode along narrow lanes bordered with dog roses (some delicately tinged with pink) elderflowers and cow parsley. Burnsall was thronging with river-side picnickers and the cafes, pubs and shops were doing a roaring trade. The sky clouded over whilst we were there and we expected rain, but - apart from a few isolated drops - it held off until we got home, although there were distant rumbles of thunder. The storm came later in the evening.
Talking of clouds, I ordered the Cloud Spotting book (see earlier post) for Paul from Amazon. When it arrived last week he found that 2 pages were blank, unprinted. I mailed it back to Amazon, explaining what the problem was via email and suggesting that they check their stock before sending out a replacement. A replacement book came earlier this week and was identical! So now that has to go back too.
We have now altered our holiday plans because realistically I know I that the 700 or so miles coast to coast trip that we were going to do is too much of a challenge for me at the moment. It doesn't allow for me having days when I get thumping headaches and dizziness (radiating from my neck) and am not able to get on the bike, or not safely anyway. We will still be dropped off in Bayonne, as in the original plan, and we will be picked up in the same place two weeks later. This has meant that the holiday is 10 days shorter too, because of the bus schedules for pick-ups and drop-offs (European Bike Express). We will cycle from Bayonne down into Spain and tour around the Basque country and neighbouring places.
Yesterday I booked a place on a 3-day writing seminar with Bill O'Hanlon, which is being run at the Northern School of NLP from 13th-15th. I am drawn to it and it has cropped up at the right time.
Paul and I got some cycling in at the weekend. We only did about 14 miles on Saturday, firstly because I wasn't feeling up to doing more, and secondly because I had booked on an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) taster session at the Lotus Therapy Centre in Otley, which was having an open day. I volunteered to be a guinea pig in the session, working on the pain in my neck. I'm afraid to say that the session made no difference to the pain at all, or only at the time. The technique itself induced relaxation and some degree of 'altered state' whilst I was performing it, which did of course reduce the pain and headache which I had at the time. It did not last though.
On Sunday we set off on a longer ride. I still didn't feel up to it, but we need to get the practice in. I came to realise in the course of this that it isn't my fitness level that is the problem; my lungs and legs are perfectly up to coping with the distances, albeit at a slower pace than I used to be accustomed to. The problem is the discomfort in my neck and arms that cycling causes. My physiotherapist says that this is positional and I agree. I've decided to give up on the drop handlebars and have flat bars fitted. This feels a little like defeat, although Paul has been telling me that various men he knows have done the same because they can no longer physically cope with riding on drops.
We did almost 40 miles on Sunday, up and down hills. As usual (for me) the downhills were the difficult bit. I actually had to stop and rest on one downhill stretch - ridiculous! We went to Ilkley, then along Beamsley Lane. Beamsley Lane was busy with cyclists and quite a few irritable car drivers too. One car sat on my tail for about half a mile, aggressively revving and trying to overtake on blind bends. We cycled out to Storiths and the Buffers cafe at Back o' the Hill Farm again (see earlier post), then continued on alongside the River Wharfe to Barden. At that point we decided to carry on to Burnsall. It was a beautiful day - one of the many sunny days we have had recently - and we rode along narrow lanes bordered with dog roses (some delicately tinged with pink) elderflowers and cow parsley. Burnsall was thronging with river-side picnickers and the cafes, pubs and shops were doing a roaring trade. The sky clouded over whilst we were there and we expected rain, but - apart from a few isolated drops - it held off until we got home, although there were distant rumbles of thunder. The storm came later in the evening.
Talking of clouds, I ordered the Cloud Spotting book (see earlier post) for Paul from Amazon. When it arrived last week he found that 2 pages were blank, unprinted. I mailed it back to Amazon, explaining what the problem was via email and suggesting that they check their stock before sending out a replacement. A replacement book came earlier this week and was identical! So now that has to go back too.
We have now altered our holiday plans because realistically I know I that the 700 or so miles coast to coast trip that we were going to do is too much of a challenge for me at the moment. It doesn't allow for me having days when I get thumping headaches and dizziness (radiating from my neck) and am not able to get on the bike, or not safely anyway. We will still be dropped off in Bayonne, as in the original plan, and we will be picked up in the same place two weeks later. This has meant that the holiday is 10 days shorter too, because of the bus schedules for pick-ups and drop-offs (European Bike Express). We will cycle from Bayonne down into Spain and tour around the Basque country and neighbouring places.
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