Good Times

Total distance this week: 179km (166km on the roadie, 13km singletrack and a teeny bit of wussy downhill on MTB)

Time in saddle: 9.5 hrs (7hrs 10 min on roadie, rest on MTB)

Number of cakes eaten: Half a slice of walnut and date forced on me by Bike Boss and one of Bunty's tiffin eaten willingly.

Jobs resigned from: 1

This past week has been a really, really good one.

I decided 3.5 jobs was far too much for one person and I didn't have time for anything so I resigned from the one that involved cheese. That freed up 9 hours a week. I'm now taking two days off a week - Friday and Sunday. I also didn't have to do Jury Duty in the end AND my new Fi'si:k saddle arrived. I went out for dinner with Mate on Wednesday night, the veg is growing well, I've also had some lovely rides and my sore throat has gone. Completely. Near 8 months of worry and within a month of stopping running, its gone. I have an appointment for ENT which I shall attend just to make sure nothing is lurking but god, I am so relieved. Existing contracts going well [touches wood] we have another job for Little Geek & the new bigger one is on its way. The Bike Shop has been mentally busy too but we're still laughing. In fact Thursday was a great day. Bike Boss got a new race bike - a Cube Litening Super HPC Pro (my, how I hate him sometimes) - and took it out for a test run with a mate. 30 miles in he blew a tyre, then again, then again (crappy thin tyres). I drove the 30 miles out to Donside to rescue them in the works van, on the way back we stopped for an ice cream and I walked the dog round the park in the sunshine. At 4pm I actually got round to fixing a bike. Sometimes work really is rather relaxing.

There's also been a lot of thinking going on in my head. Not the lonely contemplative 4am type of thinking which reduces you to a gibbering, snivelling wreck but the positive, eureka!, grinning like an idiot kind. The kind that brings a warm, groovy kind of glow to your whole being and makes you a Much Nicer Person to be around.

I'm happy. I'm 91% content with my life and I know I'm lucky to be able to say that. The past few years...since 1997 really...have been a whirlwind of divorce, passion and romance and heartbreak and chainsaws and death and Big Fuck Off Boats and V8's and bikes and climbing and running and mountains and childbirth and motherhood and sticks and even some cheese. And many, many Good Times.

If we didn't have Good Times then We wouldn't bother. We are Beings spurred on by reward (unless you are truly altruistic and I don't believe that for a second) and Good Times are that reward. Its finally clicked with me that when its all A Pile of Crap, no this is not the norm. This is part of the same cycle of Crap versus Good that every single human being is going through - yes, in varying degrees and no, I can't imagine how shit the life of a Mexico City street orphan is. I can only speak from my western european experience . And yes its taken me nearly forty years to grasp this seemingly simple concept but hey, I've been busy :)

We work, to get paid. To fund Good Times. If you're lucky you'll even find a job that you love doing and then even work is a Good Time. I've been (chronologically) a petrol pump attendant, a timber stacker, worked in a army surplus store, a commercial woodcutter, a forester, a nursery teacher, a Oil & Gas industry logistics bod, a Oil & Gas industry manager, a delicatessen worker, had my own business and now, now I am both bike mechanic and working within the Oil & Gas industry (again). With the exception of the whole nursery teaching thing, which I fell into out of necessity to fund my single parent family of Me and Three Kids under 10, all of those jobs have been great in one way or another. Even though one of them caused me to have a breakdown, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Why? Because of Good Times. When I think of that job, I don't think of the breakdown, I think of the first time I felt the earth literally move as *insert name of large project vessel I was working with* berthed in Aberdeen. Her thrusters booming through the quayside, the hairs of the back of my neck stood on end. I remember the waffles with the Norwegians, the craic with the crew and driving back into town at 3.30am to watch her leave, lit up like a Christmas tree against a dark velvet sky. When I think of my time as a commercial woodcutter or forester, I don't think of the time I was so tired I went to grab a branch from in front of me with the saw still going and came within a second of cutting my hand off. I don't think of falling on steep slopes and breaking ankles, or slumping to the floor in the middle of some wintry, middle-of-fucking-nowhere forest and sobbing because I was so bloody tired and I missed my kids or even the permanent damage I've caused my body. No, I remember the cheese sandwiches shared with my cutting partner and boss in a sun dappled clearing and falling about laughing at R's latest joke. I remember us hiding and giggling in the works van from the Estate Factor as we all tried to get out of working in torrential rain. I remember the Friday night pub crawls still in our stinking gear and falling asleep happily at the table with a pint in our hands (or in M's case, still standing up with a pint in his hand..). I don't think of the fights with the Directors in my O&G manager time. Or the nights being kept awake by the phone or fear I'd forgotten something or the screaming abuse from clients. I remember wandering along the Bryggen at 11pm one still-light summers evening, the scent of the sea hanging in the air and the sound of laughter echoing off the buildings, after a day visiting old friends and new clients. Or being sat by the harbour in Kristiansand on my own, the sun beating down, the yacht masts clinking quietly in the breeze or knowing, from the first moment I stepped off the plane, that I'll end my days in Ålesund.

When I think of past relationships I don't think of being dumped for a ski season in the USA by the man who I thought was The One. I think of Bagels, Boursin and Pastrami picnics on Dartmoor after climbing, Cornish surf (even though it tried to kill us...) or our World Tour of Scotland in my beaten up old Volvo and nearly dying of hypothermia under the Ben (Nevis) in November. I don't think of the tears and lies with another One, I think of snogging like teenagers in secluded forests. I don't think of crying at the airport as N left for another long trip to offshore Angola, I think of the day he proposed to me on top of a mountain on the West Coast of Scotland and the wide-eyed look of something between terror, awe and pure rapturous delight on his face as his first born (Jnr) made an appearance. I think of watching N sleeping (even if he snores like a frikkin' train) and looking forward to (hopefully) a long life together. I don't think of the Single Parent times when I've sat up at night crying because the bills outweighed the income, I had 3 kids to feed and a week to go to pay day. I think of the time my middle son, then aged five, introduced me to the stick he'd named Steven..

I don't think of seeing my friend's body laying at the foot of the coire, I think of the time we bivvied up high  in the far North West - huddled together in our sleeping bags drinking cocoa under the Aurora Borealis and feeling very, very small but very, very special. I don't think of the excruciating pain in my elbows as I ripped off the 45 deg board at the bouldering wall after pushing myself and my body too far by training 5 or 6 days a week and the months of not even being able to lift a mug of tea without pain. I think of the hysterical laughter shared with A, my gorgeous doe eyed bouldering partner. I don't think of the mind numbing pain in my knees after running my fastest 15 miles cross country one time. Or the fact my ankles now don't work. I think 'wow, I could run 15 miles'. 

Good Times makes the World go round...