Saturday 26th March, 2022
A day of fitness. My favourite kind of day.
It started with a 10 km run around the University and then back down towards the Quay. I loaded up on my Apple Watch another One Sweet Dream podcast. It was a deep dive into the Get Back film. Time passed away as I pounded the mean streets of C07.
The conversation was decent and I soon lost track of the physical effort I was putting in.
I saw a couple of signs for Graduation Day at the University. At first I thought these must’ve been student pranks. Graduation always takes place towards the end of July. But maybe they are playing Covid shit catch up?
I reached the bottom of the town and was surprised to see a To Let sign outside the funeral parlour.
Death sells, etc.
Back at base and Strava told me this was a 'harder than usual' effort. No shit. But it still felt good.
I had a very quick turnaround and then cycled off to Brightlingsea. I was booked in with a Saturday morning crew for an open water rowing social.
There was some weird walking event for kids taking place around the area. There was loads of sign posts up to marshall in the route. It seemed an odd choice to take the young kids all the way up along the main road of Tenpenny Hill.
I reached the front at Brightlingsea with perfect timing for the 9:30 am rendezvous. The fisherman was setting up his weekend stall.
I met up with the other crew members. N showed me on her phone one of her latest lino cuts. She asked previously if she could use one of my quayside photos to trace out her artwork. It looks quite stunning. She told me it’s taken two months to do.
Blimey.
It was a bit of an effort launching Matchless. We had hired her once again from the Brightlingsea club. It was spectacular being out on the open water. We made the most of the fairly calm tide and extra water that Brightlingsea allows. We pushed on past Point Clear, and then hugged the coastline of Mersea Island for a short while.
Rowhedge were also out. They were putting the six person Cornish gig through its paces. It was quite noticeable seeing the flex in the oars for a larger boat.
We then passed a flotilla of young sea cadets each guiding their own little yachts over to Mersea Island. It was quite a spectacle.
We did a tight turnaround around the buoy, and then took Matchless back into Brightlingsea hard. It got very messy. It was a little like Glasto from back in the day.
We cleaned up Matchless, and then had some issues with one of the clamp pins. Now I know why there is a fisherman's store right down by the front. Where else are you going to buy a rowing clamp pin early on Saturday morning?
It was almost a perfect morning. But then some ABBA bollocks started playing out from one of the nearby community spaces. This was my signal to say my farewells and cycle back to base.
I caught the tail end of Robert Elms. He played Bowie's Win. This inspired me to play the Young Americans album over lunch.
We had a bit of cat food dilemma. A recent Sainsbury’s order came with substitute tinned cat food rather than the usual pouches. It clearly isn’t liked by the cats. Even Daisy left some behind on her plate.
A suggested dropping it off at the food bank. But I don’t like the idea of the food bank folk thinking that we are supplying people in need with cat food to eat.
The afternoon was all about football. And a little table tennis. We had a half-hour window before Wivenhoe Town kicked off up at Broad Lane. We thought we’d squeeze in a quick game of wiff waff. But some cheeky little shits were already on the table. That’s not too harsh. They were using a football and just throwing it back and forth. I wanted to hold my ground and play. A said leave them to it.
It all meant that we were at Broad Lane ahead of kick off. We’ve never arrived so early. It was Sod's Law that the game was delayed with the away team caught up in traffic. Wivenhoe scored before their keeper and even had a chance to touch the ball. The Dragons went in three nil up at half-time.
It was quite glorious in the second half with the sun on our face and legs. The final score of 5-0 to Wivenhoe didn’t flatter them.
We tried table tennis once again on the way back. This time there was a more serious game taking place.
And so instead we had a Saturday evening double of England sporting endeavour. First was the football, and then the Test match.
I bought another cycling top by mistake. Whoops. Much to my surprise I had an offer of £4 accepted on an £8 top.
Chapeau!