Ta Dah!


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I am back. My immigration papers have been completed so I now have hours upon hours of free time each and every evening for the forseeable future, therefore, I need something to occupy my time. What better way than to give out about something on the world wide web. Also, my one man PR team, Ian, showed my blog to someone over the weekend. She read it, stroked my ego, thus compelling to write something. I like to ramble about things so I think I'll be able to come up with something.

Take for example this evening- my word I nearly gave myself an anurism. Each evening I like to huff and puff my way along the banks of the Lee river in Cork. The banks are beautiful, huge fields, full of dogs chasing balls and children, other children in canoes doing their best not to drown, old people with dodgy hips, the young and fabulous sprinting with ne'er a drop of sweat on their tanned brows and then there is me. During my time in Canada I became a vegetable. I sat on my backside letting my roots grow further into the sofa, all the while, demanding regular feedings. The educated among you will know that consistent cheese eating combined with a lack of movement does not do wonders for the posterior, so once back in the Emerald Isle I decided to get out and get active, but not before racking up euros on my debit card. There was no way I was running in public without looking like I was trying out for the Olympic Track &Field team, so I took myself into Cork's finest sporting store and demanded apparel befitting a woman on a fitness mission. I got myself gel shoes that make me spring like a spaniel, trainer pants that are THE latest in high tech non -sweat- getting- anywhere- near- your- skin, and an aerodynamic top that a NASA nerd probably invented. That's what I think and I shall not be deterred.

I had the look and that was pretty much it.

I decided to venture to the riverbanks at non peak hours... so large masses of people wouldn't be tempted to call for an emergency ambulance armed with oxygen. It was awful.. awful awful. I looked like a bruised and battered tomato for days on end and started to get sympathetic nods from the elderly walkers. The hardcore sprinters nearly tailspun me into the river such was the speed they passed me with. But that was then. Now I can more or less keep going without wanting to throw up on one of the passing ducks. Dogs have also stopped chasing me which makes for a welcome change.

So, everything was going well UNTIL THE UNIVERSITY YEAR ENDED AND THE CITY WAS SWARMED WITH OTHER PEOPLE! Each year in Cork, the university runs summer courses for foreign students. The city is invaded with the screams and shrills of rowdy, hormonal, deafening Spanish and Portuguese teenagers. Fortunately, these kids are so busy trying to impress some spotty member of the opposite sex they have no interest in maintaining any level of fitness. However, there are other courses run at the university- for American undergrad students. I am sure they are lovely people when you sit them down for a chat and a bottle of wine but when they are pounding the pavement, MY pavement they are thoroughly and utterly awful.

This evening I was jogging towards the canoe jetty along the rather narrow public path. At most, on the path, two people can pass without dislocating each others shoulders. Anyway, I spotted three, shall we say, rotund, Americans, coming at a sedate pace towards me, all three running abreast. Now, general path and running etiquette in any part of the world is to reduce the three legged lassies to a single mountain range and allow oncoming runners to pass. You WOULD THINK! No no no no no no, they refused to do so. I got in a bit of a snot and refused to move so kept on drilling ahead like a heat sensing torpedo, ( well not that fast, but the description adds a certain something). As I approached the trio they refused to move so I stopped and they stopped and, wait for it, wait for it, I got this from one of the muppets,

"Aaaahh we were , like, here first".

No, I did not have some witty retort, or dirty look to throw them.

And for that I will never forgive myself. My brain failed to react in time.