True to form, Google got the goods. Look at that up above for a fancy, semi-relevant graph with double-barrelled title that will hopefully make this seem much more intelligent than it is.
Because really, I picked that photo because it perfectly describes my experience with the washing machines over here at Uni. I bet old Kubler and Ross would be so proud to see their graph being put to such good use!
Shock - My mummy isn't here to wash my clothes?!
Denial - Tell me it ain't so, Mummy, are you sure you can't come over? £2.50 to wash my clothes?! Half a fiver just for clean kicks? £1.20 to tumbledry? It can't be! That's the price of a good 3 bags of lettuce!
Frustration - AAaaaarghhhhhh!
Depression - hold me. hold me tight. I am so depressed.
Experiment - The treacherous journey to the washing room for the first time . Feeding each coin to the great white monster, as it heartlessly gobbled them down without sparing thought for me; desperately clutching to what remained of my frayed emotions. Surrendering my clothes to his belly, giving in to the glutinous beast. Watching the time crumble, foundations for my anxiety towards the happenings behind the locked door.
Decision - How long til I recover enough for wash no. 2?.. or more to the point: can I survive another night on these bed sheets? Is 3 weeks too long to wear the same tracksuit bottoms? When does cost of air-freshener outweigh washing smelly clothes? Is there even £2.50 in my wallet?
Integration - Well I guess I do get a good sniff of the washing powder every time. Having a full drawer of clean underwear is certainly less stress. Ohhhh the warmth of the tumble drier. I am so renewed. I could conquer the world right now.
Currently in the denial stage with regard to the length of my hair. Stay tuned.
Anyway, I got the chance to get back to Northern Ireland over the weekend past. Sister Alice is also living in Loughborough currently, so her boyfriend was awfully kind to leave us over to East Midlands airport. Things were going swimmingly, I'd smuggled a box of salad from the canteen at dinner and grabbed my last avocado from the fridge; proper preparation prevents poor peregrination. Got to the airport in good time, had already checked in online so walked on in. Got to security, walked through the magical arch with no beeps, WIN. But then, as my jacket was coming through, there was commotion. I knew I had my glasses in there, but the last time I checked they weren't a weapon of mass destruction. Further commotion ensued as they stroked my jacket and felt around the pockets. The woman looked up at me with disbelief in her eyes while I poised myself, ready to defend my lack of sight and plead innocence. "You haven't a knife and fork in there, do you!?".... oh. oh crap. I'd kind of forgotten about those. Whooops. "There's a spoon too", was the first thing to come out of my mouth. Smooth Dave.
Overcoming this slight mishap, I persuaded her I had no intentions to eat my way through the plane, and she let me keep my spoon. Great success. All the tastier when you've had to fight for it.
Got back late Thursday night, had a lovely wedding on Friday, stayed over Friday night and then travelled back home on Saturday. With 3 weeks of duty done, I'd already had my dose of 'Freshers Flu'. Little did I know it's a needy old brute and would come back for more so soon. Saturday morning I woke up feeling pretty rough. Had a shower, dried myself off.. then managed to soak the towel almost right through again with the dreaded sweats. Lovely eh. Anyway, feeling super tired but thought I best turn the legs over a bit after no exercise the day before. Was dark by the time I got home, but thankfully I'd ordered a new light a while back and hadn't got it sent over to England yet, so I was able to head out. Being the first time I'd used the light, I didn't know if it was charged or not, but when I plugged her all together, the green light came up and all systems were go. I'd no rear lights, but some old wheel reflectors stuffed into my helmet would surely suffice.
30 mins in, the inevitable happened and the light suddenly became not so light. So much for it being charged! I stood at the Gall Bog crossroads for a while wondering what to do; trying my best to look as if all was normal as a couple of cars pulled up to the junction. Lols. 'Don't mind me. I intended to be standing here in the middle of no-where, in the darkness, with a bike. Swear.' I managed to slip up the road when the cars had cleared off, and somehow kept it upright through the stones and branches that line Tullyglush's finest tarmac. Tragedy averted.
Race day came about on Sunday morning, as I woke up feeling no better than the day before. I'd said I wanted to race earlier in the week, which was slightly impractical with all my bikes in England. But, Lakeland Bikes had done me the massive favour of lending me a bike for the occasion, so the least I could do was turn up! Beecham's Cold & Flu is a good buzz.
Barry Kellett of Team Maxbo fame was kind enough to give me a lift up, so after a quick check in to McDonalds at Sprucefield, we got going to Dungannon. Peter Jones from Lakeland Bikes had a lovely Felt CX bike waiting for me when I arrived. Mother nature, on the other hand, had much rain waiting for me, and with a MTB support race and B CX race before we would get a go, the track was sure to be a slop.
Credit to Island Wheelers, it was a super little course, with a good mix of open grass, treey'y singletrack, tarmac and gravel. Well, it would've been a good mix of these things had it not been so wet. Instead it was kind of just all brown custard.
At 2pm'ish, as the rain continued and while most were on the way to Noah's Ark, we, instead, got the A race underway. With not getting to the first 2 Ulster CX rounds due to slight transport complications.. a sea to get across.. I had no gridding. Thankfully, the start line was about 20 people wide, so I managed to get on the 2nd row! Looking back at my HR data, it's at 145bpm before we even started. Keen!(.. or ill!). We got off to a pretty rapid start, with Jason Henry getting the holeshot. I stuck to CX master Roger Aiken's wheel, as the laws of probability told me this was a pretty good place to be. Soon enough, it was just Jason, Glenn Kinning, Roger and myself. I was comfy enough at this stage, and was sitting at the back having good old fun. I made a pass on Roger for the sheer craic of it, and sat third wheel for a bit. Sure enough, this backfired as Roger then came by us all, and there wasn't enough room for me to follow. From practice, I knew a little passing spot coming up soon, so didn't rush to try and get past Jason & Glenn. As we got to the spot where it was all meant to happen, Roger took the line that I was going to pass everybody on.. kind of screwing my plan just a little!! Roger then started to make some ground as I was still trying to get round. Balls.
After all the craic of change, one thing that hasn't changed is the man winning UCX rounds. Really, that was the race over. Roger got about 15secs and I tried to bridge the gap, but ended up making some silly mistakes and doing the opposite. Within the first few laps he'd pulled 40 secs out of me, and when it's someone of Roger's calibre, I knew today wasn't going to be the day. I rode to conserve 2nd place, enjoyed getting a bit loose on the last couple of laps, and crossed the line 2mins behind Roger.
All in all, it was lovely to get home for a bit, massive thanks to Lakeland Bikes for allowing me to race, I'm indebted to you guys! Can't imagine I'll be home before we get off for Christmas in mid December, but there'll hopefully still be a few more CX races left in the season by that stage. Ultimately my goals for the Winter lie in the National CX champs; my first National Champs as a senior! Exciting stuff, eh! In the meantime, I'll be training away back here in England in preparation for them and for next season.
Wish me luck!
Monty.
(and on the subject of change, if you've any loose change and wan't to sponsor me, that's a great idea ;) No but seriously; If you own a business or something and are in any way interested in some publicity and advertisement around the country(s), get in contact, details on 'Contact' page up above)
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