Day 242 - Tuesday 3rd May 2011

Scores out of 10 -----

Weekend/Entertainment – 9.9/10 – Spent the weekend at Warwick with friends and had the whole of Sunday at Warwick Castle. No doubt whatsoever that it is the best castle in the country. If you haven’t been there; then you need to, simple as that.

Weather – 7/10 – Blue skies, air temp circa 18, no rain and a slight wind. What more can you want for the start of May.

Family – 10/10 – Kids just wonderful all weekend. Sure the odd strop, but they are kids aren’t they!

Exercise – 8/10 – I score this based on what I wanted to do, what I did and how I felt. Apart from Saturday and Sunday I have swam to the West Pier and back each day for the last 5 days, have used the gym every day and also run twice. So feeling strong, fit and up for it at the moment.

Health – 5/10 – No so good on that! Friday night I woke up 4am and basically was throwing up from 5am until 10am; weird as I was fine when I went to bed. Throwing up when you haven’t got much in you is quite uncomfortable to say the least. As we were not leaving for Warwick until midday it at least meant that I had 2 hours of not throwing up before we went. Sharon drove us to our friends on the way and as I was still suffering from a headache, stomach ache and general lethargy she carried on driving all the way there. I did grab about an hours sleep in the car which was great and by the time we got there I was 70% better. Luckily an early night in the hotel (albeit with the kids sharing our room), by the morning I was feeling 90% better and ready for a good day ahead. Today, 3 days on, I still am not 100%, but probably 85% better. The other thing, which literally is a pain, is that I have a flare up of my rheumatism and my right foot is swollen again and painful to walk on. Hopefully it won’t last much longer as it is quite debilitating. It did not, however, ruin a great bank holiday weekend.

Back to today. Kids slept OK last night, I think the Warwick trip followed by a full day in Hove park yesterday and then a meal out until 7.30pm kind of knocked them out – yey! So I was up and feeling good (85% on the mend, so still 15% under par) and at the Arch by 7am. Big Bob back from his hols was at the Arch the same time, so we headed out to the West Pier by 7.10am. The air temp around 7degrees, the water temp averaged 10.7 degrees (still cold) and the sea was flat but with waves pulling into shore. The tide was pulling “hard” east towards the Marina, so the swim to the West Pier was very tough. It was heads down and swim as fast as we could all the way. We seemed to be at the Brighton Centre for a lifetime! I hate swimming passed that building, you never seem to ever go past it even in a still sea, so against the tide it really is mind bending and stressful. Anyhow, of course we did eventually get passed it and got as close to the pier as the sea would allow and then we turned and swam back with the tide. Total swim to the Pier was 26 minutes, total swim back 17 minutes. Considering I’m not 100% feeling well that was a good swim. This afternoon at 5pm after work I am with Ross at the Gym for an hour; hopefully the health will hold up, although no chance of any leg work as my foot just won’t allow it.

Other news worthy stuff for the day:-

Argus business page 21 shows a nice photo of me at the sea life centre in my wetsuit by the shark pool; accompanied by a great article that they wrote. A really nice piece.

Osama Bin Laden no more! Yesterday the USA ended his life. Certainly no doubt it needed to be done as many thousands were killed by his actions. However my stomach tells me that whilst it was a good result for the world that another lunatic is dead, it is still uncomfortable to see people celebrating that someone has been killed. When I was in my earlier years I would probably have thought it was fantastic and I would have raised a glass, but now in my later years I tend to think of things differently and whilst I know it is a safer world without him, it is somehow distasteful to party when anyone is killed. So perhaps we should ponder on what made him act as he did, perhaps we should be pleased he can do no more harm to anyone, perhaps we should remember those he murdered and perhaps we should just all be a little more thoughtful to our fellow humans! Perhaps I have been in the water too long and now am thinking like a fish!!!