Les Alpes or Bust

The hour is nigh.

At the wee hours of the morning I shall be loading the Alvis on to the boat train for Calais.

The horror of crossing the continent awaits.

Not only have I got the terrors of motorway services plumbing as they call it (Small-bore I call it) but the attentions of an over eager Gendarmerie hell bent on re-living De-Gaule's permanent denial of the Anglo-Saxon saviour hood of their nation - by trying to nab me for not obeying traffic laws more suited to a gauloise smoking peasant in a 2CV, than a lantern jawed chap about the continent in his souped-up motor.

How to speed my journey - or rather - how to minimise the horrors of having to stop?

The answer is to minimise wasted time mucking aorund at stops.

I have taken cues from my flying. In soaring, one is expected to endure 7+ hours solo in a cockpit whilst zippng about the clouds in the horsa.
Now, I reckon I will get about 7 hours endurance from a tank of fuel. I have a flask for weapons-grade coffee, and a non carb snack dispenser. But what if nature calls?

It works for pilots. It shall work for me.

I shall spare you the true horrors. Suffice to say, it is possible to have a widdle while flying a 'plane, it is therefore possible to have a safe, dry widdle when driving.

I will leave your imagination to work out the technicalities - but us glider pilots know how. Just as well I'm driving alone.

Still - I shall have 16 CDs of 'HMS Surprise' to listen to, a flask of coffee to consume and a tub of Foie-Gras to munch on. (Constipation under these circumstances is clearly to be applauded)
I even have a hundred old francs in gold, three pairs of silk stockings, a beret and a phrase book; lest I have to bail out somewhere over the Massif Centrale and make contact with the resistance.
Wish me luck, chaps. I shall let you know when I have arrived, buried my kit and started to shin up Schloss Adler.

PS: 'scuse typos. Spellcheck is down and it's nearly five.

My hols

Are just around the corner......

The pain and the sorrow.

I say, rather close isn't he?

A weekend very much of two halves.

Uncharacteristically I awoke when Da-Lodga returned from yet another night sweating away the last of her youthful looks in one of London's louder establishments.
Full of vim, vigour and verisimilitude I at once decided to aviate.
Now, students of all things metero metroli weather will have noticed the whopping great slice of High pressure resident over Merrie Englande.

This still, pleasant autumn weather, whilst stunning, has killed off the thermal soaring. It's all to do with inversions, and is terribly complicated and will involve graphs to explain.

As the air was so still and smooth it would perfect for some formation flying. Therefore, I took the opportunity to renew my rating on solo-aerotowing.

Aerotowing is basically formation flying, whilst being dragged through the sky by a tug on the end of a bit of long string.

I shall spare you the details - but in terms of the beauty of the day (Cambridgeshire was breathtaking in the Autumn light) and the sense of achievement - I rated it better than my first solo - or first successful climb to cloud base solo.

I landed after enjoying myself thoroughly at two thousand feet and skipped about the peri-track like a spring lamb, filled with enthusiasm and a sense of complacent joy at just how bloody brilliant I am.

It was in this sense of tearing high spirits that I wended my weary way to 'Sarf' London to chums of mine for a spot of an Ibiza reunion with a certain Rugby match in for good measure.

You can see where this is going can't you.

A couple of bottles of bubbles, some cheeky Rhone and a half decent curry later we had become refreshed to the extent that going to the pub with requisite loud funk disco had become a reasonable suggestion and one that we embarked on with notable alacrity. Certainly a journey worthy of allowing us to forget the horrors from Paris.

It is very easy to criticise one's actions viewed through the prism of sober hindsight:

We shouldn't have gone to the pub at 11.

I shouldn't have had that strong Czech lager on top of fizz and red wine

I shouldn't have been involved in Donna-Da-Lodga's mad photography attempts to persuade us gentlemen to behave like celebutards for a camera.

Dancing. (Needs no qualifications whatsoever, does it...)

Nor should I have drunk quite so much (and the rest!)

What is worse, is that there are apparently photos of this debauched behaviour in existence as we speak. (Fortunately, they are restricted to a generic social networking website belonging to DDL - and therefore almost nobody I know will ever see them)

But dear reader - as you are all aware Nemesis always follows Hubris.

My Sunday was spent the clutches of a hangover of transdimensional qualities.

It crept up - I felt fine for an hour when I awoke. (No memory as to how I got to bed either - for the concoctions which had rendered me so cheerful and willing to participate in dancing, had also contrived to rob me of my memory of some minor details - like getting home, what I did for an hour with everyone else - and who I may have drunk-dialled on the wireless telephone).

And then, when I started some gentle re-hydration therapy, it hit. And it struck as fast and as hard as an Exocet out of a cloudbank. I have had similar experiences, normally when experimenting with cheap drugs when I was int he flower of my youth.

My day? Ruined.

My head? Aswim.

My Gulliver? On spin cycle.

A poor end to such an auspicious start.

The only consolation was that this hurt more than the defeat. So, I guess in someways the sorrows had been most effectively drowned.

How to know when you have had too much to drink (an ongoing series)

Singing Simon and Garfunkle hits with one's sister thrashing them out on her guitar.

In the garden, at 11pm.

My liver hurts.

(I am just a poor boy, Though my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance - For a pocket full of mumbles, Such are promises.....All lies and jest! Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.......)

We must have sounded as fan-fucking-tastic as I feel right now.

Light Blogging Alert

What does a chap do, when faced with long hours, stress and a challenging lifestlye?
Does he
A) rest well, and awake refreshed for the morning?
B) get blind drunk with his lodger rant about the workings of the royal mail and awake with a grade IV eye twister of a hangover?

That's right - B!
Too fragile, feak and weeble to post any meaningful diatribe.

Attached a picture to soothe my battered nerves and my aching liver.

Clarification

When Myself and Arch co-conspirator chaps refer to 'making an exhibition of ourselves', it is not bad behaviour in public, merely one of exceptional gluttony.

A fine example is ordering a 'Grand-Gourmand' meal in our favourite restaurant in Cherbourg and eating every single morsel of the 9 course feast. With bread. And a bottle of Burgundy each worth the price of the meal.

We leave the throwing of bread rolls and loud miscreations to Mockneys, Grammar School types and Champagne Socialists.

Round The Island - a review

I think the key learning here is on drills.

Upwind - our drills were fine, the bow team soon synched to the Pit crew and it was slick throughout the day.

Challenge was on the gybes. We had the flat storm kite, so that made handling a bit easier - but we needed better coordination from sheets and guys to the bow-men.
My chief recommendation would be to swap roles for the day and spend some time playing clutches and pole dangling to get a feel for everything.
Then we work up a coordinated routine that allows for the unclip / reclip to work without losing power through the eye of the gybe.

Other than that - we worked well as a scratch crew.

When we have sorted the photos out on Flickr I'll send a link.

Hamster wheel beckons.......

Round The Island update....

Us. Tomorrow.

Bloody Marvellous, we've had the sheet blocks plus kite pole downhaul lifted from the boat.

Not a good start.

At least Ace-Helm is down there and in the chandlers as I sit in my office and type.

Unfortunately fate has decreed I am a 100 miles from the barky - so I will be last aboard.

The upside is that the gang will have prepped the boat for sea, and be ready to slip when I arrive.

The downside......... nope. Sorry. Can't see one.

Blood and Glory

It has come round again.

The time for the loyalest of my crew to 'play up, play up and play the game.'

At six am on Saturday morning we will cross the line at the largest yacht race in the world.

Ourselves and 1,600 other boats will treat the Isle of Wight as a large roundabout in the JP Morgan Round The Island Race 2007.

For nine hours we will brave the gusts and thunderstorms forecast as we thunder around the course with professionals, Corinthians, amateurs, have a gos and entertained clients in the melee.

A day messing about on boats:

The furious tacking duels to the line with the enemy a biscuit's toss off our transom...

The mad beat down past Gurnard, Newtown, Yarmouth Roads and Hurst narrows.....

The white knuckle ride through the gap by the Vargassi wreck and into the Freshwater bay...

The furious snap of the sheets as we speed hoist the spinnaker

Blood and sea water on the Forecastle as we gybe like dervishes towards the luff point at St Catherines in the back eddies.....

Eyes squinting into the sky as we concentrate on trim and exhaust ourselves with tension...

Cold tactics and judgement in Whitesands and the chase towards Bembridge ledge....

Avoiding the shifting Ryde sands and the line astern chase through Osborne Bay and the Shrape....

Running on nervous energy alone as we reach towards the finish line hunting for position.....

Wet elation as we cross the line and cue for the prize barge to collect our tankard and usual goody bag of chapstick, torch and other promotional tat....

Quiet satisfaction as we fold rain soaked sails away and sodden cups of tea and salt water sandwiches as we hunt for a slot in Cowes.....

Plasters for blistered hands....

Tablets for soreheads and tired muscles....

Bilgewater, diesel and urine filling salt crusted noses as the adrenaline wears off and we shelter
below as those with an ounce of strength bring us alongside....

The quiet satisfaction of being there and doing it....

To the uninitiated it is just a boat race.

To those on deck - we are Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, Cochrane and Nelson himself as we battle the elements and chase glory under a cloud of sailcloth.

Every sodden, cold and nerve wrenching second worth it for that grin of the bowman from under his storm hat and the download of our results on Sunday evening.

Monday morning black blue and still bone tired and passing your stiffened gait with the weekend excuses as 'Just Sailing.'

See you on the water for a day of the chops of the channel, action, blood, glory and treasure.

To my crew our orders are simple:

Close and Engage the Enemy. Sink, Burn or Take as a Prize.

Chap's Vacation

At last!
I have finally organised something approaching a summer holiday for myself.
Details, are of course at this stage, highly classified. However it can be certain to contain the following 'features':
Lording it up over grateful natives
Lantern Jawed Determination on the High Seas
Sweltering in desert-like heat
Eating food as yet unknown to man.

As it is likely to be both South and East of Gibraltar, I will be required to dig out my Tropical Kit.
Sandals - whilst normally the preserve of fundamentalist Christians and Hirsute Environmentalists - will be certainly be de-rigeur at least for day wear.

However - standards being what they are - one should dress appropriately for functions at the local High Commission, dinners with the obsequious mayor, negotiations with the Pasha Bey or leading the local rebels to the latest Coup d'etat.
(Point worthy of note here to my more political readers - one attends these things in the station to which one is naturally appointed - not brandishing pitchforks nor toting the requisite AK47 but Genteelly trotting up to the front of the line aloft one's white charger and issuing one's demands to El Presidente in perfect RP English: 'I'm sorry Old Chap, game's up - the lads here have taken the TV station and want your head on a plate - If I were you old son, I'd leave the Krugerand, take the memsahib and scarper - for they grow fractious by the minute...)

This calls for pristine starched whites, tan sam-browne, tan Brogues and my finest tropical Pith Helmet. the Nile medal and the Chelengk always impresses the local pashas as well.

I have already sent them off to the laundry for extra pressing and have selected my Steward for the Voyage.
More updates to follow. Have already started re-reading The Ionian Mission for inspiration.

Chap Olympics

I will now shamelessly promote This Event, as I wish the gentlemen running it to make me the official 'live-blogger' of the games.



I shall be entering the Hop, Skip and G+T, plus, I really must enter 'Bounders'. That has me to a tee. With any luck I could persuade my female readership to join me in this exercise, thereby underlying my caddish nature.