Skip to main content

Rising to the challenge

So, it's unlikely I'll ever compete in a triathlon but I've decided to compose my own duathalon.  I have extended my challenge and will be donning a wetsuit to join hundreds of other open water mad swimmers in the Great London Swim.  On 26 May I will take the plunge into the Royal Victoria Dock and participate (substitute the word compete) in the biggest open water swim in the south of England which is predicted to attract 5,000 swimmers who will be organised into waves of approximately 300 starting the mile long course every half an hour.


A fortnight later and once my lungs have expelled any Thames water I may ingest in the effort, I will jump (well, perhaps not exactly jump, but my enthusiasm knows no bounds) on my bike and pedal the 100k Nightrider 2012 course around London. 

I'm excited.  Why wouldn't I be?  Blue green algae worries me not in the least.  I am accompanying my dearest friend as her body is pushed to the limits as she courageously battles the alien inside her.  My body is to face it's own challenge.  I am on a mission and will push myself to the max: to raise a serious amount of money in aid of two very worthy causes - Breast Cancer Care and Marie Curie.  Please don't think twice to support this seemingly mad venture.


Please support my fundraising efforts:

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Table. Apple. Penny.

Whilst there were several places I might have been that morning, I wouldn't have been anywhere else.  The practitioner from the Memory Service arrived promptly.  I liked her instantly.    Mum was nervous.  I think I was a little, too.  It's been a difficult year.   "It's Friday, it's the fourteenth of December and I'm at home..."   No problems there.  CAMCOG, or the Cambridge Cognitive Examination is a thorough assessment tool used to assess the extent of extent of dementia, and to assess the level of cognitive impairment.  The standardised  measure assesses orientation, language, memory, praxis, attention, abstract thinking, perception and calculation.    "Table.  Apple.  Penny."   Three everyday items that were introduced at one point, and then referred to again later on.  Again, Mum was able to recall each.      I am reminded that the...

Glass half full? Glass half empty? Or perhaps the glass is broken

I am, constitutionally, a glass half empty gal.  I will always first acknowledge what I don't have, what I have lost, and what it is that I am seeking.  I tend to overlook my strengths, concentrating only on those bits of me that are underdeveloped or weak.  I refer to myself as a realist, but in doing so compliment myself and insult those who genuinely are simply realistic.  My modus operandi is to identify what's not working and acknowledge this before seeing more clearly what functions perfectly well.  This has its place: I edit others' written work pretty well.  My fastidious attention to detail serves me, and the author.  Accuracy counts, for me and I have an excellent memory.  I can remember a great many of my sessions with clients verbatim.  Even this asset is something I can, and do, diminish the true value of, by concentrating on 'I should have said...' or 'why didn't....  occur to me during the session?' Earlier this we...

Joan Miro: Emotional Art

"Painting and poetry are like love; an exchange of blood, a passionate embrace, without restraint, without defence.  The picture is born of an overflow of emotions and feelings." Miro, The Farm 'La Masia' (1921-22) I learnt a great deal about Miro on a recent visit to the Tate.  I learnt a great deal about a lot more too. Miro wanted to discover the sources of human feeling.  He described his method of creating poetry by way of painting, using a vocabulary of signs and symbols, metaphors and dream images to express definite themes he believed to be fundamental to human existence.  The exhibition displays his sense of humor and lively wit.  His chief concern was a social one; he wanted to get close to the great masses of humanity, and he was convinced that art can only truly appeal when it resonates with roots of lived experience.  "Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly.  Courage cons...