Just like my dreams

 I’m a little bit tired this week. Partly this is because I have been working without any meaningful break since Christmas. Partly it’s the ennui of  continuing to plough through a global pandemic and all the guano that brings. It’s also the ongoing saga of my brachial neuritis (17 weeks yesterday and counting)  and its concomitant prevention of bike-riding, which is now invading my nightly dreams, with all kinds of strange scenarios where I get back on my pride and joys.

You’re bored of all that though aren’t you? I know I certainly am. You want to hear something different. Maybe a little bit uplifting?

But whilst all those circumstances have contributed, the main cause of my mental fatigue this week is a massive come-down I’m experiencing. Back in 2018, hard to believe it was three years ago, I came back from the Cent Cols bike extravaganza in the Pyrenees and experienced the mother of all metaphysical crashes. One that plunged me into depths I’d not experienced for years, and it took me almost a year to recover. This one isn’t like that, but it is a comedown from euphoria, but I’m going to draw on the lessons of 2018-19 to make sure I look at things very differently. In fact, this time, it’s going to be a celebration. 

September 25th will mark my 50th anniversary as a West Ham fan (we beat Stoke at home 2-1, I remember flashes of the game, but most of all I remember the noise!). I hope that we have a European fixture close to that date, and that if we do, I’ll get tickets to go somewhere exotic, like Bucharest or Baku. It would be a fitting way to mark the longest relationship of my life. Like any couple, we have had our ups and downs (once per decade currently, 1978, 1989, 1992, 2003 and 2011), and times when we didn’t get on very well (my late teens to mid-twenties, when politics, music and other things became more important), but through it all we’ve stuck together.

I hope (and it is always that hope that kills you) that the bad times may finally be behind us, and as I approach old age a deeper more contented relationship will supersede some of the more tempestuous phases we’ve had. I mean, if you truly love someone, you can forgive them can’t you? The 2006 Cup Final is not forgotten, but I can look back on it now and see I learned so much from it, just as I did from all those rainy and dull nights together, when I wondered if the relationship was going anywhere.

But now we have someone at the helm who may just know what he is doing. If we can keep the good things on board (Rice, Soucek, Lingard, Coufal) and maintain the wonderful togetherness and joie de vivre that has existed for many of our games this season, who knows where our love could take us. Anyway, they know I’ll never leave them, and so what would be the point about grumbling about that when it’s a choice I freely made many decades ago.

So I’m not going to be down-hearted for once, or cynical, or even pessimistic. I’m going to draw some comfort from the great times we’ve had over the last 12 months, and look forward to more of them in the years to come. I adore Somerset, and Mrs Mendip Rouleur and Junior will always get first dibs on my affection. But these boys? The ones that came before and the ones that will come after? Well, I don’t profess to understand this relationship, it’s complicated, and it’s probably inexplicable to most of you as well. But on Sunday, when I saw that green pitch again, and those colours, that song  with the rest of the crowd singing it, people I don’t even know, well it finds places in my heart that no other thing or person can.

Come on you Irons!

“Yes I’m plodding on, thanks”

 I’ve put on 3kg in the last three months, I’m amazed it’s as few as that to be honest, as I’m back up to ridiculous levels of chocolate consumption But I have to face it, it’s added some timber, and although my fitness hasn’t fallen off a cliff, the constant tramping of the ways paths and lanes of the Winscombe Valley have only managed to slow the decline.

But it could have been a lot worse, and I’m hopeful that there’s a corner I can turn round very soon. I can feel strength returning to my arms. I do not know if it’s adaptation, I suspect it is, as most experts (remember them?) say nerve re-growth takes a minimum of 9 months. Which would be October. But I’m able to type once more, I have learned to write using a different action, and certain movements which were very awkward just a month ago, are becoming less so. That said, I know the critical phase is when nerves are reattaching themselves to the motor nerve-muscle endplate, where too vigorous action can re-sever the connections. I’ve been to square one and I’m not keen to go back there, so I am still taking no chances. 

My physio, who is great, has promised to assess the strength of my arms on June 4th, to see if I’m strong enough to do it again. You know, ride a bike on the road safely. Unless I can, and it doesn’t risk my recovery in the long-term, I won’t go there.

The gym being open helps, as I can do some weights on my legs and a few core exercises (I could do those at home but it feels very, very wrong to do ab crunches in the living room), as well as getting to grips with the Watt bike again. My FTP has been destroyed, and it wasn’t the biggest to start with. I shall enjoy watching the curve ascend again when the time comes. Hopefully accompanied by a descending weight curve.

For now, I’ll keep plodding along. There have been compensations and consolations. Namely I’ve got to see my local area like never before, had time to think, had space to listen to all kinds of podcasts, and found out where all the best trees are. Meanwhile, keeping me going in the real world, are my family, friends (particular shouts to Lord Down of Rodney Stoke - I still think we should make that podcast) and colleagues, who have been such a tremendous source of support and wonderment, alongside Taylor, Miley and the massive West Ham United (including West Ham clips on Twitter -although NSFW!) who unknowingly kept me going too. Excitingly I won seats in the ballot of season ticket holders to see a match in real life the Sunday after next. Just think - I get to moan at them in an actual stadium instead of in front of the TV!

I’ve also found some time to restart some of my Family tree research. Speaking of excitement, I have finally located the exact hamlet in the South of France that my French ancestors came from, alongside the nearby village where the valley was based in the 14th and 15th centuries. Hopefully it will not be long before I can actually go there.

I’ve also become incredibly, and probably unhealthily, interested in blue geraniums, bird feeders and collecting random U2 albums on the Internet. On this last, my brother is a very bad influence. What exactly am I supposed to do with my 10-year anniversary gatefold vinyl album of “No Line on the Horizon”. Sure, it’s a thing of beauty, but my house is already too full of stuff. How can I moan at the others when I too contribute to this pointless accumulation of the collectible creativity?

So here are my favourite pictures from the last couple of months, Spring, my favourite time of year. The time of rebirth and renewal. It has been for me. Whilst I’m not glad it’s all happened, I know it’s given me opportunities that I have enjoyed and would not swap for three months of grinding it out on a road bike. But I am a bit bored now, and whilst I love these opportunities, and I’ll not do anything stupid, I’d like to get back on the bike soon please, if you can arrange that for me.

Many thanks.