I cannot believe a whole decade is over! At the (immediate) start of this decade I was actually in Val D’Isere, France, for the Millennium, about to go and hurl myself off a mountain paraskiing. That was a ridiculously scary thing to do. Thankfully the only planning it involved was getting outrageously drunk the night before with my (now ex) brother-in-law, and saying “betcha won’t do it!” a few times poking fingers at each other. As it turned out, I should have bet for money, as he chickened out, and I got to go solo, albeit strapped to some mad French ‘instructor’ who made me scream a lot spinning in circles all the way down.

And so the end of this one finished in Broadstairs, Kent. Hardly Val D’Isere, but a damn good time was had by one and all. I had never been to Broadstairs before, and I thought it was a great place. Special thanks indeed to Col and John for asking me down, and for putting me up, feeding me, etc. etc.

Thankfully no photos were taken on New Year’s Eve (or that I know of yet:)), and that’s the way it should be. I shall leave it there. For posterity though, I do recall (at least) drinking (in this order I think) champagne, white wine, red wine, gin, vodka, Abbot Ale, whisky, Jack Daniels, red wine, red wine, red wine, vodka, sambucca, sambucca, Jack Daniels, and Calvados. I think it may have been a dodgy Calvados at the end that finished me off, but after a few hours’ kip on the sofa I did not, it is fair to say, feel good. I think I got to my sofa at about 5.15. It is difficult to say as no-one, including me, remembers:)

So anyway the next morning I tried to walk it off a bit, which was a stupid idea. I actually stumbled around Broadstairs like someone out of Shaun of The Dead. If someone had had a cricket bat I think I would have just asked them to finish me off. I walked into the very salubrious ‘Submarine Cafe’ near the sea-front and asked for sausage, beans, fried bread and fried egg. In fact that was pretty close to what they served me too, but as lovely as I’m sure it was, after about two mouthfuls I had had enough. No way could I eat, and that is a bad sign, although I did finish my tea I think:)

Got back to Col and Kai’s house about 11.45 to find them up and about and about to walk down to the beach. In Broadstairs they have an annual charity ‘swim in the sea-athon’, and as it was snowing I decided not to tale part:). Here’s a piccie of some of the brave souls who did:

Thankfully I'm the one holding the camera

And then with a flourish they all went into the icy waters:

I take my hat off to the cow girls in particular...

So then we walked along the coast for a bit to ‘blow the cobwebs away’ as they say. Didn’t do a lot for me I have to say, but it was certainly bracing stuff. Here is a view a little further along the cliffs:

Stormy seas....

As it then started to snow and hail pretty badly, we headed back to the direction of Col and Kai’s house, here is a picture of me and Col on the way:

He always was more cool than me, and this just proves it...

As we rounded the corner to what I thought was going to be their house, we passed one of Broadstairs’ landmarks, which is called “Bleak House”. This is the place frequented by Charles Dickens, where he apparently wrote David Copperfield, and pictured here in part for posterity:

He really was here you know.....

As we rounded the bend we did not in fact come to Col’s house, but to another pub, called the ‘Tamar Frigate’ (I think – someone correct me here if I am wrong?). A Bloody Mary was the start of the day’s ills, which included a holy host of more Bloody Mary’s, a plethora of Abbott Ale and IPA, and a good old kebab to finish the evening, with chilli sauce, probably. Kilimanjaro seems like an eternity away.

I return from Kent on the  2nd, and resolve to start training seriously, like never before (which will in fact be easy), the very next day. More about that in the next post then.

Meantime I give you, below, the Lord Nelson pub, site and host of New Year celebrations 2010. Gawd bless her, and all who sail in her, of which I believe  was one:

Happy New Year!

The Lord Nelson, Broadstairs - a 'proper pub' if ever there was one.

I had no idea that you could go Scuba diving on Lanzarote. Did you? Having been to The Maldives a couple of times and snorkelled, I have always fancied diving, but just never done it for a host of reasons – fear and cost being just two!

So it was the second last day of my holiday and I am lying with my book (“A Thousand Spendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini – outstanding by the way) by the pool, and just contemplating life’s rich tapestries, as it were. Now often during the day you would hear some of the ‘animations’ team walking round the hotel pool trying to drum up some people for activities. You would therefore hear “boules in 10 minutes!”, or “Sangria demonstration in 10 minutes!”, or even “putting competition in 10 minutes!”, whereby you would then see some of the residents trundle off for sundry events. I had switched off to all of these cries, as nothing sounded terribly entertaining to me, when all of a sudden I hear “Scuba diving in 10 minutes!”. I sort of did a double take and cannot think that I have heard correctly, when I look up and see a girl wearing a “Dive Centre Lanzarote” shirt, and think that maybe this is real after all.

So I approach her with a strange expression on my face and ask her if she was serious. As she was holding an oxygen cylinder, and sundry other diving equipment she looked at me back with a “do I look like I’m serious?” expression, and so I guessed that she was. So to cut a long story short (why do I always do or say that?), within ten minutes I am in the hotel pool with full diving gear on, and trying desperately to breathe properly through the mask. It is harder than it looks. Breathing itself is OK, but what I didn’t realise is that you have to totally empty your lungs in order to descend, and that is a leap of faith. It is so unnatural, as you think you want to fill your lungs with all the stuff that the tank gives you, so as not to, well, die, but that does not get you anywhere I can assure you. You just float at the surface like a piece of cork, it is strange for sure.

After about 20 minutes or so of very patient teaching by the instructor (I would have given up on me, I really wasn’t getting it at all), I eventually manage it, I get going down, empty my lungs (I mean you have to breathe out for at least a count of eight, and that goes against everything that you feel like doing when you are underwater – you either want to hold your breath or breathe in), and I am at the bottom of the pool. Wow! When the penny drops it is fantastic – you just need to be really calm. Like caaaaaalllllllllmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, with capital letters and things.

So having ‘got it’, Elsa (she’s the instructor) asks if would like to dive in the Atlantic the next day. I look at her like she has just asked me if I want sexual favours or something (she’s very nice too:)) – and I say “yes”. The word “yes” comes out of my mouth like “that is the most stupid question I have ever been asked, of course I want to!”. And so the next day I am sat with three other virgin divers, enlisted from other hotel pools like me, and we are being given diving instruction by Bart, a Dutch guy who will be our diving buddy on the south coast of the island.

Here is a picture of us in the room beforehand having got kitted up and after our classroom training.

Do I look scared? I should do, I was!

The girl next to me has a very small head, don’t you think?

We had been taught in fairly scary fashion all about equalisation (that’s your ears and sinus passages etc), and also the lungs, and not having them overinflate when you ascend, and how bars of pressure work etc. Then we had the stuff about what hand signals we needed. The instruction was very good indeed. 45 minutes later we were kitted up and ready for the ocean as seen above.

To start with, the same thing affected me as the day before. I have a 10kg lead belt round my waist, and rocks stuffed into the pack on my back, and the cylinder must weigh a bunch (and so do I), but still I cannot sink. Bart has to get a bit in my face, and show me again how to not breathe in, at all, and in fact to only breathe out, for as long as I can. But this is the Atlantic Ocean, and a bit scarier than a four foot deep swimming pool! I mean it is deep, and big, and there are things down there!!

Anyway, I get it, and go for it, and I am away – I am down! It is incredible!

We spend probably 45 minutes altogether under water, never surfacing during that time at all. That feels weird, but once I am breathing properly, I never have to think about it again. It is a fantastic feeling, believe me. Fantastic!

The fish are a lot more plentiful than I expect also. There are lots of bream, fairly colourful, and lots of urchins and anemones and smaller fish, but pretty too. I am amazed. The guys from the diving school are right by you at all times, and they take plenty of pictures too, which are of course available for a fee on disc afterwards. Sold! Sadly I am having problems getting some of the photos loaded from the disc at present, but here is one of them below – more to follow when I get the rest up and ready.

Me and some bream, I think

We don’t go too deep, apparently it was about 7 or 8 metres, but it is enough.

I resolve to more diving when I get the chance – maybe it’ll have to wait a while, but this for sure is a whole new world.

I am hooked. I am a diver!

So yesterday I got to climb a volcano, and today I got to ride a camel. The volcano was fun, the camel wasn’t. Smelly, hairy and very big, I would describe it as. The camel, strangely enough was on another volcano, this one a big one, after yesterday’s little one, if you’re still with me. Oh and there were like hundreds of them – camels that is!

Today’s volcano was an organized trip. Yes a coach trip, full of old people, of which there are copious quantities around here. I’m not sure that some of them knew where they were going. Maybe they thought the bus was taking them to the bingo or something. Maybe not, they wouldn’t have paid a king’s ransom (£50 I ask you) to go on it.

I have to say though it was great. And it involved all sorts of other places than just the volcano. The tour guide was very ‘educational’ too, so I learned lots of good stuff. One of the most amazing things was about the viniculture (and agriculture generally) on the island, which thrives due to the agroscopic way in which things are planted. Volcanic ash is apparently seven times more water retaining than any soil or clay. I like that! The vines for example (of which there are thousands, planted individually) attempt for the roots to reach down to where the earth was before it was covered in lava (or if they don’t then the above agroscopy takes effect), and the little pits that they are planted in let the morning dew run down to where it needs to get.  It basically never rains on Lanzarote, and they never need to water the vines due to this method – this is true ethical/ecological farming right here:

the vines grow in sort of mini-craters

The volcanos themselves were fantastic. They basically destroyed about a third of the island in the 18^th and 19^th century, and are still, as I understand it, officially ‘active’ even if there hasn’t been an eruption since then. The eruptions were the second biggest anywhere on earth in the last 500 years apparently. The areas are called locally the ‘Badlands’ – nothing can grow other than lichens until they have prepared the magma, and this takes apparently about 500 years or more.

I don’t know how many volcanos  there are (should have been paying more attention!), but I’d guess at 100 or so. The landscape is incredible – over a quarter of the whole island, over 200 sq. km, basically looks like this, taken from the seat of my camel:

So I also got to learn some of the stuff and properties of volcanoes. They apparently are quite violent affairs:). And apparently one of them is going to burst out of the Atlantic Ocean one day and cause the biggest tsunami ever which will destroy the eastern seaboard of the USA, amongst other things. Sobering stuff – had me headed to the bar right away.

Oh and speaking of camels, here are a couple of pictures of them from the camel journey up one of the volcanoes.

Firstly, here is what I think is technically called a bunch of camels:

Anyone seen my camel?

Oh and I learned after that they are not camels at all, but dromedaries, but hey who’s counting humps?

On the way up to Timanfeya volcano

At the top we were served up with various demonstrations of earth, fire, water and air. All were fantastic. The temperature of the rock about 12 inches under the surface is around 80 degrees C, too hot to touch – we tried it. About six feet under the surface the temperature reaches 250 C, enough to set fire to a dried bush, spontaneously as it were:

Anyone remember the Life of Brian scene?

Then there was water, and geysers and stuff. They even cook all of the food for the restaurant over a big hole they have dug and so the earth cooks it for them.

On the way back from the volcano tour the coach stopped at two other great places. One, ‘El Golfo’ is an example of a subterranean volcano, which had basically sprung up at the edge of the sea:

El Golfo volcano

The other place was where a whole field of lava had ended up streaming down into the sea, and had actually increased the size of the island by about 20%. Difficult to see from the photo, but basically everything that you see here for about three miles (apart from me) is magma, in what was a colossal (5 cubic km of lava flow apparently) displacement of whatever was there before (about 20 villages were destroyed):

I am at least not quite as pale as the guy behind me.....

So anyway, that was part of my day, and all that I am going to post for now, as I have the need to go out on the town, it after all being Friday night, and me being on my holidays.

However, when I got back I went, for the first time in my life, SCUBA DIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like Lanzarote, a lot in fact…………

I woke (or shortly after I woke) today happy for the first time in I do not know how long.

And then today I notched up a first – I climbed a volcano!

I am thinking that the next time that it happens that it will be Kilimanjaro. Here’s hoping then.

This was a little one though, but absolutely fantastic:

The Volcano is the one on the left...

I’ll find out what it is called (the volcano that is) tomorrow. The guy from the bike hire shop (Hubs and Tubs in Playa Blanca – go there if you are ever in the area is all I can say) suggested I do it, so I did. Legs are knackered! You can see how rugged the rest of the terrain is – I am told that Planet of the Apes was filmed on the island and I can see why!

I got about three quarters of the way up on the mountain bike, after which the terrain just became too rough (ok too steep for me:)) to make progress. The top was amazing, my first time in a crater:

The rim, looking towards Fuerteventura

The actual crater was huge – amazing for such a small volcano:

Inside the crater

After the volcano I rode all the way around it, and then along the coastal path along the south of the island. I reckon I did about 10 or 11 miles in total. Some of it was very hard, especially as the sun was pretty intense.

So a great great day. As it is the fourth Thursday in November I should say that I am enormously proud and thankful to have Dan and Becca as my children – I sort of don’t like to call them children, as they are not any more, but no matter how old they get they are still my son and daughter. They both make me outrageously proud and happy and I miss them.

Happy Thanksgiving.

So this is my fourth day here now I think. Probably, at least. Days sort of blend into one.

This is my fourth time to the Canary Islands. That is a really sad statistic. Unfortunately in the winter if you want a flight of no more than four hours or so, and you want guaranteed sun and warmth, there is almost nowhere else you can go.

I have been to Gran Canaria once. It was very ‘gay’ and very “German’ as I remember it. Not that either of those are bad things at all (in fact the reverse) – they were just my overriding impressions. I also got ridiculously ripped off buying a video camera. I was the one they saw coming. I started buying this thing for about £100, and ended up spending about £600 for the same thing, plus a few silly lenses that were crap and that I didn’t need, and never used, as they didn’t work. They are probably still laughing at me now, 15 or so years later. Lesson learned, as they say, albeit an expensive one.

I have also been to Tenerife twice. Once to Los Gigantes, which was quite nice, and once (in fact earlier this very year) to Playa de las Americas. I am not even sure how to describe Playa. Let’s just say that “Linekers Bar” http://www.linekerstenerife.com/index.htm is one of the best things about it, and about as Spanish as it gets. I went there with my son, his girlfriend and my daughter, and we even resorted to going to Hooters. OK, maybe that was my idea. Probably makes me a bad parent in fact. I was never an “earth Dad” if there is such a phrase, come to think of it. The chicken wings were crap too:)

So anyway, on to Lanzarote.

I am in the quiet bit. Apparently you can go to Arraciefe, or to Puerto del Carmen, for Linekers Bar and the like. Or you can come here, where I am, to Playa Blanca. God’s waiting room. I believe that I am the youngest person in the resort, and apparently there are 10,000 tourists here on average! I don’t think I have seen so many wheelchairs in my life.

Playa Blanca beach

The hotel is fine however, even if I have to climb over the wheelchairs at feeding time. I got told off on the first night for not wearing long trousers! Give me a break! I have however walked for Queen and country, the ‘promenade’ (shit, I must be getting old) is 11km long altogether, and I have done the stretch of it twice. I have also been to the gym twice, swum a lot (even if the water in the pool is “brass monkey” cold), and tomorrow I have hired a mountain bike. There is a nearby volcano, and apparently you can cycle most of the way up it in about four hours. I am going for it – bike is hired and ready, my adventure starts at whatever time I arise tomorrow.

Bring it on!

So there is a very strange thing happening here. I am on holiday on my own for the first time in my life. I guess that the second time will be the time I get to go to Kili – not that I am viewing that as a holiday by any means.

The one good thing about being where I am is that the Hotel has a gym. I have to say that I would have never ever have thought those words would ever come out of my mouth until a few months ago. When I have seen gyms at hotels I have stayed at in the past I have thought that anyone sad enough to go to the gym should really get a life and get into the bar. Now I have changed my mind. I think that now you can go to the gym and then go to the bar afterwards and drink even more than you would have done anyway!

I wanted this week just to get away anywhere warm so I could chill. I have worked hard recently, relentlessly even. I have had one half day off since April, and that is probably not healthy for me. I started looking a week or so ago (all a bit lastminute.com I know) for places anywhere on the planet that would give me some heat, some relaxation, were not too full of the “Lager & Kebab” brigade, that didn’t involve a 12 hour flight, but also that gave me something to do. Tough challenge!

I thought of the Caribbean, but decided that for seven days in an untried place that I just didn’t know where to start. And of course if you fly west then coming back you have the east/west redeye/jetlag to cope with the next day. Sad to think of work before you even go, but there you have it. For a 7 day break I thought I’d rather not worry about it. I then had some advice/thoughts from people at work who suggested the Far East. I duly googled Koh Samui/Phuket/Krabi/Bali until they all made my head spin (the places, not the people at work). I haven’t got time to think about all of this. I then worried, honestly, that as a single person going to Thailand that I may be viewed as a sex tourist. How scary is that? I also decided that (in conjunction with the above) that 15 hours or so travel time was not what I wanted to do.

So then I got it – the Red Sea! I love snorkeling, and so googled the only place I have ever heard of over there, Sharm El Sheikh. Perfect! Guaranteed dry, about 80 degrees F this time of year, and I can snorkel to my heart’s content. I therefore get some good exercise too, and so duly go about finding me a place. After way too many hours on Tripadvisor and the like, I settle on Sharks Bay, a resort just a little out of the “commercialism” of Sharm. I hate commercialized by the way. Passionately. Although Sharm at this time of year seems overrun by overeager (and always overhungry) Russians, whom I have had the slightly dubious pleasure of seeing before on holiday (although I am sure they say equally adverse things about us Brits), I go for it, and pay my money. Hilton Hotel is #8 of 39 hotels in Sharm El Sheikh on Tripadvisor. I’m off!

So flippers, snorkel, mask and the works packed, I head off at 5 am on Saturday morning, mildly trepidacious, totally knackered, to Gatwick airport, about a two hour drive from me. Sadly, that ended up being  the most exciting part of the day. I had even booked premier valet parking, so you can drive up to the front door and just get out, and leave some nutter to go and thrash your Porsche anywhere they like without you knowing it. Good luck to them – have fun!

Anyway, having got to the check in desk, they tell me that as my passport runs out early next year, (I knew this), that the “Egyptian authorities are unlikely to let you in”. WHAT?!! Unlikely to let me in for a week’s holiday in their diarrhoea-ridden country? FINE! I of course didn’t think that at the time. I stood there dumbstruck, disbelieving that I had worked up to this, got packed, got up at 4.30am, and would now have to drive back home with nothing. Paid a grand for it too. Gutted. So I duly got my car back from the valet park and drove back home, unbelievably depressed.

That afternoon I went into Oxford to see if I could find a travel agent (fed up with online options) to get me something quickly. I went to Trailfinders (with whom I booked my Tanzania flights for Kili, and who were very good), but they sort of looked at me strangely when I said I would like a holiday that same day to anywhere on the planet. They said they weren’t that sort of company. I don’t blame them. I ended up walking along the main shopping drag, and stumbled into WH Smith. As I walk upstairs, very low key, I stumble upon a book signing. It is Sir Steve Redgrave, signing copies of his new book “Inspired”

Now I would say if you asked me to name three sporting heroes, that I would have Steve Redgrave in my top three. Probably alongside Muhammad Ali and Jack Nicklaus. Don’t get me started on Ali. He may have his own bigotry, but my God he succeeded, and in a very dignified manner, when the bigotry and racism of the USA would have knocked down many a lesser man. Nicklaus inspired the sport of my youth, my golf, and he is as far as I am concerned the greatest sporting “gentleman” that ever lived. He epitomised fair play, courtesy and respect, as well as being the greatest golfer ever, Tiger Woods included. Redgrave however, gave me one of my greatest three most exciting and emotional moments in sport.

In case you are interested, the other two were were Sunderland winning the 1973 FA Cup Final, and then England winning the 2003 Rugby Union World Cup Final.

Redgrave, 2nd from left, Sydney 2000

So above is a picture of the victorious British Rowing Coxless Fours. Redgrave, second from left became the only person to win a Gold medal in five consecutive Olympic games. I watched every one of them live (Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney). The aftermath of that moment in Sydney is of course immortal and timeless for anyone who watched it. I punched the air with the ecstacy of every guy in this country and others who wishes that they had a tenth of the guts, determination and desire of Sir Steve Redgrave. Especially when you consider that he is a Type 2 diabetic.

Anyway, I find myself buying (delightedly) a copy of “Inspired”, and asking Steve to sign it for me. He talks to me freely and easily, and I tell him I need some inspiration for my forthcoming climb to Kilimanjaro. He tells me to do lots of running if I can, but in any case to really concentrate on stamina, for the slog up Kili is “long, slow and very very hard”. “Work at it” he says, and “good luck”. He signs my book “Good luck for Kilimanjaro….”. I feel like a groupie at a rock gig who has just been kissed or touched by her hero and never wants to wash again. The book therefore will not just be read by me, but will be coming up the mountain, hardback or not.

Digression over, I do eventually find a holiday leaving the next morning from Birmingham, to go to the Canary Islands. I would probably have chosen anywhere else but here, and to tell you what an exciting time I am having, I have spent most of this, my third night here, typing this. They at least let me onto the plane, which was my first criteria after the fiasco the day before.

I am getting some good exercise here, walking and in the gym. Not as much fun as snorkelling, but the weather is perfect – 80 degrees or so every day and cloudless, so that works for me.

More of this and my exploits later in the week……