Harry, Ultreia!

In search of the perfect Eccles cake, I set off on my ride to the Other Side (of the Humber) and was not disappointed; combined with the quest for fitness and to lose the 3 lb I put on in the Whitby hol, of course.

But a bike trip is rarely totally uneventful, and I was glad that the chain fell off my bike at the bottom of the slope up to the bridge on the Yorks side, as this was when I met a new friend. This chap stopped to help me as I wrestled, even to the point of not being fazed when I started to scream because I had got my finger end caught in the mechanism, and every minute (that's pronounced my-newt) movement of the bike in any direction seemed to pull the finger in further and I worried I would lose part of it. Not a help for an embroiderer.

So then we started to walk up the slope together, and eventually across the whole bridge to Barton. He's called Harry Webster, and you can't get a better and more straightforward Yorkshire name than that. He turned out to be a sports coach, and so I got a bit of free tuition from him in breathing. What you have to do is to develop your intercostal and outercostal chest muscles, and this is how:

Lie down, head on a thin pillow (or you can even do it standing up) and steadily blow all the air you can out of your lungs through pursed lips; really ALL of it, every last bit you can. Then inhale slowly through the pursed lips again, until your lungs are really full. Then hold the breath there for a few seconds, as long as you can. Repeat the whole thing 4 or 5 times to start with, building up to about 12. It will hurt, he tells me, but it is an exercise that has helped asthma sufferers to get rid of their complaint. Worthwhile doing whether you are in tiptop or poor health. 

Thanks for that, Harry, I hope I got it right here.

Harry told me (and said it was OK for me to tell the story too) about a time when he had been at a really low ebb in his life with family and financial problems and had had his sporting life potentially ruined by injuries from being knocked down by a car. He was just about to commit suicide, and had put the gun by the sofa overnight. In the morning, he opened the curtains; it was very frosty, and a shaft of sunlight lit up the garden. There on the grass were half a dozen kinds of bird he had never seen before. Wow! he said.
 He got rid of the gun two days later as a

 result, and his life started to turn round for the better from that moment. He told me the little poem he had written:

"Destined for some higher plane,
my efforts fraught with stress and pain
to conquer failure kept at bay
by thoughts of this another day."


We continued to chat about fitness, and how so much is dependent on doing what you do with good posture; keep your deltoids (muscles in the upper arm) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltoid_muscle above your hips. And also, make an effort yourself, lots of effort - don't expect fitness to drop out of a bottle of pills.


And so we strode across the bridge together at a good pace. Bear in mind he is 68 and has 2 new hips and a new knee. We continued to talk about fitness, and he asked me if I liked walking; 'Indeed!' I said, and told him about the camino de Santiago de Compostela, and by now I felt he was just the kind of person who would enjoy it, and who would contribute a lot to the group life that is such a part of it.

At the other end, we bumped into someone on a bike who knew him, a PE teacher, and I realised I had joined a new social circle! I took my leave of him, and felt grateful simply for the existence of good people, and for the chain dropping off when it did.


It's a great tea-time, folks! I just opened an envelope which turned out to contain a timely tax rebate of £76 from 2008 (when I ought not to have paid any tax at all)! I'm so lucky not to have an income, as it means I pay none! But at least this can go into my savings-for-the-camino, and it will buy me two or three days, or 45 miles or so. Today was just like a camino day or JLTC as I say. I even understand now why I turned the pictures into funny little strips.

Harry, see this - it's good, I promise!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6az7f1n_HU
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QFd_55El1I&feature=related

And some music for the journey:
http://www.amazon.com/Calixtinus-Polyphony-plainchant-instrumental-collection/dp/B000V6RD62

Oh dear, have I had a relapse into caminomania?
Ultreia!