Back again after a long absence.

Surfmuppet spent the weekend up the coast at Port Macquarie visiting the mother-in-law in the company of the wife. Drama on Friday night when the mother-in-law took a bit of a turn and the ambulance had to be called to cart her off to Port Macquarie base hospital.

The muppet drafted behind the ambulance in his car and spent a few hours early Saturday morning being told to go home by the MIL. Kept in for observation and then home in the morning.

Down to the pool early Saturday afternoon and find it deserted so had the pick of the lanes. Blue skies, warmish winter sun, light breeze, what more could you ask for?
Did 4 x 1km, between 20 and 21 minutes a K.

Follow Coach Vlad’s instructions to start doing longer sets to get into the rhythm of a distance  swim as the four weeks out marker for the Galway swim is passed.This advice was imparted was just after 50s Friday finished at the Victoria Park pool, Friday morning.

The muppet was promoted for the sprints to the rarefied waters of lane three where all the super fasties live. Right down the back where he belongs struggling to reach the end of each 50 before the last of the fasties depart for the next one.

Back to Port on the Saturday afternoon, and a few other swimmers jump into the pool during the session but there plenty of room for everyone. On Sunday morning, back into the pool prior to hitting the road to Sydney. Few more bodies lapping away and SM manages a 1×1.5km and a 1x1km before heading off back south.

Run into Port Macquarie Neil in the dressing sheds prior to the start of the session and had a great chat. Met him over the last couple of years on the NSW summer swimming circuit. Year before last he finished right up top of the league table with 80 or 90kms raced for the season which is a lot considering he had to drive from Port all over the state and the country to find races to enter.

Tells how last season top rankings brought a lot of Kiwi’s and Western Australians into the mix and they won a lot of the top berths. He’s thinking about whether to have a go again in the coming season but will have to target 200km to be anywhere near the top seeds.

Prior to the swim, spent breakfast chatting to the MIL over the table, when a strange gleam comes into her eye. Outside, in the trees of the garden, the call of arriving crows. She leaps up from her chair and disappears off into the house leaving the muppet with a piece of toast hanging from his mouth and a bewildered look on his face.

He goes looking and eventually finds her on the top balcony overlooking the garden armed with an evil looking catapault…for the crows. The MIL and the crows have an understanding that she doesn’t have to fire it, just signal her intentions by drawing on it like an English archer facing the French heavy knights at the battle of Agincourt.

The crows head for the hills. Turns out the beasts show up to attack the nests of a pair of doves and lyre birds which used to hang out in her garden. She watched once as the crows attacked the baby doves in the nest and ate them alive…so she got tooled up.

Walloped them with small pebbles collected from Shelly Beach. Now the crows know whats what and hightail it out of there as soon as they see her coming.  Baby dove off the breakfast menu. Reminds SM of the granny in the old Clint Eastwood movie, “Every which way but loose” when the granny runs off the Hells Angels with a pump action shotgun.

This time last year the muppet was a lot better prepared for Galway Bay and came steaming home with plenty of puff left in the tank. This year it could be a different story but that’s life in the big city for you.