ALLY IS CHOSEN TO REPRESENT EASTERN PROVINCE FOR NIPPERS MARCH 2009.

ALLY IS CHOSEN TO REPRESENT EASTERN PROVINCE FOR NIPPERS
MARCH 2009.

Friday 13th March 2009.
Barbara & I had been planning for some time that we would spend the weekend at Bushman’s River Mouth with Charles and Ingrid. On Friday afternoon we heard that Ally had been selected to represent Eastern Province at the interprovincial competition that is held on the morning that the Nationals start in Durban.

We had planned to be at Bushman’s for the weekend but as Ally would be having a Team Practice at Kings Beach on Saturday afternoon we decided to cut our weekend short. I had left work at about 14.00 to watch Ally’s athletics. She had two events. I missed the first in which she came fourth. It was a sprint whereas Ally’s real strength is in the longer endurance events. Then she was in the relay where their team came first with a good margin. The event had been an inter school athletics meeting between St Dominic’s, Victoria Park and Clarendon. Ally’s friends; Amber and Meghan did well in their events.

We left for Bushman’s on Friday afternoon. During the drive I was able to make a number of arrangements for the following week. Cell Phones can really bring your office to the car. As we arrived at Charles & Ingrid’s caravan cottage we immediately opened a couple of Grolsch beers that I had bought especially for this occasion. We lit the fire. The fireplace was the one that Charles & I had repaired the last time that we were here together. The bottle of the Grolsch beer is the best part as it has a “Swing Top” seal top that can be reused. Ingrid promised to give me her Ginger Beer recipe. The Grolsch bottle is ideal for sealing Ginger Beer.

We had ourselves a wonderfully relaxed evening chatting about old music and the “good old days”. Charles told us of when he went to Germany as a 25 year old man. He arrived at a train station almost penniless. As he arrived there seemed to be some kind of political rally on the go with a lot of people shouting and loudspeakers blaring out slogans. He thought that he has arrived at a re-gathering of a Hitler rally when a man came up to him and told him to hurry up and get to the supermarket before it closed for the weekend.

It seems that at that time there would be absolutely nothing open for the rest of the weekend. Charles walked through the supermarket, horrified at the high prices of the food and eventually bought himself a huge loaf of bread that lasted him for a month. Amazing what you do when you are forced to make a plan.

He was with Volkswagen at the time. He was earning 700 D Mark at the time of which 500 was taken up in rent. They were given lunch vouchers and he gathered up the left over pudding vouchers and stashed squashy puddings in his pocket for the evening meals. While he was in Germany he had met a Yugoslav woman who did not speak any English. He spoke only the bit of German that he had picked up while he was there.

The two of them were offered a weekend away and ended up travelling on train over the Easter weekend to some posh hotel. They had the equivalent of R30 for the weekend and so had to be extremely careful as to what they bought to eat. They ended up going to a fish market where the fish was being auctioned. The sellers would offer samples to prospective buyers and Charles and his friend went from auction to auction trying to scrounge samples which they put in their pockets for a meal later. It was stories like this that kept us up till late that night.

After two of these Grolsch beers and two glasses of wine, I was talking nonsense and ready for bed. Barbara woke up first and I heard her taking Digby for a walk. She sat outside reading and then it was my turn to wake up. After a wash and shave I felt a whole lot less groggy and went for a short run to get my circulation going.

Back from the run I had a shower in their outside shower. It is a little shower cubicle that is situated behind the caravan. The passage to the shower is open air and has a tree growing in it. You share the shower with the local spider population and have to clear the leaves from the floor to stop the flow of water from damming up. This gives one a lovely sense of freedom as you are almost showering in the open. They have hot water in the shower. The run, hot water and soap was just what I needed to make me feel a whole lot better after the two glasses of wine which I should never have drunk.

We sat talking and enjoying the morning. Charles mentioned how long it had been since we were able to just sit and not have to do anything. We went for a walk on the beach. As we returned from our walk, Ingrid met up with two of her friends who were swimming. This looked so good that Charles and I decided to jump in the river.

We had seem some canoeists paddling in the river but the tide was going out and it appeared quite dangerous to be in a river that was flowing as fast as this was this morning. I swam out to the middle of the river where the pull outwards was the strongest. Here I was able to float being pulled towards the sea. I then swam towards the side of the river and experienced something quite extraordinary. The pull of the water reversed and I was now able to float upstream.

I tried this a few times to make sure that I was not imagining the phenomenon. But each time I was in the middle of the river I would be pulled down stream but when I swam towards the side of the river I would be pulled back up stream. The friends of Ingrid who had been swimming confirmed this. They said that people would float down with the outgoing tide and then float back upstream in a kind of reverse rip.

After our swim we made a breakfast of eggs on some of this delicious bread that Ingrid had bought. But as we had to be back in PE by just before 14.00 we packed up and left just after 12.00pm. Ally had stayed overnight with Amber. We collected Ally, Amber and Meghan. We met at Kings Beach. Here Paul Lynch and Clint chatted to the Nippers and read out the various teams for the events. They had given each child a fair number of events so that there would be an even spread.

This afternoon we spent 90 minutes of hard training. Some of the youngsters had either been in Gala’s or training that morning. Amber had won two gold medals and one silver medal at the gala in which she participated. I went out on a Malibu a couple of times and was pretty exhausted after that.

The Nippers started off with an Iron Man individual and then Clint sent them into the water over and over again; swimming and boarding combined with running. They should have been totally exhausted. But when Clint said training was over and they could now have free time the Nippers then went back into the water and continued with boarding and swimming.

Later that afternoon we watched the Stormers at Newlands score 8 tries in a match that they won against the Lions. Percy Montgommery never ceases to amaze me as he continues to make a really meaningful contribution to the Stormers back line. Schalk Burger scored one of his few tries. Jean De Villiers, the Stormers captain, is a joy to watch as he has this permanent grin on his face and appears to really enjoy the game.

Sunday morning I met Andrew Jonas at Hobie Beach and we ran the beach front and Strandfontein road. About 12kays of fun running. Andrew & I spoke about church and it turned out that he was attending the Anglican church in 9th avenue where there was no Sunday School or youth group. I invited him to join us and I saw him at Walmer Methodist later. After church we rushed down to Nippers.

An easterly had been blowing and the surf was quite rough with big, uncontrolled waves. We took the U10’s for some body Boarding and swimming. A few of the younger group did not want to venture into this wild looking surf but after a little encouragement they enjoyed catching some really stunning waves. Fortunately we had Roger, Andrew, Marius, Lynne and John assisting.

The U14’s went out on Malibu boards. I saw Ian charging out in front but he must have become involved in a battle for strength with one of the biggest breakers of the day. He managed to snap one of the unbreakable soft Malibu board in half. The U12’s also had some hard swimming and boarding under the coaching of Deon, Hannes and Roger.

It is not safe for the U10’s to be in conditions like this unless there is a lot of individual attention. As it was we had a number of these youngsters disappearing under foamy water with us completely losing them for a few seconds. The U10’s did a few beach sprint relay races and then I had to call Ally away from their practice as we had planned to take part in the Biathle at Happy Valley. At that time Ally, Amber and a few other U12’s were running heats to determine who would be in the beach sprint relay team at Durban. They had to run three or four times and each time it would be Amber and Ally coming in first together. I would not like to have to make the selection between the two of them.

We arrived at Happy Valley as the first event was underway. There was a small group of participants. Thomas and his wife Liesel were the only adults joining me. I came third in the adult group. Ally was in the last event of the day and I told her to not push herself as she had just come off a hard Nippers workout. Ally started off the first run slowly but when they came to the sea leg she rushed in while the others were a little hesitant. This gave her a solid lead for the second run and she was able to win her event.