On using a pitchfork

Arghhhhhhhhh it's been a month since my last post. I am truly made of fail on the "updating lots" front. Sorry. Please forgive me internet-land!

So yes, pitchforks. WELL, my parents are currently doing up a cottage in the middle of the Peak District and I have naturally been drafted in to help (i.e. heavy lifting, tearing down fitted wardrobes with a fucking crowbar, inhaling my own body weight in plaster removing tiles from the bathroom*, that sort of thing). The bonus is that I get to go cycling round Derbyshire which is muchos more interesting than the same boring roads I've been stuck on at home.

*If anyone ever asks you to do this FFS find an excuse quick. It's an awful, awful job. Getting hit in the face with flying shards of ceramic is NOT. FUN.

One thing I've noticed though:

Cambridge = flat as.
West Midlands = pretty flat.
Derbyshire = oh SHIT they have hills here!

Yeahhhhhhhhhh fucking hell I am not used to gradients. Wind, yes. Roads that suddenly rear up in front of me, no. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MADNESS? WHY IS IT NOT FLAT AS THE EYE CAN SEE WITH A MASSIVE FUCK-OFF HEADWIND ALL THE FUCKING TIME AND LOADS OF SUGAR BEET FIELDS? Oh yes. Not in East Anglia any more. Right.

At least we can count on this being a constant around the country. *Sigh*

But yes anyway. Said cottage had a shed and in said shed was a huge amount of old gardening stuff. And there, right at the back was The Pitchfork.

I could now participate in 16th century riots and witchhunts and stuff! Woo!

They say that small things amuse small minds and this was certainly the case as I enjoyed a fair few hours moving one pile of dead plants to another with what I thought was infinite grace and finesse.

Building a massive pile of dead nettles was never so fun.

In other less gardening related news the crappy saddle on my bike finally bit the dust and started, quite literally, eating my lycra.

Oww oww oww oww oww.

A new one was going to have to be got. (Good sentence construction anyone?) I ended up doing a very bad thing and spending £100 on this:

I will attempt to justify this extravagant purchase to you (and myself) thus:

• If I look after it, it'll last a good 30 years or so.
• Brooks are a good old British company (and this was made just down the road in Smethwick).
• Over time it moulds to the shape of your ass. Mmmm comfy.
• LOOK HOW FUCKING BEAUTIFUL IT IS. Just look at it! It's all leathery and shiny and just beautiful.

Bike now pimped :-)

 Now, there are a lot of horror stories out there on the internet about how these saddles, in essence, rip you in two while you're breaking them in and therefore many differences in opinion on how good these saddles are.

First test ride, I was scared. Scared that I'd be walking like this for days afterwards:

Have I just spend £100 for the worst saddle soreness in history?

Thankfully I seem to have a Brooks saddle-shaped ass and all was rosey and shiny and full of unicorns and I gaily skipped through a field full of flowers after my new pimped out bike's maiden voyage.

In short, I'm really really impressed with it. Definitely worth £100 and I highly recommend it.

(Yeah, this is a bit of a cycling-centric post, sorry.)

The hilarious upshoot of spending the summer cycling after spring rowing is that you get fucking ridiculous tanlines overlayed on top of each other.

Pasty white one piece mark + slightly tanned stripe around the legs with t-shirt marks round the arms? Priceless. It takes effort to look that retarded, it really does :-)

Now, because everyone loves cute stuff, I'll finish with the news that our wire fox terrier at home has had puppies. They are now about 4 weeks old (?) and do stupidly cute stuff like sneezing and then falling over, barking at windows and being suddenly interested in nothing in particular.

Photos I hear you cry? You want photos? Alrighty, here you go :-) Night!

Minutes after he was born. Called Newton Tallis Brunel because I'm a massive nerd.

The little runty one didn't make it. Nature's a bitch.

Bobby Lightening

Opened their eyes after 2 weeks. Woo! Sight!

Staring at nothing. Because they can.

YAY PUPPIES indeed :-)

Earwigs and not hitting the Master round the face.

Hullo everyone!

It has been over a month since my last post, mainly due to me being a useless bastard. I've been putting it off and putting it off and now this post will be a behemoth (SUCH A GOOD WORD) and will take hours to write... But yes, writing. Cup of tea primed and ready. Wooo!

So first up, I finally graduated, Hurrah! This means gowns and Latin and eating strawberries. And being handed the most pathetic certificate ever (at least A-Level ones had shiny holograms on FFS). And Latin. Did I mention the Latin?

This definitely happened.

And then there's a load of weird stuff involving holding on to one of the fingers of some guy after some more Latin and THEN you go and kneel in front of the Master (who is wearing the most badass gown ever) and HE says some Latin and then you bow and in the act of bowing you accept the degree he's giving you.

Or something like that.

(According to my parents, my bow was the deepest out of everyones - YAY HAMSTRING FLEXIBILITY!!!! :D)

And then, most importantly, you have to stand up and walk out without tripping over anything or stumbling and face-planting the Master or walking into the door on the way out. Easily the most nerve-wracking bit.

WHAT IF I ACCIDENTALLY PUNCH THE MASTER IN THE FACE?!?!?!?

So yes, I finally got a degree. Hurrah! Then I seem to remember eating lots of strawberries. Good times.

Ummm other news, I did a bit of cleaning in college or, as I like to think of it, I was paid to swear at Henry the Hoover and repeatedly smash my head against the ceiling on low staircases. I mean, I'm not that fucking tall for fucks sake. Rage.

I think you'll agree, that is some fine drawing right there. Damn fine.
You can get a keyring ffs. Rage.

Yes, that quickly got very tiring. Also, cleaning up after exceptionally rich American students (a couple of them had bought entire new wardrobes upon getting here - I mean, who the fuck does that?) here on a summer school = not fun. Thankfully I wasn't doing it for that long this year or I might have smacked one of them with a hoover. A hoover with a fucking face. *shudder*.

However, being in Cambridge for a month or so after term ended gave me chance to try out a 2-. This boat class has eluded me for most of my four years rowing: College rowing (2-! You'll die!), CUWBC (Owns one 2-, not structurally sound. It actually folds in half when you get in it) World Class Start (row in a fucking 1x goddamit!). So yes, I was excited to get in a 2- at last.

I learnt two important things.

1) I am, quite frankly, complete shit at stearing with a foot. Especially from stroke (turns out the other person sat behind you gives you quite a blind spot!).

Example outing in a 2- with me steering:

"OK, rowing off... go."
*two strokes*
"Oh shit, lighten off Lizzie."
*two strokes*
"Goddammit! Pressure your side"
...
*Oooo a straight bit!*
*Boat veers into the middle of the river as my foot is slightly to the side*
"FUCKING HELL RAGE!"
...
*4 strokes of decent rowing*
"OH FUCK HOLD IT UP HOLD IT UP!!!"
(There is a previously unobserved 2x bearing down on us as I hug the wrong bank).
etc.

You get the idea. After the first outing we moved the steering foot :-/ I mean, we never crashed, but I suppose I'm not the one going to get hit first in the stroke seat am I? Anyway, Lizzie was much better :-)

Lesson learned number 2: You can get away with an awful  lot in 4s and 8s. Bloody hell. Trying to tighten up the timing at the catch/finish in a 2- with 2 people is hard enough, so imagine what's going on in the average 8? Sheesh!

What an amazing boat class though, it lets you get away with nothing.  I mean, a 1x, you just have to time yourself and not be a retard and throw your weitght around right? (OK, massive over-generalisation but meh). 2-, if you're a microsecond getting off the power different with the other person it feels like utter shite. Kind of like being slapped round the face by the god of rowing.

What a fucking awesome class of boat it is. (Aside: I've always though 2- were the most aesthetically pleasing boat class. You know when you're watching the rowing world cup on the TV or something and they do those amazing aerial fly by shots? They are so very beautiful. Thoughts? Am I just being weird here or do other people think the same?) 

So yes, 2- enjoyment!

Hmmmmm. I promised you earwigs didn't I? WELL.

I own a boatbag. It keeps stuff like bird poo and trailer crap off my boat. It is ace.

(It does have my name on though which, in hindsight, is a bit lame.)

It houses a reasonable colony of earwigs.

They have, till recently, kept themselves out of trouble and stay in the boat bag permanently. They can accompany me to regattas, say hello in the morning, that's fine. Until they decided to go for an outing with me. Not a pleasant experience.

What to do? I can't reach up the stern and flick them off, can't row away from the little bastards. And they're nearly at the footwell! SHIT THEY'RE IN MY FOOTWELL SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

And that is how I nearly capsized trying to remove earwigs from my boat.

Night! :D

*EDIT* "Drawings that don't belong anywhere" updated. Wooooooo!

Bumps etc.

Hello everybody! Sorry about the disgustingly long time since the last blog post *mutters something about exams*. But that doesn't matter now as they're OVER and then there was BUMPS and a prolonged period of time pissing around in BLAZERS eating icecream. And I am currently drinking mango juice. Life is good.

So yes bumps. That involves rowing! The title of my blog is no longer misguided and slightly ironic! Woo! :D It's been two years since I've rowed on the Cam, give or take a couple of head races and it was nice(ish) to be back. For one, we only suffered c. 3 swan attacks. Hurrah!

This is the now legendary Stalin/Mr Asbo. He goes by many names, but one thing is constant, namely the fact he is an utter bastard. His plan of attack comes in two stages:
1) We row past him. He attempts to bite seven's blade/our cox. (This once led to a hilarious over the head crab from our seven girl as she attempted to pull in her blade while rowing.)
2) Once clear he sits around a bit then takes flight (in that rather loud honky way that swans do) and dive bombs our cox. Rather funny if this happens to any other boat (especially if it's full of squeal-y girls) but 15kg of irate swan intent on your death flying full pelt towards you is not very pleasant.

Apart from unnecessarily aggressive aquatic life, one of the other mysteries of the Cam is why the fuck lower boat men (it is mainly them) think it's a good idea to row around topless.

Now I don't mean to sound all snobby, but there is something about the
1) Poor quality of rowing
2) General weediness
and
3) WHITE PASTY (then horrendously sunburnt) FLESH
that means I don't find this spectacle particularly appealing. Reason (1) is surprisingly important - you look much more of a douche while being an exhibitionist if you're doing said activity appallingly badly.

I seem to remember Magdalene M2 being particularly guilty of this.

Oh god the horror.

Therefore for future reference I have created the following instructive flow charts:

Hope that clears up any confusion.

That said, when my eyes weren't being burnt out my head by WHITE PASTY FLESH, my term on the Cam was actually really good fun. I mean, they start bumps races with cannons. As in fucking CANNONS :D :D

Fucking cannons! (Pinched from the First and Third website)

Very exciting. There's a four minute then a one minute gun, and everyone is counting down with stopwatches and you get pushed out from the bank with a big pole by your boatman and there's a chain thing the cox has to hold and IT'S REALLY EXCITING. Here is a dramatisation of me at the start. Note the fucking amazing Oakleys. They are important.

However, the bumps campaign of Pembroke W1 didn't quite go to plan, being bumped off the headship on Day 1 by a really-very-good Downing crew. We'll get you next year you bastards :-)

Oddly enough, my favourite photo of me + bumps is this gem:

By Martin Buttress. Lots of good bumps photos here.

Christine (Stroke): "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
Georgie (7): "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
Me (6) "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE YOU BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!"

Rage face indeed!

I am pleased to reveal that Downing scratched their (bloody fit IMO) black Filipi on our 7 rigger. Such is bumps.

Obligatory Downing Headship photo. Nicely done guys. (CCRC)

In the spirit of the carnage of the lower divisions, the award for the worst parking post bump must go to this Christ's crew:

"Oh shit, it's meant to be parallel to the bank isn't it? Fuck." (CCRC again)

Even more exciting is the fact there is a spanner spotter video of the subsequent carnage this caused here. Yes, Christ's not only are positioned like morons but back it down into the oncoming crews too. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Award for the best lycra goes to Girton. I respect you guys.

(CCRC)

Second place goes to Churchill for their monstrosity in hot pink :-)

Rather creepily lifted from their website. I couldn't find a rowing one that did this one piece justice :D

If anyone is able to orchestrate a kit swap which anyone from Churchill so I can get hold of one of these, FFS email me and I'll reward you with drawings and chocolate! Churchill people: I will swap minty kit for one of these :D

So yes, that was Bumps. Only other non-boring news is that I have a PhD place for next year in The 'Bridge (which is double-y good as I had no plan B whatsoever...) The obvious course of action upon finding out this knowledge was to buy a MSci gown and make swish noises while wearing it. BECAUSE I CAN :-)

So pointless, but SO VERY GOOD :-)

In true May week style, I also saw a piano-attached-to-a-punt nearly crash into a bridge. Then we threw dry ice into the Cam and watched the resulting weird smoke stuff engulf several (non orchestra-carrying) punts. Then I wore a blazer and drunk Pimms and danced a bit and fell over a few times. Cambridge is fucking ace.