Every other message I receive seems to follow one of two lines: have you fallen apart yet, and how’s the beard growth? As for the beard, I feel that deserves a whole blog to itself and can wait for another day where I’ve got nothing to say. That said, it’s growing on me (sorry). But with the other enquiry, I can’t help wondering: is it out of concern for my health or are my friends and family expressing a worrying sense of blood lust?
Well, as it happens, most of me is coping pretty well. My hands are intact other than the several self-inflicted attempts at amputation and my feet are looking as beautiful as ever, which admittedly isn’t saying a lot. My knees are getting a bit sore, and my right thigh is really starting to ache - does anyone know of a good masseuse that does home visits? However, you’ll no doubt be delighted to hear the following. Despite holding off for over a month, I finally have to admit, to myself as well as the world, that my bum is really sore!
Every uncushioned move is now accompanied by a wince. My seating arrangement has grown from one cushion pad, to two. I even had to take two unscheduled five-minute breaks in the middle of my rowing sessions just to stand up for a bit. When I was rowing at university, we were sometimes encouraged to try and get our bums off the seats as we powered through the water. I’m now attempting the same, only my motives are rather different - it offers a moment of pain-free rowing!
The conditions today didn’t exactly help the situation either. Although everything is still broadly in the right direction, the water was very messy today, with little waves going in every direction. This means that rather than having a nice fluid motion, you have to pick your moment so as to avoid missing the water altogether, and you’re constantly thrown off balance, which doesn’t make it easy to keep the bum happy. To top it all off, every now and again you get lazy and the oar gets caught up with a wave as you slide forward, resulting in a collision between your shin and an ocean-powered oar. To say I’m feeling a little battered and bruised today would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, it looks like I’ve made fairly decent progress again today. Gradually the miles to Antigua get ticked off, and I’ll get there sooner or later. I’m afraid that, despite my best efforts, this isn’t accompanied by a photo of a swollen bum - all my attempts came out looking like a poor attempt at very peculiar porn - so you get the next best thing. Yes, naked rowing has commenced.
I don’t think any more needs to be said!
