Quite a busy day after yesterday's indolence. After breakfast we all drove to the leisure centre for various purposes. Ollie had a swimming lesson whilst Di and I booked in for our very first spinning session in Australia. We do a lot of spinning at home so knew roughly what to expect. I thought it best to advise the teacher of my condition so I spoke to her in the office before we started. She was fine and we agreed that I could be at the back out of line of sight of rest of the class. This is a self imposed restriction as I'm aware that my slowness can be off-putting to some people. (My prosthesis makes it impossible for me to pedal fast in the standing position which, in turn, rules out exercises like "jumping", at least at the same speed as the rest of the class). 45 minutes later I was feeling very pleased with myself as I had managed most of her exercises without difficulty. There was no jumping. I had been unable to sprint in the standing position as expected, but was able to compensate by increasing the resistance in order to work slower but harder.
During the spin class, Ollie had finished his swimming and Tash had taken him to the creche. After spin, Di did a body blitz class and I went into the gym for a while to do some upper body work to complement the leg work done in the spin. I then joined Tash for a coffee whilst we waited for Di to finish. I also got Ollie from the creche. I spoke to the supervisor, Sharon, about Ollie. When we were last here, he hated the creche and caused all sorts of problems because he refused to stay there without one of us being present. He cried non stop as soon as we left. The supervisors had to cuddle him and entertain him or he would just sob. Since then though, he has developed and now plays nicely on his own. He was happy to see me though and left with a cheery goodbye to Sharon.
After coffee Di joined us and we let Ollie play for a while in the climbing area adjacent to the cafe before heading home for lunch. Ollie was tired and demanded his "moolk and bed". We think he got his strange pronunciation from his cousin Frida who is being brought up bilingually by her Swedish mother Mia. (Mia is Will's sister in law). I think the Swedish for milk sounds something like "m-yerlk". I started reading a new book, Bill Bryson's, "Home" which I had previously loaded onto the iPad.
In the late afternoon, with a warm sun low in the west,(I had wondered whether sunset would be different in the southern hemisphere, but it seems not), we wandered down Ocean Beach Road to the sea front. It's about 300 metres and takes me about 7 minutes. We called in at the surf club cafe and bought an "am beam" each before deciding it was a wee bit windy for the beach and headed along to the big play area where we could sit and watch Ollie playing on the equipment. It's a very well appointed place about which I will tell you more in a later posting. Until then, suffice it to say we had a great hour or so there before heading back for a pre-prepared vegetarian curry of Natasha's design and construction.
Lastly, I am usually the proud Grandad but today I returned to being a proud Dad - we were sitting on a bench watching Ollie play when a passing young Mum said to Tash, "My Mum and I were just thinking that you look absolutely fabulous". We were bemused but grateful. With a week to go, Tash is huge but she does, as is often the case, look serene. I concur, but I would, wouldn't I?
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