Mixing sails and wheels

Some of you will know that in my day job I work in the technical and measurement side of yacht racing and have done for nearly 29 years; over the years sailing has inevitably been a part of my life, which really only changed after the crash. Now that Mr H and I are involved in motorsport I have a whole new set of friends and the two areas of my life are totally separate; there is an overlap of interest between the two sports but I would never see any of my sailing friends at a hill climb, and vice versa. In conversation there are often cross-overs between the two and I'll sometimes allude to an equivalent situation in boats, levels of the sport, grand prix owners etc., but that's as far as it goes.

At one recent hill climb at Wiscombe Park, in conversation with a few of our hill climb friends about kids doing karting with pushy parents, I said something about it being the same in dinghies. Another chap on the edge of the conversation immediately picked up on this, and it transpired that he had done quite a bit of yacht racing down in Devon so we ended up talking about that a bit. After a couple of minutes it was clear that our hill climb friends were totally out of the loop, and I was thinking "Actually I really don't want to talk about boats and my work when I'm here enjoying car stuff".

The situation hadn't come up before, the closest I'd got to talking about work was a vague explanation to driving friends about what I did, mainly because the event commentary form asks for your day job! I keep changing what it says and have just about simplified it down to 'yacht racing admin' which is close enough for the purpose.

At the last event we were at, somebody mentioned boats and said that they sailed and I kept my mouth shut; Mr H commented on it later, having realised that I wanted to keep the two things completely separate he hadn't blurted out 'Oh, J works in yacht racing!'.

It's not that I don't love my job, it's just that I deal with sailors all week, day in day out, and at weekends I'd rather be discussing horse-power and the best line round the hairpin...

Hummm

I tried a Zumba dance class tonight, which turned out to be an hour of trying to work out what she was doing and translate that into what my body should be doing, and mostly not getting it quite right. It was a bit like being thrown in the deep end, which I don't like.   I remember feeling like that when I started choreographed dance classes on the 3rd week and felt totally out of my depth; but of course once I got used to it, and started learning it, I loved it.  So I won't chuck this away on this one experience.

I used to do dancing quite regularly but not for 3 years or so, and I have totally lost that flexibility and wiggle.. ok not that I ever had much but I could shimmy ok!  Now I feel stiff and ungainly especially when comparing myself with the sylph-like teacher who was hip-swinging her way through the moves.  And my brain hurt. And my leg hurts. And I'm tired  Hummm I think it's time for a rest from the gym for the rest of this week.

I used to have a good workout routine going: Tuesday and Thursday evenings and something at the weekend, and it was just right.  Then a lot of the staff changed and the timetable changed and I haven't got back into to a new routine yet, so now I end up going more than I really want to, plus I've been trying out different things which is good but I haven't enjoyed them all. So I'm feeling a bit down right now about the whole thing; I must sit down and work out which classes I want to do and settle into a new routine.

I need routine now anyway, because my OU study books have just arrived, whoohoo!  It doesn't start until the beginning of October and the website doesn't open until 27 September but I can start reading. I must decide when and where I am going to do my studying... somehow I managed it with Mr H home from January to May this year but I can't remember how!

The final instructions have just come through for my next hill climb (and last for 2012), it's on the 21st Sept so I'm looking forward to that.  Mr H says he feels as though he should be working on the car! I suggested he went round and checked all the nuts and bolts in the suspension ;)  I'm sure Django will be happy to help him as always....

Before that, however, we have the Goodwood Revival to go to this Sunday. Rosie, bless her, has offered the use of their cottage up the road from Goodwood for Saturday night so we will make a weekend of it.  As this is Mr H's birthday present it will be a nice extra. We're going in the Imp so will be parked in the pre-1971 carpark, and have some suitably 'period' style clothes to wear.

Well it's time for a cup of tea, so goodnight for now,
Jx