Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

Tuesday, November 3rd.

With sleep dust caked in the corners of my eyes, I blearily fell out of bed at six fifty this morning to the sound of the bleating alarm clock and out of an annoying habit, turned on the bathroom light to weigh myself. Yes yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Ditch the scale, it’s poisonous and you shouldn’t live your days according to it”.

The thing is, it serves to remind myself that I just cannot steal sweets and biscuits from the jars like my 10 year old can (but doesn’t), and since I am home all day with less to do than normal, the effects of having a Surprise Birthday Party for the 10 year old, and then having Pretend Pub Quiz Night all need to be addressed when that scale sways gently across to the right, much more so than last week.

The natural course of action would be to get exercise but you all know how much I love running, right? That said, I am not sure doing a workout in my lounge is exactly what I want to be doing either, so running it will be. Unfortunately, I am currently ‘in between’ running shoes, and am having an uphill battle finding a pair that fits well, but also doesn’t cost the same as a small African country, and as a result, it’s very easy for me to find an excuse as to WHY I can’t run or walk far. Obviously, confinement means I am limited to a kilometre radius around my home, so there is that….

Back to my morning: Beth wandered into my bedroom shortly before my coffee cup had, and she subtly informed me that none of her re-usable masks fit properly for school. I waved my hand over to the box of disposable ones (that were from work) and offered them to her. She pulled a face and said no thank you. Cue a moment when I glared at her, trying to figure out if she really wanted me to get up and sew new elastic on to her re-usable masks at 7am, or if perhaps she had a less intrusive solution. She didn’t.

My coffee didn’t taste as good as it could have by the time I got to enjoy it, huddled over a sewing machine while dressed in my pyjamas, but when I waved Anton and Beth off for school at 7h55, I was dressed in running clothes and pulling on my 2 years old ASICS running shoes that are so worn out but still so comfortable.

My shoe conundrum is this:

2 year old ASICS that are well used and worn down, but hurt my feet if I’m covering any distance more than 4km’s,

OR a new pair of neon New Balances that I was hoping to ‘walk in’ but since they were bought in Turkey it turns out they’re a size too small, and will never be walked in properly,

OR a pair of Trail Runners that have left me with an odd sensation in my baby toe that may or may not have been fractured in 2012, but I never did anything about it.

None of my options would let me cover more than 5km’s of happy walking- which is what I would need to burn off some of the bonbon-beer-binge of the weekend.

Given I shouldn’t be further away than 1km from home anyway, I decided to don the infallible old ASICS and do a fast 20 minute run- you know, a good cardio session and all that…

Armed with a new running playlist and a goal set on my watch, I headed up the road towards the forest. The cycle path is still littered with the autumn leaves that have fallen and not yet been cleared by confining city personnel but at least I can still run on the cycle path. The other option would be to try run on the muddy farm roads but I don’t even run on the summer gravel, there’s zero chance I will risk twisting an ankle in winter.

Given I planned a fast cardio run, I set off at a rather blazing pace (for me anyway) and as each takkie-clad foot set itself down upon the slightly mushy leaves while I could see the farmlands breaking away to the west, my mind was cast back to my primary school cross country-running days.

Between my Tucker niece and nephew (“Aunty Gaaiinorrr, did you throw the cushion at Uncle Choppy that broke Granny Moo’s Statue of David) and my own 2, these little Carr grandkiddies LOVE listening to stories of our childhood. And isn’t it so important to pass on those tales, albeit exaggerated, of how our lives as children really was quite different to theirs?

I was a runner at school. Despite my claims as an adult that I despise running, I was a runner at school. It started with cross-country in my 3rd year, I was 9 years old. The school headmaster was the cross-country coach. For some reason we didn’t run cross country on the school premises, instead we would be bundled into the aging school bus (light blue in colour, with the school anchor emblem painted on the doors) and Mr S would drive us to the forestry lands outside of town. There on the site of (possibly?) the farmers stock sale yards used to be a cabbage field, around which was a dirt track, scrubby with patches of dry grass, and the inevitable devil thorns (duiweltjies) so common in South Africa. Once at the field, we would walk around to the start line, listen to ‘ready, set, GO’ and we would loop around the 2.5km field, barefoot, kicking up the dust as we jogged passed each other, the older children outdistancing us 9 year olds as we did so.With Mr.S, the extent of our training was a jog around the cabbage patch field, and as a border, I was only too happy to escape the monotony of those long tedious afternoons at hostel.

Yes, those were the days of barefoot running. Cross-country runs, track and athletics meets; barefoot running was the norm. Clad in white Teesav shorts, red cotton tee-shirts and navy blue tracksuit kit, we would tumble out of the school bus at inter-school competitions. Our sports fields were grass tracks, the lines painted on with paint specifically for the purpose of marking fields. With the cross-country runs, we would scarper off school premises and into the outlying neighbourhood. Thankfully we ran in our winter season, so the tarmac city roads wouldn’t burn our feet. Perhaps on those city runs we would don a pair of white canvas takkies that were more synonymous with my tennis days.

Does anyone remember the name of those takkies? Google is not helping me this morning in my endeavours to find the name. I thought they were North Stars, but also they could be All Stars. What I do remember was how Mom used to clean them by painting White Out Shoe Polish on instead of trying to wash them in the dirty Netherby water. Cue ROTFL emoji here…err, rather not. Is this a politically taboo conversation nowdays?

I digress…

1986 or ’87 saw me run pretty competitively for the schools cross country team in my age group. After each race my times would be dutifully recorded by the Natal education departments sports recorders for the Pietermaritzburg and Surrounds league. On the occasion of the last Inter-school race that autumn- a chilly, grey overcast Friday afternoon, I ran my heart out. At the end, I picked up my navy tracksuit uniform and walked over to the record-keeping officials, my coach being part of the group. If I had raced my best race of the season, it meant I would have been eligible to run for the provincial side. Alas, I had missed it by one minute, and I trundled off to find Mom after Mr Shuttleworth had given me a hearty pat on the back for trying so hard.

The semester following was Athletics season. Short distance sprints, middle distance, relay teams: It was the year I was the substitute for the 100 metre sprint team, and therefore had to run for the baton relay team, as well as my own ‘discipline’ of the middle distance running. Practices happened 2 afternoons a week; again we would be kitted out on sparkling white teesav shorts and red tee-shirts. The athletic fields were brittle and brown by mid winter’s lack of rainfall, and we would enjoy those sunny escapes from hostel monotony. Saturdays were filled up with Inter-school athletics days; interminable waiting around before being called to the start of the U10’s baton relay which took all of 10 minutes out of my Saturday, followed by more waiting until all the events were finished and we would be able to celebrate a First Place or not. After 2 years of running and consequently damaging my ankle, I gave up trying to be a runner, and turned my attention to the High Jump; My Dad has always called me Lang Lizzie (as in Tall Elizabeth, my middle name) and I guess I had to live up to it.

This is the beauty of my privileged upbringing. We were given a full spectrum of reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as being taught and disciplined in sporting activities and teamwork. This is definitely an aspect to my kids current education that I miss immensely. School life and sporting activities are 2 very separate entities and there are many reasons that our French life hasn’t ingratiated itself to sports and kids: long school days and the cold weather is one, but also through our own fault, we haven’t found a club of sorts that we’re comfortable with (with the glaring exception to Cricket which is all English). We’re also probably very unaccomplished comparing to French families, who send kids to something sporty once or twice a week, plus something musical, not to mention some other form of club to widen social skills. I just find the school days too long and am more inclined to have my nest full by 6pm if possible.

It’s probably important to note: schools here are not completely without some form of physical activity. The kids are sent off for swimming lessons during the course of Primary school, and they do gymnasium type sports during the colder months- badminton, handball, rockclimbing. Alex had 4 hours of sports on her schedule last year; the kids would go running in the nearby park, much to her dislike- she’s not like her father in that regard. However, there is a distinct absence of competitiveness, which I guess falls into France’s motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité motto and we can choose to be as equal or unequal to our brothers as we want, and not as our teachers want…

I guess the value of having privilege is that we can skew our opinions which ever way we choose, and don’t need to seek validation for not doing things that other people are. So really, To Run, Or Not To Run…

Anyway, I appeared to have neglected this little piece of half nostalgia, half depreciating humor for 2 weeks. In the mean time, I have succeeded in making sourdough bread. While this has been a fantastic achievement for me, it’s not going to sit very well with my scale.

Sigh.

It’s a No Win situation isn’t it?

For now, I bid you adieu until next time. I do hope that you’re all keeping well and that your loved ones and families are healthy.

Salut, et a tout a l’heure,

Moi

Xxx