What an excellent weekend that was ..

I would just like to write a little bit on last weekends activities.
It started off very well on Friday evening when I met Ping in town. We then went for large starters at The Mussel Inn Rose Street, Edinburgh. I had the crab - lovely but Ping had I guess one of the specialities - 0.5kg of mussels with a garlic and shallot sauce with lots of lovely bread - excellent.

Saturday - we went for a good swim with Ping. We then went for a hotpot at Chinois in the Omni centre with Richard, Ronnie and Danni - very nice with a few beers and well stuffed. It was even better as we were the only foreigners in there and it was very busy and vibrant being just after Chinese New Year.

Sunday - paragliding - drove down to Tinto (as usual!) where it was mobbed - I saw at least 17 wings in the air at once - in Scotland - this is very unusual - and had 2 short flights. Walked up the hill with George and then faffed for a while before having a say 10 minute flight down and across the hill (aiming to get to big Tinto) but I was especially happy with this flight as it was as far as I was concerned perfect - take off, smooth flying and the best landing I have perhaps ever done - especially pleasing as this was my first flight since early last October. I then packed up and walked to big Tinto, found the light breeze had veered East so walked back towards the car and had a very short top to bottom to get down at dusk. This was also good as it must have taken me less then 10 minutes from getting there to landing at the bottom. Packed up and got back to car and it was late dusk or very nearly dark - so I definitely got the last flight of the day.

X-Scotia - and Robert Veitch

Well, recently a lot of things have been happening for me :- Wedding, Christmas, New year all of which I hope to add some more detail soon. Here I am going to tell a little more about my decision to try and enter X-Scotia - a paragliding / walking event to be held in Scotland in April or May of 2008.
When I first heard about this I initially thought no - Bob that is just stupid and plain daft - look at you - 43, fat, unfit and so forth. But over the next week or so I continued to think long and hard about it, to the degree that I actually had sleepless nights - before deciding to register my interest. I did this before New Year so that my decision didnt become some New Year resolution that would then be cast aside at the first hint of difficulty.
Having made this decision I looked at myself with fairly unforgiving eyes and realised that my basic level of fitness was !"£$% (poor) I dont have and wont have a nice lot of lightweight kit, I couldnt walk for hours - with or without my paraglider, my flying is also not very current and I need to do something about it. To this end I commenced walking almost everyday - without loads - just to get the muscles used to that - just shows how bad things were - and having investigated "marathon training regimes" on the net (which i am not qualified to start on !) I am basically trying to gradually increase by about 10% per week my distance, speed etc.
Pre start of "training" I weighed about 107kg in the birthday suit - plus wing etc comes to a lot!.
Today its only the 14th Jan and already - although most people wouldnt be able to tell I have lost a little bit of weight and am a little more toned - although the last weekend did impress on me just how big a task I have taken on:-
Saturday- a flyable day - my first since the last of The Scottish Nationals rounds in the Ochils last October - after some of my usual dithering loaded up car and drove to Tinto. New walking boots to replace my old ones partially held together with tape and also a novelty for me - walking poles - purchased during the sales when I was down in Ambleside. Anyhow wlaked - quicker than usual up - following the forest on the left straight up Lochylock Hill as the low cloud arrived. Met Sean F - who did a first time pack using one of these new concertina bag things here - apparently works quite well - at least I was quite impressed.

Tinto-080112

Thinking that it was still relatively early - the walk up had not completely killed me off as normal and hoping that the lovely blue skies might return allowing flight - I decided to go for a walk.- Och I shall just walk along to big Tinto, down and back to the car, so off i went - arriving at the snow covered top - after glimpsing blue skies above - beautiful for a few seconds alittle later. Ah yes my kit - Mac Eden 29 from 1998 - weight a few Kg, Harness - again a few Kg - Woody Valley peak, Reserve a white big thing - yes you guessed a few Kg, Full face helmet, flying suit, Renschler Sol17? vario,Garmin GPS76S thingy, 1 camelbag - nearly frozen, no food! compass, Alinco DJ190e radio, mobile phone, camera - with no spare memory, gloves, lightweight waterproof, flying suit and glider bag roughly "oh my that weighs at least as much as a heavy child" quoting someone else at the top of Tinto. I then basically followed the Northerly path dow past Totherin Hill and then turned right ending up eventually - after a few slips - pretty close to Fallburn - about NS970375 and Thankerton - in the dark. Not such a bright idea wearing black and carrying black bag on a dark night to commence the walk back to the car. No buses apparent - sticking out thumb didnt work, those roads back are populated from my research by quite a few people carriers going remarkably briskly :-). Continued walking for the next few hours until I got back to Wiston where I finally left my glider just at the village hall and walked the last 2.7 miles back to the car - totally knackered - 8pm ish at the car, to then drive home after picking up wing and getting home about 2145 - hungry but more desperate for a hot bath - I was so achey - everything, felt like it ached but shoulders and calves worst plus a nice blister on big toe. Amazingly for me I didnt eat anything all day and even though very tired on the drive back etc I slept poorly. The end - afraid not - the plan was to go for a walk with Richard and Roy on Sunday - so called in the morning I called Richard and said nah - cannot - I am a wreck - ok. A little later text back saying dont worry you could do this walk in a wheelchair so I changed my mind. Picked up at around 9.30am and upto Tyndrum - had a lovely bacon sarny at Real food place and then walked from lower Tyndrum railway stn to waterfall

Tyndrum 080113

and back - just a few miles but I was still jiggered and as such wasnt very quick and what is more crossing a small stream I fell through the smow and ended up with a very wet foot and leg - just the one though. Definitely ache - pushed myself stupidly hard yesterday - starting to realise the magnitude of the X-scotia task and as I sit her quite worried and basically crippled! - ankles worst now. I think a slower progression of walking with weights required. Measuring the Saturday walk it was about 21-23km and as such is the furthest I have ever walked with a paraglider by a very long way - and my body is telling me so. Hopefully future training won`t be so long winded! or painful. I will be interested to find out and I shall try to keep you posted here over the coming months.

What is happening in the life of Bob Veitch?.

Well ....

December 23rd 2006 I proposed to Ping and I am very happy to say she said yes and we plan to do the deed in maybe August 2008.

Work - yes I am and I am still enjoying it at Clareflorist.

Paragliding - yes I am still flying when I can - and last week was good, flying after work on Thursday and Friday at Broughton and Tinto respectively and on Saturday I went up to Meall nan Tarmachan beside Ben Lawers but didnt fly too well.

Thinking of weddings etc and it made me think how much I would like to hear from the following people if at all possible.
Tessa Gill, ne Emecz and Donna Caress ne Culshaw.

Other news, my nephew is going to be joined by a sister in August / September.
Everything else as normal really - lots of swimming, too much food, insufficient beer ! etc etc.

All comments gratefully received.

Bob