Plans

 In an earlier post, I mentioned my 5.03 400 yard effort at Thorndon. I was pleased with that and really wanted to do another, under 5.00, the following week. I'd also planned to lift my kilometres to c. 30km per week to coincide with the mid-trimester break at university. Well, that day of the 5.03 400fr was also Tuesday 17 August. Approximately 11 hours later I was sitting in the Wellington Hospital ED, with my mother who was about to be admitted to have her gallbladder removed urgently. Meanwhile, a community covid case had been announced in Auckland. While the maternal unit was wheeled out to be x-rayed, the press briefing came on TV, and a Level 4 lockdown was announced, starting at midnight. The announcement caused something of a stir in the ED, but naturally, my first thought was ‘there goes my faster 400 … And there goes my 30km week …)  While I sat sunk in vacant and pensive self-obsession, my mother returned from the x-ray place, somewhat livelier thanks to morphine and IV fluids, and I could return to reality and being an attentive daughter.

I left her safely ensconced in SAPU (Surgical Assessment & Planning Unit), but of course, under Level 4 rules, no visiting would be allowed. I could, however, drop off a bag for her the next morning. The surreal sensation of Level 4, with attendant déjà vu, became amplified in the morning when I gathered up various articles that I thought might be useful for a person with an angry gallbladder and the pancreatitis it caused (although it never occurred to me to put any slippers in the bag). Setting out in the rain to Countdown to find a few more items, the rain became more persistent. In the bus shelter, it became so persistent that there may as well not have been a bus shelter at all. No buses appeared for a good 25 minutes, and I and a tiny elderly lady were the only two passengers. I took the bag to the hospital’s atrium/reception area, where security was tight. Various people behind small temporary cardboard desks regarded the bag with great suspicion, perhaps thinking it to be some sort of covid-laden bio-weapon. Eventually, the bag was accepted and sent to SAPU, and I waited another 20 minutes for a bus. Anyway, that’s all by the by. The gallbladder was safely removed on Saturday, and the patient returned home the day after the procedure, vaguely triumphant, and bearing a sealed container of gallstones for my delectation.

 Meanwhile, I had to become a cyclist again. For some reason, and despite now having a lighter and faster bike than during Level 4 2020, my cycling enthusiasm was initially depressed. The first few rides around the peninsula were grey and damp; sand blew in my eyes; my ankles hurt; the unyielding hardness of the saddle seemed unnecessarily inhospitable; the new road surface between Moa Point and Breaker Bay proved so rough that after two rides over it I felt as if all my teeth were being shaken out of my jaws. Still, there were some benefits, here and there. This was probably the highlight:

 

At one of the first bays after Scorching Bay (northern end of the peninsula) I spotted two elderly people staring at something. As I pedalled along, the something turned out to be this leopard seal, who had been touring the south coast for a few weeks. This creature is HUGE. I remained a safe distance away, and poised for a hasty escape.

After the first few rides – leavening an otherwise relentless programme of deep-cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom, marking assignments, and rewriting lectures so I could record them in preparation for a longer lockdown – my enthusiasm for pedalling and even doing some ‘hill repeats’ returned. The headwinds stopped being my enemy, turning into bumptious and unpredictable companions whose tricks I could evade. And so, two weeks of Level 4 passed by. To liven things up, I also did a plasma donation and got my first dose of the vaccine.

A few vistas