Everything we do we do too fast, too hard and too much.

We have had a really full on year since November 2010 when we moved in to The Old Bakery and after an intense spell of re-decorating, then loads of guests whilst continuing to renovate the annex, with B&B guests right up to the New Year. In all that time we had no time for a holiday for ourselves and it is fair to say that the cracks were beginning to show. We love going away and have always strived to make use of every weeks holiday from our respective jobs by going orfff somewhere and so this extended period without a holiday was totally against the grain.

You could tell that I was in need of a holiday by my last blog which for the most part I seemed to be waffling on about a Pheasant that I had named Percy! Claire was getting irritable with me too as apparently I had taken to singing along with everything that I did, whether it be filling the Dish washer to the lyrics of Car Wash or shouting the lyrics of the Stones Get off my cloud. If I was feeling a bit blue I might have a stab at On My Own from Les Mis, but there's the rub you see because whilst I nobly mention that I would sing the lyrics the truth is that I don't sing the lyrics at all.
No, what seems to wind Claire up so is that I do have a habit of deviating from what are, on the whole, some very well written lyrics because I simply can't remember them or indeed and as I understand it even more annoyingly I am wholeheartedly singing what I believe are the lyrics but which apparently bear no relation to them at all.
For example What A Wonderful World comes out thus...

I see trees of green, red, yellow and blue,

and I look at yoooouuuuuuu, (I find stretching a word fills in missing bars quite adequately)

and I say to myself, What a Wonderful world.

I can't help my inability to get the correct lyrics and this is one of my favourite songs!....

This annoyance is, I gather, further enhanced by the skilful way that I put my Tone Deafness into the mix. It is true that my singing has been compared to the quality of Madame Edith's in 'Allo 'Allo and not in a good way!
I have always known that I was no Bing Crosby and can remember just minutes before my wedding ceremony and just as Alison was making her big entrance at the Church door one of my friends suddenly thrust a Dictaphone recorder into my hand, instructing me to put it into my breast pocket. As you can imagine it was not the best time to give me something else to think about and not knowing what else to do with the thing I obediently slipped it into the said pocket. It was only as the ceremony started and the vicar called for hymn 249 to be sung that I realised what a mistake I had made in accepting the stupid thing (that's the Dictaphone NOT Alison's hand in marriage, of course) and so I had no other option but to mime throughout. Luckily the Vicar was clearly quite deaf and so his voice BOOMED into my face at a decibel that would put any self respecting Fog Horn to shame and my mimed singing went unnoticed.

Many,many years later (and ago too) I used to do talks to local WI groups on behalf of Safeway Supermarkets on a subject that I was fairly interested in at that time, Queer Gear. Now that may sound a little questionable in this day and age but remember it was the WI and the term Queer Gear was used by the fruit & Veg sellers at Covent Garden to describe the more unique and exotic fruits like Dragon fruits, Paw paw, Mooli etc. The title came from a book of the same name and I just tried checking it out in Google, what could go wrong with searching "Queer Gear Fruit book"! So anyway I started off giving the talk and demonstration to local WI's then I started to get a bit of a reputation and was asked to speak to two groups at a time, then three or four, eventually I turned up to do a talk to an audience of well over 140!
I was quite used to the fact that they always started the meetings with a hearty rendition of Jerusalem and finished with the National Anthem and I always managed to mime to the words, not too convincingly but with a little more aplomb than John Redwood did when trying to sing the Welsh National Anthem. However the leader of this particular pack, whom reminded me very much of Joyce Grenfell, approached me just as the piano banged out the opening chords to Jerusalem and demanded "We expect all our guests to join in you know my dear, Oooo it'll be so nice to hear a deep baritone for a change". Oh dear, little do you know, I thought. So, cornered, I had no other option but to sing along, I knew most of the words and what I didn't know I just sang a second late after they had all uttered them.
I can't say that I noticed any uncomfortable silence at the conclusion of the tune and my talk was met with great interest.

However I was NOT asked to join them on the National Anthem!

So anyway, Claire was getting grumpy about me being me, and we were all getting a little on edge. A holiday was long over due. We could not afford the time for a two week holiday so Alison had the brainwave of booking 4 nights at Center Parcs, I could exercise my leg and hopefully we could all get a little bit fitter. So off we tootled.
Now we have done several Center Parc holidays before and we really should have learnt from previous experiences, but we didn't. Claire and Alison tend to do things at a somewhat leisurely pace, you know, like whilst playing badminton they really don't see the need to run for the shuttlecock after all what's the worst that can happen? It'll just fall to the ground. The culmination of their intensive fitness regime is the three hours that they spend wandering around the different steam rooms of the Spa.
Stephen and I however are foolishly driven by something that I can only describe as Gusto! Everything we do we do too fast, too hard and too much. Whilst Alison and Claire don't have a bead of perspiration on them Stephen and I are dripping with sweat having run a mini marathon around the courts desperate to win the point.
Then there is the sub tropical pool. Claire and Alison bob around aimlessly enjoying the gentle movement emanating from the wave machine. Stephen and I however, very aware that our time here is limited, are using every second of every minute to enjoy the flumes and water slides. SPLASH into the pool then we're out of it and back up the steps to do it again.I must have climbed those steps so many times that it probably equated to climbing Kilimanjaro.
Then there was the out door flumes. They are vicious, I was walking back up the steps when a young man stopped me to enquire if I knew that I was bleeding from the elbow? I did not know that I was. Then on another day whilst Stephen and I were being tumble washed by the flume he was suddenly spun around by the water and in an attempt to steady himself his elbow smashed into the bridge of my nose followed by a very distinctive 'CRACK'. I am sure it is broken or at least fractured!
We just do everything with too much vigour! Even when I cycled I felt my carpal tunnel return and my hand went a little blue probably because I was holding on too tight up the hills.

So we went away to get rested and to become a bit fitter and returned with aching legs, bruises, bumps and totally knackered. Tomorrow  I am going to try to get an appointment to see the quack and I have so many things to get checked (five in total) that I've had to write myself a list in-case I forget one of them!

So thanks for the holiday Alison, but perhaps now I can get back to work and have a rest!

And a little singsong to myself....

I see trees of green, red, yellow and blue..............



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