.
Taking care of the details
WEEK 9
It’s time to refine your swimming technique…
The best way to get better at something is to do it. This is why earlier in the programme we urged you to swim, swim and swim some more. At the start it was simply about getting back in the water and shaking off that swimming rustiness. Then it was about slowly building up your fitness and learning to enjoy exercising again. Now is a good time for you to review your technique in a bit more detail. A good technique leads to smoother swimming, meaning you will travel further in the water with less effort. Now that can’t be bad can it?
Earlier in the book we recommended you use the breaststroke as you train towards your end goal. Although clearly not the fastest stroke, it is probably the most comfortable for the majority of people who have been away from swimming for a lengthy period. To make it more efficient concentrate getting your arms and legs to work together. It’s easy if you have strong legs to let them dominate the movement of the upper body and vice versa, so always work on getting the correct timing between these two components to get the maximum benefit from each stroke.
Keep your body as flat as possible in the water and don’t let your hips and legs ‘sink and drag’, although accept that as you lift your head to take a breath your body position will shift a bit. Avoid looking up, which will strain your neck, and instead keep your eyes looking down and forwards. This will also help you avoid your legs ‘sinking and dragging’, which effectively causes resistance and will slow you down, making your whole swim harder tougher.
On each stroke, stretch out as if you are trying to reach something in front of you, and use the palms of your hands like flippers to really push the water away, then turn them down and inwards as they come back through the stroke. Make sure you bring your feet up towards your backside and not underneath your body. Again, this is important, as pulling your feet up underneath your body will cause resistance and slow you down. Don’t be afraid to really push your legs for extra propulsion rather than just going through the motions, but avoid breaking the water as this will reduce the power that is generated from your legs.
Breathe as you start to pull into each stroke, and work on fine-tuning your timing so you move from your body being fully stretched out to coiled like a frog ready for the pull of the next stroke. If you lose your rhythm, which is easy to do, especially when you get tired, just slow down to regain your composure and slowly get back into your stroke again.
If your preferred stroke is front crawl you will be getting a lot more bang for your bucks, especially if you can maintain your technique, but this is going to be very difficult over the full 400 metres. To be efficient you need to breath only on every second stroke at least, and a lack of air can make it difficult it you are an inexperienced swimmer or just getting back into the sport after a break. However, you may decide to alternate strokes and use front crawl for certain periods.
Concentrate on keeping your body in a streamlined position, and when breathing keep your head movement smooth to maintain this efficient position, rather than ‘snatching’ it sideways as you gulp for air. As one arm enters the water, the other one should be pulling round through the water to continue the circular movement. Turning your hips and shoulders will assist in this movement. Meanwhile, your legs should be kicking away at a steady pace and there should be minimal knee flexion.
If you use backstroke, keep your eyes facing to the ceiling and your ears at the surface. Keep your head still and turn your shoulders and hips, which will allow your arms to come over for each stroke. Use an alternating leg kick and try to keep your chest and shoulders high in the water.
Your workouts can become a habit
WEEK 4
Before you know it your training sessions will be a part of your life…
Habits are formed by doing the same thing over and over again. The habits you may have formed of working too many hours, getting out of shape, and eating takeaways, didn’t happen because you woke up one day and decided they would be a good idea. They probably became habits because you were tired and pressed for time, so you kept doing these things again and again until you stopped thinking about them anymore.
But the good news is that it is just as easy to form good habits as well. It’s simply a matter of starting to do something you want to do and to keep doing it. You are already well on the road with exercising because you have got this far. It’s now just a matter of keeping it going. The time it takes to form a habit varies from person to person, but one day you will look back and realize you’ve cracked it because you’ll have got out of bed, pulled on your gym kit and headed off for your workout without even thinking about it.
There are a number of things you can to do to ensure you get to that day. Firstly you need to continue to schedule your exercise sessions into your diary or your phone so each one is marked down in the same way as an important appointment.
Don’t be tempted to cancel the session just because someone rings up for a chat or it’s raining and you might get wet on the way to the gym. If this is important to you – and we assume it is or you wouldn’t have got this far – then continue to guard the time you have set aside for your workout as your own (although obviously there will be work and family emergencies that will take priority sometimes).
You can help with this process by looking ahead in the programme and scheduling in sessions for more than one week at a time. Many people who are training for something specific will mark all their sessions into their diary at the start of the programme to help with their planning. In that way if someone e-mails you and asks to meet up a couple of weeks down the line you don’t double book at the expense of your training session.
However, if you do find yourself missing the occasional session don’t let it worry you too much because you have to accept that daily life takes over sometimes. Try to avoid missing too many sessions, though, or the process of creating a habit will be broken.
One of the best things you can do is slot in your session to a time of the day you know you are least likely to be disrupted. Do you have a boss who loves to pile up your desk with paperwork just before noon and wants it sorted out as soon as possible? Then lunchtime sessions probably aren’t the best for you. Three young boys that need getting ready for school? Mornings are no good then. But maybe you always have a couple of hours free after dropping the children off at school? Or you finish work early and have some time to yourself then? Some people like working out early in the morning, others after work and some when the family is tucked up in bed. Find the time that works best for you.
Remember to have some flexibility around changes in your life. If you prefer early-morning sessions but suddenly the boss calls a crack-of-dawn meeting for Wednesdays, then be prepared to shift your session to lunchtime or after work on that day.
One of the best ways to keep going is to find a training buddy. It’s easy enough to wake up, decide you feel tired and go back to sleep instead of the gym when you are training solo. That’s not so easy to do when you have a friend waiting outside to meet you. Training buddies are also great at motivating each other. There will always be days when one of you will be feeling a bit flat – and that’s when a smile and a word of encouragement can come to the rescue.
Picture your success
WEEK 8
Look ahead to your 25 km ride and see yourself completing it in style…
The short visualization exercise you did at the start of the programme was all about tuning your mind into what you wished to achieve. It’s a great exercise because your mind works with your body in focusing it on the goal. It is able to see what is needed to get to the end goal even before your body is ready. And because of this it will work with your body until such time as it is ready.
But for some reason the word ‘visualization’ scares some people. Maybe it’s because some of us reject the more chest-thumping motivational speakers, who advocate the technique, as a bit over the top. And yet you use visualization techniques every day of your life. It’s just that you don’t think of them as such.
When you look ahead to things you want, for instance your dream house, you are using this technique. You are allowing you mind to see what you want. You see the number of bedrooms you would like. You’ll add in the bathrooms you’ll need (en-suite for yourself maybe?). Then you’ll picture the garden with the play area for the children, or the big space for the dog to run around in. Who knows, maybe there’s a swimming pool somewhere in the scenario too.
If you are like most people, you’ll have filled in the details too. You’ll know the style of the house’s architecture, the type of floors you want, even the layout and colour schemes in the rooms. You are visualizing what you want and even if you don’t know it, you are setting your mind to work to achieve your dream. It might take many years but in a few years you could be living in that dream house, thanks in part to the hard work of your mind. But your mind was only able to do this because you allowed it to picture the end result (the house).
If such techniques can work on something as big as a house, it’ll be a stroll in the park to use it for this 25 km cycle ride. So take a few minutes to repeat the visualization exercise, except this time fill in the details. The more you picture the details, the more comfortable you will be on the day itself. This is because you are using your ‘future memory’, something you have ‘remembered’ but which has not happened yet. Again, find somewhere quiet where you will not be disturbed, and close your eyes if this helps you to concentrate.
Picture yourself getting up and preparing everything for your ride. ‘See’ details such as the colour of the kit you will wear. Go through the motions of ‘seeing’ yourself filling up your water bottle and clipping it on to your bike. Think about the type of things you might chat to your training buddy about once you have met up.
‘See’ yourself at the start, feeling happy and enthusiastic. ‘Smell’ the freshness in the air and feel the metal of your bike frame as you climb on to get going. ‘Feel’ comfortable as you push off and start to clock up the first few kilometres. You’re soon at the halfway mark feeling strong and confident. ‘Enjoy’ the feeling of those pedals spinning effortlessly, as more kilometres tick by. Don’t be afraid to tackle a couple of hills in your mind as you will fear them less come the day of your ride.
What are you and your training buddy chatting about as you enter the last part of your ride? ‘Feel’ the refreshment of the water on your lips as you take a drink. It’s the last few kilometres. You’ve trained hard, so you have nothing to fear. Take in as many details as you can, from the sights, to the smells, to the noises. Picture yourself enjoying the last few metres, knowing nothing can stop you. Then ‘feel’ elated at having successfully completed the challenge and head off to ‘enjoy’ your reward. You’ve done it now, the real thing will be a doddle.
Start to enjoy the benefits
WEEK SIX
You’ll already be starting to feel better and fitter. This is what you’ve been working for…
There’s an example of a man who so loved takeaways and meeting his friends for a beer that he decided to take up exercise. “Hang on,” you might be thinking, “that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.” Ah, but you see, his logic was blindingly simple, if a little odd: “As I get older all this fried food and beer is adding weight to my stomach I don’t want, so it’s either give up what I love or take up some exercise that allows me to continue eating and drinking what I please”.
Now, while he realized this sort of argument was unlikely to be found in any fitness manual, he figured that doing something was better than doing nothing at all. He slowly started exercising and even began to enjoy it, and then one day in the office canteen he found himself ordering a healthy chicken rice and salad instead of the usual burger and fries. It wasn’t as if he had suddenly become all pious and ‘found health and fitness’, it was simply that the running was having added positive effects and his body wanted something better to fuel this new-found exercise.
Setting a goal (such as running 5 km) will set your subconscious to attract things to support the goal. As you get into training and maintaining focus on the goal, you may find yourself drawn to new strategies relating to nutrition, kit, or running techniques and so on.
As we stressed at the start, trying to change too much in your life at the same time is simply likely to lead to you giving up altogether. Starting exercise is a positive step already so there’s no need to change everything. However, as the story above highlights, other positives are likely to follow. You may have already found yourself skipping your ‘one for the road’ glass of wine because you want to feel clear headed for your run in the morning, or maybe you have started drinking more water in the day. Don’t force changes, no matter how enthusiastic you may be feeling, simply keep focused on training and the end goal and these other positives will start to follow.
For now, enjoy the benefits you are hopefully starting to feel already from exercising, such as sleeping better, waking up feeling more refreshed (if a little stiff) and feeling less jaded during the working day.
Now onto your target goal: you running 5 km. There are still a few weeks to go, plenty of time to get those muscles ready, so if you haven’t already done it then now is the time to start thinking about where you will complete your challenge.
The obvious thing, and certainly the most fun, is to identify an organized race that coincides with your target date and enter it. There are numerous organized races, all widely advertised, so there’s likely to be one near you, although it would be more fun to celebrate your challenge with a weekend away somewhere that has a race. Grab your partner, family or friends (or all of them!) and head for the coast, mountains, big city, wherever it is that excites you the most. This will also give you an added spur in the coming weeks.
Entering an organized race gives you the added benefit of support, with water stations, marshals for road safety and, of course, the distance has been measured out exactly. Although there are some specific 5 km events, many of these races are likely be attached to a full or half-marathon race or linked to festival or special regional weekends where there are a series of different events. These races are usually well supported and are packed with people running their first race. Most races are held on weekends so there should be no problem finding one that falls on a Saturday or Sunday of Week 12 of your training programme.
If, however, you really do draw a blank with a race date, or just prefer to keep this as a solo exercise, there is no problem in organizing your own ‘race’. It’s easy enough to measure out your own 5 km in a car or on a bike in advance, then come ‘race day’ it’s down to you, your legs and a stopwatch.
365 Beaches
West Indies
Situated in the middle of the Leeward Islands, 17 degrees north of the Equator, Antigua, encompassing 280 square kilometres (108 square miles) is larger than its neighbour, Barbuda, which is a flat coral island to the north.
The island’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism and visitors will find a warm welcome from the locals, and just as warm a welcome from the sea on the island’s 365 beaches which help provide the classic picture postcard Caribbean break.
Life in Antigua is governed by the sea; it has a huge sailing and yachting scene and Antigua Sailing Week is one of the premier regattas on the planet. But there is more to the island than messing around in boats and lazing on the beach. Popular attractions include Fig Tree Drive, which comprises 32 km (20 miles) of winding roads through the fishing villages and hills, the markets at the south end of the capital, St John’s and exploring the caves at Two Foot Bay in Barbuda. Back to the water, Devil’s Bridge is a natural arch carved by the sea in limestone ledges to the north-eastern part of Antigua and is a popular spot for a swim with the locals.
The island gained independence in 1981, having been discovered and claimed for Spain by Christopher Columbus in 1493. There followed periods of English, and a brief French, occupation with Horatio Nelson arriving in 1784 to develop the British naval facilities which resulted in the building of Nelson’s Dockyard, a popular visiting place for tourists.
Antigua can be an expensive place to eat and drink, although a visit to a local bar to watch the locals playing Wari, an ancient board game, normally involving bets for the next round of drinks, or a trip to take in the slightly more eccentric pastime of crab racing, also put on at local pubs, comes cheap enough.
Black sand and strong rum
St Vincent & the Grenadines
St Vincent & the Grenadines are part of the Windward Islands and lie south of St Lucia. The Grenadines are actually a group of small islands including Battowia and Mustique – the haunt of the rich and famous.
Many of the beaches in the area are not the golden ones mostly associated with the Caribbean as St Vincent & the Grenadines are volcanic and many of the resorts have both black and yellow and sand. On St Vincent snorkelling and boat trips are popular whilst those who are feeling fit can hike up to the summit of the La Soufriere volcano. The Grenadines are famous for having some of the best sailing waters in the world.
Kingstown, the capital of St Vincent, has a bustling harbour area, many picturesque 19-century churches and cathedrals, the Botanical Gardens and the impressive Fort Charlotte that overlooks the harbour from a height of 200 metres.
The volcanic soil on the island is, according to the locals, extremely fertile and they pride themselves on their local produce such as breadfruit and cassava. The food can be spicy with hot stews and curries popular, which gives an excuse to wash them down with a Hairoun, the local beer, or a Sunset Rum which is distilled on the island. Beware. There are a variety of Sunset Rums with the strongest 84.5 per cent by volume.
Three things to do
La Soufriere
Take a hike and eat your lunch 4048 feet above St Vincent at the top of La Soufriere volcano. Participants must be in good health to take the trip. Not for the faint-hearted. For more information contact + 1 784 457-8634, web: http://www.hazecotours.com
Botanical Gardens
The National Botanical Gardens in Kingstown contain the descendant of one of Captain Bligh’s original breadfruit trees. Visitors can also spy the St Vincent Parrot, the national bird of the island. For more contact + 1 809 457 1003, web: http://www.visitsvg.com
Black Point Tunnel
Take a trip back in time through this tunnel constructed by slaves in 1815. An hour’s drive from Kingstown the tunnel, 360 feet in length, was made to aid sugar transport from the Grand Sable Estate to Byreau. For more see http://www.svgtourism.
Bet big. Just once
Privé (South Africa) Summer 2010
One day you need to stick your neck out. Bet big and feel the rush says Daniel Ford.
My friend Ray used to be in the merchant navy. From Singapore to Malaysia to Durban, a girl in every port, the sun on his back, life on the ocean wave and all that. The trouble is the ocean waves do get a bit big sometimes. Very, very big, and the waves can toss around even a 14,5 million tonne vessel as if it’s a leaf lost at sea. Which isn’t much fun if you’re stuck on the said leaf.
So why exactly did Ray decide to venture out to the crew deck as his ship passed through the edge of Hurricane Ida? Yes, a hurricane. Why did he scramble across this foam-covered deck with a pooping just waiting to happen and wash him off like an even smaller leaf, never to be heard of, or remembered again? And why did he wrap his arms into some iron bars on the deck for stability, stick his chest out, close his eyes and allow the powerful spray to pummel him so hard that it left speckles of blood on his face?
Ray did it because it was exhilarating. And he did it because he wanted to feel that burst of exhilaration that only comes from taking a chance.
Now, Ray was being a bit silly (silly, silly boy Ray) and he admits it’s the biggest chance he’s ever taken in his life but I know exactly what he was after because I’ve always believed that every betting (wo)man should take at least one BIG chance in their betting life.
It means sticking your neck out, breaking all the normal rules of sensible betting and making one big bet that sets your heart racing again (remember the excitement of that first bet?). I’ve been a betting man as long as I remember but it’s always struck me that never feeling the rush of stretching yourself is like going to a sumptuous feast and sticking to the tomato soup.
Bear in mind that ‘going big’ varies from person to person. What’s ‘big’ for you may be nothing to your friend. It’s not the actual amount that matters; it’s whether it takes you outside your comfort zone. Are you looking at your chips on the table and absolutely fascinated by the bet you’ve just made? Too often I bet and don’t really mind one way or the other because, as it should be, it’s a bit of fun. Of course I want to win, who doesn’t? But the amount I bet is well within my comfort zone. My pulse won’t speed up until a pretty girl in a short skirt walks past.
It comes down to adrenaline and stress. Stress generally gets a bad press, always associated with a hard day at work or a nightmare afternoon out with the screaming kids. But controlled stress can take us to a new level. If you never stress your muscles in the gym your muscles stay the same. If you never stress your brain at work your brain goes flabby. People who never stress themselves rarely get anywhere in my view. Get up, eat, tickle the dog’s tummy and go to bed.
And so goes the theory in my betting world. If I were to always bet within myself my whole life then I would never feel the adrenaline that stressing my betting brain brings.
So one day I decided to stick my neck out. I should explain at this point that although my experience of sticking my neck out ended in a win, I would still be writing this article even if I had lost because it was the feeling just before the bet was concluded that mattered not the actual win itself (nice though it was).
I’m on a weekend away with two friends and we’re playing blackjack, my friends’ favourite game. After an hour of going up, going down, trying not to upset the guy next to me by drawing the card he needs, I decide to scoop up my chips and move to my favourite game: roulette.
I put the lot on black. It wins and I let it ride. My friends join me and double up my bet. We win again. We look at each other and laugh. The weekend is paid for and more.
“Let’s leave it,” I say.
This is the moment that counts for me right now. Black comes in but it doesn’t actually matter because those few seconds while I stare at my (rather large) pile of chips and wait for the wheel to settle are amazing. Stressed I was. And not in a screaming kids sort of way.
Just for once, go out on the deck in Hurricane Ida.
Poker in Paradise
Prive (South Africa) Summer 2010
It’s not often you get to play a national champion at poker. Daniel Ford heads off to the sun to beat the Bermudian champion.
The giant leaves of the palm trees are gently rustling in the breeze while the Atlantic waves slap half-heartedly against the rocks as if the warmth of the day has sapped even their energy. The double doors to the balcony are wide open to frame the sun setting on another perfect day in Bermuda. I’m wearing shorts, slops and a T-shirt and am completely coated in that amazing warmth you get only on those days when you feel as if you can actually reach out and grab a chunk of the air and put it in your pocket for later. This is poker in paradise.
There’s only one problem: I’m sitting down to play against the Bermudian champion who has just returned from the World Championships in Las Vegas. A Canadian, who’s been working on the tax-free island for a number of years, had defeated locals and ex-pats alike in the months-long island-wide competition to earn the honour of representing the small country at the big tables in America.
“I made it right to the end of day one,” he tells me. “I went all-in on silly cards. I think it was a mixture of tiredness and wild confidence.”
The others sitting round the table are mostly financial people, here for the money and their own slice of the good life.
There are a couple of other South Africans sitting round the table and we swap tales of rugby, spit braais and where to find Mrs Ball’s chutney as you always do when you meet someone from home. Like everyone else they are here for the tax-free dollars. Talk abounds among all ex-pats of returning home laden with their booty and buying cars and houses in just a fraction of a time it would take to achieve the same goal at home. Maybe it’s simply a way of distracting ourselves as we prepare to lose our money to the national champion.
I’ve come across quite a few South Africans on the island (Facebook’s South African’s in Bermuda group has 98 members) some in the financial industry, of course, but many working as part of the many gardening and maintenance teams that keep the homes of the many rich and famous (Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are residents here) nice and shiny.
Stakes are pretty high, as you’d expect from a bunch of bankers on six-figure dollar salaries. I wince as the dollar notes with more than one zero start to be flung about. My friend nods across the table to indicate that he will cover me if I want to stay in. It’s just the Bermudian champ and me. Oh, what the hell.
I go all-in, he follows and we both flip our cards over. My six and seven really look rather sad against his pair of kings.
“What are you doing Dan,” asks my friend. I suppose it is his money after all.
The flop generously adds an eight to my wildly hopeful bid for a straight. The trouble is the tens mean he’s got two pair now. Oh well.
A three. No good to anyone.
Then a beautiful nine on diamonds to complete my straight.
“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” I declare as if he has just lost his eyesight as well as his sense of humour. I’ve just beaten the Bermudian champion. Vegas, Smegus, I think quietly.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “I was lucky; they were silly cards to go in on. I think it was a mixture of tiredness and wild confidence.
Once more over the (sort of) cliff face
Land Rover One Life 2011
It’s understandable when sportsmen and women punch their fists in the air to celebrate but it’s never done much for me. If I’m running in a road race (particularly if it’s a hard one) I simply pat my legs with a little congratulatory ‘well done’ as I cross the finish line. It is, after all, my legs that carry me through the whole thing (and I’m too exhausted to punch the air anyway). The gesture is a simple one (oh, alright, silly one too) because frankly I expected nothing else from my legs anyway. A difficult job well done by something built to purpose.
And so it is after two days with the Land Rover Discovery out in the rough and steaming hot terrain of Catalonia, Spain. If it had legs I would have given it a little congratulatory ‘well done’ for carrying me over slippery log bridges, along ravines, up slopes that are close relations of cliff faces, down inclines covered in loose rocks and dirt and finally through mud-filled tracks that would go down a treat with a bloat of hippos.
Okay, I admit I was a tad nervous before the three-day Land Rover Experience, geared towards novices and Land Rover drivers alike. Driving through London is just not the same as being perched with two wheels on the edge of a rocky slope with just the on-board camera display offering any visibility to what lies ahead (cameras offer views straight ahead, to the side, and to the back for when you can’t see yourself). But after a couple of days I’d found a remarkable confidence, knowing that terrain that appears impassable is simply waiting to be gobbled up by the Discovery.
“You went over that lot with even blinking,” laughed cameraman Darren, who’d gamely sat next to me on the adventure (although he did keep leaping out as we approached really dodgy looking bits, claiming the shot would look better from the outside). He was right. A similar patch of steep dips, sharp rocks and tight turns had me breaking out in a cold sweat the day before. But confidence is quick to build after a few hours inside the Discovery.
And one reason for this confidence is the Terrain Response console which you can adjust to normal mode (road), grass-gravel-snow, mud-ruts, sand, or rock crawl depending on the terrain you are driving into. This will automatically set the gears (eg on rocky terrain it will start in first and on snow in third), the throttle (in sand it would be responsive and in grass it wouldn’t so as to avoid skidding) and adjusts the anti-skid DSC (dynamic stability control) accordingly. Just think of it like the time when the automatic cameras came out with their easy-to-understand settings and hey presto, suddenly your photos were in focus.
Then there is also the Land Rover team. If, like me, you’d never driven off-road before, you’ll appreciate a little help when staring a slippery rock climb ahead of you when, due to the steepness, all you can see is the bright blue of the sky as you crawl upwards. And, like me, when you see the vehicle ahead veer to a 45-degree angle in deep mud you might just be zipping down the window and insisting on the help. Thankfully at every tough stage the Land Rover team leap out to guide you through with their hand signals. “Muy buenas direcciones amigos.”
The Discovery might not have legs for me to congratulate but it’s certainly getting a little pat on its mud-splattered tyres.
• For more see http://www.landroverexpeditions.com
Your bag, I believe?
Sowetan Sunday World
The first thing a woman looks at when she meets you is your shoes. Every man knows that (except that guy at the back with the scuffed brogues obviously).
But in the pecking order of making your first impressions last longer, there is one thing even more important than shoes. When travelling, whether you’re on a bus or a plane, always check-in classy luggage. Because everyone notices what you’re carrying.
I learnt that lesson at an important conference I attended not so long ago. There was my Samonsite suit bag, ideal for three suits and matching shirts and ties, and the Gucci bag for shoes, jackets and underwear. That was it for my decent bags so I figured the jeans and T-shirts would have to make do with a sports holdall. After all, I had two decent bags and no-one would notice one little bag in among all the others would they?
Alas yes, I was told by a colleague who knew all about the conference from experience. In a business world where everyone looked good and performed well, luggage was the only way to stand out.
So we set off, first on an intercontinental flight, then a regional flight, then a bus, then a boat. All the luggage piled up, anonymous, designer bags mixing downtown and sports holdalls chatting it uptown. And so it was for the whole trip; luggage moving quietly from airports to hotel rooms and from hotel rooms to airports, unseen and unknown. What was my friend thinking making me buy a new (third) bag because a sports holdall ‘just wouldn’t do’?
So we headed back: boat, bus, regional flight, intercontinental flight, to the luggage conveyor belt. Meeting place of luggage from three flights, converging at one airport, ours from the conference among them. I am standing with an MD from a big company, and we’re chatting about a successful trip, and hey, look, I spot my (third) bag heading our way.
‘Here, this one’s yours,’ the MD says, picking it up and handing to me.
Daniel Ford Words 