(A bit flat)
steps : 339,144 (target 308,000)
GI: 7.8 (7 day av) : ( (there was one very high aberant reading after a “weekend” while the others were “normalish”)
Weight (kg) : 107.6 : )
Money Raised : £105
There is no good time to discover you have a flat tyre, although generally, noticing before you have fully loaded the boot is more advantageous than after.
Those who know me well, will surely be aware that I do not pack lightly, certainly not when going to an event. I did just catch the tyre shop, but of course they needed the lock nut to help me. The lock nut with the spare, in the boot.
I could not unpack a weekends musical paraphinallia in the drive-through garage, so I remove to a nearby car park, where I am, of course, trying to hurry heedlesly, before the garage shuts.
It was the last amplifier- lift – twist- and somewhere in my lower back just said “NO!”
I got the lock nut, but the reloading slowly -moving very slowly – took too long.
The tyre stays up temporarilly, but “pressure low “warning does not discriminate enough. I can be one bar under, or virtually flat. So I need to stop and check and top up with monotonous regularity. (Why don’t you fit the spare? Because my back is too sore).
I make it, and paracetemol and redwine and the spirit of the event sustain me, even in the rain, although I become the worlds most clumsy person, and everything, every bloody thing, has to be picked up from the ground where I drop it.
But the real killer is the tent. I get grateful assistance to build it (“Thank you Neil!”) but, I can only bend so far to enter it. Even at a painful stoop I am too tall. I have to bend so far, then fall to my hands and knees to crawl in (at least the mud cushions the landing). Unfortunately coming out I cannot fall “up” and until my acquisition of a handy stick part way through day 2, ground to upright is a real challenge. (No, you can’t use the tent as a support…I discover).
It might seem like the flat tyre and resulting injury were just bad luck, but the lesson is more subtle. My real failure was weeks before when I only took one night shift off, and left myself with a five hour sleep then organise and travel. A couple of days and all the pressure would have been off, the puncture woud have been fixable the “next” day, and all would have been sweetness and light.
At least we played music – Blues.
Next week on IaDL : Some photos and actual account of the event (Yeah!)
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 