Exercise is needed badly here: after a few years of troubles, including quite a few hospital stays, pretty much lying in bed for most of several months all up, E@L had transformed himself into the classic ageing former expat. Big belly (OK that was always there), no arse, skinny legs, pants hanging way too low thanks to an even more grossly unhealthy hip/waist ratio.
His good legs were once a feature: an ultrasound scan of his muscular thigh even made into a long lost promotional poster.
Now they are nothing to be proud of: nothing, to be honest, but an embarrassment!
Yep, he should have be following his old but never implemented New Years Resolution of 2013. This the first year after that first “Italian angina incident” which required two stents, a week in St Catherine’s Hospital, two weeks walking around Sienna, still missing 90% of the historical significance of the place, and he had missed the horse race by only a few weeks. This was followed by four, or was it six, weeks in Hamburg with expat ex-Singapore friends - he wasn’t supposed to fly, but hey! (Aside: The 180km/h autobahn run from the airport at Lübeck, where his friend worked, certainly tested the integrity of his refreshed myocardium.)
That NYR involved a big rubber exercise ball, one that he had bought at the request of his part-time flat-mate with a bad back who needed to sit straight at her desk. You could do a variety of exercises with this impressive orb, but his principle goal was 40 (to start) big-ball-supported wall-squats. 20 in the morning that is, and a repeat 20 in the evening. Sad fact: After 13 years with this ball, now repatriated and blown up again (like himself), he calculates that he might be up to maybe 800 reps in toto. Under-utilised, wouldn’t you say?
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E@L recently connected with an old friend, seriously old, same age as himself, and getting older. As with most lost-in-life old friends, they connected at the funeral of another old friend, one who’s not getting any older.
This old friend, Mick, sorry, Michael (“My mother christened me Michael” he would say, just to put people out of step, which he found amusing) had brought his new friend, a mid-priced eBike, down from the country with him. It had fat tyres, an engine in the hub with 5 speeds of assist, 8 gears. Michael, though it seem unlikely to some, must had been sponsored to ride as his aerodynamic lycra top had brand names all over it. He loved his eBike. He rode up around 30kms most days, and sometime further, to the limit of its battery; breezed uphill past struggling Tour-De-France wannabes; tinkled his bell as he shot up behind meandering pedestrians and their dogs; enthusiastically tried to convince E@L to buy one.
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Michael and E@L went camping out at an old surf-spot down the coast (beware of koalas, kangaroos, tiger snakes) with two other old friends — see above re: connection method. The first evening, these four old retired men, sat together outside their varied styles of 3-night accomodation.
Michael had hired camper-van with all mod-cons as he was thinking of his fast approaching grey-nomad years and thought’s he’d try one out.
Wally, who had organised this reunion, kipped out in the back of his small EV, on a foam mattress, old surfer style. He had a marquee thrown out from it which covered tables chairs, a hot-plate, a toaster, tubs of camping things, and even a small bar-fridge! How did all of that come out of his car? Tardis, go eat your multi-dimensional hear out!
Bernie, now that he was retired, had cleared his large work van, a Mercedes (fond of German autos, he once drove a surfie-style VW station-wagon), of all his carpentry stuff to put a foam mattress on a bench in the back. E@L had a two man tent, borrowed from Wally, with a new large-size camp-bed with specs to carry his weight, but not to match the tent’s dimensions, so that it protruded from the tent for half a metre, exposing his feet (or his head, choose one) in the night to those koalas, kangaroos, and tiger snakes.
In the chill of that autumn evening, they sat around two aromatic candles on an upturned bucket, drinking their self-supplied favourite poisons and reminisced about journeys E@L had not been on as he was married at 19 and moved overseas at 40, and hadn’t really seen these friends in 40 years or so. Their stories of Baja California, New Zealand, the desert breaks in South Australia, filled the evening. E@L kept his adventures in Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza to himself…
And why candles, you ask, and not a roaring open fire, marshmallows, guitars, as old campers might prefer? In this site, adjacent to a large national park, open fires were not permitted except in certified, approved, don’t-start-another-devastating-bushfire-round-here fire-pits, which none of the group owned, or knew to purchase in advance.
But Michael also loved to rave about his eBike.
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These friends could not help but notice that E@L was not the greatest paragon of health and vigour in the group. Heart attacks, multiple bowel surgeries, a colostomy, alcoholism (only a social-media drinker, but when isn’t he on FB?), still a large beer-belly despite his success with Ozempic, no arse, skinny legs and all. But they were still friends, old friends, friends enough to suggest that E@L fucking do something about it, and fucking quick! A quick dip in the ocean while they tried to recherchéz les surfing skills perdu, was hardly enough exercise. Maybe, one day you could surf again too, E@L?
And maybe fucking not!
“Get an eBike” was Michael’s strongly enthusiastic suggestion. The others agreed, even though they didn’t have eBikes. Was this some conspiracy, E@L wondered.
Michael had also suggested getting another couple of candles for the next night. While the “warmth” from these two was reasonable[!?], another two $35 aromatic candles would surely do more to keep away the beach-side, clear-skied evening chill. He also suggested that each time one of them went for a piss, that they move the candles around, like stirring wood in a real fire. He had a sense of silly humour that was infectious. But he was serious about the eBike.
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E@L will skip the other hijinks of the trip… OK maybe one thing. On the third and last morning, prior to packing, Michael and he, up earlier than the others, were checking the non-existent surf. They were standing on the sandhill at the edge of the beach, not far from the small cliff at the S-W point of the bay, when suddenly a screaming came across the horizon from the clifftop above their heads, and, so low you could almost reach up to it, with the deafening whine came a military jet, unmarked as to from which air-force it originated… Wow! Deafening, and, you might even say, surprising! The plane banked to follow the curve of the coastline and shot off, up towards Anglesea, until it was too far away to see…
Then we remembered that there was an airshow back in Geelong, and of course some Goose or Maverick was checking out the surf for themselves. We think it was probably an F-16, but what the fuck would we know?
Given the early morning, and the heavy drinking the night before induced brain fog, and with the jet and its scream well gone, it was quite the “Did that actually happen?” moment.
An alarming reality was now only a memory.
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But, in conclusion: You’re old man now, or the same age as one, and you’re not an athlete, and you're well behind the eight-ball of “living forever or dying in the attempt” billiards: c’mon, get an eBike and build back those
E@L
thighs!
To Be Continued!
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