Fatherhood

It's 10:30pm, 2 hours past when Monkey should definitely be in bed. He's taken over my office chair, and is sitting there eating peanut butter crackers and trying to assist me with typing this. I am sitting in a distant chair, trying to read the monitor from 5 feet away on a 30 degree angle.

I am not feeding him chocolate cake again for dessert - especially flourless chocolate cake that contains an entire block of cooking chocolate! Especially when such a cake lasts less than 24 hours in this household. I was expecting to partake of a small slice each day until the end of the week, but some disappeared at breakfast (not me), some disappeared at lunch (not me), some went into Junior's lunchbox and some was had for afternoon tea (not me)... and that was almost it. I got a thin sliver tonight, topped with double cream and surrounded by blackberries. Damned delicious, but the lack of seconds was a major drag.

Now I have to get Monkey into bed. When he whinged last night, I lay down with him for a few minutes in order to calm him down.... and apparently woke up at 11pm and carted myself off to our bed. I have no recollection of leaving his bed and finding my way into ours. I was still feeling the after effects of a good Sunday ride. What I forgot to mention about Sunday is that I tried to maintain at least 30km/h on everything except the steeper hills.

Now that is pretty easy to maintain when in a group, but much harder when on your own and when you are the wrong side of.... however old I am. It's a reasonable clip for someone born in the 1960's, and who is fond of chocolate cake with proper double cream.

It was not a tongue hanging out of the side of your mouth sort of speed - but it was sufficient to be hard work. Not excruciatingly hard, not ball-breakingly hard - just hard. It was a good work out, no more, no less. Especially since it lasted over 2 hours with only one small break. I have not worn a heart rate monitor for a few years, but I know I was pushing 70-80% most of the time - if not more.

My legs are giving off just a gentle ache at present. They are not twanging and collapsing like they do after a meteorically stupid ride, where I push up hills until I nearly vomit, and am blinded by sweat pouring into my eyes. They have the dull discomfort of a ride that involved an elegant sufficiency of exercise.

What that means is that I can climb into the bath tub to have a shower knowing that I will be able to get out again without danger of falling out of the tub as I attempt to exit. When you find yourself lying naked on the bathroom floor because your legs have given out on you, you know you've done a good ride.

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Case in point. Put Monkey to bed shortly after writing that. Woke up with him at 0012 hours. Finished this off this morning.