Rhys Llywelyn Davies

At 8:55 am, 11 years ago today, at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, my son, Rhys, was born.

He is funny. He’s smart. Considerate, thoughtful and aware, even if it is sometimes on reflection. Sometimes, he is a royal, 11 year old pain in the arse, but mostly he is Rhys.

He has been an immense source of pride and affection since then and whenever I’ve been low, directionless or plain depressed, I only have to think of him and I smile. Sometimes I weep. He makes me stop and realise that things aren’t quite in the order or priority that I thought they were. Even with two grown up daughters, whom I see little of and hear from even less (largely due to my circumstances and actions and despite my mourning that loss I am yet to learn all the lessons I should have by now. I am only beginning to understand and am becoming acutely conscious of the expanse of his being.

At every turn there is a news item advising us of an abused child, a family hit by tragedy or community shell-shocked by huge loss. Such is the frequency of these events that they are no longer guaranteed to make the front page. Though sadly, tragedy that the Morecambe’s have endured is all too prominent. We are fortunate to have our son with us, yet we still fail to protect him as we should something so precious.

Through the last couple of years, while his mother and I have been dismantling the fabric of our life – one disassembling and the other putting away the pieces – he has been through the mill. At times he has been forgotten or, at the very least, too low in the order of things. Though he manages to remain enthusiastic about the things that he enjoys he takes it upon himself to protects the ‘grown-up’s’ from themselves at times. We have squandered part of his innocence – shame on us. Shame, shame.

Now, suddenly, he is 11 years old. I grieve for the greater part of his childhood thus far that has gone sometimes unnoticed and sometimes uncelebrated. It’s dawned on me that it will never be back for us to share again. No more, my son. It’s all about you.

Happy birthday ‘Young Man’

Love Dad

Bless me father ... for I have sinned

It’s been .... ooh .... a week (?) since my last confession.

The Diet
Well, to continue in the current vein, I have successfully navigated another 7 days with no meet. I was duped into the purchase of some very nice looking vegetable fried rice in the cafe at work, only to discover just in time that it had bacon bits. I am guilty of mistaking some chorizo sausage for sun dried tomatoes in a pasta dish I had after the Rainbow Beach Ultra on Sunday, but I was tired and, let’s face it, there’s very little meat in sausages!!

Over 2½ weeks I have dropped a steady 3 kg’s and am now sitting on 79. I can confidently say it’s not down to training as though I have maintained my streak, I have had very little intensity or distance other than the 45 km’s on Sunday, following which I did as I always do for a couple of days after a run: experienced an insatiable appetite for carbs. and sugars, succumbing to the demand for plenty of the former and a little of the latter.

I’m definitely feeling better for it too and my ‘habits’ seem to be a little ‘healthier’!


Rainbow Beach
Anyway, back to Rainbow Beach. When I first saw this race, I thought, “Ok, lovely part of the world, will be a beautiful run and all that, but just call it a marathon. I mean, 43 km’s is just an excuse to tick the ‘ultra box’. How wrong of me.

The race is a huge challenge over the distance and merits the tag and has the makings of bringing an imposing event onto the trail running map (hopefully now it’s back on there’ll be no more difficulty with permits).

My day was quite adventurous as it turned out. There were one or two teething problems with the event, namely the tide being a lot earlier than anticipated and a lot higher due to the full moon (as a CP volunteer said to me after my travails, “Maybe we should have come up yesterday morning to check the real high tide time”) but no real harm done.

After covering the first 18 km through some beautiful trail to the beach very sedately, my ‘comfortable’ 5 hour plans were scuppered by the ‘losing’ of my legs running along the beach to the lighthouse (the heavy sand as a result of the high tide just took it out of me, walking or what was loosely described as ‘running’).

The fantastic views up to and from the lighthouse lightened the mood (the colour of the ocean was spellbinding and just sucked you in). When I got back down the other side I had some misgivings and had no option but to go across the sandbar as I was already cut off from the main beach on the inlet, knowing I’d have to cross the inlet somewhere.

After a couple of km’s, I reached the inlet where the tide was rushing in at a furious rate. I decided to go for it and waded, tested, swam a little before realising it wasn’t on - It was well over my head and coming through quickly enough that I couldn't keep my footing. I was more concerned about Rhys’ camera getting buggered than anything else (admittedly, this feeling wasn't helped by the signage I saw at Inskip Point the night before warning me of the presence of estuarine crocodiles in the area - a salty on my arse would have severely hindered my already precarious chances of finishing!!).

I was fortunate in that a family on the other side were out enjoying the sunshine and he had a kayak on his roof. Anyway, the guy yelled over to me that he'd come get me and so it passed. I got a kayak ride across and, by the time I made it across the rest of the sand bar and doubled back to the checkpoint, I had added about 3 km to the trip. It was only about 12 km from there I think but it felt like a long way home. Possibly could have been 5½ hours instead of the trudge that my morning became but there you go (6:28!)

One thing though, Donna arrived at the finish expecting me to be there. She asked Ian Javes if there was any word about anyone’s whereabouts and he simply said, I’m sure with sneaky grin and a twinkle in his eye,

"This course isn’t as easy as they all seem to think!”

I put this to Donna yesterday and she confirmed – she was sure he looked pleased with himself ... good for him!

To cap off a sincerely enjoyable weekend, we had a full blow out in a fully laden 4x4 at 110 km/hour on the way home ... at least I got to lied down in the grass while digging the jack under the car!

It's not the means, it's the end ... result that is.

Ok, first things first, contrary to my post of 28th, I’ve ignored one of my foibles and eaten a veggie burger. If I call it a patty (which describes the shape and consistency as opposed to the content) then I think I can get away with it. Donna and the kids were getting dinner from Hungry Jack’s and I was coerced, a little. Anyway, it was nice.

There, I’ve done it ... feels so good to get it off my chest!

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I accidentally ate a couple of pieces of ham from the fridge the other day. I was just looking for something to nibble on and the last pieces were there so I had them. Nice too. Just a slip up.

Here’s the low down: I’ve stopped eating meat, not because of my moral views on the methods we use to ‘care for’ and slaughter our livestock (though it’s a concern), but because of the scale on which we produce it at as much as any moral issue I have with its consumption. Take a look at these figures for Australia for the month of September, 2011:

Current Population (November 9th 2011): 22,757,314
Cattle(a)	620,057	0.03
Calves	91,710	0.004
Sheep	465,725	0.02
Lambs	1,562,921	0.07
Pigs	396,152	0.02
	3,136,565	0.14
(a) Excludes calves

Not so bad you may think, but that's 0.14 of a beast for each of the population (½ of that number being lamb).  This includes infants, the elderly and, let's not forget, vegetarians, vegans and those of that ilk.  What's missing?  Chickens!

Don't take my word for it, these figures come straight from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

You should check out the figures for civilised nations such as the UK and the USA in particular (182 animals per capita per year), they're frightening.

The real damage, apart from the health care burden (as for the individual who's dumb enough to allow themselves to get 50+ kg's overweight I have no sympathy, though I do have admiration for those for whom the penny drops and they make efforts to turn it around), is done to the environment - and it's not just the methan (which is more damaging than on a global scale than global vehicular emissions).

Our planet cannot support the level of mass production that the meat industry engages in.  It's not about vegetarianism it's about what's natural.  There's plenty of information out there, go see for yourself ... or ask.

It's a cliché I know, but in a world of such excess, how the fuck are there so many starving?

• 7,001,760,663 current total world population
• 916,405,551 undernourished people in the world right now
• 1,548,527,792 overweight people in the world right now
• 516,175,931 obese people in the world right now
• 19,261 people who have died of hunger today
• 9,578,142 people who have already died of hunger this year

Occupy this!

So they got to stay in St Georges’ square, inappropriately next to the war memorial, for 18 days. They were moved on and told they could camp in the Roma St Parklands. Not good enough. I mean, no news in hanging around where you’re allowed to is there.

I lost what little interest I had when I realized that it's largely a group of people complaining about an issue without suggesting a solution. Make your stand, make yourself be heard, but if it means just making a nuisance of yourself for those having to traipse through your ‘occupation’ on the way to work and then leaving the location far from pristine, don’t fucking bother.

If they had a point, it’s long been lost among the rubbish that they’ve left behind, the clearing of which the tax/rate payer, not the corporate machine, is footing the bill for.

From being a group of well meaning, if misguided, individuals, they’ve morphed into the usual anti-establishment espousing, habitual trouble making mob. What else would you do between riots?

How ironic that in some major cities, the ‘Occupy’ locations have drawn the local homeless as they now have somewhere to stay with sanction. At least some good is coming from it, if only on a temporary basis.