A council of war

I wake at five, the things I read from Gino's paper work, still bubbling in my mind, but after a visit to the toilet, I manage to sleep until eight. When I wake up, I have a very clear idea of what needs to be done for Gino. I don't know about other people, but I find that if I feed problems to my unconscious mind and leave them time to cook, invariably I wake with some kind of viable solution. It doesn't always happen overnight, some problems take much longer to cook than others and to be fair, I have been mulling things over for Gino, since our lunch last Friday. After breakfast, I give him a call and we discuss the matter and it is agreed that I will ride over to West Yorkshire for late afternoon and meet with Gino and my sister, Jackie, who has also arranged for my youngest brother, Andrew, to be in attendance as well. I spend the morning doing some research and then cycle to the pool for a quarter past one. Timing my arrival to coincide with the end of the ladies aqua aerobics class. A group of school children are using the end two lanes, but the next lane is free and I am able to complete a 1,600m training session again. I warm up and warm down on 400m mixed stroke medleys and swim 4 x 200m Individual medleys, at about 80 percent of race pace. I am feeling really good since my holiday and enjoying my swimming. The 200m individual medley is the second most demanding Olympic swimming event, requiring high levels of technical skill, concentration, strength and stamina. The most demanding event being the 400m individual medley. As my strength and stamina have eroded with age, I have tried to compensate with much greater attention to technical skill in the four strokes and as I have said many times before, the swims have become active meditations.   On rare occasions, when everything comes together, I feel as if I am flowing through the water, without consciousness of any exertion. Today for a couple of repeats, I found myself in this "flow" state. Afterwards I ate a scone and drank tea in the cafe, chatting to the kitchen staff, who were having their lunch break, after the midday rush was over. As I cycle back to Tickton, dark clouds are gathering to the west and heavy rain seems about to arrive, but I get home before it rains, hang up my swimming gear and load Norman into the car for his trip to West Yorkshire. We leave at a quarter past three and arrive at Gino and Jackie's house, around four thirty, where it is surprisingly, still dry. Gino is in the garden, Jackie won't be home from work until after five, so we drink tea, give Norman the tin of dog food I brought with me, and chat until she arrives. At five O'clock, on the dot, it starts to rain and we just have time to bring in some of Jackie's dry washing, before the clouds open. She arrives a few minutes later, but my brother Andrew will be some time, as he is coaching the under eleven cricket team after finishing work, although the rain will surely have put paid to that. It is decided that I will drive us to "The Mermaid", probably the best fish and chip restaurant on the planet, for dinner and then meet up with Andrew afterwards. In thirty years of eating at this restaurant, I have yet to be disappointed and the food tonight was as excellent as on all the other previous visits. My sister and Gino are flying out to Sardinia on Saturday for a fortnight's holiday, so we discuss this over our meal. Gino's mother is from Calabria and the Sardinians always tell him that he speaks Italian like a Neapolitan. After dinner, we pop into the nearby supermarket, so that Jackie can pick up some last minute things for her holiday and then we drive back to their house, through a cloudburst. My brother Andrew arrives shortly after we get back and we hold a council of war. After almost forty years service with a major supermarket, Gino has been forced out of his job at their head office and has suffered some collateral damage on the way. Experiencing high levels of stress and depression, which were both cruel and unnecessary. My brother Andrew, who is a union representative and I, will start to prepare a case for an employment tribunal, while Gino and Jackie are on holiday and hopefully this will allow them both to benefit from some overdue rest and recuperation. Norman and I leave at half past nine and drive back to Beverley through the rain. Fortunately, at this time of night, the roads are quiet and we arrive home for a quarter to eleven. I feel thirsty after the fish and chips and so eat some plain yogurt and cold rhubarb, that I stewed in the slow cooker yesterday and was picked from my own garden. I let Norman out to toilet, and fortunately the rain has stopped, at least for now. When he runs back indoors, we both go to bed, for about half past eleven.