To what lengths would you go to assist a pet?

By Dean McCleland in Other Personal 0 Comment

When the apple of my daughter’s eyes, her ginger tabby cat Tiddles contracted diabetes, she was forced to inject it twice a day for the rest of its life. For many, this would be considered an imposition and a burden not to be lumbered with. Others take that view to the other extreme.

My only personal experience of assisted a non-domestic pet relates to a fully-grown hadeda. While some people resent these birds, I find them rather quaint and quintessentially African. Even if one is not a fan of them one could not assist one in dire need.

That is what happened to me.

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Around the World Challenge: 40 075kms in Official Races

By Dean McCleland in Running 9 Comments

Having recently settled into portly late middle age – that sounds preferable to early old age – I still had one physical challenge outstanding in my life’s inbox to complete: run around the world. Perhaps lack of fitness would be too charitable a description of my physical condition. It was not only the slightly stout demeanour but also my back to consider. It had forced my withdrawal from the Paris Marathon in 2011. With 6000kms still to run, it could even have prevented the achievement of my RTW Goal.

Climbing Mountain Everest was never seriously on my bucket list. Even if I had obtained sponsorship which was highly unlikely, there were the more serious factors such as lack of leave and an irascible wife to contend with. Aside from these considerations, it was utterly inconceivable in that as a South African I would not be able to obtain a visa to 80% of the world, Nepal being one of them, at that time in South Africa’s turbulent history.

Main picture: At the start of the Pick ‘n Pay 21km race at Saheti School together some some of the runners who would accompany me: Ken, Laurie, Nigel, me, Myer, Mike, Amanda and Kurt. They had the heavy work to do: carry the banner for 21,1kms.

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Home was No. 57 Mowbray Street, Newton Park, Port Elizabeth

By Dean McCleland in McClelands, Other Personal 3 Comments

Everybody has a special place; a place that one calls home. For the McCleland’s it was 57 Mowbray Street, Newton Park, Port Elizabeth. It was nothing special; just a normal middle class rectangular house without any pretensions of greatness, grandiosity or style. But what it did possess was not character but some unique features which will forever be remembered by the family and associated with our home.

Main picture: The diamond shaped window panels of the patio

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Harry Clifford McCleland [1911 to 1982]: A Life Recalled

By Dean McCleland in Other Personal, Personal 3 Comments

Known by all and sundry as Clifford or Cliffie by those closer to him, he was never to be called Harry apart from on his birth certificate. Having never been close to him, the song “The Living Years” by Mike and the Mechanics has resonance with me. An intensely quiet, introverted but humble person, he was not somebody that would readily admit other people into his life. This was the person who was my father.

Amongst the many abiding memories of my father was that I never ever engaged in a discussion with him. Blaine on the other hand would rise early and share coffee with him in the kitchen. Naturally Cheryl was the apple of his eye until there was a falling out when she reached puberty. At that point both our relationships with him were platonic with no love or affection displayed.

Main picture: During WW2 in Egypt
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My Rocket Scientist Brother: A Youth of Normality

By Dean McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands, Other Personal, Personal 0 Comment

This blog just comprises vignettes written by my brother mainly to prove that despite his intelligence, he had a normal upbringing. What is singularly important is that he experienced the same anxieties, boredom and surprises as the rest of us. Only now after 50 years have I finally heard about Blaine’s entanglement with the law. What an admission. I never knew a thing. This is a random collection of Blaine’s musings of a life in a different age, an age of innocence and discovery. This is Blaine’s story.

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Blister Juice and Other Hiking Tales

By Dean McCleland in Hiking, Personal 1 Comment

After a long hiatus, I heard it again on the Florence Hill Trail at Kaapschehoop last weekend: blister juice as the punctured blister squirted its clear liquid in all directions. Every sport has its own unique vernacular. Often this argot is used regionally whereas often it applies only to a coterie of friends. So it is with the Quo Vadis Hiking Club. This blog covers the transformation of Quo Vadis over a 25 year period from the first blush of innocent youth to a club of geriaterics.

In our youth – when I was 40 years old – a lot was left unstated. Instead it was the competitive male spirit which generated the signals and subtle unobtrusive signs. The six day 120 km Amatola Hike in 1989 epitomised that unspoken communication. Unfortunately Kurt was at the peak of his Comrades and Iron Man prowess while Mike Brown was not a laggard in the running stakes either. Having recently completed a marathon in Edinburgh, Scotland in a whisker over three hours, he certainly was no slough.

Main picture: Looking back to Kaapsehoop

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The Chronicle of the Journey into Terra Incognito

By Dean McCleland in Personal, Running 0 Comment

This is a poignant tale of taking two novices through their first marathon. On 22nd March 2009, two unwilling victims – Arnold Paikin and Johann Scholtz – were dragged through their first marathon. This blog chronicles the pathos and pain of that experience. The first half of the blog is my experience of that baleful race and the second is Arnold’s plaintiff riposte to an uncaring slave driver – that is me. Tell me which version that you believe. His or mine?

 My version of that momentous day

Clearly it would not be terra incognito for me having already done in excess of 90 marathons & ultras. Contrary to expectations, I have a view that, despite having completed so many, one’s body is not designed to run that far; especially mine. The reason that I say terra incognito is that if one has never run a marathon before, one probably extrapolates from how one felt after a half marathon & imagines – wishful thinking really – that another 21kms cannot be that difficult. Surely not? How can it? What is not factored into that equation is that the body exhausts its glycogen supply after approximately 30kms and then one hits the wall. Apart from that, the body at that point is no longer making timid suggestions that would the mind please desist from such stupid behaviour but now throws a tantrum in the form of pain, blisters & generally becomes bolshie.

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The Thrill of Shopping with One’s Wife

By Dean McCleland in Animals, Other Personal 0 Comment

When I first received these photographs, they struck an immediate chord with me. If my case it was not the wife, who you will not believe, hates shopping just as much as I do. It was my daughter. I also detest it but when we drew straws about who would perform which household chore, I drew the short straw on this one.

Maybe females attend Shopping School surreptitiously but how is it possible that all my shopping training with her over the years as she was growing up counted for nothing when she reached puberty. All of a sudden here was this little madam explaining to me how one ought to be shopping. The week-end excursion to the local Pick ‘n Pay at Blackheath became worse than plucking one’s eyebrows and just as painful. But she never relented.

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My Past is Another Country

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Other Personal 3 Comments

Notwithstanding the fact that I still reside in sunny South Africa, however the country of my birth has changed irrevocably since then. It has been refashioned to such an extent that it is no longer the same country that I remember as a callow youth. This alteration is more than a racial voting issue as the very fabric of society has been rendered asunder. This blog addresses these modifications and assesses whether they were for better or worse as the marriage in 1994 to the New South Africa was consummated.

Main picture: With my cousin Marilyn & her two boys circa 1976

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Hiking to the Amphitheatre in the Northern Drakensberg

By Dean McCleland in Hiking, Personal 1 Comment

By far the most imposing feature of the Drakensberg is the Amphitheatre and also probably the most recognisable. A hike to the top – not recommended for the faint-hearted – also involves a near vertical climb up the chain ladders.

Rising over 1000 metres from the Tugela Valley, the Amphitheatre is a mighty wall of granite which ascends all the way to the Lesotho plateau which is almost 3000 metres above sea level.

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