In our house we have 2 types of magazine, neither of which I understand but both of which I read, in an attempt to more fully understand my husband and his hobbies. I think I have mentioned before the struggles I have with vocabulary, and thought you might find it fun to imagine me wading through the following:

Beware: Shimano clones will often have 7/32 in balls on the freehub side and 1/4 in on the left rear. New Campag hubs use plastic bearing retainers with 5/32 in balls front and rear, with sealed cartridges in a freehub that usually lasts a while.

All sounds painful and if I see a Shimano clone walking along the street I will understand why he is limping.

In Force 3-4 you need to start depowering the main sail and dumping mainsheet to get through gusts upwind, while in Force 4 the BM is likely to become hard work on a beat, needing grunt combined with good technique to prevent the flat bow from slamming into inevitable wind blown chop.

What??? Did I say that R subscribes to 'bottom burpers gazette'? What the heck in an inevitable wind blown chop? A bad day in Autumn for the butcher? And why do you need to grunt? I am supposedly taking up sailing in May (waiting for good weather) and I am going to need to perfect a lot of wind techniques before then if I have any hope. I have learnt what a gaff is, proud to say.

Today I went swimming wearing my new goggles and new swwim hat ( not just that, btw!) and someone motioned to let me overtake them at the end. Ha! Appearances are so deceiving. I could barely breathe, as I have been taking the opportunity of goggles to try out front crawl, which I last did in about 1984. Its fun, but so tiring, I am alternating with back stroke and breast stroke but hope to increase to consecutive crawl. Maybe I should buy 'Swimmers monthly' and provide R with lots of vocabulary to trawl through for love. Damn it, he used to go to swimming club when a teenager so would know it all. He is so knowledgeable about sport, and taking up new ones does not erase his knowledge or skill at old ones. Since I have known him he has done tennis, squash, cricket, sailing, golf, cycling, swimming and running half marathons. I have once beaten him at pool. And 2 nights ago I won at scrabble, a resounding victory with at least 20 points lead! I got quay, right near the end, on a triple word score, with a points value of 50. Also proud of flask and shrieked. Now, a Scrabble magazine would really push up the vocabulary...