It's Just Waffle Today

Good. Easter's done. Have found all those long lost notes about losing weight, my motivations, my monitoring of food, the regime, the recipes etc. Despite another very late night following games at Andy's - the less said about one of those the better - I was up relatively earlier as Basti had an inset day today and had promised to coming swimming with me early. We arrived about 8.15 i guess and it was pretty busy for a Tuesday although it cleared reasonably well. He reckoned he was going to try and get to twenty lengths and I said I needed to do at least fifty not having been for almost a fortnight.

I like the pool, but the photographer's made it look amazing!

As it was we both did well. I hit my usual sixty-four lengths, a mile, and he got up to thirty-two much to everyone's surprise. We both felt good afterwards too, hurrah. Just as well as we needed to go school trousers shopping and get the groceries. As ever, I didn't have the right change for the car park so we dashed in to the uniform shop but ended up trying on three pairs before finding the ones that need taking up by at least five inches. Never mind. Our supermarket trolley race didn't go too well with him constantly asking me how much longer we had on the parking ticket and what else was on the list. If he'd have just got the blinking stuff maybe we would've been less stressed!

Anyway, I sent him out whn the ticket expired and finished off in the shop. After paying I took out a huge display scattering some produce all over the place and giving one old fellow the fright of his life. Ooops! The car was fine but as soon as I got home I realised I'd forgotten to buy any meat. Damn. Off to the butcher's in a mo' then.

At home I took his trousers up. They're quite neat and I doubt anyone will notice that I could only find the navy cotton and no black. Then made another tomato soup, provencal style the recipe reckons. Not sure about that but it tasted beautiful. As Mrs Hora put it, 'like real tomato soup without that bought after-taste. Certainly good for the diet. Have booked myself in for a service, am due to consider how the reduced medication has been. Seems ok to me although I'm worried about the next step, went a bit fractious after missing a couple of days of the early morning ones and I can't sleep without the nighttime ones.

A beautiful new chunk of vinyl arrived today too. An And Also The Trees 12" produced in France for RSD14. It's so pretty in it's huge sleeve. There were discussions about the box for the game Splendor over the weekend. The contents take up about 10% of the box it's sold in. But then would gamers buy a tiny box and believe the game is as good as it is. I have several small boxed games that don't get the merit they deserve because of that. Strange. Anyway, a 12" sleeve looks brilliant, so much nicer than a cd cover, never mind a downloadable photo.

Wonder what David Moyes is up to today. Bet he's inundated with journalists dreaming they're going to get something amazing to write up, plus friends and colleagues trying to be supportive I hope. I haven't looked at the news since I heard an announcement in Lidl. I think I'm in the camp that will say he wasn't give enough time. But then you look at how well Martinez, Pellegrini and Mourinho and have done since last summer and I think, mm, what has he been up to? You could easily add to that list Pulis, and even Sherwood. Still, he'll never have to work again if he doesn't want to. Will probably be the next Scotland manager if he fancies that... And then who's in at Man U? Some big name, for two or even three seasons before he moves on again.

Not a photo in sight

It's taken me several days but I think I'm getting back up to speed following the sojourn in Suffolk. Am back to the diet, jotting down my daily weight, rereading my mantras to keep me on track and writing out my intakes. Need to get back to the buying of food to ensure there aren't too many treats, and plenty of good fruit. More importantly I need to remember that Im trying to get my food intake to a low level, so that my eating patterns change to eventually become 'normal'. Whenever things go awry, as they did in Suffolk, I need to consider what I would say to a good friend who'd strayed from his/her regime, encourage them to start again and keep it going... Swimming was fine yesterday after a full week off. No problem reaching the mile again. Hopefully, will get a full week in next week.

Have also caught up with my emails, only two left to respond to although I seem to have deleted one of them so have asked the sender to resubmit. Similarly, have read through all the articles on the Geek so my gaming knowledge is bang up to date. Just a bucket load of play through videos to watch at some time. All very useful. Have one additional hand written blog to add here, maybe get a chance to do that later too.

Been into Kingston already this morning, Josie's iPod got a cracked screen through her brother's stupidity. Unfortunately, or conspiracy perhaps, it wasn't possible to replace it so we traded for a new one, £75. Had been hoping to get away with £20 replacement screen, ouch. Picked up another little something for Cheryl's birthday though together with a new kettle to replace our dangerously dripping old one. Kettles don't seem to last very long in our house, why is that?

Have enrolled at Richmond Adult Community College to do a five week intro to AppleMac course just after Easter. There are still several things I'm uncertain about and it was cheaper than replacing an iPod. Might stay on to do the intermediate course afterwards. Am absolutely loving Apple so far I have to say. Functionality seems so much better, and easier too. The course will undoubtedly answer my few questions and show me some useful stuff too, as well as some bits I'm never going to go near!

On the journey home we watched two firemen walking down the street in full regalia. They must have been no older than three, probably on the way to a friend's party I guess. They looked so cool, and funny. I imagined a real fire engine driving past but then stopping to say hello to the little guys. What a treat that would have been for them.

New Starts

Another day, another new start. Since the depression took hold I've usually come to the end of something and then had a bit of a low time, a week or so, whilst I try to recover some motivation. For some reason this morning I feel the opposite, can't wait to get cracking!

Last night was the final event of my two year MFA in Creative Writing at Kingston Uni. Yes I still have an assessment to hand in for the PGTLHE module, and some marking of the undergrads work, and a dissertation too of course, but there are no events lined up, no workshops to attend, seminars to lead. This landmark was celebrated with an MFA Reading. It was much better attended than I had expected, and, indeed, much more fun than I had thought. Eleven us ran down the front and read an excerpt from our work, mainly novels but some short story pieces, and a few poems. Which was where I opted to go, reading three in my series about Ivan Shrimpton, an old fellow from Suffolk with his accent and fondness for life. I'd hope to stick to the accent from the start but found myself introducing the character instead, never mind. Went okay, or so the family tell me, not too fast, pretty clear although a few anticipated chuckle moments didn't work out. Would read again anyway, hadn't thought i'd like it, always shied away, not through fear of presenting, but fear of not having something interesting to say. If I get a chance again I'd take it.

Anyway, I have a huge to do list, on my 'reminders' programme i think it is. I'm embracing all things apple at the moment having just taken receipt of an iPad mini and MacBook Air. i'm in love with both very much and really trying to learn to use the apple way and ditch microsoft, is that possible nowadays? We'll see. There are some huge differences but so far I'm not missing anything. Indeed, the iPad is wonderful. I read my poems from it yesterday instead of having sheets of paper floating around, worked well. And the opportunity to look as if you're making notes in seminars whilst browsing BoardGameGeek is wonderful. I'm glad I didn't have it earlier, I'd never have listened to anything at Uni!

I've been working on my weight this year. It's taken an awful long time to find the motivation but finally Ruth recommended the Beck Diet Solution and it's hooked me in with it's cognitive behavioural systems. NO CHOICE is the best mantra. On the whole I've found it easy to stick to consuming less, and eating mindfully, although the last fortnight have not been that good on the scales. I've had several days of cheating but am still swimming my mile a day during the week - am going to go after lunch today, see if the pool is any emptier than in the mornings - and have walked a fair distance this week too. So, in the last fortnight I have stayed about the same but at least I know that if I start writing down my calorie intake again, and sticking to no more than 1500 per day, I will lose more. So far I'm two stones down, but my target is another ten stones to lose, it was one hell of a mountain I set myself, about the same size as my stomach in fact.

Let's leave it there for today.