Port De Soller Mallorca

Port De Soller Mallorca
Sunset

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Steve Jobs


Got these in the mail and thought worth sharing, hope the unknown originator doesn't mind 








Monday 30 July 2012

Guest Blogger - Mollie Ing aged 9 on Books






I had Mollie and her sisters Shannon and Lacey Mae visiting this weekend.  Mollie and I always seem to get a bit of time on our own and this morning we went a walk to the shops, and, as usual we chatted about lots of things and then the conversation turned to books, surprise, not really as we do both like a good read.  So I suggested that mollie do a blog post for you letting us know what she is reading at the moment.  Like Grand dad she usually has a couple of books on the go at any one time and this is what she had to say:

Hi everyone, my name is Mollie and I am nine years old.  After the summer holidays I go into year 5 at Beaufort Primary and I will be learning German!

Like my grand dad I like to read and this is what I am reading now;

fairy dust by Gwyneth Rees the book is really good itself and there is nothing wrong with it .  The main characters are Rosie and her little fairy friends so I will give it a gold :-)

The naughtiest girl in the school by Enid Blyton also the book is very good itself and nothing wrong with it.The main characters are Elizabeth, her friend Joan, Mrs Allen And Elizabeth's teacher so also another gold :-)

My next book is the twilight saga eclipse by stephenie meyer so far of what I read is quite good but could put more information not just about what Bella is thinking .All the main characters are Bella Swan ,Edward Cullen ,Alice Cullen ,Jasper Hale ,Emmett Cullen ,Rosalie Hale , Carlisle Cullen and Esmea Cullen . So i will give it a blue :-|

How to kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee I have only just started it so I cannot write much about it.

I've  read a bit of Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney I think it was a bit much for me but I enjoyed some of it and Grand Dad says I can borrow his copy any time

And last but not least I'm reading Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban it is really good and there is nothing wrong with it the main characters are Harry Potter ,Ron Weasly ,Hermoine Granger my favourite and Albus Dumbledore so I will give it a gold :-)

Saturday 28 July 2012

Mayonnaise Jar & Two Beers...

Received this in an e-mail post from my son-in-law, so thought I would share it with you guys ....



When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and
 empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with  golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar . He shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full..

The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed...

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car..

The sand is everything else---the small stuff.

'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children.

Spend time with your parents.

Visit with grandparents.

Take your spouse out to dinner.

Play another 18.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter.

Set your priorities.

The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.

The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.'

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Please share this with someone you care about.. I JUST DID!

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS...........
IT'S LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN

My Take on London 2012 Opening Ceremony

(c) The Metro


Spent last night watching film director Danny Boyle's interpretation of British History.  He had a bit of hard task ahead of him after the Chinese opening ceremony in 2008, which was absolutely magnificent.  


Being a cycle fan it was wonderful to see Bradley Wiggins, Britains first ever winner of the greatest cycle endurance race on the planet, The Tour de France, open the 2012 Olympiad.

I have to say though that after the first 10 minutes I nearly turned it off. We were presented with a gentle meander through the British Isles Green and Pleasant Lands and with the four nations presenting child choirs singing their 'national' songs.  It was nice but it was hardly gripping as an opening segment to an Olympiad and it appeared to be sinking into a  bit of a boring abyss.  But, I stuck with it and was glad that I did.  As it progressed, it got better, much better.

The Green and Pleasant lands were wrought away from us in a churning mass of industrial boots with smoking chimneys rising out of the ground and nodding donkeys rocking away, molten rivers of steel seared through the arena,  marching through it all, Kenneth Brannagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel the architect of so many great engineering feats across the Kingdom of Great Britain.  The sequence ended with one molten steel ring rising from the ground to join with and combine with others raised above the stadium ending in a great and spectacular shower of molten sparks forming the Olympic rings symbol: Absolutely visually stunning.


Then we had James Bond aka Daniel Craig collecting Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth the Second from Buckingham Palace and delivering her via helicopter to the stadium, where she apparently jumped out.  Oh did I have some bad thoughts then, but I set them aside for the sake of Britishness.  But later, as the camera's infrequently showed her unsmiling scowl and at one point picking at her finger nails in an act of total disdain at the proceedings being presented to her my Republican thoughts boiled to the surface, once again......

A celebration of the NHS a symbol of the British working class to provide free health care to the masses that is currently being dismantled and sold of by the Conservatives and LibDem coalition government - how they must have been squirming in their seats at that sequence.  So many children participating another genius stroke, and a celebration of the world renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital and it's links to Peter Pan creator JM Barry who bequeathed royalties of that story to the hospital.  Children reading books, monsters being chased of by Mary Poppins - it could only be and truly was Britishness at its best!

This was followed by a celebration of British music and TV although I noticed that of the brief segments shown, Bill Cosby and his Cosby show popped up too!

Scotland's very own Emeli Sande' took centre stage with a totally awsome rendition of  Abide With Me to almost end the 'spectacle' and for me that would have been fitting but and not taking anything away from what had just gone on to celebrate Britain through the centuries for some unknown reason Mr Boyle went and spoilt an almost perfect evening by giving us the croaking McCartney.  His voice was appalling , as it usually is to my mind.  He is clearly a talented individual when it comes to composing and as part of one of The Biggest pop bands in history but come on people surely I can't be alone in thinking; McCartney + Singer = Nnnnoooooooooo....  Or did Mr Boyle book him in as the closer as a way to clear the arena?  I couldn't help thinking, "Where the hell is the guy from Hyde Park, the one who pulled the plug on McCartney and prevented any more suffering, a couple of weeks ago.

But, enough, this is not about that appalling man, or even scowling Mrs Windsor, this was about London  2012 and their offering to a global audience.  This was an introduction to British Sportsmen and Women who have achieved 'greatness'.  Yes Greatness because even if they don't win a medal they are OLYMPIANS.  They, and every other OLYMPIAN from every other corner of the globe, have trained and made many sacrifices for years, some of them very young who gave up a 'normal' existence to put everything in to being selected to represent the UNITED KINGDOM of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (are you listening Mr Salmond) Emeli Sande' and Chris Hoy, did you see how he proudly held that flag aloft, THE British Flag.  No little strap and cup for him to put the flag pole into and carry on his hip.  If that Union Jack had been 5 times the size, HOY would still have strutted into that stadium thrusting it meters above every other flag carrier, waving and smiling as he carried it aloft and never even noticed any discomfort from so doing.....

Was it better than Beijing, No
Was it better than Sydney, No

Was it a unique British offering that was worth taking up 3 hours of our time  YES IT WAS

And did it make me Proud to be British YES IT DID

CONGRATULATIONS MR BOYLE, YOU DESERVE THEM.




Saturday 21 July 2012

Mr Fat has an idea!

I was chatting with Caitlin via email the other day after being pointed in the direction of her blog, RoseRunner,  by Aunty Jules .

Anyhows, me and Caitlin got to discussing Mr Fat and she, being young, fit and healthy (we won't hold the fact that she is a lawyer against her - she does seem perfectly nice in every other respect....) and she was giving me some encouragement to keep up with my getting fit and losing weight regime  - now if I could only encourage the hundreds of folk who give me encouragement in these endeavours, to give me money instead I would be a rich guy, but hey, being friend rich is just as nice - and she suggested that Ishbel should get out there with me.....   Oh, how I laughed at that, in fact laughed so much I'm sure I must have lost a couple of pounds .....

Now Ishbel, as you all know is the other half I have had to put up with for over 37 years, give or take a millennium or two, and who is the Stan Laurel to my Oliver Hardy, the twiglet to my oak tree .... you get the picture right, I'm fat, she's skinny.

The Boss, looking FAB!
So, I mentioned this to the totally gorgeous creature who inhabits my life and after having to pat her on the back to assist her in her coughing and choking fit she says, "No more bloody emails between you and this Caitlin, if that's the type of advice she gives out, and she's a lawyer you say? Remind me never to ask her for advice should we ever be in the bay area (chance would be a fine thing). What else does she do?" she asked.  "Well., she runs, marathons." says I.  "Oh! she does, does she, well tell her.... "

Well, lets not go there shall we.  Suffice it to say, we and by we, I mean me and the kids who have all grown up now and flown the nest used to run, play, swim and cycle together when they were indeed kids. Ishbel on the other hand never learnt to swim, cycle or for that matter learn to run as a kid and still cant till this day.  " I can get enough exercise running about after you lot" is the usual riposte and let's face it while some would argue and of course that seems to be the new 'in vogue message that we are getting this last week in the news, that lack of any exercise is almost as bad for you as smoking and causes just as many deaths.. I kid you not that's what has been in the news here in the UK this week.
A lack of exercise is now causing as many deaths as smoking across the world, a study suggests.
But, Ishbel does get some exercise as, when she is not working, she gets out and about, walks to the station a mile and a half away gets a train, underground, train and heads over to visit the kids in Woking, and Northampton and Berkshire.  Not great, someone with more strength of character than I, might say to her, but hey, she looks good doesn't she and as she keeps reminding me, women in her family all live into their late ninety's - so , no time off for good behaviour for me then....

This idea I had, from today's title, you thought I had forgotten hadn't you, come on you know I ramble on, but I do get there eventually, As I was having a cycle run this morning, and today is the first day in months I have mounted my bike in anger and you will recall the last time I did this was months ago and I wrote then 
So, that's what I did, I got on the bike to go to the shops this morning which are a ten minute walk or a three minute cycle.  I've discovered that if you don't cycle regularly that getting back on to it, even for a few minutes, makes you feel as if you have just taken part in a gruelling stage of the Tour De France, seriously, you start to get pains in the top of your legs caused by the unfamiliar rotational movement, your ass starts to hurt again, even although there is still plenty of cushioning there and all of this as you cycled to the end of the street, shit what's it going to be like by the time I get to the shops.......  Do I stop and walk the bike back to the house or carry on pushing those stiff pedals that seem to be in need of some oil as they really don't feel like turning after being neglected for so many months.  Persevere was the answer so off I went teetering on my way to the shops to buy some paprika, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and corn, for a spicy sauce I'm making later.

So off I went.  I decided to stay local and managed three circuits of of a square in the village.  Each circuit is about 1.7 -8 miles so I managed a paltry 5 miles this morning, but I really couldn't do any more as my legs were beginning to seize up and my bum was as numb as my gob after a visit to the dentist and having been given a shot! You will also know that I am a big fan of the Tour De France and as much as it pains me to say it (as I loathe and detest the company S**) - Go Wiggins, Froome and Cavendish, (who are all in the team sponsored by that appalling company).  Anyway, as those guys are peddling away hell for leather and they develop a problem, out jumps the mechanic from the following team car  and does a quick wheel, or in extreme cases, a bike change....

And my thought was, as you would have read previous posts, it's in there somewhere, I am forever getting punctures, and so with Caitlin's thought in mind, I thought I could get Ishbel up, strap a spare wheel to her back, she doesn't drive either.... and get her to jog along behind me... that way if I get a puncture, she could stagger up to the plate, hand over the new wheel, do a quick change, and I'd be on my way again.... what do you think, it has merit I think and it would kill two birds in one.  We'd both be getting fit together and still be going and doing everything together as we have been doing for the best part of the last half century!

   




Thursday 19 July 2012

What's in a dream?

photo: toonpool.com
Had a dream last night. Had got on a plane and flew to a foreign country and met up with old friends who had emigrated, although now, having woken up, have no idea who they were! 

They were running a little business shop/ cafe' of some description and the country was non English speaking, but, I have no idea what the language was. 

Strangely, Ishbel wasn't with me, that is strange as we never go anywhere, one without the other! 

Anyway, hired a car when I got there and drove to my friends (!) and had tea with them (I don't drink tea) and then it was time to leave.

I got into the car and left but for some reason drove back to my friends and parked up in a different place.  When I got back, the car was gone, assumed stolen. Strange thing is that the hired car, was my car, with my vehicle registration plates on it!

Where I had parked it was in a side street with old granite type block work buildings and lots of people were passing me going back into work.  I tried to speak with them but they just looked at me strangely. I had the car keys in my hand and one of those passing stopped, looked at the keys, looked at me and then pointed to a sign on the wall.  It had a foreign language  and pictograms of a car with a stroke through it and what appeared to be an indecipherable number in glyphs?

That's it, what the heck is that all about then? 

Sunday 15 July 2012

Twitter, Apps and iTunes



Tom Stronach prefers reading books purchased from iTunes to Amazon
Tom Stronach doesn't believe that the US case against APPLE and Book Publishers in relation to book price fixing is warranted

Saturday 14 July 2012

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeange

As a kid I loved my comic books, especially Marvel and DC comics.  I used to imagine I too had super powers or abilities like all the 'heroes' they gave to us. And then of course Saturday morning kids club at the cinema with Adam West's' Batman, did they actually realise back then how camp it looked, or is that just me today?



Speaking with Julia R Barrett recently, I did admit that my all time favourite didn't have any real powers but got them from an object, in this case his ring, yes The Green Lantern was always my favourite, followed by Thor, who if memory serves, back then, was a dentist with a limp and a cane!


In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!!!

I have to confess though that by the time Ghost Rider came out in 1972 I was in the Army and didn't have a lot of time for comics, but with the thought I had boxes of them in the attic at home (still haven't forgiven a sibling when I discovered years later she had given them away - don't get me started) and so I was largely ignorant of this particular 'anti-hero'. 



Being the sucker I am for all things 'super hero' though, when I first saw that Nicholas Cage was starring in a movie with the name, I couldn't wait.... It wasn't a great movie but it had Sam Elliot in it, Mr Laconic himself, doesn't ever seem to say a lot, but that gravell voice, he and Kris Kristofferson should team up together , those voices in the same scene, I digress....  and not having read any of the comics, I couldn't draw any comparisons to it, but on the other hand, while the acting was fairly mediocre, the film engaged me and I enjoyed it in the spirit of comic book fayre and the fight against good and evil, with the basically good person being drawn into being the Devils acolyte  on earth, collecting all the bad souls.

And then along comes Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and I thought great, this one will be even better...  How wrong can you be? Well in this case pretty wrong.  What's happened to Nicholas Cage, he showed so much promise in Peggy Sue Got Married, and then he made a couple of bummers and then he made a couple of good ones, but the bummers seem to out number the goodies.  And Marvel, really, I would have been embarrassed to release this as part of the franchise.



Even with those two excellent actors Ciaran Hinds and Idris Elbe the latter whom I absolutely love as DCI John Luther and the inclusion of Highlander Christopher Lambert, it really did not help.  And as much as I am an admirer of Mr Hinds, Peter Fonda was by far the superior Devil in this particular franchise.

Johny Blaze, basically told the Devil to F**k off at the end of the first movie and we now find him as a reclusive alcoholic living in a warehouse somewhere in Eastern Europe. It got worse from there on in and I am not going to give you any more detail on it.

Suffice to say, if you take precautions when sleeping around to avoid contracting an STD, I'd do the same with this movie,  avoid it like the plague, it is that bad....



Friday 13 July 2012

British Gas or the Inquisition - is there a difference?

You will recall, that I have made passing reference to those halfwits at British Gas, in the past, well F**k me sideways with a sledgehammer if they are not at it again.

In 2011 we discovered that they had been charging us for a sub meter.  Now a sub meter is, and forgive me if you knew this already, is one that is drawing power from the main meter.  The main meter is the one that the utility company bills on and the sub meter is usually the one that the tenant has installed to check on usage of a particular system or to recharge a sub tenant, but not to my knowledge, never billed by a utility company!

Anyway we took them to the Ombudsman over this, won our case and had all monies plus a small compensatory sum refunded.

Thirteen months later I open the post and get a letter from them about the self same  meter;  This is my response;


13th July 2012


British Gas
Business Renewals Team
Spinneyside
Penman Way
Grove Park
Leicester
LE19 1SZ

FAO: Alan Moody, Head of SME Sales


Dear Sirs,

SITE ADDRESS: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I am in receipt of your letter dated 30th June 2012 in regard to ‘ RENEWING YOUR FIXED TERM ELECTRICITY CONTRACT’.

You then go on to state in the opening paragraph of the ‘Renewing’ letter that, “We value your business, and our products, services and customer benefits all reflect our commitment to putting our customers’ needs first.”

The only problem with that statement is that it is bland and so full of buls**t that only the people making it can really believe that there is any truth in it.

You say, “Thank you for being a British Gas Customer” If it was a choice between being your customer and being a victim of the inquisition, where I would be stretched on the rack, have hot pokers stuck into orifices and sharp sticks poked in my eyes, I think the inquisition would be the less painful option in the long term and more preferable too
 
Come on, really!  It doesn’t matter how big an organisation is; there really must and should be systems in place to prevent you from screwing up all the time, but if you have them, either you and or your staff are ignoring them, as you really don’t give a fig about the misery you inflict on customers and or potential customers, or, you just have no idea how to manage your own systems.  I’m leaning toward both points actually; you don’t give a fig about customers and you have no idea what you are doing!

In regard to this renewal of ‘our’ fixed term contract against reference number xxxxxxxxxx,

WE DO NOT HAVE A CONTRACT WITH YOU ON THIS PROPERTY.

We took you to the ombudsman over this property, case ref xxxxxxx, in 2011 AND WON.

Your own Mrs Beverley Booth, based in Leicester, wrote to us on 6th May 2011, full of apologies and to discuss a total refund, and here we are 13 months later with you chancing your arm again attempting to hijack another account that now doesn’t even come under our remit in terms of utility bills, as the property is leased, and by the way I speak with the tenant, who is contracted to another utility company, so you will be getting the same response from him, if you attempt to blag your way there!

Do try getting your house in order, please!

Yours sincerely



They really do make you want to KILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: 19th July and I still want to kill!!!!!!!!!

Just received a call from Reagan, who sounded as if she was possibly North American, but you know me and accents:

Anyway Reagan, from Customer complaints, who after reading my vitriol laden letter above, took it upon herself to phone me and to apologise personally for the original letter being sent out and to assure me that in regard to the property in question, that it was not under contract between XXX and British Gas and to further assure me that nothing like this will happen again.

Oh dear! Now I know what you're thinking....... well suffice it to say Reagan was left in no doubt what I thought about her assurances as I pointed out I have had these on numerous occasions in the past from British Gas employees and all it does, is make 'personal liars' out of the people making them.  Why, even although you work for an organisation would you offer your personal assurances, when the A***holes you work for are not capable of keeping them.

Why on reading what this guy thinks of you as an organisation, would you take the decision to phone him, rather than just send a letter with a meaningless apology?

I know I shouldn't react to them in the way that I do, but they are just so appalling in their customer service that the thought of actually talking to them, even when the individuals themselves are probably nice people, the company name in itself is just enough to make me want to lash out at them......

She is now going to send me a letter confirming that there is NO ACCOUNT and no doubt make a file note marked in bold DO NOT F*****G phone this man EVER....         

Thursday 12 July 2012

An Abrupt End to Life!

Time, 15:00hrs Day, Wednesday 11th July 2012

Sitting in my office and just about to call Sharon up from reception to have a coffee, I had just put the kettle on when she called me and directed my attention to the CCTV.  On bringing up the camera I was confronted by a number of police cars, a large number of officers on the ground and a couple of ambulances cars.

I have to say that we are fairly used to seeing police activity on the site, and just like when driving and there is an accident on the other side of the road I am more likely to be getting mad at the rubber neckers than the accident that has nothing to do with us,  my interest is never really piqued, so I told Sharon to leave the camera on it and come and have a coffee.

10 seconds later she calls me again, and informs me that M, a local Police Community Support Officer is on the phone and wants to speak to me.

Lifting the phone, M asks me if I am aware of the activity in the car park, I say yes.  She asks if the area is covered by CCTV. I say yes, but that it is one of the cameras that trawls around automatically unless one of the operators is using it to look at something in particular!  She then gives me some times and asks if I can do a quick scan of the system to determine when the vehicle arrived and then to see if there was any activity in or around it.

I have to say at this point my grumpiness kicked in, which she and other officers in the area are well aware of, and I responded in an offhanded way, saying yeah, right after my coffee, maybe.  Thinking as I said it that as I had saw a white hat amongst the police on the ground (traffic officers) that they had probably chased the van into the car park and then the driver had had an attack or something, so, way down my list of priorities! But then she gave me the time frame to look at, bearing in mind that this was around 3 pm, she said that the van had probably arrived in the car park around 6 PM the previous evening!

I told M to stay on the phone and brought the CCTV up on my PC and typed in the search command to go to 5.45 the previous night and then scanned forward.  At 5.57 the vehicle wasn't there but on its next pass at 5.59 it was there.  Running it forward I then saw a male in a white top climbing into the back of the van.  I passed this on to M and told her I would burn a CD for her from 17.55 until that time we were speaking, just after 3 pm, so just over 21 hours of footage.

About 5 minutes later M turned up in my office and explained that they were investigating a possible suicide!

Turns out the chap, who was local and in his 40's had had an argument at home the previous night and stormed out of the house.  When he hadn't returned by the morning the family called the police as they were worried about him!  And clearly they were right to be.

I have no idea what the problem was or what the argument was over, where they having a marital tiff, were they experiencing monetary problems, who knows.  I don't know even if their are kids involved!  Was he a bad husband, father or partner, a wife beater or child beater?  Was he a proud man who snapped when his wife or partner or kids asked him again for something that he just did not have the means to provide?

What I do know is that a man drove into a car park, got out of his cab, got into the back of his van and rigged it so that he would die, alone and I assume, regretting his life and what was happening in it, in a sad and lonely car park.

Life sometimes sucks. I really don't know what else to say on this sad and inglorious end to a life.

Samaritans (UK) site is here if you need to talk
Befrienders' (US) site is here if you need to talk



Sunday 8 July 2012

Chicken with Sage and Butter

The lovely Julia R Barrett put me in the mood for this after mentioning Sage.

So, off I popped to the shops got some nice fresh sage, thyme and a couple of good sized Chicken breasts.

Chopped up the sage and some thyme and mixed with a good portion of unsalted butter. Smeared this on the chicken breasts and wrapped them in some prosciutto ham and placed in an oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes.  Serve, sliced with mini roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli.... enjoy











Saturday 7 July 2012

Gie's a Pound!

Did I tell you, Mr Fat has been absent since the beginning of the year, regrettably he has, well in the sense that I am still here and still Mr Fat.  No, what I mean is in the literal sense that while Mr Fat exists but, The Mr Fat who has steadfastly been walking and losing weight, slowly but surely, he has, the latter one, been MIA.

No idea why that happened, just seemed to lose focus and as a result having got down to,  almost by a whisker, under 19 stone for the first time in almost two decades, over the last 6 months the fat git went back up to 20 stone and 3/4 lbs!

I think it was my eldest daughter Marie who put me back on track, she too has been getting fit, not that she wasn't, mother to 6 year old twins Charlie and Holly and a working Mum to boot. But, she joined a local ladies running group and has done a couple of 10km runs as well as a 5km one too and while she is gorgeous and beautiful, her new levels of fitness are making her look fabulously stunning .... but then she always was.

Just over a week ago, she said' "you should run too, dad!" As usual, I laughed at these feeble attempts to make me do any more than I need to at least maintain a basic level of fitness, but decided that I at least needed to get the 'running shoes' back on for walking, and I did, last Saturday ,  what I didn't mention in that general post, when I told you that I had been out for my walk, was that I did try and run.....

And the same thing happened as it did way back in August 2011 when I wrote about Mr Fat Needs a Bra .  Marie gave me the same advice that Jan Hicks did a year ago. "Don't try and go for a full run, go for your walk and just try jogging a little and then walk and then jogg again. But, like then, as now, the problem is two fold.
  1. I'm too bloody Fat and unfit!
  2. My 'man boobs' are still to bloody big and jiggle like a bunch of snakes in a sack!
As you can see, Mr fat is indeed BIG
but you can see where Marie gets her
good looks from !
But, I am getting there, even if it is only a week since I started again.  I'm clearly still not running, and I don't know that I want to be a runner but do recognise that while walking at 120 steps per minutes is giving me a workout and controlling my weight, I need to get the old heartbeat going and to do that I need to put a bit more effort in to it!  So last week I started, I picked a point to go from and thought I would keep going as long as I could, wasn't far believe me.  Leant forward, moved the legs and off I went both tits going hell for leather, I reckon I could have probably generated some electricity the way they were moving up and down and chaffing against my t-shirt.

My start point was a street lamp column.  These are about 120 feet apart in the UK and I thought I would manage at least three. Ha! Puffing and panting like a bull whale beached and gagging for oxygen I pulled up at the next one I came to, hands on hips chest heaving, and nipples still chaffing as they they rippled trying to get back to their normal floppy state of just hanging there.  So, instead of walking for 5 minutes or so, I walked for about twenty minutes and tried again, same outcome.  And that has been the same all week, with I have to say an ever so slight improvement as I go.. Today I did manage to run between three lamp columns, still jiggling away and still puffing and panting like Jake chasing a squirrel in the local park (not that he would of course being an obedient German Shepherd)! And having been out for an hour and 40 minutes or so this morning, I actually managed three small runs, between 3 lamp columns so that's about 1000 feet.  I know, pathetic, but a milestone for me.....

Apart from that I also got caught in the rain was accosted by two different men, no not in that way (but it might have been the size of my tits, who knows?) looking for money!

The first one was a young foreigner, with his rucksack, who while standing in a bus shelter stepped out in front of me, brought his lighter up to light his fag hanging from his mouth, and in broken English proceeded to tell me that he had run out of money and asked if I could give him a pound!  I asked for a fag! He said it was his last one, I said you should have stopped me earlier I already gave my last one to the other guy further back down the street. I don't know if he understood the words, but he got the meaning.  Sheesh, do you know how much fags cost in this country, he can AFFORD THEM BUT THEN NEEDS TO BEG FOR MONEY TO BUY FOOD..... or as he was at a bus stop he may have thought it would have been enough to get him somewhere, it probably would at that, at least the next stop anyway 

Not twenty feet further on an English guy in his late 20's early 30's came running over to me me.  He to then gave me his sorry tale of woe.  He, he told me had just been released from the local (his words) mental home that morning and he had no money and was starving and could I give him a pound too, WTF!!!!  What the hell does he think he is going to get to eat for a pound.....

Anyway, I asked him where this 'mental' home was and why did they let him out without giving him breakfast?  Although British/English, he like the foreigner 20 feet down the street looked at me vacantly at my complete lack of empathy or altruism, so I left him with that look on his face.  Just then the heavens opened up on me and I took shelter in the door way of one of the local hostelries, where I immediately phoned those magnificent 'men' in blue from Essex Police and informed them of the two. (there's a lot of elderly folk living in that part of Ockendon Village 'proper' and I really didn't want any of them being accosted on their way to and from the shopping parade.

Still chucking it down but as one or two people were looking at me as if to say, 'look at the state of the fat bastard, waiting on the pub opening'  I thought I would keep going, rain or no rain.  It reminded me a little of my time in Central America, not as humid, but raining heavily and with the underlying air temperature not making it cold or uncomfortable to be out in..

The Boss is out on the razzle tonight, with some of her mates, who knew... and so I have just made some pasta with fish and prawns in a white wine and bay leaf sauce, to see her through until then.  Me I'll probably go for another walk later although I have already reached my daily step target of 11000 steps, having done just over 15000...... and when I weighed myself this morning I have lost just over three pounds for the week - so moving in the right direction again.  I juts have to keep it going.....