Murdoch, She Wrote

Seven Day Bitch

2012-02-28T21:41:00.000Z

It's been seven days since I had any savoury snacks, chocolate, sweets or fizzy drinks. And while I'm not bug-eyed and shaking with withdrawal symptoms, I have spent most of today feeling a little peeved about it all. Wah, wah, wah, I want some crisps. But overall I'm feeling pretty good. Like I have all of the balls in the air at the moment. It's been a little while since I felt that way, so this is progress. Whoop. In other news, Murdoch is snoring.

End

Simple Little Happy Moments

2012-02-25T12:09:00.000Z

This morning I got up early and took Murdoch for a walk across the fields. When I got back, I went back to bed and I fell asleep for a little while. I woke up and although still a little drowsy, I could hear Murdoch in the kitchen drinking out of his water bowl. Then there was the clickety click of his claws across the floor and I saw him come into my bedroom. When Murdoch has drunk some water, he really likes to lick my feet. I always joke that he's loading up his licky gun with ammunition. So I stuck one foot out from underneath the duvet and let him.

It may seem silly, but it's simple little moments like that, where I know exactly what Murdoch needs and can give it to him that make me feel really happy. Seeing his tail wag happily at the smallest thing that I can do for him is such an amazing pay off.

Do you guys have little things like this that make you smile?

As Dog is My Witless

2012-02-22T09:59:00.000Z

I'm not a religious person. Organised religion as a general concept is not one that sits easily with me, y'know, given the wide range of atrocities done in the name of God over the centuries. That said, I do quite like the idea of giving something up for a period of oh, I don't know, maybe 40 days or so. So I'm going to borrow some pearls of wisdom from my dog until I reach the excitement that is the long weekend of *ahem* Beaster (see what I did there?).

Murdoch's Commandments

You down with D*O*G? Yeah, you know me!

1. Thou shalt not eat any crisps or savoury snacks until Beaster. If I'm not allowed to eat them, then you can't have them either. And don't go eating nuts instead like you did that one year. It's still cheating.

2. Thou shalt not eat any chocolate until Beaster. It's poisonous, did you you know that? POISON! And no sweeties either. Sugar make you loco.

3. Thou shalt not drink any fizzy drinks until Beaster. There's all kind of additives and crap in them. See above re: sugar

4. Thou shalt run more than you currently do. Running is lots of fun and it makes my tail wag.

Happy Memories

2012-02-21T17:04:00.000Z

My last post was a touch swirling, negative vortex of doom, wasn't it? Sorry about that. One of the things I mentioned was the fact that while I always remember not so great memories that leave me with a burning sense of injustice, I struggle to remember happy memories. So I've made a bit of an effort to think of these things and so this post is quite simply some happy summer holiday memories from my childhood.

When I was a kid, we always used to go on holiday to France. We'd take about three weeks and head to a Eurocamp or Sunsites campsite, or in later years, we'd hitch our caravan to the back of the car and drive through France until we reached our destination. This usually took a couple of days, during which I happily passed the time with my head stuck in a book, or when that got boring, squabbling with my older sister. Fun times.

I have fractured memories of a lot of these holidays. I remember sitting in a Eurocamp tent playing a game where you had to put on an astonishing amount of clothing before trying to eat some chocolate with a knife and fork, and getting a sticker to put in my camp "passport" for taking part. I remember being in Biarritz in torrential rain, nearly getting flooded out, but loving the enormous puddles (they came most of the way up my legs!) and the brand new experience of swimming in an outdoor swimming pool (warm) while the rain fell on us (cold). I remember learning to windsurf and falling of my board while showing off and mugging for my dad's video camera.

But the very best of our holiday destinations was Annecy in the French Alps, an absolutely beautiful lake surrounded by mountains.

We went there several times and I remember it as a place of almost constant sunshine where I got as brown as a berry spending my days just running around the campsite, dabbling in streams and jumping in and out of the lake.

We had an inflatable Zodiac with an outboard motor and we'd spend happy days zipping across the water being towed behind the boat on a variety of toys. One thing that we loved was going to the opposite side of the lake to our campsite where it was possible to climb up a cliff and jump off it into the water. It felt like the smallest, highest ledge and it took an act of astonishing courage to jump off it the first time, before it became commonplace and we'd race each other to get the ledge and jump. I used to love heading into Annecy, a beautiful town that had the most wonderful ice cream parlour where the sundaes were always served with a sparkler or a fancy tissue paper decoration. I remember watching the Bastille Day fireworks display - always impressive, not least because of the spectacle of the hundreds of boats that always took to the lake to get the best views of the festivities.

We were almost always accompanied by our neighbours, a family with three kids. Lucy and I used to spend most of our time together - she was closest to me in age and we could spend hours inventing games - diving off the tethered boats and investigating the bottom of the lake for treasure and things like that. We even had a notebook that we'd jot down the things that we found. I also remember one particularly happy afternoon spent in my little tent with Lucy obsessively learning the John Barnes rap. You've got to hold and give, but do it at the right time....

Bully for you

2012-02-03T12:46:00.000Z

Today I was accused of being a bully. Why? Welll because my team member had contacted me to let me know that she was going to be late to the office because she missed her train. So I sent an email round to our client services group email saying J will be late in this morning as she got on the wrong train at Clapham.

According to one of my colleagues (who was so annoyed by my email that he posted about it on Twitter) this is "sneak bullying" behaviour. Because apparently I'm trying to get J into trouble by telling everyone that she missed her train. What the actual fuck? I'm just telling people that she is going to be late because she missed her train! Because she did! And she would tell people that when she got to the office anyway! There really was nothing more to it than that and my first reaction was confusion that such a simple email should produce such a vehement response.

Then I started to feel really upset about it, for several reasons.

Firstly, because I was bullied horrendously for the first two years that I was at university by two girls that I lived with. They broke me down bit by bit, finding fault with every single little thing that I was and did. When I arrived at uni I was a bright vibrant size 10 blonde with an awful lot going for her. When I left, I was a size 18 fatso with self confidence issues that I'm still trying to come to terms with now. I then had a boyfriend when I was 27 that did pretty much the same thing and left me isolated and broken. I know how bullying feels and I would never knowingly bully anyone and I'm beyond upset that this has been called into question.

Secondly, I'm upset because I know that this accusation is going to live with me for a very long time, way beyond the five minutes that I spent crying in the loo this morning. Because although I generally have a shocking memory and struggle to remember any childhood birthday parties (for example), I remember almost every nasty or unjust thing ever said to me. I just can't let them go, they play on my mind. So I remember being about four years old and getting told off by my Nan for putting her washing up gloves into the water after I helped do the dishes. I remember being told off by a teacher at middle school for stomping off and burning with the injustice of it, because my mum had recently bought me some new, very clumpy shoes and I was actually just walking normally. I clearly remember seeing an unexpected file on my work computer two or so years ago and opening it to find that someone had used my Messenger account to send a message to a colleague (in an astonishing coincidence, it was sent to the colleague who has taken exception to me this morning) saying "have you ever seen an arse as big as mine?" and wondering who on earth could be so unnecessarily cruel, or dislike me so much to send such an unkind message. I remember all of those things and more and every single day I feel a little bit lessened because of them.

Finally, I'm upset because the colleague who accused me of this is doesn't seem to see that he is much more of a bully than I am. The passive aggressive kind. The kind that slags people off behind their back, colours other people's perceptions of them and generally makes life very unpleasant if you get on the wrong side of him. He is always "plotting" elaborate revenge plans against people who have upset him, which is astonishingly easy to do. Sending an email out that doesn't actually affect his life in any way, for example. I think that he is quick to judge people and find their intentions sinister because he is judging them by the yardstick of his own behaviour. It colours his perceptions to the point that he sees insult and intentional slights everywhere. This makes me feel sad, because on a good day, this guy is smart, funny and a lot of fun to be around. On a good day, he is one of my favourite people in this place. I wish that he could find some way to look for the good as a default position, rather than automatically finding the bad. Because whichever one you look for, you usually find.

So taking all of that into account who is the person who has been most upset (or "bullied" if you prefer) this morning? Is it J who is happily sat at her desk not giving a shit about the email that I sent? Is it me, writing a somewhat passive aggressive online outpouring of my own? Or is it my colleague, who lets life bully him to the extent that he sees bad shit everywhere he looks?

Answers on a postcard. Actually fuck that. It's me, obviously.

Janathon the last

2012-01-31T17:53:00.000Z

Goodness me. It's the last day of January - where did that month go? It's been the usual whirl of madness at work and with the benefit of hindsight, combining that with my original Janathon goal of doing above and beyond my dog walk each day was wildly optimistic. But for me, the whole point of taking part was to increase my activity levels and by jingo, have I achieved that. There were runs and gym trips this past month that I simply wouldn't have done if it weren't for a little Janathon whispering in my ear. I've also revived my blog a bit, which is great and something that I hope to keep up with, so please do keep reading and if you like it, why not tell your friends :)

The one thing I haven't kept up with at all is logging my activity on Running Free. I just checked and I last did it on the 18th. Oops. Even worse, I can't remember what I've done since then, so I've totally blown it there. Ho hum.

But here as a grand finale, is my exercise for today. No prizes for guessing that it was a dog walk with Murdoch. It was chuffing freezing out there today and I was glad that I'd chosen a ski jacket as my new dog walking coat when I went shopping at the weekend. My old coat had a giant rip under one arm where I'd caught it on a door handle. I'm so clumsy sometimes. So that's Janathon done. Over and out!

Rubbish

2012-01-26T19:27:00.000Z

Today has been rubbish. I woke up to a text from my dog walker which led to us cancelling our scheduled walk this morning. I planned to walk Murdoch near home but instead I fell back asleep and woke up with just enough time to get ready for work. Disaster!

Busy times at work continued today and instead of steadily working my way through my ever expanding list of things to do, I spent an enormous amount of time doing task avoidance and worrying about the amount of work I had to do. Which clearly isn't the most helpful use of time and effort and will certainly come back to bite me in the arse tomorrow.

To further compound my misery, a lethal combination of being outrageously fat and wearing some very tired leggings led to me spending the entire day hoiking up said leggings. Very annoying, although I've had the last laugh there, as the leggings are now in the bin. On the downside, I'm still astonishingly fat, but you can't win 'em all.

I went home in my lunch break to walk Murdoch. Usually at lunchtime I drag him around the streets on his lead as we don't have much time, but I rushed around like a madwoman and managed to squeeze some extra time for our walk so he could have a run around. As we walked around some local fields I had a sudden moment of enlightenment. Instead of walking over to the place where Murdoch can run offlead, I could drive there and he'd have more time to run around while I enjoy a nice walk around the fields instead of the mean streets of Farncombe. How is it possible that this never occurred to me before?

So my Janathon activity for today was a nice lunchtime walk.

Things that have made me feel stabby this week

2012-01-25T21:02:00.000Z

In the usual run of things, I quite enjoy my job. Not in a skipping out of bed each morning would still do it if I won the lottery kind of way. But certainly in a quietly satisfied and it pays the mortgage sort of way. This month is our busiest month of the year. Stress levels are running high enough with the massively increased workload and then something that usually wouldn't bother you in the slightest makes you feel a little bit stabby.

In a small nod to anonimity, let's pretend that I work behind the counter at McDonald's. I don't and never have, although I am rather fond of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal (large with a diet coke please).

Scenario One: In which no-one listens to me.

Me (to various colleagues): "You're making that burger without cheese. I think the customer may have ordered cheese on their burger"

Me (sometime later): "I'm pretty sure that your guy over there wanted cheese on that".

Me (via email): "I'm a little bit concerned that our customer ordered a cheeseburger, but we are currently only working towards a hamburger. I think that at this stage we should make it clear to the customer that he is only getting a hamburger".

Colleague: "I served the customer his burger and it turns out that he wants cheese on it, so we're going to have to add some onto it"

Me: *bangs head slowly and repeatedly against desk*

Scenario Two: In which someone tells me something that I just told them.

Me: "Here's your Big Mac, I haven't had time to do the fries just yet and I know that your friend asked for a milkshake. I'll get those over to you as soon as possible"

Colleague: "Thanks for the Big Mac, but you still need to provide the fries and the milkshake that my friend asked for".

Me: *hides under desk and softly starts to weep*

Scenario Three: In which instructions couldn't be clearer, but someone manages to cock it up anyway.

Me: "So you make the McFlurry by grabbing a container, putting it under the nozzle and pressing this button. Always add caramel, but only add sprinkles if the order specifically mentions sprinkles".

Colleague: *puts sprinkles on everything and sometimes also some Smarties just for fun*

Me: Ngngnggngngnggggngnggghhhhh *stabs self in eye with pencil*

Is this just me? Do you recognise any of these scenarios? Do you have some of your own to add? Feel free to share!

In Janathon news, I ran 3 miles this morning. I was only aiming for 2, but then my cunning Nike+ app asked me if I wanted one more song. I thought "Why the hell not?". It was a song I love to run to. So I ran to it. It was followed by another song I love to run to. So guess what I did? This is my longest run since I injured myself and I even tried a cheeky little bit of running on tarmac to see what would happen. And it's all good. Huzzah!

UPDATE
Scenario Four: In which I'm not told something that I do actually need to know

Me: "So I gave all of those ketchup sachets to Bob so that he could give them to customers with their fries"
Colleague: "Oh no, we're waiting to hear whether those sachets are ok to distribute, you shouldn't have given them to Bob".
Me: *crams fist into mouth to stop scream from coming out*

One from the archives

2012-01-23T21:54:00.000Z

Today's Janathon post goes out to all the first time marathon runners. Every marathon is different. And everyone's first marathon is very different. But here's a blog post that I wrote about mine that I originally posted on my Realbuzz blog back in September 2009. I hope that it helps to motivate someone to get out there and train in some of the rainy weather that we've got coming, because it will pay off on race day. Sit back and enjoy.......

I’ve been struggling with writing a post about Berlin – mainly as a good part of the race is a complete blur – is that normal? Regardless, I shall do the best I can!

My mum picked me up at 7am on Saturday morning and very kindly gave me a lift to Heathrow. This was all remarkably stress free thanks to the fact that I had been able to check in online on Friday. Very civilised, leaving me with plenty of time to wander about the shops – managed not to buy anything – phew!

After speaking to my dad and my sister on the phone, it was time to head to my gate and get on the plane. One slightly dodgy sandwich (have no idea what the filling was – completely unidentifiable!) and a diet coke later I was in Germany!

Getting from the airport to the centre was ridiculously easy, thanks to some prior research online. I already knew which buses to get and where to change, and the bus stop nearest to my hotel was only 300m away on Tiergartenstrasse, so only a short distance to wheel my suitcase too.

My hotel was nice, but overrun by an international dairy conference. I’m sure if I’d been a bit more proactive, I could have obtained a lifetime supply of yoghurt, so that’s a missed opportunity. My room was nice, but I only spent 5 minutes jumping on the bed before heading out to the expo to get my race pack.

I walked over to Potsdamer Platz, which was my nearest u-bahn station. On the way I passed about a gazillion children all ready to take part in the mini-marathon. I later saw plenty of those children proudly wearing their medals round their necks.

Got to the former airport at Templehof, and the expo madness commenced. Had to walk through a couple of hangars selling all manner of kit before finally reaching the registration section. I then managed to accidentally request a male race pack, having failed to notice the giant F at the beginning of my number. Oops. An error quickly corrected – thankfully there were no queues for numbers. I then had to go pick up my timing chip and then I did some shopping! I bought a Berlin Marathon polo shirt and a leg strap for my chip. Then I decided to leave before my plastic got too much of a bashing :)

It was a beautiful day, so I took a little while to sit in the park outside the expo, to enjoy the sunshine and to decide how to spend the remainder of the afternoon.

I decided to head for Checkpoint Charlie, as it was in the same area, and surely you can’t go to Berlin without seeing it. It’s something and nothing really, mainly notable for the enormous amount of souvenirs on sale! So I took a few pictures and then headed back to Potsdamer Platz to catch the inline skating marathon. Potsdamer Platz is at about the 38k mark, so the skaters were nearing the end of the race at this point. I had to wait a little while for the lead pack to come through, so had a nice chat to a friendly Nigerian bloke while we waited. Then the skaters zipped through to roars from the crowd. What a fun event, it really sets the tone for the running marathon the following day. After popping into Aldi to grab some supplies, I headed towards the start / finish area near Brandenburg Gate. I wanted to see some more of the skaters, and I also wanted to familiarise myself with the area so that getting to the start would not be too stressful the following morning. The atmosphere at the finish was great – they have grandstands on either side, which are accessible to anyone, so it really makes the crowd big!

After watching for a little while, I walked through Tiergarten back to my hotel. I was a little tired to be honest – it had been quite a long day. I had planned to go find some carbs for dinner, but in the end I just heated up some dried pasta that I had brought with me, read through all my race information, laid out my kit and headed for bed.

I woke up, and it was MARATHON DAY! All manner of excitement. I had a cup of tea, a couple of bananas and a couple of cereal bars for breakfast – had a shower and pulled my kit on. I headed out of the hotel only to remember that I had forgotten my sunglasses. Given the weather forecast, this seemed an essential bit of kit, so I went back up to my room to get them. This was fortuitous, as I ended up walking to the start with another runner staying at my hotel. This was her sixth marathon, although another Berlin first timer. We walked through the park having a nice chat before splitting off to find our separate pens. I headed over to the baggage area, dumped my bag, ate another banana and headed to the start pens. I managed to go to the loo without suffering an enormous queue, and was in my start pen and ready to go by about 8.35 for the 9am start.

As I stood there watching everyone around me, I actually felt quite emotional. It had been such a long journey to reach this point, I hadn’t been able to do as much training as I would have hoped – with Trailwalker training getting in the way until end of July – and what a disaster that was! Despite everything, here I was, standing at the start line, feeling confident that I would get round and finish this marathon. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a little cry.

Then before I knew it, they were playing Chariots of Fire, introducing the elites over the speakers (Go Haile!!!) and then BANG – the gun. It took me a further 15 minutes to get over the line and then I was running the marathon!

My plan was to run the first half as strong as I could and then just keep going for the second half. This plan came fully into focus on the way to the airport thanks to a conversation I had with mum. I asked her if she had ever thought that I’d end up running a marathon. She said that she absolutely did. Right back when I was a kid, I never wanted to run the 100m at sports day – I’d always do the 1500m and when other kids where lying by the side of the track having given up – I’d keep going. She knew even then that once I’d set my mind to something, there was no way that I’d give up. I thought about it, and she was right. Despite a hiatus of well over a decade in between running at school and running as an adult, this was something that had not changed. Once I start something, I will not give up until it is done. I would have crossed that finishing line if it meant crawling over it on bloody stumps, although thankfully it didn’t come to that!

The first half just flew by. It really is a blur. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you much about it. The only thing I can do is tell you my splits:

5k 32:39

10k 1:04:44

15k: 1:37:45

20k: 2:10:50

Half marathon 2:17:53

Given that my current half marathon PB is 2:15:14, I’m extremely happy that I was running to plan – to be at only a couple of minutes slower than my half PB at that stage of the race was exactly where I wanted to be. Now all I had to do was keep going.

By this point, my hips were starting to ache a little – something that always happens to me on longer runs. I had taken a couple of ibuprofen prior to the race, but had also put a couple in my pocket. Took them and they soon kicked in, making me feel much better. I also had a few sport beans, which gave me a little boost!

And then it was just a matter of digging in and keepin’ on keepin’ on. I knew that I was slowing down, but this didn’t worry me overly. By this point it was getting really hot - about 25c, and I was really grateful for the firetrucks that had their hoses out to cool us down! I was also grateful for the regular drinks stations – they were all less than 5k apart, and some had a massive array of options; water, energy drink, iced tea, apples, bananas.

The one thing about the drinks stations is that it was all in cups – no bottles. This meant an enforced walk break every 4k or so – only for a moment to get some water down, so it was probably enough to rest a little without seriously damaging race times. All in all, probably quite a good thing.

The crowds were getting bigger and bigger as the race progressed – people were out making noise with anything they could think of – there were people banging on their cooking pots with metal spoons to encourage the runners! There was also a lot of music around the course – lots of drumming, but also jazz, and a brass band.

Everything is a complete blur really, all the drinks stations have merged into one, and the only thing I can remember clearly are all the kilometre markers that I passed. I missed some, but I saw most of them. Then, finally, I could see the Brandenburg Gate in the distance. Wow.

So I aim for the gate. Slowly, steadily it gets a little nearer, and before I know it, I’m running through it, on to the 42k mark and the finishing line is in sight. With Take That’s “Greatest Day” in one ear, and the roar of the crowd in the other, I decide to sprint to the end, and am amused when I glance at my Garmin and note that my “sprint” is at the same pace as I was comfortably running at the beginning of the race – I don’t think I had much left in the tank!

Over the line. A lady asks me if I’m ok. I tell her I’m fine. I think I may have looked a bit of a state. Then as I realise what I’ve done, I burst into tears. Happy tears. Glad I’m wearing my sunglasses, so no-one can see. Knew they’d come in handy. Then it was a slow, slow walk, queuing up for water, medal and finishers photo. Still having a cry. I eventually make my way back to the baggage tent. Call up mum and dad. Have another cry down the phone to them.

Then I head back to the Brandenburg Gate to get a bit of atmosphere and also to buy a finishers t-shirt. Overpriced, sure, but it’s my first marathon, and I finished it. Definitely a been there, done that, GOT THE T-SHIRT situation. After eating a giant pretzel, some currywurst and a litre of (non-alcoholic) beer, I headed back to the hotel. Had a much needed shower. Realised that despite putting Bodyglide on most parts of my body, the parts I missed are very, very sore. Shower stings. Ouch. I put my pajamas on and examine my feet. Poor feet. I should not be a bit surprised if I lose both big toenails. Poor feet. Then I have a nap. I feel like I earned one. There was a marathon afterparty in the evening, but I decided not to go. My legs are stiff and tired, and it feels like too much effort to get there. So after speaking to my sister, who despite being a little bit drunk at a wedding has remembered to call me, I go to bed.

The next day I wake up and my first thought is to wonder whether my legs are awake (or was I just wearing one big slipper? – that gag’s just for my sister :D). They are not happy. They are wondering why I expect them to carry me about everywhere. Damn it, I just want to go to the loo. It’s only a few metres. I get my cossie on and head to the hotel pool. A few laps, a sauna and a hydrotherapy jet applied to the legs later, I start to feel a bit better.

Pack up my bag, check out and then wander aimlessly about for some hours. Don’t really feel as though I took anything in, so decided to give up, eat a giant pizza and then head to the airport.

And that was Berlin. Oh, almost forgot to give you my second half splits:

25k 2:47:26

30k: 3:23:10

35k 3:59:40

40k: 4:37:31

Marathon 4:51:41 (yaaaaaay!)

Hope you enjoyed reading about my first marathon. Today I ran 1.33 miles, not quite a marathon, but miles in the bank nonetheless.

Where does the time go?

2012-01-22T17:10:00.000Z

Where does it go? It feels like yesterday that I was writing my last blog post feeling all pleased with myself for running two miles. And then it all kicked off at work. January is our busiest month at the office - we do regular monthly, quarterly, bi-annual and annual reporting and of course they all fall due in January. On top of that I'm working on some ad-hoc projects so it's been pretty crazy. I've been walking the dog each day, but that's all I've had time for because I've been working evenings and pretty much all of this weekend. The good news is that it should start to die down a little after the next couple of days so I'll have more time to fit some exercise in.

Anyhow, I've spent more than enough time this weekend glued to my laptop so I am outta here!

The Darkness

2012-01-18T20:37:00.001Z

My Janathon activity on Monday and Tuesday this week was limited to dog walking. First thing in the morning. In the dark. So today I felt that it was time to kick it up a notch on the running front. I still took Murdoch for a walk (in the dark), but after I'd left him with his daycare people I headed straight to the playing field to do a few laps.

My phone camera doesn't have a flash, but it's ok, neither do my eyes

My aim for today was to build on the 20 minutes that I have managed so far and to keep a (slow) steady pace without walking. Misson accomplished! I trotted around for 25 minutes and did 2.04 miles - the first time I've exceeded the 2 mile mark since I started my post-injury comeback. It started to rain as I did the last couple of laps. I'd forgotten how good it feels to run and feel the rain on your face, so it was a really great start to the day.

Weekend Update

2012-01-16T15:17:00.000Z

I had originally planned to go for a short run with my friend B on Friday night. This was in addition to my gym trip that morning. Cooking on gas. However, B was not able to make it on Friday evening and asked me whether I'd be able to go at 7.15 on Saturday morning instead. Gulp. That's kinda early. Which is why 7.05 on Saturday morning saw me send B a text "I've changed my mind. Want to stay in bed :(". The response was quick and brutal. "Too late. I'm up, move yourself!". God bless that woman.

We walked over to the playing fields for as many laps as 20 minutes could achieve. This is not as many laps as you might think, as I lumber my way slowly along the post-injury comeback trail. The playing fields did not look particularly inviting.

Farncombe playing fields. Murky

We got started and towards the end of the first lap I felt quite puffed out and decided to have a little walk. I think this is partly down to my loss of fitness and partly due to the fact that it was bloody FREEZING. The air seemed to freeze as it went into my lungs and made them feel really heavy. We continued to puff around and managed 1.5 miles in 20 minutes. By the end of the run, my fringe was actually frozen. Jumped straight into a hot shower when I got home. Brrrr.

Blackheath Common - a lovely place to walk

Had just about reached normal body temperature by the time Murdoch and I left for our Saturday afternoon social walk. I love doing this walk. For a start it's lovely at Blackheath (Surrey, not London). But mostly because it's a really nice bunch of people to walk with. We're all there because our dogs have suffered behavioural problems of one sort or another, so we understand each other quite well. We walked for an hour and then it was time to head home. I was supposed to be heading out for a first wedding anniversary party, but I felt really tired and grotty - still haven't managed to shift the cold, so I stayed at home instead, with my Murdoch my only company and vapour rub my only comfort.

The sun coming up over Farncombe

Sunday dawned and I went out just after 8 o'clock to walk Murdoch. What a glorious day - frosty and clear with bright sunshine. It was the kind of day that makes me feel really grateful to live where I do among such lovely countryside. The rest of the day was taken up with housework - does hoovering count as cross training?

Murdoch enjoying the frost

Back on the Janathon track

2012-01-13T09:10:00.001Z

When I signed up to do Janathon I had decided not to count my daily dog walking as exercise. Not that there's anything wrong with it - I'm walking cross country and sometimes I get quite puffed. But the goal of Janathon for me was that I wanted to increase my activity levels.

So in that respect, the past week has been something of a washout. It started with a grotty cold last Friday and was exacerbated by a really busy week at work. So I've not done any additional exercise since last week.

But today I managed to get myself organised and popped my gym kit and work clothes into the car when I went to walk Murdoch and headed to the gym straight after the walk. It wasn't a super long session, I did 15 minutes on the treadmill (2k, 190kcal burned), followed by 15 minutes on the crosstrainer (2.25k, 175kcal burned). Then I did my calf stretches and strengthening exercise before hitting the shower.

As I sit here at my desk sipping on a cup of tea, I'm feeling pretty good. I need to remind myself of this next time I think I'm too busy to fit in a workout.

Today's workout was sponsored by this song. Came bouncing through my headphones as I was on the crosstrainer and immediately lifted my mood. Treat yourself and add it to your exercise playlist.

Teething Troubles

2012-01-06T21:34:00.001Z

Today was a complete write off. Got up, felt shaky but headed out to walk Murdoch anyway. Left him with the walkers for the day and headed home to get ready for work. Couldn't stop shivering, felt really ropey and decided that I'd get nothing meaningful done at work if I was feeling this bad and rang in sick. I then put on my onesie, turned the heating up and tried to get warm. In addition to this, I have a grumbly wisdom tooth coming up and my mouth is pretty sore. So all in all, not a great day.

When I decided to do Janathon, I decided not to count my daily dog walk as part of my activity. I do it every day and because my goal was to increase my activity, counting the walk felt like a cop out. But today it was all I got done, so it'll have to do. I'm hoping to feel better tomorrow and get something proper done.

I hope the rest of the Janathoners are feeling a bit more perky!

Today did not go to plan

2012-01-05T21:25:00.000Z

Ach. What a day. I had originally planned to head to the pool this evening, but even with a giant Janathon shaped boot up my arse, I just couldn't face the thought of it. So instead I tried to do a home workout using the Nike Training Club app on my phone. Disaster. I decided to try the Cardio Killer workout. This was my first mistake. It started off with alternate froggers. I can only imagine that this was invented during the war to torture prisoners. I only had to do a minute of them, but after 20 seconds I wanted to cry. The situation was not helped by Murdoch happily trotting over to see what I was up to and getting underneath me while I was trying to "frogger". I ordered him to his bed and moved onto the second exercise: 1 minute of burpees which I merrily perform for at least 10 seconds before Murdoch is moved to come over and investigate again. Gaaaaaaah. Next it's 30 seconds squat hold. By this point my tragically unfit legs are already quaking from the frogger / burpee fiasco so the squat hurts after a few seconds. But I struggle on and move onto 30 seconds of squat jumps. Murdoch thinks this is a super fun game and stares at me, wagging his tail hopefully. "Can I jump too?" No. I can't do it anymore either so after THREE MINUTES I decide to give it up as a bad lot.

The evening is further thwarted by the dog crate that I ordered for my new car. My old dog guard did not fit into the boot of my new car, so Murdoch has been able to jump into the front of the car if he so chooses. He's generally quite good at staying in the boot while I'm in the car, but if we need to stop off at the shop on the way back from a walk, I'll come back to the car to find him in the driver's seat. Not great in this weather, I keep getting muddy paw prints on my nice upholstery. I thought that buying the crate would be a simple matter. I measured the dimensions of the boot, checked the dimensions listed for the crate and ordered it. The boot dimensions haven't changed in the interim and the crate measurements are as described. So why won't the crate fit in my boot? It's because the slopey sides are not on the sides that I expected. Buggrit. Now have to return it and try again. So anyway, given that I had an extended wrestle with the damn crate trying to get it into the car, I'm classing that as cross training, bunging in my 35 minute slippy slidey dog walk from this morning and calling it Janathon. Feels like a bit of a cop out, but there you have it. If I try to pull something like this again tomorrow, then please kick my butt for me. Thanks.

You can't be cross with me because I'm so cute

Janathon the fourth be with you

2012-01-04T11:35:00.002Z

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday's weather made me wonder if those predictions about the world ending in 2012 were actually true! We had a load of trees down - I even saw one fall from my office window, although thankfully it fell in the other direction. One of our local bus drivers wasn't so lucky and had to be cut out of his bus after a tree fell on it! Full story here. This morning it's a whole different story - dry and bright with a little chill to the air.

Once again the day started with a 35 minute dog walk in the dark. At least I'm getting value for money from my headtorch. But afterwards I left Murdoch with the dog walkers. They do a great daycare service and it's time that Murdoch got back into his routine and worked some of his Christmas podge off. He'll get walked several times today, which is awesome and it also meant that I could head straight to the gym before work and get my day four workout in early.

The gym was quite busy, but I was able to get onto a cross trainer right away and did 3.3k in 25 minutes. Then I hopped onto the recumbent bike and did 3.75k in 10 minutes. That's all I had time for before hitting the showers and heading to work, but it's another tick in the Janathon box. Tomorrow I'm going to try running again as the heel seems to have settled down a little - watch this space!

To the Gym!

2012-01-03T16:56:00.000Z

It was my first day back at work today. Boo. And what a day. I got up this morning to walk Murdoch at 6.30am and it was blowing a hoolie out there. Cross country dog walking in the dark is challenging at the best of times, but when it's really windy the dogs get overexcited by all the smells gusting past their noses and go a bit mental. Also, I get nervous every time I hear a creaking branch ("it's going to fall on my head") or the dogs crashing through the fallen branches ("DUCK AND COVER!"). Yikes. We got home without incident and I headed to the office. January is our busiest month of the year; in addition to our usual monthly reports, we also have quarterly, six monthly and annual reports to deliver so I had a lot to get done today. No easing in gently after the festive break. I still managed to get home at lunchtime to let Murdoch out. As ever, he was really pleased to see me and very disappointed when I had to leave to go back to work. At least he has his toys and a bone to keep him company while I toil away to keep him in doggy biscuits.

*Gollum face*

After leaving work for the day I headed to the gym. My heel is still a little tender and I think that running two days in a row may have been a little optimistic right at the beginning of my comeback and I'll need to be a little more cautious in the future. So I decided to get on the cross trainer. Unfortunately it's January and there were considerably more people in the gym than usual. All the cross trainers were taken. Aaaaaw nuts. So I get on the summit trainer. There is a reason that no-one wanted to go on this machine. It is the devil. I managed 10 minutes on it before I collapsed onto a regular cross trainer that had become available. So in total I did 25 minutes of cross training and then headed home for dinner.

Dithering

2012-01-02T20:39:00.000Z

This morning I treated myself to a bit of a lie in and headed to Guildford at 9am for a pack walk with my dog walkers and some other folk. We walked cross country for about 50 minutes - I was covered in mud by the time we got back to my car! Unfortunately Murdoch didn't quite get back to my car. He decided to jump into someone else's car and get his muddy paw prints over pretty much all of the inside of it. Oops.

On yesterday's blog @knittingpenguin asked if I'd be logging any dog-jogs for Janathon. Murdoch used to have aggression problems with other dogs, so I tend to keep him calm and level when we're out and about. So he doesn't get to run with me. Thankfully he gets to scamper about with other dogs, so it's not all bad!

When I got home after the walk I put away my Christmas decorations. It's January 2012 and it feels like it's time to look forward. Then I did a little housework followed by quite a bit of dithering. My heel was feeling a little achy - I've run on it for the past two days and I'm right at the very beginning of my comeback from injury. The question is, was this the reason that I didn't want to go for a run, or was I just being incredibly lazy? I have lacked motivation before and we all know how easy it is to make excuses not to get out there. But in the end I decided not to push it and go for a swim instead of the 20 minute run that I had planned. So I headed to the pool and did 1,500 metres in 30 minutes for a big tick in the Janathon box for today.

I have a treadmill run planned for tomorrow but will wait and see what my heel is doing. Might be some cross training instead.

Janathon the First

2012-01-01T11:27:00.000Z

Happy New Year Everyone!

I'm so excited to be taking part in Janathon for the first time this year. I've just come off the injury bench and a woeful lack of motivation combined with a severe case of the grumps meant that cross training just didn't happen in those five months. As a result, I gained quite a bit of weight (weighed in this morning at a very round 14 stone) and lost a lot of fitness. Hard to believe that this time last year I was starting my training for the Brighton Marathon!

In any case, I'm very glad that Janathon is here as I need all the support and motivation that I can get and this morning it got me out of the door. I have to build slowly to avoid my heel flaring back up again, so today's aim was to run for 20 minutes around the playing field as I am not allowed on hard surfaces just yet.

I got up first thing and walked the dog for an hour. There weren't many people about at 8 o'clock this morning and I felt glad that I hadn't boozed it up the night before as I got to enjoy the countryside at its most peaceful. Got home, fed the dog, pulled together all of the enthusiasm that I could muster and headed to the playing field. Not the most interesting of runs, but I achieved my goal, running 1.68 miles in 20:21. It wasn't fast and it wasn't pretty but it felt great to be back out there and make a start.

2011. A year in review

2011-12-31T22:30:00.002Z

At the start of 2011 I was pulling together a marathon training plan and gearing up to run the Brighton Marathon. Training did not go to plan. I lacked motivation and couldn't find the right head space. I think this may have been down to the fact that this was my third consecutive year of marathon training and I needed a rest. Mentally mainly. In any case the net result was that I missed an awful lot of sessions and hit the start line in April woefully under prepared. I made it round the course, running the last 16 miles on what turned out to be an enormous blood blister on the bottom of my left foot. Ouch.

The very next day, I started a new job. I had been headhunted through LinkedIn and went to one of our competitors for what sounded like a fantastic opportunity. And in some ways it was. Despite the fact that I left that new job within a few months and returned to my original place of work, it was the catalyst that started the biggest change to my life this year. The new job was based in London and I had to resolve Murdoch's aggression towards other dogs so that I could get him walked while I was at work. I'd tried other trainers and behaviourists in the past, but I finally found some people that were able to help us and after six years of walking on the lead, Murdoch is finally able to run around with other dogs. I can't describe how wonderful this is, both for Murdoch and for me. For the first time, dog walking has become a sociable activity that I can do with other people rather than dragging Murdoch around by myself.

The other big thing that happened in spring was that I became an aunt for the first time. I love my niece so much and it's wonderful to see how much she has grown and changed each time I see her. She's a really cheerful little girl and always has a smile for me. She also currently loves to blow raspberries. Waterproof clothing is advised.

The summer was not so great. After not really running since the marathon, I foolishly went and did some sprint training in July straight after a 6 mile run. In hindsight [:)] this may have been a leeeeetle bit too much and I injured my heel. One heck of a lot of physio and many cumulative hours of stretching later and I have just been able to start running again over the past couple of weeks. I've signed up for #Janathon and have planned out an exercise schedule to do something every day in January - most of it running, which feels pretty exciting.

The weight issue reared its ugly head again. I've gained a lot of weight this year, partly down to the lack of running and massive lack of motivation that accompanied it and partly because I've failed to address my issues with food. But the good news is that I've started to figure a few things out about myself and I'm getting some help to figure out the rest. So as the year draws to a close, I'm in a pretty good place.

All in all it's been an interesting year and we'll have to wait and see what 2012 brings!

Baby Steps

2011-11-16T20:28:00.000Z

I've been trying to pull my thoughts together for this post for a while and it's been a real struggle. Partly because I'm wrestling with the guilt that comes with marking your line in the sand and then completely failing to jump over it, but also because I'm failing to put my finger on the precise reasons why I'm failing so spectacularly. Fail fail fail. Epic fail. So I'm going to get straight to the point. Deep breath and dive in.

For the past couple of months, I've been eating whatever I want with glorious, gleeful abandon. Crisps and sweets and chocolate and everything in between. Except that you come to realise that what you're really doing is desperately cramming food in your mouth, trying to.... I'm not sure really. Trying to avoid dealing with emotion? Trying to keep myself safe in my cocoon of fat so I don't have to try? Trying to committ a slow drawn out suicide by coating my arteries with a cheese flavoured layer of sludge? All sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn't it, but bear with me, this train of thought may be on the verge of pulling into a station.

There are any number of ~~reasons~~ excuses for the way I've been eating. I could write a giant boo hoo poor me blog post about how hard it is to be me. Except, really it isn't. I've strolled my way through life, always taking the path of least resistance, rarely feeling really strongly passionate about anything. Please don't misunderstand, I love my friends and family but sometimes I realise that days or weeks have gone past without me speaking to them and I hadn't really noticed, like the time had just folded from one spot to another. Most of the time I feel disconnected to the point that I now have to make a concerted effort to accept invitations to go places. My first instinct is always, without exception, to decline. Even if it's to see people that I love or to do something fun. I'm not sure why it should be this way, but it is.

So sometimes it all seems a bit pointless and of course the easiest thing to do is not to try and make it all mean something, but to drown it all in a sea of crisps and other assorted snack foods. As a result, I've actually put on weight since I last posted. Oh the shame of it.

I can't think of the bigger picture at the moment because it's making me freak out and dive for the crisps, so for now I'm settling for making better decisions for myself, one at a time. So for example, today I decided not to go out to the snack van and buy crisps. And I didn't do it. I know that I'll need to deal with my wider issues at some point. But right now I'm taking baby steps in an effort to head in the right direction, because I figured out that it's not about big declarations and goal setting, it's about the thousands of little choices that we make every single day. I think that's progress of sorts.

I think we're at that station now, please feel free to get off. Sorry that this post is a bit of a downer. I hope you had a chuckle at my last one to make up for it.

This One's Mostly Filler

2011-11-15T17:58:00.000Z

I haven't blogged since September. I've been really struggling with knowing what to write. I'm going to put some considerable effort into this and in the meantime, please see below one from the Facebook archives from 2007......

Confession time. I have, for the past 2.5 years allowed the hound to sleep in my bed. And I do mean IN the bed, he snuggles under the covers and makes himself comfortable whilst I endeavour to pull off some contortionist moves in order to gain some bed space. I'm not sure how this happens - I do have a king size bed, but he somehow throws himself across the very centre of the bed and makes it his own.

Last night I decided it was time to reclaim my territory - who pays the bloody bills? That would be me then, and surely earns me the right to make myself comfortable in my own bed.

10.30pm - bed time. I move M's bed (soft and squooshy) into my room and make him lie on it. Turn out the lights.

10.30pm + 5 seconds - first attempt from hound to gain access to my bed. A bold frontal attack jumping on my stomach. Oof. Dog is returned to his bed.

10.31pm - as above

10.32pm as above

10.35pm - dog attempts first stealth attack - quietly and casually strolling to the end of the bed and gently pulling himself up onto the bed and hiding at the end. It actually took me a moment to realise that he was there. Heart swelled with pride at him being so clever before I realised that he was making me look stupid. Dog is removed from my bed into his.

11pm - M starts to cry gently in his bed. Manipulative little beggar. My heart melts, but then I steel myself for the job in hand. Dog stomps out of bedroom in a huff and I drift off to sleep.

1am - Wake up as am a little bit too warm. Why? Because the sneaky little chap waited till I was asleep, crawled under the duvet and made himself comfy. Dog is roused and thrown off onto his own bed.

3am - ditto

5am ditto - persistent little fella ain't he? As a sidebar, he really is very stealthy. If the Americans had had him in 'nam then things may have worked very differently.

More of the same tonight I'm sure - am very tired today from all the waking up in the night - but need to stick with it - just need to prove that I am more stubborn than the hound. I fear that he may be made of stronger stuff than me though - I'll probably be sleeping in his bed by the end of the week.

Goals

2011-09-22T12:59:00.000+01:00

Image: pixtawan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was catching up on several weeks of the MarathonTalk podcast while I was on holiday and there was a great section about setting goals. The context was putting together a five year plan, but for now, given that I'm still on the injury bench, I've decided to be a bit more short term about it and set some goals up to the end of this year.

So here we go:

Next three weeks

To increase my calf stretch to 10cm on each leg. This is the shortest stretch measurement of normal range of movement. There are a couple of reasons that this is my initial goal, Firstly because my physio has told me that if we can't get rid of the pain (my heel still hurts) then I'll need to think about going for scans etc. My next physio appointment is on 10th October and I want to do everything possible to get my calf muscles stretched out by then. If it's still not good, then at least I'll know that I've made every effort and will let the NHS do its thing. The other (secret) reason for achieving this goal is because I'm (secretly) convinced that my physio will tell me that I can run again if I do it.

In order to achieve this I need to do as much stretching as possible (hourly!) and also need to do my strengthening exercises (2 x 15 reps three times daily). I also now have some Superfeet orthotics which should help support my arches and take the pressure off my heel. Keep your fingers crossed everyone!

To end of 2011

My main goal is to hit my interim goal weight of 11st5lb. This is the top end of a healthy BMI for my height. Not sure that I agree with BMI as a measurement, but it'll do for now, as I've got to aim for something. This means that I need to lose an average of 1.6lb per week between now and the end of the year. I think that this is challenging, but possible. There are a few obvious reasons for this goal. Firstly because I've been banging on about it for ages. But also because the less I weigh (within normal healthy limits of course!) the less impact will go through my heel whenever I run. There's no doubt that the fact that I'm overweight has been a contributory factor in my injury, so I need to get this sorted out if I want to continue running long term.

In order to achieve this weight loss, I've put a little exercise plan together. Essentially I'll be swimming Monday, Wednesday & Friday in the mornings (after dog walking and before work) and going to the gym those same evenings straight from work. This fits in well with my dog care on those days. Tuesday and Thursday I look after Murdoch, so they'll be rest days, with dog walking as some gentle exercise. On Saturday the plan is to rest up and maybe have a little fun! Sunday is a longer gym session.

I will also be taking more care with my food intake - no use exercising if you're going to go home and stuff yourself full of crisps. Or wine. Or chocolate. Or pie. Mmmmmmmm pie....... *ahem* sorry drifted off for a moment there.

My other (secret) goal is to have started running again by the end of the year. Don't care about distance or speed, just want to be able to run! Especially as in a couple of weeks I'll know whether I got lucky in the London Marathon ballot.............

The Curious Incident of the Dog under the Duvet

2011-09-19T17:15:00.001+01:00

From the archives. I used to write Facebook notes about some of the mutt's more comedic exploits. This one is from June 2007........

More dog related happenings this week.

On Wednesday the idiotic creature hurled himself forward so hard on his rope (whilst tied to a tree in the garden) that he has lost his voice. As I write this his bark is starting to come back a bit but it's been a quiet couple of days.

Then yesterday, he was rolling around under the duvet (this pastime seems to be the height of fun for him, giving rise to all manor of happy growly noises). I lent over to lift the duvet off him, but unfortunately he chose that moment to rear up from under the duvet and nutted me. Seriously it hurt so much that I cried a little bit.

I now have a small egg shaped lump on my forehead and look like a Klingon warrior. Nice.

Four reasons to love holidaying in Madeira

2011-09-13T11:09:00.000+01:00

I'm back from my holiday! And didn't I have a lovely time? Yes, yes I did.

I'd heartily recommend Madeira to anyone. Especially a slightly plump thirtysomething that likes to lie in the sun. There are several reasons for this.

1. It is very sunny. We had pretty much 28c sunny weather every day. Verrrrry nice.

2. 98% of the other tourists there are retired which means that..

3. Even if you're a bit fat, you still look better in a bikini than the vast majority of the other people there and...

4. Even if you don't, it doesn't matter, it's not like you're on the pull; they are all pensioners!

There's nothing like lying in the sun surrounded by many old people (bless them) to make you feel like a glamorous young thing.

Unfortunately I got back to reality with a bump this morning when I weighed myself and discovered I gained 6lb over the course of the holiday. Oops. I mainly blame the amount of wine that I drank. Much more than usual, but I was on holiday so I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

Back on track - I plan to lose that weight over the next couple of weeks and then full speed ahead.

From Madeira with love

2011-09-10T09:52:00.001+01:00

I was supposed to weigh in on Tuesday but unfortunately I didn't. The good news is that I didn't weigh myself because I'm on holiday!

I landed in Madeira with B on Monday and have been having a wonderful time ever since. It's a beautiful island, although not one to come to if you're after crazy drunken adventures. B and I have lowered the average tourist age by about two decades just by turning up.

We've been on a jeep safari which included a great offroad section. In fact even the roads here are pretty crazy. They don't tend to zig zag up the hills and mountains - they tend to go straight up! We also did a sailboat tour (with no sailing, just motor unfortunately) where we saw a quite large group of pilot whales which was awesome.

Other than that we've just been wandering about the place and lazing in the sun, either at the nearby lido (it's seawater! There are fishes in there!) or at the hotel pool. I've really been getting the sun into my bones which is exactly what I needed after a pretty stressful year so far.

See you on the flipside x

A dog's understanding of trousers

2011-08-24T11:51:00.000+01:00

Murdoch understands trousers. Now I don't mean to suggest that he is some kind of fashion guru or anything silly like that. He's not lying in his bed weighing up the relative merits of bootleg jeans (good) against harem pants (bad) and wondering whether a pair of high waisted slacks really is the best option for a long, slim silhouette (like a little furry Gok Wan). I just mean that Murdoch understands trousers insofar as they relate to his own life. Specifically, he knows that if I put on a pair of trousers it means that I am leaving the flat at some point in the near future.

As a result he has learned to recognise the sound of me putting some on. So when I get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to walk Murdoch, he remains curled up in his bed, all comfy and snug until the exact moment that I pull my walking trousers up over my knees. At which point he comes hurtling into my bedroom to see what's going on. From then on my morning becomes dedicated to the avoidance of an excited dog dancing around my ankles, looking up at me with a hopeful expression on his face. "Are you going out? Are you going walking? Can I come? CAN I COME?!?!".

I'm sure you understand why I leave it till the very last minute to put them on before going for a walk. Otherwise he'd combust with the excitement of it all before we even got to the front door.

Isn't he a clever boy? I wonder if other pets have similar abilities......

Happiness

2011-08-23T10:12:00.000+01:00

When Murdoch and I started on our latest adventure in dog training, my biggest hope was that we would be able to get Murdoch walking calmly on a lead without lunging to attack other dogs while we were out and about. However within a matter of days Murdoch had progressed from lead, through long line to being off lead with a muzzle on. We'd already exceeded my expectations and I thought we'd reached the limit of what we'd be able to do. And I was so proud of my boy. I can't describe the happiness that I felt every time I saw his fat little staffie bottom running away from me with his tail in the air, making his crazy little noises as he ran about with the other dogs.

The one downside was that I couldn't see his staffie smile as he ran back to me; it was covered by a muzzle. And he just couldn't let that muzzle be, he was dragging his face along the ground, using branches to try and hook it off, nuzzling his face against peoples' legs (bruising them in the process - you should see the state my calfs were in!). It was starting to damage his face, which had constant red marks where he had rubbed the muzzle, desperately trying to get it off.

Last week, as we neared the end of our Friday morning walk at the Dog House, G suggested that I take Murdoch's muzzle off so that we could see how he reacted. I nervously agreed and my boy did not let me down, he was just great. Veered a little close to his arch nemesis Nico a couple of times, but was corrected and didn't do anything stupid. He then did the remainder of his walks that day without his muzzle and was the very model of a well behaved dog. Had a good chat on Friday evening and G made it clear that I couldn't use the muzzle any more, otherwise I risked setting Murdoch back.

I'm not going to lie. This makes me nervous. Murdoch's behaviour is still a bit of a worry to me; he behaves much better at the Dog House than he does out and about alone with me. This is because I get nervous and he feeds off that energy, so I need to build some confidence to make sure that we continue to succeed. To help me get started with this, I spent quite a lot of time with the Dog House guys over the weekend, walking Murdoch without his muzzle, both in the usual walking location and in a couple of new places. On Saturday afternoon we did a walk at Blackheath near Wonersh. This is a regular walk, but it was our first time there. I knew some of the people, but most of the people were new to me, so Murdoch didn't know their dogs either. At the end of the walk, G confiscated the muzzle. I am not allowed to have it any more. I don't need it.

We also did a Sunday morning walk at Ockham Common which we've done before. This walk is very German Shepherd heavy and Murdoch had issues with this breed after his run in with Nico so I thought it would be a pretty good test of his behaviour. On both walks he was a perfect gentleman and had a great recall too.

This morning I did my first solo walk without the muzzle. I took Murdoch to one of our local haunts in Farncombe which is part of the Surrey Wildlife Trust's McAlmont Reserves. It's a mix of fields and woodland and we usually encounter other dogs there. Today was no exception. And when he saw a dog ahead of us, Murdoch did his usual full pelt hurtle towards it. I didn't much like this, as by this time we were at the corner of a field and I couldn't see what was going on. So I really don't know what happened, but when I called Murdoch in, he came back to me and the other dog walker waved at me as I entered the next field, so Murdoch clearly hadn't tried to eat his dog! We encountered another staffie as we headed back towards home and Murdoch again went hurtling off. Both Murdoch and the other staffie came running back to me and she jumped up a bit which made Murdoch a little hackly and growly. Instead of correcting him, I grabbed his collar and guided him away from the dog. That wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't panic and I'm learning on the job here, so bear with!

I can't adequately explain how happy all of this makes me. I never thought that we'd be able to achieve this and while I'm still a little bit nervous, we're just going to keep at it and take each situation as it comes. Life is good.

Also, today is weigh in day. Over the past two weeks I've managed to drop 3.5lb. Huzzah! This is very good news, especially with my holiday less than two weeks away (GAAHHH IMPENDING HOLIDAY WEIGHT LOSS PANIC SPIRAL OF DOOM!). I have bought a new bikini, but I don't look very nice in it - too much podge and not much I can do about it in the time available. But it doesn't really matter. I'll do what I can in the next two weeks and then I'm going to go and enjoy my holiday, which I've been looking forward to for ages.

An odd dream

2011-08-18T12:02:00.000+01:00

Had another really weird dream last night. I dreamed that I was in France with my family and it was the day of my sister's wedding (she didn't get married in France). She got into a car to take her to the wedding venue. I was about to get in the car but realised that I'd forgotten my fags (I don't smoke), so I did a dive and roll manoeuvre (in my bridesmaid dress!) through the automatically closing garage door to get back into the house to find them. I eventually located them down the back of the toilet.

I came out of the house again to find my parents waiting outside. They had sent away the car that was supposed to take them to the wedding venue as they didn't want it waiting around. This meant that we had to go and find a car to take us to the wedding, so we walked out front and waited on the street. Within minutes we were surrounded by crowds of people; they appeared from everywhere. Unfortunately, French people don't understand the concept of queuing, so every time a taxi pulled up someone shoved in front of us and got in it.

Then I saw that mum and dad had got into a child's toy car but it wasn't getting them anywhere, especially when I jumped on the back to hitch a ride. I was trying to explain to all the people why we needed to get into a car - we were going to miss my sister's wedding! But I couldn't remember the French word for wedding.

The End

All this and I didn't even eat any cheese before bed. Sometimes my brain confuses me; is this what it's like to be Karl Pilkington?

Yum!

2011-08-17T20:11:00.000+01:00

Monsieur, wiz zis second post in one day you are really spoiling us!

I just had to share my super delicious dinner with everyone - mostly courtesy of my dad and the excessive crop of runner beans his garden has produced this year. Seriously, he's drowning in them, especially with mum away in Costa Rica and therefore not doing her share of bean eating. He's had to put about a hundred weight of them into the freezer. However, I digress.

According to my calorie calculator each serving is about 535kcal, so it doesn't break the bank as evening meals go.

Runner bean & parma ham risotto (courtesy of tastes of summer)

Serves 4

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

250g runner beans, topped and tailed, side strings removed if necessary and sliced thinly on the diagonal

1 tablespoon olive oil

25g butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

350g arborio rice (or other risotto rice)

1 – 1.2 litres hot chicken or vegetable stock

6 slices Parma ham, cut into ribbons

75g Parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra to serve

Small handful of basil leaves, shredded

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the prepared runner beans and cook the beans for about 4 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and set aside while you cook the rice.

2. Heat the olive oil and the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan. Add the onion and gently fry for a few minutes until softened but not coloured.

3. Add the rice to the pan and stir for a couple of minutes. Have the hot stock in a separate pan and keep it at a gentle simmer. Add a couple of ladles of the hot stock to the rice and cook over a gentle heat, stirring frequently, until the stock has been absorbed into the rice. Continue to add the stock to the rice, one ladle at a time, stirring after each addition until it has been absorbed. After 18-20 minutes the risotto should be cooked – it should be creamy and the rice grains tender but retaining a little ‘bite’. You may not need to use all the stock.

4. Add the cooked runner beans, Parma ham, Parmesan and basil to the cooked risotto. Add a little more stock, if necessary, and season to taste.

5. Serve the risotto with shavings of Parmesan and black pepper.

6. ENJOY!

Comme Ci, Comme Ça

2011-08-17T14:51:00.000+01:00

Went to physio again on Monday morning and despite a great deal of stretching throughout the past week, my calf extension has not increased one bit on either leg. Curses! I swear the more I stretch them, the tighter they get. Am hoping that it is a "it gets worse before it gets better" type scenario otherwise I'll be on crutches by the weekend*

I tentatively asked her whether it would be possible for me to do the Hever Castle triathlon at the end of September. She said no. I winced and asked her whether I might, possibly, be able to do the Great South Run (10 miles) at the end of October. She said hell no. Curses! I'm now starting to wonder whether I'll be able to do the London Marathon next year (assuming that I even get a place). I shall worry about that if I get lucky in the ballot.

She did however give me the go ahead to start using the cross trainer again, so on Monday lunchtime I headed to the gym and did 25 minutes on it, followed by some strengthening exercises that the physio gave me, followed by yet more stretching. And yesterday morning I woke up with even tighter calf muscles than ever before. WHHHHYYYYYYY?!

I also woke up feeling very pissed off. At 4am. I can't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but whatever it was, I was quite incredibly cross about it. Then I slept through my alarm and had to choose between washing my hair and walking the dog. I dragged the somewhat ungrateful mutt around the block and got ready for work. Got into the car and the leaky sunroof pissed rain water all over my head. At that point felt glad that I had not chosen to do my hair. Got to work and my drink bottle exploded all over my desk. WHY GOD? WHHHHHHHHYYYYY?! To make matters even worse, I felt quite ropey all day yesterday - I've had a cold floating around me for ages and I can't quite seem to get rid of it. Yesterday started with a sore throat and by the time I went home it had progressed to a sinus throbbing stinker of a head cold. Yesterday was not a good day, cheered up only by rereading this old blog post which made me cry actual tears of laughter.

And yet today I feel pretty much back to normal again in terms of the cold, although throat is still a little scratchy. Don't know what that's about. I took Murdoch to the Dog House for our morning walk and as we walked to meet the rest of the pack, the unthinkable happened. As we reached the edge of the field, Murdoch caught sight of a deer and he was off! Full pelt! I've never seen him chase something like that before, usually he sees a rabbit, goes after it a bit halfheartedly, loses sight of it and gives up. Meh. But this time he was hot on the trail and determined to get that deer. Hot pursuit Flash! Not entirely sure what he would have done with it, bemuzzled as he was, but after a few minutes of crashing through the woods, he emerged, looking quite pleased with himself. Naughty boy had to go straight on the lead. That'll learn him**

I meant to go straight to the swimming pool for a quick pre-work swim, but forgot my wallet and once I'd gone home to retrieve it, I didn't have enough time. Might go after work instead. In any event I went to the gym at lunchtime again but had even less time than usual to workout because of an illtimed callback from my pet insurance company. Useless bastards couldn't process a claim properly if lives depended on it. Christ, sometimes they probably do depend on it. Awful. Anyway, I did 20 mins on the bike and then stretched out my calf muscles. They feel much looser now; long may that continue.

You may notice the renewed enthusiasm for exercise. This is partly because I really needed to get on track and partly a panicked reaction to the fact that my holiday in Madeira is actually a week earlier than I had thought. So it's now only 3 weeks away. I am therefore involved in a frantic "Jeeeeeeeeeeezuz I've got to fit my giant ass into a bikini soon" desperate spiral of DOOM. Well I may not be able to make myself a size ten in the time available, but I can sure as heck drop a few pounds between now and then so I don't frighten the other tourists ("Looooook mummy a beached whale" "Don't be unkind sweetie, that's just a giant fat lady").

*Possibly exaggerated for comic effect

** It won't

WARNING Boring blog post

2011-08-12T14:07:00.000+01:00

I've sat and stared at this blog post since Tuesday and have been unable to think of a single thing to say to make it less boring. So here it is. Sorry.

It's been two weeks since I last posted and quite a bit has happened in that time (both personally and in the world generally!). I guess the biggest personal news is that I have now returned to work for the company that I left five months or so ago. I was in a really frustrating situation with the new job - I'm not sure that they were ready for someone in my role just yet - so when my old company contacted me and asked if I'd like to come back, I was really happy to do it! I've had a bit of a promotion and given that the company has been bought and is now part of a wider group, there is more room for advancement, which was my only real gripe with the company in the first place. I'm sad that I won't be seeing some of the lovely new people I met on a daily basis anymore, but this is the right move for me.

It's been quite a stressful time and as a result the diet went completely off the rails. In all honesty, I've not been giving it the focus that it deserves since I got started. Frankly I've had much bigger things to worry about. Now that I feel so much happier and more settled it's time to get the rest of my life in order!

I weighed in on Tuesday at 13st 0lb. It doesn't take a maths genius to work out that I gained 3lb over the past couple of weeks and that I'm now almost back to where I started.

But this is a fresh start and I'm going to give this some welly. In addition to more focus, I also have more time again now that I'm not commuting to London every day. The downside is that I am officially not allowed to run at the moment. Have had two sessions with a physio and I'm not currently allowed to do any weightbearing exercise, including things like the crosstrainer at the gym. My problem is that I have very poor range of movement in my calf muscles - they are very tight. Apparently the usual range is 10 - 20cm and I had 6cm in my left leg (the one with the ouchy heel) and 8.5cm in the right. Oops. So for now it's only gentle walking, swimming and cycling, core work at the gym & many, many calf stretches for me. I'm also going to try and fit in a body balance class - that should help with the stretching.

Ten Steps to a Nice Clean Dog

2011-07-28T17:11:00.000+01:00

I would like to make one thing clear from the start. My dog is a lovely little chap and quite the looker too. Any girl dog would be proud to be seen out and about with him, were it not that I'd had his balls snipped off after an unfortunate pissing up the ironing board incident when he was a nipper. He is, in the usual run of things, mostly brindle with white bits here and there - notably on his face and the end of his tail, which wags along like a little beacon allowing me to see where he is even in the long grass.

So imagine my confusion yesterday when I went to pick up my dog from his lovely daycare types over at the Dog House and was handed over a brown smelly little dog.

Me: Uurgh, Who is this?

DH: It's Murdoch

Me (outraged): It most certainly is not. Murdoch is a fine specimen of a dog and you are trying to fob me off with a substandard stinker of a mutt.

DH: No really, that's Murdoch

Me (dubious): Really?

DH : [shrug]

At that point I noticed his little white beacon of a tail wagging at me and I was forced to acknowledge, that yes, my lovely soft and furry little buddy had somehow been transformed into a grubby (slightly smelly) mud caked mutt. Reluctantly, I popped him in the boot of my car and headed for home.

Dog ownership is not glamorous, unless you're a pampered celebrity who has people to do stuff for you. I've often wondered who empties the chihuahua poo out of Paris Hilton's handbag. Because that dog is pooing in there for sure. It has nowhere else to go. Anyway, most dogs fall into one or several of the following major categories. You've got your chasers (can't help going after deer, rabbits, birds, bikes, leaves blowing along the ground etc), you've got your yappers, poo munchers, crotch sniffers, face lickers (usually just a nanosecond after you have observed them licking their *ahem* delicate areas) and shoe chewers. Murdoch however is a mud roller. He sees a mud puddle and cannot resist rolling around in it like a little furry hippo. As a result, I had the misfortune yesterday evening of having to clean him up and this is how it went.

Step One: Lure dog into garden. This is not hard to do - dog is currently clueless about the terrible events about to unfold.

Happily posing next to the bucket, clueless

Step Two: Pick up bucket of water (warm, if you're feeling kind) and throw it at dog

Step Three: Wait patiently as dog runs to end of garden and shakes like fury

Shake it, shake it baby

Step Four: Shampoo dog. Try not to use too much shampoo (like I did last night) as it makes the following steps much harder

Frothy

Step Five: Rinse dog. I did this by throwing more buckets of water at the dog so I therefore had to repeat steps two & three quite a few times at this point.

Bedraggled

Step Six: Towel dry dog (who by this point is pathetically grateful that you have stopped throwing water at him and is nuzzling your ankles)

Step Seven: Open back door and allow damp dog back into flat. Try not to think about the fact that your home is going to smell of damp dog for the foreseeable future. Order dog into bed

Waaaah! I've had enough! Let me in!

Step Eight: Endure sad and sulky looks from dog as he sits in his bed pondering the fact that he would totally call the RSPCA on you right now, if only he had thumbs and knew how to operate the phone.

I hate you right now

Step Nine: Ponder the fact that this was all an ENORMOUS waste of time and energy as dog is likely to roll around in giant pile of yuck again tomorrow.

Step Ten: Give up on life for the day and go to bed.

I feel like such a heel

2011-07-27T11:39:00.001+01:00

Goodness me, where does the time go, doesn't it fly when you're having fun etc etc. Two weeks have positively zipped by and yesterday was the big day - the fortnightly weigh in. So how did I do? Well I am now down to 12st11lb which means I've lost just over 4lb in the past four weeks. Overall I'm happy with this - 1lb a week is fairly steady measured weight loss, but really I wanted a bit more of a kick start to the process. I don't see any reason why I can't lose 1.5 - 2lb per week, at least at first while I still have quite a bit to lose.

The past week has been a bit difficult in terms of exercise. As I mentioned in last Monday's post, I had got a touch of plantar fasciitis following the sprint training / long(ish) run combo I did at the weekend. This meant that I did not exercise at all last week, until Saturday when all felt ok again and I decided to head to the track. We were doing 2 sets of 8 x 200m - to be run at around the mile pace that we're aiming for. My aim was 60secs, but I was comfortably and consistently coming in at 50 - 52secs, so I was feeling really pleased with my performance and despite a bit of heaviness on my chest (more on that later), I was feeling strong for the entire first set. The heel was niggling a little, but nothing that concerned me until I started the second set and had to give up after 3 reps. The heel was really complaining now and given that I was down to run in a league 10k race the following morning, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and called it a day.

Woke up on Sunday morning. Got out of bed. Fell back onto bed yelping. OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUCCCCCHH! Serious amounts of pain when I put any weight on my left foot. Much hissing, swearing and hopping about the flat later, I realise that I'm out of the 10k for that morning. Boo. I then spent the rest of the day ~~sunbathing~~ *ahem* keeping the weight off my foot and rolling it on a frozen water bottle as recommended by my good friend Andy. Thanks mate, it really helped and by the end of the day, the foot was comfortable enough to take Murdoch for a decent walk.

On Monday I already had an appointment scheduled at the doctors' surgery, so mentioned my heel. The doc looked at me as though I was an idiot for having run on it (has she never met a runner before? Surely we're FAMED for running when we probably shouldn't?!) and told me to ice, stretch and most importantly REST the foot. So no weight bearing exercise for me for the next week or so and longer term I'm looking at some physio - I found out that I'm covered for it under my Dad's private health insurance, which means no NHS wait list for me - phew!

So I now need to think about how I'm going to exercise if I can't run. Usually my best time for exercising is a fairly intense 30min session in the gym at lunchtime. I usually go and pound out some swift intervals on tbe treadmill or sometimes just a plain old simple run. So if anyone has some suggestions on half hour gym sessions that I can do which do not involve any weight bearing stuff, I'd love to hear them. I guess I could do some interval stuff on the bike / cross trainer? And it's probably time that I started doing some core work too. So I'm trying to look at this as a positive thing that's going to expand my exercise repertoire, rather than something that is imposing limits on me.

On Monday evening I went to the pool and did 70 laps, felt pretty good, but then yesterday morning I woke up feeling pretty terrible. Everytime I stood up, I got really dizzy and felt all congested and tired and horrible - really difficult to breathe, Spent most of the day lying in bed doing intervals of feeling sorry for myself mixed with some intensive rest periods (Zzzzzzz).

I had a really weird dream late morning. I dreamed that Murdoch was not a real dog, but a sad tattered soft toy that I dragged around everywhere with me. Everyone humoured me because I was a mad person and to me he was a real dog. So I'd look down and see my little waggy tailed piglet, but to everyone else he was just a soft toy. I woke up in a bit of a panic and had to run (oops stop slow down dizzyhead) and check out the situation. Murdoch is definitely real (and didn't appreciate being woken up so I could check). Or, if he's not real, then I'm still crazy and I'd appreciate it if you could leave me to it :)

Going to the dogs

2011-07-22T11:02:00.001+01:00

Murdoch has been engaging in some pyschological warfare recently. He has various weapons in his armoury, including 2am vomiting (he sleeps in the other room - how does he manage to wake me up with it??!?!?), a dry cough that culminates in a noise that sounds like a cat coughing up a giant furball and waking me up at 5am (at the weekend!!!!) by standing beside my bed and staring at me. As you can see, a couple of his ploys involve interrupting my sleep. I think he knows that I'm shit if I don't get enough shut-eye and he thinks he can use this to his advantage. Good luck with that my little furry nemesis.

However this week his weapon of choice has changed. As if it's not stressful enough having a dog named Murdoch at the moment ("Did you name him after Rupert?" "No I effing didn't - who would do that?!") this week he has decided to worry me half to death by deliberately running through vegetation that he is allergic to until his entire head puffs up in hives. I've had to buy jumbo packs of Piriton to keep him from combusting. I'm serious, his right eye swelled up so much last night he could hardly see out of it and he gets all sad and floppy with it too, wanting to come and sit next to me and lean against my leg. Poor little guy. See, my heart is melting - damn dog is playing me for a fool!

Well not tonight he's not - he's got a sleepover at the Dog House while I glam up and go to our corporate summer party this evening. I had an accidental dress buying incident yesterday lunchtime which I have since managed to justify in my head (it was in the sale etc etc,) and I'm ready for some fun times tonight, although I do need to be a little bit sensible and get on the last train home. If anyone sees me staggering drunk at Waterloo later tonight, can they gently pop me onto a train and hang a sign saying Farncombe around my neck?

Self criticism

2011-07-18T12:36:00.001+01:00

Here's my thought for the day. Throughout the many and varied conversations I've had recently on the topic of being fat, a lot of people have said that I'm being too hard on myself. This is probably true. I'm not morbidly obese, nor do I have (so far as I am aware) any scary obesity related diseases. In fact all I'm really suffering from is poor self image and a bit too much lard around my stomach, hips and thighs.

The other morning I walked along Moorgate on the way to work and decided to be as critical of all the people I passed in the street as I am of myself (in my head, of course, I didn't want to get stabbed or somesuch). My interior monologue went a little bit like this:

Spotty

Fat

Faaaarrrr too old to be wearing that skirt

Terrible skin

Dear God woman have you never heard of Frizz Eaze?

Greasy hair

Horrible ill fitting suit

Overdid it on the make up this morning, didn't we dear?

Please, please, please put your boobs away

etc

And you know what? I felt like an utter bitch for even thinking those things. It feels horrible to be that bitchy towards other people, yet oddly we find it perfectly acceptable to be that awful to ourselves. We probably could all do with having a bit of a think about that one.

Anyway, I had a lovely weekend starting with a spa day on Friday with my mum and sister. Me & mum had a serrail treatment which consisted of coating ourselves in mud and then sitting in a steam room for a bit. Then the "rainforest shower" started and hosed all the mud off. Very good fun. We spent most of the day lounging around the spa and I pretty much dozed off until my sister pinched my nose to stop me snoring. Oooppppssss.

On Saturday morning I grabbed B and headed to the track to do some sprint training with my running club. This is to work towards the Marathon Talk Magic Mile Challenge. We did a couple of laps of the field to warm up (much needed as the rain was torrential) and then did 6 x 2 minute reps. The aim was to hit our mile pace (for me this was 30secs per 100m) and remain consistent throughout all reps. We managed this well, so I'm pleased with that. We then had 6 x 200m reps, but we had to leave after two as we had to get back to Godalming.

Sunday morning saw me get up and out early to walk Murdoch before heading to Grayshott for another running club session. They've just started organising a monthly social Sunday run - to start and finish at a pub. I did a very rainy 5.5 miles around Ludshott Common followed by a cup of tea to warm up in the Fox & Pelican. Very nice.

Unfortunately today I'm suffering from a touch of plantar fasciitis in my left heel, causing me a little discomfort when I get up and start walking, although it eases off a little once I'm up and about.

I think I'm starting to waffle, so all that remains to tell you is that I'm moving to fortnightly weigh ins on professional advice - should even out some of the fluctuations and stop me from getting disheartened. So I won't be weighing in tomorrow, but will update you all on 26th July.

Better late than never...

2011-07-14T10:53:00.000+01:00

Well clearly this post should have gone live on Tuesday directly after my weigh in, but it's been quite a busy week. Yesterday was Haslemere Border AC's annual race - the Gibbet Hill 10k. It's quite an epic course, about 6k of steady uphill, followed by a nice freewheel down to the finish. Here is a picture of our finishers t-shirt (first year we've ever had them - usually just a medal). I'm posting it firstly because it looks awesome, and secondly because the logo is actually a representation of the course elevation profile. We'll be there same time next year if you fancy your chances!

So yesterday was crazy busy, marking out the course, sending last minute instructions out to the marshalls, setting up the finish area, dealing with a couple of minor issues during the course of the race. Phew, was so relieved when it was over. It was a brilliant event, we had so many positive comments about our marshalls, the medals, t-shirts - not to mention the free cake that we gave out at the end!

Enough of that, I guess the big question is, how did I get on with the weign in on Tuesday. Oh dear. Sorry to tell that I put a pound back on. Oops. I could make a million excuses, but what it boils down to is that I haven't yet learned not to stuff my face when I'm feeling stressed. Anyway, sticking with the positives - I'm still down on where I started from and this week has been great - I've hit my calorie targets and have got some great exercise in, so expect to see a loss next Tuesday morning.

Upsetting Chain of Events: An Epic Fail from Santander

2011-07-08T14:28:00.001+01:00

7th July 22:00 Get home from work to discover a letter from Santander. In fact it isn't a letter at all, rather a somewhat threatening Default Notice. I won't bore you with the details, but essentially there was some talk of claiming my first born child should I fail to cough up the £310.00 that I owe them. Nearly fell over. My Alliance & Leicester account (now with Santander) has lain dormant with a zero balance for a couple of years. I have not received any correspondence (including bank statements) from them for quite some time and frankly wasn't expecting to with a zero balance. My first thought was that I must be the victim of identity theft, but then I start to wonder why I have a default notice without having received any prior notifications of charges?

8th July 09:50 Attempt to call the Santander complaints line. It rings. And it rings. Then it rings some more. Etc. No-one picks up the damn phone

09:51 Put down the (still ringing) phone and start to feel a little cross.

10:00 Call the main customer service line and have to go through a highly painful automated "press 2 if your arse is on fire" rigmarole. Eventually I realise that my only remaining options are to repeatedly club my phone on my desk in hopes of randomly hitting the magic sequence of numbers that will grant me access to a member of the customer services team, or to hit none at all and hope that they put me through to someone. I pick the latter course of action and in time, the automated voice gives up and puts me through.

I then go through some security questions and get to detail my complaint. I explain that the account has sat dormant for a couple of years and that there is no possible reason for the charges. The lady explains to me that the T&Cs of my account state that if I do not pay in a minimum of £500 a month, then I would be charged for having the account. She told me that these charges had been applied to my account since August last year and that in fact I had benefited from a grace period due to the changeover from A&L to Santander. She also informs me that the balance owing is in fact £410. Nice.

By this point I am incandescent. I point out that at no time had I been made aware that these charges were about to be applied to my account. At no time since August 2010 have I received a letter or a bank statement informing me that these charges were being applied to my account. In fact I have heard nothing at all from Santander since they sent me an email on the 18th September 2009 informing me that my internet banking access was about to be deactivated. I have no idea how they feel it appropriate to apply these charges and to not send me any statements to inform me. The lady tells me that she cannot deal with this complaint and that she will have to put me through to the Collections dept. Fine.

Am on hold for a couple of minutes, during which time I assume that the customer service lady is explaining my predicament to Collections. This is clearly not the case as the really "friendly" woman in the collections department needed me to explain my problem AGAIN, seemed surprised that I was not willing to just pay up and told me that I'd need to ring the complaints department. I explained that I had already tried that and got no response, could she not put me through? No. She just supplied me with the number as though I were a simpleton that probably had failed to dial it correctly the first time. Then she told me that I would need to call the Collections department back once I'd spoken to Complaints. I was astounded. Would the Complaints department not call Collections? Do they not have that internal process? No. I wail hopelessly and hang up on the woman.

10:15 Try Complaints again. No answer. Bang head on desk.

10:20 Complete a complaints form online detailing my issue and pointing out exactly how angry I am.

10:35 Get an automated response telling me that Santander have received my form and will contact me as soon as possible.

12:35 Still no response from Santander.

12:45 My phone rings *excitement*!!!! It is unrelated sales call *utter disappointment*

13:18 Nothing further to report

14:19 No more news

Stuff it, I'm getting cross now, so am going to post this blog and try to call them again later.

The Danger Zone

2011-07-06T17:05:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. Yesterday was a disaster. Instead of having a calorie deficit, I actually went over my daily calories by 200kcal. Oh dear indeed. I've done this before you know. Had a positive first week - yaaaay! I lost weight! And then an abyssmal second week. As you can imagine, week three doesn't even happen. Why do I do this? I'm not 100% sure. Why would any right minded human being sabotage themselves in goals that we set for ourselves?

I listen to a podcast done by Jillian Michaels - an American personal trainer. In these situations, she asks, what does it afford you to stay fat? What are you getting out of it? I think she's asking the right question. Clearly remaining fat has appeal for me on some level, I think I use it as my excuse, my reason why. Why I don't do stuff. Why I haven't met the right guy. Why I don't have to try. So what happens when my reason why is taken away? I'll actually have to do all of the things that I've been hiding away from. This is scary stuff and when you think about it, it isn't so surprising that a little bit of self-sabotage creeps in. Take away my security blanket?! Not likely!

But this time I'm going to nip it in the bud, I'm going to try asking myself, what will I gain by losing weight? And trying to create enough positives to take away some of the fear. Not an easy task, but one day at a time, I'll chip away at it.

Today has been a good day so far, I'm on track to hit my deficit goal of 1,000kcal. One day at a time...

The Moment of Truth

2011-07-05T10:13:00.000+01:00

The past few days have been so busy, especially the weekend when I didn't stop long enough to think too much about food - just grabbed something to eat on the run.

Saturday started off well with a nice 5k run with my friend B. We took a nice route down the River Wey and did much less walking than we'd done the previous week, so progress there. Then spent the rest of the day dashing from one thing to the next; haircut, shopping, toddler's birthday party, impromptu visit to parents' house. All very nice stuff, but was relieved to get home and relax a little before it was time to go to bed!

Sunday began with a 5 mile walk with Murdoch. Again, went down the river, it's so lovely there in the sunshine, very peaceful but at the same time plenty going on with other dog walkers, runners, cyclists, fishers etc etc. Then it was time to head out for a quick swim - and I do mean quick! I did the swim leg of the Liss Triathlon as part of a team which saw me bashing out a quick 400m in Mill Chase swimming pool before driving over to Liss to cheer in my runner. Out of the three teams that ran for my club, we brought up the rear, but we're still waiting to find out individual times so I don't yet know how I got on in the water. One of our teams won the team prize, which was fantastic, but I had to leave before they got their prize as I had to head off to my next engagement.

Dog show! The guys who look after Murdoch while I'm at work do a lot of work with a local dog rescue organisation and they were at a local fun day where there were about a gazillion dogs. G had asked me not to muzzle Murdoch, all dogs were to be kept on lead and I think he wanted to test Murdoch's reaction without muzzle. My boy did not let me down - he went nose on to a variety of dogs and not a peep out of him, which was really lovely to see and such progress from where we started out. Only problem was that he was so hot and overexcited that he had to have a bit of a timeout in the van to cool off! Then it was off to the bandstand in Godalming to meet with friends and listen to the music, a really lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, enough waffle, let's get down to business. This morning was my first weigh in. So last night, I decided to do a little home workout. I love watching the Biggest Loser and "last chance workout" is an integral part of any competitive weigh in - essentially a last minute effort to sweat out just a few extra ounces of weight before stepping on the scales. My effort was probably a bit less panicked than it should have been, my intensity a little lower, thwarted as I was by Murdoch's continued efforts to join in. Ever attempted a plank while your dog wriggles under your tummy so he can lick your face? You haven't lived. Anyway, the weigh in. I weighed myself this morning and the result was .........

...

DRUM ROLL...

...

...BUILD SOME TENSION...

...

....... REALLY START TO ANNOY READERS WITH TENSION BUILD UP.....

...

12st12lb - that's a loss of 3.25lb for the first week. So this week I need to put in extra effort to consolidate those results, but for now I'm very very happy!

Have a lovely day people x

The Domino Effect

2011-07-01T20:55:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a toughie. Felt really demotivated from the get-go and wanted to eat lots and lots of bad things. Temptation was thrown in my path by an email at 10.30 announcing the arrival of homemade tiramisu in the office kitchen. I know if I just sit at my desk, there'll be none left for me in just a short while. Just need to keep sitting at my desk...... did not eat any tiramisu. RESULT.

Then it was lunchtime and I really didn't want to go to the gym. And this was when the domino effect began. I sat at my desk and pondered the option of just not going. This led me to ponder the possibility that despite having brought a healthy lunch to the office, I could use my lunchbreak (newly liberated by NOT going to the gym) to go and buy something yummy from M&S. A nice sandwich. And maybe some crisps. And then maybe some sweets as well. And..... hang on a minute, do you see what happened there? My thought process had leapt from a gym trip to an enormous junk food binge in a heart beat.

Does anyone else do this to themselves? Get started down a bad path and then just blindly follow it to its inevitable conclusion, leaving a trail of discarded crisp packets along the way?

Luckily I was able to turn it around. Instead I started thinking that I would go to the gym, just go to the gym and if you really hate it, if you're really as tired as you think you are, you can leave after 10 minutes. And of course, I went there and did 30 minutes on the crosstrainer, burning 330 kcal.

The bad news is that there was no subsequent positive domino effect - I succumbed and had a Twix mid afternoon. Meh, you can't win 'em all and I still ended up within my calorie target for the day, partially thanks to not getting home till about 9.30 last night and having only yoghurt for dinner (spent two hours chatting to my dog guy while we scanned the horizon for a dog that had decided that 3 walks wasn't quite enough for him in one day and he wanted to keep running and running and running.... good news is that he did show up eventually and the even better news is that it wasn't my dog that had done the runner. What a good boy I have).

Daily summary (yesterday):

Calories eaten: 1,535

Calories burned: 595

Calorie deficit: 1,160

Today has been a bit better, although am already feeling a bit of diet fatigue. Which is stupid, because I've only just started! It's the fact that I'm constantly thinking about it all day long. What shall I eat today? Shall I go to the gym? I really fancy a snack. DoIhavetimetowalkbacktoWaterlooafterwork? ShallIgoforaswimthisevening? HowmanycaloriesdidIeattoday?!?!?! It literally becomes a stream of consciousness constantly running through my head. I think I'd get bored of that after four days even if it were about Ryan Reynolds in those Hugo Boss ads.

Anyway, the net result of the day was this:

Daily summary (today):

Calories eaten: 1,670

Calories burned: 353 (walking and then a swim in the evening)

Calorie deficit: 783

So a little bit behind where I want to be in terms of calorie deficit for the day, but what the heck, it's Friday.

Quote of the day

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Mark Twain

The Perception Gap

2011-06-30T11:12:00.000+01:00

When I first posted about the F Word earlier this week, I had an astonishing amount of responses from people, but one that really stopped me in my tracks came from my friend J.

"Not sure whether sexes has anything to do with it or whether my friends were all arse holes but I was always being called chunk, fatty etc. I think they call it banter but more like bullying to me! Anyway, family have always said to me, you're a jolly, big man and if you weren't then you wouldn't be you. So how does that inspire me to lose weight? Being told that if I become thin then I'm no longer going to be the person my family love? Oh well, back to the kitchen I go for a comfort snack in the form of wotsits!"

I actually cried when I read that because it made me realise the enormous gap that can exist between what our loved ones are trying to say to us (in this case "Don't listen to those bullies, we love you just as you are because you are AMAZING") and what we actually hear ("Doesn't matter how unhappy you are with your body, you musn't change otherwise we'll stop loving you"). It's a massive, Grand Canyon sized gap between intention and translation and I think it happens a lot.

I know that in most cases, when people say "Don't be silly, you're not fat", it's not because they are trying to upset, annoy or derail me, it's probably because they are trying to make me stop feeling bad. The problem with it is that it doesn't work and it's easy to read the subtext "I am not interested in your problem, I'm going to deny that it is happening" behind words that are most likely being said with the kindest of intent. I still know that I'm overweight in the same way that J knows that he is, denying that there is a problem does not make it go away, we can see the fact of it in the mirror, in our reflection in every shop window that we pass, in the jeans that we don't fit into.

I guess the question becomes, how do you move past it? Well, I clearly did it by posting on my blog and creating a minor shitstorm. I honestly didn't see that coming (mainly because I didn't think anyone actually read my ramblings!) but what happened was that I was set on this path and given a healthy shove to get me started along it. I don't know how J has started to move past the voices in his head. I suspect that his first steps may have been taken with the support of his very lovely wife, but however it happened, I was really happy and encouraged to see this from him this morning:

got on the scales this morning, the big number has gone down by one. Next milestone within reach!

Well done buddy, long may it continue. Oh and if you're reading this, I've got something that I'd like to say to you and it is this. You are awesome and amazing, one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever had the good fortune to encounter. This is a true fact and would not change if you were 50 stone or 10 stone. That is who you are, your body is just where you live.

This is my blog for the day, I'll do a calorie summary as part of tomorrow's blog. This one had been playing on my mind since I read J's comment and I wanted to get it out there.

How Do I Measure Up?

2011-06-29T17:23:00.001+01:00

Good afternoon! Firstly, an answer to a question on yesterday's post. My daily calorie allowance factors in my basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is the amount of calories that I burn whilst doing nothing at all through involuntary body function (breathing, blinking, farting, growing toenails, more farting etc). So any calories that I burn through activity are in addition to that amount. Wow I almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about there.

I measured myself last night and this is what it looks like:

Left arm 12 inches

Right arm 13 inches (Wwwwhhhhyyyy is my right arm fatter?! Is it because I'm left handed? Poor lopsided arms)

Bust 37 inches (over my bust that is, not under)

Waist 41 inches (no wonder I have trouble doing up my jeans)

Hips 44 inches

Left thigh 24 inches

Right thigh 24 inches (at least my lopsidedness does not extend to my thighs)

Managed to get on the earlier train this morning which meant that I was able to walk to work (nr Liverpool St Station). It's quite a nice journey along the South Bank to Blackfriars before heading past St Pauls into the City. It's about 2.5 miles to walk and on a lovely sunny morning like we had today, it's rather nice.

At lunchtime I headed to the gym. Got on the bike and started to pedal. Had planned on doing 25 mins on the bike, but the adjacent machine caught my eye and I had a go on that instead. I now have a new most bestest favouritest gym machine.

My new gym BFF

It's a Wave machine and the movement of it is a bit like skating - I just looked it up online and found this video.

Please note that I was not doing lots of arm actions etc and I sure as hell did not look all happy and smiley like these people (who look like they're enjoying it a little bit too much). In fact I was a sweaty mess, clinging onto the arms for dear life. I also think the love affair may pale a little bit when I wake up tomorrow morning and hurt in places I didn't know I had.

Daily summary:

Calories eaten: 1,500

Calories burned: 670 (470 dog walk and walk to work + 200 lunchtime gym session)

Calorie deficit: 1,270
Status: So far, so good

The science part

2011-06-28T17:12:00.000+01:00

OK, I'm going to blind you all with science now (or possibly just make you fall asleep - up to you - I'm not judging).

For someone of my weight, the daily calorie guideline is approx 2,100 to maintain current weight. In order to lose a couple of pounds a week, I need to create a calorie deficit of approx 1,000 calories a day. Some of this will come from reducing my food, while some will come from increasing my activity.

So here's how it went for day one:

Got up, walked the dog, then headed to work. In total I burned 290 calories this morning, just from walking. Whoop!

For breakfast I had uncooked porridge oats, mixed up with a splash of skimmed milk and some Rachel's Organic low fat yoghurt. I love this yogurt, has anyone tried it? Today I had the elderflower & apple flavour and it is delici0us. This is a fairly typical breakfast for me (unless I pop into M&S on the way to the office and grab a cinnamon swirl - lovely, but quite a bit more naughty!) and you can always spice it up a bit by adding some fruit to it - raspberries, strawberries, anything really. A friend put me onto this breakfast some time ago and I've never looked back!

Mid morning snack - some edamame followed by a bag of sesame sticks. Case in point - not everything that you can buy from Holland & Barrett is good for you! I do love this snack though, and had a bag of them left in my desk drawer. I'm not going to beat myself up over the fact that I ate them, I've factored them into my calories for the day.

Om nom nom - edamame

1pm arrived and I headed to the gym for a quick 30 minute lunchtime session. I went on the crosstrainer and burned 340 calories. Whoop.

When I got back to the office I had a quick spot of lunch. Today's lunch is not typical. I usually have a sandwich, a salad or possibly some reheated leftovers. Today I had low fat Brussels paté on some water biscuits. The paté needed eating up, but I have a feeling that this v. light lunch will leave me feeling a bit peckish late afternoon.

4pm. Waaaaaah! I want to eat something! But I'm not actually hungry, so I won't.

I'm going to post this before I leave the office for the day, but I'll let you know that for dinner I'm having one of my favourites. It's essentially spaghetti bolognese but instead of pasta, I have bulgar wheat. I call it Beefy Bulgar and I made a big batch of it for dinner yesterday, so now have another three portions to work my way through for the remainder of the week. If anyone ever wants a recipe for the things I mention here, just say the word and I'll post it.

Daily summary:
Calories eaten: 1,500
Calories burned: 630
Calorie deficit: 1,230

Quote of the day - from Kim Peek - the real guy that the film Rain Man was loosely based on:
"Learn to recognise differences in others and treat them like you would want them to treat you. It will make this a better world to live in. Care and share and do your best. You don't have to be handicapped to be different - everybody is."

The Start

2011-06-28T09:36:00.000+01:00

Soooooo. I weighed myself this morning and tipped the scales at 13st 1 1/4lb (yes, my scales measure quarter pounds - may use them to weigh a burger at some point). While this is not good, it's important to know where I'm starting from and from here the only way is DOWN.

So here's how it's going to work. I'm going to weigh myself every Tuesday morning and will record the results here. I'm not going to provide exhaustive lists of everything that I've eaten. That shit gets boring reeeeeaaal quick. That said, I will at least initially note down my food - you'll soon see that I eat about the same five things over and over again, anyone else do that? :)

I have an app on my phone that I'll use to log my food - I've decided to take a simple calories in / calories out approach - no forbidden foods, no food groups excluded. I want this to be simple and most importantly sustainable long term. I also need to increase my activity levels - despite general perceptions I don't actually spend all of my time running / swimming / single handedly saving the rainforest.

In addition to the weekly weigh in, I'm going to measure myself when I get home this evening (as suggested by Tina) and will update these metrics monthly, so hopefully I should see some progress there even if the pounds aren't coming off as quickly as I'd like.

Which brings me neatly to my goals. I'm not yet at a place where I know what success looks like - how I will know when I'm finished. I don't know what my final goal weight should be, other than I have a vague hankering to be a size ten. I don't know if that is possible (have you seen my hips?!). So for now, I'm going to set an initial goal of getting down to 12 stone, which I hope to achieve by losing a fairly steady 2lb a week.

Finally I want to thank everyone that took a moment to comment here or on my Facebook or sent me a message. The outpouring of solidarity and support literally reduced me to tears last night. It's great to have you on board and hopefully we can inspire each other towards our goals (whatever they may be!) along the way.

All comments are welcome and gratefully received.

I'm fat and I want to talk about it.

2011-06-27T21:27:00.000+01:00

My last post sparked quite the conversation on Facebook. It is clear that people don't want to risk offending or upsetting their fat friends. It is also clear that there is no such reticence when commenting on the weight of slim people. It's perfectly ok to comment that someone is too skinny, but if a fat person so much as mentions their weight, it's a cause for panic. Our society is effed up.

Anyway, there is an unexpected side effect to my last post. I can't believe that I was so clueless that I didn't notice that I was pinning my colours to the mast. That I was (in a public forum) stating that I am fat and I want to talk about it. So I've been called on it. And have been offered support which I'm going to take. Starting from tomorrow I'm going to use this blog to chart my progress from fatty to slinky hot babe. I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow morning and will post that weight here as well as more details of what my goals are and how I plan to achieve them.

I'm not going to post every blog entry on Facebook, so if you want to follow my journey and support me, then I suggest that you follow me here on my blog. There's a button on the right of the page somewhere.

Tonight I'm drawing a line in the sand. It's a start line and tomorrow morning I cross it and start the race. Hope to have you on board for the trip.

The F Word

2011-06-27T14:51:00.000+01:00

I finished reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran at the weekend. LOVED it. It resonated on so many levels, but one of the things that really hit home was what she had to say about being fat....

"Is the word 'fat' making you wince when you read it? Does it feel like I'm being rude, or indelicate, to say it? In the last two generations, it's become a furiously overloaded word - in a conversation, when the word 'fat' appears, it often alarms people, like a siren going off and prompts a supportive, scared flurry of dismissal - 'You're not fat! Of course you're not fat! Babe, you're NOT FAT!' - when the person is, clearly and undeniably, fat, and just wants to discuss it"

If I had a pound for every time I'd had a conversation like that.... no, scrap that, if I'd LOST a pound for every time I'd had that conversation, I'd never have to have it again, because I'd no longer be fat. I mention to a friend that I'm on the wagon (again) and that I'm trying to lose weight (AGAIN) because I'm too fat. This is always met with a wall of denial. "Don't be silly Amy, you're not fat" "Oh pfft, you're fine as you are".

I've never been entirely sure whether people react this way because they think that's what I'm asking for. That I want them to reassure me that I'm not fat at all. But the point is that I AM. I am 5ft 7 and weigh in at 13 stone. I know that I'm not Biggest Loser material, I'm not looking to cut myself in half, but at the same time, there's no denying that both my health and my self image would improve enormously if I lost 2 - 3 stone. So, aiding me in my denial is really not want I'm asking for here. If I mention the fact that I'm fat, it's because I want to have a conversation about it, to be open about it, to admit it and to try and move on from it.

Even before reading Moran's book I'd started to wonder whether a lot of people respond with denial because they feel uncomfortable that I have confronted them with my fatness or they're bored with me trying to lose weight (AGAIN!!) and don't really believe that I'll ever get there. I've had a conversation in the past with one (size eight) friend where we were discussing my latest effort to lose weight and a few minutes later she OFFERED ME A BISCUIT. I'm sure she didn't mean to, but she may as well have said "Give up Fatty, there's no point in trying so you may as well stuff your face with a Garibaldi or two and stop going on about it". It's like the F word had reacted with chemicals in her brain, creating an immediate ring fence to block it off and make sure that it didn't surface and try to mingle with her other thoughts. Was it a panic reaction? A frantic internal conversation "Oh God, she said the F word, what should I do, shit, what should I do?! OFFER FATTY A BISCUIT! Fatties love biscuits, it'll make her forget the whole thing". Or was it just a thoughtless throw away offer? I'll never know, I've never called anyone on these things, just let them slide.

And if you think that the F word is bad, how about I crack open the big one, the O word. I'm overweight. At one point in the not too distant past, I was obese. That's the biggest O word of all, the one that you can't mention in polite conversation, like a fat version of the C word, you know the one I mean. It's still a giant taboo, even though it is quite literally a modern plague - why can't we talk about this?

There are only a very few people in my life that don't immediately deny my weight. One is my friend B. She (unlike many of my friends) is not a natural size eight. She has to work to keep herself to a size that she is happy with, and sometimes her desire for a glass (or three) of wine when she gets home from work is stronger than her desire to be a hot slim mama. So she gets it. She seems to understand that I'm not asking for sympathy and she therefore doesn't give it. She understands that I'm asking for HELP and just drags me to the gym with her and gets me to crack on with it.

I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm not asking anyone to help fuel a delusion that my weight isn't an issue, because it is and believe me I'm able to delude myself about it plenty as I'm reaching for the fourth packet of crisps out of the multipack. It might not be an issue to you, I know you're my friends and you'd love me if I were the size of a house, but it is to me, alright?

I don't have a conclusion to this post. No magic bullet that'll stop me from being fat, or that will stop you from being uncomfortable when I mention it. I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this subject, regardless of your dress size....

Tough Choices

2011-06-14T13:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I got off the train at Farncombe, jumped straight in the car and headed off to pick up Murdoch as usual. Unfortunately I was unable to collect him, as the A3 was shut due to an earlier accident (which I think may have been fatal - gutted for everyone involved in that) so Murdoch stayed overnight at the Dog House.

I headed there this morning as usual for the 6.20am walk (don't want the boy to forget who I am!) and chatted to my dog guy (G) as we walked the usual route.

We discussed the fact that Murdoch is very very different when I'm not around. We've had this conversation before, so this was not breaking news, but the conversation turned to the option of me changing how I am around Murdoch so that his behaviour doesn't deteriorate while I'm around.

Now I don't think that my treatment of Murdoch is anything out of the ordinary. I'm not extraordinarily affectionate towards him - he gets stroked, he gets tummy rubs and he gets the occasional cuddle, but he's not allowed to jump up, he's not allowed on the bed or the sofa anymore, so I'm not sure what changes I could make that might make a difference. G pointed out that if I took another dog home instead of Murdoch, I'd probably notice things that I don't do with that dog, but I do with Murdoch.

Of course the flipside of this is the fact that I may spend the next ten years of my life with Murdoch (he's six) so do I want to (for example) never give him a cuddle on the off chance that it might improve his behaviour? How much would it need to improve his behaviour by in order to make it worth the sacrifice?

There is a big part of me that is so happy for what we've been able to achieve for Murdoch over the past few months, he is now (for the most part) merrily running around offlead with other dogs (still with a muzzle on, as he has his moments - usually when I'm around!) which was inconceivable to me even a few short weeks ago.

Then there is a small part of me that would like more for him - to be able to have him offlead, wherever I am and to feel confident that he will not try anything stupid. In an unfamiliar environment, who knows how other, unknown dogs would react to my idiotic, boisterous dog? It could all too easily end in tears and with Murdoch muzzled and unable to defend himself, he'd be the one that would come of worst. In order to achieve a situation where unlimited offlead walks were possible, I'd need to look at modifying my behaviour. Or I can continue to enjoy my dog's company as usual and know that while he can be offlead all the time that he is at the Dog House, whenever he is out and about elsewhere with me, he'll be on his lead.

Really tough choices and no answers from me as yet.......

Three reasons I love working in London

2011-06-07T15:49:00.001+01:00

A couple of months ago I realised that my life had become pretty narrow so I left my safe little job in Godalming and headed for the Big Smoke. I feel like I'm still adjusting to the commute, but here is why I love working in the City.

1. When I can get the slightly earlier train, I have enough time to walk to work rather than taking the tube. This journey takes me along the South Bank and it is simply glorious in the sunshine.

2. Broadgate is a short walk from my office and you never know what crazy shit will be going on there in your lunchbreak. Last week there were old ladies linedancing

YouTube Video

And yesterday there were people playing beach volleyball

You can't make this stuff up.

3. There are at least 3 branches of Starbucks within a 5 minute walk of my office. As a non coffee drinker, this took on far greater significance once my colleague introduced me to the delights of the (skinny) chai tea latte. It's a thing of delicious beauty..... *pops out for latte* Slluuuuuuuuuurppp.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!

2011-06-07T13:04:00.000+01:00

I'm back! I jotted down some notes about my offline experience and here they are, somewhat in the form of disjointed ramblings.....

Friday (Day One)

Yesterday when I first thought up the idea of removing myself from my social media profile for three days, my first reaction was physical. A fluttery feeling of panic in my belly. And when I woke up this morning, my first thought was (as always) to grab my iPhone and check my Facebook and Twitter to get an update to start my day. Instead, I hit the snooze button, rolled over and slept a little more.

So it's been 12 hours since I last checked my profiles and one of the things that I've noticed is that I now have the habit of noting little things about my day and thinking about them in terms of tweets or FB status updates, like "Feeling headachey and rubbish, think I might be coming down with a cold :(" or "Think I might run back to Waterloo today" or "God I'm tired". It all suddenly seems quite banal and boring - why do I need to share these things with the world?

I feel horribly disconnected. Like all of my friends are at a party to which I haven't been invited. And y'know what? The party probably isn't that great, and I'll hear all about it on Monday, but until then, I'm filled with a panicky feeling of MISSING OUT.

God it's like crack. I can't stop thinking about it :(

There's no doubt about it, social media enhances my life. It adds interest and novelty to my day.

Wow, just read an article that contained these words.... “…a bit like sleep helps us to make sense of the day, it’s our time offline that helps us to make sense of everything online.”. Well that about sums it up really. I do feel as though I'm getting a clearer idea of why I like to be on Twitter / Facebook. As someone who lives alone and sits in an office environment where my back is to the rest of my colleagues, connecting with people online makes me feel engaged and part of a wider community. It's a community that judges me on my personality (or rather those parts of my personality that I choose to share) rather than what I look like. I get a kick when someone retweets me or replies to me. It's a SUPERkick if it happens to be someone that I don't know. It makes me feel like I'm interesting - like I'm the person at the party that has done the standout party trick.

Was quite happily getting on with my afternoon's work when I got a call from my dog guy asking if it was ok if he dropped Murdoch off at my flat, rather than waiting for me to pick him up. This is fine, in fact it's great as it means that once I get off the train I can just stroll home and not have to worry about going to collect the dog. But my first thought was.. "My flat is a mess!" and I really wanted to post about it, so my lovely friends and followers could reassure me that it didn't matter. Instead, I am sitting here worrying that I may have left my pants on the floor :(

What a beautiful day. Took the time to walk back to Waterloo from the office. No rush, took it easy. Walked through the City and headed over the Millennium Bridge to the South Bank. It was vibing this evening, with an exciting mix of tourists and people enjoying a post-work drink in the sunshine. The South Bank Centre in particular was packed and had loads of kids running through a sprinkler system. We Brits know how to enjoy good weather properly!

Days Two & Three...... erm, nothing. Not a thing occurred to me to write at all. Didn't even think that much about what might be going on in my absence. So I guess once you've gone through the shakes and panic of cold turkey, then it's plain sailing.

That said, I laughed an awful lot when I logged back into Facebook yesterday morning and saw what my lovely friends had been up to on my wall.... :)

A Social Experiment

2011-06-02T15:00:00.000+01:00

I realised today that it has been more than a year since I blogged and I'm not really sure why. I mean my last post was a cracker, covering exciting topics such as Cheryl Cole, Godalming Kebab Centre and badger news.

Since that last post in February 2010, I’ve run two marathons, completed first a team triathlon and then a few weeks ago a solo one. I’ve managed to find a first class dog training / walking team that have been able to put a lot of Murdoch’s problems to bed. I’ve become an aunt, changed jobs and started commuting to London every day. So it can’t be because I have nothing to say.

Is it because I'm used to condensing my thoughts into 140 characters for Twitter and boring people with the minutiae of my life on a more regular basis? Is it because I already overshare on Facebook?

Short answer: I don’t know.

Slightly longer answer: Probably all of the above, but really I don’t know.

I guess there’s only one way to find out. I’m going to do the unthinkable. I’m going to go offline.

*GASP*Is this possible? Is it wise? Jeeeez, is it really possible?!?!?!

Short answer: I don’t know.

But I intend to find out. It’s not forever; I’m just going to sign out of Twitter and Facebook for three days – Friday, Saturday & Sunday - and am going to see what effect it has on my life. I’ll still be checking my email, but will turn off all notifications.

So if you see me wandering about wild eyed and twitchy over the next few days, please gently remove my iPhone from my desperately clenched hand and, if you’re feeling particularly kind, offer me a consolatory slice of cake or a cup of tea.

I’ll be back on Monday morning to see what everyone has been up to, but in the meantime, you guys are just going to have to get used to not knowing what I plan to have for dinner.

See you on the flipside…..

Godalming

2010-02-24T21:08:00.000Z

Several things have happened recently in this fair town of ours that have raised some interesting ponderings....

Firstly, how on earth is it that I didn't even know that Cheryl and Ashley Cole live here until I saw a million paps lurking outside their front gates yesterday morning? Even being shown a picture (in Heat magazine) of Ashley coming out of the Godalming Kebab Centre didn't make me realise. Clearly it is the most newsworthy thing to happen here of recent times - if you search for "Godalming" in Google News, most of the stories feature poor old Cheryl's marital problems.

Secondly, why the hell is it called Godalming Kebab Centre? Most places just have a kebab shop. I picture this place having Doner Workshops and seminars on the exact right amount of chillis and garlic mayo to put on a kebab. Maybe Ashley wasn't texting girls asking to see their kebab, maybe he just wanted them to go get him one.

Thirdly and finally, some breaking Godalming news that is entirely unrelated to the Coles. I was out running along Catteshall Road this evening when I came across a badger. A freakin' badger. Just strolling up the road without a care in the world - until it saw me stampeding up the road when frankly it froze. I think it may have crapped itself, or that might just have been me. I'd like to say that I calmly tipped this gracious nocturnal creature a nod but unfortunately that is not the case. I found myself saying "Aaaaah, badger, badger, badger, BADGER, BADGEEEEEERRRRRRRR" until we both decided to run away. I think that Cheryl may have handled it a bit better, although possibly if she'd spent a bit more time handling Ashley's badger she might not be in this mess in the first place.

More conveyancing fun

2009-12-08T12:33:00.000Z

So much has happened, most of it not good at all.

Conveyancing rumbled on at the beginning of last week and by Tuesday we are the point where the only thing holding up exchange is my mortgage offer paperwork. I have been chasing Chelsea as much as possible and Mark has been liaising with the central office on my behalf. On Tuesday at 4.45pm, I am just leaving the office to go and order my kitchen from B&Q when I get a call from Mark. He wants to ask me a few questions about my bank statements. I politely point out that I have answered many, many questions about my bank statement already. In fact I spent half an hour on the phone to Claire answering questions about my bank statement. I’ve no idea why the underwriters care that I spent £7 in a kitchenware shop, but I did, and I don’t care so there *raspberry*. He then informs me that all is fine and the underwriters will now be processing the paperwork. However I’m not fooled. Claire told me the same thing when I ran through my bank statement with her WEEKS ago.

From Wednesday until Thursday I’m kept on the end of a bloody string – being given deadlines by Mark “Well we did to get this done by 10am or we won’t be able to release the funds in time” followed by “well we can still do it via telegraphic transfer, but it will cost you an extra £25” (I told him where he could stick his £25). All this time, apparently, the underwriters are chasing up with the compliance department, who for all I know have serious concerns over the fact that I once spent 99p on a lolly.

Apparently Chelsea could have got the paperwork, exchanged and completed on Friday, but in the end I called it off at 4.30 on Thursday when the papers were not through.

To add insult to injury. POP rang me on Friday to tell me that after I’d damn near given myself a stroke getting all the papers sorted out in time, my buyers couldn’t release the funds in time to exchange that day. At this point I strapped on my angry eyes and considered (for the first time, but not the last) going on a mad axe rampage.

The weekend passed, I did a bit of halfhearted packing (by this point, I have actually stopped believing that I will ever get to move) and before I knew it, we were at Monday morning. I feel quite cheerful. Today is the day. I will exchange and then everything is ok for completion on Wednesday. Easy peasy. I call my solicitor first thing to get him on the case. He tells me that he is waiting to hear from the buyers’ solicitor on whether they are able to release the deposit funds for exchange. I suggest that he chase them up on that – he says that he will if he hasn’t heard anything by lunchtime. Useless eejit. Does he have more hours in the day than the rest of us? Only thing I can think of to explain the complete lack of urgency attached to everything.

I call him mid afternoon when I have heard nothing. He tells me that he chased up (Not sure when – 1 or maybe 2ish, lalalalaaaa) and has not heard back from the other solicitor. A vein starts to slowly throb in my forehead. I stress the importance of exchanging today. In one ear and out the other. I’m starting to really hate this man.

At 5pm I get another call from him. He has received a call from the other solicitor and wanted to check with me if I was still ok to complete on Wednesday. WHAT THE F@CK IS HE WAITING FOR? A GOLDPLATED INVITATION???!!!! JUST EFFING EXCHANGE, I HAVE BEEN CHASING YOU ALL DAY! DON’T YOU THINK I MIGHT HAVE MENTIONED IT IF I WANTED TO CHANGE THE EFFING COMPLETION DATE???!!!! I then receive another call from him at 5.30 explaining that he has been unable to contact the other solicitor and there will be no exchange of contracts today. Frankly I lose it. I tell him to make sure the exchange happens tomorrow by 10am – no pissing around waiting till lunchtime – just GET THE EFFING JOB DONE! I point out that this is costing me extra money – we’re now looking at the telegraphic transfer, and given that there was no earthly reason why we couldn’t have exchanged, I am appalled at the abysmal service. He did not know what to say. I get off the phone, tell my dad the bad news, hang up and cry and cry and cry for about 10 minutes. Murdoch licks my face to try and cheer me up.

I fail to understand why this has to be so difficult? I think these people have law degrees written on the back of a McDonalds napkin in pink crayon. I cannot believe that anyone who has enough passion, commitment, drive and intelligence to get through law school could be so incompetent. It’s just a mystery to me.

So this morning I send Loveless an email to reiterate that I expect exchange to happen by 10am today. Frankly by this point I don’t care what he has to do to achieve this. If he has to run up Haslemere High Street with his chap hanging out, I don’t care - whatever it takes. I go into a meeting at 9.30am and come out to a voicemail message telling me that the buyer is now on board but they are having trouble contacting the people that I am buying from. Good job it was a voicemail or I would have gone ballistic. The vein from yesterday is still throbbing in my forehead and anyone that knows me knows not to mess with the vein. It is a harbinger of doom. I also have a message from my dad. He tells me that he has spoken to Loveless and instructed him to go ahead and exchange as soon as possible, no need to ring me up and check.

12:10 I get a call from Loveless. My heart beats faster in my chest. Unfortunately this only causes the vein to throb harder when Loveless tells me that they are ready to exchange and he is just ringing me to check that I am still ok to go ahead. WHAT THE [insert your favourite expletives here]. I calmly told him to just get the bloody job done.

12:22 I get another call. We’ve exchanged – about effing time too.

Conveyancing Fiasco UPDATE

2009-11-27T08:48:00.000Z

After lunch yesterday...

Called Helen at POP. She told me that she had faxed Blake Lapthorn (buyers’ solicitor) about the leasehold info and was sure that they would contact POP if they needed anything (thanks for the sense of urgency dear). She said that my solicitor’s partner would be back in tomorrow and the file would be passed to him for action. I asked her whether she felt it was realistic for exchange to happen this week. She said no, probably not. The woman is an effing limp rag, it would be nice to prove her wrong.

Having got such a laissez faire response from POP, I called BL to check that they had received the docs and promptly got a bollocking for ringing them direct. I did however ascertain that they had received the docs and that they would be reviewed this afternoon. I then emailed Tony at Mann and explained all of the above to him and asked him to keep chasing BL as much as possible.

Went into the loo for a little cry and was greeted by a colleague with the words "hey stressypants" which was nice and helped matters loads.

I then called Chelsea BS again as they hadn't returned my call. They took another message, then Mark called me back. He started at Guildford branch yesterday so doesn't know a thing and asked me disturbing questions such as "so how much were you wanting to borrow?". Not what you need to hear when you're supposed to be at the point of exchange. Apparently there is a note on my file that POP is not on the panel of approved solicitors - Mark is not sure what that means. He is going to call the underwriters this afternoon, find out what the hell is going on and call me back.

UPDATE 15:45

Utter disaster. Mark from Chelsea calls me back. To inform me that because I have £3k outstanding on a student loan (which they have known for weeks) the underwriters are not willing to lend me the full amount that I asked for. Bizarrely they have reduced the amount they are willing to lend by more than the amount of my student loan, so it seems as though I’m being penalised for having one, which is nice. I ask Mark when this decision was made and he informs me it was made on the 16th November – 10 days ago, and no-one had bothered to tell me. Then Mark starts going on about POP needing to contact the Law Society about a change of address to be added to the panel. It is evident that he has no clue what he is talking about, as he is unable to answer any question I have about this.

So I hang up, go into the car park, call my dad and start to cry hysterically down the phone to him. After about 5 minutes of hysteria, my dad asks me what I would like him to do. I ask him to call Brian Farley – another solicitor at POP and a man that managed my conveyancing last time round without a single issue. I was just too upset to be able to do it. Dad caught Mr Farley just as he was about to go to London for a meeting but nonetheless he found time to look into this beforehand. Within minutes, he has sorted out the panel issue and will be looking at the other conveyancing issues this morning.

And that’s the saga up to date. Will I be able to complete next Friday? Doubtful. But I’m going to keep my chin up and get this bloody job done. Keep your fingers crossed.....

Conveyancing: An object lesson in how to create an utter fiasco....

2009-11-26T11:54:00.000Z

Wednesday 10:00. I receive a call from Tony at Mann Countrywide Haslemere – the estate agent who sold my flat back in May. Tony helpfully informs me that my solicitor has swanned off to the Costa Del Whatever for a holiday without having the courtesy to tell me. Usually I wouldn’t mind, we’re not close personal friends and I’m not Passport Control, but given that I’m supposed to exchange contracts this week with a view to completing at the end of next week, this is not welcome news. I call Potter Owtram and Peck and they confirm. He’s sipping cocktails by the pool and the person assigned to my conveyancing in his absence is out of the office until tomorrow. Unamused, I suggest that they might want to locate my file and update me on the current status of the conveyancing. They promise to keep an eye out for it, but I hear nothing.

Tuesday 09:00. I call Helen at POP; she is back in the office and helpfully starts our conversation by asking me whether they have received a response to an outstanding query from HydeMartlet, the housing association who own the lease on my current flat. I patiently point out that it was her effing job to tell me that. I then point out that I had in fact done her job and chased up with HydeMartlet and that it had been sent 11/11 directly to my buyer's solicitors; Blake Lapthorn. I gently suggested that she contact them to confirm receipt and to ensure that they have signed paperwork and are on schedule for exchange.

She then informs me that we couldn't exchange without my mortgage offer paperwork which still hasn't come through. I respectfully request that she call Chelsea Building Society to chase up the docs. Not filled with confidence, I also called the Guildford branch of CBS and actually managed to get through, which made a nice change. I was then informed that Claire, the woman who has been dealing with my application has moved to the Southampton branch. It was at this point that I started to wonder whether a nefarious Bond villain was screwing with me behind the scenes, or possibly that Al Qaeda desperately want that particular flat to construct pipe bombs and are hell bent on not letting me buy it.

I ensured that the chap was aware of the urgency of the situation - that it was the only thing holding up the process and exchange is due NOW. He is going to get Claire to call me back. Have heard nothing as yet.

BREAKING NEWS 10:53

Mann just called me again. Apparently HydeMartlet have not sent through the info. On the 11th they sent a memo saying that they were processing the query and have had nothing since. Have chased HM again. Someone hates me.

On the upside I have booked a removal van for next Friday from the MVH in Rake. That was disturbingly easy, so no doubt I will show up on Friday and there will be a wheelbarrow waiting for me.

MORE BREAKING NEWS 11:06

I have dealt with HydeMartlet for over eight years. During this time they have demonstrated time and again a propensity towards bureaucracy and incompetence, however two weeks ago I stumbled upon the lone helpful and efficient employee there. I can’t imagine she will last long, but hoorah for Michelle Tant, I will name my first born for you. She has tirelessly liaised with the rest of the eejits there and it seems that for once it is not HydeMartlet throwing a spanner in the works. Bravo to Julia Morey who did actually send out the information on the 11th November and forwarded on the email that she sent to the solicitors to prove it. It does contain the answers to the queries. Have forwarded this on to all solicitors and copied in Tony so that he can push through.

UPDATE 11:07

Have got delivery failure message from Blake Lapthorn email. So maybe they didn't receive the original email after all.

What next??!!!!

UPDATE 11:21

Spoke to Tony at Mann - they confirmed that HydeMartlet ARE in fact useless tossers who used an incorrect email address. I sent it to the correct one.... and got a ruddy out of office! Thankfully there was a contact listed on it so forwarded the email on AGAIN marked URGENT. Mann is also going to call up to confirm receipt and to ensure that papers are signed ASAP.

I'm tired and it’s not even lunchtime.

One from the archives....

2009-11-24T21:00:00.000Z

.... Smackdown

June 2006 - an ordinary morning, just like any other. I had just walked onto the playing field after a stroll through the woods, when Murdoch ran off to the right. I called him to me, and the cheeky little devil started running on a diagonal that would have allowed him to run past in front of me. So I ran forward to intercept him. I foolishly thought that he would have enough sense to stop, but he didn't and ran full pelt into my legs.

He was only a puppy at the time so I don't think anyone could have foreseen what happened next. The impact of him hitting my legs sent me flying in the air and I landed with one heck of a thud on my back. Full body slam. The impact of my head hitting the ground made my glasses fly off my face - I found them on the ground 5 metres away. It may also have caused an earthquake in Tokyo.

To be fair if there had been any casual observers, they probably would have peed their pants laughing, it must have looked so funny - the sort of thing that would have earned me an easy £250 on You've Been Framed. Unfortunately I think that it also earned me a mild concussion (self diagnosed mind you).

I post this as a cautionary tale - anyone who states that having a pet is good for your health has clearly never been mown down by a staffie on full hurtle.

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Mortal Enemies

2009-11-15T19:03:00.000Z

The hound is not the most liberal of creatures. He knows what he likes and he has even stronger opinions on what he hates. The list is quite long and includes all other dogs, birds, cats, clothes airers, bits of paper that fall off the table, the man that delivers the newspaper and the postman.

On our recent holiday to Scotland we added another to the list. We were happily walking out towards the loch for a nice walk (after yet more rain - thought we were going to get washed away for most of the week) when Murdoch made the fateful decision to walk on the other side of a wheelie bin to me. The lead went taut and of course knocked the bin over. This scared the jeebers out of Murdoch (the hound is scared of PAPER falling for chrissakes). He tried to run away but unfortunately the lead had got entangled in the wheel and the more he ran, the more the bin "chased" him. I was torn between concern, hysterical laughter and physical pain as the bin whacked me in the shins each time Murdoch ran past me. Eventually managed to get the lead untangled, but was unable to get Murdoch near the bin again for the remainder of the holiday. Bless him - he really is a dog of little brain.

Mmmm tea

2009-10-22T08:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday Murdoch helped himself to some Blackcurrant, ginseng & vanilla tea. Didn't manage to boil the kettle so just had a good chew on the bag. There is now tea all over my sofa so will therefore be washing the throw for about the 100th time this month.

Highly upsetting experience

2009-10-21T15:34:00.000+01:00

I have just been subjected to a lunchtime abs class in the gym.... in front of mirrors!

My stomach podge looks bad enough when standing up, but being forced to watch it ripple and bulge as I crunched was both hypnotic and vile. I think it is a strategic ploy by the trainer to put fatties off eating pie. Well job done, lady, I’m now determined to stop being such an enormous fatty.

Which is proving slightly problematic today. I think I may have an actual illness that is making me ravenously hungry all of the time. In all seriousness, I ate a chicken pasta salad for lunch and was hungry again five minutes later. Thankfully there is a DEARTH of anything nice to eat here in the office. I was forced to eat a cup a soup that had been lurking at the back of my drawer for about 2yrs and it was VILE. And I'm still hungry.

Maybe I’ll eat quite a bit of chocolate to cheer myself up – and wear a very baggy t-shirt to the next session.....

Hoover FAIL!!!

2009-10-20T09:26:00.000+01:00

Came to the realisation yesterday evening that my Hoover is UTTERLY crappy. This stunning revelation occurred as I spent an hour and a half “scrubbing” my carpets with the pet hair removal attachment. Why does the Hoover do such a terrible job without this attachment? I had to empty the container FOUR times, just full of dog hair. It was actually quite disgusting to think that this had been sat in my carpet all this time, despite the fact that I vacuum regularly. Kim and Aggie would have had a field day.

Irresistible

2009-10-19T15:21:00.000+01:00

Murdoch has finally made the link in his furry little brain between Marmite on toast (one of his favourites) and the large glass jar left on the kitchen counter.
This leap of intuition was accompanied by a leap of effort and the subsequent gain of the Marmite jar. I got home from running training to find Murdoch sitting in his bed with his guilty look on his face, and a Marmite jar with a severely chewed lid on the sofa.
Determined not to let the hound get away with such thievery I grabbed the jar and put it in his face, stating firmly; “Naughty. NAUGHTY”. Chastisement works better if you are able to keep a straight face while chastising. Tragically I was unable to do so, as the hound managed to completely undermine me. Not his fault bless him, he was desperately trying to keep his end of the bargain by looking all sad and guilty, but his nose let him down . He just couldn’t help sniffing at the jar of deliciousness that I was waving under his nose.....

Scared the ruddy life out of me.,.

2009-10-09T19:51:00.000+01:00

The combined stupidity of myself and hound just culminated in a situation where he scared the bejeesus out of me.

I came into the living area to see Murdoch trying to get something out from underneath the sofa. He was using a nose / paw combo, so it was clearly something that he was desperate to get. I thought it might be a spider or something, so didn't want to get too close, but just as I neared the sofa, he got it, pounced and a squirt of red stuff hit the floor. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!! What the hell?! What the heeeeelllllllllllllllllll is thaaaaatttt??! As I stood there gibbering, Murdoch hooked out something else from underneath the sofa.

As it turns out, it was an empty punnet. Hound had only stolen some plum tomatoes from the worktop. So not a giant bloody spider or mouse then. Boy did I feel stupid.......