Proper Followers

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Running me ragged!

DIET DELI
Okay, first up is the diet. Or should I say the non-diet because I don't actually start the diet till Christmas eve. The plan is, and I'm sure all six of my regular readers and one of the two casual readers and the occasional reader of this bloggage, is already sick and tired of hearing this, but here I go again, I'm going to lose the weight first and then go on the diet!
RUNNING
All I ever seem to do these days is run around like a headless chicken. Everywhere I look there is something else to do. There are quite simply not enough hours in the day to do everything that needs doing here. Apart from all the chores and the extensive re-building of this house there is my son Jack. Jack expects me to do absolutely everything for him. He wants all his dinners making and all his clothes washing and he needs lifts to here and there and bus fares and clothes money and ... need I go on? However, I guess that that is the parents lot. On the other hand, if I didn't have all these things to do, what would I do? Would I be any happier? Any richer? I don't suppose I would, so I better put up and shut up!
HALF WAY HOUSE!
In the weight loss stakes, I'm on day fifty with thirty four to go. So, I've crept well past the half way mark without even noticing. It is so easy to lose weight, I say this not as a boast but as a warning. The difficult thing is maintaining that weight loss, any fool can lose a few pounds but not many can keep it off for very long and herein lies the challenge. Once the weight is lost I need to make sure that I don't allow any of it to creep back on. Easier said than done, I hear the experienced dieters out there exclaim!
MANCHESTER CON-GESTION MADNESS
I don't wish to say much more on the subject of the con-gestion charge in Manchester apart from the fact that the whole thing is an exercise in madness. Okay, so this is where I stand on the issue. Vote No!
METROLINK
I was very happy to see that some of the former Fallowfield loop line, which has been left untended for many years now, has been cleared of the overgrown trees and rubble in preparation for the laying of new tracks for the Metrolink tram/rapid transit expansion. The bit of waste land, re-claimed is between Firsway and Chorlton, there may well be more already done but I haven't had a chance to go and check it out yet. On the downside there are still many hundreds of miles of dismantled railway routes in this region that there are no plans to restore.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Global Warning !!!

LOOKING BACK!
I was just looking to see if I could find the date of the post I made last year about the Beetham tower. I didn't find it (yet) but I came across the following little posting 'Talking Italian' and the four subbies after it, which deal with our little end of season break, last year. I enjoyed re-reading it so I thought you just might too, anyway...
TALKING ITALIAN
We went on one of those end of season bargain breaks, three weeks for the price of two, granny goes free, and gratis car-hire if you book a budget airline flight thru the same agent. We only wanted to go for seven days so when the company lady added up the deal and subtracted the discounts they actually owed us money! How mad is that? When they say it's cheaper than staying at home, they really mean it. We'd have been daft not to go, so we packed our bags and headed for Lago di Garda!
SUMMER SUNSHINE
It was a bargain break on a budget airline and we had to fly from Liverpool's John Lennon airport. How Rock 'n Roll's that? I had flown from Liverpool airport many years ago on one of those wind-up-and-go-planes to Ronaldsway in the Isle of Man. In those days Liverpool airport was called Speake and the terminal was like a garden shed! I know they've done it up now - it's more like a double garage these-days! Don't you just hate flying? I do! But what can you do, if it's cheaper to go abroad than to stay at home - then you'd be a fool not to go! Anyway, as it turned out we left on a miserable autumn day and flew for two hours to Milano, where we encountered summer sunshine.
LAKE GARDA
We picked up the gratis hire-car from the aeroporto and drove for one hour to our accommodation on the banks of Lake Garda. The nice car-hire people had up-graded us to a large four door vehicle, which was very handy for Ziggy! So, thank you very much to the wonderful staff at Bergamo airport, which is about as close to Milan as Liverpool is to Manchester, but that's budget (bud-jet?) for you I guess. As it happens, it turned out in our favour as Bergamo is a lot of Kilometers nearer to Lago di Garda than Milano. So, the sun was shining and the camp site was first class, did I mention that we were in a tent? Well, you can't have everything, can you? And the tents are FM! flaming massive!
UNIFORMS
One thing we noticed this time in Italy was the number of people wearing some kind of uniform, we were strolling along the lake road when a bunch of people on bicycles came towards us, there must have been fifty people in the group, men, women and youngsters. There were fat people and thin people and tall people and small ones, but the funny thing was they were all wearing the same outfit, black Lycra style cycle shorts and a black and red vest. We sat by one of the little harbours on the Lakeside near Simione and a car pulled up and six young men got out. They walked towards the harbour wall in single file. They were identically dressed in long blue shorts and white pumps and socks and purple polo shirts with a little anchor motif on the chest. They climbed down the wooden ladder to a waiting boat and sailed out into the morning mist on the lake.
THE SOPRANO'S
The best uniform buddies that we saw were the Soprano's. The campsite thermometer thingy read 32 degrees and these guys were dressed in wellington boots and orange waterproof trousers, big oven-mitt style gloves and blue polo shirts and dark glasses. They all looked and acted like Tony Soprano and they were the campsite bin-men. All the happy campers on the campsite had separated their empty bottles into one bin and their plastics into another, cardboard into a different place and general rubbish into another skip, all for recycling and then the Soprano's came along and recycled everything! Into one big dustbin-cart!
GLOBAL THINGY
I found the posts I was looking for, the first one dates back to November the eighteenth 2006. The eighteenth being the first day that I could see the Beetham tower that winter. All of the leaves had fallen off all of the twenty seven trees that I can see from this window. The second posting is from December the fourth 2007. The fourth being the day the same thing happened last year. So what does all that prove? Global warming? I don't know, but I'll tell you that I can't see the Beetham Tower, yet, this year.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Running Backwards..

DOWNHILL TO CRIMBO
Don't you just hate the commerciality of this season? It's not quite bonfire night yet but all the shops are displaying their Christmas stock.
DIET NEWS
Nothing untoward to report, this diet is so easy to maintain and the weight continues to fall off, although I really don't know or quite understand where it all actually goes to. But it disappears and each day I feel closer to my target. It has slowed down a little this week, which I expected but I know that by next week another significant amount of flubber will have gone forever.
STARTING DATE(S)
How do you know when to start your diet? is one of the many questions people ask. My reply is always, Tomorrow! You see, you need a time and a place to start anything and you need time for your imagination to inform and impress your mind of the decision. Also, although you don't have to follow my advice, I recommend just two days in the year as an actual starting date, if you truly desire to succeed. The dates I recommend are the first of February and the second of October.
TIPS & TRICKS
To be successful in the weight loss stakes you need to have many tricks and tips up your sleeve, I gave a few last time in the post below this one, you can scroll down a litttle bit to find them if you like. By the way, did I say 'don't try this at home?' Okay, I'll say it now! DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!