The Disappointment Index

OK, so the headline today is:
Weigh-in:
17 stone 7.25.

Yes, that's going in the wrong direction - I've put on a pound and three quarters.
But these things all depend, I've found, n the way you look at them. You can look at that and go into a funk about it, overcompensate, exercise like a demon and hurt yourself...Or you can nod, and understand, and commit to more work, harder work, and push on forward. Your own attitude actually dictates the measure of the Disappointment Index against you interpret bad news.

Today I choose to nod and understand and push forward, making time for exercise, perhaps more often in each day - an hour before work, perhaps, and an hour afterward.

This kind of determination is not really helped by the otherwise good news of a flurry of business for my Jefferson Franklin Editing business. More work, more dealines, more sitting on my arse staring at a computer screen. But at least let me start off with the optimistic delusion that I'll do more exercise from here on, so that when it fails to materialise, it at least registers on the Disappointment Index, eh?

The Wednesday Dimension

Well…that was worthwhile.

Travelled a few hundred miles round trip, sat in a meeting that lasted over four hours, spoke about eight sentences, including three to bitchslap a colleague who deserved it, learned said colleague was pulling a fast one, bitchslapped him again as was necessary, and tried, for the sake of my brain, to entirely ignore the rest of the meeting.

That was worth a 5.45AM start, about seven hours sat on trains, and an extra hour on a bus when the connecting train was missed.

See – this is why I particularly hate the Wednesday UberCommutes, when they happen, which is about quarterly. On a Monday UberCommute, I get a shedload done on the way to London, I don’t stop during the day, and then I get an extra shedload done on the journey home, cos it stops me focussing on the journey itself. On a Wednesday, it just feels…wrong. Feels like an extra specially weird parallel dimension. And the danger, from a Disappearing point of view, is that I treat Wednesdays like Mondays, and eat stupid stuff, later in the evening, and add the cherry of disappointment to my cake of generalised up-fuckery during the week, just ahead of a weigh-in. Did that tonight – got to Cardiff and went to Burger King, mainly to have somewhere warm to sit for a half-hour between the arrival of my train and the arrival of my bus. The grim price for which of course is having to order and eat something from Burger King.

I’m fairly sure there’s a special room at the back of every Burger King where they mechanically remove all the taste molecules from their food, and inject an extra couple of spoonfuls of oddly neutral grease, just to make sure they hit the double whammy of tastelessness and unhealthy.

(Shudders)

Anyhow – now on a bus home, sweaty and stinky after a long-sleeved, heavy-coated, cowboy-hatted day which started with gales and rain, and turned treacherously blue and bright and hot as soon as I got to London. 

Oh...addendum - the bus driver got lost. Somewhere between Pontypridd and Merthyr, the driver turned to us at a junction and said:
"Well, I'm completely lost," he slurred. "Annnyone know where the Hell we are?"

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Seriously," he said. "No idea where we are..."

Turned out we were in fact somewhere between Penrhiwciber and Aberdare. We're not supposed to be annnnywhere near either of them. Eventually, one of the other passengers...y'know...with geographical skills...guided him back to the main road. That was just about the perfect end to a perfect Wednesday Dimension day...

Tomorrow will be a fairly chunky setback day, I’m sure. Then I’ll pick myself off the floor and get the Hell on with things.

The Crunchy Rice Nostalgia

Funny, isn't it, how some things from our childhood scar us indelibly for life, while others become lasting favourites, smiling sense memories or stories that bring tears to our eyes.

Lemon Meringue Pie, for instance, is something that even at the age of 41, I couldn't quite bring myself to eat. I know of course on some rational, grown-up level that there are great chefs who make the perfect meringue, who make their own lemon curd and bring the two together on sublime pastry...
But for me, the dinner ladies at my primary school, with their fizzy dishsoap meringue, sickly sweet sherbert lemon curd and damp and barely cooked dough have barred me forever from the potential pleasure of that dessert.

On the other hand, something that in most ordinary cases would be regarded as a complete and utter failure fills me with not only pleasure but a nostalgic longing for one of the three things my gran could really cook.

Have you ever boiled a pot of rice beyond the point of extinction, and then left it to burn to buggery on the bottom of the pan? Have ya?

Gotta tell you, if you haven't, you've never really lived. Prising great lattice-works of brown or blackened, brittle as a celebrity marriage rice off the bottom of a pan, dosing it with a couple of drops of dark soy sauce and eating it like a weird amalgum of popcorn and peanut brittle and caramel and love.

I mention this merely because there are women who love me, and today, two of them who know about this admittedly mad but entirely overpowering culinary nostalgia-bomb have made this amazing dish for me - had it at both Ma's, and at home.

Ahhhh, good days...

Sadly, this will go into my little mental rolodex, and when things suck - as they probably will Thursday morning, and definitely will tomorrow morning during a misplaced UberCommute - I'll flick back to the day of Double Crunchy Rice and remember that life as a Disappearing Man really isn't that bad after all...

The Horseshoe Effect

Yep - did an interim weigh-in this morning, and it's fair to say those few days of deadlines and socialising over discipline did me some damage...but the funny thing is, I'm kinda cool about it. It has a cause and an effect, and it'll be tackled in due course.

Due course beginning this morning when I tried to go and do a pre-work walk, only to turn sharply around when it transpired there was black ice everywhere I tried to put a foot. Came home, got on the bike, worked away my breakfast.

Have had a reasonable lunch, and am having a heavy-ish but not madly excessive Indian dinner, and will continue to work steadfastly towards my goals. If, as seems likely, I'm heavier at the next weigh-in than I was at the last, there's a reasonable explanation for it, and on we go.

Today though, the story is of the horseshoe lodged in d's ass. She went in to work today, dealing with all the usual Monday stuff, when she was handed a pile of money by a co-worker. Last week, she won a thing called the Bonus Ball in her office Lotto pool - £30-odd quid. At which time, she glibly told her co-workers:
"You wait...I'm gonna win it next week too...just to show you how it's done..."

So when, this morning, she was handed another pile of cash, it came with certain wary looks. Yep, she'd done it again, another £30-odd quid.

"I dunno what to tell you," her co-worker said. "Clearly, you should have bought some Lottery tickets..."

She came home tonight, fired up her iPad and said "Oh, look - 'News About Your Ticket'..."

OK, granted, that was only £3, but still...
My only gripe about the thing, thinking about it, is that when the second pile of cash was handed to her today, she apparently didn't think to say "Just wait...next week, I'll win the jackpot..."

Sigh...and on such errors, the prospect of liposuction turns...

The Playpen Principle

Soooo....yeah...that whole "not eating fried food embargo firmly back in place" thing...

I want to ask a question: What does "Family Friendly" actually mean?

I ask because we went out last night with Ma and my aunt, to a "Family Friendly" place. Assorted screaming hellions were running wild around the place, with a noise level fit to pierce all but the most hardened heavy metal eardrums. We'd booked a table, but when we got there, it had been given away.
"It'll be...erm...five minutes while we shift someone else and...erm...clean it up," said the charmless girl who waved a plastic-covered menu at us. "Have a drink at the bar," she said. We did - everyone but me had an "unlimited soft drink" which involved going beyond the vestibule and into the unbridled screeching chaos of the restaurant proper. I stayed to hold our place. A clueless creature with a clipboard came nosing past.
"Any news of our table?" I asked, clamly.
"No!" she told me, as if I'd asked if I could stab her repeatedly in the stomach. "No, no tables. You'll have to wait half an hour, that alright?"
"Not really," I said.
"Sir," she sneered, "Everybody's having to wait tonight."
"Five minutes ago, you told us it would be five minutes," I reminded her.
"But," she said, "everybody's waiting."
"And that's our fault...why?"
"Sir!" she sneered again. By which time, the other three had come back, with another girl in tow, who had wiped the baby-spittle off what, as it turned out, was our table.
"Ha!" I didn't actually say.
We went to sit down, and pulled out menus.
An entirely third young woman apparently devoid of hopes and dreams came to simultaneously dash all of ours.
"It'll be an hour and a half before you get food," she said, almost casually. A pair of tearaways chose that moment to bang into my chair as they tore away, hopped up on sugar and unreasoning childhood mentalness.
"An hour and a -?" said Ma, thinning her lips.
"Or there's buffet," she said.
"Four buffets," we all said in unison...

...without actually knowing what it was.

The buffet, as it turned out, was three types of fried chicken, one apparently boiled excressence of chicken, allegedly "smothered" in cheese and bacon...plus chips, and beans. The only way to not eat fried food on the bufet would have been to eat...
beans...
and more beans...
followed by beans. With beans on the side.
So yes. Another meal mainly comprising of fried stuff.

Meanwhile, a kid behind us took about three kid's breath and screeeeeeamed the place down. So I ask again - on what level are these places "Family Friendly"? The kids get hopped up on sugar and disgraceful excuses for food, until they get tired, or bored, or want more sugar and can't have it, and then they scream the place down. Friendly? Really? It's like eating in a playpen!


Got back on the bike today for a while, and no UberCommute tomorrow, so hopefully, I can get entirely back on track then. Do things look rosy and positive for Thursday's weigh-in? Not really - too many days off or excessive so far this week.

The Mexican Standoff

Went to Cardiff today with d, ostensibly to have Dim Sum - I'd spotted a restaurant there the last time I was in the city. What I hadn't spotted was that it didn't open till 5pm, so we quickly rearranged out plans.

Now then: A disclaimer. This whole "not eating fried foods" thing is all very well, but there's a general exclusion zone around every Mexican restaurant on the planet. This is because it's impossible to eat things in Mexican restaurants that haven't either been deep fried, smothered in cheese, dolloped in cream..or more often than not, all three. I think the air in a Mexican restaurant has to be deep freid and slathered in cheese before the customers are allowed to breathe it.

So - we went Mexican, and I had a cheesy...bake, thing, and enchiladas - technically baked, so nehh...but admittedly, covered in cheese and sour cream.

I'm determinedly not doing the "self-flagellation" thing right now. Life's too short to beat yourself up, and much more fun if you get someone else to do it (calling out to my S&M homies there...respec'!)

Tonight, we're out for dinner again (out last night with pals Lou and Mark, out today just the two of us, out again tonight with Ma and my aunt, oh when will this neverending social whirl end?!)

"No fried food" injunction back in place, and biking when we get in. Hence the talking to you lot early in the day - gotta fit what you can in where you can.

And on - to dinner, and beyond!

The Frozen Forcefield

Weird day. Got up at 6.30, feeling grumpy as hell. Strapped on my boots and went out walking. Walked to the bottom of Twyn Hill - my normal walking route - and looked up. The idea of sliding and crunching my way up that thing repulsed me. I turned around, and went towards the Taff Trail, clambering up a snow-covered pack-ice path, then looked down the Trail. I'm sure this is my own wuss-ass grumpyism, but it looked impossibly impassable. O I walked through the back of the town, to face myself with the enormo-hill of Heolgerrig.

"Bugger that for a game of soldiers," I decided, and turned around and came home again.

So that was the feeling that dominated my morning - closed off, closed in, snowed under and denied. Meh.

Thing is, it inspired me to gluttony. Classic fat fuck excuse for reasoning - "I'm not happy therefore I want chips and chocolate". I got my coat on, strapped on my boots again and went out with the express purpose of getting both of these things.

I got outside into the light drizzle of snow - yep, that's still falling; can't tell you how overjoyed I am - before it hit me. So far today, my eating hadn't been bad. If I were to add chips and chocolate to the mix though, any rational calculation of intake goes completely out of the window. And what you end up with is a situation where progress you've made is undone, and you have to lose weight you've already lost...again.
"But I wannnnnnnnnit!" yelled my inner brat. "It tastes soooooooo good, and I feel soooooo bad and I need a treat or I'm gonna have a big messy tantrum right here!"
"Do you though?" said a saner, altogether more calm part of my brain. "Do you feel sooooo bad? Really? And do you really want the consequences of this short-term pleasure?"

And so I turned around, went back home, and came here to write this. Told my pal Wendy about this. Her response pretty much sums up the day:
"Get thee behind me, Chipfat!"

Yeah...quite...

The Lower Half Celebration

Headline today: the Weigh-in revealed me as 17st 5.5
That'll do - 2.5 pounds this week, despite not biking for a couple of days. Solid progress.

This puts me of course into the "lower half" of the stone, which is a gear change of pleasing clunkiness. Although technically last week at 17st 8, I'd lost a half-stone, woohoo, I was still at that point in the upper half of the stone (a stone, for those who need a reminder is 14 pounds, so 0-7 pounds is the lower half anything from 7.01 to 13.9 is the upper half).

So - awoohoo - steady progress will mean three weeks from now I'll be back into the 16 zone...just two zones from where my first real target it! Of course it'll also mean I've lost a whole stone, whereas, at the moment, I've just lost 9.5 pounds, so there's clearly an element of not counting chickens before they've been pounded out, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried, but still, considering the lack of killing myself that's gone into this time round so far, I'm happy. If I can sneak a whole first stone at this pace, then by the time I hit my first proper plateau, I'll be in a much better place to crank things up a notch or two.

And so, on we go into the day. Got on the bike this morning for the first time in a couple of days. Felt pretty good, but due to an overdose of what can only be described as faffing, only did a half hour before having to start work. The day's looking good though, so hopefully will do more later.

Fun fun fun!

The Relative Dimension

So I've been feeling all sorts of hibernational and blubbery and generally slow and fat and...blech...and blaming it on the snow and the deadlines.

Today - more snow, more deadlines, more Stuff To Do. However, this afternoon, I was at my aunt and uncle's place, when my uncle came out with something which pretty much blew away my wuss-ass rationalisations.

"Y'know, I've lost three quarters of a stone since the snow started," he almost-moaned.
"What?" I asked, trying to remember that he's my favourite uncle and it would be impolite to rip out his throat in a roar of pure envy.
"Aye," he said wistfully. "I've gone completely off meat. Just eating veg now..."
I looked at him.
"Ah," I said.
"Hmm," I said.
"Sooooo not gonna happen," I muttered.

I should add that it's not as if my uncle's been slipping off to the gym, or walking 20 miles a day or anything - he actually has no cartilage left in his kneecaps and is in fairly constant pain.

So presumably, it's just the lack of any appreciable protein...or carb...or any damn thing other than vitamins and water.

Hmm...

I mean really, hmm...

Nahhh, still not going to happen.

The Crystalline Blanket

OK...bored of this snow now. This is Wales, for god's sake, winter's supposed to be wet, not white.
Another day of crushing deadlines, another day when it was impossible for d to get to work, another day of feeling a little crappy about having to pay attention to the first of these realities over the second.

Haven't eaten a humungous amount today, but a solid amount...and no, I never did carve out the time to bike. Both Ma and d have this week said I look thinner, but to be honest, I feel huge. Maybe it's a guilt thing, I don't know, but the combination of snow stopping free travel and deadlines sucking time out of these thick white days makes it feel like hibernation time, makes me feel enrobed in layers of blubber. I also haven't sneaked a weigh in at any point since Thursday, so I feel a little at sea.
Today though, managed to verrrrry nearly kill a big deadline. So here's to the desperation of a day-before-the-weigh-in, to get a little back into the routine I need.

The Flux Incapacity

Nothing like an UberCommute to cure that ‘stir crazy’ blandness of too much work and not enough air. Got up at the usual Ugh o’clock this morning and did another London day. Not sure what it is these days, but one London day seems to pass at a ridiculous rate of knots – you turn around, look up and it’s done. I mean, I crammed it full of Stuff, but still – seemed to me I was still bitching about it being one o’clock when I looked again and it was three!

Of course, it’s entirely possible I just did an awful lot of bitching…That’s quite enough out of you lot, I can hear you making up your own jokes…

As for Disappearing…there’s something sick going on – I actually quite miss doing exercise. Will have to carve myself some time in the monolithic workload of tomorrow and do something. I’d love to kid myself I’ll be up with the lark (and, I’m reliably informed…the snail…honestly, it’s there in the poem that gives us the phrase “up with the lark” – it witters on about the “snail on the thorn”…though I can’t personally imagine a snail being particularly keen to go near thorns, can you? Nevertheless, it’s there, but somehow, nobody ever claims to be “up with the snail”, do they? I reckon it’s a con, personally, I reckon the lark just happens to shout its nasty little head off and get all the glory…Hmm…wonder if the lark is therefore supposed to be the early bird that catches the worm? And if so, why don’t we use “the early snail catches the whatever-the-fuck-it-is-that-snails-eat…” Never mind, I think I’ve just answered my own question…) – but frankly the likelihood of me struggling out of my pit before d goes off to work in the morning is of a smallness that would ensure even the earliest of birds (or the most energetic of snails), would miss it, try as they might…

The point, if there is one, is that Monday s feel bad for me. I don’t eat regularly or well, when I do eat, it’s likely to be bad stuff – rodeo burger, Paddington Station, under moderate stress as the board showed everything delayed or cancelled due to signal failure – and the train journey home turns the presumably-not-horsemeat burger into a queasy, roiling mass of unpleasantness that more than anything, I wish I could simply get rid of. And of course, despite climbing gamely into my walking boots this morning, from the moment I arrive in the office to the moment I leave, there’s but the blink of a couple of eyelids, so I have buggerall in the way of free time to go and walk, as I’d hoped to today with my pal Brenda.

And then, before I know what’s what, it’s Tuesday.

Hmm…wonder what Tuesday has in store…

Zhoom!
What the Hell was that? What day is it now?...

The Sunday Vacancy

Strange day.

Woke up grumpy, and have been up and down and blank all day. Worked a while on a couple of edits, biked a while watching, of all things, some episodes of Blackadder. Had pizza for breakfast (2 slices), and beef pie and mash for dinner. Other than that, there's really very little to say about today. We've been waiting on additional snow, and there hasn't been any, so all thoughts of avoiding the UberCommute, and of d avoiding having to go back to work tomorrow, are pretty much melting away as I type this. Didn't have to go to choir tonight though, that was cancelled.

Feels weird and blank and empty, both as a day, and as a concept of tomorrow. And while I'm aware (thank you, Terry Pratchett, for the idea) that plenty of people can make whole careers out of studying nothing (and, as I think you said, putting the patterns of the nothing onto T-shirts), tonight I don't feel like being numbered among them. And so farewell and adieu until tomorrow has something to say about it. For now, there's just too much nothing and not enough time left in this night.

The Chicago Excellence

I've only been to Chicago a couple of times, and the most I've seen of it is O'Hare Airport (and one hotel room for one night, during a snowstorm).

But I've always liked it on principle. It seems to have an air to it that appeals to me. A kind of "fuck you, we're different" vibe. I mean, true, they brought the world Al Capone, but they also gave the world a Senator more than likely to be the best president in a generation, if not longer.

And then there's the pizza. Chicago Deep Dish pizza is a thing of extraordinary beauty. It's kind of like Pimp My Pizza - like Extreme Pizza: Chicago Edition. It's the kind of pizza God would order for a great Saturday night in with the boys. In fact, I'm not entirely unconvinced that somewhere on the roll of archangels lies the name of DeepDish, the Chef of Heaven.

Had a cool day. Woke for 7.30, and we tramped out into the snow for a McDonalds breakfast - some joyful, grease-dripping muffinfest for d, a plain porridge for me. Came home and met up with Ma in Tescos for coffee and shopping and the slightly hairy sport of taxi-getting - always tricky in this town once it's snowed. Found one eventually. Spent an agreeable afternoon doing editing work, but d and I were both determined today it wouldn't cut into our evening, as it's had a tendency to do of late. I jumped on the bike for an hour, burning about 400 calories (breakfast about twice over, or thereabouts). Then I showered and came down, to a thing of beauty...holding a phenomenal Chicago Deep Dish pizza. Home made.

There are experiences in life that you remember until your brain goes soft. Tonight was one of them. d had worked hard, I think, and presented me with the kind of pizza that makes you glad you had no lunch. True, I could only do three slices, but in my defence before the Court of Gluttony, I'd say that three slices of Deep Dish is a hefty meal by anyone's standards. Now I'm going away to absolutley not worry about having eaten it, because on mathematical balance, I think I'm OK on the day.

Woohoo...

Chicago rocks. And so does my girl...

The Cocaine Comparison

Firstly, let's get this out of the way: Wow, did it snow?

Secondly - having a serious shedload of snow pretty much canned the idea of going for a walk. Having a crunchy deadline pretty much canned the idea of doing...well, anything else, really.

Among the things I read today while trying not to get anything done, was this.

This was fasssssscinating. Facts about sugar, and how much of it we take in, and what it does to us.

Of particular face-slapping impressiveness was the last of the factoids at the link - I know you may not be inclined to click on random links in blogs, but this is to a site called Upworthiest, and it's fine. Honest. Go click.

The final factoid is that according to brain scans, sugar is as addictive as Cocaine.

It would be odd to find that comforting, right?

So call me Oddboy, cos I find this massively comforting. I know why that is of course, and that doesn't please me very much - it's a give-up. It's the equivalent of prayer, for Christ's sake - It means there are genuine addictive qualities to the thing I crave, which means on some fucked-up level, it's not my fault...right?

Ha...almost convinced myself there. Except it's a big-ass cop-out and I'm not going to fall back on it.

What the factoid does mean is that this being hard is fine. It's an addictive additive, and breaking habits that attach to something like that is always going to be hard. Possibly it also explains my inability to do what normal people do, and walk some sort of even path. Re-exposure to sugar makes it hard all over again.

Sigh...OK, maybe it's not so comforting.

The Flatulent Significance

No, this is not going to be a horrible blog entry. No scatalogical detail will be found here.

The title refers to the result of today's weigh-in:
17 stone 8.0
That's a loss of just 0.5 pounds. Practically a significant fartworth.

BUT, on the other hand, adding this half-pound to last week's 6.5 pounds means a technical loss of a half-stone in the space of two weeks.

Decided, on getting up, to take myself from last night seriously. Strapped on my walking boots and stepped out into the snow. Walked six miles. Felt hugely smug. Sat on my ass the rest of the day. Might do the same again tomorrow, let's see...

The News Cycle Explosion

Is it me, or has the news just gone nuts this week. Let's see...
HMV - the company with the dog and gramophone as its logo - goes into administration.
Christians bitch about victimisation after the European Court strikes down their claim to have rights to be bigoted asshats. Incidentally, probably the only right case - someone put on suspension for wearing a cross - wins.
Senior political journalist Andrew Marr  has a massive stroke, aged 52.
Blockbuster Video - finally! - succumbs to the 21st century, and goes into administration.
Japanese airline grounds all its Dreamliners because "something" is wrong...apparently with all of them.
In a climate where gun activists scream about 1776 happening again if "you take our guns", President Obama announces widespread gun control measures. Still has to get through Inauguration Day alive.
News breaks that Tesco hamburgers include minced horsemeat. Yummy!
And then a helicopter falls out of the sky in London...

Any more mad stuff, universe?
Meanwhile, I've been up at Ma's place all day, and haven't biked at all. Had the chance this morning, but didn't take it, cos I'm deadline crazy.

So - tomorrow's weigh-in day, and I'm not optimistic, all told. Too many excuses and rationalisations this week, not enough walking.

Ah well. fewer rationalisations next week, more work.

The Exercise Inefficiency

Back to the Disappearing business today - light cereal breakfast, beans on toast lunch, fruit salad at Ma’s and sausage with corn and a thing I understand is well-known in the States, but which I’ve never actually eaten before – Riceroni. Portion control good, meal choices generally good, sausage and riceroni – well, you have to have a bit of something.

Didn’t exercise this morning though – had to crack on in work, because I took a half day of leave this afternoon, for the delight that was Dad’s inquest. Pretty much turned out as expected, and feel a little better as a result. But figured I could bike when I got home.

Here’s the weird thing. I did. Took me an hour of pedalling, but whereas normally I can average between 400-600 calories, tonight I scraped by with a measly not-really-breaking-a-sweat 200-odd. Not sure what the Hell that was about.

While on the biking, had a text from Wendy.

“Do you sit down or stand up on the bike?” she asked.

“I sit down of course,” I said. “I did standing during spin classes. It’s bad for you.”

“It’s not bad for you,” she countered, cunningly.

“Bloody well feels bad for you,” I counter-countered, wittily.

“Get up, ya girl!” she countered. Cubically.

“No,” I concluded. Finally.

I think she may be under the misapprehension that my bike is a normal sitty-standy bike, rather than the recumbent, Harley-style mean machine it is. As far as I’m concerned, the clue here is in the name. Recumbent. I should be able to exercise on this thing laying down with a pillow and a milky drink, dammit. I am not able to stand up in the saddle on it, without breaking something fairly crucial in the bike, and also in my spine. So…nehh.

“How’d you do?” asked d when I came downstairs.

“Pathetic,” I said. “Didn’t even break a sweat. 200 calories.”
“Then what’s the point of it?” she asked.

“Buggerall, dear,” I admitted, and settled down to dinner. Checking out now – turning off the computer, going to watch a brainless movie starring Chris Pine, and absolutely not reflecting on the day. Tomorrow, to bastardise the bejeesus out of Scarlett O’Hara…Tomorrow is another Disappearance…

The Hammersmith Fall

Remember this week I mentioned that if I have a bad day, I’m not gonna whinge and moan and get psychotic about it and chastise myself endlessly? Just gonna get up in the morning  and get back on the bike?

Well, depending on your point of view, this might have been one of those days.

Had coffee for breakfast. Nothing for lunch, and a coffee for dinner…then kinda gave in to an urge. Have felt the call of Hammersmith all day long – Hammersmith, longer term readers will remember, being the location of the only remaining Cranberry store in London. Cranberry being a store I used to visit habitually – and I do mean habitually – for fruits and nuts. Went to Hammersmith tonight, got myself a bag of fruit and nuts, which included some honey cashews. 

So there. 

Bless me Father for I have sinned, and enjoyed it, and will get up in the morning and get on the freakin’ bike. Was planning of course to do some pre-work walking, but as the country dabbles with the idea of snow, I’m persuaded that possibly working up a sweat in my own bedroom (insert your own ever-so-witty comment here – I’ve been up for 17 hours and can’t manage it. Shurrup, I’m told it happens to all men occasionally) is the way to go.

(Dribbles aimlessly into keyboard)…SO out of practice at this UberCommute business…