8th September – Thursday - The Path of Inevitable Doom

 Blood was 5.7 this morning – higher than I like, but still not bad.

Yesterday was a good day. Had my Pirate Pizza (yep, they’ve still got it), and then didn’t do much in the way of exercise. Except for the Staircase of Bloody Stupidity.

The Staircase of Bloody Stupidity is a curious little local geographical feature – not a road, but a pathway, with rough steps planted into it, that leads, as it turns out, up to the top of the nearby cliff. It’s a gradient of about 1:Ohchrist, and when you reach the top of it, you realise why it’s the Staircase of Bloody Stupidity. The view is lovely of course, as you look out over the sea and the shore, but by that point, you’re swearing, with the ragged remnants of what you think is your last breath, that it’s soooo not worth it, and that now you know where the Staircase leads, you’re never doing that again. So that’s what we did yesterday in lieu of balanced, sensible exercise.

You’ve got to love the Welsh sense of humour though. At the top of the Staircase of Bloody Stupidity, there’s an Entirely Improbable Field. There are a couple of houses, for people with feel no pain, and there’s a pathway.

The Pathway of Inevitable Doom.

Now, bear in mind, you’ve just essentially climbed a cliff-face. There’s a pathway that is neat, and pristine, and well-beaten, leading, you can only conclude, closer to the edge of the cliff. And on a post, announcing the beginning of this Pathway, there’s a pictogramic sign. It shows the cliff, with some rock fragments tumbling down it...and a big-assed upside down stick-figure human, heading to a pizza-splat doom on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

I think it’s the politeness that really gets me about this image. The path is beautiful, its grass beaten down, a nice arborial feel to making it look supremely inviting. And then there’s the sign, which says “Well, feel free, I wouldn’t want to tell you your business, like, but this WILL happen to you if you follow the Pathway of Inevitable Doom. Enjoy...”

Unfortunately of course, you can’t laugh your ass off about this when you see it – you haven’t got the breath to spare. But rest assured, when we got back down to the sensible ground (we took the slow path, of course), we cracked up.

As yesterday pushed on into night, I had a smallish evening meal, and graze-box style nibbles, and oatmeal  to finish, all of which meant by the time I went to bed, I was nursing quite a sizeable little pot, my belly-smoothing describing quite a roundish arc.

I thought about panicking about this, and decided I was too bloody knackered with all the neurosis. The way I figure it, if I haven’t lost, or if I’ve put on by the time I get back to London...I have. I’ll get back on the bike, I’ll get back to the walking, I’ll get back to manageable, measurable processes, and I will push on, and I will succeed.

Ooh, look at me – I am Iron-Will Man!