Getting There

Let's talk about exercise for a while, shall we? Yes, really. Exercise and being healthy, to be more exact. I know, if we were to rewind back in time to about 2 years ago, even I would be laughing. Yes, me talking about exercise and healthy(ish) living.

I posted this photo on Twitter and Facebook recently. Just shows you where it started and where I am now. Actually, I may be a tiny bit further than the "after" photo since it's six months old now but you get the idea. On the left, I'm singing at my brother's wedding in September 2012. On the right, I'm posing for a mirror selfie at home in March 2014.

So, what happened in between? I wish I could tell you. If I had a simple answer, something that set it all in motion, I'd bloody bottle it and make my millions faster than you can say "Run, fat bitch, run!". Something did click in my head, though. Some people might put it down to the fact that I turned 30 in 2011 and all that but I'd like to think that had only a little to do with it.

Anyway, that winter I made the most of my free time. I walked. Just walked because it didn't require anything more than the runners I already had and the comfy trackie bottoms I was wearing to arse about the house in. I also took full advantage of the miles of car-free paths at work. I can tell you there's nothing more frightening than walking down a country road around here when you know around the next corner there could well be a predatory car hurtling towards you, its next victim. In short; roads here are narrow and people drive like lunatics.

Food-wise I really got into 5:2 diet.5 days of eating normally, 2 days of restricting your calorie intake to 500kcal per day. Worked for me, since there were days at work when I'd only eat very little if anything at all and eat only once I got home. On the fasting days I never felt hungry, the day after I only ever felt lovely and light and full of energy. I must say I've talked to people who've had terrible experiences with the same diet so I am only speaking for myself when I say it actually works. It made me take a good look at my relationship with food and actually minding what I put into my body. Saying that, I still eat rubbish. Just in moderation.

Back to exercise. I never liked exercise unless it was for a purpose. I didn't see being healthy and fitter as a purpose until now. What started as walking soon progressed into jogging and running. And to my surprise I actually loved it! I loved the feeling of setting off on my lap knowing that with the music in my earphones and the steady beat of my feet on the road would help me clear my head of whatever might be floating about in there. It didn't always feel great, there were days when I would've rather been just about anywhere else but the knowledge of that floaty, happy, endorphin-induced bliss at the end of it was enough to keep me going.

There's one particular run I remember vividly and it's that one I conjure up in my head when I need motivation. It was a perfect setting. February this year, dusk. I was on the last quarter of my lap, I had just cleared the small incline and was on the terrace of a Victorian castle. The castle to my left, to my right a lake, its surface like a mirror. Beyond the lake mountains growing darker as the sun was setting. In front of me a wooded path and beyond that more mountains. Biffy Clyro's 'Biblical' was blasting through the earphones. I had found my stride.In that moment, I'm fairly certain I could've ran all the way home.


So, that's where I was and that's where I need to get to again. Sadly my joints have aged with me and my poor battered knee has decided to remind me that what happened when I was good 15 years younger than I am now, will come back and bite you if you don't look after yourself. Patellar dislocation or a wandering kneecap, as he's also known, has me off running and jogging for a while. So I'm walking. Walking and wishing I was running instead. Hopefully in another six months I'll be able to tell you I'm back on first name terms with my stride, but for now I'll remind myself that I was there once, I'll get there again. In time.

Lazy Days

I booked myself three days off this week. It has so far proved to have been a brilliant idea, even if I do say so myself. I found myself getting very annoyed at the fact that I seemed to spend one of my days off running errands, doing the shopping and generally being out of the house for the whole day. The other day off was spent firmly in the house, cleaning, washing, tidying up and such lark. Any time left over I try to catch up with friends and maybe get some me-time, but seeing as there still is only 24 hours in a day and I really do ideally need 8 hours sleep per night, it really is limiting my options.

I shared my first day off with Mr S. Few errands, bit of shopping, bit of cleaning. Our old neighbour had contacted me the day before to ask us to help her move her dog house from the old house to her new place. Apparently our old landlord had just flung the dog house over the wall to the side of the old house where Mr S and I used to live, despite her telling him she was coming back for it. Charming man. So I went up to help her move it, my little car is surprisingly spacious when the back seats are flattened. When I got home, after a tour of her new house, which is lovely, we just lounged. I tried out a new recipe for a pizza base which was a huge success. I got the recipe from one of my Twitter-friends only to realise that I'd had the same recipe in Jamie's Italy -book for a few years now, earmarked and everything. Nothing like a recommendation to get you moving, eh?

Yesterday I spent catching up with friends. Good old chats, lots of laughs, insane amounts of tea and coffee and plenty of biscuits and cake. My Finnish friend, Marjo is something short of a wizard in the kitchen. Mocha-squares they're called in Finland, I suppose the closest thing here would be a brownie, but these things are a lot lighter and more sponge-like in texture and topped with a chocolate-coffee icing. See, I'm drooling already. So so tasty!

So, my third day off is today and I am blissfully aware that on a normal working week I would be getting stuck into trying to explain to a German tourist, who doesn't speak any English, what a parsnip is. (Apparently, calling it a white carrot isn't informative enough) Yet here I am, in our office, in my comfiest (and by default, the ugliest) baggy tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie, sporting a rather fetching bedhead, sipping my second cup of coffee, trawling the internet for stuff and not caring how long it takes me.

Conveniently enough, it's raining outside so I'm not likely to feel the need to go out and rake the grass we finally got cut on Monday. Or go out for a walk. Or, indeed anything that requires getting out of the house. The wheelie bin is at the bottom of the driveway, I may stretch to going out a bringing it back up. But I'll wait for it to stop raining first.

I have a stack of magazines to catch up on, the last two issues of the National Geographic on the top of the pile. I'm still reading Jo Nesbo's The Redeemer, which is proving very good indeed and nicely filling the void left by Stieg Larssen's Millenium-trilogy. I'm doing two loads of laundry, and two only, washing the sheets (I love Clean Sheets Day). I also have a pile of DVDs to watch, I'm contemplating on either having a Harry Potter marathon, or a Bones marathon. But the important thing is, I don't have to do any of these things if I don't choose to. I could quite happily veg out on the couch, listen to the radio and pet the cats. How about that for a lazy day, huh?

Feelin odd

This is going to be annoyingly incoherent, so feel free to stop here. I find myself in a strange mood tonight. I'm getting an all-over odd feeling of excitement mixed with dread and I cannot for the life of me understand why. I have felt like this before, years ago, and even of that i can only remember this peculiar feeling and nothing leading up to it or anything that might have followed it. Here's a song that's been firmly lodged in my head ever since Little Lion Man lured me into buying the album:



In my mind I see images of smoky pubs, little corner pubs with stale air, open fires and lowered heads. Half-drunk pints and next ones on order at the nod of the head. Hushed conversations, crack of a match and the flame brought close enough to breathe life into a cigarette. Opening of the door, the noise of the outside briefly invading the warmth inside. Background music providing a beat to your speech, involuntarily.

I know this must sound odd, but it's the way my mind works sometimes. Conjuring up images for me to figure out whether it's somewhere I should be, something I should do, or maybe something to be avoided. Mostly these things occur in my sleep and my subconscious mind works away at them without bothering me too much, but every now and then, such as tonight there's something there demanding my attention. It's odd how these things are always triggered by music. Or maybe my brain knows it's the fool-proof way to grab my attention. Here's another one that cropped up recently, haven't heard this in ages and it took me a good while to even remember the name of the song or the band...

I'll be gone now, with my teenage-y, inane, navel gazing ramblings. Seriously, someone slap me, please!