Of Karting and Curries

...in which the stag do is discussed

Right, I've been meaning to get around to writing this since Sunday but life kept getting in the way. I have therefore neatly moved life aside and will mow the lawn later, honest.

As you'll know if you've been following the blog, Saturday just gone was Saira's VSO's (henceforth referred to as G) stag party, which I was invited to and attended with much enthusiasm. We first went to glan y gors karting track, where we drove small go-karts at what felt like very high speed around a big track. I thought the hair-nets and overalls we had to wear were particularly attractive. Unfortunately G's brother had neglected to mention that it was a stag do when booking it or G would have been wearing neon pink overalls.

I am not (normally) hugely competitive, but once you're in those karts and racing there's a certain impulse that kicks in. If there's somebody in front of you then you really, really want to overtake them and if there's somebody behind you then you really don't want to let them. This may or may not have led to a "oops my kart's on the grass" incident...but generally I think I held my own, given that I'd never been karting before and most of the others had. I didn't come first, but I wasn't last and I had a great time, and shall definitely go again if I get the chance.

There are, however, certain disadvantages to sitting in what is effectively a plastic bucket travelling at anywhere up to 80mph, especially when you're high on adrenaline. During the racing you don't really notice the way you're being thrown around in the seat (although you certainly do notice the strain in your arms from turning the kart); the turning circle on those things is insanely small and you do tend to start throwing them into corners with complete abandon once you get the feel for them. 

You do, however, notice the bruises and bumps the following day....although to be fair some of those might have been self-inflicted during the drunken shenanigans that followed.

After the karting we headed back home in the minibus, via Llangollen and a couple of pubs (allegedly to watch the Belgium match but very little football watching actually happened). After that my memories of the day are somewhat hazy. That may have something to do with the Guinness and the wine that followed, but I do vaguely remember leaving the remainder of our jolly band at around 11:30pm to go and get a curry, because that's always been the traditional end to a night out for me.

I'm quite impressed that at that point I could remember that a chicken vindaloo is 6.5 syns and that therefore I should go for that, although having walked/staggered (delete whichever is least appropriate) home with it I apparently forgot that the accompanying complimentary poppadom was 4 syns by itself. Apparently I was singing along very loudly to my wife's MP4 player and attempting to eat with my fingers...

Anyway, moving swiftly on...I worked out that I'd had around 78.5 syns for the entire day, but since I'd saved my syns all week that was fine (yes, I know you're not meant to do it, but it works for me). I still lost half a pound, and am now 3.5 pounds to target.

I'm planning a very low syn this week as it's the last week that I've paid for and once I hit target membership is free (as long as I stay within 3lbs of target), although it's likely that I will lower my target by at least half a stone once I'm there...and it's the Oswestry food festival this weekend, where it is traditional that I take my daughter and eat a lot of stuff, so that may get in the way.

Wow, that was a long one (as the actress said to the bishop). Yesterday's food (I'll do a short post later with today's now that I'm caught up):

Wednesday 9th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, apple, orange)

Lunch

Bacon pasta salad (bacon fried with mushrooms, red onion, tomatoes and spring onions and added to cold pasta with some crushed chillies)

Dinner

Gammon with Jacket wedges, sweetcorn and broccoli.

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee/fruit/yoghurt

Exercise

Rest day.

A late post!

...in which work gets in the way. Oops.

Occasionally work gets a bit manically busy. I work for myself as a software developer, and sometimes multiple clients have urgent requests at the same time; yesterday was one such day (and it was rubbish, and I didn't even finish the work!) so I'm playing catch up today.

I'll update again later, but here's yesterday's menu:

Tuesday 24th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk (do I really need to type this every day?!)

Breakfast

Fruit (apple, satsuma, nectarine. Mmm, nectarines.).

Lunch

Bacon with tomatoes on a wholemeal roll (healthy extra b)

Dinner

Baked bean & bacon lasagne with baked wedges and sweetcorn (1.5 syns for the cheese on top). I ended up eating about 3 portions of this since A didn't feel too well, the elder teen refused to eat it and the younger teen only ate about half of his, so I'm really testing out whether free/superfree food works.

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, pickled onions, yoghurt, ice lolly (3 syns - it was hot. I mean the weather was hot, not the lolly. That would be silly).

Exercise

Rest day

Busy!

...in which I don't have much time.

Busy busy today with work stuff, so just a quick update. Sorry about that. Back to your regularly scheduled nonsense tomorrow.

Here's what I ate today:

Tuesday 17th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi skimmed milk

Breakfast

Nectarine, apple

Lunch

Jacket wedges, baked beans, red onion & mushroom omelette

Dinner

Baked bean & bacon lasagne, slimming world chips, sweetcorn, broccoli

Snacks/Drinks

Coffe, Fruit, Aldi Fat Free Greek Style Yoghurt, 
Bacon, lettuce & tomate on a wholemeal roll (healthy extra b)

Bottle of Hobgoblin (11 syns), packet of Worcester sauce flavour crisps (6 syns)  - these were actually eaten/drunk last night but I've included them here as after weigh-in they need to go on this week's syns.

Exercise

15 minute run (1.5 miles)

Happy New Year

...in which I fail to fail to make New Year's Resolutions.


(Yes, the title is correct. No, I didn't put an extra "fail to" in by mistake).


I have resigned myself to the fact that I am not very good at keeping the types of resolutions that are typically made at this time of year. Therefore I decided long ago that I should not make any.  Unfortunately what I know I should do and what I actually do are often diametrically opposed, and therefore I will fail to not make any resolutions.

I'm not sure why I'm so bad at keeping resolutions like "stop eating junk"; in the past I have given up both smoking and gambling, both of which are exceptionally addictive and require huge amounts of willpower to overcome. Since I managed both of them without professional outside help (although my wife Ann did help considerably in both endeavours) it can be assumed that I do have willpower. Maybe I used it all up giving those things up.

Anyway, despite my best efforts to resist there is something very beguiling about the idea of recreating yourself at the start of a new year.  Even though I know there's nothing magical or particularly special about some particular moment in time (other than the meaning that humans give it) I will not be able to resist making some resolutions, and then I will feel guilty about failing to keep them.

So, I thought I would share my resolutions here in the hope that the knowledge that the anonymous (and not so anonymous) people of the Internet are watching me might motivate me to actually put some effort in to keeping them

1) I will join a band before I'm 42 - I have quite a lot of expensive musical equipment and a very nice guitar, which I rarely use other than for practice (which I try to do every day), and I really should do something with it.  I can still remember the last time I played on stage (at a gig with some work mates at the last placed I actually worked for as an employee) and it's a great feeling.  I'm not intending to become a superstar or anything - just some laughs with like minded people and hopefully a few local gigs.

2) I will run another half marathon - I kind of messed up my training for the Reading half marathon last year due to changing contracts a few months before it happened and having a lot less time to train than I wanted.  The most likely candidate this year is the Lake Vyrnwy half marathon, which happens in September.  Hopefully that gives me time to start running seriously again and lose some weight (not necessarily in that order).  


Given the way I felt after running the Reading Half (see here) I'm not sure why I would want to subject myself to that again; I can only assume that I have some masochistic tendencies buried deep inside me somewhere (they must be buried very deep, since generally I consider pain to be a Very Bad Thing).  This time I may do it for a local charity though, rather than my own satisfaction.


3) I will blog more often - This ought to be pretty easy since this is the first blog I've written in err....five and a half months; I'm not going to set myself a schedule but I will try to write every time I think I've got an idea worth writing about or just something amusing to say.  I shall also, of course, be writing about my training for another half marathon but last time I found that was very dull.


4) I will work harder - I've been very bad for the last month or so; this was largely because of the impending arrival of Christmas and with it two of our children's birthdays (Christmas is largely one long week of stress for us as two of our children have their birthdays within 5 days of the 25th, but thankfully it's usually fun stress rather than all out pulling-your-hair-out-oh-good-grief-what-are-the-kids-up-to-now-it's-your-job-to-control-them-no-it's-yours-argh-argh-help type stress).  


The trouble with failing to work is that because I am effectively self employed if I don't work I don't get paid; therefore it's kind of essential that I do quite a lot of work in the next couple of months to make up for the work I didn't do last month, but it's no good moaning about it because I have nobody to blame but myself.


I think 4 is probably sufficient; especially as number 2 carries with it the necessity to a) eat more healthily and b) take quite a lot of exercise so it really counts as 6.


Mad middle child is now moaning at me for toast and will probably throw something at me soon if I don't make it, so I shall sign off there.  Hopefully there will be less of me next time I write...


p'tang-yang-kipper-bang and all that.


C.