A bit slow today

Poor old chap I am.  Yesterday was full on and I managed to do about 12 hours work.  then I went to the wine bar!  That was OK apart from many raised eyebrows from people I knew - why?  Well I was sitting with one of my female colleagues and so everyone added 2 plus 2 and got to 7 or more for their answer!

Anyway, it was funny a little later on when someone bought us a bottle of wine (a whole bottle).  I told him that we were very grateful and that we would name our fist born child after him :-)  Well I thought it was funny anyway.  The trouble was that I really didn't want to drink that much wine and we were about to go home so it just caused me to drink more than I wanted and to get home late.  I do feel a little slow today consequently.

I see Microsoft is doing its usual trick and loading updates and getting me to reboot my machines it's all very well but I've hardly got anything done whilst I wait for one or other of them to settle down.

I need to get some exercise today too so perhaps I'll have a go at that before dinner.  I'm out tomorrow and I am preparing for that but it just seems to be taking for ever to get the PC to boot up again and to finish the work I started about 2 hours ago.  In the time taken to write this blog the PC has rebooted but none of the programmes are actually working at the moment - sometimes PCs are rubbish.

Got the exercise in

So I managed to get 20 minutes in tonight too. I'm walking a lot tomorrow so that will be my exercise for Thursday. I'm up to my eyeballs in work on Friday and over the weekend and then I'll be off for the three day new business workshop. I've finished off my actions and mailed them out. now I re-read them I see there are some typos in there but hey - that is Microsoft for you, this new office suite is horror and it reverts to different languages and changes things on the fly all the time. Worst days work I ever did was upgrading and in upgrading it has lost its speech to text dictation capability which I used to use. GGGgrrrrrr.

Off to bed early as I have a very long day tomorrow.

I'm feeling good but isn't it strange I can still feel the ache in the back of my hand where they stick the cannula every time I have an operation. Not long to wait now - a month today I have my pre assessment and in just 5 weeks my next operation....

Day 3

I did well today - kept to diet and I didn't go silly last night so was fine getting up this morning.  I feel a lot better than I normally do - I am guessing that the exercise has done that.  I missed out tonight on that but will have a chance to do some in a short while as I have finished my work for now.  It is amazing how much work you can clatter through when you are motivated.  Also though - I was out this morning - which slowed up progress.

Into London tomorrow for a big all day meeting where they want me to work late.  I can't believe it yet they have used loads of my time this last few days but I will bill them for it.

I feel like I have lost a bit of weight already which is good.  I can certainly feel it around my middle.

The major work starts next week on the business front.  I am really looking forward to getting going on Monday when we will thrash out the detailed plans. 

Day 2

Well - so far it has gone quite well. I'm out tonight for a few beers but managed to control myself at lunch time and breakfast these days consists of fruit and not much else. I bought myself a little fresh parmesan so I can flake it onto my salad with some sun dried tomatoes to go with it.

Another 20 minutes hard exercise using the 3 hills in 20 minutes not climb a mountain programme as I did yesterday. It has the desired effect of getting a sweat up and I actually felt quite good after it.

The truth being known I felt quite good this morning too which was great. I actually noticed that my skin felt different and I think this is one of those early signs that the blood is beginning to flow around a bit. I'm hoping to make sure that I try and exercise each day where I'm not getting out and about. If I can do this every day I reckon that will make me lose weight a lot quicker and feel better too.

The new venture stepped up a pace today yet again as my business partner and I thrashed out some more details. This time next week I imagine we will be very tired but really charged up about the business as we will be just over half way through our kick off workshops. There is a long way to go yet but the excitement mounts. At the moment we are both poised to get going but we let the brakes off next week :-)

Things are good at the moment.

Lifelites Promotional Film

This is Lifelites promotional video. It shows the work they do in children's hospices in the UK. For the past 2 years I've been lucky enough to work alongside the team at Lifelites and their work is fantastic - just watch this to see what they do.  

Exercise Sucks

Which is why you should wash your mouth out with chocolate!

I cannot remember where I saw that but it amused me. I've had a full on day and as the title may give away, I have just come off my Cross-Trainer after a 20 minute work out - somehow I chose the one which simulates going up a mountain but hey ho I still managed it but crawled for the last 2 minutes of the routine. I'm just cooling down now before hitting the shower.

This seems to be a reasonable way of setting my day up. I can get up early and get cracking for work and then at the end of the day can do a half an hour session and get ready for some dinner.

I've been really good today and eaten primarily fruit and salads with some oily fish slung on top of that. Tonight will again be a salad - and in the summer I don't mind those - with perhaps a little home cooked ham.

I'm out tomorrow at lunch and in the evening but I will just try and be sensible if I can. Beer and alcohol are high in carbs and if I can miss those out then I have a fighting chance of losing this weight. Mrs. F. says I look slimmer already around the waist which is where most of the excess weight is doing the opposite of hiding :-)

Oh well, Exercise Sucks but if it means I can fit back into my suits and clothes in a few months I will be pleased. Better still if I have to buy new :-)

The New Dawn

Well today I start the new job in anger.  Unlike many jobs though, I actually know what I am doing as I am my own boss.  I have a good head start.  All change, so work and I turn a corner today.  I really hope that I can lose weight and run this venture as well as maintaining a good balance between everything.

Exciting times!

Weight

Well here we go:

Tonight my weight is 238 pounds or 17 stones exactly.  That's dressed and in cotton socks :-)

I've decided to measure this weekly and see how I am getting along.  Steve in the US will also be tagging along too.  It isn't England versus the US - that happens later in South Africa at the World Cup - Soccer.  

I am also taking other measurements and my blood pressure to see if I can correlate the new diet with my exercises and relate that to general health and well being.

I also realise that next week will be a bit more of a challenge as I will be staying at a Hotel for 3 days!

Anyway, it all starts tomorrow - I hope to get off to a flying start with the new business and just hope the guys at the charity will not be asking me too many questions or asking too much of me.

Tired few days

I've been making sure everything goes smoothly this week and handed over my job to my successor.  Unfortunately there was more work to do and I ended up doing that Friday morning but I can bill that of course.  It just meant that I was pretty tired and just had so many things to do.

The village has a festival of music this weekend so we are going to that.  It is beautifully amateurish as they haven't even produced a flyer letting us know what is going on yet.  Doh!  It starts in a few hours so we will just wander up there and see what is to do.

Mrs. F. reckons that I've lost a couple of handles off of my waist these past few weeks.  I'm getting ready for the transatlantic weight loss challenge.  I will be regularly updating the blog on how I am doing.  I'm being pretty good about the food I eat and have managed to change over and not get too upset over not eating the quantities or types of food I used to have.  I am also going to have to watch out for beer drinking - I tend to enjoy a beer or two with my friends and I have 2 or 3 more meetings coming up that will seriously set back my weight loss plan.  After that though I imagine it will be a little easier to not drink as there aren't too many meetings happening again until September.

It should be fun I reckon.

New Venture Gets Ever Nearer

The excitement mounts as we spent today arranging the hotel and meeting room and the agenda and all its elements.   We had a productive day looking back at the work we have already done and were pretty satisfied that we have picked up quite a lot of the elements already undertaken.

The hotel is booked and as of next Monday I am on this almost full-time.  I have a bucket-load of work to do and just hope that I can get a good run at it to start things off with.   It is inevitable that there will be a few minor distractions but as long as I remain disciplined it should be OK.

What is amazing is just how much work there is to do still - we are talking many man months and we've already been at this a couple of years...  

Relief

Well it was as if Thursday night had never happened.  Thank goodness for that.  I managed to find a couple of occasions where we would be alone to chat if that was needed and nothing at all so I think I got away with it and it was just the wine talking.   That also makes sense over something else that was said too so all that brain work was for nothing but, it may have been different - you shoud always prepare and, as my colleague reminds me, you should always be living in the "now" as the past and future are not the place to be.

Deep stuff he comes out with - it messes with your head!!

Still home alone so happy enough.  A day of work tomorrow on the new venture and see how my replacement has managed when I get in Thursday.

A quiet household

It is nice to have some time to myself.  I don't mind it at all.  In fact I prefer it in some ways.  I can spend a lot of time resolving problems and getting myself sorted out for this week.

Tomorrow I hand over to my replacement and I start to ease out of the job.  Iin addition I will also try and find out quite what went on Thursday night and whether I need to worry or not.  All very intriguing and who knows what will happen.

Steve in the US has just come back from a wonderful road trip, you have to envy the space and countryside around where he lives - it is breathtaking scenery.   It makes me more determined than ever to get myself into a situation where I can see a little bit more of the states than Buffalo (from the Canadian side) and spending a few minutes in Seattle en route to Squamish Falls in Canada.  In a 'hands across the ocean' move we are going to publish our weight weekly on our blogs on a Monday.  It seems a good way to get some friendly rivalry on getting our respective weights somewhere back to normal.  It will give both of us a target to aim at and that can only be a good thing.   The dreaded exercise is heaving into view so I had better dust that off and work out what sort of routine I need to follow.  I think I will try and do an hour or so walk a day if I can too.

I'll be freed up from work this week and so we will start on 7th June and may the best man win by losing :-) 

Well this made me laugh

Bladder Alert funny HERE .  I had to do a recent document in Welsh for work and it is really strange to see your words and the Welsh side by side.  I think that this is just one of those quaint things we do in the UK that the world must love us for.  We also have great fun laughing at ourselves.  I hope you enjoy it.

Diet Smiet

Well it seems to be going OK and I'm now actually beginning to like rabbit food - official!!  As a colleague of mine says - he doesn't like any sort of food that takes more calories to chew than what you get out of it.   In a way - that is the point surely?

I'm slowly losing weight although I'm not measuring it.  I want to make sure that I've finished work before that starts so I can get into a new routine.

I feel healthy enough - I just wish I could lose all the weight tomorrow rather than over the next 6 months.....

Saturday

A wet Saturday and I've tidied up my office a bit more but I'm still trying to tackle A's problems on her PC Presentation.  I'm no MAC user so it could be that but her presentation is definitely suffering from lack of pictures.  As I write we have success - it appears that A forgot to actually put them into the presentation itself linking them somehow so they showed on her MAC but not my PC.

Other than that - not a great deal is happening at the moment.  I'm continuing on my veg and fruit mainly diet.  I'm feeling quite good about it and feel well but I haven't bothered to weigh myself or any of that sort of stuff at the moment.  I know that my trousers feel a bit looser and so as long that continues slowly then I will be happy.  If I can lose enough to get into Hospital feeling a little fitter than I am now I will be happy.

Mrs F and A & L are off to Cornwall on Monday returning Friday - that will be nice giving me a few days on my own.  I'm quite happy on my own and can use the time to get myself ready for the new business and the challenges ahead.

Disturbing

I'm still a little disturbed about Thursday night but I'm hoping that it will all be OK on Tuesday.  I am still surprised how my colleagues are reacting to me "going".  They really are a bit upset about it but they'll still see me from time to time.  

I think that I've brought order into the place and they may be worried that it is going.  Luckily for them they can get me back when they want - at rather good rates I think :-)

It is stupidly late again and I really ought to go to bed but my brain is just whizzing around again.   I'm getting quite excited about the new venture and in a few weeks we will be setting out to make things happen.  I've got my new white board and flip chart - I can't think without drawing.  I've got my micro cassettes for recording sessions and ideas and my office is almost becoming clear too.

I must not forget to complete the accounts for my Lodges as they all end on 31st May.  That means I had better get my finger out and resolve all the issues I've had with them these past 2 years.

Strange Evening

I had a surreal evening.  Is this where I say something like I had a surreal evening it happened yesterday lunchtime....

Maybe I should say that it was one of those evenings where something strange happened.  I can't say too much except that I think I was propositioned - which is very nice you may think.  However it was just strange as it came from out of absolutely nowhere and I'm really taken aback and a little confused to say the least.  I have the weekend and the Bank Holiday to think about but I have to go into work on Tuesday and see if anything has changed.

I could be reading a lot into it but as I was doing my usual trick when situations like this arise - I go into brain spin mode and analyse the thing many ways.  So right at this moment I've no idea if it was what I thought it was or one of the other 20 answers my head has devised.  In all likelihood it will be too much "wine talking" and be a nothing event.  I hope so, it could be damn embarrassing otherwise...

On my fruit and veg only kick today which should be fun.  I'm certainly feeling a bit better these days having kept away from my usual fare and I hardly had any bread this week.  Now to face up to the exercise regime :-)  As my esteemed co-blogger Steve in the US says "Exercise Sucks!" How true...

Stamina

It is a constant this tiredness and sudden weariness.  It is nowhere as near as bad as it was a year and two years ago but I still get times, like today, when after a days work I'm beginning to feel very tired.  

I am hoping that some exercising (I know no one likes it) will start to bring me around and my diet is beginning to pay off - I can feel clothes fitting a little more loosely than they did two weeks ago so that is good.  I don't do all this weighing and measuring every few days as it doesn't really achieve anything.

Work tomorrow and Thursday and then I'm off until Tuesday when my replacement starts.  A couple of days work with him and I will be able to edge out and into this new venture.  Even doing today's meeting and going through some of the detail of what we will be getting up to once we kick off the business was a charge but obviously not enough to keep me awake in the early evening. :-)

Can I help you?

I was out with Flocky tonight for a beer and a curry - I enjoy his company and he is one of very few people that know me on the blog and personally. Perhaps only GH knows me as well as Flocky does but I meet Flocky a lot more and we have some really interesting, deep and personal conversations.

Tonight we chewed over the fact that we have a mutual friend who just wont let us in. We only get to see part of him, the part he wants us to see. His wife and children are not known by their real names and work, social and personal are separate things that never mingle. Because we aren't that near we can't actually be friends in terms of advice for fear of breaking the friendship rules or stepping over the mark and be seen as being critical when we actually mean to be helpful. I was out with him on Friday and just couldn't get beyond the persona that he projected.

On an entirely different note I still find it incredible that people think of me as some sort of role model in the cancer fight. I still maintain I'm not special excepting that I really think I have a privileged insight to the workings of the human mind when confronted with such a dangerous disease. Also, of course, the opposite being true that I cannot understand all the dross that goes on in the world, all the angst and petty nonsense that the TV shows us of the plastic lives of the minor lower class of notorietied class. Who are these so called "celebrities" and why is everyone so fixated on these low achievers who think they have some great message to tell us all. Every time one of them opens their mouths they spout some sort of insipid drivel and hollow observation of why they aren't getting the breaks that some other botoxed out bimbo is.

Is our world so f****** stupid as to encourage and allow these shallow impressions of humanity to enter our lives and even to try and influence our thoughts and actions? judging from the dregs of humanity that were in the pub today with their loud phones, cackling, squawking witch like laughs, their total lack of anything interesting to say except 'init' which seemed to be the most used phase of the day and their lack of dress sense which showed their tattoos off in such a bad light I begin to fear for society.

Mind you - it might just be me - perhaps I am now turning into my parents!!! Or have turned into the person they warned me about when I was little!

A Scorcher and I'm Indoors

Doh!

I was about to work on my stuff but needed to bring forward some work for the charity and deliver it a few days early so I ended up doing that rather than my own work. Oh well, no problems at least I can invoice them without feeling bad.

It is boiling hot outside and so we got the fans down and have those pushing hot air around my office. Air Con would be nice - maybe if I find it too hot I'll do that.

So back to health and all that stuff. I am quite pleased that I am sticking to my diet although I am still a bit shy of getting on my exercise cross trainer. I need to face up to that sooner rather than later. Well I'll soon have no excuse as I will be home and so should fit that or some heavy waking into my routine. Maybe I'll do a two or three mile walk every day in the lovely countryside around here. That way I'd get some fresh air to start my day and I could also go down via the shops and pick up fresh stuff each day! There's an idea.

Flocky is popping over on his way home from work and we are going to do some paperwork then go for a diet busting beer and a curry - oh well all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!