Weight

Mmm, well yes - no movement this week, not surprising I suppose given that I haven't exercised since my escapade of lifting a shed - what was I thinking :-)

So that is OK - it just means that I MUST get back to exercise this week and also, I am guessing the large meal on Thursday and an impromptu beer and a curry on Saturday night didn't actually help. L was up at Hyde Park doing the Women's 5K challenge along with tens of thousands of others. This time she was running for a Children's Leukaemia Charity. She even saw herself on national TV which emitted a squeak of delight. I'm please that the girls are embracing doing something for charity. The bonus must be to enjoy doing it.

Thoughts this week must turn to Steve K in the US who has had a long period off from the attentions of the doctors but needs to go for a poke and peek this week. So everyone, concerted effort for positive vibes for Wednesday for a positive outcome - a positive outcome being a negative showing - which is a long winded way of saying that we all hope, wish and pray for a clear inspection.

I have a busy old week this week, I am up to London tomorrow and Wednesday and then off to Guildford on Friday. The business venture now becomes more intense as we have gone over halfway. We now need to "step up to the plate" and really accelerate our efforts.

I was listening to some music over the weekend and I'll leave this blog entry with this rather nice piece of music.

New Zealand

An Earthquake - they didn't tell me they had those there - apparently they get circa 20,000 a year but not normally noticeable - like Iceland then. Good news is that the family are shaken and stirred but all alive and well. Luckily for a 7.0 no one was killed, a couple of serious injuries. Glad that they are all well, interesting that "totally powerless to help the children" in the middle of it was one of their comments. Nature actually IS Awesome (please note kids and people who use that word) Awesome power is Earthquakes and is not to be used for the latest gadget, for goodness sake :-)

So - it is Saturday - I promised myself not to be sitting here and not to be doing work - I now pronounce judgement on myself "FAILURE!!!!" :-)

Hopefully my Nephew will come over and buy me a beer this afternoon. That will be nice.

Week over

Thank goodness this week is out of the way. The dustmen told us they were coming Saturday, they put it on the web site too (as Monday was a holiday) and they turned up today, a day early and didn't collect anything as we hadn't put it out. At times like this I often wonder "Is it me?" The simplest of things isn't it - someone must have worked out that everything would be a day late, they published that but didn't tell the guys who do the work who have probably wondered why no one has put anything out for them and got away with the fastest round ever.

It makes you surprised that more things like this happen. A bit like my train with the heating on during a lovely summer day? These people walk amongst us - it's terrifying that they are completely inept at their jobs so what are they like left in the wild. Bring back natural selection or de-selection in their cases!

I had a "funny moment" earlier on today. It happens occasionally and it was the of the morbid kind, about how close it had been and what would have happened if things had been slightly different or they hadn't caught it quite when they did. These sort of day dream moments aren't that common but they can pull you up with a bit of a shock. I think, it had something to do with seeing some photographs of my girls when they were younger and recollecting some of those "great moments" that only children can bring, looking back they are just wonderful and joyful memories and treasured moments. Things like their excitement at telling you what they had been up to, showing you a picture carefully crafted at school just for you, throwing themselves at you, giving you a surprise cuddle and all that sort of thing.

It is in those moments that the enormity of what I've been through sinks in and also, in a bizarre twist of fate way, the agonies they have had to endure and the fear that they (although they have never said it directly) had when everyone knew what I had. The girls were only 16 and 12 at that time.

So, one to watch out for, it has to happen, you need to rationalise sometimes but you can't keep the reality of your situation suppressed all the time.

I'm reading a blog at the moment where things have started to get pretty much into the serious situation. A year is the prognosis. This after many years of up and down problems. The blog is a useful reminder to me that "there but by the grace of God go I" and I try and remind myself how lucky I am that things are like they are, under some control.

I was also reflecting on how much happier I have been recently. I am surprised how much lighter I feel now that the threat of full blown operations has been lifted. I must go and see my optician and my dentist. Another waking dream is when they ask me why I haven't been along and the answer goes along the lines of - "Well, I wasn't sure if I was going to be alive long enough for new glasses / fillings etc and thought I'd save the money!"

I enjoyed watching Avatar again tonight. That takes you off somewhere else for a short while and has just set me up for a nice pleasant weekend. I hope not to be doing any heavy work. I have only just recovered from the shed lifting from last week.

Do I miss going to London?

No.

It was a typical journey - the heater on the train was on - blasting hot air into the carriage. The usual walk into work, the usual people doing their usual jobs. "When were you last here?" they asked - "I think it was 8 weeks ago!" I replied and nothing changes, things go on as they ever did. I managed to spook my opposite number by showing him the Wiki I had built. We have almost completed our project and they are only about a quarter of the way through theirs. I enjoy a gloat and spent some time savouring the moment.

We did our business and I went on to the Lunchtimers meeting and took the Chair as Vice Chairman with the Chairman absent - that was my job. If voted in at the November meeting I will be lucky enough to preside, next September at the 100th meeting.

I am back up to London on Monday and Wednesday first for charity business and then our new venture on Wednesday. Hopefully the guy we are going to meet will be able to work with us to raise sufficient funding for us to get off the ground and go forward. Exciting times...

Jazz and Beer - but not too much

I'm out tonight for some Old Speckled Hen beer and the Jazz evening. I don't know about you but I enjoy live music? What I cannot abide is why so many people just talk over the top of such great musicianship. I was a pretty handy trumpet player in my day and not bad at guitar but no rock star and I know how long I practised and how difficult it was - for me. Many people are, I suppose, more gifted and perhaps find it easier to play but they shouldn't be talked over when playing.

A lot of people probably treat it as a social but do what I do, speak between songs.

Anyway, I'm sure I will enjoy it.

No exercise for a few days - lifting that shed has seized me up a bit so I'm walking rather than getting on to the exercise machine. It just feels a little gentler to do that and I don't want to injure myself or go on the machine until I feel fit enough not to damage some area that is weak or recovering.

London and work in the morning and pleasure in the afternoon tomorrow. A morning preparing for the committee meeting next Monday and then to Lunchtimers for a relaxing lunch and afternoon. As no one wants to go out in the evening, I will dash off early and miss the traffic. Looking forward to this one as I will act as Chairman. I become Chairman in November but having already done 3 meetings this year standing in I should know what to do during my year in office.

A Day Without the Internet

is just a pretty bad day. As only I can, I decided to update my router to see if I could stop it dropping out as it is prone to do recently. Easy enough, you back up your existing situation, download the firmware bin file upload it to the router, reboot the router and



Nothing! Bloody great. So roll back to the previous back up, the one it asked you to make and it then finds it is corrupted!!! Great, so all day long at regular intervals I've been restarting the router and reconfiguring it, rebooting the cable box (5 minutes a go) and so on until this evening then suddenly off it went and everything came back as if by magic.....

I really feel tight after lifting up the shed at the weekend. Getting up and down with the router added to the pain too:-)

BUPA Advert

There is a BUPA (UK Health Insurance) advert that is doing the rounds on TV at the moment. I guess they are getting over a message that 1 in 3 will get cancer at sometime and that they have it all sorted out for you but it is the simplicity of the advert that is just amazing. One day, so and so was feeling good next day she had a lump, went to the doctors, who referred her, went to the Hospital got it cut out and everything was rosy again!

I realise that the message needs to be put across quickly and succinctly but when did you wander into the doctors, wander over to the Hospital, have it cut out and everything was OK?



Well maybe - but don't you think that's just a little over simplified?

Fixed the Shed

I mean the dark room. I had to remove about 2 foot of rotten floor, which meant propping up the shed on bricks like some wheel thief and then remove the affected area, build a new section and put that in after having treated the wood prior to that. I feel quite useful today - I probably haven't done a serious bit of heavy work like that since just before I had Bladder Cancer when I moved a floor sander around the house which I originally thought was the source of my symptoms in the first place! I felt I had really done myself a mischief :-)

Since then I have taken it pretty easy especially as you do tend to notice a weakness around your bladder area when lifting of even exercising. But anyway, its good that I got out there and did that repair and A is now working with Mrs. F to treat all the wood, block all the holes which may let in light and to evict many thousands of spiders and other creatures that have squatted on my property!!!

The number of snails, slugs and other strange creatures under the shed was amazing too.

It will be ideal for A when it is done as I had it made tall for me to work in and so it will easily accommodate her two enlargers and developer, fixer and water trays plus all the other equipment she will need. It will look quite spooky as the windows are going to be painted black as, of course, there can be no light except the red light inside the room when they are working. she also has to put up a partition between the two enlargers so no stray light from the one to the other occur. It's very exciting and it is nice to see my old workshop used for something again rather than storing loads of odds and ends.

I've been working on and off sorting out the Wiki for the charity and have just about completed it now. It looks pretty good I have to say and I'm delighted that I managed to get the same one as they built Wikipedia out of. If you fancy a peek it is here Festival Guidelines. It wont mean a lot to anyone who isn't an English or Welsh Freemason but finally, the process is documented and available. The great thing about a Wiki is it can be edited by the team and that it can be kept up to date simply.

A busy few weeks lie ahead as we will be choosing the people we want to do our logo and initial branding. Later on we will be meeting another potential member of the team and I think that we need to be taking a reality check on where we are now. I'm also checking out some other contacts for legal and other advice so that they can be lined up ready for the next phases of our work. It's exciting times. If this all fails, I'll be available for shed repairs any day :-)

Angry Days

Very occasionally I'll get an "angry day" one where my temper is nearer the surface or sense of humour is AWOL. It can be for various trivial reasons and I do tend to try and keep out of the way of anyone who may receive the benefit of my sarcasm. Unfortunately, at times like this, humans have a tendency to gravitate towards me drawn like moths to the flame and nature deprives them of anything useful to say rather it blesses them with the inanities so often enjoyed by those with limited education or enables them to say the exact thing that will set off a tirade of verbal abuse that their stupidity deserved.

I managed quite well to keep out of the way for most of the day but I do find being asked questions that people already know the answer too - or that they don't listen to the answer or that it is the wrong answer (based on what they wanted to hear) somewhat annoying and time wasting.

It goes along with lending assistance to be told that they weren't really interested after all.

So it's been that sort of day today and I'm just about to switch off and have done with it. Tomorrow I'll be helping A convert my old shed into a darkroom. They've stripped it out completely and there is a hole in the floor that needs fixing. I'm sure I can sort that out somehow. I used to spend time in there making things for the kids when they were small, like Doll's Houses and a fold away shop - good old days spent happily constructing things.

I wonder whether the onset of this illness killed off such things. I used to do a lot of DIY and gardening and these days I just haven't got the patience for it or derive the enjoyment I used to from those sorts of activities. Looking back, there are a lot of things I used to do that I don't do now. I used to cook a lot, I do a little now when I have to but nowhere near as much. We used to have people over for dinner parties - that's hardly happened since I was ill. There's lots of things that have changed where the habit has been broken and where lethargy kicked in.

In some ways, I find it a shame that these things no longer hold the enjoyment they did. Even my great passion for family history has diminished and I no longer spend hours doing research. Perhaps now that I have some time available again I can look to pick that up again?

Slight Loss

Of weight that is - 15 stone 13 Lbs or 223 pounds. Another barrier through so below 16 Stone now and just need to keep at it. Going to Mum and Dad's was OK as they heeded the warning and we had rabbit food not the normal stick to your ribs food she normally does :-) bless !

That barrier means I can soldier on now and start towards getting to 15 stone. That will be good as I really want to get down much further than that. Targets, milestones, things that can realistically be achieved. I may need to wait for 10 weeks or more to get there.

I got back on the exercise machine and decided to try the most difficult setting - wow, did my legs burn after that one. It just keeps incrementing every 3 minutes so by 20 minutes in you are at maximum resistance. It was a real relief when it freed up and I could do a recovery session. I think I might use that only once a week and go back to my normal 3 peaks one.

Exercise sucks still. An MP3 Player seems to help me pass 30 minutes in what otherwise appears to be a futile venture. I KNOW it does me good but how anyone can actually "enjoy" this is beyond me - surely we were made for greater things like sitting in front of the TV, watching sport and flicking between channels with the remote - surely that is my destiny (as Darth would say!!).

Back

Chauffeured up and back by Mrs. F and Daughter A was a new experience. I quite enjoyed it apart from how late you can brake in the new car!

Mum and Dad were OK, Dad looks a bit frailer and I guess for coming up to 80 in a few months he isn't bad considering. 3 days is enough time for us to have been there as he can just about handle it. On Day 2 Mrs. F and other daughter L went to Work to see the University there. A dropped them off at the station and then we took Mum and Dad out to Hunstanton for the day. It was quite nice but we wore Dad out a bit. Had a nice time though and had a treat - good old Fish and Chips which were yummy. I even treated myself to a little salt on my chips - well why not?

I see so much of me in my Dad it worries me - I certainly hope I don't "get like that" later in life. It was amazing how set in his ways he is, life is all about doing set things at set times, I suppose that it is one of those things that you need - routine and yet I shun from that as much as I can but we are all creatures of habit. I find myself sitting in the same seat or area of a train going up and back from London, I like to do things in a certain way etc.

I had quite an interesting time when I stepped on my parents scales in the bathroom which showed my as being 15 stone 12 lbs. OK that's 2 lbs lighter than I thought I was but - hold on - I was wearing my clothes and had my watch, wallet, phone etc all on me ready to go out. Surely the scales were wrong? Apparently not they are pretty accurate. This casts doubt on my scales in the bathroom which show me at 16 stone (or thereabouts). When I went to the Hospital they weighed me significantly less than I thought I was. Perhaps I never was 17 stone :-) Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise to find I was a lot less heavy than I thought I was. Our scales now need to be checked for accuracy.

Chilean Mine Workers

I felt really ill last night, a sinking feeling right in the pit of my stomach and actually had to get up and walk away from the TV as I felt so rough.

Those poor guys stuck down a mine who have now been found. They may have to wait for upwards of 4 months to be rescued, in the meantime they are stuck in a hole in the ground. Me, given my claustrophobia would have started drilling out with my own fingers by now or just have gone completely off my rocker. I suppose someone like me would never have gone down a mine in the first place. Then to find that they had drilled through and found you only to be told that you'd be down there for a lot longer than you thought you would - like 4 months longer.

It makes me ill just thinking about it - poor souls but at least they know that help is on its way. I guess, I'm second guessing what it's like here a bit like people second guessed what my condition is like. I suppose that thinking you were going to die and then realising that there was then hope and then a way out are pretty similar things, maybe they feel differently now but even so, stuck under 700 M of rock in a small space would just about freak me out!

You can see why this would work

In the BBC today "Drinking water before meals helps dieting, says study" explains how drinking two glasses of water before meals helps you lose weight.

It makes sense if you fill your stomach with water but I tend to go with a bowl of soup to satiate but perhaps I'll give this a go. You may have seen an email that suggests you should NOT have water after a meal as it solidifies the oily stuff in you stomach and may cause Cancer. This is NOT TRUE - see here.

What a Day

Internet has been on and off making me very angry - consider I am uploading a Wiki and when I lose the connection I lose a lot of coding and have to start again. On top of that a network crash due to loss of internet access (I guess) meant a 160 page document I was printing had to be started multiple times, finding out where is stopped and restarting it again.

Off in the morning to my parents for a few days which will be nice. At least I'll get a few days R&R - could do with it after today's nonsense building this flaming Wiki site. Nothing is ever easy.

Suppose I'd better get packed and go to bed then too - I've been at the PCs all day today and at least I can get a rest from them as well - no internet where we are going.... What will the girls find to do all day??

Relieved

That my daughter and her boyfriend showed up late tonight. I was getting worried as we have a severe weather warning and getting out of Festival Car Parks can be notoriously bad when it is just slightly wet. Clever girl, made a call early on in the evening seeing the weather was closing in to get away a little earlier than the finish and so they arrived looking for clean toilets and showers when they arrived - bless them.

I have not idea what my mother would have made of such things if I'd ever have gone. Working in London I just used to go to concerts straight from work so no problems there.

The lot of the parent!

Today has been a strange day as I've actually worked today - right through and now wished I'd taken a break but need to remind myself that I've three days coming up when I will have a break when I see my parents.

I kind of find it funny that I get the occasional snipe about not seeing them that often but in reality they moved away from here not vice versa and it is pretty difficult to get consensus to get the family up there. With Mrs. F working during term time it also means that she can only have school holidays off which severely limits us. I try and get there when I can and if my work takes me nearby. It hasn't recently of course but there you go.

I did loads to day and got my visa to visit the US sorted out. Not that I have any plans but the fee goes up in a few weeks time so I might as well apply now rather than cough up for the privilege when I do get to go. I'm hoping that in the next 2 years, if things do go well to finally get over to the States. I nearly got to Chicago three years ago - nearly. About the only place my old employers (who were US based) never sent me was the US. Fingers crossed that we get the business rolling along and we can get over and see some ex-colleagues.

Let's hope that our plans come to fruition and that we get the opportunity to do something with them. I was a bit depressed when I heard that for every 1000 ventures only 1 makes it to market. I'm sure that can't be right. Hopefully I'm not barking mad or have some sort of lunatic plan that will never make it especially as we have had it reviewed by some seriously powerful people both sides of the pond. Oh well - the journey is the thing and we are really picking up some momentum now.

A bit better

I've lost the 2 pounds I've put on and I'm back to 16 stone (224 pounds) it looks less as the needle is just below but I can't claim that right now though.

It's nice to get back on track and as long as I lose a little each week I'll be happy. This week might be difficult as I'm off to my mum and dads. Mum's, of course, have an in built filter that makes their children look emaciated and they then need to fill you full of starch and other stuff to swell you out to make you look better :-)

I've just come off the phone to her and gone through dietary requirements including what I do and don't eat. It will be good to go and see them, I haven't seen them since Christmas and as a family it has been almost a year - it was October 2009. Time flies. I might even get to see my kid brother whilst I'm there who knows?

Ooerrr that wasn't expected

Damn it. Every now and again this happens, flashback, me all upset in Hospital, not recently, when I was a kid and woke to find my arm in a harness where lots of tubes were fed into it. It is one of 'those' horrible moments as I remember being terribly upset about it. As I've said before, many times, if I actually know that is likely to happen I can work through it. As it wasn't it spooked me especially in the drugs they used to use in those days.

It must have been brought about through the letter from the Hospital which arrived today. That was good but in its usual dour tones from the NHS, "The Biopsies were clear with no signs of Carcinoma in Situ or Malignancy" - it goes on to say that I've had the BCG Immunotherapy and BCG Maintenance and that now I would be observed at the Flexible Cystoscopy clinic which is a relief.

So, that's all OK then but that was a horrible flashback - these things are just randomly shoved into your conciousness by your brain (for what purpose I have no idea). Given the shift in my emotional equilibrium even knowing that it is in the past and can't hurt me, it just wrenches away and makes me feel sad.

There is probably something in here about not wanting to go back and that hopefully, this will be the last of it and I can move on. In a way I can but Bladder Cancer likes to come back and revisit even though an unwanted guest and it is the thought of having to go back through the last 4 years again that is perhaps nagging away in the back of my mind. I should try and move on, its the right thing to do but such is the nature of the beast that it resides in the back of your mind to remind you, when you least expect it, what fear is all about. For fear is also at the back of this, I suppose it is an everyday thing that you just fight and try and keep away.

Weekend of Work

Got a lot to do and I'm away for three days next week so I need to do some work here over the weekend.

As usual, I'm working like crazy but no one else back at the charity is as they have other work to do at the same time. I'm a bit lucky as I just get stuck in. Yesterday was close to a 16 hour day - and there was pretty good progress so that's OK. No phone calls and I could complete huge pieces of work.

I didn't even get to exercise yesterday as I just carried on through and judging by my last email at 1 in the morning - I ought to spend a little more time resting this weekend and keep work to a reasonable amount of time. Mind you exciting times and real progress on our new venture too so it is all happening.

Working from Home

Has advantages and disadvantages. It's nice to get up and have no travelling so saving myself a good 3 hours a day - 3 hours that I fill with work but also using 1 hour or so of that to do my exercises.

The problem of interruptions is partially but not completely solved and so in a way it isn't too bad but when I do get an interruption it tends to be a long one. I can play my music through speaker not through a head set and I once I get into the zone I can switch off external noise and just blitz my work.

Yesterday was a case in point - I stitched back my 125 page document, re did all the graphics for it, and did loads of work to get it back to where it was before the guy I am working for tore it apart. It took me most of the day to do that and in the interim I also managed to write a document for our potential designers to produce our logo etc and managed to edit and review another. By the time I had finished I had gone through 8 or 9 hours work steadily and it felt like it had been just a few hours at the most.

Yesterday L got her first year A level results - she wasn't happy with them although, with one exception, they weren't bad - she can stay on to complete them but it has made her re-think her strategy and where to go for University as there isn't much hope to get to some of her choices with these results. As you do, when you are 17, you party anyway and at close to 2 am they arrived home!!! We don't wait up but I didn't sleep properly until the door went. This morning A and her friends left at the crack of dawn to go to the V Festival she wasn't going originally but somehow got to go by some convoluted route! She goes to Reading next week. It's tough being a student.

So I'm a bit tired this morning and trying to get sorted out after late night and early morning not caused by me!

Off to my parents for a few days next week which will be nice - I haven't seen them for close to a year but they moved away a long way from here and it is a bit of a trek - I can get to Paris or Brussels quicker than getting to them!! It's not too bad getting near to them but the last part of he journey cross country takes ages. I'm looking forward to seeing them and we are taking the other car (which I don't drive) so that will be interesting for me having always driven there and back before.

London Calling

Ended up there today and had a good set of meetings, a nice lunch, raised our glasses to the new business and made my way home. For what was meant to be a cool day I ended up roasting nicely in the train on the way home as the sun was out and the sky was blue! Not sure how they got that wrong this time but there you go.

There's lots of construction work going on in town and the Shard is coming along nicely - I can see the number 37 peeping out from below the shuttering. The glass is coming up the building too. There is also stacks of work where they have pulled down the old London Bridge House and all around the Market area work is going on apace.

My business partner and I are both 4 year cancer survivors and so we were thinking that next July we ought to do something that celebrates in an unusual way our statistical survival for the 5 years :-) So we are putting on our thinking caps for that one.

Today we moved on another step after setting the company up and picking up the websites we set to work on our "elevator pitch" our 30 second and 2 minute drills and other key messages. We have such a difficult service to explain - it contains massive technology but not at the customer end, it all happens silently so it is difficult not to draw parallels or to describe. Anyway, we are on our way to doing that as we need to articulate our service and differentiate it. The fun of it all.

I find the whole thing really challenging - which is what I wanted. The work we are having to do to achieve funding is amazingly in-depth but consider the investor who needs to be certain we know what we are doing.

I've managed to still be sat at my desk at 1 in the morning and that is getting too regular. I need to set out working time and rest time as whilst it is all very exciting and full on - I can't do this work if I am not awake, alert and smart.