Worst possible meal choice

Was out with good old Flocky Bicep - thank goodness he was able to take me as my car is showing an engine light :-(  The food was a nightmare as it was completely full of stuff I can't eat.    I just didn't eat it - that simple and just had some more when I got home.  It's cheat day later and so I'll make up for it then.  I certainly find the sorts of meals that you get put in front of you aren't as healthy as you'd like to believe.

It's a friend's funeral on Tuesday as well as lad's night out - not sure if I will want to be in the Church as it will be absolutely rammed full.  I may perhaps arrive for the interment and then wander over to the club where his wake will be.  It's one of those deaths that were quite sudden and yet perhaps not unexpected in some ways.  

We have the family around later tomorrow - the piano didn't get moved and when I fired off a text - they were pretty mortified that they hadn't sorted it out.  The trouble is that this has gone on for about a year now and so it needs to happen fast.  Let's hope they sort it out soon.

This time next week we will be almost ready to fly off to Italy which I am looking forward to now.   There's lots to do in and around Sorrento and I just watched a programme on Herculaneum which was very interesting indeed and Pompeii and Vesuvius are of course nearby.

I'm hoping to relax and chill out a bit later - it's cheat day and I can have a beer too as well as get stuck in to some chocolate cake I see they've made.  The opposite side of me though has started to view any food as suspicious these days and so I'm wary of what may be in the food I eat and I'm also noticing that even though I can cheat - I only do so a bit and don't go mad and eat say 6 or 7 roast potatoes - I may have 2 which is far less than I used to eat.  Perhaps you change your attitude to the food that is likely to mess up your system?

The wonders of ghee

Well it arrived whilst we were out - very quick delivery and was left with a neighbour which was great.  I did my first cooking with the ghee tonight and yes indeed it tasted very nice but tomorrow will be the breakfast test - they say that scrambled or fried eggs will taste double yummy using ghee.  My Indian friend also told me how to use my leftover cottage cheese and I made a sort of fried paneer with some onions and tomatoes and it really tasted quite pleasant with added spinach.  

I'm still carefully reading articles and books about this low glycemic index way of eating and I am drawn towards the Tim Ferris diet as that appears to be working quite well but I might take some of the Protein Power, Atikins and Insulin Factor recommendations too, especially the potential use of hard cheeses that have next to no lactose in them.  I'm only thinking about for flavouring meals to make them interesting as they have very low GI and are mainly fat, it's the lactose element that needs to be cautious.

I did remarkably well today as there were chips on my plate and I didn't need them not even "just one" as to me that would defeat the object of the exercise.  Cheat day is going to be Sunday as there are cakes and puddings galore for A's birthday party.  Looking forward to that.

So much to do so little time

Had two calls today that took over 2 1/2 hours of my time.  Then heard that a guy I worked with a few years ago had died of a Cerebral Haemorrhage.  Life's a bit cruel and he was thousands of miles from home too.  I can't say that we had a good working relationship but he was pleasant enough company and bright as a button and as sharp as a razor.

That's the second death I've heard about this week and another funeral is next week of someone else I know.  

On a positive note my Ghee has arrived and I'm looking forward to getting used to using it.  My Indian friend told me where to find that at my local supermarket and also suggested I try the Indian Cottage Cheese which is superior in all ways!  So he says :-)

We went out to lunch today but we all smell of smoke as the fire which was raging away was also blowing back down the chimney and so we all smell like a barbeque :-)  I had a superb mixed grill and gave away my chips (fries) to everyone else.  It was all in all a very reasonable meal and I also managed two nice glasses of Rioja - most civilised.

Now I need to sort out my calendar and arrangements as we are away in just over a week and I have calls on my time all over the place.  I need to seriously DIARISE - ohhh that shows off my days working for a US Corporate.  I learnt some incredible hair raising phrases there.   Shudders!

Anyway - the dining room is finished much to my surprise - Mrs. F. managed to sort it all out so we can have the party here on Sunday.  Great

As it is late Friday afternoon I now fancy wandering downstairs and perhaps popping open a bottle of red (not just for me I hasten to add).  

More on MP3 Music

So having put thousands of tracks on my server and have my Sonos setup I decided that I should experiment with random tracks and so set my Sonos to shuffle.  Now all was well and good if you find Pearl Jam followed by Bach an interesting combo :-)  The problem though was that my music is all recorded at different volumes and I've used a host of different ripping programmes and bought online and so the volumes are all over the place which is a bit distracting.  Luckily a wee open source programme called MP3Gain has come to the rescue - mind you it is doing batches at the moment which is taking a while but hopefully this will be almost the last piece of work I need to do in the library.  All future MP3s will be checked, tagged, associated with album art volume checked and then entered into the system.

This morning my accounts were audited and flew through scrutiny - not too difficult as I had a professional accountant review them in the first place.  I've one more set of accounts to do this year.

It is a bad month already.  Yesterday heard about Jim Tuffin's death.  A friend known affectionately as Yogi died in March and his funeral is next Tuesday and another friend died on Monday - he had been ill for a while but there you go - it was a great shame and his funeral is when I'm away in Italy.  Another friend has been diagnosed with Bowel Cancer and he is undergoing Chemo.  He though isn't in a great frame of mind about it.

It's hard to believe but we've had flurries of snow again today and it's April for goodness sake!   

Calm - Everyone in Bed

Got back from Jazz, a most interesting evening with a lot of old songs I recognised but didn't know the title to.  I won a bottle of Red Wine which is great and kept to drinking red wine even though they had three guest ales in.  The hardest thing about the diet is beer - I really like beer in all its forms and the real ale they serve is second to none.  They have great names and my friend had a half a pint of Ginger Tosser?  

So the house is quiet and everyone is asleep which is great - I've left a note as I have my audit team over in the morning and as the Dining room looks like North Korea has invaded it I have to use the kitchen table to do the accounts on.  With any luck I can get that done, then sort the car out and then whatever else needs to be attended to.

I've researched the various routes between the airport and our hotel and know the prices and times so we can make a decision based on what we find when we arrive.  There is a direct bus, a bus to the main station and a train ride or a bus to the ferry terminal and a hydrofoil ride across the bay.  Whatever way we travel I'm sure we will be bowled over by the area given the photographs I've seen today.

I also watched a documentary on Herculaneum and I am really looking forward to seeing that, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.  We might go to Capri and perhaps take the Amalfi Coast road although I'm not sure about driving in Italy after last years sojourn in Bologna :-)  

Mrs. F. suggested that we ought to take a few days rest which is most unlike her - she's the one with the round arse who never keeps still for a moment so it will be interesting to see if she does actually take a day or two to rest.   It would suit me just to take it easy and have leisurely breakfast, lunch and dinner and just do next to nothing all day :-)

Goodbye

Another Cancer Blogger says goodbye.  I've been following Jim Tuffin's fight for a while and heard today that he died on the 24th March 2013.  There are some useful lessons in his blog (I hope it stays up) which should  humble us all.  Dealing with a terminal prognosis and keeping on going and letting us know about it too.  It's sobering stuff for me.  I suggest that those of us who have lived through this and lived to tell the tale relate to and feel every word of this stuff.

I was contacted by Jim perhaps 10 years ago and only ever knew him electronically in business.   His last entry was on 12th March and comments on the 18th March, he was hoping to live until 18th April, his birthday.   Just 12 days later he passed away.

Another cancer victim but what is interesting is his desire and drive to make sure his family were catered for and if nothing else, reading his blog will give you a sense of the way it messes with your emotions around your loved ones and your own mortality. 

Just One Of THOSE Days

Mrs. F. does this occasionally - she has a week off this week, we have a family party on Sunday coming, she decides to decorate the Dining room......

I don't get asked it just happens and the place if a tip.  I had to assist yesterday and then today I am asked with 30 seconds notice to take the radiator off the wall - in doing so I spring the leak from hell and was lucky to recover the situation but trying to get Mrs. F. to understand that I wanted a screwdriver to shut a valve off - was she just being obstreperous returning with one of my jewellers (watch and spectacle repairs) screwdrivers which of course is as much use as a chocolate wrench.  Of course I sort of shouted at her, she's not unintelligent after all said and done.  Anyway, despite her best efforts to test my patience I managed to sort it out pretty quickly and stop the leak which was threatening to call for a lifeboat.  

This project that I had no knowledge of and have washed my hands of is just crazy but there you go if that's what she wants to do in her week off then so be it.  If there ever was something likely to p1ss me right off then this would be it.  Luckily I'm out tonight to the Jazz night and so I can just let her get on with it.  So far we've also had 5 or is it 6 shorts on the electrics requiring me to repair the fuse and taking out the downstairs lighting, this despite the fact that I asked her to tape the damn thing up.  No tape she said but after the event I found the tape about 3 foot from the switch!  Crazy.

Anyway - tomorrow I have people around for my audit so I just hope that I'm not going to be asked to put the radiator back when they are here.

A chat with my friend and he confirms that he has T2 diabetes and is now on drugs for that and further tests including a scan to make sure all is what it seems.  He's lost another Kilo and his BP is coming down so let's hope things are OK for him.  In some ways it isn't surprising given his lifestyle and he does enjoy his food.

I've been busy sorting out the holiday and the car.  So far I've managed to book us in on-line and the seats they've allocated us are fine - we could have paid a little extra to choose our seats but the selection we have is fine as we have window and adjacent there and back again.  I've been looking at transfers from the airport to the resort and that looks straightforward and may even work out nicely with our arrival time too.  Let's hope so but there are a number of alternatives which allow us to choose various routes involving sea, rail and road so that's OK.

Sample - Safely Deposited

I worked on the car this morning as I disturbingly got an engine warning light - the oil was low but all the oil I had only brought the level up to just above minimum :-(  So perhaps we will buy some more tomorrow and see if we can fill it up and then if the light doesn't go off I'll run it up to the garage now our other car is back.  

I normally get more than two weeks notice to have my scope and so I would normally have the urine sample in at least 2 weeks ahead but getting it in today is, I hope, the next best thing.  Hopefully they will have the results ready for when I get scoped.  It was a nice walk to the Hospital and back via Sainsburys.  I did a little basic shopping but couldn't find any Ghee (Indian clarified butter) - I looked in the butters / margarine fridges and the Oils and those sorts of areas but to no avail.  I have purchased some through Amazon and let's see what it is like.  Someone suggested that I should have looked at the indian cooking area - not sure if I actually saw one but perhaps that is where it will be.  It doesn't need to be refrigerated and I may just ask my mate where he gets his from.  For the moment, I've got some on its way and will report on how I find it when it arrives.

I've also got some little waxed containers (like you see at Fast Food Restaurants for ketchup).  I'm going to use them to put the fat in from my George Foreman griddle as I don't like to put it down the waste disposer and I'm running out of jam jar lids to put the fat in before throwing it away - let's see if this sorts the problem out for me :-)

I've got the dates set for auditing my accounts which is great too.  Now just one more set of accounts to sort out...

Back on Track

It takes me a little while to get back to normal following the wobble that is cheat day.  I feel much better this morning and it is interesting to note how lean or slim I actually feel - to me it is more noticeable now especially as my trousers now fit around my waist and not under it!  It's a major improvement but on top of that I feel fit and I feel healthy too.  Which is great.

I read a lot of the book "Protein Power" over the weekend and that together with Gary Taubes, Dr. Atkins, The Insulin Factor and Tim Ferriss; all point out the benefits of a low Insulin diet. Of course I found some detractors from this view too but have a think about it for a while.  The majority of diets limit calories and fat and yet whilst you can point to a number of people who have lost weight from them, unless they continue to diet, as soon as they revert to normal food, they start to put weight on again.  If these diets did what they said there wouldn't be so many cases of obesity and diabetes out there?  These books all make a compelling argument for the balance of our diet to shift away from a carbohydrate based one to a more natural one adopted by our ancestors for well over 2 and a half million years.  Man has been growing his own food for less than 12,000 years and they never featured in the diet until then, we switched to a different lifestyle eating food we weren't genetically designed to eat and much of the problem appears to be that we aren't evolved sufficiently enough to handle such a diet.

In our known existence to date for 0.48% of that time we've been eating diets increasingly high in carbohydrates and rather than eating them when seasonal we've been eating them all years around.  Add to that the increasingly high levels of sugar in our diet and you start to see what is going on.   It isn't just the obvious diabetes and obesity that appear to come from this diet but other chronic diseases too including heart and cancers.  The books make for troubling reading especially when you consider what advice we are given.  I'm very suspect now of anything that is in a package and justifiably so.  I used to consider soup as a healthy option - it makes you satiated quickly and so that has to be good especially in diet situations.  Have a read on any can of soup you care to pick up - I bet that within the first 6 or 8 ingredients you will find sugar.  You'll find some sort of wheat in there too.  Stuff like Fructose in drinks is incredibly common and you find sugars and carbs in just about everything and as soon as you eat or drink these - wallop, up goes your insulin levels to cope with this highly concentrated tsunami of sugar in your blood and the body goes in to overdrive to move it out of the blood into the cells or convert it.  

There are some great analogies in the books.  The one I like is that it like going to an ATM and drawing out money - your wallet acts like a diode - money goes into your wallet but you can't spend it and so you draw out more and your wallet gets fatter but you can't spend it so you draw out even more and so on......  All the time you are easting sugar and carbs you can't release what you have already stored you just add to it.  This is an oversimplification, of course it is, I'm no scientists but the arguments make sense more so in the face that the other stuff we've been told for the last 30 years doesn't seem to have made any difference whatsoever.  You'd have thought that all that healthy eating would have helped many more people?

Of course all this looks too simple, too straightforward and too much like common sense to be true surely we can't have got it that wrong?  They know what Insulin does and the Glycemic Index of foods they've done all the experiments and the maths.  It's just that where 1+1=2 reading this stuff - someone really hasn't added it all together and come up with anything that makes sense.  Surely our grandparents knew all along?  I'm sure they told me that potatoes, rice puddings and bread would put some fat on me.  It's pretty obvious. 

Anyway, to me it is becoming clear how this works and I'm feeling OK and losing weight but not feeling like I'm being starved and neither do I feel hungry at all.  Strangely enough I feel fit, fit enough to do some sprinting and running over the weekend and not find I was out of breath.

I've now got my accounts sorted too so they can be audited this week and with a bit of luck we can move on for another year on those.  I hate accounts....

Day After Cheat Day

I have to admit to being rough again the morning after cheat day - yesterday we did have a nice dinner and some drink but not excessively so.  I rarely have puddings but made an exception yesterday with a cheesecake and some fruit too and I could feel that hit my system.

I had some potatoes and some cheese and biscuits and a few other things too and I didn't have too many but waking up this morning I do feel sluggish and I rarely want to eat first thing but forced myself to.  It is almost midday and I'm almost back to normal - it is just a strange feeling and I guess it is sticking all that junk food in my system and kicking off a major insulin response to shock my body from it's low carb regimen of the week before.

I was pleased to note the I am now very close to the 2 and a half stone I wanted off to start with.  I now need another half a stone off to get me back to where I was a few years ago and a further half a stone would get me back to my pre-cancer weight.  With the trip to Italy on the horizon I may have a difficult week but at least I won't have the major upheavals of last year to contend with.

Bam - Hits You Like A Truck

Good grief - I just had some chocolate on cheat day - goodness me you can feel it impact your body just showing you what you aren't doing to your body for the other 6 (in my case 7 this week) days.  Wham Bam this stuff is good :-)  

I looked at my cupboard with all the tins, pasta, soup and other goodies in it and my mind pictured this:

It's a bit of a disturbing vision but perhaps you can get my thinking especially when you just take a little time to review what's actually in the tin or the packet.   I suppose you could even look at Carbs and Sugar as a type of drug as they present you with cravings and surely cravings for more of the same stuff.......

Anyway, I'm sort of happy that I can have carbs and sugar today and then again I'm not, if you get my drift?  At least for 6 out of 7 days I'm repairing the damage what I'm doing to myself today.  Of course there is also a good reason to have a cheat day and whilst one of them is a sort of reward day for being good 6 days in a week the other is more scientific and it shocks the body and stops it going into a sort of survival mode because you are burning fat off during the other 6 days - if you continued to do that the body has some sort of survival mechanism built into it to prevent this.

British SUMMER Time

And we have a very cold morning but magic blue skies and the sun is shining nicely.  Makes a change from the Siberian winter :-)

It's amazing how it can lift your spirits and today is cheat day too and so I'm just about to embark on a trail of forbidden foods :-).  My Protein Power book arrived yesterday - nicely altered for the UK market which is a good touch as the examples are nicely Europeanised for us.  The amazing thing about this book is the range of food is slightly more than the 4HB or the Insulin Factor but very similar to Dr. Atkins revised book.  It has the chapters neatly summarised in a few pages too so you can go the end of a chapter when or if your eyes glaze over - not that this is an overly technical book it is written for the lay man but it does have some sections in there that are designed for GPs.

So far, the books I've read are all counter-intuitive to what is "accepted" science and yet all of these books rest on accepted science and repeatable experiments.  They've drawn a different conclusion to those by GPs and indeed some Government agencies and some of the stuff you read makes you sit up and think.  A good thing too in my opinion.

When I started on this journey sparked by suddenly getting ill after many years of (seemingly) good health I decided that I'd need to change my lifestyle which in many ways I did.  This included diet and some horrendous mistakes in that diet.  I remember going for a high fruit and vegetable diet, concentrated juices and other similar actions and of course in some ways - maybe as a reaction to being so seriously ill I tended to go fully at a solution and gradual was just a word in a dictionary :-)  I spiked my insulin levels way too high and got a ticking off from the Doctor.

Neither he nor my Specialist had any real tangible advice for me how to keep myself healthy as the last thing I wanted to do was end up back where I started if there was something that I could do to prevent it - it's common sense really but no one really tells you anything they deal with the Symptoms and they very rarely deal with the cause other than, in my case, telling you that it was highly probable that smoking earlier in my life would have brought it on.  

So back to these diet books and what they say.  It's a little bit worrying as they all point to Insulin as being a massive problem.  Of course Diabetes but weight and other problems all point to an imbalance caused mainly through the production of Insulin and that is caused through Carbohydrates (Sugars and Starches .  The problem appears to be that our food (mainly processed) is just loaded with the stuff and where in the good old days we used to have a high protein diet with occasional carbs we now have the opposite and guess what?  Our bodies just aren't designed to take it.  Obesity, weight problems, high blood pressure and heart problems, Diabetes and many other common problems appear to be related and stemming from this one area.

So I read through the book yesterday and it all begins to gel into something that's not great for reading if, like me, you've been told you should have a "balanced" diet.  These books look at that and show another way to lose fat (not weight) and retain muscle whilst doing so making you leaner.  The propose a higher protein approach to eating that is low in carbs and anything else (lactose for example) that would spike your insulin levels.  Why you may ask is that important?  Well there are a number of things that Insulin does extremely well it's a major hormone in the body and responsible for lots of things but when you put sugar into your blood stream it goes to work to take it out of your blood and preserve your body by storing it in cells around the body.  The more carbs you eat the more you store.  The trouble is that you never release the stores all the time insulin is present and storing stuff which if you are stuffing carbs into your body is all the time, it never gets the opportunity to be burnt off.  

It is a big subject but I'm pretty much sold on the basics as I've lost quite a bit of weight and interestingly yesterday on the Easter Egg Hunt I had to do some sprinting around the gardens and lifting stuff around - I didn't feel out of breath at all and also noticed how "fit" I was especially when I consider that 3 or 4 months ago I was out of breath tying my shoelaces!  That shocked me into going on the diet - well that and not fitting any of my clothes.  I'm still losing weight but more slowly at the moment a pound or so a week which is plenty to lose.  I'm in two notched on my belt and my trousers need taking in by a few inches so I'm on the right track.  I don't feel hungry except occasionally and that's often because I don't eat enough sometimes or look for a smaller portion but regret it later.  I'm still learning what is right and after about 10 weeks or so I'm doing rather well I think - I haven't got scurvy or beri beri, I feel great and I feel thinner, I'm beginning to lose the weight around my neck and areas like hips are also improved.  My skin feels good.  

I need to check out my Blood Pressure as that should have fallen down and eventually it should fall to "normal" as well.  I sure hope that this brings all of those areas down too.  It should also have a positive effect on Cholesterol as well.  

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this as I read and compare books further.  The one thing is that they all agree on is that the Insulin coursing around isn't doing humans much good and obesity and a host of other things are caused through stuffing our face with carbs many hidden in the ingredients in processed food.  Want to make yourself shocked - take a look at the amount of sugar in a canned drink or breakfast cereal.   Frightening stuff and some kids can ingest 8 - 10 oz of sugar a day - imagine what that does to your Insulin levels and the work the body has to do to keep that out of your blood stream.......

Enjoy your Easter Eggs :-)

Egg Hunt Done

For another year - the same old faces help year in and year out which is lovely and donate eggs and their time.  It was cold and the sun came out a few times so we were all dressed up to the nines - my thermals worked so well that when I got into the home it was like an instant sauna:-)

We raised over £100 and over £200 for the home in their raffle.  Everyone appeared to have a good time the kids especially.  I've almost forgotten how many years I've run it but the nice thing is that it gets the kids in to the home and it allows children and grand and even great grand children to have a reason to come to the home.  For a nominal amount we run the event and let the kids scoop up loads of chocolate Easter Eggs.  The home donate a number for their raffle and we have members of the Lodge contribute. 

We now have sleet and snow in the air blowing around so at least we got away with it this morning.

Next task for today is to get on with my accounts and try and sort those out somehow.

That Heart Stopping Moment

When you go for a pee and think you see something fire out in the stream.  Only a Bladder Cancer patient can actually tell you how utterly frightening it is to see it.  Warning - gory bit coming up.

The initial presentation is often (but not always) blood in the urine and often bits and clots firing out.  It is gross, it is highly unpleasant and unnatural and I it fills you with horror and foreboding.  A sharp intake of breath and just an almost unexplainable fear bordering on terror.  I wish no one would ever have to experience it - it is just nasty and very very frightening.

So last night, after having got my note to go and get a flexible cystoscope 2 weeks today, I go to the bathroom and saw something fly out and into the toilet bowl.  Now, it could be nothing and is more than likely to be a piece of cotton or something that just happened to be there - I certainly didn't feel anything - and generally (although not always) you can feel if it has come from within you.  I have to say I didn't experience anything like that and so whilst it took my breath away when I saw it, I did a quick think and realised that it wasn't what my instinct told me it was.  

Again, only someone who has had this will know but it brings it all back in a flash, the blood in the urine, the sting of treatment, the fear that having Cancer produces, the black cloud hanging over you and the general negative stuff you had pushed to the far reaches at the back of your mind.

I'm OK about it but of course having spooked myself a bit, sleep was a bit difficult but once I was out I was out and this morning - nothing untoward has happened.  In many ways, I'm going to be checked out in a few weeks and that's fine - if there is anything there - it will be picked up and whether I like it or not - they'll sort it out.  For now, I'm pretty certain that it was just a bit of cotton or fluff or something like that but if it isn't I'll be in good hands and will get sorted out.  Bladder Cancer is (normally) slow growing and so if it is back it will be early stages and they can sort it out.

Of course the thing is not to worry about it and as one Swallow does not a Summer make, I can start to worry if it recurs.  

Anyway - I still feel very well and not at all fatigued (I hadn't realised that had gone away - probably my diet) I also have to say that my general outlook is pretty much OK and now weight is coming under control and as we head out of winter and get some more daylight - and let's hope spring weather - I'm generally optimistic and looking forward to moving on one way or the other after I come back from holiday.

4 Day Weekend

An interesting weekend - probably the first I can remember when we aren't all together for Easter.  A is working, L is at University for a few more days and then coming back.  I have the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday and not one of the girls will accompany me.  They used to participate either in the hunt itself and later on organising and face painting.  It is bitterly cold but should remain dry for the hunt itself.  Let's hope that we can hold it outside even if it is a little cold as holding it in what is, after all, an old people's home disturbs the residents a bit - but it is doable and we've managed before.

So with that happening on Saturday morning I then have to return and speak to me friend who will help me out with my accounts.  It's not that I don't get balance sheets but sometimes, having worked on mainly contract accounts, the balance sheet principles aren't as firmly fixed in my head as they should be and so I see myself double accounting or taking something off when I should be adding it on :-)  It may prove interesting that I might be working for a large Accounting Corporation (or not) in the future!  Just don't tell them :-)

My couple of days of experimenting with dropping out the legumes from my diet doesn't appear to be detrimental - I certainly haven't felt hungry at all.  I may have some tomorrow though for a change but not have as large a quantity as I have done in the past.  After all, there are carbs in the vegetables and so it isn't as if I'm missing out on them altogether.  

To eat Cheese or not?

It's a funny question I know but you see opinion is split.  If you follow the 4-Hour Body then you can't have any cheese but can have Cottage Cheese and a few parmesan shavings occasionally.  I believe this is because of the lactose content.  If you read other books they say cheese is mainly protein and fat and is fine to eat although in limited amounts.  Mind you 4 oz would be plenty.

So I'm waiting to see what the consensus is on this.  It is a mixed argument depending on who you read and what plan you follow.  

I hope my book arrives soon, I could do with reading that one and then comparing them all.  It would be nice to have a bit of cheese to flavour some of the meals which can be bland on occasion.

I always try and eat some cheese on cheat day anyway - it is my one real food fad - I like a bit of Stilton or some mature farmhouse cheddar, Brie etc... :-)

Cystoscopy 12th April

I have been expecting a letter for my Cystoscopy for a while as it must have been about this time a year ago and around 6 months since my last one.  What a stroke of luck though being just a few days before we go away.  Let's hope for continued good news.  I certainly haven't noticed anything and neither have I felt unwell.  I have to get a sample over to the Hospital sometime in the next week or so - I'll time it towards the end of next week to allow the results to get to my Consultant before the event.

No matter how hard you try - there's always that lingering element of concern about these things.  I'm hopeful that I will have continued to have made progress and that the repairs have been effective and lasting.

The postman didn't bring my book but then again it is meant to be with me on Saturday....

Not too bad actually

Not too bad this morning - someone told me (I have no idea if it is true or just a wives tale) that if you take statins you hardly ever get a hangover.  I have to say I generally don't get hangovers and this morning whilst I was a little slower out of the blocks I was still up and moving around about 8.

The rest of today will be taken up sorting out odds and ends like words for the meeting I have in June - my swansong, sorting out accounts that I just don't understand (I've got to do something with the balance sheet but appear to have missed the point about some subs - when and what year they were paid in).  At least I have a friendly chap to talk to on that on Saturday!

It looks like cheat day needs to be on Sunday this week as we've been invited out to lunch or dinner or both...

So a bit of a pottering around day - I hope that doesn't lead to me feeling down again later like it did earlier in the week.

Great Fun Evening

Good old Flocky Bicep - what a trouper - he picked me up and the also dropped me back home again - which I wasn't expecting.  That allowed Mrs. F. to go to bed early and that in turn means no ear bending for having too much to drink or otherwise!

Had a great evening and good company and that's what it is all about really.  I enjoy the banter and I also enjoy the company too.  It is nice to meet different people who share a common interest and it was also nice to get out early and get a "few beers (in my case wine) in"

I have no doubt that I will end up being a little bit sleepy in the morning but I need to get up and get moving as there is a possibility that some deliveries are due to the house that need a signature and I'm "home alone" tomorrow.

I feel great after a good meal (sticking to my diet) but perhaps a few more red wines that prescribed!  I believe I will pay for that tomorrow.  

Wednesday already

Blimey where did this week go?  Suddenly it will be Easter weekend and I have the Easter Egg Hunt to go to on Saturday - it looks as if, for the first time in its history we may have snow - but then the weather is a little too fickle to be forecast quite as accurately as that :-)  We have never had snow in the 16 years (or so) of running it - it may even be longer.   We've had it very cold and had it indoors and last year it was nice and sunny but this year looks to be "interesting".

I'm looking forward to spending a bit of time out this afternoon and evening at our Officers' Mess where we will have a nice meal and wine which comes heavily subsidised through membership and annual subscriptions and people who don't come along.  So of the thousands who are eligible perhaps 300 of us turn up and so our meals are very reasonable indeed about half the price they'd normally be.

I need a bit of an escape and some (male) company for a few laughs and a bit of socialising which are the main things, it will certainly lighten me up.  I may even be able to fit into my remaining suits, I will check those out later especially as I now fit comfortably into my Morning Suit and my Interview Suit :-)

I'm still hanging on waiting on whether or not I'm going forward to this next interview stage - it has taken close to SIX months now to get this far and it just doesn't get any easier.  It's the new Tax year next week so maybe they are waiting until budgets can be sorted out.  I hope so.  

In some ways the choice to go back and join a Corporate is utterly clinical and mercenary and in many ways it isn't what I'd do as a first choice.  I've some ideas about what I'd prefer to do and one way or the other, this will make up my mind for me.  Big corporate life will bring big bucks back to the family and bring with it status symbols and all that old guff.  It will allow me to ply my trade and work with huge businesses around the globe and that's exciting and great fun. Of course, I'm also not your average project jockey which may be giving them a few sleepless nights.  I tend to be one of the sorts of people you parachute in to get results and not everyone gets on with someone who gets things done as it tends to expose those who don't.  That could be it.  I wouldn't want to work for me!

If it comes about it sticks some serious wonga in to my account but as someone mentioned the other day that the results of my working at these levels last time may have contributed to the cancer diagnosis.  Well I suppose it may have but I'm certain that smoking and diet also contributed towards it as well.  I'm hoping that my new insights into lifestyle, diet and stress will come to bear in my working life - I should understand and be able to manage my stress levels but I still believe you need a bit of stress to work with or it really isn't worth getting up in the morning.

Oh well - I can wish away all I want to, I still haven't heard from them and that's disappointing but not entirely uncommon quite how they manage their projects is going to be interesting if they take this long to hire - the jobs are probably so laid back they are horizontal.