27
Posted: Tue 22 March, 2016 Filed under: Charitable, Health, Sport, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m not a massive fan of Sport Relief – although I do prefer it to shite like Comic Relief and Children-in-Need – but regardless of any of that, I have to say that Eddie Izzard’s achievement of running 27 marathons in 27 days (including two on the final day, as he’d missed one early on) is nothing short of amazing.
That he’s also raised more than £1.35million is also seriously noteworthy.
That’s not to belittle the fundraising efforts of anyone else, as I’d rather see anyone raise £50 than nothing. Regardless though, the sheer madness of saying “I’m going to run 27 marathons in four weeks” – and then manage to do it – is a gobsmacking and noteworthy effort.
Doing Nothing
Posted: Sun 20 March, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health, House Work, Introspective, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This weekend was the closest I’ve come in a long time to doing nothing – it’s something I am *really* bad at, which I’m coming to terms with.
I try and keep busy on weekends, go out and do stuff, get things done, and that suits me. But I still get to the point (like recently) where I’ve been constantly busy and occupied for so damn long, it feels like I’m completely burned out and I need that down-time, a weekend or two where I don’t do much.
As has been observed before, I’ve been pretty much booked solid since about October, so I really needed a quiet time where I vegetated a bit, caught up on some of the more domestic things, and generally did a bit of recuperation. And that was the plan this weekend – I had some stuff I wanted to do (buying the trees, seeing a film, organising house stuff, ironing etc.) but the rest was meant to be downtime.
That plan was successful, I can’t deny. I did get all the planned stuff done, and I used a lot of downtime.
But it gets to now, 10pmish on Sunday, and I feel kind of guilty, kind of lazy. I know it’s been needed, and I mainly feel better for having not done much – but simultaneously, I feel like it’s been a bit of a waste.
It’s safe to say, I think, that I am phenomenally bad at doing nothing…
Blistered
Posted: Fri 12 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Health, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This week, I went to a restaurant that insisted on a certain level of dress-code. Nothing too epic, thankfully, but it turned out my standard footwear (Cat boots) wouldn’t have been allowed in, so I needed to buy some new dress shoes, or at least thin-soled ‘smart’ shoes.
It was semi-short notice, so I didn’t have the chance to wear them in properly – and I knew it would cause issues.
I managed to plan most of it so I didn’t have to walk as far as I normally would’ve done (had I been allowed to wear my normal, comfortable shoes) and I’m glad I did, because I still ended up with a sod-load of blisters along the way.
Weirdly, both my little toes ended up blistered, and I’m really not sure how that happened. The worst one is on one heel, about the size of a 50p piece. On that one, thank God for Compeed – their blister plasters are creepy as chuff, but bloody hell, do they work.
I know they’ll all heal up this week – it’s just a massive pain in the tits while they’re around. Such is life.
(And no, the meal wasn’t really worth the hassle of new shoes and blistered feet. Sad, but true – it was good, but not brilliant, which is galling when it’s a place that’s so highly rated all round)
Health Check
Posted: Tue 19 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »A couple of weeks ago, I got a letter from my local GP, asking me to go in for an “NHS Health Check”. It was a bit annoying, as the accompanying leaflet said that my surgery ‘needed to update their records as I hadn’t been in for so long’ and so on. Considering I was in there for a check in November 2014, that was kind of worrying – implying that my records weren’t up to date and so on.
Anyway, they then called me up to chase getting an appointment, and today I went in. It wasn’t anything special, but still, always good to know what’s going on.
It turns out that what they meant was that this Health Check thing needs records less than three months old – which is understandable, things can change in that time. But it would’ve been good if their own bumf had actually said so, rather than implying that the record-keeping at the surgery was bad.
Still, onwards and upwards.
The Health Check is basically a quick check of the key figures: weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and the like, as well as various health factors (smoking, drinking, activity etc.) and comes out with a ‘risk’ factor at the end of it.
All told, the figures came out pretty well :
- blood pressure was fine at 130/80,
- blood sugar was fine – although I can’t remember the exact figure, it was well within acceptable limits
- cholesterol came in at 4.5 (anything under 5 is regarded as ‘good’) with ‘good’ cholesterol of 1.8
- weight is still ‘too high’, but has kept on coming down, so *shrug*
The final “risk factor” figure was 4 – which supposedly means I have a 4% risk of suffering a heart attack in the next ten years. They’re happy with anything under 10, so I shouldn’t need to darken the surgery’s door on that score for a while.
Obviously I’m going to keep on working on losing weight, and being healthier/fitter, but having a quick summary like that is good for pointing out that I’m not doing too bad, and could be doing one hell of a lot worse than I am. I can live with that, to be fair.
Run Down
Posted: Fri 8 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Health, Single Life 1 Comment »The first week of 2016 has been quiet round here, mainly because my health took a bit of a kicking.
Over the Festering Season I’d developed a cough/cold that was annoying and persistent, but was fading out as we went into the New Year.
Then this week, it looks (on current evidence) like I got a dose of food poisoning from the meal on New Years’ Eve. Nothing major, but enough to debilitate, with a reduced level of sleep (and when you sleep as badly as I do, that’s relevant) and knock-on effects.
The food poisoning has been reported back to the restaurant, by the way, and we’re going through that process.
That’s pretty much gone now, thankfully.
What I’m left with is another vile hacking cough/cold – which I’m keeping an eye on, to make sure it doesn’t turn nasty and infected, as some of them do with me – and just feeling ropy, with weird aches and twinges elsewhere.
None of it’s serious, none of it has stopped me from working. It’s all just a bit annoying.
Still, onwards and upwards, and all that rot.