Golf helpers

Now if they could only train them to carry the golf balls to the greens they'd be much more popular.

Clever sheep

Houdini sheep escaping despite all sorts of obstacles.

fcuk saving money

I am useless at saving money. Sent off for this skirt today. I have no will power. It was in the sale though and look free delivery!

Red

Wonderful!  I ordered a new red mac from the M&S online sale.  £20 with free postage and packing.  Its just turned up at the office and it is very red.  Hurrah! 

Obsess

Money spent today: £27.97
Hay Fever tablets and tissues: £7.97
FCUK skirt in the sale: £20.00 

Food devoured: 7.5 ww pts 
Provamel: 1.5pts 
Houmous sandwich: 6pts

After being so restrained with my cash yesterday I did go a bit mad today.  I have a number of 'but it was in the sale' and 'at least its not black' justifications but its still spendy.

preparingforemergencies

Preparing For Emergencies

Obsess

Money spent today: £0.00
Hurrah, no money spent all day!

Food devoured: 14.5 ww pts 
Provamel: 1.5pts 
Peach: 0.5pts
Pasta Salad (or last nights left overs as we like to call them): 6pts
Apple: 0.5pts
Dinner: 7pts 

This isn't London

This isn't London

Slaters

Big, underwater slaters!

Obsess

Money spent today: £2.70
Bag of fruit: £1.00
Iced Maya: £1.70

Food devoured: 26 ww pts
Muesli: 3.5 pts
Grapes: 1 pt
Sandwich: 6pts
Cookie: 5.5pts
Iced Maya: 2 pts
Herbed Ricotta Pasta: 8pts

See! See! My entire evening meal came within 2.5pts of a cookie I ate on the train. The iced maya I will sometimes to treat myself to but I have, have, have to stop eating train station junk.

Tiroler Hut Restaurant

Tonight I am going to the Tiroler Hut Restaurant with the Zurich peeps. Look the staff wear traditional austrian dress and there's yodelling!

Obsess

Today won't be so good.  I'm going out for my dinner with some people I used to work with and I fear there will be little restrain.

Money spent today: £50.20
Big night out in Westbourne Grove: £48.50
Train station coffee: £1.70 

Food devoured: 32.5 ww pts
Homous and salad wrap (well more of a fold)
Banana
Big meal at the Austrian restaurant with huge beer!

Its a good thing the WW week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday.  So already the huge meal is last weeks problem.

 

Hair

Or the absence thereof.

Swimming Session 2

Went for a swim tonight. I did the Zoggs Calm and Stretch 16 lengths Session 2.

Not very easy. Trying to keep swimming all the time and not lollygag around at the ends. Its quite tricky being out of breath under water. And it called for 4 lengths of using the kick board. Not using your arms makes it very hard. And keep in mind. This is the Calm and Stretch section. Calm! Not likely.

Anyway, needed to be sensible about food and exercise today as I'm heading out to an Austrian restaurant with some people I used to work with in Zurich. Should be fun.

Oh and thats reminds me. Nigel sent us a picture of his new hair style. I must post it. I think he has started using Imac on his head.

Obsess

Time has come again to obsess about money and weight. The old favourites.

Money spent today: £0.90
Lunch: £0.90
Hurrah! How restrained was that!

Food devoured: 15 ww pts
Museli and milk
Cheese and pickle roll
Cheese and onion crisps
Rice and stuff
Oh very restrained. But going out to an Austrian restaurant tomorrow night so need to be very sensible today.

George Bush Adds Ireland to Axis of Evil

George Bush Adds Ireland to Axis of Evil

River Rage

Sadly its not quite punt rage but we're getting there.

As a single sculler you have a sixth sense ...

UKIP MEP in row over working women

Oh we love this bloke. Hopefully the only way he'll get re-elected is if they take away votes for women. And don't they screen people before putting them on committees or was this someones idea of a joke.

Mr Bloom, an investment fund manager from York, told journalists he wanted to deal with women's issues because: "I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough".

A softer world.

A softer world.

Click the Back link to see more.

Exercise plans

I got out and did some running last night.  Time to get back in the exercise habit again.  Ran 8 minute chunks with 4 minute walks.  Not too bad.  By the end of the week I plan to be running 10 minutes chunks.  I'm looking forward to it.  Such a nice round number.

 

And tonight I am going swimming.  The plan there is to spend 10 or 15 minutes attempting the front crawl and then do 16 lengths (4 easy breast stroke lengths and then (repeat until done) 2 lengths concentrating on legs followed by 2 lengths concentrating on arms).

Brothel Raid

Oh ok so there's a brothel on the way to the train station. Seems like a very sensible place for it. But I quite like the quote about half way down the article:
"'I'm quite shocked this was going on as there is a children's play area on the estate and it does make you think twice about the area you're living in.'"
Cause having a playground is a well know preventer of prostitution?

Home

Back home now after being in Dublin after Joe's funeral. Its always good to see everyone even in such sad circumstances.

Uncle Joe

My Uncle Joe died on Sunday morning.

Labradoodles

And the winner of the strangest named breed is the Labradoodles.

Iceland

Damit! I loved the blue lagoon with a passion but where was the swimsuited cocktail waitress when we were there!

Life changing travel

How can travel change your life? There's bound to be a hundred exotic and interesting ways.

I was compelled to volunteer help to a group of Americans going clockwise round the Northern Line when they really wanted to be going anticlockwise. I not actually convinced that they were all that happy about being helped but I blame all those New Yorkers that just came over and helped Mum and I when we were there.

The Northern Line isn't really a clockwise/anticlockwise line either. But the bit that I normally use works that way. And you have to wonder whether giving someone the sort of directions I normally manage to give is a kindness at all.

Weight Watchers Pizza Advice

Ok, these people are obviously taking some seriously illegal drugs. The suggest that this is a great replacement for pizza. Boiled ham and porridge oats is just so Italian.

"As a healthy alternative try making a pizza loaf by combining porridge oats, tomato puree, olives, courgettes and peppers. For meat content add turkey, ham (boiled) or chicken. Mix with some extra virgin olive oil and put into a loaf tin and bake for about 40 minutes," suggests Jill Franks."

Nigerian Reverse Scam

I think this is a wonderful way of dealing with the Nigerian Scam

Race For Life!

So, on Sunday I actually ran the Race for Life in Cambridge. And on Monday I was much too tired to blog about it.

It was a lovely day. Bright, dry and warm without being too hot and sunny or wet and dreary. The 5k course was a zigzag round Jesus Green and Midsummer Common so that the end got closer many times before it was actually the end. When it was a less zigzagy course last year you had to do two laps. People complained that they thought they were finished after the first lap which made the second lap much less fun.

I walked intentionally only a couple of times which was good. I did have to walk a few other times when the run bottlenecked but they were only brief walks so I just going to ignore them. And I finished (beetroot red in the face as always) in 36:42 which I am very happy with.

I wore my medal all the way home and took it into work.

Now to start training for the Flora 5k on the 4th of September!

Random Acts Of Reality

Always good to see that other people have more stressful jobs than we do.

Parking fines

Amazing, 3000 women run round in a circle (well ok a big zigzag really) and the Cambridge Evening News still manages to make it a transport related story.

100 Film Songs

Oh look, Ian's favourite song makes it into the list at number 65!

Blue Roses

Suntory have greated blue roses. Well they claim to have. I don't know, they still look purple to me.

Ellis Island

We spent a few hours at the American Family Immigration History Center and if our feet hadn't given up the ghost we would have stayed longer.

A quick search through the archives has only 58 Mussens, 268 Savilles, 3910 Fitzpatricks and winning the immigrant challenge by a long way 14274 Scotts.

Words

Something to help with those tricky crosswords - a2z WordFinder

8 Minutes

Got home a tiny bit late last night but still went out and ran.  Very (overly perhaps) proud of myself.

 

Ran 8 minutes Walked 4 minutes four times.  8 minutes does seem to be a bit harder than 6.  Well obviously I suppose.  I was also surprised by how much further I got.  So much further that I had to run past the house to finish the last session.  Turned back much too early.

 

Its nice running along the river on these summer evenings.  The sunsets are pink and there is a lovely light on the willows along the river.  The only downside is the clouds of midges that I suddenly find myself inhaling and that stick to my attractively sweaty face.  Nice.

Alcohol may protect women's bones

This will be why I seem to fall over but not break anything. I must have very dense bones!

Alcohol may protect women's bones