I just cannot believe how long it's been since I last posted on this blog - nearly six whole months!
I guess life just got in the way....
Things have been moving on apace: my return visit to the practice nurse for a blood pressure check involved her telling me that I had, in fact, lost a stone in weight (wahay!) and that my BP was righting itself quite nicely (Woop woop!).
Spurred on, I resolved to stick with my new regime and, lo and behold, I am now more than two stone lighter than I was in January.
Am I pleased? You betcha!
There was some minor inconvenience as I found myself having to purchase a complete new summer wardrobe (nothing from last year fitted - none of the trousers would stay up) but that was trumped by being able to wear a bikini (yes! a bikini!) without shame on the beach, for the first time in nearly a decade and a half.
I've actually impressed myself with my tenacilty, and to be absolutely honest I just had to put my head down and get on with it. I initially started by swimming everyday, working up from 15 minutes a go for the first few days and working up to sessions of half an hour/forty-five minutes. Into this I added three sessions a week of weight-training, divided into back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs and shoulders. After a few light sessions, I worked up the weights and concentrated on deadlifts, bench-presses and squats, with additional curls and pushdowns for the arms. After Easter I brought in some abs and core and ergo (rowing machine) work and, finding I enjoyed it, fitted in a session every day (40 mins on its own or 20 mins post-weights) and dropped the swimming to a relaxing post-workout role, along with a steam or a sauna.
I did all this by leaving for the gym as soon as the children were on the school bus at 7.30 in the morning, busting my ass, and then making sure I was at my desk working by 9.30 every day.
I daren't think about it too much - I just made it part of the daily routine and found that no matter how tired I was at the start of a session, by the end I was buzzing with endorphins and feeling totally energised and WELL!
So the hard work has indeed paid dividends - I bought (and fitted into) some size 10 super-skinny jeans last week and have no intention of letting this slip.
One of the major motivations was starting to cox the junior rowers in April.....no-one loves a fat coxswain although, as I told the kids in the early days, they should look on me as resistance training, much as athletes occasionally train with a car-tyre chained to their waists. I work on the premise that, having trained with me on board, a race with another junior coxing will be a piece of cake!
Much to my surprise, just before the summer holidays, the Bright-Eyed Boy finally capitulated and agreed to give rowing a go. Actually it was a bit of a stand-off: I told him I was not prepared for him to waste another summer holiday on the XBox and that I wanted him to try it out until the autumn at least. He agreed surprisingly quickly (maybe he'd already been considering changing his mind from his earlier outright refusal) and said that 'Maybe it would be quite fun'.
Well, he hasn't looked back: since his first tentative captive-rope outings in mid-July accompanied by the Husband (I was away at a conference, godddamit!), he has taken to it like a duck to...er...water, progreesing over the holidays into a fine single sculling boat and making a pretty decent quad-crew member, keeping up in the firm pieces with boys a year older than himself.
Proud or what? Even better when I get to cox them...
And now the summer is practically over. Daughter #3 (who has had a pretty happy regatta and rowing season herself) is back to school for a year ten orientation day tomorrow, and the B-E B returns on Monday. So that's it for the daytime training: back to after-school sessions, which will get gradually curtailed by the earlier onset of dark.
I could feel quite melancholy, as is my usual September wont (see previous years' posts), but I have way to much to do. WAY, WAY too much, with the thesis due for submission in March!
But that's a different story.....
 

Spring is Sprung

The cherry tree in the back garden is covered in the most beautiful palest pink blossom, a sign that spring has come at last after a February that was grey, dank and dull. The extremely wet weather has caused all the grass of the lawn to be replaced by moss, which the remaining guinea pig Albino Seal-Point Arthur seems quite unimpressed by. Not much to nibble on I guess.
Last week also saw the last of the season's timed head-races, for which we bored and chilled riverbank spectators raise a stifled, but heartfelt, cheer.
Unfortunately, Daughter #3's crew did not acquit themselves terribly well and the rest of the day was spent in grumpy discontent, compounded by her getting the push from her latest (imaginary) rock-band and it being nearly 'that time of the month'. There was a lot of flumping about and dramatic expostulation and a few tears, which the Flame-Haired BF did very well to cope with, given that he, too, is only fourteen.

Regatta season is just round the corner, a far better prospect for all concerned, shorter courses, better weather, visible action, obvious results. She is looking forward to the prospect as she reckons she is more of a short-burst athlete and is gratifyingly taking her training far more seriously since her coach took her to task for her lack of application earlier on in the year.
I am even considering the possibility of offering myself to train as a coxswain, given that I have already lost a stone on my new exercise regime (so wouldn't necessarily get stuck in, or sink a quad) and would love the chance to shout bossily at people in a good cause.

Death and the Guinea Pig.

(right: Albert in former days)
Despite the fact that there is now some glorious sunshine pouring down from the blue (ish) sky I am definitely feeling a bit low today.
This is largely due to lack of sleep (Daughter #3 had a rowing 'head race' which necessitated a 4.30am wake-up to get us over a hundred miles distant for 8am start) which was compounded last night by being woken with a start at a loud noise (drunkards down the street) and an inability, it seemed, to get back to sleep fully.

Coupled with this, I went out to the guinea-pigs' hutch at bedtime and found Albert, the littlest fellow, inert and cold.
This wasn't totally a surprise: he had been failing gradually since before Christmas. I'd been bringing them both in faithfully every night and ensuring that they both had plenty of fresh greenery in their diet (g-p's, like humans and unlike many other creatures, cannot manufacture their own vitamin 'c') and keeping their quarters spotlessly clean. Alas, to no avail! Sometime whilst we were in Lincolnshire he shuffled off his mortal coil and headed to the Great Clover Patch in the Sky.

As usual, I got quite weepy (I don't even manage to dispose of the deceased goldfish without a snivel) and called upon the Husband to prepare a suitable grave under the back lawn, where so many other Small Creatures lie.
Albert was still reasonable flexible, and his little head lolled over my wrist as I lay him gently in the ground. I had to leave at the moment of inhumation itself to comfort a sobbing Bright-Eyed Boy who had just been made aware of the situation, and to dab my own eyes.
It's very strange but even had Albert still been warm, it was obvious that he was quite dead - there is something that leaves the body at the moment of death that is perceptible even if your were not a believer in the soul. It is a life-force that exits, a vital spark that seems to be more than just the sum of biological processes. The essence of Albert himself had left the building.
Alfred, big, daft, pink-eyed and pinked lipped ('like a woman, m'lord') appeared agitated. When I put him out in the hutch on his own this morning (life must go on, even for guinea pigs) he snuffled about where the body had been laid before retreating to the bed-department, no doubt to have a little weep of his own (anthropomorphism). I shall feed him spinach for his tea to strengthen and sustain him in his loss.

Pigged Out

Well, tomorrow it's one week of from receiving the hard word from the practice nurse concerning my raised blood pressure.

How is it going, I hear you say?

We-e-e-ll, actually not too bad! I've adopted a far healthier eating pattern: bowl of low fat cereal first thing, 100cal snack mid-morning, lunch consisting of a pitta stuffed with salad and a dessert spoon full of houmous, 2 portions of fruit, mid afternoon cup of tea with low fat/low sugar snack and dinner consisting of two pittas stuffed with salad and a can of healthy eating tuna with some sort of dressing. I'm allowing myself a postage-stamp size portion of any dessert that's going, 2 squares of 85% cocoa-solid chocolate when desperate for a treat, and a regular sized of red wine with my weekend evening dinners. I've taken to power-walking as and when I can (for example, into an out of town, a good 20mins either way), and I've rejoined the gym (at vast expense, but I don't, as I've said before, want to have a stroke), more of which anon.
I'v also purchased a RespErate breathing coaching machine: it's supposed to reduce your BP by encouraging you to breathe more slowly thus causing your heart to slow and your blood vessels to relax. In fact, after the initial session today my BP registered at a very healthy 145/82, a good ten points down on both readings! Most encouraging! It's also recommended for relaxation and stress-relief too, so a bonus there - I'm aiming to do two 15 mins sessions a day.
It's going to be quite tricky to fit everything into my new regime, which includes a number of academic new-year's resolutions, and keep on course with writing up my thesis. Extra organisation will be required to make sure no one project slips, but when it comes to organising I'm as happy as a pig in what's-its-name!

The Weight of the World

....a a and...you're back in the room!

Re-emerging after the Christmas hiatus, I am pleased to note that it all went a lot better than expected. Silly of me to have been so gloomy and pessimistic, I think: I have decided that it's not Christmas that I dread, but the prospect of Christmas.

The Husband took the week before off work and threw himself into emptying and re-organising the cupboards and replacing worn-out and clarty pans and baking tins . I was so impressed by his dedication and the quite staggeringly rapid improvements that I was enthused enough to down lap-top and join in on a mini pre-Christmas spring clean. The result was a tidy, smear and dust-free house, and with a little bit of co-ordinated effort, it has remained thus, despite the vagaries of wrapping paper, extra stuff everywhere, Christmas dinner and more food and bodies around than usual. I have to say my mood was much improved to see it all so pristine: maybe we really should consider getting someone in for an hour or so each week to maintain the standard once both our noses are firmly back at the grindstone. For morale's sake.
We generally slobbed about a lot over the holiday, eating and drinking, which for me has come to a sudden halt as a visit to the doc confirmed that my blood pressure was still higher than desirable. Two alternatives were unequivocably given: a formal diagnosis of hypertension and tablets thereafter (possibly for the remaider of my natural) or some life-style modifications.
It's a no-brainer really - I know that being sat on my arse all working week in front of a computer screen and eating what and when I like will inevitably end badly. I am pretty lazy by nature and I don't like exercise much, never having found one that I didn't get bored with. Running?: hate it! Boring, boring, boring! And it hurts my dodgy hip. Swimming?: takes too long to dry off - and that smell of chlorine - phew! (also boring). Cycling? Er, no thanks!

Trouble is, there's no way (or time) to fit an hour's power-walk into my daytime routine, so I'm pretty much looking at joining the gym again so I can go and do something in the evening.

It's just got to be done: I'm overweight, and at my age it just ain't going to miraculously disappear. Measures have to be taken, and that invloves (duh!) eating less (and more healthily) and exercising more. End of.
I absolutely don't want to have a stroke/heart attack or get vascular dementia. Nightmare.

The awful thing is, I know exactly how to go about it, exactly what exercises to do (and how long for), exactly what proportion of carbs to protein to fat is optimal. I know because I used to be well-fit (though I say so myself, ahem!), in my thirties pursuing a regime of restrained body-building that made me lean and toned and lighly muscled. I have photos from the year before Daughter #3 was born , but I don't tend to look at them.
The arrival or Daughter #3 and soon after, the Bright-Eyed Boy, changed all that.
As an 'elderly' multigravida mother (the B-E B was born when I was 41) I didn't cope very well with the tiredness and didn't lose the weight I put on during the pregnancies. I did make a couple of attempts to start training again, but lack of time and exhaustion took their toll and I just gave up. Looking back at pictures of me then when the children were small, it would have been relatively easy to get back into shape, but I just lacked the impetus.
Starting on a degree course absorbed any energy I had and meant that I no longer defined myself in purely physical terms (no bad thing really). It gave me a different sort of pride in myself, and as I have always enjoyed food and wine I unconsciously (Ithink) allowed my appetite full rein, eventually becoming rather dismissive of those who spent any time exercising (jealousy?).
Well, I am now reaping the harvest of that lazy gluttony, and it serves me right too.

At the end of the day, it might all be to no avail - my dad has high blood pressure for which he has to take daily medication, so it could be hereditary and I make no impact.
Nontheless, I am going to give it a proper go: eat less, exercise more. Groan!
I have 4-6 weeks to get my BP a bit lower, and I am damn well going to do my best and use the knowledge I have to make a difference.

A Donkey's Christmas

Well, here it is: Black Friday.
Apparently, this is what today is known as in the hospitality trade as one of the busiest days of the year, when venues are packed to the rafters with drunken carousers on office Christmas 'do's'. The Husband is going to his second one today, and had the ill-grace to complain that he didn't really want to go as 'he had a lot on' and 'could have done with a full day at work and come home at the normal time'. Really? R-E-A-L-L-Y? Not a good thing to say to someone who hasn't had a sniff of a works do for years, nor the prospect of one in the near future. I actually used to really enjoy them - probably because I got on well with most of my colleagues and actually miss that sort of non-complicated work-based relationship, you know the one where you discuss work, life, kids, holidays without the feeling that you have to pursue the friendship any further than those friendly chats at the table, in the pub, or over a desk.

I am not very good at friendship. I am a poor friend. The two close friends I have had died tragically young, one by their own hand during a severe bout of depression, the other of a cancer almost certainly brought on by a rigorous diet of alcohol and cigarettes. I failed both of them near their end - not at all deliberately - but by failing to realise the seriousness of their situations. No empathy, you see?
I'm a pretty poor mother, wife, sister- and daughter-in-law too, if it comes to it.
Nowadays I keep pretty much to myself, but I do occasionally miss having friends.
Actually, I am not totally friendless, having a one-time colleague that I meet on a fairly regular, if sporadic, basis. But our meetings have become much less frequent over the past six months or so largely, I believe, due to pressure of work, but also I think because I am lacks-a-daisical in pursuing friendship. I don't put in the required effort. I don't wish to impose on a hectic life, and I guess that could be construed as remoteness, or lack of caring.

I think I shot myself in the foot a bit on this: They contacted me this week to see if I fancied meeting up for lunch (and it would have been a Christmas lunch of sorts!) but only gave two days notice which, forgive me if I'm wrong, I felt a bit annoyed about. I felt that I was being 'fitted in' and in a tiny fit of self-important pique, I played the 'up-to-my-eyes-in-it' card, which I was...but REALLY! How pathetic!
So - no Christmas meet-ups for me, nor any cards addressed to me in my own right.

So Black Friday it is, and for me it represents the beginning of the White Noise and Shapelessness of the 'festive season'. The children have finished school, and when the Husband rolls in a bit later (neither too late nor drunk, he prides himself on his self-control too much for that!), that'll be it until January 4th when Normal Service resumes. I can feel my sanity spirally rapidly away from me even as I type. Daughter #3 has her boyfriend round: no doubt he will be another regular mouth at the table over the Christmas break, since she seems joined-at-the-hip with him, and has for the past year (he's actually a fine young man, witty and intelligent).
The Bright-Eyed Boy is currently playing on his X-Box, and I envisage even more of the same as the Husband asked the In-Laws for another game for him, and we have one for him too.
I am also exiled from the 'study' where I work on a daily basis during the evenings, weekends and holidays as the 'family computer' is there.
I did set up a 'satellite' study (up in our bedroom), but it all desperately needs dusting and hoovering because housework just isn't being done anywhere in the house at the moment and, really, who wants to sit in one's bedroom during the day?
Additionally, it's north-facing, so rather dismal in the winter months, plus the desk/chair combo gives me fearful back/hip ache.
I keep thinking of things we (don't) need to make the celebrations go with a swing: a nice tablecloth and napkins, crackers, mistletoe, mince pies......and I have a running list to add to and cross off stuff as we go. It seems endless.

I used to have so much more energy for it all than I do now, and I think I must have set a precedent in the past, because I now get asked if we're having mulled wine and baklava on Christmas Eve, or a curry feast with pickles and poppadoms on Boxing Day.
I just can't be bothered to organise any more. I know the Husband would happily do it were I to ask, but why should it be me that instigates, or even thinks to instigate action? Where's the initiative? I do know, by the way, that that is a mealy-mouthed attitude, and all to do 'unknown unknowns', to borrow a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld

In truth, I don't think I did myself any favours by cutting right down on the wine over the past couple of months. Actually, that's not true - I don't get the palpitations or hot flushes half as much nowadays, but mentally I feel much more on edge and tonight I just feel plain gloomy - and not a drop touched! (Nor likely to be either as I am on taxi-duty).
Why do people keep wanting stuff from me?
Why can't they just leave me alone?
If I had my way, I'd curl up in a corner until summer comes.
I know I am becoming more and more isolated as the years go by, but it's just less exhausting that way. Eeyore!

Christmas. Ho ho ho.

Christmas looms ever larger and this year, more than ever before, I feel ambivalent about the whole thing.
I am, I have finally admitted, a pretty unsocial creature: I enjoy my own company, I enjoy reasearching and writing up my PhD, I enjoy a routine of sorts.
I dislike banale conversation - the sort that erupts as people flap their gums to fill the silence, I dislike the mindlessness of television and I dislike chaos.
That's not to say that I sit here surrounded by pencils in a neat row, or that my books are alphabetically lined up on the shelves. Not at all - my 'study' (ahem!) is a model of lawlessness, but it is my lawlessness. Similarly, the plates that are on the work-top in the kitchen, the breakfast pots, are mine. I am not uncomfortable, because I can lay my hands on any volume I like within moments and I will either use my crumpet-plate for my lunch or stack it in the dishwasher.

I can't cope with mess that isn't mine, and there's a lot of it about at Christmas. But if I were to say that shoes and glasses and crumpled paper strewn about made me feel uncomfortable, I would, quite rightly I suppose,be accused of being uptight and pernickety, and lacking festive spirit.

Through general boredom, I also tend to drink rather too much at Christmas - not get steaming drunk, but generally end up feeling below par and somewhat self-disgusted. Ditto eating.
I feel, once the schools close and the Husband finishes work, that I enter a sort of limbo, and I think a lot of people feel like that. Speaking to others it would appear that the first week of Januaryrepresents a real epiphany (no pun intended) and the refrain, spoken with a sigh of relief, is that indeed it was lovely, but it's nice to get back to normal.
Yea, it is that normality that I miss at Christmas. You see, because I work at home, I guess that I subconsciously feel that the house is my territory, and I resent people camping on, and sullying, my patch (yes, I know, how selfish and crass of me, I know it's their home too and I love them all dearly).
I also dislike intensely the expectation that I am responsible for feeding people ("What's for tea?" "You tell me!"), and am slighly nauseated by the constant munching that accompanies Christmas. I do love eating, but not really at home. I am bored by my food, and by the whole process of shopping/cooking.I resent it immensely. And I hate going into the shops and seeing row upon row of coleslaw, mince pies and Quality Street leering at me.

I am depressed by the whole grubby house/home thing which I can ignore during most of the year, but deprived of any mental stimulation, I tend to notice smeary windows and cobwebby corners and feel intense hatred towards them without any motivation or desire to do anything about it.

So I will end up feeling bored, grumpy, slightly ill and resentful. Not a good combination, and not one conducive to cheery fireside evenings.
Every year I scrabble around in an attempt to preserve my sanity, and this year I have a little side-project lined up: to get to grips with the ideas and works of Galen, the Roman physician.

Whether this will prove to be absorbing and fruitful remains to be seen: what I really need are some totally noise-cancelling head-phones so I can block out the TV, but remain, semi-socially, in the room. I am not hopeful.