Making it to the Top of My Own List

Doesn’t time fly when you’ve set yourself a time-bound goal?   I’ve now got nine full months to the big birthday, and after the positivity of my last post, I’m afraid it’s all bad news for this update. I’ve had a major, major dose of the lurg.   I may have mentioned it, although it’s not like me to share my suffering, ha ha.   I’ve been off work for four weeks with a nasty chest and lung infection (so definitely not the catarrh the first doctor said!) and it’s knocked me for six.   I haven’t been able to get to my classes for a month now, and although I barely ate for a week (and hit my lowest weight for about three years!), once my appetite came back, the scales crept back up.   The bits that were feeling firmer are feeling soft again (much to Daughter’s joy that the bingo wings haven’t gone) and I’m a long way off buns of steel.   I’ve stuck to Choc-Free Feb though, as long as I don’t count the numerous chocolate digestives I snaffled yesterday. ...

I was blow drying my hair the other day and I saw it.   Just hanging out there, like a hard-faced silver interloper.   Yes, there it was.   A grey hair.   Now, don’t get me wrong.   At 39, I know I’ve had a good innings, and it’s not actually my first.   I’ve got a couple of baby fine silvery strands at my right temple, only visible during the most extreme episodes of tying my hair back (pretty much just when I put a face pack on).   But this devil was on my part.   And as if to mock me even further, it hid when I brushed my hair, smug in the knowledge that I know it’s there and now I can’t find it.   I’m on high alert, ready for it to pop up at any point.   The good thing for me is that I’m nearly 6 foot tall, so not many people see the top of my head, but now I know it’s there and I wish I carried a hat off with more panache. I know I’ve done well to get to this age without more grey, and all my forays into home colouring have bee...

I'm off work ill. I've got a chest infection. A chest infection that Dr 1 said was catarrh. This was while he was writing me a prescription for both an inhaler and ' something to relieve shoulder pain'. The something was ibuprofen gel which, for the unasthmatic amongst you, the average asthmatic cant use. Me included.  A chest infection that Dr 2 upgraded to an upper respiratory virus. A chest infection that Dr 3 finally identified, perhaps because I virtually crawled in there. A chest infection that has set a tooth off that I had root canal two years ago, like an old war wound. Did you know some root canals never settle? No, nor did I. Wish they'd told me that first!  Despite the eventual identification, the antibiotics don't seem to be touching it and I feel Very Poorly Indeed. If only I'd walked into the ER at Grey Sloan Memorial, they'd have had me sorted at a glance. Of course I probably would have been diagnosed with some incurable tropical disease...

As the first month of the year is limping to a close, I thought I’d update on the Fab at Forty plan. I’ve succeeded in the Dry January challenge.   Well, counting chickens really, but at lunchtime on the last day of the month I think I’m safe to say I’ll make it!   Sister was very keen that I kept my participation in Dry January quiet for fear of sounding like Oliver Reed (showing my age again).   I don’t usually drink very much, so it wasn’t a hardship, and I’m glad that for once I’ve met a challenge like that.   Many a Lent has seen me break a giving up pledge! The fitness side is taking shape (no pun intended!) and I’m going to Zumba twice a week run by the lovely Ellen at http://www.heatonefitness.co.uk .   I absolutely love it.   I could only go once this week due to work commitments and I missed it.   The only downside is the Zumba high on the night when the class finishes at 9pm – reasonable bedtime is futile!   I’ve even bought som...

Where I used to work, lunchtimes didn’t really exist.   There was an occasional downing of tools and natter about this, that and the other, but leaving the building was rare.    And that’s not to say there wasn’t enough in the town centre if one wanted to pass an hour, particularly if one wanted a pastry based lunch.   I did have to pass an Asda Superstore on my way home though, and that did get visits aplenty.   They must have wept when I left the old place, their profits must have really nosedived.   When I say I visits aplenty, let me expand by saying Daughter thought her name was George for some time. But now I work in a town centre, and life outside the office is there to marvel at. Regular readers will have already heard of the lure of Marks & Spencer and other emporiums.   I know this is a bit of a recurring theme (see Reverse Ambition in the archives), but I stare at this outside life agog, mentally like a child drooling in a sweetshop...

2014 is the year I turn 40.   Not until the end of 2014, I’m at pains to make clear, but it is the year nonetheless.   So, it’s time to follow through with a pledge that I threw out there in the heady days of summer…to be a size 12 by I’m 40.   With 11 months and counting, there’s no time to lose.   I haven’t made any other resolutions, because quite frankly, this will take all my efforts. So, L and I have set about our plans.   L isn’t 40 until 2015, but being a good friend she’s joining me on the journey.   If shaping up happened by planning alone, we’d be a pair of supermodels.   But alas it appears to require more moving and less eating.   Pah. We’re extremely accomplished at talking about our fitness plans.   There are some plans to get running gathering dust, and L’s lovely and super-fit husband P has offered plans and chaperoning on dark nights.   We’ll get round to it.   I fear we have the potential to be fair-weat...

I' m not usually an embracer of New Year.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hide away with a multipack of cheese n onion, but I've never got excited about it. I've certainly had some fun times. The year of the garlic with K and Sister was good, but by god Blackpool is cold at New Year! There were a few good Blackpool New Years, although the one I was told I looked like Monica Lewinsky could have been better - a thought that C no doubt echoes seeing she was told she looked like Cilla Black! I'm sure she was the only red head that sprang to mind. And the millennium was good. Despite my disaster haircut, the one that someone said made me look like Viv Windsor from Emmerdale, the photos of C dancing on the bar are some of my favourites! And of course there were some rubbish nights, where the over inflated promise of New Year deflated like an old party balloon. But I always gave it a go, some years picking up some good memories, some years picking up sore feet and an empt...