December Update

Its been a mixed December.

There has been some exercise, some dining out, some taking care and some letting go. All reflected in my weight. Well not all as I don't record weights if I don't like them. In a sense of honesty, I never write down a weight that isn't displayed, but I don't write down all weights that are displayed.

The month started out well. Despite the new job having an adverse impact on exercise, I have managed to not gain any weight and continued a downward trend.

Although "adverse impact" is a bit of an understatement. Work and travel, Christmas shopping, terrible weather, and then holidays themselves has meant the worst month for exercise this year. December has only a quarter as many workouts, distance, or duration as most of the other months except January.

At least the 2 lunchtime cycles I managed were consistent times, both in the 28.5 minutes for the 7 miles, with a wind. The only other workout was the Stephens Day walk with Fiona and her mum.

Having said that am pleased with December (apart from the weigh ins I have see but not written down). Next year needs to see me continue with this trend, but also to get back some routine for exercise.

Christmas Card

Despite it being well scheduled, with reminders appearing since before Halloween, somehow I have failed to notice Christmas creeping up on me.

I do have an excuse, what with starting a new job at the end of November and that involving a lot of travelling. Also, with my cable box I can pause live TV and then fast forward through the ads so I haven't been tempted by all that commercialisation.
But there are those who would say that in the 3 months gardening leave prior to the new job starting, I could have done a lot of preparation for Christmas. To them I say Bah Humbug.

To everyone else ( OK, in the Christmas spirit, to them also) I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

(only 1 more alarm clock 'til Christmas holidays!)

November Update

I think I did all right for November.
I did have a big gap in weigh ins in the middle of the month, curling weekend at Stranraer, Fiona's birthday, Rachael's birthday, then a few days away in Arran, but in the end I did OK.

I dropped another 1.4 kg in mass, bringing me to a total of 18.4 kg lighter than at the start of the year. That's almost 3 stone in old money.
I certainly feel a lot better for it. I'm definitely fitter as the guys at badminton are noticing since I can get from corner to corner at least twice now before losing the point.

Activity-wise, its been busy too.

Distance-wise, its been the furthest I've done this year. Only October had more workouts, and only July had more time spent. Again I struggled with not much weekend cycling.
Also by the end of the month the new job had started so I missed a few cycles in which would have pushed my stats even higher.

The worry with the new job is a combination of sitting around not exercising and eating dinners out. So far I've tried to be good, and limited what I've had to eat. But there has only been one cycle despite being at home for 3 different days. Also the change in hours is affecting my attendance at both badminton clubs.

December is going to be tough for the obvious reasons. Already bad weather and domestic trouble have kept me off the bike. And then there's the expected eating.
I really want to hit the 100kg mark by the end of the year though...

Pretty Cool

I had a new central heating system put in a few years ago. Something that should have been straight forward ended up being more complicated but it was worth it in the end.

After one of the strongest storms to hit Scotland for a while (most of Scotland was closed) I headed out to badminton on Thursday night. When I got back in the house was a bit cooler than I would have expected. I felt the radiator and it was cold. When I checked the boiler there was a solid red light shining from the wireless receiver. this receiver talks to the thermostat in the sitting room and tells the boiler basically on or off. Digging out the paperwork, which I had kept in a place I remembered, there was no mention of a solid red light. I headed off to bed in the hope that it would sort itself.

When I woke on Friday I soon discovered that it hadn't sorted itself.

After hitting Google it suggested that the thermostat signal wasn't being received any more and that the solid red light was a loss of signal signal. Flashing red light indicates communication. It seemed a logical step. There was a process to re-connect them. I decided to hit the override button first to see if I could get some heat. That worked so I let the house heat up. Just as well.

The reconnection process was convincingly ineffective.

After at least 10 separate attempts. All the while the house slowly cooling. More Google reading suggested that the batteries in the thermostat may be running down. There is a low battery alert on the thermostat and I had only changed that last year, but off to the shops at lunchtime for new AAs despite having 8 AAAs in the drawer and 9 AAAs in the torch pack I had just bought.

Finally the receiver was receiving again. Flashing red light to show the signal was locked. Good. Reattach the thermostat to the wall and hit the on button. Nothing. Then a few minutes later a solid red light. Argh.

Then the phone call the Scottish Gas, who installed the system. After almost 90 minutes, which involved being transferred from customer support to tech support to the Geek Squad (yes, that's the actual term used) and back to customer support I was in possession of an appointment for an engineer visit and a new maintenance plan.

Quite quickly the engineer arrived, took a look and smiled knowingly. "Have you tried re syncing the wireless?" but he had to try anyway. "There's been a lot of trouble with these boxes. We have new ones now" Out came the old wireless receiver, with its fragrant burnt smell. In went the new one. Heating back on. Sorted.

Considering how much I've already been away in just my first 2 weeks wit the new job, I am so glad that this problem occurred when I was home and was able to get it fixed so fast.

Epic Cycle

After yesterday's battle with the wind I went out again.
No rest for the wicked I guess.

Today, its a SSW wind at only 10mph. According to the map, this would be more of a help, at least compared to yesterday.

And it was, to an extent.

I managed more like my 15mph average, with yesterday's bad stretch done 50s quicker than yesterday, but still 30s slower than my target time.

The wind from the south was nice for the last few km, as I got a good head of steam up. I blasted past another guy on a slicker bike too and felt good until he caught and passed me on the run up to the train station. But then between him and his bike, I guess he was about 30kg lighter...

One of the features of MapMyRide where I upload my stats is that I have set up a few courses along the route so I can compare my times to anyone else doing that particular section. With today's tail wind I was keen to see how I did on the NE stretch.

To my annoyance the website refused to accept that the cycle was part of any of my courses.

For some bizarre reason this morning cycle seems to have recorded me turning left instead of right at the royal Troon Golf Course and then continuing south until I reached a point about 50km north of Algiers in Algeria. I then turned North and headed to a point just outside Galashiels before heading back to Troon and resuming my cycle. All this in a quicker time than yesterday.

Don't know why it did this. A quick Google search suggests solar flares interfering with GPS signal. Perhaps that Indian mission to Mars is in more difficulty than the news has reported.

Really Annoying wind

Any one willing to guess at what time I was out on my bike today?

This is a screen grab from weather underground for the wind speed for Prestwick Airport, and hence the Troon area.

If you guessed 11:30, when the wind speed decided to suddenly reverse trend and increase with the 40mph gusts, give yourself 10 points.

Funny, the only gust recorded is the one that almost blew me off the bike.

And you never get as much assistance from the wind as you get hindrance.

I pace myself at about 15mph (2:30 for 1km) since I had managed to hit this level back in July. I then keep a running total of how much above or below that total I am each km. (It distracts me from laboured breathing.)

Today I was 7s short of 4 minutes for a km along the sea front, with that 25mph headwind. This was 80s slower than my target time. In order to recover this time I would have to be 80s faster on the next km, which means over 30mph. More realistically, and without worrying about flashing blue lights, it means each following km being faster than the 2:30 target, so I can reduce the deficit. But thats only for 1km, what about the others?

But its not that easy.
You have to go faster to recover the lost time. So, you would think that by averaging 15mph I could do a set of 14mph, 15mph and 16mph, but that would still leave me with a deficit. I would actually have to do 14,15 and 16.2 to make up the loss. It gets worse as the difference builds.

So, today was a slow time for me. Almost 2:30 slower than my target. Or almost a km less in the same time. Kills my month's stats too.

October Review

After September's poor performance in reducing my weight I think I have done better this month.

At least, I have logged more weigh-ins on my graph than last month which shows I am taking this seriously again.

I have dropped 2kg this month so it seems to be paying off. I'm still way off the original targets set in January when I started all this. I never thought they would be realistic but felt keeping an eye on them would be good, as a way of focussing. Especially at the start when I was doing better than the target predicted.

The exercise is continuing, but fewer gym visits in October as I ran down that membership. It finally cancelled on Halloween.

I have been more determined with my lunchtime cycles. Sadly, the nasty weather has played havoc with me. Its been quite windy out there this month with some nasty winds. I have been generally dry though. I only got really wet once - wet enough that I couldn't see out of my glasses and couldn't hear with my helmet on. The wind was picking up drops of rain and sea and blasting them at me.

My route is a loop but its not symmetric. The return portion is much more exposed as it runs along the shore line. The site I use to log my cycle data recorded wind speeds at 17mph W on my slowest day. That blows like a gale off the water. A south west wind should be helpful, but the more westerly it is is the harder it seems. One day was logged as 0mph wind. That saw me finish in just 27:54. This is only 39s slower than my fastest time yet, with had an 8mph due South wind. To me, this shows that I am slowed more by the wind than helped. Which makes a bit of sense if you consider that sitting upright, holding the handlebars, makes a pocket for the wind to catch in.

My increasing my lunchtime cycles has been offset by Fiona's curling so there were fewer weekend cycles or walks. Calorie burn is down, but that is tied to the 5 hours less actual exercise. Swings and roundabouts I guess. I am fitter though. At least that my interpretation of the reducing average heart rate for these cycles. And I feel better too.

Plans for this month? I need to keep focussed. We're off to Stranraer this weekend 'curling' so I'll need to watch the food intake. The end of the month the new job starts. That will mean less time for exercise and more time in restaurants and travelling, so I'll have to be careful

Opening a can of worms

Tonight is our Cubs Halloween party and having seen something my sister posted about making 'worms' I decided to give it a go.

It looked simple - mix jelly, and some colouring, pour into straws, let set, separate and serve - but for me these things never are.

Closer inspection of the recipe shows that cream is added to the jelly mix. I can cope with this so proceeded and eventually put the filled straws into the fridge to set.

Something happened to my mix. It seems to have separated during the cooling and setting process leaving me with layers rather than a nice even mix.

This meant that my worm was a two-tone affair rather than the inspiring original.

Too late to quit now. So after what seemed like an extremely long time I finally extracted all of my worms from their nests. I found that the easiest though not quickest way was to simply grab the straw from the end and squeeze and slide down ts length. The worm dropped into my bucket.

Lets hope the Cubs are amazed (or even better, disgusted as they put their faces into this mess). Luckily I don't need to present this for a badge.

Photography - The next Generation

My new camera has finally arrived.
Well, that's not completely true. It actually arrived on Monday but I didn't get an SD card for it until I was sure what type it needed. Since the card arrived this morning the camera, as a functioning tool to take pictures, has now arrived.

Technically, its a Nikon D3100 DSLR with an 18-55mm image stabilised lens and a 55-200mm telephoto lens.
Precisely what that actually means is: I now need a photography course. The 18-55mm is good for close up and the 55-200mm is an optical zoom lens.

I have wanted one of these for a while. I have always wanted to take low light photos - moon with clouds, fog, or motion blurred shots - star trails or waterfalls. This is quite hard to do with modern digital cameras. Since these new cameras are designed to take a sharp, focussed image in as many situations as possible, it tends to take control and restrict what you can do. For instance my previous camera had a starry night mode which would allow up to 60 seconds for the shutter to close. This was alright for night shots with no artificial light anywhere, but you could not use it in otherwise.
Needless to say I got a few completely black images or some washed out images.
So the plan is to learn how to take some long exposure pictures with deliberate motion blur - either sky shots with star and aircraft trails, or landscape with flowing water, or even just low light shots. I would like to get a good photo of the moon...

Our company rewards staff with a gift after 21 years service and since I hit that milestone on 11 Jan 2014 at the start of this year I decided that I would get a DSLR as my gift. Since I am now not going to hit that mark by 7 weeks I decided to jump the gun and get the camera for my birthday.

Now, just have to figure how to use it on any mode other than automatic.

September's Review

With all this free time I haven't been keeping good tabs on these reviews.
I've also not been doing great with the weight reduction - the sitting at home makes it easier to snack.
Sadly, the almost flat line will support that view. What is really telling is the lack or measurements - that's how you know I haven't been keeping on track if these are the weights I felt good about recording.

This is despite continuing with regular exercise.

This month sees slightly further in more time and 1 more workout than last month. The heart rate monitor is lowering my reported calorie burn but I have done more walking.

In fact, I have managed to continue with my exercise though I'm not attending the gym anymore. This is because it was at work, and since I'm not going into the office any more its not sensible to attend the gym either. I am walking more though, as well as keeping up my cycling.

My lunch time cycles have also reached a plateau. For the third month my average speed for the 7 miles has been 15.0 mph

I'm going to have to try harder.
Fiona has seen great results with the 5:2 diet. I have started that at the start of October but have already had 2 birthdays with associated eating, one badminton night in, and a school holiday which isn't conducive to fasting.

Birthday Visit

We got back last night from a short break in Dublin. We headed over just for the weekend as it was my birthday on Sunday and is Ciaran's on Thursday.

I couldn't believe just how good the weather was. Shirtsleeves only in Dublin in October!

After doing some window shopping (Ciaran likes to price expensive guitars wherever he goes) we felt we couldn't let the good weather pass without taking advantage.
So we took the Liffey boat tour and really enjoyed it. This sailed East from its pier at the Ha'Penny bridge down to the East Link and then back.

Some of the new building (well new for me - this was no go area when I was living at home 20 years ago) are really impressive and the Beckett bridge is just amazing.

Some cool new buildings like the Convention Centre, but Point Depot, sorry O2 arena, still looks like a disused shed.

And some cool facts - O'Connell Bridge is one of the only bridges in the world which is wider than its span - it takes longer to pass under it than it would to cross over it.
And those grubby wooden poles you can see at low tide are actually from when the river walls were being built and are more than 300 years old.

Next time we are over we are going to have to get down there and have a good walk around.

Sunday was fantastic - home cooked fry followed by the Hurling Final replay. "I'm looking forward to this - I don't even know who won" "Oh, Clare did." Brilliant match though. But as a Cork supporter (and a former full back) was dismayed by some poor defending...

My brother made a special trip up for dinner and then it was back to Scotland, work for Fiona, school for Ciaran, and gardening leave for me.

GLP 02

Colour on the wall and what the tin says its should be

The second of my Gardening Leave Projects has been painting the bathroom. Apparently, if I do a good job I may get to paint someone else's bathroom - fingers crossed.

There isn't much to paint actually. The room itself is quite small and when the tiled area, the window and the door are taken into account there is just one wall and some fiddly bits.

'We' settled on "Waterfall". According to the brochure this would be an off white with a blue-grey cast. This should pick out the marble effect in the tiles and brighten the room without it looking too sterile (which isn't a term normally associated with my house).

As the first coat went on I wasn't that impressed. It seemed very pale but then again it was going over a moss green, and covering dark colours with lighter ones can often be difficult. It certainly provided contrast. I decided to reserve judgement and apply a second coat.

By the time the second coat was going on I was definitely not impressed with the colour. It was much bluer than the tin suggested. It also looked familiar but not being that into the color of walls I didn't take too much notice.

Now that its done I'm not impressed at all. It is too blue. And since I've mentioned that I'm not that keen on the colour I have noticed that its the same colour as Ciaran's bedroom. After I said that Fiona pointed out that its also the same colour as the kitchen - I had to go check - I had no idea the kitchen was blue.

Now that it's had a day to dry and I have seen it in artificial light, in daylight, and in today's dreary light I am more convinced that it needs to come off.

Back to Homebase and start again next week. I don't like tester pots as unless you roll them on the always leave a patch where they were, and I suppose I have the time...

GLP 01

First on my list of Gardening Leave Projects: Paint the back fence.
Actually this hasn't been on the list that long. The new fence only went in last August, so that's not too bad for me.

Fence as it was this morning:

After application of a bit of my gardening leave:

Tick Done.

A productive day. I don't care who you ask.

Busy Doing Nothing

Fiona and I were out at Culzean Castle last weekend and happened across the Forces Exhibition. This is a display of historic military equipment and operations.
There was one group that caught our eye, but not for the obvious reasons.

We came across a display from Gardening Leave. This charity provides horticultural therapy to veterans.

The reason we were attracted to the display was their name of 'Gardening Leave'.
Originally this term was a UK Civil Service term for someone sent home from work on full pay. The person is a regular employee, with all the benefits and restrictions of that position, but just not required to attend work or perform any role (or a only much reduced role). Nowadays, it is the term normally applied to someone who has resigned their position, but has to complete their notice period.

Two weeks ago, I resigned from my job of almost 21 years and have been gardening ever since. Pity I chipped the back garden back in 2011.

So for the next 10 weeks I get to have a nice holiday while only occasionally attending the office to advise the 5 people who have been identified as taking over my role on all the things they don't even know they don't know.

Naturally its not a holiday. I have to be available to come into the office, so I can't be away unless I actually take holiday. But other than that I have been told to relax, take it easy and enjoy.

However, Fiona has identified a list of projects that need to be done and has suggested that others may also have their own lists.

I've already been to Homebase for paint...

Summer Time review

I've already shown that I have struggled with my "Get Lean" campaign through the summer.

A week in Crete with all that food and beer and the disruption to my routine. I did get back on track by the end of the month, and can say that at least after the summer I am, at worst, the same as going into it.

Activity wise I'm doing well. The summer didn't really stop me getting out and about: July and August's stats look pretty good considering

I have started using my heart rate monitor while I'm on my bike. This has had the effect of dropping my calorie count during my cycles as it can generate a more accurate estimate of energy used. So its a tradeoff - lower reported calories used versus more graphs for me to look at.
I also have a cadence monitor n the bike giving even more data although not a power monitor despite attempting to get that working. It seems that a Garmin GSC is a speed and cadence so it doesn't report the power no matter how you adjust the sensors. These have only been on the bike since the 20th or so of August but already I can see that my Max heart rate when I'm out with Fiona is about the same as my average heart rate when I'm doing my lunch time cycles.

Of course, my plans to continue on my campaign have taken a beating...

Up Up and Away

Spent the evening in Strathaven at their annual Balloon Festival.

This year the balloons actually flew. Last year it was windy enough that nothing was even there when we showed up.

I've never been close to a hot air balloon before. Its very impressive. I was amazed at how quickly they could go form rolled into the back of a car to inflated and airborne. We we standing close enough to feel the heat coming off the propane burners as the air was warmed for them.

One guy didn't even bother with a basket - he just strapped himself in and was away.

Another surprise was the parachutist. Nothing was said beforehand but suddenly everyone seemed to notice a guy in a parachute had jumped from one of the balloons.

I never got a good count of how many there were. Looking back at the pictures though there must have been a good 12 to 14 of them.

Holiday Ends Now

• Monday Night badminton - resumed last night
• Ciaran at school - resumed yesterday
• Term time school work schedule - resumed yesterday
• lunch time cycle when working from home - resumed today
• Cubs back on - resumes tonight
• Term time Gym schedule - resumes Wednesday (if the hot water is working by then)
• Hitting my target weight - I am trying...

Overall I am down on where I started and still heading in the correct direction. I can also convince myself that I am now laying down muscle!

I think the break in my routine for the holidays - different working and exercise regime, different eating, has played havoc with my diet.

I am now back to where I was at the start of the holidays and trending downwards again, so that at least is good.

I have also noticed something odd - after updating my Garmin, today's calorie count for my cycle was down on previous cycles. This was despite being reasonably close to my best pace. I expect a bit of variation but 30% drop? I don't know if this is an update issue or the fact that I was using my heart rate monitor which is paired with the Garmin. I'll have to keep and eye on it.

Edinburgh Fun Day

Spent the day in Edinburgh doing touristy things.

Ciaran has developed an interest in collecting Hard Rock Cafe badges. This was his specific request for the day. Since we were going all that way Fiona and I decided that we had to do a bit more than travel eat and return.

So, the plan was to get the train over to Edinburgh, go see Gladstone's land, then lunch at the Hard Rock, then see the Georgian House.

I do love Edinburgh as a city. The architecture is amazing.
The old town is a labyrinth of medieval buildings perched on the volcanic plug of Castle Rock. With space at a premium, they built up - up close and up high. some of these buildings were 12 stories and more. The alley way between was called 'a close'. I just love the notion of these buildings where you drive up to one side, enter the front door, walk through to the back of the room and realise you are 4 stories over the next street.

Before we started with Gladstone's Land we had a cup of tea in an old courtyard. This was the site of a building which had been demolished but never rebuilt. Since its adjacent to the wealthier Gladstone's that may have been an influence. The small building facings us was the Writer's Museum while the other looked like private accommodation. There is a close between to two leading down towards the next road. The building behind is higher than these 2, and descends further down.

Gladsone's Land is a tenement building which the National Trust has restored to resemble what it would have looked like when it was the primary residence of a wealthy merchant. Edinburgh is odd in where the rich and poor lived. These buildings had multiple stories. The rich lived on the lower stories, though not at ground level, while the poorest stated at ground level in the filth or from the attic spaces downwards.

We headed up to the Castle for the 1 O'Clock gun. There wasn't much to see as the stands for the Tattoo are in. We then took a walk down through the Grassmarket and back across the Bridges and up to George Street to the Hard Rock Cafe. Neither Fiona nor I was that impressed. The food was fine, but expensive, the place loud with intrusive video screens that you couldn't help look at. Ciaran did get his badge though.

While we were walking, we decided to forgoe the Georgian House and take the bus tour instead. This would give us a better chance to see the New Town.

This is the other side to Edinburgh (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde like). Its laid out in a much more geometric style than the old town with wide streets and open places. In this part the rich have their own streets while the poor and workers are restricted to the narrow side streets as not to offend the wealthy. As the New Town developed, the wealthy decamped from the Old Town to the New Town, leaving the riff raff behind.

2013 Airshow

Spent the day at East Fortune at Scotland's National Airshow.
This is becoming a regular event for me and though there is a bit of repetition (mostly trying to convince someone to come with me) I do enjoy it. The airshow does suffer from no longer having an active runway. This means that there are few static displays and the show is almost entirely in the air. Some displays are brought in, and a helicopter or two can make an appearance but the main difference from an ordinary day at the museum is the display show.

One of the things they could get in this year was Brian Jones. He was one of the 2 man crew who first circumnavigated the globe in a balloon. His talk was absolutely fantastic. I don't pretend to know too much about ballooning. I do know they are subject to the winds, but he explained how by adjusting altitude you could find different currents moving in different directions, providing an element of control. He spoke for over an hour, accompanied by slides from his record breaking trip.

This year the display highlight was the Eurofighter Typhoon. We've seen these over Prestwick once or twice over the years but this was the first time up close. I was amazed at just how quickly it could manoeuvre. Some of the turns it was making seemed tighter than I could manage on my bike.

And the noise. It physically hit you in the chest and then vibrated through your body. Wow.

One of the disappointments was the last minute cancellation of the F86 Sabre and the Spitfire. Again these are planes with quite distinctive sounds.

Language barrier

One of the Greek meals I ate when we were on Crete (not liking olives or fish restricting my diet) was gyros. This consisted of roasted pork served with tomatoes, onion, grilled pita bread, chips and tzatziki. Every time I had it I quite enjoyed it.
On our last day I again ordered it. I had noticed that as an alternative to it being served with pita, it could be assembled by the chef and served as what in the UK is called a kebab. I had seen some of these being sent out as takeaway while we were looking at the menu, but I couldn't see the choice in the menu itself. Fiona wanted a pizza so she ordered a Gyros Pizza. Ciaran just went for the double burgers.

The food as ever was very good. This was the same place we had the ribs on the first night. Their greeter was a big hit with the small kids - their laughter was infectious.

So why is Fiona looking so disappointed? It appears that the menu item I couldn't find is a Gyros Pita, which interestingly sounds almost exactly like Gyros Pizza.
Fiona wasn't impressed at her sit down takeaway. But she did eat it all and had to admit it tasted great, but wasn't a pizza.