Life?

One of my beautiful and highly intelligent nieces posted on facebook a wee while ago something about life always being one thing or another.   Well yes, that's what it is.  One day you are up, the next down, nothing runs smoothly for long, this she needed to remember, is how it is.

Life here has been slow, but smooth in a way.  Yesterday I was fed by the neighbour, she gave me a roast dinner!  I gave them a bottle of wine and that pleased him, I'm not sure how much she got...

A couple of nights ago she knocked on my door with a question regarding the young lass in the other flat.  This ended with a promise of a dinner, which she brought up to me, after 6 pm.  I had been expecting this at 2 or 3 pm but there you go.  I had eaten by the time it arrived and forced this down.  It was fabulous!  I have eaten little today. This is all well and good.  I had been seeking a chance to meet them more.

On the other hand, when my friend decided to die last year she left me money in her will.  I expected a few hundred but she gave me a huge sum!  Stunned as I am I managed to let it happen.  Now I wonder what to do with it?  Naturally, this means informing the Council regarding the Housing Benefit, which will now stop.  I canny mind if I need to tell the pension people, but I'm sure I must.  So, here I am now with a bit in the bank awaiting news of the changes ahead.  I will survive, bills will be paid, changes will occur.  Easy come, easy go it appears.  1st world problems.  

However, my weight, at 15 stone, has increased today by 2 pounds.  As there was no need to eat today. I also exercised in an attempt to reduce things more.  Crossing to the council office, then around the town to Tesco to save me rising early in the morning, obtaining a couple of needy things and nothing else I hobbled home.   What with checking paperwork, online info, printing things, letter writing, and so on, I have filled the day well.  Tomorrow I may even do something useful!  

You will note I scribbled this in a hurry...

Fit?

As the weather man decided he would offer torrential rain all day I took advantage of the early morning sunlight to wander around to the shop.  Clever me knew that the weather man is always right!  I returned home knowing the rain was about to commence and planned a day of action!  I began by doing the exercising my pot belly reflected in shop windows told me about.  This half hour of all action ("cough") was directed at tightening muscles and losing the pot.  After the heart attack I returned to mundane things such as ironing a shirt or two, no woman offering to do what she was made for.  By this time the morning was over, lunch was served, and the rain had still not arrived.  One siesta later, disturbed by the museum desperate for my attendance tomorrow, not because of me but because almost everyone else is off somewhere, I managed to push aside the weather forecast as clearly the clouds above showed no sign of offering rain.  One lass did have a brolly but that is not always a sign that it is actually raining.  I stepped outside, and it rained!  By now I was committed to popping into the museum and strolled past a woman resting her pushchair under a tree in the forlorn hope the rain would soon ease, we both laughed, and I moved on in the increasing rain to find the museum closed.  Monday is a closed day but someone ought to be there working, they had phoned not long before!  I got home just as the monsoon ended.  How I laughed.  That woman under the tree might still have been there! 

How I ache all over now, I canny walk.......

   

He had the right idea!

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Excercise and Cycling Early in the Morning.

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Start the day the proper way I say. Stretch both arms high. Ooooooh, not that far.
Stretch again, left arm,
right arm,
left arm,
right arm, ooo let's stop that there.
Touch toes, oooh slowly.  And again, and again, and again.
Grab ankle and pull left leg up behind and streeeeeetcch. 
Now the right one, streeeeetttccchhh.
No more off that!
Swivel head to the left,
the right,
the left,
the right,
the lef...no hold that, I'm getting dizzy now.
Chest expanders now.
Puuuuuullllll oooooh, tsk. I think that can wait.
Stretch arms again,
and again,
and again,
Deep breaths,
In. Out.
In. Out.
In. Out.
In. Out.Right, time to get out of bed.

What a morning! Bright sunshine, clear blue sky, slight breeze. I must get on the bike!
Twenty to six and I am off up the road.
Should I go to the left and up the old railway, or carry on and go down the cutting to the...oh never mind I am not awake and have gone straight on anyway. Early it may be but white van man is about. I know this as he has just attempted to reveal how many coats of paint covers his van. I wish he had found some way other than using my handlebars to do this!  Builders pass by in painted vans, rushing to overcharge their customers and find excuses not to complete the work while the sun shines. Folk head for work, probably these are the ones with keys to open up for the rest, and factory or shop will soon ring to the happy sound of human voices wishing it was time to go home. A cleaner or two passes eager (?) to dust, polish and hoover for £5.96 an hour. I note them all as they head for their destination, although I would have been better noting the traffic lights there as that would have saved that man in the Skoda using language that does not suit this time of day.

I aim to turn off for the railway but fail to negotiate the bend (maybe this is too early?) and am heading down the steep hill at breakneck speed holding the handlebars with two hands and my cap with another. I can foresee trouble ahead!  At the bottom of the hill I pass an adolescent lassie delivering the morning papers, or at least judging by the speed she is progressing possibly it is the weekly free paper she began delivering yesterday?

I grunt and puff as I struggle up the other side of the hill and looking to my right, and avoiding 'P. Grant. Builder and Handyman,' as he zooms along, and watch the sun rising over the fields. Visibility is at least ten miles although the dew is causing a very light haze that makes me eager to stop and take pictures. Summer mornings have a joy all of their own! However if I stop on this slope I may not start again so I continue. I pass through the village full of aged buildings which are very much at variance with the nature of the road that lies in front of them, and turn off into the station (2 miles and 17 chains distance from home) and begin the run home down the slope. Today I am so glad of this slope! Five miles seems like fifty these days, why do teens have all the energy?

Home before six thirty in the morning. Breakfast, read the papers, blogs, e-mails, and it is almost time to do those things that have waited since yesterday.

I er, maybe I will do them later...... 


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Exercise

 

So as I had gone through most of the exercise regime yesterday, first one eyelid then the other, I decided to follow the old fashioned way of exercising, housework! Today's lassies waste much time and money straining away her life at the gym when a cheaper and more useful way of getting fit is to do the housework! After all that is what they were made for, and they will feel the benefit in the satisfaction of a healthy house and a fit body. The woodwork in the East wing was first even though it was only cleaned the other year. A bowl of soapy water and an ageing cloth, (one I think I might wash and wear it again at the weekend mind,) and I was off. The windows, the doors, the skirting board, any odd bit and piece. Move the drawers, chase the mice, heave this over there, and that back over there, and eventually the job was done. I poured the water down the sink and endured two hours of horrendous stink as it curdled way down in the drain! The place looked strange as I am not used to the clean doors, those fingermarks made nice patterns too. This part done I planned the next move over elevenses, at eleven. Unfortunately by the time elevenses were over it was dinner time, so I burnt some soup instead. After this I searched the market for dropped oranges, and planned the rest of the day, over tea. By then it was getting on and a quick look at the tiles falling of the wall in the bathroom led me to decide that I  ought to return to fixing the bike

Now when the weather was bad, and today it was almost warm, I had little desire to get frostbite while cursing the gears as I fought with them, but today, with the door wide open to allow the Spring sunshine in, I got to work on those gears. Naturally with my engineering talent I failed! Even when cleaned and the cable put through the right places it still does not work! I checked the 'DK Bike Repair Manual,' and that didn't help and 'Richards New Bicycle Book' was far too complicated for my tired mind. It is also 25 years out of date I suppose. However all this was good exercise. I know this as all my muscles are aching, I am asleep on my feet, and when I suggested a rub down with a wet towel to the lass passing by as I cleaned the bike I ended up with a painful face to go with everything else. She was so unhelpful, I wonder who she was? 

Exercise

Exercise

The usual way to exercise is to walk, cycle, or even go to the gym! Naturally I am not yet fit, or rich enough, to go there, however exercise is urgently required. I did not bother with the cycling as it meant filling the tyres with air. Had I done that there would have been insufficient energy to get on the beast and ride it. I walked around to the market and browsed for any vegetables that had rolled from the stalls. Typically none had and I had to spend cash later in the day when they were desperate to sell up and go home. I suppose starting work at two in the morning makes you keen to finish twelve hours later! I continued the wandering to the gardens where I sat and attempted to make friends with a robin that kept appearing on the end of the bench. His disgust that I failed to feed him was apparent! Am I getting old? I enjoyed just sitting there in the sunshine, surrounded by greenery, watching the white butterflies butterfyingby, and there appears to be more of them than usual this year, and listening to the birdies sing and the beasties buzzing by.

However this relaxation was necessary as I had been partaking of the hardest exercise known to man, housework! I cleaned the kitchen, scraping the muck off, washing the floor, and various other bits, and discovered just how hard work this is! Know wonder mothers in days of your did not need gyms! The best exercise I know, so tomorrow I may even clean the windows, just before the ambulance comes to collect me. Unless one of girls can spare a few minutes.......

Today

Today I spent catching up on all the things ignored while Malware hunting. Little things like opening the windows to let in fresh air was good, I noticed the mice, fly's and bedbugs were all suffering in the stagnant air. I cleaned a dish or two, put out the rubbish and opened the curtains, suddenly I felt this was a new world!

The driving yesterday was still spinning my little mind. Imagine me driving down the dual carriageway? I walked for a while this morning to see if my legs still worked but I found myself attempting to drive lots of passing cars. Change gear, accelerate, clutch, and so on at every corner. I am not sure if I am beginning to adapt to the car or just stark staring bonkers. (No suggestions please!) Such exercise, the walking not the pseudo driving, was much needed. I have been eating less but not doing enough exercise and I must lose some of this girth. Later I wandered out for a while and in the afternoon I got on the bike and cycled around the industrial estate looking for job adverts (some companies still post them outside the door). They didn't today!

I contacted one or two jobs late this afternoon and await their refusal, and tidied up the mess that is my record of employment seeking. A huge pile of paper represents the companies that do not want me! it was somewhat depressing I must say. Sometimes I wish I had struggled on at Royal Mail, even if it was clearly too much for my knees. Ah well. I am confident that something good will arrive soon.A bit more research tomorrow, a few new directions, and maybe putting an advert in the newsagent window.

Ageing, Lazy, Malcontent
Seeks well paid easy, light, employment.
Must be local, and with free lunches.
Preferably with young brunette to assist.
Call 013 999