You won’t leave feeling affirmed or inspired but you might just crack a smile at something you shouldn’t, and that is okay because I wont tell anybody. Someone even laughed out loud once but then had to pretend it was something funny they read elsewhere because it was wholly inappropriate and they were a bit ashamed but mostly amused.
You won’t leave feeling affirmed or inspired but you might just crack a smile at something you shouldn’t, and that is okay because I wont tell anybody. Someone even laughed out loud once but then had to pretend it was something funny they read elsewhere because it was wholly inappropriate and they were a bit ashamed but mostly amused.
After 4 years of nagging by the youngest blonde child we were eventually worn down and last week we brought home our new puppy. He’s the cutest little fox red Labrador retriever and despite being very much against having one Im rather enjoying him…
Its been a funny old year hasn’t it. The van was mostly parked up for the duration as we navigated our way through lockdown and covid restrictions, site closures and utilising the van as storage whilst our house renovations dragged on.
The sum total of all of those distractions and excuses has resulted in us only getting the van out today. Like now. This very moment. Obviously if you dont read this on the 17th of October 2020 Im likely not right here, right now.
Im currently on a site in Knaresboroughin North yorkshire drinking a rather nice south African Sauvignon Blanc with the intentions of watching rugby on TV, ordering take away and doing nothing else.
The boys are here with me and they are happily settled in doing whatever they do and not in the slightest interested in going for a walk or seeing a bit of nature. Given were only here for one night I don’t really mind…its just nice to have a change of scenery.
Oh and obviously the highlight of amy camping trip is to prefix caravan names with ‘anal”. Try it with the photos below. Such filthy fun.
So my question for physical inperfection now includes exercise. I hate it. So much. Want to know how much ? Take a listen. Be warned…its really inappropriate and you wouldn’t want your kids listening to it. Unless they’re Jerry Falwell Junior. He would be cool with it I’m sure.
Mostly just ten minutes of me sweating and sweating and making sexual references about exercise machines ..
The latest edition to my 2000AD collection of stuff.
I posted a while ago about my recently acquired Sov Badge which you can read about here. I have now added a Dredd and an Anderson PSI badge to my collection but this time I 3D printed them myself (ignore the buff bulbasaur 🙂 ). I am now looking forward to getting these painted and creating some sort of display with my Carlos Ezquerra style lawgiver…and to then display it with this, my pride and joy Ezquerra art…
Prrobably as close as I will get to a religious shrine I guess 🙂
I will let you see them when I have them all painted up…
You can get a peek here of some of the other stuff I have added about my love…
At Christmas I tried to convince my 11 year old that a 3D printer would be a great idea. At the time, however, he had his heart set on a particular pair of trainers so it never happened. In April I suggested it would be a good idea to have one for his 12th birthday, and given that I had been telling him about them for a few months he was admittedly interested, but not enough to not ask for a Nintendo Switch.
I knew it would be good for him as he has quite the enquiring mind, would provide him a wonderful creative outlet, would let him explore…oh who am I kidding. at this point it felt like I was never getting a 3D printer.
6 weeks into Covid, with the stresses of isolation weighing on the family (I am trying to keep a straight face here) I suggested it would be a good idea to get one as it would allow him to do something different as he was not able to play rugby or cricket and school was already a distant memory.
At this juncture Mrs Afterwards suggested that if I want one I should get one and stop pretending it was for Tom. Tom though was now super interested and following a little research our Flashforge Guider 2 was winging its way to us. It is freaking huge, weighing in at about 30KG and about the size of an old style television. It pings and dings and lights up quite wonderfully too…
For those not familiar with them they mostly print things from plastic extruded through a hot nozzle using files you can make or download from the internet. Now that the remodelling is done we have been able to unpack it and have spent the weekend in the cellar printing cool stuff.
So far we’ve printed a couple of badges from 2000AD, a Totoro, a buffed up bulbasaur, some covid door hooks and even a couple of rings. It is such good fun! I even let him have a turn 🙂
So this month it has been all about finishing the renovations, unboxing the 3D printer, rebuilding the arcade machine and starting to take more exercise…
Ok so 5 months ago we started a building project. Then the world closed because of the Corona Virus and for most of 2020 we lived in a building site. Up until this weekend. The builders packed their stuff last week and departed and at last we have our house back.
Now I haven’t posted or really been near my blog for the last week as I have been painting walls and doors and pretty much anything that looked like it would benefit from a lick of paint and after a long week of late nights the place was ready to move into and over the last week we spent many an hour trying to get the rooms set up, the home gym assembled and things mostly in place (though there is still a lot to do).
I now have somewhere to get some exercise as I really don’t like going outside and at last have a lovely space to work and write.
Now I just need to paint the other 3 floors of the house!
Before and after of the coal cellar. I had never actually been right into it in 16 years as it was too terrifying…
Before and after of what is now storage/home Gym/3D printer room/Games machine room. I even managed to sort out all of my tools and that made me feel particularly manly and I may have stood, hands on hips and legs akimbo following a particularly methodical organising of my drill bits.
And then lastly the living room/office thingy. It has a fridge and bar area dedicated solely to alcohol which is odd as I don’t actually really drink though I think perhaps I might try and get into wine because I am of an age where I feel I ought to know more about wine than I do. I lit the fire for effect, and while it looked lovely it was bloody boiling. I also put on the underfloor heating which added to the generally unpleasant temperature and made me sweat in all of my creases…not nice at all.
So now mostly for the rest of forever this is where I intend to be 🙂
Well worth the 5 months of filth and building work! So right that desk is where I am sat.
Really looking forward to getting back to normality, if anything about this new world can be thought of as normal!
The ongoing saga of the right old state our doors were in…
I know were not still strictly locked down but I figured I’d carry on with this anyway. Last post I wrote on this is here if you want to catch up first.
So after 2 months I about 16kg/35 Lbs down. Roughly back where I was when I last did the Whole30 thing, so whilst a real boost it is rather annoying that I have just lost weight I already lost previously and then put back on. But if you’ve ever been overweight then you will be familiar with this cycle. Losing it can be easy but maintaining it often seems to be the difficult part.
This time round I have tried calorie deficit combined with intermittent fasting. I really like cooking, and I love eating and I just don’t think it is possible for me to not enjoy the things I love to eat so I have endeavoured to simply have what I want – just less of it. Looking at a calorie deficit of around 500 and you’ll lose about one pound a week, but I have probably ran a little more than that and I do tend to lose weight really fast when I start getting things under control. Apart from the last week where I have pretty much maintained my weight because I could not stop eating bourbon biscuits and jammy dodgers! I have a real problem with them…
So in addition to the calorie deficit I started intermittent fasting and broadly eat in a 5 hour window between noon and 5pm. This really helps me to focus and helps me with the discipline I usually do not have. I know there are all sorts of actual benefits of intermittent fasting and there are great sites out there that will extoll those but for me – it mostly stops me eating about 11 meals a day at all hours. Simple really.
To help me keep track of what I am doing I use two apps each day. Fastic helps me to track my fasting hours and I use MyFitnessPal to track my calorie intake. The former does have the ability to track calories but I prefer the latter as it has all the foods from most stores in its database so I can be more accurate with it.
There have been hiccups and blips along the way, and I have struggled at times like you do when youre trying to fix something that has been a problem your whole life but this time I do feel different about what I am trying to achieve. Perhaps it is because I am 50 next year and know I cannot carry on like I have been. That pending sense of mortality can be a real awakener.
Oh there is one more thing I have been doing. Drinking a lot of water. I have a glass that takes 500ML and drink about 6 of these a day. There are studies out there that show drinking more water helps with weight loss and it does seem to have helped me – perhaps I just feel fuller I don’t know -there will be science to it. Mostly though it just feels like a useful part of the routine I am developing.
The one thing I haven’t really done yet is exercise. I’ve barely been out during the last 4 months and my step counter on my watch struggles to get to 5000 most days. I will be remedying that though over the next few weeks when our building project completes. We’ve put in a small home gym and I will have a cross trainer, static bike, treadmill and rowing machine.
So there you go, you’re up to speed with what I have been doing on that front. Here’s my head 2 months apart and some of the food I have been making…
