Category Archives: Life

Placebo effect? Who cares!

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Today has been a good day.  It’s gorgeous, a little too warm in general for my liking, but clear skies, crisp and cool this morning and dry all day.  We had our regular weekend high class Tesco breakfast before our Saturday shop, and then we headed straight over to B&Q for some random DIY purchases.  We needed more woodchip for the border in the garden, and while we were there found some plastic border things which are better than the ones we were using.

I think I blogged about the last lot when we did the border, this lot are short sections, hammer-in, much sturdier and more durable and look a lot better.  So when we got back, since the weather was so decent we ripped up the old stuff and I hammered the new ones in.  We ended up doing about 5 hours of gardening, which included pruning the small apple tree right back now the leaves are starting to fall off (I have no clue what the best time of year to prune is, so don’t feel you need to correct me, we prune, when we want to prune).  Then we had to chop those branches up and get them into the brown bin ((our council collects garden refuse once every two weeks in a brown wheelie bin)).  Since we were doing that, I chopped up the bigger logs almost from the pruning we did in the front garden a few weeks back that have been lying in the other border.

Then we decided to finally tackle the small shed’s load of cardboard.  We cleared out 70% of the cardboard that was in there a couple of years ago, it’s been there since we moved in.  But as we got near to the bottom it got more and more hairy to move it without freeing up about 100 spiders, so we stopped.  We really want to be able to use that shed for the lawn mower though, it’ll be much easier to get in and out than the other shed, so we sucked it up and pulled all the cardboard out.

Some of those spiders are the size of squirrels.

I’m not arachnaphobic.  I don’t like being surprised by something that’s moving quickly, no matter how big it is, but if I can see a spider and know which way it’s going they don’t frighten me as such, even if they’re on me.  It’s when I’m not sure if they’re on me, or not sure where they’re going to come from or where they are headed that just surprises me and gives me that fright.  Grete is arachnaphobic, but can overcome that with the sort of aggression only usually seen in gladiatorial arenas or bad cases of PMT.

Anyway, once all the cardboard was out, Grete set about chopping it up into sections.

As well as not being arachnaphobic, I’m not claustraphobic either.  However, I think it’s perfectly normal to be a little bit squicked out when you’re in a tight space and surrounded by spiders or other small insects you can’t see but which may be dropping onto you and wandering around your head.  It’s that which to date has stopped us squeezing between the shed and next door’s shed to cut down the sycamore which is regrowing at the bottom of the garden.  Last year, our next door neighbour had the hedge removed and put a fence up.  It’s a nice fence, we weren’t sorry to see it going up and we didn’t like the hedge.  We were a bit sad that she wanted us to have the sycamore chopped down, but we also agreed it wasn’t something either of us could managed.  We paid her contractors to sort the tree, while she paid for the fence.

Now the sycamore is back, not really our fault, but it’s now stuck at the bottom of the garden with no access, because the new fence goes up to our shed and leaves a gap a little less than a foot.  Once past that, there’s more like a foot and a half of space between the sheds, but as you can imagine, it’s pretty well populated with wildlife of the small and creepy kind.

However, it was time to give it a shot and I was pleased to find out I can squeeze through that gap, and as long as I didn’t think about it too much I was ok once I was in the narrow space.  So a bit of chopping and sawing later and the sycamore is back to a tiny stump, and as we know, since nature always prevails, it’ll be back soon enough.  But now we know we can get to it.

We tidied up, put loads of stuff in bags, sorted the cardboard, and have a whole bunch of stuff for several tip runs tomorrow.

I don’t know if using the Wii Fit for 14 days has given me more energy or not, but it certainly feels like it’s done so, and that’s what matters.  I’m not sure I would have been up for 5 hours worth of gardening a few weeks back.  We’ve made huge inroads into some of the stuff that’s been bugging us for ages, and the garden hasn’t looked better than this, including when we first moved in.  Most of that effort is down to Grete since she mows the grass, weeds the border and keeps it in good shape, I’m more of a desctructive energy gardener, but still.  Five hours, and although I’m knackered, I’m not falling over dead knackered.

So, placebo effect or not, 30 minutes of exercise a day (spread out over 40 to 60 minutes as it is with the Wii Fit) certainly feels like it’s elevated my mood, given me more energy in general and made a serious difference.  I don’t even really care if I’ve lost weight I just feel better.

Fingers crossed it’s having a beneficial effect on my blood sugar levels (which reminds me, my HbA1c blood test appointment letter came through, fingers crossed).

I’m British, let’s talk about the weather

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It’s September and in my part of the world that makes it Autumn.  I love Autumn, it’s my favourite season.  I’ve already blogged about this before really, but I think it’s worth saying again.  My favourite seasons in order are, Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer.  Why?  Several reasons, but mainly because I find it much easier to get warm and stay warm than I do to cool down and stay cool.  I like the dry crisp nature of Autumn in the UK.  I like the cold, there, I’ve admitted it.  Something about wrapping up warm and going out into the world inspires me more than dressing down and going outside to sweat and seek cold drinks.

Today it’s sunny and warm, hardly a cloud in the sky, but it’s not overly hot.  There’s a nice little breeze.  Inside the house is just right, no need for heating, the doors are open, but there’s no need for a fan or cooling either.  I feel the world is in balance during Autumn.  The deep breath before the plunge, but for me the plunge isn’t bad, it’s just bracing.  The chill and twilight of Winter.  Waiting just at the edge of life, holding out against the darkness, ready for the thrill of Spring.

But Spring is wet and often too windy for my liking and from there into the heat of Summer (if some people are lucky), when the rest of the UK worships the sky and I just stay indoors and wait for the bright orange of Autumn to come around again.

I don’t totally hate summer, I’m a huge fan of trees and I love the bright green foliage at the height of summer.  Yet I can’t help but feel a surge when I see the oranges, reds and yellows that precede the calm regal nature of Autumn.

So here it is, Autumn, on our doorstep and knocking to come in.  Soon it’ll be Samhain, and we’ll just have to hope our doors protect us from the world behind that veil.

The smell of bacon

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All around me this morning is the smell of bacon cobs. Alluring, delicious, warm and comforting on a cold and damp September morning.

I am assailed on all sides by the elicit odour of that which I crave.

So far, I have remained strong, through a combination of not wanting to move because I have a stinking headache, and the last shreds of my willpower that I really would like to lose some weight sometime before the end of this year.

It remains to be seen how long those two factors protect me for the rest of the morning.

Envelope much?

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I got a new SIM card for my phone today (the work one), you know SIM cards? They’re small. They usually come attached to a credit card sized piece of plastic to keep them safe.

This is the envelope in which it arrived. Sorry about the shaky picture, low blood sugar at the time, the Sky+ remote is artfully placed so you get a sense of scale, and the SIM card is on top of the envelope.

Feel free to click the picture for a (large) version.

Good writing advice

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This is clearly good advice, which I ignore (obviously), written by Margaret H. Bonham.

Following up on loads of questions asked by folks here, one question lt260 asked was: Do you have a 12-step program for gaining good writing habits?

You know, with the amount of writing I do, you’d figure that I wouldn’t need this so-called 12 step program, but the reality is sometimes even the best authors don’t write as much as they should. But, of course, I don’t follow many rules, so these are my 15 step program for gaining good writing habits. So, here are my recommendations for gaining good writing habits.

1. Apply butt to chair; fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper). Seriously, most writers don’t write because they fail to just sit down and write. Sitting down and putting yourself if the position to write will at least get you to the medium you intend to write on. After that, the rest is up to you.

read the rest ….

Autumn so soon?

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Fun fun weather here in the UK (obviously, it’s just quaint weather, nothing on the scale of the rest of the world). Our summer ran out in June and July, August was pretty much a complete wash out and then September is having a surprise revival with a few days of sun so far.

But the trees can’t be fooled, and there’s an increasing amount of yellow and orange on the journey in to work. Summer is turning, as it invariably does, into Autumn which is my favourite time of year. I don’t really enjoy the heat (useful in the UK), and I don’t mind the cold. Autumn is always my favourite time of year.

My favourite type of day is a bright, dry, crisp and cool Autumn day where you can just see a hint of your own breath glowing in the sun.

We made spaghetti bolognaise over the weekend, and I intended to bring some to work for lunch today but I really didn’t fancy it, so I’m staring at a sandwich that I know is bad for me (in a general sense), and it’s only 11:30. At weekends I almost forget to eat until after 1pm, but something about being in work makes me crave lunch from around 11:30 onwards.

Half a second wind

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Made it into the lounge and woke up a little bit (need to digest some of this food before actually going to bed).

So anyway, to continue the theme of banging on about the Wii Fit. Did some gardening today. The Wii Fit didn’t make us do it, but knowing we could record the effort spent gardening in the tool certainly added a tiny amount of encouragement. You could do the same by running a spreadsheet and tracking it yourself, but the Wii FitPiggy is cuter.

Edit: Man that was a lame blog entry. I started strong, then got sidetracked by registering our Wii and getting Wii stars and then I got tired again. So anyway, Wii Fit = good, gardening = hard work, frogs = plentiful, ivy = mostly removed, huge hole in the ground between the fence and the path = mostly filled, had a second shower today because I was creeped out by the spiders and other bugs, snails = *huge*, cats = very excited by anything that moved. Grete weeded the border and sorted out the grass along the edge (big job, took about two hours).

I finally got some little things done like moving the remains of the wardrobe we broke up when we moved in (like 5 years ago), and moving some broken paving stones (used them to fill The Hole). Also, spread the last bag of wood chip we bought about 2 years ago to sort the border. I assumed plastic bags would be water proof but obviously not, the wood chip was soaked, stuck together and clumpy. Hopefully it’ll look more like wood when it dries out (sometime in 2011 it looks like).

I’m always torn when it comes to gardens. I love the idea of a garden providing somewhere for wildlife to thrive (frogs, snails, newts, dragonflies, everything) but I also appreciate that kind of garden can look a mess to the neighbours and eventually can risk things like fences and sheds.

I did finally work out why I don’t like gardening, or the main reason. I don’t like being in a war you can’t win. And basically, you can not win against nature, you can just slow her down – life has a way of getting under the path and into the house no matter how hard you try.

I’m knackered

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Up since 5:30am, pretty tired now. Had our roast dinner at 1:30pm’ish, which was much better than having it later (in theory). Went out into the garden with Grete and got some tidying up done (an hour or two), was going to blog about how the Wii encourages that because you can put time into Wii Fit but I’m honestly too tired, maybe tomorrow.

Ended up eating too much for tea because I was starving after the gardening so probably blew all the good we did by having our dinner early.

Oh well. Tomorrow is just another day.