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Battle of the Bulge

(Top note: the personal posts are back!! Please tell me this isn’t a mistake.)

NEWSFLASH: I need to lose weight.

REWIND: I think it’s fair to say that I’ve had my ups-and-downs, weight-wise!

I was always pretty skinny up until about 1988, when I first gained a bit of weight. And I do mean a bit. At the time I was drinking some alcohol and also smoking an amount of pot (which, I’m sure many of you know, gives you “the munchies”). So, I was aghast enough, after seeing a photo where I looked kinda round-faced, to go on a diet! I probably weighed 11 stones. But by mid-1989, I weighed a mere nine stones—the lightest I’ve been my entire adult life. In fact, I was a bit too light. I am, after all, 5’8″, and my build, while not large, is not petite—so nine stones was pushing it!

It didn’t last long. I was back up to maybe 10.5 after a few months. And that, to my mind, was a good weight for me. Anyhow, I have to say that at the age of 20, losing weight was a breeze. I had a simple method: I just ate exactly half of every meal. The weight came right off, quickly & efficiently.
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London Stuff

My London trip last Friday went well. It was nice to have a break from all this house move stuff. The new place is still a mess and I’m starting to find it rather depressing. I know it’ll be sorted out eventually, but meanwhile, life is damned uncomfortable.

Anyway, London: I only got one half-decent snap. This is the Golden Jubilee Bridge, which Paul and I crossed to reach the South Bank and the National Film Theatre.

London October 3 2003
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2 Days Later

I’m still here. The move went off reasonably hitch-free, although the last two days have been tremendously stressful. Right now, our new home is a mess, and will remain so until new carpet and various items of furnishing, etc., are in place. My clothes—all five bags of ’em—are currently languishing, as I need a new wardrobe. Very urgently.
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Bored and Boring

I am feeling a little disillusioned again. It’s not been a good few weeks, and I can’t help noticing that I’ve largely failed to write anything even slightly interesting on this blog for some time. Depending on how you define interesting, maybe.

Perhaps a break is a good idea. I might feel better when this move is out of the way, but it’s dragging on ridiculously, to be honest. There isn’t any solid reason that it wasn’t more or less finalised a month ago. I’m incredibly bored, and I feel this is making anything I say incredibly boring…
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It’s All Good Fun

Yes, I’m still here. Interesting (if absurd) developments on the New Deal front. The manager of the course told me she agrees that it’s not really appropriate for me at the present time… but, there’s no way out of it bar getting a job or foregoing your benefit. In fact, once you’re on ND, you’re stuck on it, or something similar, until you find work—if you’ve failed to do so after the 13-week duration, you’re put onto something else… and so on, and so on, ad nauseum.

Anyway, the only other option is to go on the sick. In my case, if my GP was agreeable, it would be for stress. Yep, that’s right: stress these people have caused. You’re either sick or your life revolves around finding a job. No other options, screw individual circumstances, end of story.
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