Goods and bads

I don't really know where to start because it's ridiculous the way I feel.

I'm obviously very excited and whatever for Portugal (good) ... but it's going to do shit all for my already overweight body (bad). I hate my body, I've never been thin, no matter how much I exercise and how little I weigh as far as I'm concerned I, well my stomach at least looks gross. 

I left college and went to Fat Busters (Slimming World) over the Summer - I ate healthy, I went to the gym and I cycled to work and I lost half a stone ... in 2 months. Now maybe I have too higher expectations but that's shit. What was worse was that I went on holiday and put the entire 7lbs back on in the space of 2 weeks. Understandable why my motivation disappears very quickly?

As far as I'm concerned the only time I've lost a decent amount of weight in a decent amount of time was last Christmas when I had a mouth infection courtesy of my wisdom teeth (bad) and literally didn't eat for a week. For the first time in many years I was under 10stone (by 1/4lb) (good). Plus I was doing my work placement at the RSPCA which meant being on my feet from half 8 - half 5 ... that helped.

I went to the gym 20 times in May (good) and didn't lose a sausage (metaphorically) (bad), in fact 3 days of gymming and living off pitta bread and bananas I managed to gain half a stone - WHAT THE FECK?!

I HATE MY BODY!

What's worse is that this week I have gained 2lbs so that my BMI is now overweight, despite going to the gym 3 times and playing on the Wii Fit. Maybe I should start thinking about liposuction or something because clearly nothing else works.

As a last resort to try and prove that there is actually something hideously wrong with my metabolism I'm going to swim excessive lengths on holiday, eat slowly, attempt to have healthy foods and definitely going to resist all forms of dessert. I have very low hopes that this will work because I am beginning to believe that I am forever cursed with this flab ... until I get pregnant and then I will explode into obesity and I'll be taken to a fat home.

Rant over.

In other news, I would like to make a small statement regarding the sad demise of my 2nd Year uni camera (bad). My Samsung ES70 served me well this passed year, taken over 1,800 photos until someone (me) got a bit drunk and snap happy at a foam party. The poor little camera never recovered. However today I purchased the camera which will accompany me through the most important year of my life so far - a Nikon L24 (good). Is shiny :) No foam parties for this baby!

Ah well. I must away because apparently even overweight people need to eat :/

Won't be around for a while - Portugal for 2 weeks early Sunday morning.

Laters all,

Cock 

xxx

ps. Brother from another mother :P (stolen from Bryony)

Wii's, Jakes and Green Lanterns

I'm back in Plym - my room is empty and I'm putting off going to the gym ...  I know, let's blog!

So finally the Wii Fit arrived on Friday. It's pretty epic, I was feeling the pain yesterday after doing an hours worth on it - definitely made me realise how lazy I've been since I've been home! 

It is cool though, it made my little Mii person's dimensions(?) more accurate to my own height and weight. Astonishingly I am still at a normal BMI, although I expect it'll start creeping into the overweight category shortly :(

Anyway, the best bit is that you can create a profile for your pets - how awesome is that? So I made one for my J-dog. Was slightly intrigued as to how I was supposed to weigh him as there wasn't a chance in hell of him sitting still on the fitness board for long enough. Obviously, it then explained that I had to pick Jakey up and stand on the board with him and my weight would be taken from our combined total. 

Since this "A Jake" has now become a unit of measurement. A "Jake" is 1st 3lbs (7.7kg) which is approximately the weight I need to lose to get down to my ideal BMI of 22 and my Mum needs to lose 2 Jakes to get to hers. My brother is the opposite, he needs to gain a Jake in order to get his ideal BMI. My Dad refused to have a go on the basis that he'd just drunk a couple of pints of beer and had some peanuts - pathetic excuses. In my opinion it's because after all the abuse he gives me that I'm fat he's afraid that he'll come up as overweight, which in fairness would make me LOL (inwardly).

I can't believe I have to lose a whole Jake though! When I pick him up, he's a right lump and I can't hold him for more than about 5minutes. How can I be carrying a whole Jack Russells worth in excess flab, and a chubby one at that? It's madness!

Anyway! Moving on, I went to see Green Lantern last night and it was amazing. Didn't know much about it so I was pretty much just going to keep Carl company ... the fact that Ryan Reynolds was in the film may also have encouraged me somewhat :P Om nom! But twas EPIC, completely understood what was going on, there was lots of cool effects, a scary evil thing and there may be a potential sequel. According to the Daily *makes you hang yourself with every headline* Mail, it's shit, but I say it's awesome and definitely recommend anyone thinking about it to go :) 

*plugs film by including trailer in the blog*

Oh, it also has Geoffrey Rush (legend) playing a weird fish alien thing (I know Carl, Tomar-re) which prompted me to shout "GEOFFREEEEY!" everytime he came on screen :)

And that's about all for now ... possible pizza times tonight so probably should go to the gym now ... Oh :(

Laters,

Cock

xxx

ps. shared this on Facebook but in case anyone missed it, this is a brilliant video which I'm pretty sure is based on my family: especially seeing as it's called "Simon's Sister's Dog" ... my brother is Simon, I'm his sister and I have a dog ... simples :P

pps. My Jake is not that bad. Jack Russell's should weigh between 7-8kg and according to the Wii Fit Jake is 7.7kg so he's fine :)

Life of a Slob

9:30am-11am(depending on whether there's a dog on my bed): Get out of bed

Before

10am-12pm/11-1pm: Watch Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters on SkyLivingIt or Sky LivingIt +1 depending on when I get up

1pm: Shower

1:45pm: Walk the dog and as was the case today, get rained on, walk home and spend half hour chasing and trying to dry aforementioned dog with a towel whilst he prances around with his quackie duck toy

During

2:30pm-3pm: Lunch

3pm-3:30pm: Watch more crap on TV and wait for Dad to return home about 3pm so the dog will stop staring at me

3:30pm-5pm: Talk to Dad and accept offer of coffee. Then wait for Mum to come home and make me another cup of coffee because I can't be arsed to get off sofa because I've had a busy day

After drying

5pm onwards: Refresh facebook every 5minutes waiting for something interesting to happen. Added extra today - painted my toenails a shiny blue.

Evening: Eat a nommy dinner cooked by my Dad including previous masterpieces as shepherds pie, uber salads and vegetable curries ... or on the night he didn't cook, crisps.

7pm-8pm (ex. Wednesdays): Watch Eastenders.

9pm (Thursdays only): Watch How I Met Your Mother

12am-1am: Go to bed looking forward to continuing the cycle tomorrow.

BUT all this will change as of tomorrow when Wii Fit and Wii Zumba arrive. After my morning with the paranormal I will spend the rest of the day Wii-ing :D I may not even eat, I'm that excited. Jake won't know what's hit him (probably a Wii remote actually). 

Wonder how long before that novelty wears off.

Never mind, only 9.5 sleeps to go before Portugal, that'll certainly keep me entertained. Final (maybe, probably) Hancock & Gates holiday guarantees lots of David Hasselhoffing, pool fun, alcohol, drag queens, badminton partners and waterparks :D

Anyway, must go back to my monotonous routine. Fortunately Doctor Who's on at the mo which makes the decision of what to watch on TV slightly easier tonight.

Cock

xxx

ps. Plus of staying home is getting to spend lots of time with my J-dog. Even if that does mean walks in the rain. <3

The countdown begins ...

Ok so maybe slightly optimistic considering that on the scale of 1-unemployed I am currently very unemployed, but nevertheless I have officially decided that this time next year I will NOT be in this stupid, crappy country. 

Once I'm finished with uni and assuming I pass all my exams and assuming I have a lenient enough job to allow it I intend to venture away to Africa for 4 weeks next Summer.

I'm getting very impatient and it's infuriating having nothing to do. And it isn't through lack of trying: jobs just don't seem to be in the right place at the right time: there was one at Pets at Home, The Junction, Goodbodys - all in Plymouth, where I am not. Courtesy of my uni course I have to be at home over the Summer to study for my dissertation.

One plus that has come from having shit all to do is that I've been able to do some research:
What I Will Be Doing Next Summer

^^ that for me is an absolute dream come true. My Dad asked where it would get me and actually if I ever wanted to work at a zoo with big cats it would certainly give me an advantage ... but who cares whether it would get me anywhere - I get to hug lions! Potentially even white lion cubs which would be just incredible.

It will cost near £3,000 but fortunately, due to my awesome parents planning ahead I have lots of money saved and enough to go and I really am very grateful for that. What I find frustrating is that if I hadn't gone to university I would have even more money because I wouldn't have spent it all on living at uni and I'd have had a full time job.

I would LOVE to be able to go now and part of me is thinking 'Why not?' - I have the money and the time but I think there's a line to spontaneity I have to draw here.

Maybe for now I will have to make do with my J-dog and the rats being the only animals in my life. The former of which is currently looking like he is about to jump out the living room window ... oh no, he's lying down, it's fine.



Ah well, until then I have a Wii to play. Yes, that is how I'm spending my summer. Really isn't by choice - I would genuinely rather be working than sat here with aching arms due to going over the top on Wii boxing :(

Cock
xxx

ps. 12 months 'til lion time ...

A carvery with the Hancocks

OK, little 'Author's Note' here, I do love my family and to be fair I was looking forward to going out for a carvery with them this afternoon (mostly for the food) and I did enjoy it but I had honestly forgotten the scale of the kerfuffle that comes with it. It's pretty much all kinda "head-in-hands-in-despair" moments that only family can provide. Let's count how many of these moments there are ...

We'd booked the pub table for half 12. The pub is literally 2minutes down the road ... so naturally at 12:15 my Grandad was panicking we'd lost our spot first *hangs head in despair* and we haven't got out the front door yet. When we arrived at the pub, we went in and sat down before Dad, Grandad and myself went to get drinks. Dad asked me to go check what my Mum wanted even though she'd already asked him for a Diet Coke but being a man he hadn't listened so I ran back to the table like a good child, asked her and returned just in time to see him buy her a J2O. Upon my telling him he'd got it wrong he goes, "Oh trust her to change her mind, she always has a J2O" ... well clearly not and I love how it's my Mum's fault he got her drink wrong *hangs head in despair*

So back to the table, and despite having been to this pub several times and that there were waiters tootling around, the father comes to the decision that we order from the bar, so off him and Grandad go. Seconds later the waiter asks what we want to eat and we have to turn him away looking right fools. A few minutes later Dad comes back to look at the table number ... how many times do people have to do that before they remember to look before they go?! *hangs head in despair*

Another five minutes pass and the two of them return with my Grandad complaining about his pin number because after two tries he still couldn't remember it and he'd had to pay by cash ... his excuse was that he'd picked up his Co-op card by mistake instead of his Goldfish. Apparently he'd used his Co-op card earlier that day to get money out but it hadn't occurred to him that his pin number at a cashpoint is the same one on a chip'n'pin machine *hangs head in despair*

Finally, up we go to get our carvery. I was told by Mr Chefman to use the serviette to hold the plate because it was hot. My brother was behind me and picked up the plate with his hand *hangs head in despair* How he didn't burn his hand I don't know and he doesn't have an ounce of common sense so I gave him a serviette to use. For some reason then he only held the plate with the tips of his fingers ... I didn't even bother asking why. He is 18 but has literally NO strength in any part of his body and I could see the physical strain of holding just the plate in his hand even before he'd put food on it *hangs head in despair* My Dad ended up having to take his own plate to the table and coming back to put food on my brothers plate while he held it with both hands. *hangs head in despair*

Once everyone was seated comfortably Simon told Dad off for the fact that the gravy on his plate had burnt his thumb ... well maybe if you were capable of holding a plate AND serving yourself food that wouldn't have been an issue *hangs head in despair*

Oh, and literally as I type my Mum has been complaining about things and apparently whilst queuing for the carvery my Grandad was complaining: "God, it's like being in a cattle market, queuing for food, takes me back to my army days." IT'S A CARVERY! and the queue consists of your daughter-in-law and your grandson *hangs head in despair*

Now this is probably just me but when I get food I sit down shut up and eat it and I really enjoy it, anyone who knows me knows I love my food. Everyone else chats and makes constant comments about everything, which are then echoed twice as loud by my brother. Example: Mum - "They could've made the yorkshire puddings a bit smaller, I don't think I'd have been able to manage one". Simon - "This yorkshire pudding is HUGE! Isn't it, Grandma? It's HUGE!" *hangs head in despair*

Finally, my brother has this ridiculous paranoia that if he eats too much he'll be sick and so when he did a few tiny burps this paranoia struck and he stopped eating and sorta half whispered-half shouted Mum that, "I keep doing tiny burps!" *hangs head in despair* What's more he also has this very confused thing about burps. My Aunt and Uncle find burping hilarious and encourage him to do it - in all seriousness they actually visited the other day and told him all about an especially loud burp that Uncle John had done that morning during breakfast. I know. But my parents are trying to discourage it and tell him to excuse himself if he does. So the compromise is that he burps quietly and excuses himself VERY loudly: "OH 'SCUSE ME! MUM I BURPED" ... "Yes, ok Simon" ... "BUT I SAID EXCUSE ME!" ... *hangs head in despair*


So after over 10 "hangs head in despair"'s I think that's going to have to do, else I'm going to explode .. or "splode" as my brother says it. Oh how I love my family.

Cock
xxx


ps. my Mum has just made my day by asking about one of my friends (I shan't mention names, she knows who she is): "So has *insert friends name* got a boyfriend or is she still slee ... er ... playing the field?"


pps. oh I forgot ... my Dad watches Twilight and is Team Jacob *hangs head in despair*

A close encounter/I only wanted one drink

Two blogs for the price of one here, isn't that exciting for you all! Hmmm ...

Blog.1
A Close Encounter

 here I am, back in Southampton for Summer. Or for 10days at least. All happy families - me, Mum, Dad, Jakey and the rats. Took me a while to notice the brother wasn't here. Not because I've forgotten about Simon but even when he is here he disappears into ... usually my room actually and watches Crystal Maze. Panic not - he's not dead, he's just at college.

Anyway, so being here means I have my lovely Jake-dog and the two rats in one place. Obviously I wanted them to meet but this evening they may have got slightly too close for comfort. I brought Ianto downstairs in his run-a-round ball - fortunately for him Jake the Ferocious Hunter was sound asleep so nothing happened. However, Jack was not so fortunate and when he was brought down in the ball Jake noticed and was not best pleased. Apparently Jake's quite happy for the rats to be here as long as they don't intrude in his space - living room is Jake's space, definitely not rat territory!

I took a video of Jake's reaction to Jack. I apologise now for having such similarly named pets btw, it's confusing me too. Anyway, the full 3 minute version is on the Pet Blog page but I have included my favourite bit below:

NB: I laugh like Graham Norton. Sorry.

Singing for the Brain

Quick completely unrelated bitch. The new trailer for season 4 of Torchwood was advertised on my facebook t'other day, so obviously clicked to watch and it said I wasn't in the right country! I had to be in America to watch it ... 'SCUSE ME! Who wrote this TV show - a Briton! Who plays the main characters - Britons ... Where did this show premiere - BRITAIN!!!! SO WHY CAN'T I WATCH THE TRAILER?!!?!?!? ARRRRRGH! Stupid shitty Americans stealing our TV show *angry face*

And breath.

So yeh, what I actually came on to talk about was the completely inspirational experience I .. experienced .. yesterday. A group called Singing for the Brain, who I'd been in contact with to try and organise some sort of collaboration with the Musical Theatre Group (MTG) next year, invited me along to see what they were all about. Basically it's a group that helps sufferers of early dementia by singing and music. Initially I thought the typical thoughts that you really wish you hadn't thought of like "How do they remember to come each week?" but their carers accompany them. There are other singing volunteers there and it's just a brilliant atmosphere. I sat next to a lovely woman called Jan, who must've been nearing her 70s and she was asking me all about where I came from, what MTG does and then told me all about her grandson and her new puppy and that apparently she was a trained singer. It wasn't until the end of the session that I was told she was one of the ones that had dementia ... I would never have guessed that, she was fantastic but it is so sad to think she might not be the same Jan in a few years time :(

Anyway, after some stretches and warm up exercises we sung Singing in the Rain, Always Look On the Bright Side of Life and Beside the Seaside. I don't think I stopped smiling it was so heart-warming to see all this people, especially those more severely affected, who probably haven't even moved or spoken for the last week, singing away and doing actions to these songs. The best moment was when a man called John, who I assume had dementia, was told to go and play the piano: he just sat down, no music in front of him and played along to all the songs - actually incredible. 

I can't wait to get more involved with these people and hopefully we're going to get them to be our "special guests" in MTG's Christmas Show which would just be fantastic :)

One cool dog :P

So I should probably stop blithering away as I have a car to clean and pack before driving the 3hour drive home to see my lovely Jake dog :D and maybe do some cheeky sunbathing in the garden with him. 

Speaking of doggies I'm off to the greyhound races tonight and as luck would have it three of "my" doggies are racing - Millie, Barney and Rocky so hopefully they'll all show me their skills and win me so monies :P *fingers crossed* Although none of them look especially energetic in these pictures ...

Barney

Millie

Rocky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I have a lot of packing to do in very little time so I must away.

Toodles,

Cock

xxx