Julia Buckley | High-Fiving Palm Trees

I’m back!

by kimivory

Disgraceful, I haven’t updated this blog since last September.

But now I’m back!

Two weeks ago, I had a bit of a shock when I received an email from a friend checking that I was still doing a 10k on 29th March, which I’d signed up for ages ago.

I had not done any training and in fact had only run twice this year just a couple of 5k runouts.

In a panic and before I replied to her. I charged out aiming to run 10k just to see if I still could.

Well, I could! I started off run/walking but by the time I was on the return stretch I was running all the way. I was actually quite astonished with myself that I could go out and run 6 miles without any practice. It was not my fastest time, but I could still do it without any problem. As I was running back one thought flashed into my mind. “I am a runner.”

Looking forward to seeing plustenner , abradypus, and fairweatherrunner on Saturday in Dover for the Buttons for Brathay 10k.

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I must put a lot of the credit for my running legs down to Julia Buckley and her Fat Burn Revolution. I did Julia’s 12 week course last year and her follow-up course and I’ve just been doing the 12 week course again. Never having done any sort of weight work before I was surprised to find how quickly I progressed and my legs are so much stronger now that it has helped my running immensely.

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On a completely different note, we have been having really bad problems with our hot tub for months. I’m writing about it here because I could not find any useful advice that actually worked on the internet but I have finally conquered it myself so if anyone searches for White Water Mould I hope they find this advice.

The problem we had is called……..surprise…. White Water Mould. Sounds horrible doesn’t it?

We had it for ages before we even knew what it was. It starts off looking as if someone has accidentally dropped a tissue in the water and it’s disintegrated so lots of little white bits are floating around.

If its not treated then it progresses rapidly and your spa is full of the stuff which collects round the edges in white curds, and then progresses on to…..Pink Slime!

Information for ridding your hot tub of this stuff available on the internet is generally, clean the filter, balance the water and shock it thoroughly, if that doesn’t work, run pipe cleaner through the spa, drain the tub, scrub it clean, refill , balance the water and shock it thoroughly. Well I did all of that quite a lot of times, and every single time the stuff came back.

It lives in every nook and cranny of the hot tub, including the internal pipework, and if you haven’t killed every speck of it, it just begins to multiply again as soon as the thing is refilled It’s quite resistant to chlorine and any of the usual spa cleaning products.

I know this as I have spent a great deal of money on the proprietary spa cleaning products and on masses of chlorine, and none of them have done the job.

Having left the tub alone all winter I took the lid off recently to find it thick with the mould. It looked vile. the plastic round the nozzles was discoloured and yellow, the inside of the lid had a film of Pink Slime on it and the whole thing was encrusted with the mould. Tempting!

So, I decided to throw away the rule book and clean the thing the way I’d clean anything properly. Domestos and Cillit Bang!

First I cleaned off as much of the slime and mould as I could without draining the water.

Leaving the filter in I poured in a whole bottle of Domestos and set the pumps going, making sure that all the nozzles were activated.

This produced a spectacular amount of foam, and so I don’t advise this method if you have an indoor spa. (Although possibly the addition of some anti-foam might have helped.)

After I’d let it soak in this solution for 24 hours I drained it. I washed the filters thoroughly under the hosepipe then put them to soak in filter cleaner.

I removed all the headrests and took them indoors to scrub with more bleach.

Then I hosed down the inside of the tub and each nozzle and poured neat Domestos everywhere making sure I’d scrubbed it over every nozzle, the inside of the lid and every inch of the surface, I also poured it down the filter hole.

(At this stage, I took the filters out of the cleaning solution and put them to dry thoroughly in front of a radiator.)

Next I refilled the tub, turned it back on and got the pumps going again and put the lid down so the inside got cleaned as well.

Masses more foam ensued.

24 hours later, drained again, hosed again thoroughly, wiped it all down until it was dry and every visible trace of slime or mould was gone and refilled.

Damn and blast, refilled I could still see tiny white flecks in the water. I ran the pump for a while and left it for 24 hours, and there were a lot more visible white bits.

I was v. disheartened, but not beaten…

I drained it all again, and this time, using a whole can of Cillit Bang antibacterial bathroom mousse, sprayed every nozzle with it so the foam would find its way into every crevice. I sprayed it down the filter and poured more Domestos down there and left it all for a couple of hours.

Then I refilled it, added another bottle of Domestos for good measure and ran the pumps on and off for 24 hours.

Drained, wiped down, dried everywhere, the thing was sparkling!

Refilled…………. Bang! and the mould was gone!

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ID Required.

by kimivory

Big News!!!

I won a prize!!!!

Back in Juneathon I entered one of their competitions to win a Go-ID and I won it!!! Thank you Cathy aka JogBlog xx

It’s a clever idea. Not just aimed at Runners although that’s the reason I’ll be using it. It would also be useful for travellers, backpackers and anyone who is away from home or family.

It is an ID-making kit which you customise yourself. You print out your name details, contact details, emergency contact and any important medical info that emergency responders would need to know. This is then stuck to a metal tag which can be attached to a number of different parts of your kit. Whichever you prefer.

It seems to be primarily designed to attach to the back of a sports watch using velcro pads. The metal tag protrudes from the side of the watch and you can choose to display either the letters ‘ID’, or the international emergency ‘star of life’ symbol.

You can also attach it with a zipper hook (included) to your shoe-laces, or to a zip, to a backpack or your phone, or to any other item with a loop on it. There’s a silicone cover to protect it from the elements if you use it this way.

I made my ID following the instructions, although I have to admit that the first one got stuck in the printer, and as they only supply 2 labels I was quite worried that the 2nd one would do the same thing and then I would not be able to use it. However, I made sure that the 2nd label was firmly pressed down before it went through the printer and it worked well.

I’ve tried it on the watch and it is not uncomfortable, my only reservation would be that, in the event of me being found knocked unconscious by a mugger who’d taken the watch it would not be much help, but that’s just me looking on the black side!

I’m also hoping I will not need to provide the medical information for the following item……

More big news!!!

The next race I’m doing is going to be AN ASSAULT COURSE!!!!! The Major Series !!! Yikes!!!!!

Yes folks, I, of the lovely long hair and the perfect make-up, the sparkly toenails, and the perfume, will be crawling through mud, climbing over high walls, being electrocuted, swimming through iced water, and running 10k to do it. Oh Joy!

On October 5th (the day before my birthday) I will be joining some of my fellow Fat-busters as we attempt to complete this madness.

We’ve finished our 12 week course and all of us have done really well. I lost 2 inches from bust, waist and hips, and others did even better than that and we’ve formed quite a jolly online team. Some of us met up for a picnic in Green Park last month which was fab, and more of us are going to be doing this lunacy next month.

I’ve increased my strength threefold, the puny weights I was struggling with at the beginning of the course have been replaced with much more impressive dumbbells. I even had to buy another set as I needed more weight!!!

Here are some before and after pictures of some of us. We remain anonymous!

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End of Juneathon NOT a TOTAL fail !

by kimivory

Sooooooo. I’ve just noticed that I haven’t blogged Juneathon since 7th June. OK Fail at the blogging part of it this year……BUT……..SUCCESS at the exercising!!!!!! YES YES YES!!!!

I actually did something EVERY single DAY!

Because I’m doing Julia Buckley’s 12 week Fatbusting Course which I am sticking to rigorously, I have had to exercise nearly every day (we do get rest days) and because of Juneathon I’ve even done a little something on the Fatbusting rest days. How about that then!!!

I am definitely stronger now than when I started, I can even manage a few proper press-ups, which I’ve NEVER been able to do in my life.

We’re entering Phase 3 of the fatbusting today. One of the sessions is called “Belly Shred” What??????!!!!

I also managed to do a couple of runs. My Hamstring injury has completely healed up and my Achilles seems OK, but I”m not pushing it, so just doing short runs 5k, and building up again.

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Earlier this month I took my Mum on a cupcake decorating day. We went to the lovely Victoria Gadsdon’s house in Woking and did the Vintage Cupcakes Class. I’ve previously been to another of Victoria’s classes at her other location in Norwich, where I learned Cupcake Decorating for Beginners.

Both classes are a delight. They’re completely about decorating and technique and I have learned SO much from them.

Mum thoroughly enjoyed herself, and Victoria seemed to take a bit of a shine to her (Teacher’s Pet!) because Mum reminded Victoria of Mary Berry.

Here are some pics of the cakes I did.

THESE FIRST THREE ARE FROM THE CUPCAKES FOR BEGINNERS COURSE

THE NEXT TWO ARE THE VINTAGE CUPCAKE COURSE

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Day 5 – How can I injure myself more…. Oh I know – Go shopping!

by kimivory

Why didn’t I think of that before, after all my Achilles injury stems from a shopping trip at Christmas, so why not give this hamstring a real knockabout and go Designer!

I met one of my old friends at Bicester Village this morning. I’d really been looking forward to it, we haven’t seen eachother for ages and we shop well together. We both like sparkly stuff and we’re also both honest with eachother about what looks good and what does not. Cathy and I went to New York together for our first trip there and had a ball. I needed sunglasses today and I knew she wouldn’t let me buy a pair that didn’t suit.

We were meeting at 10.00 for brunch at Carluccio’s and I arrived at 9.55, parked easily and headed to the restaurant.

Bicester Village is set out very prettily all the shops look like little clapboard houses and the “street” is paved with slightly rustic, slightly uneven paving stones.

I was hurrying along to get there on time when suddenly I tripped….. caught my toe on one of the rustic paving stones and went into a headlong stumbling dive that seemed to last for minutes but was only a couple of seconds as I nosedived towards the window of a shop. Fortunately I managed to stop myself from falling right over, or smashing my face against the glass, and righted myself, walking off in a hurry and pretending that I’d meant to do that and I hope no-one saw me because I felt so stupid.

I also felt so sore. It was my hamstring leg that I tripped on and which took the full force of the stagger. I actually started shaking because it hurt so much, but obviously I’m too cool to let on or cry, so I kept walking and got to the restaurant, sat down and took some deep breaths while my hands stopped trembling.

Cathy turned up minutes later and we had a lovely brunch and catch-up before setting out hopping, I mean shopping .

We’d sat there for about an hour which had given my leg a chance to get over the shock and so when we went out it wasn’t too bad, but I knew it was worse than yesterday. We had a lovely time and bought a few bits and pieces, and found a pair of sunglasses that she said suited me. I however wanted to look in ALL the shops at ALL the sunglasses before I made a decision, and a little later we found another pair which we said were nearly as nice.

Then I couldn’t decide at all, so we went back to the first shop which was about halfway up the “street”, but on second thoughts we decided that the second pair were better. (Are you keeping up?).

She carried on back to another shop where she wanted to try on a pair of shoes again, and I headed back to the second sunglasses shop and blow me if I didn’t trip on another paving stone exactly the same way. I probably wasn’t picking my foot up so high because my leg was a bit sore, but after this trip I actually thought I’d ruptured my hamstring. I felt sick with pain, but don’t worry, I was still too cool to let on, ( I have a remarkably high pain threshold and a strong aversion to “showing myself up” in public) so I sallied on to the second shop, which happened to be Jimmy Choo where the assistant recognised me straight away and knew I’d come back for the sunglasses, so while she was running around getting a case for them and polishing them etc, I sat down and tried to assess the damage.

There was nothing I could do about it, I had to walk back the whole length of the shopping village as I was meeting Cathy back at the other end near where my car was parked, so I just got on with it and walked. I’m sitting here now with my leg on a bag of ice and when I can manage the stairs I’ll grab one of Mike’s extra strong anti-inflammatory tablets and see if that helps at all.

I haven’t done today’s workout yet, but it will be fatbusting Phase II Furnace, which I can do in the swimming pool so the cold water will help my leg and it shouldn’t hamper me too much today.

PLEASE can I get through the rest of the month without hurting myself any more, I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself now. But I have got a nice pair of Jimmy Choo Sunglasses! Yippeeee!!!!!

What would be the point in me buying these beautiful things, I’d only trip over again.

SWAG!!

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Day 4

by kimivory

Up bright an dearly this morning in order to be at my Dad’s house by 9.00 to meet a nurse. I will not go into any detail on this, just to say that in spite of there clearly being a problem, the person with it absolutely refused to acknowledge that fact and the nurse went away having done the “quickest assessment I’ve ever done”.

V. Glad I bought him a new washing machine recently.

Then to Mums to give her another lesson on Windows 8, aka The Operating System of the very Devil.

I have no idea how to operate Windows 8 myself, and because her new laptop came equipped with it, I’m having to learn it on the hoof via You Tube and then teach it to her.

I dislike it immensely. I can see the potential if you have a touchscreen computer but on an ordinary laptop it is a nightmare. Its just so different. Fine if you’re a youngster, but if you’re in your 80s its like learning how to use a computer all over again, and its not so easy. Every single thing is done differently. It knocks the confidence of someone who is proud to be able to use a computer then suddenly can’t.

Janathon today was a Legs Glutes and Core Metabolic Workout for the fat busting . I think I’m going to be rather sore tomorrow.

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Juneathon Day 2

by kimivory

I did say I’d explain why the aqua work yesterday instead of a run.

I am so buggered!

I seem to have pulled my hamstring.

I ran the other day for the first time in 3 months because of the Achilles problem I’ve had and I actually loved it.

The following day the back of my thigh really hurt but I thought that was fine just a bit of overexertion, but it’s got worse and worse and yesterday when I tried to run, I actually couldn’t. My left hamstring hurt so much that I couldn’t do it.

I didn’t believe it at first, got off the treadmill for a few minutes then decided that I was being a wimp and tried again, but no, I can’t run. On the first day of what is supposed to be my best ever Juneathon!!!

AsI had to do something, both for Juneathon, and for the Fatbusting, I did HIIT in the pool which was actually very good as it worked my wimpy arms a lot.

What was not so good is that while we’ve been away, the ducks have taken full advantage of the swimming pool and it was covered in floating duck poo and slime.

So don’t anyone say I’m not dedicated because I still got in and did it. (Can you get Typhoid from duck poo?)

I’m a physical wreck today. I seem to have been bitten by a mosquito on my lower eyelid. It started to feel sore yesterday morning, and by last night it was quite red and swollen. I wondered if it was some sort of infection, then when I went to bed I noticed a couple of other bites on my arms and so although it sounds like a rather bizarre thing to wish for, I hope that I do have a mosquito bite on my eyelid, rather than anything I need to go to the Dr. for.

When I got up this morning, I put my right foot on the floor, (Grumpy Achilles always sore first thing), hobbled, put my left foot down, (Hamstring leg) and lurched sideways across the room to the bathroom, where I glanced in the mirror and noticed my half closed, red-looking eye. A fairly passable imitation of Quasimodo.

The mosquito eye is not being helped by what I saw out of the window of the plane yesterday as we were descending. England’s Yellow and Pleasant Land!

If you have not seen this country from above lately, let me tell you that it is bright acid yellow there is so much Oilseed Rape in bloom.

I am v. allergic to Oilseed Rape pollen and we have a field of the stuff right next door to our garden. There is no hope for me.

This morning I *swam lengths for Juneathon, I lost count of how many but I swam for 20 mins, quite gently because of the leg. I had to give the fatbusting a rest today as I need this leg to get better.

(*Duck poo gone because v. good husband cleaned pool yesterday afternoon)

If you don’t watch Britain’s Got Talent, then you will have missed the most beautiful act that was on last night. They are called Attraction. Here it is. Do watch it, I defy you not to cry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOZS_Vq6eKw&feature=share

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Juneathon!!

by kimivory

1^st June!!

This can mean only one thing – JONATHAN!!! No No NO Stupid Autocorrect – JUNEATHON!!!

Typing this on the return flight of our trip to Spain, I am smug in the knowledge that this year I am CERTAIN to do Juneathon properly for the first time, because of the Fatbusting!!

As following the Julia Buckley 12 week fatbusting programme causes me to exercise 6 days out of 7, this means that I only have to force myself to do one extra day a week to meet the demands of Juneathon, i.e. Exercise every day of June, log it and blog about it.

(For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’m not going to post my blogs on Facebook every day as they can get a little tedious during the ‘athons, but I will Tweet and #Juneathon them so my fellow Juneathoners know I’m doing it).

So, how is the fatbusting going? Well – hmm. We’ve been out to eat every day this week, and at home I’ve eaten a lot of fruit. For the first time ever, I have been in Spain for 9 days and have not once had an alcoholic drink at home. Not one bottle of wine was opened in the house, but I did share a bottle with Mike each evening when we were having dinner. It was his holiday too and it’s not so fun having a meal out with someone who isn’t drinking if you are. I did however stick to fizzy water or diet coke for aperitifs while he had Spanish Sized G&Ts. He liked this because it meant that I had to drive everywhere!

However, due to the meals out, even though I stuck to the basic principles of lowish-carb, highish-protein and no processed foods, I have actually put on a few pounds.

I’m not particularly worried though, because my clothes are still looser. (Don’t ask me how this happens but it’s happening).

It’s quite easy to stick to the healthy eating in Spanish restaurants so long as you leave the patatas fritas (chips/french fries). I’ve had steak, fish, chicken, prawns, Jamón, cheese, melon, assorted tapas, salads galore, grilled vegetables, and barely any desserts.

Lying in the sun without a drink and some crisps has been a little bothersome, but fizzy water helped, together with that most baffling of Spanish snacks beloved of ageing Spanish men, and children– Pipas.

Pipas are salted Sunflower seeds in their shells.

You do not eat the shells. You have to crack them with your teeth and spit out the splintered remains then eat the miniscule seed inside, which creates a disproportionate amount of work for a very tiny reward and hardly any calories.

Wherever you see groups of Spanish men deep in discussion about their pigeons or the general state of Spain in ‘El Crisis’ or the shortcomings of their wives, which they would never dare to mention at home, you will find a carpet of broken sunflower shells.

I’ve done all my workouts except for yesterday when I for some bizarre reason just completely forgot. How did I forget? I’ve been doing this for 4 weeks now, I work out 6 days a week, and yesterday I just forgot! I worry about my brain sometimes. It doesn’t matter, yesterday will have to be my day off for this week which I suppose has turned out well as I can’t take a day off after today due to the abovementioned Juneathon.

Luckily we arrive home today at lunchtime, so I’ll have plenty of time to get yesterday’s workout fitted in this afternoon.

9 days ago when I left the UK, I was pleased with myself because I had upped my dumbbell weights to 2.5kg. Now I’m at 6 kg!!! This is such a significant difference I’m astonished. Even though there are other people on the course lifting far higher weights, for me this is a massive amount and clearly it’s only going to keep on getting heavier. I don’t want arms like Madonna, but Jennifer Aniston has the loveliest arms and I’d like them to be as shapely as hers.

Jennifer Aniston – soon you will not be able to tell us apart!

We move on to Phase II of the fatbusting on Monday. The new exercises have yet to be revealed to us but I’m intrigued to discover what we have to do next.

Some of you may remember my Running Pants Crisis of a few months ago. Well I have sorted it out. I’ve bought a pair of RunBreeze Runderwear Running Pants. I like them! They are substantial enough to be worn on their own with a decent sports bra if you’re working out at home, and they also work well under running tights or capris, not riding-up or chafing anywhere I’ve noticed so far.

If you are not familiar with RunBreeze gear then I strongly recommend it. Their anti blister socks are the best I’ve found so far, thick, double skinned and reasonably priced. I find them far better than 1000 mile socks which I used before.

Their tops and tights are also very good and excellent value for money.

Between today and 10^th June, RunBreeze.com are doing a 50% off sale on their Tees, Vests and Shorts so now’s a good time to try them out. Enter the word ‘SUNSHINE’ in your basket at checkout.

On the subject of Sports Bras, HelsBels wrote an informative piece on the subject recently specifically relating to the larger bosomed lady.

One more thing that I am going to mention today is Matcha Tea Sugar Destroyer Bend.

When I started the fatbusting, I resolved that I was not going to buy into any crazy food fads, just do healthy eating. So I bought the Quinoa and we all know how that turned out. Resolve hardened, I then received an email relating to Matcha Tea, which is supposed to be extra high in antioxidants and particularly effective at aiding weight loss. The company that emailed me is quite fashionable and their product was very expensive, but my interest piqued I Googled ‘Matcha Tea’ and found this blend.

I still don’t particularly believe that drinking any type of tea will help you to get slim, but what this does is something special. It takes away your sense of taste of ‘sweet’.

The tea comes in a green powder form, and you mix half a teaspoonful with a small amount of hot water in a bowl and then drink it down in one like a shot.

After I did this the first time, I then sceptically took a grape, bit into it, and actually spat it out into my hand, it was disgusting. Unable to believe it, I dug around in the back of the cupboard and found a bag of Haribo, popped one into my mouth and……… yup, spat it right back out. I could sense the sourness, but no sweet and so no fruity flavour. It was fascinating. I spent an amusing 15 mins spitting things out.

I tried it again an hour later, and I could begin to taste the grape but it still wasn’t nice and the Haribo had started to taste fruity but still no sweetness.

It’s not actually the Matcha that creates this effect, it’s the herb that it’s blended with, ‘Gymemna Sylvestre’ which is also known as The Sugar Destroyer.

The genius of this is, that if like me, you really do get sugar cravings, especially after a meal when you haven’t had a dessert, then take a shot of this stuff, and fill your bowl with ice cream or whatever you fancy. I guarantee you won’t eat it because it won’t have any taste at all. Psychogically if you try to eat something sweet but it has no taste, or a horribly altered taste, then sooner or later you’re just going to stop wanting to try it.

I’ll have to finish this later to add in what I did today for Juneathon in order to fulfil the requirements.

LATER

Today for Juneathon, and for my fatbusting, I did HIIT in the swimming pool for reasons I will reveal in tomorrow’s blog as this one is going on a bit.

Laters!

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Crabs and Seagulls

by kimivory

The fat-busting continues. I have religiously done all the prescribed workouts, and I AM getting better at them. Some exercises continue to defeat me though.

Back extensions: To do these you lie face down on the floor and then either lift your arms and chest off the ground or lift your legs off the ground. Well I can barely move. You try it!

In her instructional video Julia Buckley bows her back upwards in an alarming and unnatural fashion, and one’s first thought is “Phone an Exorcist, the woman’s been possessed!”

If however, anyone walked in on me attempting these moves they’d be more likely to think that I’d overdone the exercise, collapsed and was lying on the floor just twitching. Their first thought would be “Paramedic!” rather than Paranormal.

I’ve been quite alarmed at my lack of bendiness, and so I decided to try to do a ‘Crab’. Not being a follower of the Kama Sutra, this is a position my body has not been in since I was about 10 years old.

As I recalled, I used to lie on my back, feet on floor, and hands on floor behind my head and…… LIFT. Nothing! No movement. My spindly arms do not have the strength to lift my upper body. Something needs to be done.

To this end, we also use weights. I started with 2kg dumbbells which was difficult, but 2 weeks in I was proud to move up to 2.5kg dumbbells. I was devastated then to read a query on our secret Facebook page from another participant who is currently lifting 12.5 kg and needs a heavier set of weights because that’s too easy!

So, I have another goal.

By the end of this torture programme, my back needs to be bendy enough, and my arms strong enough to do a Crab!

In the meantime and on the very positive side, I’ve lost half an inch from my bust, my waist and my hips since I started, and although I haven’t lost much weight, that’s fine because I’m building muscle instead. Even I can see that I look slimmer round the middle, the muffin top is shrinking which is excellent, I really hate that bit!!

Last week, I went to Brighton with Mum and her Ladies Lunch Club. We went on a Coach! I have only been to Brighton once about 20 years ago, so I was looking forward to the trip.

After we arrived Mum and I went on the Brighton Ferris Wheel. It was a lovely sunny day and we could see for miles and there was an interesting commentary giving facts about Brighton. So, after finding out all we needed to know, we set off for a spot of shopping.

Something a visitor needs to know about Brighton which was not mentioned on the commentary is that along the pavement part of the promenade, between the sea wall, and the road, there is a painted-on bike lane.

Reasonably, the cyclists whizz up and down this as they’re allowed to do and stay safe from the traffic.

However, if you are a pedestrian and new to Brighton, and you are walking down the Prom on the pavement looking around you and at the sea, you do not know or see the painted cycle lane and so you innocently step onto it, in front of a cyclist on a racing bike sprinting down the Prom. If you are lucky like my mother, you have your darling daughter at your side, who yanks you out of harm’s way with a whisker to spare. If you are not, there must be accidents daily. It is not well thought out.

Another thing that visitors to Brighton need to know is that it is wise to always carry and use an umbrella even on the sunniest of days.

As we were crossing the main road, at a Pelican crossing something that must have been the size of a flaming Pelican pooped on me from out of the sky!!! My audience was three lanes of static traffic.

People say it is lucky if a bird poops on you. Idiots!

The only lucky thing about this was that I was wearing a leather jacket and I had wet wipes in my bag.

Poor Mum was given the task of wiping me down whilst I demanded that she check scrupulously that nothing had gone in my hair.

After this we finally hit the shops! Brighton has good shops. They also have a little area called The Lanes, which does actually comprise lots of little lanes with tiny boutiques and cafes. It’s not quite as quaint as I remember, but we found a fab little seafood restaurant for a snack as we hadn’t had breakfast and treated ourselves to Avocado with Prawns – Mum, and Crab – me, and of course a glass of crisp white wine to recover from the Pelican incident. (Someone said it might have been a Seagull, but a Seagull must be entirely filled with poop to pour that much out of the sky!)

Looking at the shops, many of them were second-hand jewellery shops. I have a particular aversion to second-hand jewellery.

To my mind, there can only be 5 reasons why jewellery has been sold and none of them are good.

1) A broken engagement

2) Divorce

3) Death

4) Someone is in such a bad way financially that they have to sell their jewellery because they need the money

5) It’s been stolen.

So as far as I’m concerned, unless it’s been passed down in the family. second-hand jewellery comes with bad luck and I don’t want any of it.

We did find a fab Kitchen gadgets shop called Steamer and spent probably an hour in there browsing the gadgets and yes, buying stuff we didn’t know we needed. I have secretly assimilated it into my kitchen at home without Mike noticing and giving me the “For Christ’s sake haven’t you got enough crap?” lecture.

We also found a super dress shop called Dollydagger selling retro 50’s dresses. They had the most beautiful red polka dot dress in the window which I don’t think I could get away with, but was a very cheery thing to see.

Afternoon Tea at The Grand Hotel finished the afternoon before we got on the coach for home.

An added bonus was that there were so many roadworks on the M25 on the way down, that the coach driver decided to go the other way round on the way back so we had a complete tour of the M25 thrown in for free. What Luck!

Slightly less lucky was that the junction for the M1 was closed due to an accident and the air ambulance being called.

I discovered later that this was because the idiot known as George Michael had fallen out of the passenger door of the car that he was travelling in and landed in the middle lane of the motorway in rush hour traffic.

How do you do that??????

I’m typing this on the plane on the way down to Alicante. (No, not online) We’ve left Buster at home with Frances his dog-sitter and are taking another week or so in the sun and to try to deal with our increasingly irritating, business interests in Spain.

As I’m typing this we’re actually just going over the Pyrenees. It’s quite fascinating to see the weather down below change from one side of the mountains to the other. It was cloudy down below when we were over France, now I can see down to the snow-capped mountains and looking ahead into Spain it’s just plain clear blue sky!

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So I cooked the Quinoa…….

by kimivory

Well then what are you supposed to do with it???

I didn’t think this out.

In my bid for healthy-eating to go with my Fat-busting course, I purchased Quinoa for the first time today.

Knowing that Mike would no more eat Quinoa than dance the Hornpipe, I bought him some Mussels. We also had fresh Asparagus from the garden to eat. I steamed the Asparagus, and did the Mussels in a white wine sauce and put the Quinoa on to boil.

We had the Asparagus for starters. Mine with a little smear of butter, Mike’s was more like Butter with some asparagus in the way.

I put his Mussels in a bowl and served them with a slice of home-made bread.

Then I drained the Quinoa. I hadn’t really thought about what to do with it, so I quickly looked online for recipes and almost all of them seem to call for pomegranate seeds or feta cheese. Not sure why. I had neither, so I improvised with a couple of tomatoes chopped up with olive oil and salt.

It wasn’t very nice.

Must add Pomegranates and Feta cheese to my shopping list.

Any Quinoa recipes gratefully received.

The fat-busting progresses. Yesterday I had to do a Total Body Blast. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. It all looks so easy on paper – just do it each exercise for 30 seconds then have a lovely rest for 60 seconds. Bah!

You try it. Burpees?? I don’t think I’ve ever done a Burpee before, let alone done them for 30 seconds which let me tell you is a very long time! I did not look like Julia does in her instructional videos, all long lean and bouncy. I looked a like a crawling toad.

The only mirror in the room is at waist height, and so doing the standing up exercises, which require a bit of jumping around, allows me an alarming view of my midriff – tummy and thighs – flobbling about and forcing me to carry on beyond what I feel I can do in a desperate effort to make it go away!!!!!

Today’s workout was another horror, also easy on paper and shockingly punishing when put into action. Agains sets and repetition.

It’s amazing how quickly you work up a sweat doing what seem to be gentle exercises.

I am fortunate though to have a training partner who is keen to give me a rub down in between sets. Or should I say a lick-down…

Yes Buster Ivory does love a work-out. He gets thrillingly excited as soon as I start. He rolls around on the floor “helping” and if I have to do press-ups, well that clearly is me doing a dog-style play-bow and inviting him to leap at me and batter me with his front legs.

In between sets while I am collapsed on the floor, he licks me all over to get rid of the sweat ln the style of a boxing trainer. Well, not exactly in the style of a boxing trainer as I don’t think I ever saw Terry Lawless licking Frank Bruno.

I’ve got hayfever! I get it every year very early usually starting in March. It even started in March this year with snow everywhere. It then gets worse for the rest of the Summer and usually fades away in October. I’ve tried the usual good ideas, like eating local honey, fo example and they don’t work! The only things that help a little are CHEMICALS, having worked my way through Zirtek, Piriton, Clarityn, all the usual suspects, the only thing that works for me now is Neoclarityn/Desloratidine. Sadly this year, even that is failing me, and my eyes are streaming even as I type this.

The fact that Oilseed Rape is one of my worst triggers, and there’s a flipping great field of the stuff right next to our garden is NOT helping. Grrrrrr!

My Training Partner

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Furnace……..

by kimivory

Yesterday was fab. I absolutely loved marshalling at the Marathon. Unusually for a Bank Holiday Monday the weather was very warm and sunny, even at 08.00 when we had to meet up to be issued with our equipment and our positions on the course.

This was in complete contrast with last year’s race when it rained so much that parts of the course were flooded, it also snowed, and people were being taken off the course with hypothermia.

I was stationed relatively early in the race at 8.75 miles, but as the runners started to come past red-faced and drenched in sweat it was clear to see that hypothermia was not going to be a problem this year; no-one was going to have an easy time of it for completely the opposite reason. The lead runner came past me at about 55 mins and was way ahead of the pack and did in fact win the race. The last girl to pass me was at about 2hrs 10 minutes but was still gamely pushing on. In a field of nearly 2200 runners, there were over 100 DNFs and I should imagine that a lot of them were due to the warm weather.

Look out for Milton Keynes Marathon Day next year, there’ll probably be a plague of locusts.

Everybody was so good-natured. Lots of runners actually bothered to gasp out “Thank you marshall.” which I thought was exceptionally nice of them as I was just standing there clapping, they were doing all the hard work.

I’ll definitely volunteer again.

So…The fat-busting!

That started yesterday as well. When I arrived home, Mike was in the garden lying in the sun with a beer. it was v. tempting to just join him, but instead, I headed up to the spare room which I have commandeered as my temporary workout area and did the first workout of the course. It was an upper body workout with weights.

My arms are really my weakest thing, they’re like cooked spaghetti, so I just started with 2kg weights. Julia stresses that the workouts are supposed to be difficult and if they’re not then you should be doing more. At first, I thought I’d chosen weights that were a little too easy, but by the end of the session my arms were shaking and I couldn’t hold anything.

(Fortunately, by the time I’d got changed and went down to the garden, i was able to clutch hold of a glass of Prosecco without spilling a drop!)

We also had to do ab crunches which I can usually do quite easily, but today I can really notice the ache, which is I think because I actually concentrated on what I was doing instead of just knocking out as many crunches as possible, I made each one count.

Buster enjoyed doing the workout with me. I had to hold a particular pose which involved my arm being stretched out in front of me at dog height, so after high-fiving me a couple of times, he helpfully positioned himself under my hand in order that I could fuss him while I worked.

He rolled around on his back while I was doing the crunches, didn’t really get the hang of the proper exercise, but showed willing.

My arms seemed OK this morning until I started to do the ironing, by the time I’d finished the pile It felt like I’d done a whole new workout.

Furnace…… That was today’s workout, which is short sharp bursts of intense exercise interspersed with rest periods. I did it on the treadmill, which is in the conservatory, which was already like a furnace before I started. After opening all the doors to let some air in, I did the workout and it was actually good to be running again and listening to my running music.

Achilles was fine doing the running so I’m going to do some proper stretches on it now and see if I can keep it at bay.

I haven’t looked to see what tomorrow’s ~~torture~~ workout session consists of. I think I’ll leave it as a lovely surprise…..