As my old mate Clive used to say – “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess!”
This year, I seem to have skipped my solo holiday – I will probably end up spending it in the garden, or going out for days.
But for my holiday with mum, she said she fancied going to Dorset.
So I have managed to find a town cottage in Weymouth for a week in early September – only 4 weeks away. I googled “self-catering Dorset” and came up with Rupert – one of 7 cottages converted from stables, each named after the shire horse it used to stable, ours being Rupert.
It looks pretty nice, we have a room each, a decent lounge and modern kitchen *and* private parking; and it’s pretty central to the Old Harbour area of Weymouth, so there should be lots of local shops and pubs and restaurants we can visit without the car.
I spent most of yesterday putting my garden back to rights, and I have just spent another hour out there finishing off.
Socially, I’ve been fairly busy lately, which means things like the garden have been a little neglected. While I have been gallivanting, my cabbages and broccoli have fallen foul of the Cabbage White Butterfly – eggs and caterpillars galore, all the plants have some outer leaf damage, and a couple were beyond saving. Meanwhile, two of my beetroot plants suddenly wilted – I pulled them up to find the beet had been eaten by something.
Anyway, my cabbages and broccoli now have a net cage around them, a piece of engineering that I am proud of. I will try to get a picture of it before it falls apart. I’ve also just planted a whole tray of beet seed, to see if I can get some plants in to replace the eaten ones.
I feel that the garden and my diet are connected, not in a mystical way, but practically – when I don’t have time for the garden, I’m probably not finding time to eat well, either. Also the exercise is useful.
This week I came across an interesting little book called The Half-hour Allotment – which describes how to tend and keep an allotment in just 30 minutes a day. Of course, my garden is a fraction of the size of an allotment, so it’s got to be worth a go.
I decided to do this for a number of reasons. The old page had not been updated in a long time. I had been planning to redesign the whole site for a while, but had never gotten round to it. At the same time I had recently started blogging, and decided that the blog would make a more interesting and relevant front page to the site.
July 10, 2008 7:44 P.M. Weight: 345.6 lbs.
Well, I am back; and although I haven’t been tracking these last few days, I seem to have dropped 3.5lbs.
I haven’t tracked so far today, and it’s pizza for tea, so I think I will start logging again tomorrow.
July 3, 2008 1:09 P.M. Weight: 349.2 lbs.
So it seems that my body likes the number 349.2 – I’ve been bouncing either side of it for the last week.
To be fair, I have been fairly busy, socially, and it isn’t really a great mystery why I have stopped losing. I had people round on Saturday for board games, and so there was coke and cookies in the house, and on Sunday I went out to lunch with a friend – the full roast beef and yorkshire pudding.
Also, as I am off work for the next week, I’ve been pretty busy, work-wise, so have missed out on my lunchtime walks.
Tonight, I am off to stay with my Mum for a few days in London, so see you all when I get back.
June 25, 2008 2:42 P.M. Weight: 349.2 lbs.
…well almost. My perpetual spinach was coming up thick and fast, and I need to thin the plants out. Then I thought ‘why let these sprouts go to waste?’.
So I trimmed and washed them, cut a couple of outer leaves from one of the lettuces, and I had my first homegrown salad. Just an assortment of leaves, really, as my tomatoes are nowhere near ready. But it tasted extra special.
June 25, 2008 2:38 P.M. Weight: 349.2 lbs.
Sharp-eyed readers will note the zooming weight. Last night was a gaming night with some friends, which we held at a local pub that does thai food.
I ordered some satay chicken and a vegetable platter. I knew there would be quite a bit of fat in the satay sauce, but thought that with a sensible vegetable side-dish, it wouldn’t be so bad.
So the chicken arrived, followed by a huge plate of veggies – all dipped in batter and deep fried, with a chilli dipping sauce.
To my credit, I didn’t eat them all. To my detriment, I ate way too many of them, along with a few chunky chilli fries someone else had ordered.
Oh well, there’s always tomorrow…
June 24, 2008 3:50 P.M. Weight: 347.6 lbs.
As I’ve mentioned my gardening so much lately, I thought I would share some pictures of the garden. Those of you who have heard me go on about it will be amazed at the postage-stamp sized I am working in!
I did say I would post a picture of my espaliered pear tree sometime. Well here it is, not as neat as a professionally shaped tree, but it does what it’s supposed to do.
Cabbages, brocolli and lettuce, with my two new raspberry canes behind. The weedy looking plants on the left side of the raised bed are peppers, which don’t seem to be doing so well as the rest of the plants.
Early days for the sugar snap peas, but they look healthy enough. Since taking this picture, I’ve put a net behind them to climb against. In the front, perpetual spinach and beetroot are beginning to sprout.
Tomatoes and my herb garden; and my strawberry pot.
June 8, 2008 12:52 P.M. Weight: 353.8 lbs.
This weekend was the town’s agricultural fair, which, while not big, is normally worth going to. Yesterday it poured with rain, but today was beautiful, so I thought I’d go.
I was just about to jump in the car, when I thought ‘What am I doing? It’s only the other side oftown, 2 miles at most.’. Then I thought that there would be the chance I’d buy something that would need the car to get it home. ‘Simple – I’ll go early, and walk. If I see something I want to buy, I’ll come back this afternoon.
So I set out, had a great time, and although I bought a couple of things, they fit in my backpack.
As a treat for the exercise, I ate a pork and apple burger (the local pig farm had a stall) and enjoyed every mouthful.
Lunch:
Grasmere Farm Pork and Apple Burger
Orange Juice
June 1, 2008 4:25 P.M. Weight: 354.6 lbs.
Yesterday I found myself breaking my diet. I had a pizza for lunch, so I planned to have a light dinner. However, I was still hungry afterwards, so I went back to the kitchen, and then found myself snacking on cheese and biscuits even later.
When I entered the figures into the tracker, I was disappointed with myself – way over on fat, and way over on carbs.
It was only today, sitting in the garden after planting out my herb garden, that it occurred to me. I spent 2.5 hours yesterday digging and planting – which according to SYD’s calculator amounts to almost 2000 calories expended.
I feel a lot happier about it now!
Have now finished all the hard work in the garden for the moment. As well as the herb garden, I have cabbages, cauliflowers, brocolli and courgettes planted in my raised bed, and sugar snap peas, spinach beet, and beetroot in a side border. That is as well as the strawberries and tomatoes that I already had planted.
May 27, 2008 5:16 P.M. Weight: 355.5 lbs.
(or for non-technical folks, starting again).
As I said earlier, while mum was staying here, she tended to do most of the cooking – especially during the week, when I am working.
As a result, my diet fell by the wayside, again and again. Don’t get me wrong – the food was healthy enough, but I wasn’t monitoring it at all.
Mum’s gone home again, now, so I have decided to zero my tracking, and start afresh with new targets.
