June – supporting through exams

Both daughters have exams this month – science GCSEs for one and AS levels for the other.  I’ve also agreed to support another girl through exams by invigilating for her at another school (where my girls used to study). as well as having been appointed to invigilate for exams at my younger daughter’s school.  It’s a month of making sure I’m at the right exam at the right time, making sure everyone is well fed and watered and kept as calm as possible.  Struggling to maintain weight – certainly a few pounds heavier than my goal but very glad to be feeling less heavy than January – will catch up this blog on my progress there later x

We’ve started looking ahead to university and begun visiting a number of places between us – Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and Bath so far.  4YP (school careers advisers) are happy with our plan and we’re off to Warwick today and hope to go visit the UCAS convention (150 education institutions selling their wares) as well as go to York next week.  

B should be accepted into church membership on Sunday following her baptism on Easter Sunday and we possibly have a young man joining us for lunch …

Meanwhile younger daughter is on her practice run for the Duke of Edinburgh award expedition and will, no doubt, return with muddy clothes and stories to tell.

Have been really encouraged by you regular bloggers for keeping me on track, hopefully I’m back to blogging now too.

x

May – learn something new

I’ve always wanted to learn how to crochet and the opportunity came up at our church Stitch@Way group.  Exams are looming for our girls and this is something I can quietly do to refocus while being with them studying / waiting at school.  

It took two lovely ladies a couple of sessions to get me underway and I’ve realised just how much is available on youtube to help me along.  Finally grasped how to do granny squares and found out how to join them together neatly.  Would do it differently another time, but have really enjoyed working on it and, having been taking it with me almost everywhere I go, just need to find where I’ve put the missing 5 pieces to complete my first blanket 🙂

x

April – time for Grandma

My mum’s birthday is at the beginning of April so we enjoyed a day out alongside the Grand Union canal with our whole family – Mr Rambling’s parents as well.  Took some lovely photos of the girls with her laughing and smiling. Realise she’s aged over the last year …

Her house needs attention but we can’t really do too much at once but the roof can’t be left.  April is spent in a haze of dust and rafters as the bulk of her roof is stripped down to the rafters and the old broken ‘elephant’ welsh slate replaced with metric Spanish slate.  A cheery team work hard for over two weeks but now the roof could possibly outlive us all and the house is watertight again.  So much dust to clear afterwards …

Lost the plot a bit with the blog and there’s still clutter left to clear from March but still keeping up with eating less and moving more.

W5r1 – was that really me? (and a fluffy white dog)

Ok Bxter, spurred on by your encouragement we dismissed the thought of repeating w4r3 and went for w5. Brilliant! Lovely sunny morning with a hint of frost. Through the dappled sunlight in the woods and I find myself wondering what food I should be eating to make the runs the best they can be. Today was beans on toast for breakfast and, I’ll only admit it here, a small square of dark chocolate before we set off. 3 x 5 minute runs was just right, even Poppy seems to be getting into her stride. After an unknown past and not being in the best of condition when she joined our family she’s definitely running better, a smooth trot rather than hopping with her back legs. So if she looks better, I wonder if there’s any difference in me? Not weight wise, I’ve put on 3lb. Grrr. But I wonder if hubby is suspicious, he’s eyed up my running shoes and said how much he’d like it if I could manage to just run down the road. Little does he know, I managed 15 minutes this morning. As he works up to his marathon he’ll be pounding the hills for three hours (!) this Saturday morning – should be enough time for me to fit in w5r2 as long as we don’t meet up on the same paths …

3 Replies

• Hidden
  Can’t wait for the installment where he finds out, have you masterminded a plan yet?
• Bxster Graduate
  Grinning for you chuffed you went for it

  starting to think that a carefully timed accidental bumping into hubby whilst out running could be a very surprising way to find out
• AliB1 Graduate
  Good to hear things are going well for both you and Poppy. Can’t wait to read your blog outlining how he finds out (or when you tell him)!

W4r3 – C25 minute dog?

It took a while to get out this morning as hubby was lingering with a late start at work. The ground was wet but the sun shine and the air was crisp, a good start. I was talking to Poppy about something I’d read recently as we panted along our route (nothing unusual there, taking a dog with me means that people don’t realise I’m talking to myself half the time). We’ve been aware of the safety issues needed when running alone so I make sure I have a phone with me and my children at least know the route I usually take. Glancing through one of my husband’s running books (don’t want to appear too keen) I found the section there that talked about running with a dog for safety. Great, according to the book a dog can be a useful security asset, would be attackers see a dog as an unknown risk and steer clear. The book does advise that your dog should have a suitable name in the presence of suspicious characters – something like “Fang” or “Bandit”. As we started the second 5 minute run my legs were rather heavy and I hadn’t managed to fit in the downhill slope at the end of w4r2. Poppy wasn’t wildly impressed either, she offered to wait while I went for another circuit of the field. I got the feeling that she was miffed at the thought of me even considering changing her name and that she was definitely considering the thought of being a C25 minute dog.
As for me, I got home tingling all over – is this the first sign of the runner’s high I’ve heard about? I wonder what week 5 will have in store? Should we repeat w4r3 again to feel more at ease with it? Or should we just go for week 5 and see how we get on? Might need a two day break to think about that one.

• Bxster Graduate
  just get straight into wk 5, discovered best not to think about just do it
  I’m not surprised that ‘fang’ and ‘bandit’ don’t impress Poppy very much, how about ‘Rocky’? you could play her the sound track too to get her in the mood lol
• Greg_M Graduate
  Its either runners high or your socks are too tight!

  
• JFlute Volunteer
  I take my dog with me sometimes, but she can be a real pain because she likes to stop when a car comes along. When I get ready to go out and put my trainers on she gets so excited so it makes me feel guilty to leave her at home! Her tail goes around and around like a helicoter.
  She knows I’m writing about her because she has just rested her chin on my leg!!
• PatButcher Graduate
  I don’t have a dog but I reckon my cat would love it
• Bxster Graduate
  ok gone visual on cat on one of those extender leads lol
• AliB1 Graduate
  Go for it!

 

Battle of the munchies …

Sorry for my lack of posts. Clutter clearing has been very slow. I’ve managed about half the drawers in the house, no cupboards. On the plus side, my mother’s house now has a new roof – two weeks of dust and mayhem but at last no stress of what to do each time the wind blows and another slate slides off the roof. Sadly the paintwork didn’t go to plan and there’s a lot of remedial stuff to do. Any recommendations of how to get paint off brick?

Easter will soon be here and with it my eldest daughters long dreamed of baptism. She’s s lovely young woman now and it’s unusual for our church to hold baptisms on Easter Sunday, it should be a special day. http://www.christchurchdunstable.org.uk
Mr Ramblings’ parents should be there along with my mum and some friends from school. We’ll be hosting a buffet lunch back at our home so need to do a bit more clutter clearing before then!

Dear Mr Ramblings has a lot on at work, major changes to steer through but setting such a great example in calm faithfulness and trust. I’ve lost the plot with weight loss at the moment. Counting calories is time consuming and I really ought to have another go at getting to grips with the weightwatchers points system – is it quicker? Both miss Ramblings are on school holidays now but with masses to do to prepare for exams. Miss B gave in her notice for her Saturday job to have more time for studies and to go back to preparing for her grade 8 tap exams. Lovely to see her smiling again after looking so stressed (but she never complains). Miss H has added her motivation to mine by sticking lots of weight loss reminders onto tempting cupboard doors in the kitchen.

I’ll try and post the rest of my C25K experiences before Easter – battling to recover from a rotten cold that got me in the last few days and need to go for the WW weigh in today – gained last week and think I will have done the same this week. Good news for little miss Ramblings though, she did her first kayak race yesterday in awful wind and rain and, again, no complaining. My family do set such a good example on positive attitude – love them so much.

A new follower today inspires me to get back on track and avoid the battle of the munchies. Welcome to ghrelin gremlin. https://ghrelingremlin.wordpress.com/about/

Sorry to ramble … New day, new opportunities, so blessed …

W4r2 – Out in the morning rain …

How to sneak in a Saturday run?  Fortunately the girls had a rehearsal at school today so I offered to take them and the dog to give hubby a break.  Off to the woods as soon as the girls were safely delivered to run under the cover of trees.  I don’t want to seem to committed, but I think I could get to like this – particularly as I managed to get the second 5 minute run to be mostly downhill!  We were joined by an extra dog today as Poppy attracted the attentions of a long haired playmate.  As we trotted along on our first 5 min jog we had company and I could hear the owner calling from behind.  That’s something to remember about Saturday morning dog walkers, there seem to be a lot of them about and we had to take several short breaks (just as well I can pause Laura) before being able to head off along some fields and out of sight.Pretty shattered by the time we finished and emerged from the woods into the pouring rain.  I’d had to jog on the spot a few times while a dog got on with what a dog’s got to do but we did it.  Poppy’s still not convinced, but at least she didn’t ask to be carried this time.  She did sleep soundly for a couple of hours afterwards though – wish I could have done!

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1 Reply

• AliB1
  You are doing so well Beckipeg…can’t believe you’ve managed to still keep it a secret!!!!! Keep posting as want to know how you and Poppy get on!