Keeping Mum

Realised that as my eating habits change and less treats become normal less money is going towards the charity. In such dire situations it is only right to shout "Mummmmmmm" and ask if she wants to join with my dad on the starvation diet too. Its a bit tricky for them because they have started to eat a lot less treats due to health stuff so their starting point is already pretty healthy. Mum tells me however that she resisted buying a chocolate Rabbit in Wilkos yesterday and that there is already 60p in the pot. I think she planned to eat the rabbit rather than keep it as a pet. Never know with my family though, my sister once kept some jellied gecko sweets in a mock zoo enclosure until one of them spent too long in the water feature and its head fell off leaving my sister to mourn their passing. I digress. If anybody else wants to join in and spare me the shame of being a 35 year old running to her parents, resist and give the saved dosh here:

http://www.justgiving.com/Beth-Barlow

Or at another starvation preventing charity of your choice.

A time to wear my practical action T shirt

This Saturday (27th March 2010) practical action are staging a No Tech Day.
http://www.notechday.org/

I'm going to refrain from turning on my laptop and go do some knitting in Manchester with a friend instead. I may even leave my mobile at home. How might that feel?

If its not nice don't eat it

How often do I find myself eating a mediocre biscuit, chomping my way through a dry piece of cake? How often do I find myself stood in the shop looking for something for a treat, finding nothing that great and settling for something a bit rubbish? I think I shall stop eating things unless they are really nice.

Chocolate rice crispy cakes and cookies

Don't even have either of these things in the house. They whisper at you from the biscuit barrel and at times of stress they pounce and scuttle down your gullet before you even notice. Luckily by the time I got home yesterday my son had eaten half of his cooking class crispy cakes. That only leaves 6 more to eat. I would feed them to the birds but I fear that with all the chocolate and peanut butter in them the poor birds may never fly again. The cookies were, I told myself for my son after a good parents evening report. But If this was true why were they co-op finest toffee and pecan and not kidie jaffa cakes or the like. I think I may have tricked myself there.

Choke and rope update

First measurements:
Neck 34
Waist 82.5
Hips invalid Because I measured at the wrong place.


Second measurements
Neck 33
Waist 81.5
Hips 101

Hip to waist ratio is 0.79
Women with hip to waist ratio in the 0.7 band are said to be most attractive to European men and that's on wikepedia so it must be true.

Practical Action T Shirt

Michaela from Practical Action very Kindly sent me a Practical Action T shirt. I told her my current size (14) and asked her to choose me a size she thought I could slim into. She sent me a medium. I tried it on for the first time today and I think I may have already slimed into it a bit. It fits. And its orange which is great. I need to think of a thing I must do in it at least once a week for the project. Any ideas anybody?

Just giving

I'm not just saying this but it feels really good to be able to give the money I save so easily. To know that it just goes straight and direct from my efforts to others. This lets giving page is great if you are trying to raise money for stuff or redirect some of your own money. It takes away all the excuses.
http://www.justgiving.com/default.aspx

Out and about in Cheshire

Its funny. I spend so much time thinking about where to go and then sitting on trains getting there. On Sunday however I sat on my doorstep, put on my stout walking boots, stood up and started to walk. I know that it takes about 40 minutes to get to The Hollies Farm shop, on Tarporley Road, with my son in toe(farm shop makes it sound all crunky and dirty but the hollies is far from that its slick, expensive but full of good stuff). I decided to set a task of getting there in under 30 minutes. With the promise to myself that I could have cake if I got there in time I trotted along at a pace and got to the cafe counter, puffing and blowing in 25 minutes. Coffee and walnut cake as I read my book. Now I know that this project is about starvation diet and resisting things but on this one I don't feel guilty. Its good cake, made of good things in a place I had worked a bit to get to. It wasn't just a whim or giving in to temptation. I also never thought I would say this about cake servings but the pieces here are too big, before no cake was big enough to foil me. This time I left a bit. My next mission was to get to the bookstore on Chester Road. Its another wonderful place. Full of really unusual discount books, better than any trip to the works. I found a road that cuts diagnally to my destination, through some forest, Hogshead road if you want to follow my footsteps(pictured above). There were hardly any cars so I got into my element singing and dancing my way along to Stevie Wonder's greatest hits and came out just yards from the bookshop. I bought a few too many books, that wasn't the plan for my low carbon day but they were on craft and eco design. Walking back with a back pack full of books was strangely satisfying. Finding another quite road which I had not been down before was another part of the adventure, Stoneford Lane. It goes past a little path, just before the railway. This is a path we have trodden before. It leads to a picnic bench along Whitegate way. Sometimes the path is overgrown and leads through prickly undergrowth but on Sunday it was well cut back. On the picnic bench I sat and read a book. It was like being in a very open plan office. I had a conversation with a little robin who kept sneeking up on me really noisely. He was a rubbish sneeker but a good listener . As I left I thanked him for listening I aknowledged that he probably couldn't understand a word I was saying but then most people couldn't understand me either. It struck me that as long as you wern't after answers talking to a small red breasted bird might be just as valid as talking to a human. The rest of the route home took me over old ground, past where the pigs used to live and dissapeared from a while ago, I'm not sure where they went, maybe they moved house. I ran up the hill, not sure why, think I felt like I was in the army. Not sure that soldiers run up hills carrying their weight in craft books but let me tell you they should. It would get then up to speed in no time and they could throw together a charming thankyou card and an angora shrug when they reach the sumit of some enemy hillside. So it was that I ended up back at the end of my street, 4 hours later and an awful lot happier.

At 3 hours walking at 5.63 Km/hour its about 828 calories burnt. That's without figuring in the books carried and the mad run up the hill. That's the cake and the coffee seen off then.