No more gym!

I've decided to give up on the gym. For the amount that it's costing me compared to how much I'm going I've decided it's really not worth it. Now I know the argument there is to start going more often but that is just not going to happen so I've come up with a new plan.

I've bought a cross trainer. The machine in the gym that I like the least and avoid every time I go is now sitting in my spare room. I was going to go for a treadmill but for the amount that I wanted to spend the home machines looked like they could collapse as soon as you stood on them. I started looking at the cross trainers which looked much more stable and will just have to learn to like it. So now I just need to make sure I use it, so far so good. It went up on Friday night and I used it Saturday and Sunday morning so far, the plan is to use it for 20-30 mins most days so we'll see how it goes! As long as I use it more than I used to go to the gym then it was a good buy, but then that shouldn't be too difficult to beat!

Clear Out!

After spending the first half of today not moving from the sofa I decided this afternoon I needed to get up and do something.  So I went to my wardrobe and pulled everything out on to the bed and began sifting through what I wanted to go back in.  I decided to be quite ruthless and the clothes that I have avoided throwing away previously had reached their last chance, this time they were going.  I went through my wardrobe, the spare room wardrobe, the shelves and 4 drawers and then moved onto the shoes.  At the end of all that I had this pile of clothes and shoes -

which included: 20 tops, 10 v-neck jumpers, 6 big jumpers, 4 cardigans, 7 shirts, 3 skirts, 4 trousers, 2 jeans, 1 pair of boots, 2 pairs of trainers, 2 pairs of slippers and 8 pairs of shoes.  Now I'm just hoping that there is a charity shop collection coming soon, and that I've left enough in the wardrobe to find something to wear for  work on Monday!

First Week

I managed to make it to the end of my first week in my new job at Yorkshire Housing, but I'm so tired.  I thought first weeks were always fairly quiet just getting used to things, find out who people are and get into doing a little bit of work.  That lasted about 1 day, then it's just been busy ever since.  I did think I was sitting in a disciplinary in Sheffield on Tuesday which then changed to a grievance meeting in Huddersfield which then got cancelled so at least I've had a few more days before I need to start providing any real advice!  The travelling has started already though with a day out in Bradford on Wednesday to meet the other 2 HR Advisers, and I'm out in Sheffield for two days next week which should help with getting to know a few more people.  The useful thing is that we all have name badges so at least I'm not having to remember who is everyone is just yet, I just have to have a sneaky look down at their badge if I've forgotten who they are already!

Sports Injury

I forgot to tell you about my sports injury that happened over the holidays, but as my last two posts are linked by the title this one will have to be out of sync as I can't break them up!

So while Sal & Rob were visiting being the sporty people that they are now, there was a suggestion that we play Badminton one day.  Not being known as the sporty one of the family I had no sports gear with me at all so on Sunday during a quick trip to the shops I bought some new trainers (which I needed to do anyway) and some sweat pants.  Most of the places that we could think of where we could play either seemed to be closed between Christmas and New Year or incapable of answering the phone so eventually we went for the Dolphin Centre in Darlington and booked 2 hours on the Monday afternoon.

I haven't played badminton since I think I was about 14 and other than a short after school club I've not played all that much.  I think I did ok though, we played a couple of games of Sal and I against Rob, which of course he won.  We couldn't quite coordinate who was covering the front of the court and who was the back, but we cracked it later into the second game against Rob but it was just too late by then.  Sal and I were quite evenly matched so the games that we played against each other were both quite close scores and we won one game each.  Both our individual games against Rob had predictable scorelines of 15 to nothing more than about 3.

About 20 mins into playing I realised that my right wrist was hurting me.  I have a tendency to smash my shots rather than playing front or back hand and I found that I had been holding the racket too high on the handle so that each time I hit the shuttle the end of the racket would push straight into my wrist.  I didn't realise early enough though and after about an hour I was already showing a slight bruise and it was swollen.  The bump disappeared after that day but the bruise is still there 5 days later and it a very dark shade of purple now.  

The other minor injury was a bruise to the left hand when I swung at the shuttle a little too eagerly, missed it and hit my thumb instead.  That had a nice little purple bruise for a while but has gone now.  In spite of the injuries I did really enjoy playing, I think I'll have to find someone in York that I can play against, either that or move to Winchester / Southampton so that I can go with Sal.  That would be my preferred option but unfortunately a bit more expensive!

...and a very cold new year!

My boiler had been a little temperamental before Christmas.  There didn't seem to be any common link as to when it would work and when it wouldn't so I had a plumber out to have a look at it a couple of weeks ago but by the time he got to the house it was working again.  Arriving back for an hour on Boxing Day put my mind at rest that it was sorted as it was warm in the house when I got back which meant that it had been working fine for a run of 4 days.  The excitement was short lived though and after another 5 days away from the house it had stopped again.  I got back on New Years Eve and after over 3 hours of sitting in a freezing house I escaped to Gillian's to get ready for the party in the evening and stayed over after.

New Year's Day I returned to the house full of expectation that I could somehow get it working again by staring at it, hitting it, praying over it, thumping it etc. but it turns out I'm not that skilled, so I called the plumber.  Thankfully he was willing to come out on a Bank Holiday, and declared that it had given up on me and the best thing to do was replace it.  An expense that I really hadn't planned for this early in the year, I was hoping it would get past the first day at least.  Thanks to the lovely parents though my bank account won't look completely bare but my savings account has taken a bit of a hit, but then I suppose that's what savings are there for.  So it was another night away from the house and thankfully Ruth was kind enough to lend me a bed for the evening.

The plumber came back this morning and has spent the whole day fitting the new boiler.  It's now 5pm on 2nd January and my head is slowing starting to raise itself from the very large neck of the very thick sweater, I think another 10 mins and I might even take off one of the five layers of clothes that I'm wearing.  So it's a new year and I've already ticked off one of my to do items for this year in sorting the boiler out, now I just need to figure out what else should go on the list for this year.

Merry Christmas...

Christmas Day!  It's a bit strange going to a different house for Christmas because at home I know the whole routine of the day but being somewhere else you're never quite sure what will come next.  In the morning we went to the service at Scapegoat Hill Baptist Church just up the road from the house (although we still took the car).  It was a nice Christmas morning service with lots of carols and little talk.  Then it was straight back to the house to get the dinner ready.  With  7 of us already there we were just waiting for the other 4 to arrive - Ian, Sheena, Elliot and Lyndon.  Laraine couldn't remember what time she had told them to come so we were working on 1pm but by half past we rang them and they were working on 2pm so we delayed putting on the gravy!

Sally phoned at about 5pm while we were still finishing off dinner with cheese and crackers and they had opened presents, eaten dinner and were both sitting in their new pajamas already.  The rest of our day was then spent playing lots of silly games.  The highlights of the games were that I am now the champion of the 'find the dolly mixture' game, Robert is the champion of the 'throw the card into the pudding bowl' game and Laraine is the champion of the 'move the dried peas from the plate to the cup using only a straw' game.

We had our second Christmas Day in Stockton on the 27th when Rob and Sally arrived from their hotel in the lakes.  Again it was a lovely turkey dinner but this time with more presents in the afternoon as we had only taken a couple over to Huddersfield for the three of us so this was the main present opening Christmas for us.  I was given the task of distributing the presents from under the tree and managed to spoil the surprise for Mum's present by handing her the book for 'Learn to Play the Cornet' before she had opened the actual present of the Cornet.  Still I don't think she minded and she got straight into practising, having never had much practice at playing a brass instrument I can't say that the first attempt sounded very musical but more like a strangled cat but I know she will become an expert in no time! 

Happy Christmas Eve

This year for a change we spent Christmas away from Stockton and had a lovely couple of days over in Huddersfield with Robert, Laraine, Oliver and Alicia.  Christmas Eve we went out for dinner at The Hinchliffe in Mytholmroyd, we had pre ordered the starters and main so we spent part of the afternoon trying to remember what everyone had ordered while watching The Snowman on TV.

Dinner was great, the starters arrived almost as soon as we had sat down and while my chicken liver pate was lovely I was annoyed that I had let myself get put off by the sound of the Cream of Tomato soup - I thought that it sounded a bit too much like it might come from a Heinz tin.  When it arrived for Oliver it obviously wasn't as I had expected and it looked so good.

I decided to go for a main course of Fish and Chips to avoid having anything too similar to the turkey that I imagined I would be eating for the next week and that was also fantastic.  A huge piece of fish and big fat chunky chips.  I still found a little bit of room for the Apple and Sultana Crumble and the Orange Creme that Alicia and I were nearly fighting over but luckily a second one arrived just in time.