Walk cataloguing

So . . . yes, we are in the process of moving - in that we have found a house Northwards in France, or rather North-Westwards. It was going to be purely Northwards but plans have changed . . .
It's about fourteen years since we last moved house and that was only a mile up the road. This move will be huge in distance and stuff. I've been steadily boxing up unwanted stuff for the last couple of weeks now and taking it to the equivalent of Oxfam, but the amount doesn't seem to be decreasing much. If Mark had been a flute player and just that, not a pianist/multi-instrumentalist/ethnomusicologist we might not have quite the amount of associated items, but we do, and that's fine. We also have all the antique and boot sale finds that we have accumulated over the years, partly for the pleasure of doing so but also with the idea of running a 'brocante' /tea shop somewhere. This new house may well lend itself to such an enterprise so all that has to be kept too.
Anyway, part of moving to another region is the excitement of new discoveries but also the sadness of leaving loved people and places behind. The people will hopefully visit but the places will only remain in memories and photos, therefore I feel compelled to catalogue all the favourite places, mainly those that feature in regular dog walks.

Walk one:



This involves a short car drive to a village on a hill, and a further winding road leading to a tiny hamlet called Lapayre, now just one dwelling in which resides Mr Oui, Oui, Oui, and his wife who I have never seen. If Mr Oui, Oui, Oui (called thus as his cheerful conversation is peppered with the repeated word) is around he will sally forth on his elderly but spritely legs and retail us with information about the hamlet which once held eight families all called Lapayre, the vines, the woods, his regard for all people whatever their skin colour, his happiness at living in such a place, etc.
Today, he appeared, hobbling slightly and explained that he had met with a slight tractor accident. I congratulated him on his magnificent vegetable patch (small field) which made ours look utterly pathetic, and talked about pesticide-free gardening. He led us into the veg area, cut us a lettuce the size of a turkey and handed it to me saying his chickens would only eat the outside leaves of a home-grown lettuce, non of this supermarket rubbish...
We thanked him and set out on the walk which features a gently concave slope of vines slightly resembling a saddle. The dogs, let off after a safe distance from the chickens ran off knowing well the walk's outline, just waiting at the appropriate moment when we decide whether to take the shorter walk where one admires the view of St Polycarpe Abbey and the hills of Arce (snigger not), or the longer loop walk which ends back up at Mr Oui, Oui Oui's tractor barn.
We took the longer walk which leads up into a small wood, down a lush hillside full of wild flowers and insects and then up into a small but challenging (in the heat) upward section back to the car.

 

                                     



I've probably done this walk about fifty times over our seventeen years in this beautiful area of the Aude, and I never tire of its sights, and sounds of the resident crows who live in the forest above the path and the breezes that blow through the pine trees.

                           


 

Diets don't work

They just don't. There, said it.
I was watching Telematin this morning, while attempting to go through my morning exercise routine and encouraging The Boy to do the same, when a really stupid ad came on for slimming cereal, then another for a species of cream that you smear on your legs to reduce flab, and then yet another for pills that you can take to 'burn off' the fat.
It's all such utter crap. Whatever the latest study has revealed, we are meant to move about a lot and not eat too many buns: that's it!
The slimming industry is a fiendishly lucrative one whether it be pills, meal replacement drinks or Martini flavoured breakfast cereal, and can also be dangerous . . . a friend of ours actually had to go into hospital as she had been imbibing a series of flab-annihilating potions in order to slim manically for a wedding. She was dangerously de-hydrated and almost lost a kidney. She did look a little thinner after a couple of weeks of hefty antibotics and throwing up a lot.
I have vague recollections of going with my mum to 'weight-watchers' in the 1970s. Held in a hall somewhere in Muswell Hill, the faithful would congregate and be in turn weighed and talked to about how many calories they had found or lost during the week. Mum did reach her target weight and was awarded a special brooch commemorating the event. She then sallied forth into the world of buns once more and put it all back on again.
You have to want, really want to do it, actually change the way you eat and exercise. Fad diets - Eating grapes and spinach for a week or gorging on flash-fried veal won't do it; boredom will soon set in and cake-lust with it.
It takes time too. I always find after winter, when I emerge blinking into the daylight, that to shed the desire to stoke up on bread and butter pudding or Mark's wicked cakes is almost impossible, but over a few weeks and a few hazardous checks in the mirror, something clicks and the want to feel/look better takes over - sometimes.
This year has been better; it took a few months but I'm back to what I weighed last summer, and I want to loose the wobbly thigh stuff, so onward and forward; I may fail when the chill sets in again, but I hope not.
So, the moving about stuff . . . cycling, swimming, walking, yoga, housework, taking the stairs, gardening, sex, whatever; it all helps, and more so if you have a routine that you can stick to so that if you collapse into a Death by Chocolate and three brandy & Babychams of an evening, you can burn some of it off again the next day, rather than: 'Shit, oh well, I might as well go for the kebab and chips this lunchtime.'

That's one of the keys points for me: have treats. If you don't allow cake or puddings sometimes, they become huge, quivering unobtainable yearned for-objects that will torment every waking moment of your life until you finally crack and eat a tub of Raspberry-ripple-choc-chip-fat bastards-delight on your own by the light of the open fridge at 3am.
The opposing views on what makes flab is interesting. I went to Slimming world with my cousins recently as I was staying with them. The main theme seems to be eat as much fruit, bread, pasta, etc, as you like but hold a cross up to any sort of fat and back away from it screaming. Other diets say eat as much fat as you want but purge the evils of bread, rice, cake and starch generally. Confusing . . .
Everyone is different and everyone burns stuff off at different speeds. Mark is tall and thin and could eat cake all day and nothing would happen. He can still fit into trousers from 1975. I think he worries it all off. I can just smell cake and the calories leave the oven, absorbing themselves surreptitioulsy into my thigh-flab. I get worried too but somehow it multiplies the fat cells.

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, this is the Hot-house regime.

At least half an hour of exercises first thing: a combination of stretching, yoga type stuff, crunches, lunges, etc; all easy to find on the internet - we had a lovely lady, bed and breakfast guest staying recently who showed us another load of exercises with weights - so useful, and these have been added in.
There is no excuse not to do this. If we have to be out of the door at 7.00am we do the routine at 6.00am. It's so ingrained now that I feel really unhealthy now if I miss a day.

Dog walk - if you have one, or cat/gerbil/on own; preferably up an incline of some sort.

Breakfast: eat whatever you want within reason, a whole lemon meringe pie, maybe not, but have the toast and butter not some vile '**** I can't believe it's not cow-substance, thing. Breakfast, as my Aunty Olive always said, IS important.

A good lunch, but maybe on a smaller plate than you might have usually; eat slowly, and don't stare at the computer/eat while driving with one hand on the wheel at the same time.

Another walk somewhere/bike ride/swimming session, etc.

Small supper, and if possible don't fall into the snack trap (this is my big challenge) crisps, chocolate, cheese, in the evening when watching TV/reading, whatever.
Salad is good for this: make a massive bowl of lettuce, other veg, nuts, fruit etc. It takes time to eat and the desire to nibble is overcome -  plus you sleep well if Beatrix Potter was right about lettuce being soporific.

Cut down on the booze. It's always easy to forget how much sugar is in wine, beer etc, not being as visual as say a cream-laden chocolate eclair, but it certainly is there - 120 calories in a small glass of red.

The main thing is to change everything a bit, not just latch onto a new diet. It feels good to notice a reflection that looks a bit more muscly and a little less 'puckered', and it feels good to have a few less aches from carrying the extra few kilos about. Kilo = bag of sugar . . . quite heavy.

Well, some ideas from the totally non-perfect but a wee bit more toned-up members of the Hot-house.

Time for some toast I think . . .

Technology

Brilliant piece of human observation. Oh . . . they've got one, err, maybe I should then . . .The salesman, so accurate, especially the bit where the buyer decides not to take the upgrade. Sure . . .no problem, the tone of the voice, spot on.

The sellotape doesn't work too well with the turnip upgrade though.