New Start 5

A very late post as I've been out this evening. Just went up to the local pub which is always a bit hit and miss when D is away. Sometimes there are people to talk to and I stay and other times I feel a bit of a lemon being out by myself. However confident you are, it's always easier for a bloke to sit on his own in a pub.



Anyway, I found some pals this evening and was having a pleasant non-alcoholic evening chatting and watching them drink and fully expecting to be leaving before 11 when a Stag do staying in a bunkhouse in the village wandered in. When you live in a tiny country village like mine, you need to take advantage of any diversion you can get and, over the years, Stag and Hen do's have proved very funny so I stuck around to see whether they would interact with the locals and what if anything would result.



They were very entertaining - stag and best man dressed in one of those terrible thong type swimming costumes leaving nothing to the imagination and parading round the pub trying to persuade any spare women to try the garments on! As there were only 3 of us in there under 50 there were far too many stags to go round so it was very amusing.



Anyway, all very innocent but a real ego boost. In the past the evening would have been a graphic illustration of how much fatter than my friends I was and I would have drunk more than usual to "compensate" and to blot out any insulting comments or how obvious it was that I was the "fat friend". Even though I had no interest in them, you still don't want to be reminded about some things....



Well, this time, I was sober as a judge and had a great time. I was chatted up by at least 4 of them and got lots of very nice compliments and felt quite happy chatting or not and leaving when I wanted to and not drinking.



Another example of the benefits being slim can bring. Not the being chatted up per se - but the not having that nasty taste in my mouth because I wasn't chatted up!!



I hope some of this makes sense as I am a bit tired and I've drunk about 3 gallons of water. I'm sure the only reason I lasted as long was I had 3 black coffees at about 11.30!! Hope I sleep.



Anyway, I came back home to a message from Kate asking if I wanted to go jogging tomorrow morning about 10.30 which sounds great. It was only at the end of the message that she mentioned that she was thinking of running up Win Hill. It's the biggest hill round here and very steep. I refer you to my entry dated 16th April for my last walk up there. It was lovely but I walked up it! Running will be a whole different matter. I think I'm going to do it though. I know what she's after - she wants me to do it so that I enter the Bamford Carnival Fell Race in a couple of weeks which is up Win Hill. What a nightmare. I reckon I'll try though. How bad can it be?? (serious famous last words there...)

Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow with more Canada photos and an update of the jog.

Have a great weekend everyone.