Ginger Envy!!

Minty surveys the scene - "Oh my God - there are loads of them!".....

Ginger cows that is....

Here's a close up of a particularly pretty one specially for Peri.

A rock'n'roll non-ginger getting in on the act


A ginger baby.....aaaah

Even the non-ginger mums are not bucking the trend - they're all for ginger babies

"Yes, it's the way it should be - the world is orange and I like it!"

I have been on Bootcamp2010 for a week now and have lost......drumroll.........2lbs! Better than nothing but not exactly "falling off me" pace. I'm torn. Part of me wants to accelerate the pace, go back on the packs for a few weeks and lose a stack just so that I'll not show myself up on TV. The other, more sensible, part of me is pleased with how well I've done this week and how enjoyable it has been. I really feel relaxed and focussed and think I have a shot at carrying this on for more than the next 4 weeks as originally planned.

Dilemmas eh?

I think I'm going to keep it up for another week and then, if still slow progress, do a week of packs and then back to sensible eating, maybe alternate. I really want to get another 11lbs off before the TV show thingy at the end of April. That's do-able isn't it?

I've managed to exercise every day apart from Monday. Monday was a cock-up. I should have gone swimming lunchtime but bottled it in favour of going ot the gym or running in the evening. Then of course my friend, who has only just come out of hospital, texted me and said she could do with a visit that evening while her husband is out. That meant that I could only just fit a run in between work and visiting her and in the end, didn't manage this either. I felt a bit cheesed off with myself but then I also feel you should have one day off exercise per week anyway to allow the old legs to recover. But it also coincided with a precious lb going back ON so I felt doubly irritated.

So, on the basis that I don't dwell on things or call them "sucesses" or "failures" these days, I am trying to learn from what happened. Today, I pre-empted the running-out-of-time-in-the-evening excuse by making sure that I went swimming at lunchtime. I haven't been for over a week and it was still pretty hard but better than last time. I managed 50 pretty smooth laps and the other swimmers didn't seem quite so annoying as they did last time. (Fewer bikini part-timers Peri!)

I'm going to the football this evening and have arranged to meet Jim at Pizza Hut instead of our usual Italian restaurant. This may sound fatal but PH actually has some low-cal salads on the menu whereas the independent place, while much nicer, has only calorie laden no-no's. It's a relegation dogfight this evening. Wednesday are playing Watford and we really need the 3 points for a win. The season is rapidly heading towards a last day showdown between ourselves and Crystal Palace for the last relegation place and I'm not sure my heart can stand it. Hey ho - the lot of a steadfast Sheffield Wednesday fan is not easy.

In other news, it was a shock to visit my friend Stacey on Monday evening. She is an old college mate who came to visit me for a weekend a few years ago, met a friend of mine, James and ended up marrying him, leaving London and her high-flying legal career and becoming a film-maker from Hope (a village a couple of miles from me).

Her first feature film is due to be released into cinemas at the end of April (it's called "A Boy called Dad") so now is when she should be lapping up all the publicity and meeting the stars etc. Unfortunately, she fell down the stairs nearly 4 weeks ago and broke her back! Just a random trip on her way down in the morning to put the kettle on and she ended up fracturing 2 vertebrae and could very well have been paralysed. The consultants told her she was one of a tiny percentage of people who end up walking after this injury so it is a miracle that she is up and about only 3 weeks after having her spine fused. She still has serious nerve damage and is very shaky and in pain but it is truly amazing.

It just made me think about all the cliches. How you just don't know what is just round the corner. How you should live each day as if it is your last. How you should never take health and family for granted. She is shell shocked but, as an incredibly intelligent and forceful woman, I'm sure she'll pull through and put her life back together. Serious stuff indeed.

Update......Update.....Update

I typed this post yesterday before going to the game but because I called in to the pub on the way home it was too late to put it up last night. As of this morning, I have dropped another 3 lbs!! I reckon that has been coming for a few days as I've been having that mid-month bloated feeling. Yay!! So 5lbs in 8 days is a bit happier. Now I just have to keep up the pressure and not let a bit of sucess go to my head as it has in the past.

Also, Sheffield Wednesday managed a win!! 3 vital points in the fight to survive in the Championship. But at what cost?? The game was DIRE! So dull, no urgency, hardly 3 passes strung together. The ONLY good things about the game were the 3 goals. Sigh.... If that's the way we're going to do it it's going to be a looooong couple of months.