Shield’s up!

It’s currently about 21:57, so says Beth, my laptop. I am lying in bed and hopefully I’m about to have a brilliant, long, deep and glorious night’s sleep. I’ve been sleeping really well over the past week or so and I feel that I’m back to my best.

It’s not unknown for me to literally jump out of bed and dance around the bedroom before Tra la la-ing to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I have no idea why I’m this happy in the morning. I know that most other people in my circle of friends don’t feel this way in the mornings and to be honest, I’ve never understood them. Who wouldn’t be happy in the morning knowing all the great things you can do when you get up?

I’ve just watched the first two programmes of season five of The Shield, which arrived today. I like the shield – like most of the programmes I like, it’s complete bollocks but oh so enjoyable.

My evening consisted of, going to the shop to get a baguette, putting some washing on, putting some chips in the oven, unwrapping The Shield package, feeding the cats, then later, having a chip and cheese baguette while watching the new series. I watched to second episode in bed, with the cats on the bed purring away and as always, trying to get inbetween me and the screen.

I have now shut the cats out of the bedroom and put the radio on and am ready to turn the PC and lights off and stretch out, starfishing. (This is where I spread my limbs out in or on my bed). It makes me chuckle.

I just know I’m going to have some great dreams tonight.

GOODNIGHT.

Britain’s Rail

On Friday, I had to leave work early for a dental appointment. So, at 1.00, I was heading homeward.

I’ve been travelling to and from work in total darkness for the last few months so it was nice to travel on the train in daylight and see all the sights on the way home. It was also nice to travel on the Tube in conditions other than sardines.

I realised that during my months in London, my views to towards travelling to work and the people had changed very slightly and I hadn’t even noticed.

When I first moved to London, the trains, Tubes, locations and people were all fascinating to me and although I knew this wouldn’t last, I didn’t realise I’d come to view everything with a sort of grey mist in order to wade through to get to work, for instance -

The Tube has stopped being a fascinating way to travel to work but has become hindrance and the people, stupid sheep. No longer am I people-watching but am actively people non-watching. It was good to travel in the daytime. It was a wake up call to say ’stop being such a fucking skinjob, like the people you despise’. I shall endeavour once again to open my eyes and enjoy the fact that I’m happy.

I’ve often thought that you haven’t really viewed Britain until you’ve viewed it from a train. This is where you get the inside view of people’s homes/houses/back gardens – the type of voyeuristic scene that is denied when walking along a street and greeted with impenetrable window coverings and imposing front doors. Back gardens say a lot about a family I think. Some are immaculate, some jungle-like, some strewn with children’s bikes, carts and toys etc and some, the saddest of all to me, are the climbing frames and swings that are over growing with weeds and grass. And then there’s all the flying-tipping over garden fences and on to the track bank. Every little gap inbetween houses too are filled with household rubbish. People too lazy to take their rubbish to the tip gladly leave their old mattresses, fridges or ovens on opportunistic piles. Out of sight, out of mind. This is what Britain is really like. This is what the British are like, if there is such a thing as ‘British’.

‘I’m waiting for the night to fall, where everything is bearable’.

I try to go through my life with an almost childlike naivety and look at things with questioning eyes even though I’m a completely cynical bastard. I hate it when I let people see this side of me.

On Saturday I went to visit NG in hospital. She has had to have some tumours removed from her kidney/bladder area. I was very pleased that even though she’s in lots of pain, that she seems to be looking forward to when she’s out of hospital, on the mend and able to do the simple things that most of us take for granted and not have this restricting her, as it has done for the last 18 months.

On my way home from the hospital, as I was walking along Fulam Palace Road back to Hammersmith, I suddenly realised how very happy and content I was. The sun was shining, my body was on the mend, I felt good and in one of those rare zones where everything in the life of Lix is GREAT!

Today is Sunday, my PC says it’s 09:54. I’ve had some peanut butter on toast, tea, I’m watching/listening to the Australian Open tennis final (Tsonga is currently winning 6:4, 2:2, 40:40), I’m about to have a bath and then chill some more.

I’m a very fortunate person.

…and relax…

I joined a running club in London in January in an attempt to not so much get fit, but to start enjoying sports again. The getting fit is just a happy by-product. I’ve only been intermittently taking part in sporting activities in the pasts 15 years or so since amongst other things leaving my parents house. I was pretty much addicted to sports. I used to force myself to have one night off to a week for my body to recuperate as I knew how important it is to rest your body. If, occasionally, I’d not have any swimming, badminton, squash or football planned, I’d go running. On occasion, I’d run home from work and then go and play squash or something else.
And then, all this all stopped. A change in my daily routine instigated by my moving away from my parents house, being made redundant from my job resulting in my skipping from place to place with an agency(which I really enjoyed), and eventually going to University as a mature student all had the effect of my losing any kind of routine. Going to University was a massive change for me as it meant a complete change of culture and my losing touch with all my sporting friends and contacts. It didn’t help that I’d moved to Coventry and started living with people who eventually became some of my best and most beloved friends but who had no interesting in sports.

As I’m approaching 40, I find that I have to take much more care of my body.

As I stated, I joined a running club in London. Now running to me has always been and always will be a solitary sport and that’s why I love it so much. To be on your own, with your own thoughts and only competing against yourself is very appealing to me, but this is, I’ve discovered can be achieved even when in a running club. We meet at three separate locations in London on three days of the week, have a chat, get changed, run on our routes but every person goes at their own speed. I run on my own. At the end, we all meet up and go for drinks (on a Saturday, breakfast after running through Hyde Park).

At the moment, I’m running very slowly because I’m not very fit. I find this cumbersome as I’m quite tall and going slowly means that I don’t have the smooth running style that I used to have. My tall frame means that I should have a slighter faster running speed but I just cannot do it given my current level of fitness and know I have a few months of hard work in front of me. Watch this space.

For the first three weeks I’ve run three miles on a Wednesday night and then four miles on a Saturday morning – and I’ve struggled so much with that distance.

This Saturday though and last Saturday, I haven’t been running as I’ve played football and Badminton in the week. Why should this prevent my going running you ask?

I played football on Friday after work with the boys from the office and found it really difficult, not least of which is that the boys are so much stronger than I am but because I simply haven’t been doing this level of excercise for many years. I got up on Saturday morning after the football but could hardly move my legs, arms, or back! yeah, funny now but it’s very painful. I adopted a kind of demented John Wayne walk around the flat as this was the most pain-free! I’ve had this once or twice before in my life and decided, in my attenuated and piteous state to do some research on what it was.

First though, I’ll tell that in addition to football last week, I also played badminton this week on Thursday with DB from work. He rightly beat me 4-0 quite easily. Again, on Friday my arms, back and legs felt like they were wading through some heavy gravity. I’d also pulled a muscle at the top of my left leg which I felt in the match but thought I could run it off. I only realised what I’d really done when I was sitting in the changing room and tried to lift my left leg up to put a sock on! OUCH! I’ve not yet gotten full mobility in it – all of which meant that I took the decision not to do any excercise this weekend but to rest my body. This is all very vexing as I can already feel that I’m getting addicted to excercise again and just want to be out there doing stuff. ARGH!

Maybe as I get older, I just have to realise that any type of routine is difficult as there are more demands on my time.

The research I did on my aching muscles yielded some interesting returns – thank you Google.

It’s called DOMS, which stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and results from the strenuous exercising of those muscles that you haven’t used for a long time.

There’s a wealth of information on the ‘net about it but here’s the Wiki page with some good links at the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness

Do what thou wilt

Today, several people in front of me crammed past me to get on the Tube whilst I was waiting for people to alight.

Today, a woman walked past me in the rain wielding the worlds biggest umbrella and made no attempt to ease my passing on the narrow path. It’s a good job I have a neck like Gideon Duck.

Me, walking to work.

These people are very rude.

I have been staring at the steeple of the church opposite me, Kant-like and it’s given me some inspiration. (Not divine inspiration I hasten to add).

Whenever I encounter rude people in future, I will stop them and hand them this:

Then I shall walk away going ‘Tra la la…’

No explanation necessary

This is self-explanatory surely?

It’s me meditating in a branch and twig wigwam – a twigwam, if you will!

I see dead people

During the end of year holidays, I went for a few rides on my bike around London. While riding along a road in Kew, I spotted a cemetery and decided to have a look around as I like reading the headstones and also like the peaceful nature of these places. This particular cemetary is very big – it’s called Mortlake. Personally, I think it would sound much better as Deathlake Cemetery. Kewl! Ha, see what I did there?!

Anyhoo. I thought I’d take some pictures as it’s a picturesque place. It was early in the morning, over the Christmas period, no one about.

I took this picture:

Now, remember – there was no one I remember in the cemetery and certainly no one who I’d like to be in this nice picture but look to the left and you’ll see what appears to be a person, staring at me!

Looks very eerie doesn’t it? Especially as it appears to be staring directly at me.

NG thinks it looks like a Cromwellian soldier and also that it appears to have a bandage wrapped around it’s head!
Anyway, I think – even though I don’t remember anyone there, it’s just a person walking around the graveyard.

Interesting though!

Addendum to the last post

I had a look on the Web to get some info on the Graffiti Response Team just in case anyone thought I was making it up – read ‘em and weep!

I found this headline (and accompanying text):

‘Islington Council prepares to wave goodbye to canal graffiti’

‘From February, the council’s Graffiti Response Team will regularly spray and scrub the walls of the waterway with environmentally-friendly products.!

at this website:

http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/CouncilNews/PressOffice/2007/12/3239.asp

Nearly all of me wants to vandalise that headline by getting a spraycan and spraying over the ‘C’ in Canal!

No Headline!

That’s a lie obviously, as ‘No Headline’ is the headline! All because I couldn’t think of anything to put there.

It’s raining outside so I’ve decided to spend lunch at my desk! I was going to go up to Angel and get some sundry items like a mug, spoon and drinking glass; peripherals all sadly missing from my desk environment.

Whilst walking to Tescos this morning to get some apples, I noticed a van at the traffic lights with ‘GRAFFITI RESPONSE TEAM‘ on the side.

Hilarious!

“Where we off to today then Bob?”

“Islington Ed, been some graffiti on a wall and a bustop.”

-

“What’s that say Bob? It looks like ‘Helen 4 Roger‘, how’re we going to respond to that?’

“Hmm, easy one. Lets put an ‘a‘ after ‘4‘ and ‘ing‘ after ‘Roger.”

“Hang on Bob, lets work that out…..OH HAHAHA, nice one Bob, that’ll make it ‘Helen 4 a Rogering.’ Like it, like it, nice response. I don’t know how you come up with responses like that Bob, you’re a star and no mistake me ol’ mucker.”

“Well, we are the GRT Ed, that’s what we get paid for.”

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!

I went for a lovely Vegetarian Ciabatta today and Coco’s in Islington. The Ciabatta’s are lovely and I’m addicted to them.

Whilst standing outside waiting, I noticed this headline in the Islington Gazette!

Clubbers hit by plan for offices

Oh come on, that’s brilliant – ‘Clubbers hit?’ Heehee ‘by plans?’

Made me chuckle. I was then delighted to find out that said Gazette has a website where I can keep up to date with all the news taking place in this area that’s surely no more than a few centimetres wide! Only joking, it’s gotta be a ten metres if it’s a inch!

See how I mixed my measurement units there?

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