We are all doomed

Watching TV during a quiet rest from the house clearing, I saw 3 adverts from charities in the space of an hour: 1 for help with clefts, 1 for WaterAid, 1 for help with eye issues. If I watch a bit more there will probably be another 3 or 4 for different things - famine, FGM, child abuse, etc. The list is long.

The world is crazy, on so many levels. Why do we have a lack of clean water in any country? Why is there no hospitals for the health issues? Famine and abuse are more down to human nature and lack of education... and war.

We live in times where things CAN be fixed, but things won't be fixed because there's no political will to fix things that don't impact us. This is just what humans are... if it ain't my problem it's not my problem, but it is... and this is where it's all starting to catch up to us all, slowly.

I also on the news today read that 150,000 idiots went out to support a thug and a racist because the UK isn't what they want it to be any more... and somehow it's all caused by people desperately fleeing halfway around the world to avoid being killed... sick.

It's true, the UK isn't the same as it was 20-30-40 years ago. I remember a different UK, though as a Scot, it wasn't quite the same UK the English will remember, but even so, yes today is different and it's not great, but it's not great for a lot of reasons, and due to a lot of actions that were taken in the past. The UK is broken... and people are justifiably angered by that... but...

It could all be fixed in a decade, or less, if we just stopped allowing big corporations to fleece people, remove jobs and destroy the way of life people grew up with. Look at any high street today - how many pound/betting shops, where's the Woolworths, the BHS, the Debenhams? Do you have a corner shop near you? Grocers? Butchers? Where are the factories making British goods you want to buy? Who is your local plumber/joiner/tiler/repair man? These trades all fell to the franchise markets. Even your evenings out - who owns your pub? Which brand of pizza will you buy or sandwich or ever reducing chicken piece?

It's not the EU or immigrants that caused this; they actually staved it off for a long time by being self-sufficient and trying to create opportunities for themselves and maintain community views. The EU was our last real stand of self-sufficiency and we rejected it. We could actively prevent migration by supporting progressive governance in countries that source these migrations, rather than making their situations worse.

In terms of business and jobs, everything has been centralised and exported, and only big corporations benefit and control the job market and every other aspect of life as they now have governments doing their bidding. We can't see that anymore, the mob just want someone to blame, and guess who's funding the finger pointers until such times at least when the rabble generates its own finger pointers. UK and US and French, Spanish and now German society is starting to fracture under the weight of this corporate influence... and honestly there's no way to stop it, because people would rather inject botox into their fat fucking lips to increase their TikTok following than actually give a shit about what their actions do to society.

We are doomed... make no mistake, this won't change no matter how many start to recognise it... 10 years of restrictions on corporate growth, limits on franchises, encouragement of business, support for underdeveloped countries, and (sensible..not Trumpian stupidity) restrictions on online-offshore shopping and the UK could be close to what it was... But it will never happen as long as we get people motivated to blame rather than resolve. And governments left and right are very happy to allow and encourage people to blame, since it lets them avoid any resolution. So we're just doomed.

Fuuck....

Ahthankyew

Last few bits

Its been a very busy and tiring last few weeks, as we get our back garden, the attic, the kitchen, the bathroom, the stairs and so on, all tidied up. Multipe tripls to the garbage tip, and dhl offices with lots of decluttering/selling/giving stuff away as we get the house in a fit condition for photo's and viewing.

The Garden does look rather nice after laying down some turf, and we planted a small fruit (pear) tree in the corner on top of Harvey's ashes. I doubt they'd dig up a fruiting tree so Im hoping he'll never be bothered... not that he'd mind. he's dead.. but.. y'now sentiment.

The amount of crap we have got rid of though, and the amount left, wow... its insane. But we have to get the house ready for inspection, and then, fingers crossed, we get a fast sale and a completion date to set the clock for our final jump.

Had to stop working on the garden, we were pressure washing the paving... massive storm, at least it will clear away the mud for us to finish up tomorrow.

Its exciting, but tiring.

Ahthankyew

Tinges of sadness

I've had a tiny little scare but nicely resolved, after finding a little lump on my gum above the area where my original cancer was. This only came to be noticed after I had a tooth, or rather a nasty old root stump from a long dead/failed crown removed when my trainee royal torturer, or as she prefers, oral hygenist, felt that the exposed root was just a playground for infections.

The removal was simple but immediatly I noticed I could get my tongue up inside the cheek now and, on the gum was a bump.... This of course could be 100% due to the extraction so we waited a few weeks for it to heal up... which it did, and the lump didn't go away.

ok, so as a cancer "survivor" (I hate that term) I am acutely aware of the importance of checking all lumps, bumps and odd shaped moles etc as soon as possible, and arranged a trip to see my old oncologist/oral surgeon, Dr Jan, to check it out.

And... its nothing... indeed some tiny bone fragment from the extraction getting lodged in the gum.. it will settle..its not a problem.

But I updated my cancer blog, as I do whenever there's any concern...and was a little sad when I remembered that it was there, mainly to keep mum informed of my health during the cancer times.. Her little messages of support and concern are still there, and took me back a bit to happier times when she was still with us.

I doubt anyone reads that blog, but whenever I have a cancer related health scare I'll post something, and spend a few minutes looking back on mums replies. I miss her.

Ahthankyew

It's oh so quiet....

I had children in the house for just over a week... Danni and the Grandkids came to stay with us, and we spent a lot of time keeping them entertained and amused.

It was fun, though Efteling almost killed me, too much standing around..

But now they've gone...the quiet is....quiet.

oh well.. back to de-cluttering. The attic is looking nice now though as I got most of the decotrating done before my grandson came to sleep there..10yo's need a bit of space :D

Ahthankyew

De-clutter continues and weight drops

With the loss of my beloved guitars, there's no need now for a big old guitar vault in the attic, so I've dismantled it over the course of a day or 2, and its all in a neat pile waiting for a collegue from work who wants to take it and reassemble it at home... that will be an interesting jigsaw puzzle :D

I'm also midway through decorating the attic, putting wallpaper up at last to cover the plasterboard walls that were installed 14/15 years ago... I know, long time but I never minded the plasterboard walls... Different if its a useful room though. 

All part of the tidy and declutter process that is happening this summer, to make the house more attractive to family buyers. Our estage agent would rather target developers/project minded couples but I also think that its wise to make sure all the minor decorating/cleaning/updating jobs that need doing get done so that  we can target small families in no rush to change the functioning if dated kitchen and bathroom we have now.

This has a bonus on the diet though, since I am very active up and down stair and steps and getting paint/wallpaper sorted, I am losing chunks of weight each day with the 800kcal or so wrap diet.

from the start of 108kg I'm down now to 101.8, touching distance of under 100 which I should hit by the end of the week.

But the attic is a key sales point of these houses, that 3rd floor bedroom/studio/store whatever, needs to wow the viewers, so the tidy up is priority, not least because we've got family coming to  visit next week and there will be at least one of the grandkids sleeping there for a week, so clean, tidy and decorated is urgent.

Next up is the back yard, the decking has to go as its long past its useful days and its now rotting and unsafe... going to rip that all up for the skip and lay down some nice simple grass with border flowers...

Appearences, valid or not.....sell houses, once the tidy up is done I'll get my estate agent to  come back for another valuation. His current one is in my mind about 25K too low, I will try to convince him 15K more is possible. Then... we put the house on the market....scary.

Ahthankyew

An Awesome start

Though its not exactly unexpected, when you go on strict intake diets, your body needs a few days to get ride of the crap you'be been eating for 6 months. But I am actually working quite hard, up and down stairs, doing a lot of moving stuff around and by default something I believe is called excercise?

But I've been dropping nearly 1kg a day for 4 or 5 days, for sure most of that is down the toilet, but some of it is indeed sweat and work.  I've gone from a rough 108kg with  clothes and a bit bunged up due to loperomide, to an encouraging 104.1kg

So nearly 4kg in 4/5 days, a good start, but it is just a cleansing period.

I'm doing the wrap diet, 1 simple taco wrap, with a protein of some kind, often fish, or 1 sausage, and lettuce/cabbage/onion/carrot/bit of sauce.  Trying to eat it as close to my 8pm deadline as I can so I don't get too hungry before bed.
Its what I did before, and lost over 18kg so I know this works, the only issue I had was the lack of focus and distraction due to hunger during the day, even though I got used it it over time it wasn't easy so this time I am adding,  a small fruit and musili breakfast to keep me going through the day... no booze.. no snacks, nothing after 8

I'll drop or at least reduce the portion of brekkie in a few weeks once I'm on the burning fat path, not the cleansing and getting used to being hungry path.

It worked last time, quite well and should work quite well this time too. 

Of course once my body has cleared itself out and it balances the intake vs the output, I don't expect such massive drops each day, but I'll be happy with 2 or 300 grams a day.

The 80 day challenge is off and running.

Ahthankyew

It just won't stay off

The weight of course, its becoming a recurring topic and probably pretty boring.. But yeah.. its back and brought some friends...

Its been a stressful few months, though not in a chasing my own tail kinda way, just lots of things to do/get done and thats resulted in lots and lots of comfort eating... not helped by my lovely wife who hates to see me hungry... its an asian thing I think.. no matter how much I tell her I need to eat less, she insists on cooking a meal for 2 just for me....

Well we retire in 153 days now, so I've given myself 153 day challenge... it won't happen, but at least if I type it here I can look back at it in 6 months and be a bit annoyed with myself.

I am 108kg... back over the 100 and then some.. I need to be 70 by the time I get there... or Im going to be suffering from chaffing in parts that shouldn't be chaffing when we get over there...hot weather and pasty fat scotsman do not mix well.

38Kg in just under 22weeks... lets see.... No fancy diets, just starvation and more movement...the wrap diet worked really well last year, so 1 wrap for a main meal and no eating after 8.... lets see how it goes..

Just need to work out how to keep Jirawan from making any more crispy pork.

Ahthankyew