Well there's some kind of wall

Still cant get below 100kg, despite fasts and careful eating, though I have had 2 notable slips when I made dinner for friends and succumbed to some late night crispy pork from Jirawan(it was good)

But even so, the 1000 cal or less a day diet is being maintained and the fat is hanging in there between 100.3 and 101.2 .... grrr

Gotta move about a but more I suppose

Ahthankyew

New Challenge

Right, something new to push myself, I've failed miserably at learning Dutch over 16 years, though I can understand some, I fail to speak or write it.. I could get better but long term there's no real advantage. A few years from now I'll be in Thailand... So..

Going to learn an even harder langage than Dutch :D

Thai... I plan to sign up to a course that is apparently very good, and yes it costs but that will just drive me on.. I am going to keep it secret from Jirwan (she never reads these posts) but if I manage it, when we get to Thailand for our October break, I hope to be able to speak to her family and friends in at least some Basic Thai which will be a nice suprise for her.

This one will be hard  :D lets see if I am still capable of learning anything

Ahthankyew

100.7 :) push push

Fast days still producing results, that and a long walk last night, finally broke past 101... Sunday is also a fast day but I treat myself tonight to a steak wrap, but we will certainly break the 100 in the next day or 2.

On the flip side I've got a terrible rash from something, really driving me crazy, arms and legs including my butt are itchy and spotty and no idea why. Antihistimenes take the edge off it but not for long.. Totally horribe.

Not heard of any restrictive diets causing allergic reactions, but something has decided it hates my body and my body's taken offence... grrr.

Ahthankyew

My own fat is nourishing me,

As I kinda expected, my rapid weightloss stablised and now the loss is much slower,  from 600-700g a day its now more like 50g a day. But its still dropping, I can't quite get below the 101kg yet andI really hoped to get there this weekend, but no matter. The weekend is the main fast peoriod, so on Monday we might or might not see a decline.

Just got to avoid boozing, cos that reduces my resolve to not eat... But booze is easy to avoid... :D

What is apparent, even now is the reduction in the beer belly, and less flab around my face.. small visible changes are good to see.

Just gotta keep going, make mum happy.

Ahthankyew

Keep it going.

Midway through a 2nd weekend of near starvation fasting, but gotta say it's working well. This morning I was 101.8kg .. I can see me breaking 100 by the end of the week as long as I stay away from booze, and delicious tasty Thai pork dishes that keep getting wafted under my nose at 11pm.

Only succumbed once and starved myself the next day...Yes I know starving is a bit extreme, but honestly its all relative, I'm cutting myself back to ~1000 Kcal a day and ~500 at weekends, which is more than enough to live on, just my body is upset at the lack of 3000Kcal with occasional booze that its been storing away for years in fat. Essentially 2 small meals on weekdays, 1 small meal at weekend.. no snacks, no food after 8pm. I won't fade away. My body will stop complaining in a week or 2.

Realistically if I want to hit a target of <80kg in under a year, this is how to do it, the current fast drop will level out as my body gets used to the reduction in calories so I can see me losing 10kg pretty quick, but that extra 10kg will need a bit more effort.... time to get the bicycle out again..

Ahthankyew

Taking a moment or 2

So yesterday, was mums cremation.. Colin and I agreed it wasn't really needed for me to go there for what was a very simple understated and brief event, so I stayed in NL and went to work as normal, but I took a few moments at work to sit in the sun and remember some times from childhood and adulthood with mum. there were a lot of times where she made me laugh, cry, feel shame, pride and comfort in her advice as well as the odd points of conflict and annoyance. Mum's do that... they get to bring you down and they get to raise you up.. how you go through life then is up to you.

One of my friends at work saw me and took this pic... he made a bit of a joke about it when he sent it, but even so...I thought it hit a nail on the head. Being alone for a little while with my thoughts as mums last journey was taking place allowed a bit of closure... only a bit, it will take a long long time to come to terms with not being able to call on her no nonsense advice and sometimes absurd complaints on the irritations of life. :D

Time to sort out the bad shit in life and focus on the good.. 

Ahthankyew

A good start

After a 1st weekend of restrictive fasting and a few more days of low cal, I'm down to 102.6.

I suspect the 108 was more due to being a bit bloated from travel and the effect of pork pies, etc... but its encouraging all the same to see the numbers drop.. Hoping to see under 100 in a week or 2. That will be a big incentive.

Ahthankyew

Lets try this again...

One thing my mum did talk about at length when she was pretty lucid, was the size of my belly.... gotta be honest I didn't like it, that wasn't the last conversation I wanted to have with her, and it wasn't, but it stuck in my head.

Sadly I can't disgree with her, there's no doubt my many attempts at diets have failed miserably. And when I finally got home, I checked, 108kg.....wtf 

Thats just silly... so... ok, once again I will make an attempt to get the weight off,  if for no other reason to wipe that comment from mum from my brain.

The sad death of Dr Micheal Mosley in Greece also made me remember the intermittent fasting regime he championed, so ..thats the way I will work. Low carb, low cals, more excercise and very restricted calories at the weekend (except when cooking dinner for guests)

Lets see if mums on my shoulder commenting on my belly as I go through this.

Ahthankyew

Sheila Guild 21.5.41 - 9.6.24

Mum put up quite a fight, I'm sure I saw her fade out and then force herself back more than a few times, Death asked for a kiss and she said bugger off..

But in the end it was a battle she was never going to win and despite my Brother and I sitting vigil for over a month, she decided to go while I popped out of the room for 2 mins to get a coffee... I am sure she did that to just be contrary.

She had a long life, it wasn't always good, lots of strife and no small amount of abuse and betrayal from the men in her life but in her old age she grew into the paramount grumpy old woman, taking no shit from anyone...even if it wasn't always needed to put up a fight.

She was always there for me, always willing to give her honest and often critical opinion on things I had trouble coping with. I didn't always listen, but her advice was always there as was her love.

I am going to miss her so much.

Ahthankyew

When is the right time to go?

Still with mum, she's so strong, but every day is a rollercoaster with massive dips and small climbs.. Mum hangs on, seemingly only to complain about the quality of Coronation St and Emmerdale, story lines.

She has moments of lucidity but not much ability to communicate, but she'll find something to be grumpy about and bump the adrenalin up a bit to keep going.

Bad humour aside, she's slipping away a little more each day and as I sit here beside her I see some astonishing reality of life more clearly than ever before... it ends. Yeah it's obvious when you see it isn't it? But only now at 60 and in the close proximity of mums end does it become painfully and blindingly clear.

Mum was nearly 23 when she had me, so if go, or decline at the same rate as her, which is what genetics tells us might happen, I may have 16ish good years of retirement to look forward to if I wait till I'm 67.  Its easy to say I'm fitter, stronger, healthier etc...but that's just wishful thinking... I'm 60... its downhill from here,  I already am collecting a nice portfolio of known conditions to scare insurance companies away. 

No, as I watch her battle for every breath with an inevitable outcome, I realise all I am doing is battling every month for another pay cheque.... its not worth it..  No more battles, no more arguments over salary, from this point on, its time to make preparations for retirement, clear the decks, make arrangements and go.. I'll still write games, that's my hobby, but the sooner 9-5 ends the sooner I can work when I want, not when I have to.

Not sure exactly when, the longer I stay in NL the better the retirement, but I also think that there's a cut off point where the extra time here isn't worth losing the time I can share with Jirawan in Thailand... 

For now though, I'm sitting with mum, filled with memories, triggered in part by going through rucksacks of old photos in her flat,  and sad to see this great lady near her end.  I'll cry buckets shortly... then we face the future. it needs to be a future filled the joy, or whats the point?

Ahthankyew

With mum

Currently in the UK for the last week or so to spend time with my mum, who is in Hospice care.

The next few days will be hard, but I am pleased to be here and hope we can do something to keep her spirits up......yeah no, mum's going to go down grumpy and angry and quite right too. She earned her grump stripes and she has every right to be mad as hell.

Ahthankyew

New book is a go...

I say new, but really its a 2nd edition updated... but even so its a nice thing, a chance to fix some of the errors of the 1st, and make it a slightly broader appeal for new coders.

I'm quite excited about this.. I will try to not spend too much time on it though since I only need to revise content, not write new content, I still want my Empirs project to get finished this year.

I'll hopefully manage to get the main content done quite quickly but updating the code for Raspberry and PC builds will be the main time killer. If I can nail the core Empires content by Summer as I hope, I will be able to then focus on doing some nice simple Pi4 versions of the Pi3 content I did before.

Fun..

Ahthankyew

t'is the season to be ill

arrhhh

Another monumental cold...and its wonderfull accompanying cough

I really need to get out of this cold wet climate... as I get older I get more and more caught into this cycle of colds and flus, with only brief summers of release.. I am tired of it.. I really want to make that move to Thailand, but can't live for 7 years on savings/house residuals....have to wait.

2530somthing days to retirement..........unless someone wants to donate 100K into my pension pot?

Ahthankyew

It came back, then went away then switched ears

yeah its a bit of a nasty one this, it came back, the earache, though not as bad, but enough to pop a paracetamol before bed.

Then of couse as I was about to make a call to the docs, it went away, then came back in the other ear... just before easter.. so no point in making a call..

now its gone.

so....... what... do I call the doc, or wait till it hurts again.

Getting old sucks

Ahthankyew

Swallowing again and good news.

I've had a horrible ear/throat infection for the last week/10 days, its been nasty, tied in with a horror of a cold that depleted my entire stock of lemsips. I still have the cough and a bit wheezy.

But the worst part was the ear/throat thing, making swallowing painful and chewing a bit of a challenge...This morning though I woke up able to swallow pain free.. so no need to dose myself with any more paracetamol...my liver will be thankful.

Its still a bit tender when I chew, so its not totally gone but it seems that I had some kind of inner ear infection thats now run its course... Just as I was about to call the doc and get checked out.

If it comes back I will call though, I just know that I had to wait that week or so, since doctors here wont' prescribe AB's unless you are really near deaths door or have given the infection time to run its course.

kinda a dumb rule I feel but thats just how it is here.

In other news, my book, which I had basically forgotton about, has been trending a bit after it was offered on a discount charity website HumbleBundle.com   Kinda a surprise, since the thing is vastly overpriced at the moment and can't be selling well, but you can pick it up for 1euro if you are so inclined in a PDF.

I think this is what also prompted my publisher to get hold of me via Linkedin, to ask if I'd be interested in an update.. They'd tried to contact me before but it seems they had a very old defunct email address for me. Even though I am sure I updated everyone when that address died.

The good news is... they have some royalties waiting for me... not enough to retire on, or go fulltime authoring of geeky text books, but a nice little holiday spending pot for later in the year.

I'll send in the forms to see if they agree to an update and maybe we'll see a 2nd Edition doing a bit better so that I can indeed retire and do autheoring of geeky text books... (I won't hold my breath though)

Ahthankyew

Ferrys are cool

We took another trip to the UK, but this time we tried the Ferry... and it was lovely.. yes a bit slow but so much less stresss and no standing in queues for hours to take your handbag and a biscuit on board.  Also the lack of  car hire, makes it about the same price generally as travelling up to Schipol, flight, car hire.

We did notice that some of the cost of the goods on the ferry caused us to spend a bit more than we want, but overall we enjoyed the experience and will do that again, certainly when going to London, but also the drive to Cheshire to see mum was not horrible, though we did stay overnight in Ipswich when we arrived.

Mum was very happy to see us, as well as getting a surprise visit from her 2 Scottish granddaughters.. It was good to see her happy.

There will be a few more trips booked in advance to save costs, Ferry is the way.. Plane only for urgency.

Ahthankyew

quick visit to hell, I mean uk

Popped over for the weekend to go check in on mum.. Super grumpy, but with good reason, so it was nice to see her.

The UK though....jeeze its getting worse, dirty broken and very congested roads, empty shops in high streeets, and a horribe sense of doom.

During a meal with Jirawan at a Manchester  Nando's I even had a bunch of 12-14yo's theatening me, when one of them backed into me as I went for a drink refill, and on telling him to "calm down son" as I put my hand out to stop him bumping me, his response of "fuck off" and going into threat mode with his mates was very unpleasent..  absolutely insane to have children feeling its ok to behave like that..

I honestly don't like going back to the UK, though a few more trips to see mum are on the cards. We'll give Manchester a miss. Warrington seemed a much nicer place... but still.. compared to NL.. there's really no comparision.

Ahthankyew

Back to work

sigh....

I have had a lovely break, lots of lazy days and lots of coding. One or 2 of the huge list of houshold tasks done (I put lights...2, in the cooker hood).. But today its over back to work

On the good side we got our 2 year visa to let us visit the UK, which we'll be doing a little more often as mum's health isn't great. And our saving plan, tough though it is, is starting to show some benefits.. Pension is up, mortgage is down (20c a month woowww) and bank saving are increasing.. Our goal is to be well prepared for retirement.. in 7 years,.

7 years.... still a long time, its not of course but I wish it was this year. I find myself less and less willing to keep going here.. my own health isn't great, though self inflicted, food and booze and winter is starting to grip, making me feel less intereested.

But these long holidays always have me thinking ahead for the  new home in Thailand we are hoping for... But while the pension isn't there yet... in about 2 years we could jump, live off savings for 5 years and then get a smaller pension. But... we need to push for as long as we can, every year is a boost to the pension....gotta get to the end.

7 years... maybe 5 if we make some serious dosh, but still...back to work, no more dreaming..

sigh

Ahthankyew

Reposted from Facebook

Ok so 60

I’m not ok with this, it’s too big a number. It’s made me ponder .

I’ve been looking back on all those years. So many of which are still printed on my memory. The events, the people, the loves I lost, the joys, the heartbreaks, the frustrations, the successes and the failures. The small moments of calm, the absolute points of dispair and resignation, great memories and nightmares that haunt me still

Life is all about the good and bad things I’ve done and had done and it’s just so overwhelming that there are too many to tally.

Now there’s the realization that whatever time I have left is shorter than what’s passed. It took a long time to find a partner I could truly call a soul mate and my greatest joy is knowing my daughter grew into a happy contented mother.

Overall I did ok. The balance sheet is largely in the positive, I owe apologies to some who may never hear it, and continued disdain to some who deserve it, but also thanks to many who made things possible by their simple acts of support and belief in me.

My friends are truly my friends and I love having you in my life. But I won’t choose any favorites, you know I love you and am here when you need a hug or a bit of sage but probably bad advice.

I’m going to make sure I spend these last years as badly and recklessly as I have the previous 60. But try to do less of the losing, Cos that’s what living is about,

There are 3 women at the centre of my life: My mum whose unyielding love is matched only by her grumpiness. My daughter Danni, who isn’t on social media and demonstrates her wisdom in that.

And of course my darling wife Jirawan who makes all things better with a smile….and too much food. With her, the future isn’t something to be feared or endured, it’s an adventure to enjoy.

Love you all.

Now fuck off

nope, I don't know why its pasted in inverted colours... I should add many confusions to this little thought stream.
added the pic, with the nice shirt from my bandmates

Ahthankyew

Cold season

Started a bit late this year, I usually get the sniffles and coughs just after summer when the new students come in to spread their germs and everyone has to pick up immunity by having it.

But this year, hasn't been too bad until this week, started to feel a bit rough on Wed, got the full snotty sneezy, wheezy bits on thursday and now I'm a walking dead.

Man flu, kills 9/8 men daily. There is no cure... help

Ahthankyew