Thankfully, soon the memory of the Royal Wedding will fade from the nation's consciousness and we can get back to some semblance of normality.
Thankfully, I have to say, I managed to avoid the whole damn thing. To date, I have seen approximately 2 seconds of it and one photoshopped picture of the couple on the balcony in a certain sexual act.
Avoiding it was helped by a visit to Trent Bridge and an enthralling game of cricket which ebbed and flowed for days with both sides looking certain winners at various times.
Yesterday was then spent with my friend's daughter which is great fun but also reminds me of my own age .. especially the day after ... full of aching limbs today I'm afraid. Not that they will be tested too severely today I suspect.
As the alarm went off at 5.30am and I opened to the curtains to a potentially glorious day, I reminded myself that I will be stuck in a car for approximately 5 hours of the day and in meeting rooms for about 2 hours !! That said, it will all be good for my karma no doubt as the trip involves a visit to Taplow court, home of my Buddhist organisation SGI-UK.
Another benefit of today is that all being well, I'll be home in time to watch West Ham, hopefully start to pull themselves out of the relegation zone .. Now .. that's something to chant about!
Saturday 30 April 2011
Monday 25 April 2011
Dreading the Wedding (The Royal Wedding that is).
As today is the last day of the Bank Holiday weekend, sights are already set on next Friday, the Royal Wedding. Well, some people's sights are set on the Royal wedding, but I suspect I'm not the only one whose sights are more set on the day off (and I probably won't be switching on the TV for the Royal wedding!).
Hopefully, Friday's day off will be a little more constructive than the bank holiday just gone. It's been a bit quiet but maybe that isn't a bad thing .. time to relax and sit in the sunshine .. shouldn't complain really should I !!
But next Friday will be day 4 of a county cricket game, so I suspect that is what I will be doing, though the game could well be over by then.
It will be interesting though to see if there really are street parties and celebrations for the Royal Wedding. The recent St George's day in Nottingham, seemed to really bring out only the fringes of British society .. those who refuse to believe that we aren't an empire any more and still rule the world. To be honest, it was a bit of a sorry sight and pales into insignificance some of the more colourful cultures celebrations ... If you had to sum up the St Georges day celebrations in a photograph, it would probably be of an overweight man sitting outside a pub drinking lager with a union jack tee shirt on with his drunken 'mrs' ... Good old England eh!!
Anyway .. I susppose I should really make the best of this last day off before the Royal Weddinmg and stop writing this and do something constructive.
Hopefully, Friday's day off will be a little more constructive than the bank holiday just gone. It's been a bit quiet but maybe that isn't a bad thing .. time to relax and sit in the sunshine .. shouldn't complain really should I !!
But next Friday will be day 4 of a county cricket game, so I suspect that is what I will be doing, though the game could well be over by then.
It will be interesting though to see if there really are street parties and celebrations for the Royal Wedding. The recent St George's day in Nottingham, seemed to really bring out only the fringes of British society .. those who refuse to believe that we aren't an empire any more and still rule the world. To be honest, it was a bit of a sorry sight and pales into insignificance some of the more colourful cultures celebrations ... If you had to sum up the St Georges day celebrations in a photograph, it would probably be of an overweight man sitting outside a pub drinking lager with a union jack tee shirt on with his drunken 'mrs' ... Good old England eh!!
Anyway .. I susppose I should really make the best of this last day off before the Royal Weddinmg and stop writing this and do something constructive.
Saturday 23 April 2011
A Middle Aged Saturday Night
Long gone seem to be the days when I'd get ready and head into town for a night out. It's not that I don't do that anymore - it's just that I tend to do it on weekdays when town is less full of vomiting youngsters.
To be fair, I don't feel unsafe or anything in Nottingham. Yes, it can be a little loud and macho but on the whole, and if you use half of your brain, it's easy to avoid any trouble.
So Saturday night is a staying in night now but that's fine ... It's been improved by the recent foreign import detective programmes on BBC4 I have to say. I'm now fully addicted to Wallender, the Killing and to a lesser degree, though still pretty good, Spiral.
So, time to take a soak in the bath, get some food on and chill out in frongt of BBC4 .. ah bliss
To be fair, I don't feel unsafe or anything in Nottingham. Yes, it can be a little loud and macho but on the whole, and if you use half of your brain, it's easy to avoid any trouble.
So Saturday night is a staying in night now but that's fine ... It's been improved by the recent foreign import detective programmes on BBC4 I have to say. I'm now fully addicted to Wallender, the Killing and to a lesser degree, though still pretty good, Spiral.
So, time to take a soak in the bath, get some food on and chill out in frongt of BBC4 .. ah bliss
Every New Day
We all have our morning rituals and routines.
There was a time when mine revolved around jumping out of bed and eating breakfast before jumping on my bike and going on a training ride for 30 miles or so.
These days though, things are different; maybe partially because I stopped doing the above many years ago. Now, I start my day with a sip of water to wash down my blood pressure medication.
How did that happen to me? How did I end up with high blood pressure ... after all, I'm definitely not overweight .. in fact I'm only a wafer away from being underweight!
I had had a well man check up several years previous and was found to be all ok but the other year during a rain break at the cricket, I had one of those free blood pressure tests at a clinic situated at the ground. She found my blood pressure to be a little high but said there was no need to see a doctor for it .. but to mention it next time I went.
This turned out to be a couple of years later and I happened to mention what she had said so they decided to take my blood pressure and it was sky high ... 200/120 .. getting close to dangerous.
After a couple of weeks of getting more exercise and cutting out the crap in my diet, it had settled to somewhere around 160/100 which was better but not great.
It took several months of effort, healthy food etc for me to finally accept that I simply had high blood pressure and I was going to be on tablets for the rest of my life. Initially I was put on 2mg perindopril which had a small effect but after the dose was doubled to 4mg of perindopril, it finally started to come down and now averages around 120/75 which is good .... I must admit, I fought the idea of tablets, having always been healthy but I'm pleased I did now .. It's great not to worry that your blood vessels could blow any moment and it's not such a hardship having to swallow one tablet every morning really.
Thankfully, I didn't get the side effects some do apart from waking early which is annoying, though my circumstances have changed which make that not such a bad thing, but more about that another time.
My next battle is cholesterol .. apparently that is a little high .... so that's a work in progress .. I'll keep you posted.
There was a time when mine revolved around jumping out of bed and eating breakfast before jumping on my bike and going on a training ride for 30 miles or so.
These days though, things are different; maybe partially because I stopped doing the above many years ago. Now, I start my day with a sip of water to wash down my blood pressure medication.
How did that happen to me? How did I end up with high blood pressure ... after all, I'm definitely not overweight .. in fact I'm only a wafer away from being underweight!
I had had a well man check up several years previous and was found to be all ok but the other year during a rain break at the cricket, I had one of those free blood pressure tests at a clinic situated at the ground. She found my blood pressure to be a little high but said there was no need to see a doctor for it .. but to mention it next time I went.
This turned out to be a couple of years later and I happened to mention what she had said so they decided to take my blood pressure and it was sky high ... 200/120 .. getting close to dangerous.
After a couple of weeks of getting more exercise and cutting out the crap in my diet, it had settled to somewhere around 160/100 which was better but not great.
It took several months of effort, healthy food etc for me to finally accept that I simply had high blood pressure and I was going to be on tablets for the rest of my life. Initially I was put on 2mg perindopril which had a small effect but after the dose was doubled to 4mg of perindopril, it finally started to come down and now averages around 120/75 which is good .... I must admit, I fought the idea of tablets, having always been healthy but I'm pleased I did now .. It's great not to worry that your blood vessels could blow any moment and it's not such a hardship having to swallow one tablet every morning really.
Thankfully, I didn't get the side effects some do apart from waking early which is annoying, though my circumstances have changed which make that not such a bad thing, but more about that another time.
My next battle is cholesterol .. apparently that is a little high .... so that's a work in progress .. I'll keep you posted.
Welcome to the blog
Welcome to my new blog where I will be discussing many things related to being middle aged.
No longer does this mean caravan holidays and cardigans as it seems to have done when my father was 'middle aged' . Middle aged now seems to start much later in life,probably somewhere around 50 although I know of many middle aged people who have significantly more energy than many a teenager!
So do I really welcome being middle aged? Well, yes and no .. Obviously, the older we get, the nearer to the big wind down and also things do start to ache a little more but on the plus side, all that teenage angst and worry? No thanks ....!!!
I sometimes think it would be nice to have the desire and energy to hurl myself into the middle of a mosh pit, but then I remember how enjoyable it is too, just to sit at a county cricket game, taking in the relaxing atmosphere or to listen to some jazz, without wondering if it's a cool thing to do or not.
On a Victor Meldrew note, it's also good to have reached that age when it's ok to moan about youngsters ... Only kidding .... maybe ;-)
So, here is my welcome ... I hope to post many articles here over the years.
Enjoy.
No longer does this mean caravan holidays and cardigans as it seems to have done when my father was 'middle aged' . Middle aged now seems to start much later in life,probably somewhere around 50 although I know of many middle aged people who have significantly more energy than many a teenager!
So do I really welcome being middle aged? Well, yes and no .. Obviously, the older we get, the nearer to the big wind down and also things do start to ache a little more but on the plus side, all that teenage angst and worry? No thanks ....!!!
I sometimes think it would be nice to have the desire and energy to hurl myself into the middle of a mosh pit, but then I remember how enjoyable it is too, just to sit at a county cricket game, taking in the relaxing atmosphere or to listen to some jazz, without wondering if it's a cool thing to do or not.
On a Victor Meldrew note, it's also good to have reached that age when it's ok to moan about youngsters ... Only kidding .... maybe ;-)
So, here is my welcome ... I hope to post many articles here over the years.
Enjoy.
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