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So, let's recap.
A year ago this coming Friday, Michael smoked his last cigarette. He's not had a single one since then - the longest he's ever managed to give up, and he says he doesn't even get cravings. Then, in February, he decided that he really needed to do something about the other big risk to his health; his weight.
With trepidation, he stood on the scales and found he weighed in at almost 19st. But with portion control, cutting down on snacks, and walking the three miles each way to work and back he started making progress quite rapidly. Soon, he had lost enough weight that he felt ready to join the gym.
About this time, he decided that he really wanted to give something back to the world. We lost his mum to cancer back in 2008 and he felt he wanted to do something to kick back at that awful disease. With this in mind, he gave himself a target - a quite impressive one for someone who only a couple of months earlier would have struggled to run for the bus. He signed up to do the BUPA Great North Run (a half marathon starting in Newcastle) for Breast Cancer Care.
Well, he has trained hard, and (mostly!!) stuck to a sensible diet. At his last weigh in, on Sunday, we found he had lost over four stone since he started. He's now only a few pounds heavier than I am, and a good deal fitter. He's no longer classed as obese or even overweight, and he can run for MILES, let alone for a bus. And according to the whizzy fancy scales, his fat percentage has dropped from over 36% to 20.3%. And much to my approval, he hasn't snored in months! In short, he's a transformed man and I for one, am very proud of his determination and his acheivments so far.
His chosen charity is Breast Cancer Care, and you can find out more about them here: www.breastcancercare.org.uk/server/show/n
If you would like to sponsor him - and all donations are very much appreciated, no matter how small - there is a button at the bottom of this entry which will take you directly to his JustGiving page. The donation process is simple (you can even use paypal if I remember correctly) and has the added bonus that you can declare yourself as a UK taxpayer.. this means that the government does something funky with tax you have paid and the charity gets something like an extra 28 pence for every pound you donate - at no extra cost to yourself.
Here's the button...
Go on. Click it. If he can do all that, I'm sure you can manage a couple of pounds.. he's even going to be running in the fuschia pink vest supplied by the charity... it's worth the money just to see the photo I'll post after he finishes!!
...oh, and a very heartfelt THANKYOU from both of us to those of you who have already donated so generously.
I'll keep you updated through here and on Facebook.
EDIT: For some reason the widget doesn't seem to work properly... Therefore I have removed it, and added a badge in a sort of signature bit which I didn't know existed. The badge seems to work. You will therefore be mercilessly hounded to sponsor every time I make a post... *wicked evil grin*
Those dratted trainers with the wheels in the bottom which parents seem to delight in allowing their pre-teens to wear in the supermarket.
High-intensity headlights (which really only have a sensible application in subarctic regions and everywhere else are a damned liability)
Cellophane (Why don't we pronounce it 'CHELL-o-phane, if a Cello is a CHELL-o?)
Processed food
Nuclear fission
Perfumed washing detergent. WHY do we need perfume in it?!!!
Thanks in advance
According to the play leaders at group today, they don't normally expect a child to be able to do that until they are three!
I've known since the first time I visited that Airdrie wasn't an affluent town, but things seem to be getting worse and worse round here. Since I moved up in March 2006, we have gained more empty shop properties every month..
The once well-known (albeit small) department store lies locked and unused while the windows still forlornly boast '145 years of service'. We lost, of course, our Woolworths. The only chains left of any note are Boots, Holland and Barrett, W. H. Smith, and the inevitable Subway. I can't honestly see it being long before Holland and Barrett and W H Smith move down the road to the only marginally more lively Coatbridge.
There is a tangible air of depression and hopelessness throughout the town, reinforced by the crop of new charity shops which appeared late last year. Airdrie's only growth market, it would seem. Even Poundstretcher and the clearance branch of Ethel Austin seem to be struggling somewhat.
I went into three shops on Wednesday. In every single one of them, a slightly desperate looking assistant asked, at the checkout, whether they could interest me in anything else. In every single one of them, the number of customers was... well, if not 'nil', certainly negligable. The same seems to be true of all the shops in town.
Things don't look good for Airdrie.
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In other news - my flatscreen monitor has expired. It's been on its way out for days, with the power light just flashing for ages when it's turned on but this morning, having intentionally not switched it off last night, it was doing the same and just didn't rectify itself. Fortunately as we'd had warning, a friend of ours gave us an old CRT monitor as backup. I am now using this but after only a few minutes I am ALREADY suffering from screen-too-close-and-flickery-headache syndrome.
A daughter was very particular
About sharing the bed perpendicular
She always would keep
On our faces, her feet
Causing us to shout in the vernacular!
