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I need to find a form of exercise I can do in my sleep. Well either that or find a way for my rational side to win a wrestling match against my lazy side. Rational side says: once you get started you actually enjoy it and you feel reaaly good afterwards. Lazy side says: so, I still have to get started. Rational side says: you are a much happier person when you exercise regularly + it lifts the dark clouds that hang over your brain during dark grey winter days. Lazy side says: It's still winter, I'll start exercising again when the nice weather comes out again, it will be easier. Rational side says: your blood glucose level readings are great then and Him Indoors gets off your case even when you eat rubbish because he knows you won't be a bag of strops for it. Lazy side says: well talk to me about it again tomorrow, or maybe next week, anyway if I stop checking it won't show that it's up will it ? Oh dear the rational side has lost again. Seriously all I need is a bunch of people to do the exercise with so that I can't opt out at the last minute else I'd be letting them down. Just so I can get that tiny little push to get started every day. |
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3.3.04 00:05 |
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Getting a dog Princess Fairy Toes suggested I get a dog. Sounds like a good idea, but for once the rational and the irrational side of me both agree. It's not a good idea for me. It's not that I dislike dogs. I think they are great companions. There were dogs at home as long as I can remember. I just don't think it would be fair to have a dog only for it to be locke in all day while I am at work and not even get a proper run in the vening. We ldon't live near a vast open space and the local parks close at dusk which means before I get home from October to April. It would be a dog's life for the animal. There is also the question of who would look after it when we go away. Pet passeport may be a great improvement on quarantine but they still involve a lot of hassle. Let's face it it would not be easy to fit in a trip to the vet on a quick week-end visit to France to see my parents. And there is also the one little detail: I am scared of dogs. Not just a little scared. More like totally irrational fear (like some people are scared of spiders. Examples of irrational dog fear induced behaviour are: running accross a busy street without looking to put space between me and a dog barking from its front garden and grabbing a total stranger in a park to shelter behind his back because a dog on an extensible leash was trying to smell me. The owner thought it was funny, I didn't. And I think the stranger was having trouble deciding if I was a scared as I looked or just totaly insane (both obviously). I am normally ok with my friends' and my parents' dogs but I can't say I am ever 100% comfortable. I suppose I would be fine with my own dog. Then again, what happens the day my own dog scares me ? Do I just put it away in some rescue centre ? How fair would that be on the animal ? I was not always scared of dogs. This is how I became scared of them.
Hold on I hear you say. This is not a dog. I know it's not a dog, it's a horse and no I cannot remember it's name. When we were little, my parents took us on a horse drawn caravan holiday in the Lot department. The idea is simple. The show you how to look after the horse and handle it. Then you are handed a circuit with recommended routes (remote and quiet roads for obvious reasons), fields where you can stop and a list of farms which sell supplies and which will be happy to show the children the working of the farm and the livestock (Lot is a veal producing area). It's a lovely way to spend a holiday with children and I would like to do it with The Boy one day despite what happened. Anyway I digress. One afternoon we stopped in the designated field and made our way to the farm to get eggs and milk. My brother and I were walking ahead while my mum and sister followed. My fatrer had stayed behind to feed the horse. We soon saw a german shepherd running towards us. We did as we had been taught to do when faced with an unknown animal. We stopped and stayed still. The farmer shouted at us to not move and started running after the dog. The dog walked around us, sniffed me carefully then moved on to my brother and started growling an getting ready to pounce. He started to jump and despite the farmer grabbing its collar a few seconds after it had started to attack, it was too late. The next thing I remember is the farmer chaining the dog, my brother's face covered in blood, the farmer screaming something along the lines of "It got his eye, oh my god it got his eye", my mother handing me my little sister and asking me to take her back to the camp and tell my dad what had happened and that she and the farmer were taking my brother to the hospital. The dog had not got my brother's eye but his bottom lip had been split in two and had to be stitched back together, so had his left nostril and the lacerations on his nose. There are still scars but the surgeon did a good job so they are quite faint now. The funny thing is, my brother is NOT scared of dogs. My brother loves dogs. He also makes fun of my fears. He says there is something weird about being scared because of a trauma which happened to somebody else. He says that one bad owner shouldn't make me weiry of all dogs. Maybe he is right. Still, if you have a dog and want to introduce him/her to me, be gentle and remember that however friendly his/her jumping on me is likely to make me a teensy bit uneasy. Iam working on it. Honest. |
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5.3.04 01:02 |
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Oooops According to Him Indoors, if you are going to faint saying "I feel sick" is not a good warning and you can't expect him to guess that he has to pounce and stop you from hitting your head on the bath and narrowly missing the radiator. Don't men read minds then ? |
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6.3.04 21:26 |
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Miscellaneous thoughts Just watched a report on TV5 about the Elf affair. There was a plug for Est-ce dans ce monde-la que nous voulons vivre ? by Eva Joly. I fancy getting it however I worry that it will only serve to increase my cynical view of the world. I found the following news about the priests offering free tickets to the latest Gibson film mildly disturbing. I wonder who the priest is trying to bring into the fold of his congregation ? People who get turned on by scenes of violence and torture ? Spotted the following headline on a magazine: sex - look better in every position. Am I the only one to think that if you are worried about how you look in whatever position then maybe it's time you changed partner 'cause he obviously ain't doin' it for you innit ? Either that or you are the vainest or the most insecure person in the universe. |
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9.3.04 23:54 |
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Walking companions I have swapped the bike for feet this week now that it's daytime for a little longer. It means 30 minutes walk instead of 12 minutes cycle each way which I am hoping help in the exercise department because I get past the 20 minutes benchmark. It means I get more daylight which should improve the mood all round. I have taken out the old walkman and rumaged trough some old 80s and 90's tapes (not upgraded to portable cd player or mp3 yet) and picked more or less randomly so far. Some tapes which I thought would be great companions have turned out to be really annoying after a day at work and some which I thought would lack umph have been really quite good. So far: Happy Mondays (pills + thrills...) - bad; The La's live - good except the looking glass ; Bill Pritchard (Jolie) - quite good; House of Love (shine on) - mostly good. Random thought brought on by listening to too many old tapes: I had never noticed before how the La's version of Alright sounds so different to Cast's version. Same song, same lyrics yet they seem to take on a different meaning through interpretation. While the Cast version is definetly in the 'upbeat - I am over you' category the La's version is more a 'I still love you and I know I'll never have you back" sort of a song in a Leonard Cohen way. I prefer the Lee Marvers' interpretation. |
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10.3.04 00:07 |
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Looking for a new au-pair - take 2 The day is looming when the lovely Constance will be going back home to take her exam re-sits. She will be going home at the start of the Easter holiday and take The Boy with her on the Eurostar so he can spend the Easter break with my mum. He is very excited and planning to read the entire contents of the 'Silly Little Book of Animal Jokes' to her on the journey. She can't wait and I bet the other passengers will be thrilled... not... maybe the book will conveniently be 'forgotten'. So the update is: I did not contact the boy who looks like a serial killer. I did not call the girl whose only question was: 'how much does it pay ?'. The 'devoted christian' candidate decided to go for another family. She stopped being interested when I asked her for references and for the reason why she had decided to put her career on hold to come to the UK (as she is American it cannot be to further her English). Obviously these are the wrong questions to ask if you do not want to scare away a potential psycho. I wish the family who take her on good luck. I have sifted through countless applications from Eastern Europeans who are keen to stress their bricklaying skills. I can see how that could be handy for help with bringing our house up to scratch but I am less sure that it would help with looking after The Boy. I hope I won't jinx it but we seem to have found another potential offering who is interested and who so far has sounded both interested and not weird (gosh, it is hard to type while trying to touch as much wood as possible). The back up plan is very shaky so far so I hope this pans out. How I long for my days as a lady of leisure, and I can honestly say it's not the daytime TV I miss.
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10.3.04 23:00 |
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Motherly faux-pas No satisfied with being labelled a dizzy mum – you know, the sort who regularly forgets inset days and mufti days, that sort of thing. I have now taken my first steps to being labelled a difficult parent at The Boy’s school. ffice I nearly started on the road to being a difficult parent by adding comments to the ofsted questionnaire. Unfortunately, due to my dizzy mum status, I completely forgot which day the inspector was coming to school and by the time I found out, the meeting had been and gone. Anyway yesterday The Boy brought home his reading folder as usual. We sat down to read the book and within minutes it became clear that the book was particularly gory. It was about smugglers being hung, ambushed by excise men, shot etc. It was complete with scary illustrations and descriptions of the sea water being red with blood and other niceties. I took my mighty pen and wrote in the reading comments box that I found the book inappropriate for a six year old. The teacher might have read the comment; tonight’s book was awfully babyish. The Boy is going to hate me… |
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16.3.04 23:46 |
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