I hope you’ve had a great summer. September is a lovely month here in the country. The days are still long enough to enjoy any good weather. The nesting season is over, so the garden and wood is full of youngsters finding their way about. Some of them are still at the fluff-ball stage. It’s cute to watch the new generation of blue tits and long tailed tits discovering how to use the bird-feeders.
Every year there’s one big baby who refuses to grow up. Buzzards nest in our wood, and from August onwards their latest brood are turfed out to make their own way in the world. There’s always one who hangs around its parents’ territory. It shrieks to be fed from first light until dusk. The cries ease off once it has learned to find food for itself. Some of them aren’t too quick on the uptake, so the racket can persist for weeks.
Getting down to work again…
It’ll be back to university for me soon. I’ve got two induction sessions next week. After that, I’ll be doing two modules before Christmas, my final two after Christmas and rounding off the 2019/2020 academic year by submitting my dissertation.
I can’t wait to get started. I’ve already bought a season ticket for the Dean Heritage Centre. It’s packed with artefacts and records that can help me in my work on the way small advances in technology had huge effects on the lives of ordinary people during the twentieth century.
One of the treats in store!
There’s one last holiday treat before I start running round the education track between lectures, workshops, archive and library. The York Chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association are holding their annual afternoon tea this Saturday. This started as a local event but they now kindly extend invitations to lovers of York. This year I’m taking my husband Martyn as my guest, to show him the city. Fingers crossed for good weather—it bucketed down with rain last time I went!
I’ve written before about trying out Paul McKenna’s I Can Make You Thin. I’ve been listening to its self-hypnosis CD to help me lose weight. It has been working almost too well. The CD runs for about half an hour, and is so relaxing I usually drop off to sleep.
The subliminal message must be sinking in, as I feel more positive about reaching my goal. I want to weigh 9 stone 12lb (that’s 138lb, or around 63kg) by the time the new university term begins. That’s on 23rd September—only six weeks from now!
I’ve lost six pounds already, but I still have nearly twelve pounds to go. Losing 2lb per week will be tough. I love my food. If I can stick to eating smaller portions than usual that will be fine. I’m working on the basis that there’s no such thing as a forbidden food, only forbidden amounts. Doing plenty of exercise to make sure I expend more calories than I take on board should help shift the extra weight.
The problem with that is I already spend a couple of hours each day walking Alex. Add on the forty minutes of running I do on the treadmill every other day, and that’s quite a chunk of my working week accounted for already. I still have to fit in doing the washing, cooking—not to mention eating and sleeping—as well as earning my living.
Good food is one of my hobbies. Writing is supposed to be my job, although as I scribble in my spare time, it’s a hobby too. Writing as a career has one big downside— I’m constantly searching for opportunities. Research and promotion take big bites out of my working time, too.
I’m already racking up between 12,000 and 17,000 steps each day on my pedometer. Much more legwork, and I’ll have to be resoled (I already have a spare tyre, thanks!). I decided to use a combination of the CD and the mindfulness and meditation app Headspace to double my chances of achieving my weight-loss goal.
After trying it out for a while (you can read about that here) I took the plunge and subscribed. That costs around £72 per year. It is a lot of money, but that fact acted on me as an incentive. I want to lose pounds in weight, not waste pounds in money! I’ve meditated with Headspace at least once a day for several weeks. It’s helpful that the app has varying lengths of meditation. If I can’t manage a twenty-minute session, I can squeeze in five-or-ten minutes, instead. There are also short animations and films, which are fun to watch as well as informative.
York RNA Tea, here I come…
When I’m trying to plan projects for my next year at university it’s tempting to spend hours each day sitting in front of my computer. That will lead to me putting on more weight, rather than taking it off.
To give myself an added incentive. I’ve booked my hotel and train tickets ready for the York chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s afternoon tea in September. I’ll need to have reached my target weight before sitting down to a wonderful spread like the one we had last year (the picture shows only one of several cake-stands delivered to our table!).
The McKenna CD at night gives me a good night’s sleep. Headspace’s Mindful Eating sessions in the morning is a lovely way to ease myself into each day. You’re talked through a ten-to twenty-minute session (you choose the length) of relaxation. It has encouraged me to think about my relationship with food. That may sound snowflakey, but as it seems to be working I’m not too bothered about that.
Any spare time I have now involves either losing myself in a fantasy inspired by Paul McKenna’s improving talks where losing my excess weight sees me beat my personal best time for running a mile. If I’m not doing that, I’m planning meals so I never become desperate enough to snack on something sugary.
It’s made me think hard about whether I actually want to eat something, or whether I’m simply bored (answer: get working instead!), feel in need of a treat (get out into the garden, away from the cake tins!) or thirsty. That last reason, suggested by Headspace, surprised me. To test it, the next time I had the urge to eat I drank a cup of tea instead. It worked. From now on, there’ll be more tea, and less food. More tea can also mean more exercise. While the kettle boils, I’ve got time to fit in a few lunges and squats!
Blackberries—perfect for summer puddings.
Looking back on my long and loving relationship with food reminded me of those endless, school holidays in summer. When it was too hot to work in the garden I’d take a book and hide in the shade of our big old Bramley apple tree. Its branches swung so close to the ground I could climb out of sight without much effort. I would lose myself in something like The Once and Future King or The Goshawk (both by T.H.White). Mealtimes were feasts of home-grown new potatoes, carrots, peas, beans or cabbage, with lamb chops, sausages, or bacon and egg on top. At this time of year, there were big bowls of stewed blackberry and apple with custard for pudding. It was all delicious, and we had to sit to the table until it was all finished. That was never a problem for me—but in those days I was still growing upwards, rather than outwards!
What’s your best memory of those long summer holidays?
At the beginning of this year, England was given dire warnings of drought after a year or so of below average rainfall. This had the predictable effect of covering us with clouds of unremitting gloom for weeks on end! If you saw the pictures of Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee, you’ll know that London has been suffering from some horrible weather. Here in Gloucestershire, the parties went on under cover, but my poor bees weren’t so lucky. The weather was so miserable, I had to give them several doses of sugar syrup to keep them going. I keep bees for the pleasure of watching them work and for their pollination services so honey is a bonus. That’s just as well – at this rate there won’t be much surplus to take from the hives. I’ll be leaving it all on for them to support the colonies.
This has been a difficult year so far for me. Losing my father was hard, and there’s been so much involved in winding up his estate, social networking has had to take a back seat. Tweeting, Skype and going on Facebook was such a part of my life for a while, it came as quite a shock to discover how much time it had been absorbing! It’s a real tension reliever to chat but having got out of the habit over the past few months, I’m hoping to get back into the old routine and catch up with all the news. What have you been up to while I’ve been away from the keyboard? Did you see the Jubilee celebrations?
