Yesterday, after I'd reported my early morning total, my counter at 11am showed 2,245.
I hadn't been walking backwards. The counter had somehow pressed against something solid (I blame Hoss) and reset itself. Somewhere I lost a few hundred steps but at the end of the day, even with the reset hiccup and NOT adding in any extras as those lost ones, I'd still done 14,522 steps.
Which, for the nerdy part of my brain that wants to know, says that my apparently sedentary Friday was just about as active as my Day Off Saturday.
So if the recommended number of steps a day is this 10,000 and I'm already doing well over that, I'll need to double this figure to halve mine - if I'm ever to get into a size 10 again.
Hmmn. I'll think about it.
Saturday 30 July 2011
Nerdy Numbers
Hoss has got his way, as he so often does: I've joined the 'Go For It' challenge being run at present by the NHS in conjunction with the British Heart Foundation. I only wanted the bloomin' pedometer but my contact on the MotherShip said I had to register for the whole package, so I did.
There's a whole heap of healthy-living information, a free T shirt (will I be wearing that? No, HKC3 is now sleeping on it and if he turns round one more time, he'll wake up wearing it) and a cute little pedometer.
I clipped said pedometer onto my waistband yesterday morning at 05.53am (not that I'm obsessive or anything) and forgot about it until 07.49 when I arrived at work: 4,752 steps, and I'd driven in.
The calling system failed, so I had to walk from my office to the waiting room to collect my early patients: 50 steps each way. And that morning I saw 22 people. You can flick your own abacus.
Feet off floor at bedtime, 14,758 steps taken.
Still full of enthusiasm this morning, I reset the counter, rolled out of bed and started again. By 07.06am I'd taken 5,129 steps - Hoss is currently living just under a mile away and I mucked out his field while I was there.
He gave me one of his Looks: "What's this all about then?"
"Your fault." (step-step-side-step-bend-scoop-muck-dumpinbarrow-step-step-step)
"Have I got to wear one of those?"
"Yup. It'll be on me when we go to Saturday Club." (step-scoop-dump-step-step-sneeze-step)
"Bleshoo!" (nuzzle-nuzzle-nuzzle) "Lost any weight, then?"
"Hoss, tell me after our ride." (step-step-step etc)
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Make hay while the sun shines
Last night we got the hay in from the Little Field with a final count of 179 bales. The Big Field next door but one yielded nearly a thousand. I've told Hoss he can have breakfast in a net every day from December 1st and he gave me one of his Looks that said: "Sissy, those nets. I'll take mine on the ground, like every other self-respecting Welshman"
"If you remember, (see BlogthoughtsFromAbroad) The West Wind spread your breakfast all over the hedge last year and you had to spend half the day picking it off again."
"On the ground, please. My rump is big enough to act as a wind-shield this time."
I looked at it. He has a point there. He looked at my rump and gave me another Look. This one said: "That could act as a wind-shield, too."
And since he had a pole down in the Open Jumping last weekend and blamed it on the weight he was expected to hump over all those fences, I think he might have a point there, too.
So I'm going on a diet.
"If you remember, (see BlogthoughtsFromAbroad) The West Wind spread your breakfast all over the hedge last year and you had to spend half the day picking it off again."
"On the ground, please. My rump is big enough to act as a wind-shield this time."
I looked at it. He has a point there. He looked at my rump and gave me another Look. This one said: "That could act as a wind-shield, too."
And since he had a pole down in the Open Jumping last weekend and blamed it on the weight he was expected to hump over all those fences, I think he might have a point there, too.
So I'm going on a diet.
Sunday 24 July 2011
Annual Turnover
I've been watching one particular field above a neighbour's house very carefully since Easter. It's an old meadow attached to a single-horse family that no longer keeps one, is fairly free of thistle and buttercup, and it hasn't been grazed since last year.
Farmer Caroline has asked the owners if she can make small-bale hay from it. Every acre in the vicinity has been put to work this year to overcome the shortage suffered after last summer's low crop and Caroline has promised to set aside some some hay for Hoss as well. There are maybe 3 acres of 'my' field and we hope it will yield several hundred bales, plenty enough for her own animals and some left over for Hoss.
So 'my' field is in good heart, awaiting a spell of dry weather which has at last returned. Nick went up there and cut it and has been out twice each day with the Grass Twiddler attached to the back of his tractor. The Hay Twiddler looks a bit like a collection of several giant wire egg-whisks and is towed behind the tractor, turning the grass over and over as it goes, to make sure it dries evenly.
We're hoping the rain will stay away another couple of days so that the boys can get in there to bale up the grass and tow it all away to the barns where it will 'make' over the next few months into lovely meadow hay for Hoss and the others.
If it rains, the crop could ruin.
Please don't rain.
We all need this hay.
Farmer Caroline has asked the owners if she can make small-bale hay from it. Every acre in the vicinity has been put to work this year to overcome the shortage suffered after last summer's low crop and Caroline has promised to set aside some some hay for Hoss as well. There are maybe 3 acres of 'my' field and we hope it will yield several hundred bales, plenty enough for her own animals and some left over for Hoss.
So 'my' field is in good heart, awaiting a spell of dry weather which has at last returned. Nick went up there and cut it and has been out twice each day with the Grass Twiddler attached to the back of his tractor. The Hay Twiddler looks a bit like a collection of several giant wire egg-whisks and is towed behind the tractor, turning the grass over and over as it goes, to make sure it dries evenly.
We're hoping the rain will stay away another couple of days so that the boys can get in there to bale up the grass and tow it all away to the barns where it will 'make' over the next few months into lovely meadow hay for Hoss and the others.
If it rains, the crop could ruin.
Please don't rain.
We all need this hay.
Stripped Out
I visited Barrington Court recently, a National Trust property near Ilminster in Somerset. It is, to my mind, unique and delightful in this uniqueness: there is no furniture. The interior of the house has been stripped out and laid bare.
On a blazing hot summer's day a friend and I wandered around echoing halls of rooms where the space could really be appreciated. There was no queuing, no ropes cordoning us off from anything remotely interesting and best of all, no drawn blinds over the lead-paned and in places unevenly-glassed windows. Barrington Court was filled with sunshine from all angles and was truly being displayed in its best light.
If you want a history of the place I suggest you visit the National Trust Website because I'm not about to repeat it here. But the Trust seems undecided about what it wants to do with this, its first (and nearly its last!) gem of a purchase.
Some people, unprepared, might feel cheated at the lack of usual Trust Fare - antique or otherwise valuable furniture, glassy-eyes mounted stags' heads and Do Not Touch signs at boringly regular intervals. But for those who like a feeling of indoor space, quality wooden panelling, acres of unadorned oak floors and wonderful ceilings - particularly that in the entrance hall - this is a refreshing change from the bog-standard Trust Property.
They've got recordings in various rooms of activities that might have taken place there: a hog-roasting in the kitchen had the spit being turned by some obviously struggling lads and in the once-derelict galleries you'll hear owls calling. A cleverly-timed trigger sets a bakelite telephone ringing as one approaches. (Yes, I answered it, but there was nobody there) The idea of a sound museum is a good one but not fully explored by the Trust here as yet.
Personally I loved the whole thing and filled out my questionnaire accordingly. As to what the Trust could use Barrington Court for, if the idea of a beautiful empty shell doesn't take off, well, if you'd care to visit and offer your opinion, I think it would be welcome.
Once outside again, the grounds are classic Trust - green meadows where cows rest under oak trees - beautifully kept walled flower gardens and an extensive kitchen garden. One could see where the fresh vegetables came from for the excellent lunches they serve in what was once an old stable block.
It was a day well spent, but if you are lucky enough to visit on a wall-to-wall sunshine day, get a parking space in the overflow car park where there is a least some shade.
The image above comes to you courtesy of the camera of The Baggster, whose Blog may be found here: http://baggytales.blogspot.
Thursday 7 July 2011
A Long Lost Locker and A Last Look Round
In BlogthoughtsFromABroad I told you about the closing of the Old Luttrell Memorial hospital in February of this year. This beautiful old partially-listed building has been empty for 5 months now, boarded up and looking dead and unloved, a blot of inactivity in the centre of a small seaside town. Nobody has decided yet what is to become of it but believe me, if they don't do something positive, they'll be needing a lot of buckets come the winter: that roof leaks.
A colleague at the New Operating Theatre said: "I went to look round and all the lockers in the changing rooms were open: yours is full of junk. You ought to clear it."
"I did." (I remember Blogging about it)
"Your Changing Room Locker."
Silence. I've not used that changing room for many, many years.
"There was a key in the door."
Obviously honest folk worked at The Old Hospital - a locker open for 12 years and it hasn't been ransacked? I said as much and Jayne looked at me pityingly. "Who'd want anything that smelt like that?"
I went after work, parked in the Doctor's Bay (now just used as a Shopper Bay for anyone who can't find parking on the High Street) and rang the Casualty Bell. It didn't make a sound - actually I'm not sure it worked even when the Hospital did - and it took a lot of Heavy Rattling before the Guard heard me. He nodded at my ID and ushered me inside the dark shell.
Alone I wandered through the shadowed Out Patients and up the Old Back Stairs. Windows that never did latch rattled in the wind. My right hand automatically reached out to touch the rubbed-bare wood of the bannister's ornamental ball at the turn in the stairwell. No matter how many times that got painted, it always wore back to wood grain within a year because so many people swung round on it as they passed. I paused after two flights. Where was the bloomin' changing room? The stairs narrowed and rose again so I climbed the last and steepest flight up into The Gods, on the same level as Theatres but on the opposite side of the roof, a fire-escape away from my old workplace. I really had forgotten this part of the building existed.
The Changing Room was full of dozens and dozens of steel lockers. I went to Number 24 and turned the key. If I tell you I found SEVEN pairs of old work-shoes and THIRTY THREE pairs of tights (Eleven of them still boxed) it'll give you some idea of the odour.
I piled through the rubbish, chucking everything out. I found handwritten notes requesting me to contact Personnel, Occupational Health and the Sewing Room.
I found a draft of a poem I'd written when the TeleLink to the Mother Hospital (25 miles away) first opened. It was ditched in 1998.
There were two brand new uniforms at the bottom of the locker, still in their plastic bags, size 10, but they were TWO uniforms ago ... I've gone from navy to white since their stripey days and haven't been a size 10 since the Millenium.
I found the little gold fob watch my Westminster colleagues gave me when I left there.
I found £3.30 in change, including a 1961 florin that had been masquerading as a 10p piece until they made them so much smaller more than 10 years ago.
I found a Daily Telegraph, dated 22nd December 1992.
The hospital felt weird and hollow as I returned to Casualty to be let out and locked out again. The light was wrong, the smell was wrong, the sound - or rather the silence - was wrong.
What will become of such a rabbit warren of a place? who can do anything with it, it being partially Listed and split into such odd compartments. There was talk of it becoming a Civic Centre, an Arts centre, a concert hall even. But my fear is that in the current economic climate, it will just be left to rot because nobody has the kind of money it needs to turn it into anything serviceable again.
I think this really is 'Goodbye' now, Luttrell Memorial Hospital. Rest in Peace.
A colleague at the New Operating Theatre said: "I went to look round and all the lockers in the changing rooms were open: yours is full of junk. You ought to clear it."
"I did." (I remember Blogging about it)
"Your Changing Room Locker."
Silence. I've not used that changing room for many, many years.
"There was a key in the door."
Obviously honest folk worked at The Old Hospital - a locker open for 12 years and it hasn't been ransacked? I said as much and Jayne looked at me pityingly. "Who'd want anything that smelt like that?"
I went after work, parked in the Doctor's Bay (now just used as a Shopper Bay for anyone who can't find parking on the High Street) and rang the Casualty Bell. It didn't make a sound - actually I'm not sure it worked even when the Hospital did - and it took a lot of Heavy Rattling before the Guard heard me. He nodded at my ID and ushered me inside the dark shell.
Alone I wandered through the shadowed Out Patients and up the Old Back Stairs. Windows that never did latch rattled in the wind. My right hand automatically reached out to touch the rubbed-bare wood of the bannister's ornamental ball at the turn in the stairwell. No matter how many times that got painted, it always wore back to wood grain within a year because so many people swung round on it as they passed. I paused after two flights. Where was the bloomin' changing room? The stairs narrowed and rose again so I climbed the last and steepest flight up into The Gods, on the same level as Theatres but on the opposite side of the roof, a fire-escape away from my old workplace. I really had forgotten this part of the building existed.
The Changing Room was full of dozens and dozens of steel lockers. I went to Number 24 and turned the key. If I tell you I found SEVEN pairs of old work-shoes and THIRTY THREE pairs of tights (Eleven of them still boxed) it'll give you some idea of the odour.
I piled through the rubbish, chucking everything out. I found handwritten notes requesting me to contact Personnel, Occupational Health and the Sewing Room.
I found a draft of a poem I'd written when the TeleLink to the Mother Hospital (25 miles away) first opened. It was ditched in 1998.
There were two brand new uniforms at the bottom of the locker, still in their plastic bags, size 10, but they were TWO uniforms ago ... I've gone from navy to white since their stripey days and haven't been a size 10 since the Millenium.
I found the little gold fob watch my Westminster colleagues gave me when I left there.
I found £3.30 in change, including a 1961 florin that had been masquerading as a 10p piece until they made them so much smaller more than 10 years ago.
I found a Daily Telegraph, dated 22nd December 1992.
The hospital felt weird and hollow as I returned to Casualty to be let out and locked out again. The light was wrong, the smell was wrong, the sound - or rather the silence - was wrong.
What will become of such a rabbit warren of a place? who can do anything with it, it being partially Listed and split into such odd compartments. There was talk of it becoming a Civic Centre, an Arts centre, a concert hall even. But my fear is that in the current economic climate, it will just be left to rot because nobody has the kind of money it needs to turn it into anything serviceable again.
I think this really is 'Goodbye' now, Luttrell Memorial Hospital. Rest in Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)