The Sixty-Nine Steps

It's been ages since I spoke to you. No point apologising, because it's going to happen again.

Those with long memories and even longer patiences might remember I lost 18lbs a couple of years ago, in 3 months and by walking a million steps at the rate of about 10,000 a day.  Here's the proof, bar three steps, that I did it:

I really did take the extra three at the end, but if the blessed thing goes over its million, it has the audacity to return to zero and I just couldn't face another million.

And therein lay my problem.  I went down to MMJ (My Mate John) for Christmas that year (2011, the photo was sometime around November) and it's all his fault that the weight started creeping back on.  By November 2012 all my clothes had shrunk again, buttons were screaming at me to release them, zips were sliding down to the bottom (well, another part of the anatomy anyway) and elastic pulled so tightly round my waist that I got indigestion on long car journeys (see March 2012)

Worse, I went to MMJ for Christmas again. He's a seriously good cook and even makes his own ice cream and ... no, don't even think about it.  I hit 62kg again.  Dis-bloody-GUSting.
New Year's Resolution: Dump the flump
But I'm 2 years older now and the Lump doesn't wish to leave me this time.  I've been walking my 10,000 steps a day for 3 weeks and only lost 800g.
'Can I really be a*sed to do this?' I e-mailed to MMB (My Mate Baggy) she of the Dorset Diddlers fame (http://thedorsetdiddlers.blogspot.co.uk/) at ten to eight this evening.

At ten to nine the answer was in her mailbox.

Treat yourself: when the night is cloudless and the moon high, get out into the country and just ... be.

My front door (circa 1670) faces south and all I had to do was step out of it ... and keep stepping.  According to my nerdometer I was 4005 steps short of the requisite 10,000 so, dressed for the night - no, not for the knight - I set off on my apparently useless quest.

Oh, what a night.  The air was lung-achingly cold, crystal clear and smelt of freezing snow. The moon, waxing, was just over half-full and Orion was climbing up into the southern skies.
The snow reflected the bright moonlight and fabulous shadows fell across the lanes and fields.  Every hedge had a different shadow-story silhouetting along its length, like a living monochrome Bayeux tapestry.

There is something magical about a deep country night in winter.  I love the peace and the silence.  In the hour I was out, not one owl called, not a fox called to its mate, not a sheep to its flock.  The only sounds seemed to be my boot steps on the frost-damaged lane and the rustlings of my clothing. The only light was God's designer-shine and its reflections on the whiteness of snow.

All's right with the world.

Oh yes, and I did 4069 steps back to my door, so tomorrow owes me some ...