One door closes, hoping the next door opens soon!

Hey all, thought I’d do a quick check in, let you know my state of play.

First off, three years ago, my wonderful daughter and I braved the shave! We raised a FABULOUS £790 for MacMillan. Here’s a pic

Amy keeps her hair short, not this short but short. It suits her 🙂 as for me, I’m glad we did it, and I might even do it again in the future, but I had a ridiculous fear that my hair wouldn’t grow back! It did, I’m pleased. For me, my hair is part of my feeling feminine.

OK, now with the shitty news.

I am currently jobless. As per the terms of my settlement I’m not allowed to talk about it, so I can’t share any more than that with you.

This was and is a shock, and at nearly 46 years old, feel too old to be in the job market again!

Ah well… and the wheels keep on turning.

Last week was a true fight with myself, I could almost have murdered for chocolate, crisps and more than anything fags!

I did myself proud my friends, I did not pig out, and I did not get some ciggies… I remain a non smoker 🙂

I wasn’t entirely good with food, by that I mean there were a couple of dodgy spells, some rum truffles, a kebab, a cider or two, but on the whole I carried on enjoying my usual foods. My dairy and water has been hit and miss.

As for exercise, well, damn. Not brilliant. On Sunday Paul suggested a walk, and on seeing my face said we didn’t have to. Truth is, no I really did not want to, but I knew a walk would do me the world of good, yes for the exercise, but mostly for my mood.

So we went to our number one park, Irchester. Glad we did, it gives me some respite from reality.

I’ve never had this mythical runners high, but I do get a real buzz from walking up and down in the woods, there are so many peaks and troughs to climb up, some of them are a good 4 metres high, and the tracks barely wide enough to walk on sometimes. You can go in, follow what looks like a track, only for it to peter out to nothing, so you need to back track. Some times the hills are so steep my knees are upto my chest.

I know I’m not explaining very well, but pictures don’t seem to do justice to the peaks and troughs, but it feels great to walk this park. I thoroughly enjoy the peace and quiet and the physical exertion I need to put in. This is my equivalent to a runner’s high!

We also went on Wednesday afternoon.

Then today, Saturday, Paul is helping his sister move, I’m surplus to requirements, so I asked Paul to drop me off at the park on his way to Karen’s.

I feel this is as close as I can get to the walks Paul and I do in Wales, so good preparation for our week away in September.

As I write this (having learned I can hotspot my phone data to my new tablet) I’m relaxing at a shaded park bench having completed nearly 10k, and all of it on the up and down! I feel goooooood!

I’ve also got one of my boots off plus socks because my heel feels utterly bruised, it’s currently resting on a bottle of chilled water… God knows what people must think of me 😀

That bruised feeling has been worse in the past and started earlier during walks, I bought new hiking socks yesterday, and on comparing them to my old ones, they’re very cushioned on the heel… bliss.

Anyway, here’s my screen shots for today.

So this is where I am, very proud of myself for refusing the nicotine pull (4 weeks 2 days free as I write), pleased I’ve kept mostly to the foods that are my lifestyle now.

Worried about the future, I have a decent cushion to tide me over, but that doesn’t take away the worry. Preparing myself for the job hunt race! Working hard on keeping myself from slipping into doldrums.

Hey… one door closes, another door opens 🙂

So bear with me, it seems my life is always more chaos than stability, this is just the next installment, let’s hope I get a job quickly.

I’ll post as I can, but it probably won’t be every day, it will depend on how much time I’ve spent staring at the screen job hunting.

By for now.