True Grit

Some of you may be thinking “things have gone rather quiet on the exercise front since the Parkrun incident” but no they haven’t really.

Last Saturday Neil was off bushwalking so I’d decided to do it by myself. Heading out the door, I realised that I had a sore foot. And a blister was forming between 2 toes on the other foot.

Perfect.

I considered diverting to the sofa for a cup of tea and a good book, but out of nowhere, a teaspoonful of strength of character appeared and, although I didn’t do the Parkrun itself, I did 42 minutes of bad tempered walking round the local area before lurching into the Corner 38 Cafe.  It was such a joy not to be coming last.

This week we decided to give Parkrun the full bodyswerve. Neil booted me off the sofa and out the front door and off we went, using his GPS to work out where/how long etc. It wasn’t too bad and we managed to do 45 minutes without any major arguments.

According to his state of the art techy gadget, my average speed was 126.4 kph. He admitted that sometimes it doesn’t work very well.

Parkrun – Got to Start Somewhere

It’s only 10am and I’ve yomped 5km.

This morning we did the Rhodes Parkrun (www.parkrun.com).  This is a body that organises free, weekly, timed 5km runs on Saturday mornings all over the world. Neil comes with me for support (ie to make sure I don’t slide off to a cafe instead).

My approach is “well it’s only 5km, it’ll be a nice walk followed by a coffee somewhere sunny”.

Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.

Got there and it’s wall to wall runners in lycra and pressure socks.  There are some slightly tubby, unfit-looking people at the back so I decide to stick near them and Neil can do the proper run.

We all set off.

The overweight & unfit immediately head to a cafe so it’s just me. The sainted Neil sticks with me.

The first 25 meters are ok, I even attempt a cheery jog but soon realise that it’s not sustainable. Neil’s competitive instincts kick into panicked overdrive because he’s being overtaken by absolutely everybody – something he’s just not used to. He shoots off, walking very fast – there’s no way I can keep up.

The view from the back

After a short but bad tempered exchange, we realise that we’re both freaked out and intimidated by the whole thing. I twice ask him if he wants to go on ahead but he stays. Amazing.

• At the 1km point, I’m over it. Can’t see myself finishing, not enjoying it at all, total sense of humour failure compounded by sheer embarrassment at being so publicly unfit
• At the 2km point, a perky, blonde gym-bunny volunteer attempts to provide motivation “well done – not far now…” Oh get stuffed.
• At 3km we’re overtaken by someone in the 80-84 age category (yes, really)
• At 4km, the sweeper at the back tells us we’re the last. (Oh really? I hadn’t realised; thank you for pointing that out….). I ask how long they keep the course open for and he says ‘as long as it takes’. Oh no. I suggest to Neil that we don’t bother finishing as I’m so embarrassed at being last but he keeps me going
• At 4.8km we overtake a woman with a knee brace

I came in 3^rd last (Neil let me beat him by a step), in 50.42 mins which surprised me . I was 183^rd out of 185.  The average time to complete the 5km is 31 minutes, so clearly there’s room for improvement.

In summary, I absolutely hated it while I was doing it, but I’ll go and do it again next Saturday.  Better than going to the gym.

Like that’s going to happen ha ha.

The Chimp Paradox

I’m reading ‘The Chimp Paradox” by Professor Steve Peters.

It explains that life feels like a complete fankle because my brain has been hijacked by my inner monkey (Neil sighs deeply).

I’ve never understood how Neil can just ‘do’ life; he goes from A to B to C in a straight line, whereas my best intentions end up derailed all the time.  My journey might be more interesting than A to B to C, but I never get to C; I end up in W. Or Z.  Or P. And P is more likely to be Portobello than Paris.

It’s all YOUR fault

The reason that this happens is because the brain is split into 3 bits:  the real me, a computer and a chimp. The computer holds data, the real me is logic and reason, and the chimp is emotional stuff and lizard brain-type responses.  If you don’t manage the chimp, it manages you.

This explains everything.

I’m only half way through it but it’s been very useful already in terms of understanding and heading off potential derailments.  So expect a smug blog post about exercise very soon.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

Well the last 3 weeks have gone fast – can’t believe that today’s is the last session.

Neil asked me if I feel any different than before I started.   There are 2 things:

1.   I feel ‘better’ – the workouts give me enormous highs as well as showing me that I’m not totally decrepit and that I can still do things, so I feel better physically, as well as feeling better in myself.

2. The biggest difference is that I’ve remembered all the things I used to do – and the great time I had doing them all…

Knackered, Denmark, WA

Knackered, Kangaroo Valley

Knackered, Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail

Knackered, Canal du Midi, France

What I’ve learned over the past 3 weeks:

1.   planning is key with food.  If I don’t get my meals organised – especially lunch – the outcome’s unlikely to be positive

2.   planning involves effort and action, rather than thinking vague but well-meaning thoughts and hoping for the best

3.   things change/not everyone does things the same way.    Years ago,  I used to have a PT session once a week at Fitness First but dreaded it because it was always the same exercises – it worked but it wasn’t much fun.  I’ve looked forward to all these sessions because I never know what I’m going to be doing.

4.   exercise gives back more than you put in – I get it now, the harder the effort, the better you feel

5.   I like doing weights.  And push ups.  Weird.

6.   I got  home yesterday feeling really fed up with life, the universe and everything but realised that when I used to cycle home, I never felt miserable by the time I got there – it was exercised away.  Tomorrow, I’m getting off the ferry a stop early and cycling the last bit.

So,  I’ve signed up for the full 3 month course which ends the week before I leave for Italy.

Perfect.

Cortina, these boots are heading your way….

Towards Ertia – the Journey Continues

Have now had 4 sessions with Brad the personal trainer, and it’s turned out to be the best thing I could have done.  There’s no way I would have worked so hard left to my own devices.  Even though it’s only 30  minutes, I’m completely knackered afterwards.

Tonight was upper body.  A set of 5 exercises – crunches, tricep dips, kettlebell swinging, pushups where you take your hands off the floor when you get down there – can’t remember the proper name for them – and pulling yourself up from the floor to a bar (metal, not cocktail) – has reduced my arms to useless lumps of meat dangling from aching shoulders.

The euphoria afterwards is amazing though, and it’s a lot of fun.

Neil’s got an assessment with him tomorrow night (I’m surprised he’s agreed to try it) so I’ve asked Brad to make sure he makes him do push ups and planks till he drops ha ha ha 🙂

Ert Again

There are now only 14.5 weeks until I arrive in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Dolomites.

I can either:

1.   arrive 20kg overweight and unable to get to the top of any mountains, and spend the precious week cursing myself for not getting fit.  This happened last year (and the year before).

2.   do something to avoid the above.

So what to do when you don’t feel like ‘doing’ anything and can’t get your backside off the sofa?  It’s a no to aerobics or Pump, to hellish spin classes with the doof doof music and a woman screaming at you, a definate no to sodding boot camps, sweating in public or expensive gym memberships.  Tennis and indoor rock climbing were the only attractive things, neither of which are particularly comfortable at +20kg.

I Googled and the stars aligned – Brad Martens is a personal trainer living in the next street, who used to have my couch/ice cream problem – but now he does Ironmans instead.  Clearly we have something in common (the ice cream, not ironmans obviously…).

He gave me an initial assessment and I found I could still do 20 push ups, not very brilliantly, and – TA DAAAH  – a 20 second plank!

So I’ve got 6 sessions booked and then we’ll see where we go.

Per ardua ad astra (it’s the ‘ardua’ bit I’m worried about).

La Mode Australienne Apocalyptique

A while back,  I saw this rather fab ensemble in the Montcler window in Chamonix (the original post is here).

It’s so clear why the French lead the fashion world – they put together a totally ridiculous outfit and manage to make it covetable.

So,  at the beginning of winter in the southern hemispere, looked what turned up in the shops in Sydney:

There’s clearly been a very antipodean take on the original French design, with the French influence being diluted and reworked as ‘Awkward Norwegian Party Troll’.

What do these 2 outfits say to us?

The French look is saying:  “je suis soignée;  the epitome of élégance ” as Mademoiselle shrugs and pouts à la Francaise, puffing noxious clouds of Sobranie into the atmosphere as her rat-like muppet dog pees on your mixed fibres Fair Isle legging.  Does she care?  Absolument pas.

The Australian version is asking: “does my bum look big in this hat?” (if you have to ask, the answer is always yes).

The luxe vision of dreamy, cream cashmere is replaced with the eye-watering horizontals (the horror, the horror) of Fair Isle.  Fair Isle is not a kind design, and it’s particularly unkind when stretched across the backsides and thighs of dumpy Australian tweens.

Another clue is that hat.  The French version has an almost Anna Karenina touch – it completes the sophistication of the outfit.  The Australian one says ‘look at me, I’m an idiot’.  

Is there some sort of fashion hate thing happening here?  Who would do this to young women?

Just asking.

British Airways Long Haul – That Flight – Part 2

This post has been a bit delayed – it’s part 2 of this post from December 2012 (specially for Danuta 🙂 )

So, after 2 hours in the the Singapore Qantas Club lounge, its back onto BA16 and the haven of comfort and serenity that is 43D (not) for the remaining 14 hours to London.  

My ankles have really swollen up – but they do this every time so I’m not too worried.  Won’t make that mistake again. 

There’s a different crew on this leg and while the previous bunch were rather indifferent, this lot seem a bit cheerier.  Unfortunately our aisle has someone who is older;  efficient, but in a rather brutal way – without any personal warmth at all.  She stalks up to a row in front of me and barks at a teenage male passenger about the overhead lockers (he was wearing a trilby so he clearly deserves it).   The FA in the other aisle is a bubbly girl who addresses passengers as ‘love’.  And she has tinsel in her hair.  I want to be on that side of the plane – probably everybody else does too.

In one of my wide-awake-but-slightly-crazed-from-lack-of-sleep phases, I start thinking about the customer experience I’m having.

Take the food.

On Emirates, dinner on the plane is a bit like opening your presents at Christmas – you know something good’s about to happen because there’s an attractive menu to inform you of the delights ahead.  Then there’s the build up as we go through the heated towel ritual.  When it eventually arrives, the tray has lots of interesting little packages –  ooh salad-y thing with smoked salmon, ooh delicious pudding, ooh cheese and biscuits to go with the shiraz, ooh, warm croissant with butter and jam (breakfast), ooh little chocolate to have with coffee.  It’s nicely done.

With BA there is no menu and a fairly bare tray.  I’m not complaining about the sufficiency which was fine. Quality was adequate at best.  It was just very clear that nobody gave a stuff: ancient, cold, dry croissants;  ‘chicken or beef sir?’ as the standard descriptor.  And no chocolate to go with the coffee (thank you Tanya for the Maltesers!).

In case you’re thinking ‘she’s a bit pouty over the lack of an After Eight mint’ it seems indicative of 2 very different approaches:

1. BA:  what can we get away with?  Let’s strip out everything and put the bare minimum back in. Quality and service don’t matter because it’s the back end of the plane.
2. Emirates:  what can we do to provide a premium product at reasonable cost?   Menu?  Tick.  Tiny chocolate for post-dinner coffee?  Tick.  Heated croissants with butter and jam for breakfast?  Tick.  A choice of wines?  Tick. Heated towels for any nose-picking South Africans?*  Big tick.  *I realised later that there must have been a handwipe sachet in with the plastic cutlery.  I didn’t notice it and neither did the South African.

I’ve mentioned before that the organisation I work for is completely focused on customer satisfaction and the customer experience.  I compare what’s happening to me on BA with a recent experience at my bank where, despite my being a techno-dullard, the concierge showed me a new way to bank a cheque quickly and easily at an ATM (amazing!).  Best of all, she managed to do this while being totally professional and charming and not making me feel like an idiot or ‘I should know better’.

Being an FA must be a hard job but there appears to come a time when they lose the ability to relate to economy passengers as human beings, and view them as livestock.   I cringed for the teenager in the trilby – nobody needs to be spoken to or humiliated like that, especially in front of a cabin full of people.   It just shouldn’t happen.

BA needs to get back the ability to affect customers positively.  They appear to have forgotten that all of us on that wretched plane have paid a fair whack of money to be there.  In exchange for all that very hard-earned dosh, I expect to get from A to B safely, to be treated as a human being and receive a reasonable level of service.

Seems like it’s too much to ask.

Life Lesson No 3: That’s Not a Meeting, That’s a Mess

Some people love big meetings.   I’m not a fan, especially of the set-piece, 3 hour workshop with 20 participants, unless they’re very well run and controlled.

In my experience, a meeting is rarely about discussing what’s on the agenda (unless I’m running it of course).  Expecting logical thought processes and the ability to relate the words coming out of people’s mouths  back to an agenda item, well that’s too much to expect isn’t it?  Yet another case of high expectation being dashed against the jagged rocks of reality.

My view is that meetings are an opportunity for the organisation’s sociopaths to display their wares.  Some observable meeting behaviours stand out:

Show Ponies:  look how much I know!  Even though it’s not got anything to do with this meeting!  I can talk for hours about this (or about anything – just ask me).  Aren’t I just fab!  Smirk smirk smirk; it’s all about me!

Terminally Depressed Detractors:  generally older males with deep knowledge of the business.  Do not like to have thoughts or knowledge challenged, especially by a woman.  Highly resistant to change. Will bang on about favourite grievance given any chance at all. Thinks they’re a mover/shaker (In that cardigan? Oh please.)

Ferals:  I’m too busy for this. And too important.  I must type noisily on my laptop all the way through the meeting, responding to major crises that require my considered input.  I can multi-task you know (this is the male version – the female will have already taken over the meeting).  Jumps in to demand irrelevant information and additional analysis on any and every subject.

Nowadays I have a few simple rules:

(i)   if there’s no agenda, objectives or expected outcomes:   I’m not going

(ii)  use of blockers eg after 1 minute of drivel unrelated to the point being discussed:  “thank you Torquil, noted, let’s move on” or “Serena, could you just explain how your point is related to the meeting objective?  Just so everyone’s quite clear”

(iii)  opportunity cost:  if A < B (where A = $ value of my hourly rate listening to you and B = $ value of doing some proper work on which my bonus is based) then it’s hasta banana.

Neil has an interesting way of dealing with meetings which are descending into chaos;  he bangs on the table and bellows “JUST SHUT UP” at the rabble of assorted bozo project managers and under-performing middle management.  Stunned silence.  Yes, he has actually done this – he’s my meetings hero.

I once worked for a company that during a takeover regularly flew lots of the other company’s people from Birmingham and London for day-long workshops  in Edinburgh.  It cost a fortune.  They’d arrive in a semi-sullen state (they were being taken over after all), not having done the pre-work and spend the day in the conference room farting and eating our biscuits.  It took a lot of meeting time and effort to overcome their tactics of wilful obfuscation and time-wasting with the usual ever-present background drone/whine of ‘this will never work’.  Ultimately successful but exhausting for all involved.

And one arrogant git of a project manager I worked for treated meetings like pitched battles, derailing any attempts to allow us to work collaboratively towards an outcome.  He walked out of one meeting puffed up and pleased with himself and said smugly “ah, X was a worthy adversary”.  Meanwhile his project’s heading down the pan, his project team are stressed beyond belief and a month later the project was cancelled and he was out of a job.

I wonder if he ever managed to work out why.

Fly Me to the Moon (Just Not on British Airways)

I want to kill myself and we’ve only been in the air 40 minutes.

Welcome to Flight BA16, Sydney to Singapore and on to London (oh god) and the hell that is seat 43D (Neil has just said ‘you should try 43E’ ha ha ha).

We’re welcomed onto the plane by a St Trinian’s headmistressy type, complete with half-moon specs and a figure that really does not accommodate wearing her blouse tucked into her trousers.

We pass through a pleasant Club Class with dimmed lights, although it looks very sardine-can like, crushed together. Then into another world.  OMG it’s a shock.  Two things:  this is an old plane and it looks it; plus we’re nearly last on so the back of the plane looks a bit feral, like something out of Mad Max.  Emirates it is not.

My seat feels wobbly and the seatback video screen is tiny, but doesn’t work anyway – Neil says the pixels are burned out.   I have my feet resting on the folded blanket and the pillow to take the pressure off the back of my thighs.

The flight is full and the aircon is variable – it’s boiling at the moment.  I know that this is fixable – I read my flying blogs.  At least 4 people have asked the same Flight Attendant to do something about it.  He says he has, so why is it still so hot?

From my seat, I have a delightful view of the large South African bloke I noticed at check in, now 2 rows in front, picking his nose.  BA is so pared to the bone that there are no hot towels given out, so we all get to share his germs.  I have a daftie behind me who doesn’t understand the words ‘touch screen’ and is pounding the back of the seat every time she gets bored with her video selection. My head moves against the headrest every time she does this.  She’s doing it now in fact.

We’ve just asked the FA with the drinks trolley if we could have another bottle of wine (187mls, French Merlot).  She heard but keeps going, that airline smile fixed on her face. She appears to really hate passengers.  I watched her put together bassinets for babies and she can’t crack a smile; it’s killing her.  Dinner is ‘pasta or chicken’ in a voice which doesn’t encourage further enquiry.

The entertainment system is a joke; Neil saw a Gen X try to enlarge the screen like you would with your phone – ha ha good luck with that. There is a very small selection of things to watch/listen to, for example:

(i)                 under ‘Country Music’ (I was desperate), there are 7 albums, 2 by someone called Sean Brosnan.  Super.

(ii)               Under ‘Essential Albums’ there are 8 – including Mike Oldfield’s Tubular sodding Bells.  I can’t believe it; which old git has control of the music selection?  Has he never heard of Oasis or Status Quo (ok maybe not the Quo).  Another joy is ‘’The Very Best of Blancmange’.  Pardon?  They were crap in the 80s and nothing’s changed.

It’s a bit of a shock to realise how far ahead of poor old BA Emirates is.  Seat 47D would be on a new or newish plane, with 600 channels of entertainment, a reasonably cheery crew, great food and clean loos. Don’t get me started on the toilets.  One of them stinks and there is brown sludge in one corner.

If BA is still peddling ‘the world’s favourite airline’ thing, somebody’s kidding themselves – at least that’s how it appears from the back of this particular jumbo.

I’ve had amazing experiences with BA, though it was a long time ago, where they have been nothing short of wonderful.  I’m not sure what’s happened but it doesn’t feel like the same organisation, and maybe it’s not.

Oh joy, Neil’s found Barry Manilow singing ‘hits from the 60s’ under ‘Easy Listening’.

Only 23 hours and 20 minutes to go.

Just shoot me now.

A World of Pain

After our intro session, the  Crossfit people sent us a follow up email with some info and  some simple exercises to do until we decided to join up (rather a cheeky assumption surely?).

The exercises comprised squats, push ups and crunches with the beginner’s version being 30 of each, 20 of each then 10 of each.   I gave them a go on Sunday night and posted the outcome on Facebook:  not pretty.

The net result is that I’ve spent the last 2 days walking around like a penguin, saying ‘oof’ when collapsing into chairs and groaning when trying to stand up.

There is a very Scottish verb – to ‘hirple’ which perfectly illustrates the attempt to walk in this contracted state – a sort of grandad shuffle.  Neil watches me tottering around and says helpful things like ‘aye well, auld age dis’nae come alane’*  and I want to brain him with a blunt object.

We’ve decided not to do the Crossfit thing – ‘old and knackered’ probably isn’t their target demographic, plus the email was a bit snippy, so it was an easy decision for us to keep our $375 a month and spend it elsewhere.

I have my fingers crossed that the dosh is going to nosedive straight into my Business Class Travel to Europe Jam Jar  (current contents:  $65.50) but Neil may take some persuading.  Especially as he’ll be left in Economy ha ha ha.

Only $6,933.50 to go.
All donations gratefully received

So tonight, in gratitude for not having to go to Crossfit, I decided to have another go at the squats/pushups/crunches.   I timed myself – not having bothered on Sunday thinking I wouldn’t even finish.

Of course, tonight was worse.  Within 2 minutes I thought my head was going to explode.

Doing 30 squats isn’t funny – well it’s probably hilarious if you’re standing watching.  But then there was 30 pushups:  I cheated to get through these.  There was no 90 degree angle with the arms, no chest to the floor; it was a 5 degree bend – if I got my chest onto the floor I wasn’t confident I could get it back up again.  Then 30 crunches.  I should have just done 30 in total but thought that would be cheating (idiot), plus I was feeling guilty about the pathetic push ups.  So I did 30 straight sit ups then 30 to each side.  Repeat whole thing again.  And again.

So that’s:  60 squats, 60 push ups and a bazillion crunches.  It took 15 minutes, 36 seconds and 9 nanobots.

Head explosion imminent

Pass me a glass of Sav Blanc immediately.  I deserve it.

*In the Queen’s English:  old age doesn’t come alone.   A typically grim, dour, Scottish approach to life.  

Trifextra Weekend Challenge

This weekend’s Trifextra Writing Challenge is to write exactly 33 words on ‘why we write’.

I’ve been overthinking this.  It’s simple:  paper is  somewhere to park all  your thoughts so that they don’t drive you insane.   

Or is that just me?   

Is that 33 words yet?   

No?    

Drat.

That’s enough writing for me –  I’m off to the library to find something interesting to read and to have some tea and carrot cake.  Books and cake  – genius.  Thank you City of Canada Bay council 🙂

Becoming Ert: Crossfit

Neil and I had an intro session for Crossfit this morning.

Linda over at Pingheng started doing Crossfit a while ago and can now lift 20kg.  She also posted this video showing her doing a standing start jump onto a box 1m high.  These were ‘oh wow I wonder if I could do that’ moments for me.

So last night, with our TV out of action and nothing else to do, we gave the standing start jump thing a go using the sofa:  I could get onto the cushions (30cm) but Neil got onto the arm rest (60cm).

This morning we rock up to a  warehouse in Leichardt at 8am.   We walk in and it’s not pretty:  it looks the way gyms used to look before they got all glammed up in the 90s – like in the Rocky films.   Serious, grunty work clearly happens here.

It felt totally intimidating – not just to me, even Neil felt intimidated and he’s very fit.  Most of the men and some of the women were over 6 feet tall, all in their 20s or 30s and the blokes were lifting massive weights.  The lightest bar is 6kg – the most I ever lifted at Pump class was a girly 5kg.

After some background info about how Crossfit works, Gemma gave us a practice go at each of the things we’d be doing:  rowing, sit ups, double skipping etc .  When we got to the chin ups – Neil of course does these with ease –  I just hung from the bar like a corpse:  I couldn’t lift anything except my chin.

All the time we’re doing this, the real class is doing their ‘WOD’ – workout of the day.  It looks scary.  They do lots of burpees:  drop to the floor, do a push up, jump up and do a star jump thing.  I could maybe do 1 before losing the will to live.

On to our intro workout:  we started with some skipping to warm up,  then a 500m row, squats, push ups,  sit ups and chin ups.

My back was creaky so instead of 40 sit ups I got to hang from a bar and try and lift my knees up 20 times.  There’s nothing like hanging from a bar to make you realise that (a) you have no arm muscles and (b) you could do with losing 15kg.

Crossfit has measures for how things should be done eg a push up means chest to the floor, rather than doing them with only slightly bent arms and kidding yourself.  And squats mean squatting till your bum hits the pouffe thing they put underneath you.

It was very confronting going to this:  I’m unfit, overweight and old(er). Although very pleased with myself that I cycled home from work on Wednesday, it’s really nothing in the big scheme of things.  I’ve been much fitter  in the past.

I used to walk up mountains. What happened???

I can get to 12 sessions before we go on holiday at Xmas.  The only way is up.

Bags of Bones and Botox: Sydney Trophy Wives

Continuing my deep dive into Sydney’s social scene, Kathryn and I are at an arty event, hob-nobbing with the Eastern suburbs glitterati.   We’re having a coffee and chatting just before it’s due to kick off.  Three hookers walk in.

Kathryn turns round to see what I’m looking at and her inbuilt tart-o-meter readings go nuclear.  Setting her fashion laser to ‘death stare’, she analyses the feedback and pronounces ‘hmmm, the trophy wives have arrived’.

They enter the room in a gaggle (or maybe a goggle if you’re a bloke), lots of bare skin, manes of glossy, flicky hair, a bit of frou-frou happening on the fashion front and not much clothing per square inch – what there was SQUEEZED into tiny sizes (you weren’t kidding anyone – I was going to say ‘girls’ but that would have been inaccurate – ladies); casually expensive clothes chosen with a lot of care to look, umm, casually expensive.

Everything was pert and firm but they had the featureless, immobile faces – I’ve never seen botox en masse before.

The skinniest was clearly top tart; the emaciation hidden to some extent by fake tan. The others were wannabes; thin by proximity – except that never quite works does it?  It just ends up like ‘who’s the heifer standing next to the skinny chick?’

They spent their time looking around to see if anyone was looking at them, and competitively not eating.

An interesting species to look at, but as a bloke I know put it, ‘like talking to a table’.

Zombies – Trifextra Weekend Challenge

This week’s challenge has a Halloween theme – write 33 words that are somehow related to a zombie sighting.

Even once she’d seen the photo, Sandra still didn’t get what all this zombie fuss was about.   She agreed though, that her new Target t-shirt did make her look a bit washed out.

I found this topic quite hard and didn’t think I’d be able to come up with anything – but once I’d sat down and started typing, all sorts of ideas came.

It’s a very good discipline – the sitting down, the thinking, the ‘letting the words come’  and the shaping.  Frustrating (it took me over an hour to get these 33 words) but also very enjoyable and worth it to actually finish something.