28 April 2025 (Monday) - Bluebells


  • I stayed in bed until half past seven this morning. Maybe not as asleep as I might have been, but in bed. I stepped on the scales this morning and saw I’d lost two more pounds over the last week. That’s two stone shifted since I started this current diet in January. The trouble is that losing weight is easy. Keeping it off – that’s the tricky bit.
I had a look at Facebook. Someone with whom I worked for many years had run the London Marathon yesterday. He’s got into running over the last few years and that has made him lose a lot of weight. Arguably too much. These days he looks gaunt, if not actually ill.
I sent out birthday wishes as well. Four people on my Facebook friends list had birthdays today. A fellow munzer, a cousin, someone to whom we dropped off a card yesterday, and someone who was a major part of my life for many years. We’d fly kites together and go on pub crawls and weekend camping trips… then one day about five years ago there was a post on Facebook from him saying how pretty the Highlands were. Without telling anyone he’d just upped sticks and moved to Scotland.
I munzed, got wordle on the fifth attempt (“dummy”), and took the dogs out.
 
As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how dogs are still used in testing pharmaceuticals and drugs. About forty years ago I did a rather epic project on the ethics and science of animal experiments. Back then most of the animal experiments were being performed as a legal requirement. Sadly the laws that had to be obeyed had little (if any) basis in science. Take LD50 levels for example. An LD50 level is the amount of a given chemical that will kill half of a given population of animals. Who cares how much of a given medication will kill half of the cats that mistakenly eat it? But for years knowing that amount was a legal requirement.
 
We got to the woods and had a good walk. We started off by looking at a couple of my geocaches which had been reported as broken. They were; I replaced them. We then walked into the depths of the woods and back again. As we went I took a few photos of the bluebells which were rather impressive. The woods have passed deer season and are now into bluebell season. And the woods were heaving with loads of people; all taking photos of the bluebells.
 
We came home; I made us both a cuppa with a couple of biccies each. At a hundred and forty calories those biccies constituted eight per cent of my daily calorie allowance. It was just as well that our walk had given me an extra seven hundred calories. Mind you that seven hundred calories is less than three pints of beer. Calorie counting – that’s the trick to weight loss.
 
And then… gardening. I strimmed the lawn edges, mowed the lawn, cleaned the pond filters and painted two fence panels. And then I stopped and came inside. I think I got too much sun yesterday and didn’t want the same again today.
 
I spent a little while re-writing Wherigos. I’d been asked if I could provide something for the “London Calling” geo-event. Bearing in mind that’s happening this Saturday, it’s all been left a little late but if I can help I’m only too happy to chip in.
I’ve emailed them two Wherigos; I wonder if that’s the sort of thing they are after.
I wrote up some CPD, then went and watered those plants that didn’t get the outpourings of the fish pond filter. On reflection I might have missed a trick. Rather than sticking the hose from the pond filter at the base of the Monkey Puzzle tree, I wonder if I might empty the water into a watering can and share out the fishy goodness. Similarly the filter medium from the little pond – next time I might wring that out over some of the plants before I rinse it out.
 
“er indoors TM went off bowling and I watched a film. “Atlas” was a rather good sci-fi film in which a household robot goes totally psycho. I rather liked it despite it having rather bad reviews.
 
Today’s been rather busy…

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