Personal Trainer

Yeah I'm trying out a personal trainer at the gym. he says I need to do lot of work on my core muscles.

He had me doing planks (which I'm quite good at) things with the gym ball (for stability as the things go all over the place when you try to do sit ups on them) and press ups (again using the gym ball to make it harder which I'm really rubbish at). I'm not sure how long I want to do this as its a bit on the expensive side but from the grumpy signals coming from my stomach muscles today it should do some good.

It's all getting a bit Yuppie isn't it! Next thing you know I'll have a flat in Docklands and a pair of red braces...Oh hang on a minute...

Back in the flat

Sort of moved back in this week, well just for a couple of days, before I go off skiing for a week.

The place is in pretty good nick and clean. Except for a few bits of wear and tear (as the management company called it) and something tells me I didn't stipulate that he had to be a non-smoker (the sofa got a good Febrezing).

It's very empty and tidy at the moment I have to see how I can keep it that way.

Off to the snow

Yes I'll be careful

A gentle week in Les Deux Alpes. Just trying to get my nerve back.Actually I'm more worried about moving around the town when not on skis, watch the ice!I've been packed really to go from over a week and I've been to the shops and brought the Bourne identity books to have something to read on the trip


I can't wait

Ivy's party and a Sleeping Dougie

At the weekend Ivy had her birthday party all based around a teddy bears picnic. there was small people and teddy bears everywhere.

I now understand that a childrens birthday party is a compleate bedlam!

Fortunately a very large pot of Tea was available for the adults and it was fun to see my sister in teacher mode controlling the chaos.

Dougie slept straight through most of the noise and attention.

Brecon Beacons

So we had a good time in the Brecon Beacons and my leg more or less managed to get through it.

We stayed at a lovely little cottage in Talybont-on-Usk (SO119216)

http://www.breconcottages.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=CM.cottage&Propref=BANK&startmonth=0

which looks like the owner had been watching grand design et al.

We did two days of walking including a huge 9 hours and 12 miles walk around the Pen-Y-Fan horseshoe and on to Fan Y Big and a Wellington bomber crash site. We ended in the dark with our head touches by the time we got to the bomber and a couple of more hours afterwards back down to road.

Techincally it was still a bit beyond me and using polls to help your balance is very tiring when you have to pull them out of mud and long grass. So by the time we got back I was dead on my feet and could hardily move, but to be fair Colin and Mark wheren't in much of a better state.

As a result we made sure saturday was an easier day with a just couple of small sunny hills to a pub lunch and very long flat walk back in the rain to cottage. The saturday walk was a full outing with the girls and baby Abi, as well.

Sunday was an easy day, as we were all a bit tired. A lessurely breakfast and then a slow train home.

Discharged

It was a very quick 10 minute meeting. Nipun, the Physio had me stand-up, sit-down and jog up and down the room.

Then he said 'is ok?' and I said 'yes'.
He said 'are you jogging?' ('yes' I said), I mentioned that I did some walking at the weekend just said I went for a bit of a walk.
'and cycling?' ('yes' I said)
'and have you joined a gym?' ('yes').

'Good' he said and that he'll discharge me.

I told him its pretty good now mostly just klicking when I bend it. to which his reply was don't klick it!

He told me to keep focus on the straight leg lift (sitting straight up on a high backed chair and lifting your leg locked straight out in front of you) and to keep good posture

I asked him about skiing and he said don't ski for a least 6 months, and to get a second opion from Mr Parmar, my surgeon (not likely at 145 quid a go)

So I didn't tell him about the trip in march and said 'thank you' and 'good bye'.

A firm hand shake and I was out the door.

Douglas Daniel and a long walk around Pen-Y-Fan

some more good news...

I'm an uncle again.

Douglas Daniel Waring (7lb 15oz) arrived very early on friday morning and is doing very well. As is very nearly a family tradition I was away doing something vaguely adventurous, this time walking in the Brecons.

He managed to arrive in time for his sisters birthday on the Monday.

Friday a conversation in the Pub

'Your beard has got really long the last couple of days.'

'Er I've had my hair cut....'

Interviews

It's really bizzare but I've been asked to do a couple of interviews. That's interview people for a position here rather than the other way around. It's a fairly odd experience as I start by explaining a bit about the company and the position, both of switch I'd don't really know about yet...

Feb 18th

It's sorted my tenant will be moving out on the 18th Feb. Not quite sure what notice he actually got in the end as the management company got a bit confused (not good in a management company!) but it was meant to be two months.

Oh well, its sorted now, and I'll move in just after, its a Monday so slightly odd.

And I can have a sit down and decide if anything needs fixing up before I move a load of stuff back in. Most of it is just twenty metres down the road at the storage unit, so that's not a problem.

The flat still has the same kitchen and bathroom (more or less) since it was built (around 1993) so may be its a good time for some new stuff.

Anyway the Lads will be happy with hotel Dunhill will be open again for London visits, or at the very least, the sofa...

An 'Oh my god she's dropped the bottle' moment

Yesterday, at work, I managed to earn my salary before 9am and earn a few brownie points.

I was looking through the code on one of our live sites trying to find some performance improvements and I noticed there was some code to get the entire user table, which includes username, email and password for the site and write it out to a web page.

Er I wonder if you can access that page on the development server, ah yes you can. How about the stage server, oh yes you can see all the users printed out in a nice list. But how about the Live site....oh Shit! every single username and password. A very rapid flurry of emails then occurred as I got them (the clients tech team) to make the site safe and delete the offending pages.

A little later when our CTO found out (I had to tell him) a general email went around the department giving everyone a rocket (it wasn't the fault of anyone who currently works here) and reminding them to check they don't release test pages like this in future.

A trip into the loft

skis - got them out for the first time since last year from where they got dump when I got back. They're a bit more bashed up that I would have figured I guess I used them quite hard last year. A couple of deep holes that I should p-tex and perhaps give them a good waxing. But they should serve me well in March.

Staples sorted

the bill for getting my staples out - another 25:50 but they did pay in the end. I think that's it and I'm now in a position to work out how much the crash actually cost me.

Sunlight

sunlight - it's just starting to get light in the mornings the sunrise happens while I'm on the train on the way in. It was so much nicer even on Monday morning for it not to be dark.

New year at the gym

Its a new year and its very very busy at the gym near work and it's smelling quite bad too. An entire sea of new years resolutioners are jamming up the works and making the place busy (read sweaty urgh!).

I notice it on the way home as well, lots of red faced people on the homeward train. I guess it will all die down again in a couple of weeks. I do think though it is starting to have a benefit.

I'm going a couple of times a week or more and hopefully I'll be in a half fit state for my walking trip at the end of the month, the Brecon Beacons, let alone my upcoming ski trip

Doing the crane

At the physio again

This time he had me jogging around, running up fake steps and standing on the most tricky balance board to date.

The jogging was a little faster than he wanted and he told me to slow down, I figured at that point I then won't tell him about running on the machines at the gym. The fake steps just go up three steps and then back down again, in the corner of the room, and apart from me failing around a bit, need to practice my balance, I was okay with that. On the other hand/foot the balance board was really hard, a 30cm round wooden disc with a wooden cone fixed to the bottom, I couldn't get it to stay horizontal at all.

The rest of the exercises where all around me standing on one foot a trying to go into a crouch, sort of a geriatric karate kid. he's happy with my progress and said that next time, in four weeks time, may well be the last time I need to see him. I'm still deciding if I'm going to tell him I'm off skiing!

Review of the Year

Spent 28 days in Foreign countries

Worked only 135 days out of the UK normal of 252 days
but managed to increased my salary by 47%

Managed to resign one job, then get hired back with a promotion. Then get made redundant and finally get another job for much better terms.

Spent 7 1/2 months with crutches or walking sticks and 2 nights in hospital

I know lot more about knees and ligaments

Became an Uncle again for the third time.

Got a new bike and a pair of skis

Rented out my flat without any problems to just one tenant.
Lived at my parents for 11 months

Did interviews for 6 different jobs

My 2007 carbon footprint includes
Total for flights = 2.303 tonnes of CO2
Total for bus & rail = 0.726 tonnes of CO2
and I should offset by planting 6 trees (about 4.380 tonnes)

Didn't change my weight at all and still weight about 13 1/2 stone.

Joined a gym (LA Fitness) but haven't tried any of the classes yet. I go about twice a week and I'm back to being able to jog.

Only brought myself 4 CDs

Joined Facebook in April

Had a beard at three times over the year.

Went to one music festival (Leeds) and one gig (Beatallica). Already have tickets for this years festival.

So this is Christmas

I had a good time at my Parents for Christmas and we had a Boxing day visit down to West Sussex to visit my sister and her family.

Ivy got a dolls house nearly bigger than she is, which she made sure everything was placed exactly were she wanted it. Freddie got loads of 'Cars' stuff and watched his 'Cars' DVD again and again, and Edie just watched everything that was happening around her.

The other bit of news was that I wrote back to the flat management agents to ask for my flat back. I have to give to two months notice so it may be back in London in March.

A bill for Staples

I just got a note from the insurance company saying they are sorry but they won't pay the invoice for 25.50GBP as I'm now longer covered.

What! er what 25.50, what procedure was that for!

So I rang them and apparently the surgeon only just got around to billing for removing the staples from the surgery all those months ago.They said they would sort it out.

So the whole thing is still not settled

I shan't be using Lastminute.com again

or don't believe what Lastminute.com put on there website.

The upshot of the whole experience seems to be, Lastminute won't guarantee any of the information on its site. It's star rating system is factually wrong as you can't compare quality from one country to another. And they will blame anyone but themselves.

So my advice stay away from them

Here's some of the details of the letters I got including on the 17Th Dec received a final response to my complaint letter way back in October

Lastminute said back in 7 Nov 07

1) We're sorry.
2) Your feedback is important.
3) We are passing the buck to our supplier, Fleetway Travel.
4) So we're not going to do anything else about it.

and last week in the post from Fleetway Travel. The main points being.

1) We're sorry
2) The description of the hotel is not our fault we blame our supplier
3) We checked the hotel met Greece Health and Safety at the start of the season.
4) The classification is can only be compare to other local hotels.
5) That is what passes for 5 star accommodation in Rhodes.
6) We will pass on your comment to the hotel
7) The quality of the accommodation is your personal option
8) We'll take the comments into account when using this hotel in future.
9) You should of contacted the local agent or the UK office
10) We could have move you to another hotel if you had asked.
11) We're sorry about the flight but you can't blame us.
12) Please travel with us again in future.

Both of which do a very good job of avoiding most of the issues I was trying to make. So I guess I'll try again but this time make it real simple and get across that I was mainly upset at the miss-selling of the holiday.

1) If something is advertised it should be in the holiday. i.e. Sauna, Sat TV, Scuba Diving.
2) When selling to a UK audience, a dreamlike Deluxe 5 star hotel should be described as a decent 3 star hotel if that's what it is.
3) You should not be using a rating system to compare holidays from different countries if in fact they are not comparable.
4) I was not complaining about the flights I was complaining that the advert did not say we would not be getting any food.
5) I did report my complains to the Holiday rep and email again once I got home but its a little difficult to work out who to complain to as you both just pass the buck.
6) If you can't guarantee any of the information about a holiday then you should say so in the advert.