Old memories old ground

Stella at my side, walking boots on, fuelled by subway burnt ends, (which is amazjng) i leave Lou worth her sister and step out. 

Halstead, the town I grew up in hadn’t changed much

The Ramsey school tower block still punches it’s self into the skyline of Halstead and I’m over a mile into what maybe a 5 mile walk. 

Unlike Colchester, walking around the lanes of Halstead you nearly always see the town. 

Turning from the land onto a grass path I note virtual silence apart from a couple of songbirds chirruping from somewhere in the distance. 

The ditches are lined with yellows, whites and blues as I walk down the side of 2 corn fields. 

Memories of my childhood interupt my mind hiding in the long grass, playing cowboys and Indians. 

It’s new ground for Stella who sticks close by but sniffs and meanders and ambles along. 

The estate on which I grew up now breaks the skyline, as I descend the hill to where I’ve a Decision to make but it’s easy I’ll skirt the cricket pitch and turn across the bottom of the old estate I lived on. 

For the first time Halstead is completely out of view. 

A magpie takes to the air with stella almost upon it. The sound of the cricketers briefly fills the air, appealing for a catch or lbw, doesn’t sound successful. 

 

A tech spring clean

Just turned my tablet on for the first time in a while, it was running like a reliant robin on ice, in other words slowly. 

I decided it was time for a tech spring clean and challenged my self to be honest so I used this…..

1. No, it goes 
2. Not sure, it’s got a week to be useful 
3. Yes

I cleared a lot if space on my tablet but not so successful on my phone. 

But it made me think, what do I have running in my brain that needs shuttin down or deleting. 

I’ve spent a lot of time optimising my thought processes over the last few years and yes as my mentor points out, sometimes I slip, I’ve begun to recognise my negative pathways, and ‘re engage my intellect, but those old sub routines are still there waiting for my amygdala to take over again.

The chimp paradox speaks of gremlins and goblins and searching for them, but then Emma says negative introspection is a bad thing and she’s right, its someone elses job to find my gremlins and goblins if they continue to dog me,  so instead of looking for them I am actively engaging my intellect as much as possible 

• Instead of spending all day listening to the radio, whilst I’m driving I listen to audio books, some self help and learning also most recently IT by Stephen king.
• As I’ve detailed before TV has had its influence greatly reduced, along with the news programs, I do however enjoy the afternoon drama on BBC radio 4
• I’m slowly learning to find solutions to problems instead of just the problem. 

So maybe we could all benefit from a mental spring clean from time to time defragging and deleting the mind 

Another beautiful morning

It’s  7am on the Sunday of Mayday weekend and I’m up and out with my ever faithful hound Stella. The sun is shining, shadows are long because the sun is still low in the eastern sky

 Various birdsong fills the air with only the crunch of my footfall disturbing an otherwise peaceful scene. 

A pigeons call breaks through the birdsong and apart from the odd fallen or dead tree everything is green, multiple shades of green offset by a virtually cloudless blue sky. 

My eyes pick out the oaks and the odd pinetree but I’ve little knowledge if the identities of most and my knowledge of the birdsong is equally vague. 

A conker  (horse chestnut) tree laden with flowers pricks memories of me with my grandad lobbing a stick at the freshest conkers taking them home and stringing them to play conkers the following day. But then health and safety has outlawed that or made it so bogged down in safety that kids can’t play the game unsupervised. 

A distant inquisitive fox checks Stella and I out and obviously considers us a threat as it turns and runs, either we’re nowhere near it’s set or it’s leading us off, 

A new border of blue flowerheads this time not blue bell but apparently a flowering nettle. 

Electricity pylons now break my perfect view, a mechanized reminder that these Roman woods are living a modern existence and that I am only minutes away from the civilization of Colchester or as the Romans knew it Camolodunum. 

The pylons are past us, and we veer right along a naturally made tunnel of trees interwoven. 

Looking up a few passenger liners vapour trails reminder further of the modern times, now two magpie scatter as stella hurdles toward them and she gives me that look as if to say that’s not fair or is this a hunt or just a pointless ramble. 

Now a rabbit scarpers for equal reason into the hedgerow, the tunnel breaks, stella has the scent of something, looking at me as if to say come on let’s go after it. 

A new birdsong, sounding like a kids laser gun, must be close as it dominates the landscape. 

If my mother in law or my partner Louise were with me now I’m sire they’d identify all or most of the flora and fauna but sadly neither are, as Lou has ailments that limit her walking and my mother in law is 20 miles away and would have equal problems with the distance. 

Suddenly I notice my mind has disengaged and is wondering emotionally I ‘re engage my mind picking up this post, continuing to write, I’ve been actively engaging my mind a lot lately from the guidance if Emma Triplets book Stepping out of the clouds instead of being depressed by the news on the radio I’m listening to more and more audio books. 

My walk draws near to a close as we pass Rockys home. Rocky is a golden retriever and stella one true friend who stella will always look out for. 

“The black dog”

“The black dog” @ricsur https://medium.com/@ricsur/the-black-dog-22a68532a2b9

Reasons to be positive

well last week saw my first plateau, but then i did experiment with my intake, my fiber went thru the roof, creating unexpected problems. but then my calories were also relatively high.

So i am able to look back via my fitness pal on my dietary intake and see what was good and what wasn’t so good. however 14 stone 11 isn’t as bad as i was when i restarted this plan, and i’m doing well with my 10000 step schedule, achieving the goal 5 times last week which is not bad either, when you think about fitting it around a busy working schedule.

Also it helps that my Fiancee is doing a similar plan to me, so the unhealthy stuff is disappearing from the cupboards and it does help when we can motivate each other.

i shall weigh again tomorrow, and i shall hope for but not expect to have lost, as my intake over the weekend has been reduced, although yesterday i did indulge little with a portion of sticky toffee pudding but then i was celebrating my 45th birthday.

I also realise that I am rediscovering the more positive me, when i can see solutions rather then problems, the old me would have been frustrated, at plateauing but I’m not i’m researching why it happened.

Plus I’ve put in place another 2 parts of my plan to study, ive bought a second hand laptop,(which I’m writing this post with)and my fiancee is on board with, and aware of the plan.

 

“There’s more going on, than the #oscars”

“There’s more going on, than the #oscars” @ricsur https://medium.com/@ricsur/theres-more-going-on-than-the-oscars-34a96dd4b725

New year resolutions

I made five new years resolution

1. To read more, I’ve documented my reading activity, most of January was,about sociology. I am now onto psychology. 
2. To go sugar free this was more a February led thing,but I’ve documented my approach, to this and it’s going well. 
3. Manage money better, we’re getting stronger and stronger,nearly debt free. 
4. Blog at least 3 times a week, I think this is obviously going well, having begun a second more targeted blog the amateur socio psychologist 
5. Speak to at least 4 strangers a day this came from thought for the day on BBC radio2, as you never know who you may encounter in your daily lives. 

I think my resolutions are going well, and just go to reinforce how a positive can do attitude can help you achieve anything. 

Sugar free (well reduced at least)

Chris Evans designated February as sugar free month, so I thought I’d give it a shot. 

I weighed myself at the start, 15st 7, disappointing but then I’ve not been running for a while, the only other thing I’m doing is walking. Trying to achieve my 10000 step per day target. 

Well I weighed myself this morning and I’m down to 15 st 2 so maybe sugar is the key. I’m gonna stick to the level of all sugars that mfp prescribes which is 80g and I will keep you updated. 

I can i can i can you just watch me. 

Don’t

I don’t know if this is crossing subjects between sociology and psychology however I begin to theorise. 

I once had a young lad from London misbehaving and I had to approach him,  before I could say a word his behaviour became defensive, “don’t disrespect me, man!” I towered above him height wise. 

However I can’t help but wonder, why that turn of phrase.  Did he fear me, I doubt it, we’d never clapped eyes on each other. So I’m left,currently, with 2 options; 

1. He feared my uniform, but I was a lifeguard, in t-shirt and shorts. 
2. He feared authority figures, which at that time I was. 

Option 2 seems more likely, but now I find myself theorising why? 

• Had he good reason to fear authority,as a petit criminal
• Has he been abused, there’s a lot coming to light now. 
• If so by whom,  a step parent or parent, a guardian or care giver
• Was he a victim of the system 

My journey into sociology and or psychology strangely find me curios about this one occurrence, but I also realised I will never know the answer His sociological background or psychological, his environment or any of an infinity of questions in my opening curiosity. 

Thanks for the compliment

I am pleased to say that I’m actually intelligent, it’s official Emma Triplett says so in the latest chapter of her book Stepping out of the clouds. Why? Because I over think a lot of things to every possible degree, I’m looking forward to the next chapter. 

Getting serious now, Emma’s right, when I do this pointless exercise, I think thru as many possibilities as I can possibly think up. But how many are positive, one, because the rest are adding in possible problems.