Girl Power

Broxie Life, Pictures

I left home a little late and any hopes I had of catching my normal train were dashed by a rather slow man purchasing his ticket.

My wife rang to see if I had made the train and I told her I may as well have stayed and packed my laptop, had a coffee and put my makeup on.  I sat on a bench on the platform applying my makeup and a few minutes latter  my wife appeared clutching the laptop!

On arrival at Liverpool Street I made my way to the bus stop, just in time to see a bus pull out. So I queued for ten minutes for the next bus.  I got on the bus but had to get off again as my Oyster card had ran out of credit!

Back down into the station I went with all my heavy baggage.  The ticket office was very busy so it took a while to get served.  I had to spend every penny I had on topping up the card.

I went and got the bus and was good and hopped off two stops early. I arrived at work to find the grounds full of people due to a fire alarm activation.  Half an hour later we were allowed to enter the building.

By lunchtime I realised I had not even had time to put my packed lunch in the fridge.   Not having any money left I risked eating it.

I made a call to a web-hosting company as I needed some information  about an account my employer has with them.  The man I spoke to was most helpful, but the highlight was that he referred to me as miss.  I had never told him I prefer to be addressed as female. That was a pick me up after such a bad start to the day. Maybe my voice is improving!

The mood of the day soon turned sour again though.  First two colleagues got into a row that looked like it was going to turn physical.  Having witnessed it I had to have a series of meetings with all concerned.

I picked up a pad to take notes for a colleague and managed to receive a paper cut right in the crease of my little finger.  Seconds later my colleague leaned back in his office chair and a leg snapped tipping him to the floor.

I did not know whether to laugh or cry. 

I filled in the accident book and started typing up a report on the earlier dispute.  I stayed late to finish the report.

I was the only member of support staff to make it in, so I never did get time to even unpack the laptop.

Then I made my way to Liverpool Street for a meeting with a customer that I recently did some freelance work for.  I felt a bit awkward as I now did not have a penny left to buy a drink with.

I got back home abut 10:15 pm, so my diet went out the window.

Broxie Life

The diet has not gone as bad as I first thought it might. Most days I have managed to have reasonably healthy foods and in smaller quantities.  Sticking to time has been a little hard and most days my last meal has been just after the 8pm deadline.

I have managed to be more active by getting off the bus a couple of stops before my destination and when leaving work I have walked a couple of stops before boarding the bus.  In addition I have used the stairs rather than take the lift.

In theory it should have been easier to exercise when I was not working at my part time job in London.  In practise there is little room to exercise at home and I have been otherwise occupied trying to get Website work done in addition to catching up on emails.

I lost most of  Thursday due in part to the lack of sleep on the previous few days.  I slept on and off and lacked any energy to get up.  When I did finally drag myself into the land of the living, I had a sneezing fit.  Thought the remainder of the day bouts of sneezing continued and my sinuses became blocked.

I felt a little better today but have been busy catching up on work I should have done yesterday.

Broxie Life Diet

Day 3 of the Big Blubber Diet..

Today was my day away from my part time job in London since embarking on my diet.  The day started badly as I slept though all the alarms that I had set.  I recall hearing one and reaching for the phone but it stopped sounding before I located the device.  I managed to sleep through the other 3 alarms and woke up and hour later with a head ache and the sound of the skip yard and a road drill ringing in my ears.

Having got up at around 10:30 am it must have been 11:30 am before I had a bowl of porridge.  That was good because it is one of the recommendations my nurse gave me.

Lunch though was not to be as I had a meeting to attend in Hatfield.  The meeting was held in a hotel reception so I did have two small cafe latte during the course of the meeting.  I did give the accompanying biscuits away as they are items not allowed on my diet.

I arrived home from the meeting at around 7:30 pm and had my evening meal at around 8:15 pm which was at least closer to my food curfew than the previous days.

Dinner was a Tuna and Sweetcorn topped Jacket Potato with a very small blob of Mayonnaise and a Salad as a side dish.

My thoughts are that I probably need to switch my meals around and eat a bigger lunch and have a much smaller evening meal.  As now I am supposed to do an hours vigorous dancing! It is already gone 9 pm and bouncing about straight after that meal would make me feel quite sick.  Also I need to get some work done before I go to bed.

Broxie Life Diet

Day 2 in the Big Diet House..

For breakfast today, I was packed off with an apple for the teacher and a pot of microwaveable porridge!  Surely that is just normal oats packaged in an expensive plastic pot! 

I  left the breakfast until I arrived at work as I did not want to carry a rotting apple core about and I do not have a portable microwave.  That was bad but I did jump off the bus two stops early and I walked the rest of the way.

I really wanted the porridge, but skipped that idea as the stress started the second I walked into the building!  For the second day running I did not have time to pour a coffee either.  Fortunately, I had some of the bottled water left and so was able to wash my water retention pill down and grab the apple, which I ate on the move while sorting out the problems.

I was kept busy until 1pm and then only stopped long enough to eat the lunch my wife had lovingly prepared for me.  I had a Tupperware tub full of all kinds of leaves, shoots and roots topped with some naughty but tasty Mediterranean chicken slices.  In a little jar she had packed me off with a home made salad dressing containing mustard seeds.  I also had a set of eating irons so I did not have to use the office ones.  There was a pair of scissors and a fresh green chili packed in my bag too.

I cut the chili up with the scissors and sprinkled it over my salad, then added the mustard seeds and the I tossed the salad. By this time a colleague returned with a takeaway ham salad costing £4.00 from the eatery in the building.  My salad certainly looked better than the shop bought version.  When I got over the idea that I was actually going to eat salad, I actually enjoyed it.  The chilireally helped as did the salad dressing and that Mediterranean chicken.

I thought I would get a coffee after eating the salad but things remained stressy, so I never got around to it.

 Again I left work 10 minutes early in order to walk the two bus stops distance across the park.  My time sheet for the day was short again,but only by 5 minutes.

The bus made good time again so I hopped off the bus at Moorgate and walked to Liverpool Street train station where I met up with my family.

Dinner was served around 8:30 pm again, but as we did not get back home until 7:45 that was unavoidable.

Dinner was boiled rice with sweet corn and the portion size was as advised.  The lamb curry made with a tomato base was twice the advised portion size to make up for the lack of vegetables.  It was very tasty if a little naughty.

Shortly after dinner I was presented with  strawberries with a few slices of banana topped with half fat creme fraiche.  This was very naughty as I probably should not be having a sweet.

Broxie Life Diet

Maybe I got a few hours sleep, but it felt like I had not slept at all when my alarm started pestering me this morning.  I ended up getting out on time but only because I skipped any attempt at hair removal, makeup and even skipped my coffee.

My wife poured me a coffee into a overgrown baby beaker otherwise know as a travel mug.  Being vain I put the travel mug in a cloth carrier bag, then chucked a cream poncho into the bag.  I had ignored the advice to carry the mug in my hand, so I guess it comes as very little surprise that 5 minutes later I found I had half a mug of coffee and a coffee and cream coloured poncho!

Being half asleep it took longer than normal to apply my makeup so the train was only 15 minutes outside Liverpool Street by the time I started to pluck my extremely spikey feeling chin.

I transferred to the bus and started plucking again, but then I remembered my Diet!  I dislike people that eat on pubic transport and am not very fond of eating on the move or even in public places, however I decided to become one of those people; as leaving my breakfast till I get to work makes it too close to lunch break.  It was only a crunchy oat bar and the bus was not very crowded.  A few minutes later I had eaten the crunchy oat bar, then looked down to find actually my skirt was wearing half of it, like little almond colour sequins!

I was good and exited the bus a stop early and took a walk through the park to work.  I even walked up the stairs rather than take the lift.

Work got busy before I had time to pour my usual morning coffee.  Soon it was lunch time so I went down to the eatery.  As I have to avoid bread, the main option available are Jacket Potato with mostly unhealthy toppings or soup.

I was good and asked for a jacket with beans, but without the cheese!  The young lady serving me tempted me to a small knob of butter.  I also ordered an orange juice and paid.  Ouoooch!  £5.40 is no small amount for such basic and cheap food.

My first diet day

I can have a Chinese takeaway for under £5.00 and the local southern fried chicken meal deal for around £3.00.

When my jacket arrived I was happy to see that I had been given a few slices of cucumber though.

I never did get to have a coffee at work, but I guess that is not a bad thing diet wise.  It was soon time to do my time sheet and think about going home.  Taking out the extra 20 minutes for walking and the 20 minutes booked out for lunch left me with a deficit of time for the day of 30 minutes. I normally clock up 10 minutes a day or so over.  I could stay later to make up this time, but I only just get home before 8pm normally and I am supposed to try and eat my last meal before then.

I set off from work across the park which extends a little beyond the bus stop that I had alighted at this morning.  So I figured I would walk the length and then locate the nearest bus stop.  I think in the end that it is two bus stops.

The bus made good time and I reached Moorgate 25 minutes ahead of the time my train is due, so I was good and got off the bus there and walked the rest of the way to Liverpool Street.

I thought that would be the last of my exercise for the day, but as I exited the Station at Hertford East my wife was there to greet me. Aww, that was a nice surprise but it did mean I had a quick shopping trip around Tesco’s to do before I made it home.

My wife had indeed used the smaller plates and the rice was boiled rather than fried, but I probably should have had less rice and a few more vegetables.  It is a start though.

Unfortunately it was 8:30 pm when dinner was served, so it was after my deadline.  I knew it was going to be really difficult to follow this plan both logistically and financially, but I must do my best.

Broxie Life Diet

Recently I was invited to attend the inaugural meeting of the LGBT working partnership group  which had it’s first meeting today. 

A few days ago I was asked to give a speech about meeting the needs of trans people in Hertfordshire. I agreed although I don’t consider myself as an authority on the needs of anyone apart from myself. 

I had hoped to spend some time making notes about the needs that I and others may have, but life got busy. So I decided the best I could do was talk from the heart. With trepidation the moment arrived and I rattled off thoughts.

I was pleasantly surprised by the response and requests for my contact details at the end of the event.  Someone suggested I charge lots of money and go on tour!  Much more important to me was that a trans man at the event said that my talk was good.

Broxie Life

My son came over and kindly took me and a car full of boxed up belongings to the new place.  Is was very surprised to find that some of my belongings had already made the journey!  Christmas trees, some decorations, soft toys, new coffee cups and even some supplies were already there.  It was apparent that somehow my wife had visited, but quite how she had managed to transport so much stuff was a mystery to me.

Back at the other home I was kept guessing at how it had been achieved.  It had to be on the Wednesday when I was out at work, but there was no conceivable way for her to transport that amount of stuff on public transport.  After much suspense and a lot of banter about how blind I must be not to have missed the relocated items, it was finally revealed that her mother had father had visited.  They had made two trips and it had been an opportunity for my step daughter to check out our new place.

Broxie Life

The VW started by the key, but until it has warmed up it has a tendency to stall.  Today it stalled and refused to start again.  I changed out three batteries eventually borrowing the fresher battery from the Fairlane.  Still it refused to start.  It waggled the gear leaver in the hope it was just a poor contact in the start position switch which was recently the cause of a similar problem.   I had replaced the switch and carefully positioned the contacts up only a few months ago.  Again it failed to turn over the engine.  Prior to replacing the switch I had replaced the starter motor and thought I had eliminated it as the cause of the problem.  However it did start when I gave the starter motor a tap with hammer while my wife turned the ignition key.  Before getting off the drive the van stalled again but this time started on the key.

I had not performed some of the basic checks but simply had to hope all the lights were working as we were now late for the MOT test.  At the test centre the ignition was turned off and again it refused to start.  Even with the aid of a gentle tap on the starter.  Eventually with a lager tap the van started.  All rather annoying, but it did not fail on that.

Unfortunately an area of rot that will need welding work and play in the steering did cause the van to fail.  Now the race is on to how quickly the problem can be rectified and at what cost.  I really needed the van to pass as we have to move it form the drive and cannot have a SORN vehicle on the estate we are moving too.  I also needed it to be working as we need to move all our stuff and do not have the money to rent a van.

It is starting to look like the van may very reluctantly have to go to the scrap yard.

Broxie Life

The VW has been sat on the drive on a SORN for the last few months, as there was no money to put it through the MOT, and the Road Tax and Insurance were about due too.  It was not long after that every inch of its interior was given over to the storage of stuff!   Stuff that could not manage to get indoors as indoors is full of stuff on top of stuff!

I managed eventually to locate the disconnected battery and the battery charger amongst the accumulated stuff!  Once the battery was connected and given  a brief charge, the engine did start.  However if there ever was any fuel left in the tank it was on longer there.  The boot of the fairlane yielded five litres of unleaded fuel.

Now all I need to do is find a way of making stuff disappear and then I will be able to drive it to the MOT test centre.

Broxie Life