There used to be a time when if I needed to escape the real world I could nearly always rely on a book, I would quite often find myself lying in bed reading until the early hours. I’ve read so many books over the years that I can’t even begin to remember half of them. Books have always given me the best and most meaningful adventures. I’ve touched on hundreds of lives, visited a thousand different places, seen a million wonderful things and all through the pages of books. Books are incredible, magical things and deserve to be revered as such.

Unfortunately a few years ago that all began to change, I’m not sure what caused it, when it happened, whether it happened all at once or if it was a gradual process, but at some point I realised that I could no longer lose myself in a book. It doesn’t matter how well the book is written, how interesting the story is or even how compelling the characters might be, books simply no longer hold my attention and I find this quite upsetting.

The Downwards Spiral

Since my last post I've been trying to shake off the downwards spiral I've put my life in general into over the last few months. I'd been feeling really low, I was letting the negative thoughts get to me and I was getting to the stage where I wasn't connecting with the things I enjoy and care about. In order to pull myself together and get back on track I need to make positive changes to my lifestyle, I need to reconnect and I need to improve my general health and well being. Losing a bit of weight, getting myself back down to the size I was a few years ago and improving my health in general seemed like a good starting point.

For me the obvious first step was trying to cut down on my alcohol consumption, over the last few months this had steadily increased to the point where it had become an issue. It was a primary factor in my recent weight gain and was starting to become very expensive. I'm mainly a real ale and craft beer drinker, so I'd been spending as much on beer as on almost all of my other expenditures combined. I'm not going to make out like it was an epic struggle, I am not and have never been dependant on alcohol. Though with that said I was definitely using it as a sort of comfort blanket, slipping in to the gentle mellowness that comes on the edge of being drunk and using it to shut off the negative thoughts that are almost constantly running through my mind. The way I saw it the solution was fairly simple, do not buy beer, either by avoiding the temptation entirely or by going in with "do not buy beer" set at the forefront of my mind. So far this solution has been very successful, I haven't bought beer and if the beer isn't in the house then I can't drink it.

The second step is a little harder for me to face, I need to cut down on my snacking and tweak my general diet to include less junk and more healthy food. This is always particularly hard for me as I'm a bit of a foodie, eating is hugely important to me, I derive more pleasure from eating than almost anything else in my life. Combined with the fact that my general food preferences largely consist of meat and meat based products means that my day to day calorie intake tends to be fairly high. For me the easiest part of getting my eating under control was to cut down on the snacking, I've done this by initially replacing my normal unhealthy snacks with fruit and veg before slowly cutting the number of snacks down to just a couple of pieces of fruit a day. Once I'd got snacking under control I moved on to adjusting my breakfast routine, for me breakfast usually consisted of something along the lines of a ham and cheese sandwich, beans and cheese on toast or toasted bagels and chocolate spread. I needed to replace this and decided cereals would be the way to go, after testing several different cereals I came to conclusion that no added sugar or salt muesli offered the best compromise between flavour and being healthy. Now I'm starting to get my eating under control, my calorie intake is down and I'm eating more fruit and veg, it's time to introduce the next step.

The third step is to try and exercise more, now I'm never going to be the kind of guy who spends his life in gym, that is definitely not for me. Instead I decided it was time to get out and about and start walking at weekends. When I was younger I loved going camping, hiking, etc. I loved to get out into the country and just enjoy being outside, away from the hustle and bustle, away from the town centre crowds. Part of me would love to re-capture that outdoors spirit and the freedom I felt, part of me just hates being surrounded by people and loves the solitude. Either way the last few weekends I've spent heading out into the middle of nowhere and following one of the many planned walking routes. I have to say it's been a very nice experience, I've seen some beautiful countryside, some gorgeous woodlands, charming villages and wonderful wildlife.  I don't know if it's physically doing me any good, I haven't noticed any weight loss, but it's definitely lifting my mood and I'm definitely rediscovering my love of the English countryside and the great outdoors in general.

These are changes that I should really have made a long time ago and realistically, if I'm genuinely going to get my life back on track, there's a long way to go and a lot more changes that I need to make. I know I don't have the best track record with this kind of thing, I'm definitely guilty of procrastination and I nearly always take the easy way out, but I'm genuinely hoping I can keep this up and can actually start to make the changes I need to be the person I want to be.

Walking and the Great Outdoors

The Demon Barber Of Fleet...... Street

Between both of us working full time and my partner spending her weekends working hard, preparing lessons and marking for the week ahead, we don't always get the opportunity to go out as much as we would like. Last weekend was one of those opportunities, I had booked us tickets to see a local operatic society performing their rendition of Sweeney Todd at Nottingham Arts Theatre. A venue that both me and my partner have a particular fondness for, partially due to it being located in a part of town we like to frequent and partially due to the venue being fairly small, giving performances there an intimacy lacking in larger venues.

Rather than just running into town just to see the show we decided to make a full day of it and headed in to Nottingham early to do a bit of shopping and hopefully have a meal out. With that in mind I booked a table at George's Great British Kitchen for lunch, a place I have wanted to try since I first learned of it's existence last year.

We started the day with a steady wander around town, visiting a few of our favourite shops on the way. Lush, Dr Martens, Fopp, Forbidden Planet and Brew Cavern just to name a few. Having purchased ourselves a few bits, bobs and treats we headed over to George's for lunch. For those of you who don't know George's it's an upscale fish and chip restaurant on Queen Street, just off the old market square in the town centre.

For me fish and chips is a genuine British institution and to find a real restaurant serving proper hand cut chips (Frozen chips at a restaurant, or even a food pub, is a HUGE no for me) with beautifully fresh, hand battered fish is an absolute treat and somewhere I need to visit. To find one in the heart of the midlands, about as far away from the sea as you can get, is even more special.

After lunch we headed off to the Notthingham Arts Theatre to catch the two o'clock performance. Having ordered the tickets well in advance, we had really good seats a few rows from the front with an excellent, central  view of the stage, in more or less the same seats as our previous two visits to the venue. The theatre itself is fairly small but very well laid out, with a small stage at the far end and seating for around 300 people set out in 3 columns.

The stage was dark except for one beam of light shining onto a pile of wooden furniture and props in the centre, into the light stepped a single man to announce the story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of fleet street. From the very outset the cast managed to set an eerie, atmospheric tone despite the fact that they had absolutely no backdrops and very limited space. Using a meagre supply of props and relying heavily on the casts vocal talents and the dark atmosphere of the story, they made the most of the small stage, moving the furniture and props around to create the different scenes required for the different narrative elements of the show. The casting was excellent and the actors where very believable in their roles, with standout performances by the actors playing Sweeney Todd, Mrs Lovett and Judge Turpin. Throughout the show the musical accompaniment was second to none and the vocal performances of the actors were excellent, often using harsh tones and harmonies to counter point the dark atmosphere and foreboding presence of the story. Overall a very enjoyable show, very well presented, very well performed and very deserving of the audiences applause. An experience both myself and my partner are eager to repeat.

The show itself was a little over 3 hours long, with the 20 minute interval and allowing time for people to enter and leave the venue, meant it was early evening by the time we left and decided that bedways was rightways, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka.

August 2015 - Adventures In Scotland

It’s August and that means its summer and that means it’s the six week holidays for Kelly. After spending a few days in Scotland over the Easter period, and having had an amazing time, we decided to visit again for this years summer holidays. We booked a week in a small cottage in the middle of the Scottish countryside at the heart of the Dumfries and Galloway region. To say that the place was more or less idyllic, with the exception of the beds, would sum it up perfectly. A small two storey cottage with shower room, small kitchen area, dining area, TV on the ground floor and small bedroom on the first floor, it suited our needs perfectly.

Being fairly regular visitors to the Dumfries and Galloway area we have visited a fair number of places on more than one occasion, this time we made a conscious effort to look for and visit places that we haven’t seen before. It really paid off, the whole holiday felt like an adventure and it made me fall even more deeply in love with Scotland and the Scottish countryside. The one thing that really completes the whole experience for me is being able to share it with my wonderful partner. Her love and support makes everything I do just that much better, I really can’t imagine my life without her.

Geo Adventuring In Kirkby

My partner and I live together on the outskirts of a small town called Kirkby-in-Ashfield, the area we actually live in is the old part of town and is surprisingly rural. Basically all you have to do is walk for 5 minutes in most directions from our house and you will literally be surrounded by fields and small areas of woodland. That said we have actually explored very little of the surrounding countryside, despite the fact that both myself and my partner enjoy walking.

Last weekend we decided it was time for that to change. Several months ago my partner had stumbled across a passtime known as geocaching and although we both thought the concept was interesting, neither of us had really done much in the way of research into it. That was up until a couple of weeks ago when one us downloaded the android app and discovered that there are in fact several caches within a couple of miles of our house. Knowing that these caches are so close made us curious and last weekend we set out to find our first cache, after a little deliberation we chose which cache we wanted to head for and consulted the map to work out the best route. The cache we chose is situated by a small stream in an area of woodland a little over a mile from our house.

Having located the rough area we were heading for, we packed a small bag of essentials and set off. Less that 10 minutes into the walk and we were absolutely surrounded by corn fields, we followed a public footpath right through the middle of some truly picturesque country and down into the woods. We were both surprised by just how dense the patch of woodland is and how pretty it is considering we were literally a 20 minute walk from the centre of Kirkby. After double checking our map to ensure we were in the right area we headed into the woods and selected the path that looked most likely to take us in the right direction. As we headed further into the woods we noticed that the ground was starting to get muddy and my partner Kelly started to get a little anxious about falling in. We spent the next 45 minutes or so slowly trecking through the woods, investigating every nook and cranny, poking in to holes in trees and taking photos all in the hope of locating some hidden cache of mini treasures so we could sign the log and swap one of their nicknacks for one of our own. Eventually we ran out of woodland and, feeling slightly disappointed in ourselves, we decided to head back, taking a slightly different route just to give ourselves one last chance at success. This it turned out was a mistake as the path we chose led into some heavily muddy areas and both my partner an myself ended up slipping over on more than one occasion.

Unfortunately we made it all the way back home without finding a single cache, this hasn't dampened our spirits too much though as we are already plotting our route for this weekend with high hopes of our first cache find.