Tag Archives: channel swimming

Good morning!

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This morning, I took Jay to the train station, so I’m awake a whole hour and a half earlier than I usually am! So I thought I’d blog a little.

My wardrobe is semi-built. Tiny Hooray. Just because I have to drill the parts together and I’m not confident in doing that all by myself… So I’m gonna try and get my Uncle to do it for me!

I haven’t swam much at all this week. Only for one session. I have been super busy with work and my new Zumba obsession that the swim has kinda been on the back burner. I have now raised a crazy £4,090 for my swim. I am going to swim for 3 hours this Sunday. My first full session. Eek.

Jay is away this weekend. He’s doing a challenge in July which is all cycling and mountain climbing so he’s off cycling from his parents’ house to Norfolk and back, so I got a whole weekend to myself again.

Times like these, puppy is required. Although on Saturday, Mum and I are meeting up with Dad’s old secretary in London for lunch. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to that or not. I’ve only met her once at Dad’s memorial dinner. I dunno. It’s good to meet people who knew my Dad’s city life, I suppose. But it’s not really fun to see people you don’t actually know.

So, a busy weekend. I have sorted out my holidays at work and it looks like we can get the puppy on 10th December as I can take holiday for the rest of the year from Monday 12th. I’m waiting for my bosses to say it’s fine – then I’ll be counting down the months, weeks and days.

I have been working so hard at work and really have been trying to exceed myself. It would be awesome if I could get a bonus at Christmas but I doubt that it’s that kind of job with bonuses!

Time for a bit of a nap before work haha.

Weight Loss, Water and Plenty of Exercise.

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Well, following my last post, I lost 1.5lbs last week.

This week, I gained half lb.

I have been stepping up my training, so I have reason to believe that its muscle, rather than faaaat! But I’m on my diet like no one’s business at the moment. I’m eating exactly what I should be eating. I’m not going outside my daily point allocation and, although I’m earning activity points (6 points per hour), I am not touching them either! Maybe that’s why I gained though… Because I’m not eating enough. I’m drinking 1.5 litres of water at least per day. Yesterday, I drank nearly 3 litres. Water speeds up fat loss, don’t you know. As I take a swig out of one of my 1.5 litre bottles.

Training has been going well. I am getting faster – well, as fast as you can for distance training. A 40 minute mile is my aim and that’s where I’m at right now. So it’s progress. I swam for an hour and a half the other day and didn’t really feel tired. But then, I had a shitty training session in the morning, because I hadn’t drank enough water. Lesson learned: drink tonnes of water when I’m swimming this for real.

Charlotte and I have joined the Zumba revolution. For those who haven’t tried it, do. It’s like aerobics to Latino music and Latino dance moves. It’s seriously addictive and we’re doing two sessions a week from next week! It doesn’t feel like you’re working out at all – but then you feel the sweat dripping from your forehead, so it must be doing something! On our Tuesday session, I’ll be swimming before hand as well! I must shift this weight… Particularly before weigh ins on Wednesdays!!

Today is a bit of an exciting day for me. My wardrobe is being delivered! Between the hours of 3pm and 7pm. FINALLY. I have saved and saved AND saved! And now I will have somewhere to store my clothes which won’t look like Primark railings. Seriously. Jay doesn’t want the wardrobe in our room, but God damnit, it’s going in there! I got up extra early to rearrange our room, ready for our new arrival. No, it is not a baby. I cannot wait to build it tonight. Ikea is like grown up Lego. I love it!!

So what am I doing this weekend, I hear you ask? Well, on Saturday, I have to swim, go to my Zumba class and teach swimming lessons for an hour. I might even push the boat out and go for a run! AND obviously, I’m gonna move all my clothes into my wardrobe! Yay!!

Sunday is Father’s Day. Yikes. I have donated my Father’s Day donation to Cancer Research. We’ve already gone through one of these and, although it doesn’t feel any easier yet, I’m sure it will do eventually. I felt really sad earlier this week and my head just kept flashing back to ‘the night’. I had a bad swim that day as well. I have to remember what I’m doing this swim for and what Dad would be saying now. Probably laughing at me, and thinking I would never be able to do it!

On Sunday, Jay and I are going out for lunch. We haven’t been out for a meal in a small age, so we’re living on the edge and going to lunch. And I have my discount card for 2 for 1 on all courses. So it’ll be cheap and cheerful!

My budget hasn’t been going as awesome as I hoped it would. I have been spending like a good’un. But that recycling phone website has given me £80 for my severely smashed up phone. Happy days! That’s going straight on a cover for my iPhone! And some new trainers. As I left my ones out in the rain the other day. Sigh.

So we’re starting our budget again! All my direct debits/savings have come out, I have paid friend for the iPhone and I’ve filled my car up with petrol. The outstanding direct debits are for phone bill, laptop and car insurance. I have to be super strict with my budget.

But alas, my dear reader, do not fret. Subway Subcard is all about earning triple points per sub that I buy and I have a low fat sub for lunch every day (9 points, in case you were wondering!). So, whilst this triple point thing is going on, I may as well use cash to buy my lunch and earn the points in order to get FREE Subway later on in life! HOOR-FRICKIN’-RAY!! Seriously, I have currently earned enough points for 3 free subs, but I’m going to hold out until the end of the month when I need free lunches! Also, you get the chance to win free things every day – I have won 2 free medium drinks or packets of crisps! SAVINGS!! I also am in for a chance of winning a Nintendo 3DS, which, if I do win, will be going straight on Ebay for more moneys to spend! Hahaha. I won’t win though. I never win.

I am feeling happy, Reader. Everything is going awesome. Don’t think I have not realised that I have not mentioned puggles in this post. We are still coming up with some awesome names. Yesterday, we were going through Harry Potter names. Fang is my favourite :)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Personal Addictions and Obsessions

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My addiction to online bingo has reached a new low. I entered a free bingo draw to win £100,000.00 and, although I know there were odds of 11,000 to 1, I actually got mad when the computer crashed and I couldn’t watch the game being played. Needless to say, I didn’t win.

Right now, I am at work with online bingo in the background. I am playing for free for a £1 jackpot, just so I can play the 10p a ticket games and win about £30. You have to win at least £30 in order to withdraw the money, you see. That’s how they reel you in. You’ll always win at most £29.99 before you spend it all to win that extra penny. I’m smart enough to recognise this, but weak enough to keep playing. Boo, online bingo. Boo.

As much as I hate to admit it (because it means that Jay is right), I have started to become addicted to exercise. I swim everyday (with 2 days off exception!) and I started step class last week, which I’m actually looking forward to attending this evening. I’m even considering to increase my daily swimming to two one-hour sessions a day (one in the morning, one in the evening).

I am, however, a bit pissed off. Last night, at WW, I put on weight (well, 0.5lb), although I have increased my training for the channel swim and have started this exercise class. Just what the hell is going on with my body?!

Today, I have drank at least 1.5 litres of water (I buy a 1.5 litre of bottle a day, but I was drinking water before I bought it today…), I have taken 2 out of my 3 Thermabol tablets (I know, it sounds like a super hero, but Jay assures me it’ll help my weight loss) and I have only eaten my lunch. I am seriously considering swimming after my step class, although I know I won’t, because I won’t make it in time. I am on a one-woman mission to lose weight, particularly next week.

I suppose this obsession with my weight loss is not really a bad one. I still have a lot of weight to lose. Plus, a new reward for myself; lose 1 and a half stone, eat Domino’s pizza. Honestly, I really really miss it. But the addiction to online bingo, I have to admit, is just plain weird. I’m not getting withdrawal symptoms from it yet…

Channel Swimming and a catch up on my life!

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I am so aware that I haven’t written since Newquay. Sorry, readers! I honestly don’t understand how people are doing this post a day in 2011 thing, when I can just about post once a week!

Anyways. What I’ve been up to. I’m blonde now! Hooray! Not even a subtle blonde. Bright yellow, almost white blonde. It took Nikki 5 hours – nearly 6! – to do all of my hair and my scalp is actually falling apart because of my stupid eczema, but she promised that she won’t have to do it like that again, so I’m happy. It was so blonde, in fact, that I had to tint my eyebrows to make me look a little more normal. Jet black eyebrows and bright yellow hair don’t quite go.

Other than that, I’ve been working hard. I reached my target – yippee! – and we currently have 322 babies swimming with us this term. This might change, as we do have a cooling off period, where people can still join over the second and third week, so we might even get to 350! We even have tonnes of babies on our waiting list for our next term in September! It’s all going good in work and we have two to four new pools for our September term too, which means we can have even more babies swimming with us! Hooray! Problem is that one current pool keeps faffing around, but this will hopefully be sorted this week and we can carry on as usual. It’s so quiet in the office today and I’ve done my jobs, so that’s why I’m blogging :)

I have up-ed the training for my super challenge this year. I have been training in drips and drabs for the last couple of weeks, due to already made plans at the weekend and stuff, so I am swimming a mile every single day and will attempt a one and a half hour’s swim before my recovery week in a few weeks time. I have somehow raised a whopping £1,270.00 and I’m still hoping to raise some more, as not all my relatives have put in yet! Training is going well when I actually do it – yesterday, I swam legs only for a mile in 50 minutes, which is less time it took me to swim full stroke for a mile when I first started this crazy thing. Tonight is arms only, which I am dreading. I am still sporting an old swimming injury and every time I swim front crawl, it hurts. So back stroke or breast stroke, it is. It’s only for a mile, that’s what I keep telling myself. An hour out of my life. And think of the weight I’ll lose. It’s fine. Eep.

Budget has been completely rubbish for this month so far. Bearing in mind, I got paid last week, I am down to my last few pennies, so I’ve had to dip into the wardrobe fund to help me out for this month. It’s only because my Newquay payments all got taken out after I got paid. It’s fine. I’m fine. This weekend, we have a man coming in to install a Sky eye into our bedroom and to put the TV up on the wall. It’s not going to cost too much and it’s another thing to do with the house, so I don’t mind putting some wardrobe fund towards it. Plus, online bingo’s on in the background and the jackpot is £25, so that might save me!

I kind of want to move out of our house now and onto somewhere new and perhaps closer to work, so I have been looking around on the sly – my God, houses are expensive. I want to make sure our current house is perfect before we leave though, so that’s why I’m getting all these jobs done. Painter/decorator is in at the beginning of June – no, that is not a euphemism!! – to cut in the paint jobs that Jay and I didn’t do so well and to sort out Jay’s study and to paint around the recently fixed light switches. And then I’ll have to reassess what else needs doing!

Jay has agreed that we need a puggle in our lives, so we’re looking into getting one around mid-December, so I can take off the rest of my holiday and train it before I go back to work and have to pop back and forth off my lunch breaks to check he’s okay. I am so excited about this fact, we are currently discussing puppy names. We’ve gone through Futurama characters and Nickelodeon programmes from when we were kids. Considering we don’t know if we’re going to get a boy puppy or a girl puppy, we’re coming up with some awesome suggestions. Jay said if it’s a girl, we have to call her Lola after the Kinks song, but then I told him that the song was about a transvestite and now he’s not too sure. I have bought a book on puggles so I’m waiting for that to be delivered.

So everything’s peachy with me. Will keep you updated on whether my hair goes green due to all this training and any awesome puppy names we happen to come up with!

Memorial Dinner #1

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Although a little apprehensive about the whole occasion, I actually had a really nice time last night at Dad’s memorial dinner. Seventy eight guests were yes’s, about seventy of them turned up – always take into account the 10% that pull out at the last minute or don’t turn up! – which is an amazing turn out. I think if I had a memorial dinner, it’d just be Mum, George and Jay. It again brought home how well my Dad was thought of. It never ceases to amaze me.

We were surrounded by men. Lots of them. There were obviously a few women, but I’d say about 95% of the guests were male. I had to explain my job about fifty million times. When you say that you teach babies under the age of one year old to swim, you do get some funny looks. “How can you teach them to swim when they can’t even support their own heads? Babies can naturally swim under the water, can’t they? Don’t you just throw them in and see what happens?” and so on and so forth.

Everyone asked about George who wasn’t able to turn up, as he had exams in Exeter and that. Seriously, George will be made up for life as I’m sure they all would offer him a good job in a heartbeat.

As predicted, I cried. I felt really dumb for doing so. Basically, Phil (either mine or George’s Godfather – no one seems to remember who) had written a speech and, although heartfelt sentiments were read, I didn’t cry at that bit. I cried when they mentioned the amount of money we raised in his memory for Cancer Research UK. And I cried again when I was reminded that a year had passed. My Mum was so strong, I don’t know how she managed it. So many people came up and asked how she was coping and she was like, “Yeah, fine, just sorting out paperwork” and carried on. Just how on earth? My bottom lip was going when people were asking me how she was coping!

Food was good, comedian was funny. Long lost friends were reunited. Generations of people chatted about an amazing man who they were lucky to be friends/colleagues/whatever with. They’re talking about doing it annually, and that “next year will be bigger”. I don’t quite know how they will manage that! Maybe they’ll book the Rolling Stones?!

I was told several times about how much I look like my Dad. It’s weird, I’d never seen it before, but hey, Dad spent most of his weeks and hours with those guys, so they’d know what he looks like better than me! In the end, it became a joke and I’d retort, “Well, I actually have a neck, whereas my Dad’s head just joined to his shoulders” or “Oh no, don’t tell me my hairline is receeding already!”

The deets of my swim are now being passed around the whole entire group and today alone I’ve raised over 600 quids. That’s double what I was on via Facebook friends! There’s a guy on the page, “Willy Wombat” and we have no idea who it is. He donated a very large amount for my swim and another large amount on Dad’s memorial charity page, but we just don’t know who it is! Maybe his identity needs to be kept secret!

Anyways. Feeling at peace and awesome. Kinda comforted about how fondly remembered my Dad really is. And he really was a superstar. He knew that in every single language, just so he could tell people. Proud daughter, over here!

Weight Loss!

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I know I haven’t blogged about weight loss specifically in such a while, but today I have reason to celebrate. I lost 2.5lb at my weigh in this week! Woop! I have no idea how it happened!

Reasons why it shouldn’t have been a (large-ish) weight loss:

  1. Drinking on Friday night, and excessive drinking on Saturday and Sunday. Two more whole extra days of drinking than usual!!
  2. Eating Mexican food, covered in cheese and ham, egg and chips.
  3. Not training as much as I should be!

It just doesn’t make any sense how I have lost so much this week compared to my over-indulging last week! I am so near my stone down, it’s untrue! Exceedingly happy!

So this week, to try and lose a little bit more weight before holiday, (bear in mind this is 6 days away…) I am taking the following steps:

  1. I have temporarily given up alcohol again and I am the designated driver on Friday night, to celebrate Charlotte’s new job. And I will obviously dance off some calories.
  2. I am going for either a run or an epic walk with Mum and the dogs this evening after work.
  3. I will go for a swim this weekend and the beginning of next week for at least an hour and a half. Hey, have you sponsored me yet?
  4. I will drink more water. You know, to flush out the nasties.
  5. I will choose snacks with lower point values to please my sweet tooth.

Although I won’t be able to go to WW on Wednesday, due to being at the airport and that, I will find some scales and weigh myself, just to keep me on track for holiday. And then, try and keep to my diet and training ‘regime’ as much as humanly possible when you’re on holiday and just want to relax.

JUST AWESOME.

A bit of this, a bit of that…

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We had a pretty good weekend last weekend, considering the factors. On Friday, I started my tributes to Dad by wearing his hat that he wore to every Madness concert he went to – and believe me, it was a few as it was starting to become a Christmas time tradition!

On Saturday, we had a really good day. The sun was shining and it felt like we were wandering around the shops on holiday rather than in Covent Garden. The whole environment was buzzing – even more so when we went to the Mexican and drank several (very alcoholic!) Mojitos :)

Then it was time to go and see Jersey Boys. I think I was pleasantly surprised at the story and the songs that I didn’t have any idea that they wrote. Now I’m going through a whole Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons music fad. On Sunday, I even made the pub put on my Frankie Valli greatest hits that I’d bought after the show. The downer of Saturday was that the drinks were extremely costly when we were in the theatre – £54 for two rounds of drinks, a box of malteasers and two bottles of water! What on earth!

On Sunday, it was surprisingly happy and joyous. We had ham, egg and chips in the back garden of Mum’s house, because it was so sunny. Then, after the boys took the dogs for an extremely long walk, we went down the pub. I continued my tribute by drinking pear Magners with three ice cubes – not two, not four, but three.

It’s a considerably weird feeling, this whole year. It feels like it happened yesterday, but yet feels like it happened four or five years ago. I’m happy when I think of the memories, but sad with the realisation he’s no longer here. It just seems a whole bunch of contradictions of how I’m feeling. It’s hard to explain because you only ever lose your parents once and so you don’t know how you should feel. *shrugs* I don’t know, but I’m not going to dwell on it too much. I’m feeling how I am and there’s not much else I can do about it, is there?

A lot of people have noticed a change in my personality recently – that I’m a lot happier and relaxed. I think it’s the job. I did love the people in my job in the City, but now I guess I’m doing something I really and truly love and feel passionate about. I met up with some of my London friends on Thursday and had a really nice time, catching up and talking rubbish :) But they’re still talking about Internety things that I don’t get! Ha! I think I’ve mastered the whole “sitting and nodding” thing, whilst zoning out and thinking of girly things like shoes and nail varnish.

I think for me to become truly happy, I have to shed the weight. It still makes me increasingly self conscious and I suppose not as confident as 18 year old me was. So although the diet has been slacking (read: Mexican and ham, egg and chips!), I need to work a whole tonne harder to lose the three stone I have left to lose. And I will do it :)

I’m swimming tonight and I’m going to try and swim for a whole hour and a half – half of what I will be swimming a day in August! This whole swimming thing is a gradual process – I wish I could just bust out the 21 miles already! Makes me wish I didn’t give up swimming when I went to uni! Three tiny words. Bring. It. On. :)

I also need to budget this month and (probably) for the rest of the year! Last month, I kind of overspent, with buying pretty canvases and fixing my broken car window, and in the upcoming months, I have two new monthly outgoing: payment for my new car (thanks, Mum!) and car insurance, because I no longer live at home, and my brother and I no longer share a car. I figured that I could comfortably live on £100 a week. That’s more than £10 a day! In fact, screw it, I’ll live on £70 a week! I honestly just have to be good and not overspend. At all. Any money out of my £70 weekly budget that isn’t spent gets rolled over to the following week. And of course, any pennies go into our unbreakable money box, until we decide to break it :)

This week will be a good one :)

Swimming the Channel #1

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Well, the pool can cater in order for me to swim the width of the channel over seven days, so today is officially day one of knowing that in 133 days, I’m going to be starting a huge challenge in memory of my Dad. If you haven’t had the chance to sponsor me (why the hell not?!), please visit my sponsorship page at http://www.justgiving.com/Frances-Barrett  – and it goes without say that every little counts, seeing as cancer still affects a huge percentage of people, and you never know what that pound you donated will develop into.

I’m weirdly excited, I don’t think it’s quite sunk in what I’m actually doing yet. Twenty one miles over seven days. That’s three miles a day. So far, I have two steps to achieve for this week:

  1. Buy a new swimming costume to replace stolen one.
  2. Tomorrow, swim a mile and time how fast it is. A mile an hour is literally a length per just under a minute. I think hope I can swim a little faster than that.

The rest of the week is a write off, due to plans I have already made and can’t break. It does suck, but I will try to fit in at least another mile swim this week. I’m going to ensure the training is gradual. I haven’t distance swam in a very, very long time and I don’t want to strain myself too much. Plus, I have got a fair amount of time to train in, so there’s no rush. I suppose next week, I’ll be increasing the amount of swims per week.

Anyways, I’ll keep writing up here about this huge challenge. Hopefully, this will help me lose my weight as well :)