About Stuff – Page 38 – … my musings on, er, "stuff"

February 3, 2019

Snowmaggedon

Pic of the week 3/2/19

So it wasn’t quite the snowmaggedon brought by the Beast from the East last year, but Thursday night into Friday morning saw a fairly hefty dumping of snow.

We had a bout a cm or two, was worse in Wells – the Blue School shut for the day – and was even worse towards Bath & Bristol. The road outside the house remained clear and it was work as normal for me.

By Saturday, all the low lying snow had gone, but all our fixtures had been cancelled so I went up the Tor with Sam on Saturday afternoon. Always a pleasure, particularly with the clear blue skies contrasting against what snow did stay lying on the ground.

After cold nights, Friday and Saturday, the temperature is set to rise to a balmy, but damp, 10 degrees for the week a head.

This morning, the boiler didn’t fire up, but a quick check showed the water pressure was low, so a quick 30 second job to refill the system and bring it up to pressure and the wonderful white box fired into life. Phew!

Other news – purchased two tickets to see New Order at the Bristol Harbourside in July. Looking forward to it already.

January 27, 2019

A bit blowy

Pic of the week 27/1/19

And so January rumbles on, with little to commend it, except that it will soon be over.

Its been cold, but not crisp, clear, cold, nor exceptional snowy cold, just cold, often damp, and often windy – like today, very windy. And, although the evenings are getting noticeably lighter, its still dark in the mornings and, three weeks into term, with another three still to go, the days don’t seem to get any easier.

Ran 8K this morning, and enjoyed that and pottered for the rest of the day, listening to plenty of music – I think one of my favourite things.

Did some Six Nations stats and plotted them on my maths blog – I do rather enjoy dabbling with data sets and glad I taught myself the rudiments of “R”, meaning I can now quickly turn a spreadsheet of data into any many of colourful charts.

And here’s a bonus pic, of our lovely, bright airy kitchen – even in the bleakest months our house is a wonderful place to be.

January 20, 2019

The Ten Year Challenge

Pic of the week

A lovely long sleep, a long (8K) run at a quickish pace, and then a day mucking about with some stats and “R”, producing the above*

A great way to spend a Sunday in January.

* Full details can be found on my maths blog:

The Ten Year Challenge

January 13, 2019

A new normal

Pic of the week 13/1/19

The new normal.

Sophie has returned to uni, Sam is at work (& when he’s not, he’s out with his pals or hidden away in his room.)

As a family, we have transitioned into a new normal, a new phase of all of our lives.

Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad, just different – one has the definite sense that a milestone, a marker, has been passed.

Perhaps symbolic of this new phase, I spent 20 mins outside today, tidying away the geraniums that have finally succumbed to the frosts of late, and getting the daff pots from the bottom of the garden and back into prominence ready for the Spring that is, hopefully, not now too far away.

Green shoots – the knowledge that warmer, brighter times are ahead, both in the garden and metaphorically.

January 6, 2019January 6, 2019

Legends v Ashcott 6/1/19

Pic of the week 6/1/19

Every Day’s A School Day

A new year, a new term and two new faces gracing the pitch and achieving Legend status.

A new year, a new term but the same old perennial question of would we have eleven, come 11 am?

McEwan had mis-read the memo – a vague recollection about committing to the vets on Sunday saw him in Wellington getting treatment for his dog Charlie rather than lining up alongside his brothers in arms on the 4G pitch at Strode. No problem, the last minute arrival of new signing Tom Churchill saw us kick off with eleven men.

Playing on a 4G pitch is wonderful. The ball runs true, the bounce is always even, the weather no barrier to play. They are the future of football. Unfortunately, we are the (pre) History of football and lacking the leveler of an un-level pitch we were soon found out by an opposition who play week in, week out, knew where each other was, knew how to string passes together and knew the route to our goal.

Débutante Dave was magnificent in goal, frustrating the opposition on many an occasion but even he could not keep out a thunderous volley and hammered header. We found ourselves four nil down at half time, having been comprehensive schooled in the art of football.

The second half began in a more positive tone, as we began to find and exploit space; ironically, our defence became more fluid, making it more solid, and for some time neither side could break the deadlock. But, inevitably, our fluid solid defence ultimately led to confusion and Ashcott netted a couple more, without reply. When Peabody saw his blistering, dipping, swirling 30 yard free kick tipped athletically over the bar by the keeper at full stretch it looked as if we were destined not to trouble the scorer.

But that would be to dismiss our new signing. Following a magnificent goal saving block from Mo, the ball fell to Paul W deep in our half. He looked up, and pinged an inch perfect 40 yard pass to the waiting feet of Tom Churchill, who gathered calmly, ghosted past a defender, swept into the box and finished with aplomb, drilling the ball low and hard into the bottom corner.

The opposition managed another goal, before the final whistle blew. Every day’s a school day – we had learned our lesson from a well skilled, well drilled opposition. We lost the first half 4-0, the second 3-1: definite, measurable progress has been made.

Ashcott 7 Millfield 1

*The pic is a shot I took in November(?) at Abbey More Stadium, Glastonbury, not Strode Astro, where we played today.

January 2, 2019

2018 – How did I do?

So how did I do?

At the start of the year, here, I listed my goals, aims and targets for the year. 2018 now draws to a close – time to review how I did …

Run 10 Km in fewer minutes than my age in years. This one is my “biggie” for the year. Its doable, but by no means a given. Am targeting the Glastonbury 10K – conveniently after my birthday – but there are other events if I fail first time round. Will need to average 4 min 53 sec per Km – achievable on the flat, but on in an incline … Challenge complete. Didn’t do it in an official race as my knee injury prevented me running the Glastonbury 10K, but ran numerous self-timed 10Ks in sub 49 mins.
Run 400 Km. Nearly hit that total in 2017, should be able to do so on 2018, particularly given the goal above. Ran 424 Km in the year, all the more impressive given that there were some months when I didn’t run at all. Did a lot of running in the summer hols.
Swim 100 Km (3,000 lengths). An achievable, but not a given. If I swim regularly should be no problem. Swim at least once a week.
Spinning. Spin for a total of 2 days (48 hours). Started the year in good form, swimming on Tuesday evenings to keep up the once a week swim, but this tailed off after Easter. Swam 63.8 Km, 1914 lengths in almost bang on 24 hours of swimming.
Weight. I finished 2017 with a long term established weight of 12 stone 9, and I have allowed it to creep up over the Christmas period into the 13 stone bracket. Need to get that down. 12 stone 6 as my long term established weight is the goal. Reckon my weight averaged 12 stone 8 – was quite a bit of fluctuation throughout the year. More detail, and a fancy chart, can be seen here.
Garden. Enjoy it! Less construction and landscaping required this year (but some still needed) Grow sunflowers and sweat peas (in addition to some basic veg) Enjoyed the garden, no sunflowers, but did grow sweet peas and runner beans. Lawn took a bit of a beating in the heatwave, but think its in a better state now than 12 months ago. Graveled the area outside the sitting room, and built the adjacent mini-deck, pleased with the result.
My maths blog – keep blogging. Write a new post at least once per month, and write a minimum of 15 posts over the course of the year. I kept on blogging, writing 15 posts, but not consistently throughout the year (i.e. not one a month).
Sleep. A somewhat nebulous aim, but when I think about it, sleep – or perhaps I should say tiredness – is the thing I’d like to change most about my life this year. No target, but I shall aim to think about my sleep, my patterns and routines and what I can do to improve it/get more of it/reduce/manage my tiredness. Still get tired at times, but know a little more about the science behind it, manage my sleep a little better – I do think I’ve made progress with this, but hard to measure.

December 31, 2018

A Year in Stats

This year, like last, I’ve collected stats on my exercise.

But this year, I’ve also explored “R” – a programming language for statistics, and used it to produce some pretty charts about my year’s activities. Above is a box plot of my spinning.

I’ve also looked at my running split times:

I like the two above – showing my 2nd K to be my most consistent, my 4th the least. My 2nd K is the same for whatever run I run, but my 4th K is a very different beast depending on whether I do the 6K loop – in which case the 4th K is uphill, or the 7K loop, in which case its much flatter.

Having plotted the above – time to run 7K as a time series, is a remarkably similar shape to my weight as a time series:

I shouldn’t be too surprised, but to confirm my theory, I did a plot of weight v time to run 7Ks – not surprisingly their looks to be some correlation (note to self – need to find put how to use R to calculate the PMCC)

December 30, 2018

2018 in pictures

Pic of the year 2018

On the whole 2018 has been a good year.

So, I had an abscess on my tooth that hurt like hell, I knackered my knee and began to doubt I would ever walk properly again, and the boiler gave up the ghost, necessitating an expensive replacement, but other than that its been a pretty good year, and, as ever, Becky has captured many moments on camera.

We endured the Beast from the East, and then basked in the best summer since ’76.

We saw the Imagine Dragons, Scouting for Girls, The Rifles, Squeeze and the excellent Deacon Blue.

Sophie & Sam both did well in their summer exams (A levels & GCSEs) and Sophie is now thriving reading Economics at Reading University.

A fantastic week in Majorca was, perhaps, the highlight of the year.

We suffered jellyfish stings, World Cup fever and the sad demise of our baby robins.

And every morning I throw open the shutters and am met by a magnificent view of the Tor, in all its hues and variations.

2018 – thank you.

December 29, 2018

Weight 2018

My year, by weight.

This year (2018), every Friday morning I have weighed myself (except for one week, when I was away on my hols)

I’ve also spent some time this year teaching myself “R” – a programming language for statistics and have used it to produce the attached graph of how my weight has changed as the year unfolded.

The year began with me shedding my Christmas excess, the low point coinciding with my “tooth” problems in March when eating was not easy.

The peak at week thirty was my first time back on the scales after a wonderful week in Majorca, and yesterday’s (week 52) shocker can be put down to Christmas.

My aim for 2019 is to get it to stabilise around the 176 mark.

December 23, 2018