Running Around Like A Headless Chook and Not Sleeping Sure Aids Weight Loss

Mon gave me EA Active 2 for Christmas. I guess she was trying to tell me something ;-). Actually fair cop I did need to lose a load of beef cake weight that I had put on in the run up to Christmas and during said festive period. I really love the workouts in EA Active and before Peter was born I managed to get through one and and a third 9 week fitness programs.

I was slightly disappointed with the second 9 week program as I think the game was designed for a single 9 week run. Reason is there are plenty of rewards to be had, as pictured below, throughout the course of the first 9 week program. You finish one of you 4 weekly workouts and at the end they give you a trivial meaningless award! During the second there seem to be none available. Not a big deal I guess but always a pleasant surprise to get an award for reaching some level through the game. And damn straight I am a hot stepper!

So through the 12 weeks that I played the game I managed to lose 8 kilograms. Not too shabby at all. However since Peter was born I have simply been too mentally busy to dedicate 4 hours a week to do 4 workouts on EA Active 2. In fact I haven't played since Peter was born. Oh well not too worry.

I figure that I had probably put on weight since being unable to play. In reality I have had the odd spare hour to play but usually have simply been far too warn out! So today we weighed Peter to see how much of a beef cake he is becoming. I use the Wii Fit Body Test to weigh myself and figured that I could simply do this twice. Once while holding Peter, and once without. If my maths, and impossibly tired logic, is correct, the difference in weight would actually be Peter's weight ;-) So I picked up Peter and stepped on the Wii Balance Board and was pleasantly surprised that since Peter's birth, 6 weeks ago, I have only put on a single pound! Sweet!

Oh, hang on, that was while holding Peter! Sorted. His last weigh in he topped the scales at 3.6 kilograms, so wow, I have actually lost weight since his arrival. On I step again without Peter and it turns out that I have actually lost 4 kilograms since my last weigh in! Result! Peter seems to have gained all of the weight that I have put on! Poor guy ;-). Oh yeah that's good for a bubba.

I can only assume that running around like a headless chook, looking after a newborn, and not sleeping particularly well, is a good weight loss mechanism! Given Peter sleeps most of the time, as can be seen with his seeming complete disdain for the Royal Wedding, see below, it's not as if I have actually been chasing after him. When you try and fit your previous, pre-baby, life into 3 hour time slots, in and around baby feeding and nappy changing times, I guess you really have to rush! Doing this 7 or 8 times a day also probably has you burning calories, as if there is no tomorrow, when you previously were sleeping.

So there you have it. EA Active is a great solution for a 9 week burst of activity to shed a few of those unwanted kilos. In fact it's brilliant. I highly rate it. If you need the motivation provided by winning trivial awards through gameplay, then like me, gameplay might drag a little during the 2nd 9 week program you work through. Don't worry though, there's a simple solution. Just have a child and you'll continue to shed weight! ;-)

Have fun

m

Half A Hedge Haircut

As can be seen above, a Spring growth spurt has caused our hedges to become rather unruly! I could well have trimmed them well before now, however I was keen to avoid clipping before a possible frost. Not sure it entirely matters but wanted to make sure. That and simply being run off my feet has prevented me from addressing before yesterday. Even so I have still only managed to cut back half of them! Will try to finish off the rest this afternoon, Peter duties permitting ;-)

So the half that have been trimmed look a little better ;-)

Although, the first time I get the hedge trimmer out I always have the tendency to cause an over zealous gash in one or two places in the hedge! Oh well, it's nothing that'll do any harm and it'll grow back ;-) Peter be warned if I ever have to give you a haircut! You would do well in asking Mum to give you a haircut before I have a go! I am not entirely sure if hedge trimmers should be used to cut children's hair. Are you reading this Peter? Possibly not yet, but when you do you can see why it would be better to get Mum to give you a mop chop!

Our hedges have really suffered in the past, and even this year there are plants that appear to be dying out. Consequently part of the process of hedge maintenance also includes taking cuttings. Below are my late Summer cuttings from last year. Unbelievably these four survived the Winter which surprises me as they were particularly neglected. I really did very little to look after them through the December snow and cold. That is apart from look at them once in a while and feel sorry for them! That aside they made it through and are going great guns!

I repotted these about a month ago. As it turns out I think the pots they have been put in are far too big. According to Gardeners' World repotting should happen through stages and you should not simply take from a very small pot and put a cutting in a much larger pot. The process should be gradual and go through a number of increasingly larger pots, that are just slightly bigger form the last. Well I only saw this in a recent episode so I didn't do this! Oh well lets see what happens. I have another cutting that is 2 years old now that seems to be going fine so I hope these will as well.

Yesterday I planted 6 more cuttings, but want to get many more going. Will add some more prior to the next hedge trim. Yesterdays cuttings are below

I don't really do anything special with my cuttings. I cut them, trim back a few of the lower leaves and plant them in a cutting fertisliser. That's it. It worked last year so lets see if it works this year! I also took cutting's of different sizes this year. Lets see what works best if any and then repeat. I will let you know later what works out best.

Well Mon is now out the door so I had better sign off and make sure that Peter isn't playing with the hedge trimmer! This baby sitter lark is easy! ;-)

Have fun

m

A Year In The Brentham Garden Estate and Pitshanger

We moved into our new house in the Brentham Garden Estate on April 23 2010. I really loved Canonbury, where we moved from, however living in a one bedroom flat was a little trying by the time we left. The day we moved was just perfect! Beautiful sun and about 20 degrees. The Picture above is of Denison Ludlow Green behind our new place. Such a beautiful Spring day for the first day of our life in Ealing.

Living in a one bedroom flat with no outdoor space did not lend itself to having outdoor furniture and given the weather when we moved, of course we had to buy some immediately! The day this was delivered of course trigger three days of torrential rain that resulted in flooding in Pitshanger Park! See below.

After that initial dampener on the early summer weather, things actually reverted to normal and we had one of the best summers I can remember in years. For considerable periods of time there was actually warm sunshine!

The Summer saw the World Cup held in South Africa, where the Brentham Club came in quite handy to take care of a good place to watch the games with a bit of atmosphere. Of course England were terrible again, but that is always something you can count on.

June 20th, saw the annual Pitshanger Party in the Park, organised by the Pitshanger Community Association. We were roped in to help out serving behind the bar. A bit of a thankless task actually so not sure we will be back in 2011!

July saw one side of our garden massacred by the neighbours replacing their fence. The best thing about it was the lack of notice they gave us about doing it. I guess they had not read 'How To Win Friends And Influence People' recently? The garden has recovered but the whole process was a little disheartening really. Ho hum. One must move on! ;-)

There have been three major DIY activities since moving in, and many minor ones! We have finished off three rooms, now to get through and do the rest!

As mentioned previously the London Summer was a cracker in 2010, resulting in quite a few evenings spent on the roof top terrace of the Brentham Club. A brilliant location to unwind after work!

There were also too many BBQ's to mention through the summer. All too often we ended up cooking in the backyard as opposed to the kitchen. Whenever the opportunity arose we grabbed it! Simply too important not to waste a warm sunny moment! Living in London you quickly realise it could be your last! ;-)

Apart from taking up gardening in our acquired garden, as highlighted in many other places in this blog, there was also the opportunity for community gardening. The houses on our street back onto Denison Ludlow Green which is collectively owned by the owners of the houses on both these streets. Consequently we are responsible for its up-keep!

December saw the first of two snow sessions in London this winter. The second caused absolute carnage as Heathrow was closed for several days and the rest of the country ground to a halt as well. Understandable I guess as there was 15cms of snow ..... ;-)

We had our first Christmas tree as well this year!

and we won't mention the 2010/11 Ashes as they were held too far away!

Of Course Peter squeezed himself into our first year in Brentham! He was born on the 21st of March and has blessed us with his presence since. Of course it might be nice if he let us sleep a little more, but I guess that goes with the territory!

Of course it's really impossible to summarise the past year adequately, however it has been fantastic. I look forward to many more years to come!

Cheers

m

Guessing Where The Planes Are Going Doesn't Quite Require The Same Imagination Any More!

We have been sat out in the garden this evening, and although the departing Heathrow planes don't use a flight path near our house that often, this evening they thought it might be a good idea. Seeing planes take off always has me starting to dream of holiday destinations and start thinking about planning travel! This task always required a little imagination though. Sure you can typically see the plane airline, but there is never an indication as to where it's going. One's imagination can come into play though in order to at least guess about it.

That is until now. There are a couple of smartphone applications that provide a real time overlay of plane locations over a map. The one pictured above is the free version of Plane Finder. It really is amazing what open access to data can allow you to do. The data in Plane Finder is up to date, so much so that when the plane was over us in real life, it was also pictured as such on Plane Finder. A really great use of real time data.

On the free version of Plane Finder you don't have access to destination data, only flight numbers. Still a quick search on Google for 'flight SAS810' easily shows up that this flight was bound for Oslo. Ah Oslo, wish I was going back there soon. Oslo in the Summer is a fantastic city! Especially getting out on the Fjord .... See! Dreaming of holiday destinations again! Only Oslo will be out this year as I cannot afford to remortgage my house in order to afford to spend a weekend there. Travel in Norway is expensive! Still worth it when you can. I remember fondly our trip to Bergen last year.

I do wonder though if having such simple access to data kills imagination a little. Oh the paid for version of Plane Finder has even access to more data, including destination detail for flights. Cool! I won't have to think again! ;-)

Well maybe not, perhaps we just imagine different things.

Anyways have fun, and for a giggle if you have an iPhone and want to know why that pesky flight is destroying your peaceful afternoon, have a look on plane finder so at least you will be able to image what fun all the folks on that flight will have when they reach their destination! Then check the weather at that destination to see if their holiday is going to be worth it :-)

Cheers

m

Flowers In The Garden Are Fantastic But They Certainly Don't Last Forever!

The early Spring flowers in our garden are pretty much well all past it now. The daffodils finished quite a few weeks ago, and the thunderstorm we had last night has definitely ended the lives of the tulips that had been sharing their splendor with us for the past two to three weeks. The picture above shows the carnage that the heavy rain had left behind this morning. The storm really was a cracker with loads of thunder, lightening and 14 mm or rain in about 2 hours. Thunderstorms in London are rather rare but yesterdays 27 degrees and brilliant sun saw the clouds build up during the day and unleash a little bit of frenzy in the early evening, Still not quite the tropical downpours we expect at home in Australia but still a pretty decent show! Still we needed the rain! If feels as though it has been several weeks since we have had any!

The picture below shows off the tulips when they were felling somewhat better! Worth another look as they really were spectacular. Bulbs are such a great sign that Spring is with us and the daffodils and tulips are such a welcome sight.



Although the poppies are continuing their gradual escape, the first escapee has been halted in it's tracks by the rain from last night as well! Poppies are delicate flowers and the picture below shows off how delicate they can be after having to go through 14 mm of heavy rain

I hope this is not punishment for trying to escape! Below is a picture of the first escapee just after reaching freedom!

As ever, more photos can be seen on my flickr photostream

Next up, when time permits after helping around the house (and helping with Peter!) will be the border hedges first trim of the season! They are getting a little unruly and could do with a good haircut! ;-) They could also do with a feed of fertiliser and are also in need of some TLC as certain sections of the hedges have died out. Glad to say my hedge cuttings are coming along, but more will be required! More on this later.

Have fun

Cheers

m

I Love Pitshanger Park!

I never really stopped to think how much I used Pitshanger Park in Ealing. It is about 400 meters away from my front door so it's sort of a part of an almost a daily routine. Sure I am not the foursquare mayor anymore but I was for a considerable amount of time! I tell you what, the more folks that play foursquare the more diluted my mayoralship pool has become! ;-)

I used the park for jogging, although that is limited now. Nowadays its mainly a daily walk through the park with Peter and Mon. It is such a little oasis of calm in amongst all the mayhem. Not that Pitshanger, or Ealing for that matter, is particularly chaotic! Given the park is nestled rather close to the ever busy A40 it's amazing that the traffic noise doesn't interrupt the serenity. I guess you can't stop progress ;-). Myself and Mon have trained ourselves such, that whenever we hear the traffic noise all we think about are waves crashing on a beach. Whenever we are down in the park during a particularly noisy peak hour we just assume that the seas are rough and the waves are really pounding the beach!

One of the things that I truly love about the park is the community spirit there. This doesn't necessarily mean that every time you go there that you bump into folks that you know, who are hosting a sing-a-long event by a campfire. Although the annual Party In The Park is pretty much well a large scale version of that! What I really mean is that the community use the park, appreciate the park and tend to respect that everyone is entitled to use the park and that it doesn't merely exist for their benefit.

To understand this a little better I look back to where we used to live in Islington, near Highbury Fields. Another fantastic London park that as soon as the sun hits, is rammed to the rafters with folks enjoying the heat. The trouble with Highbury Fields though is the morning after effect. Highbury Fields was always packed on sunny days, with good cause. Sitting in the sun and enjoying one of London's many great parks is a fantastic experience. However after the event the place always resembles a war zone. So much rubbish is left behind at the end of a sunny day it is almost unbelieveable. I was always horrified at the litter left behind. To me littering is the lowest form of vandalism so I used to get infuriated. Especially the sheer volume of the problem.

In Pitshanger, sure it's London so there is always a little rubbish left behind, but typically, people use the park and appreciate it. They realise other people also use the park and the majority of folks clean up after themselves when they leave. I think one of the reasons this happens is because the folks that use the park live in the surrounding community and don't particularly like living in the presence of a rubbish dump. When it comes to Highbury Fields though, most of the people who use that park, due to it being closer to the city, are weekend tourists. They don't wake up to the rubbish so they don't care. To be fair on Islington Council, they did clean up the park very quickly, even on Sunday mornings, but why on earth should they have to? The amount of littering in London is absolutely disgraceful and I really feel its due to an attitude of 'It's not my backyard so who cares'.

Glad to say though, that so far I have not seen this attitude in Pitshanger Park, which is precisely why I think it has more of a community feel to the park. This, along with the park itself, I really love.

Another benefit, of almost daily wanders through the park, is, just like with the garden, I have been able to watch it evolve through the seasons! I just love this. Having watched the place bloom back into life this Spring has been an absolute joy. I have included some pictures that I have taken over the past 12 months we have lived in the Pitshanger area. It has been a fantastic year for many reasons. Being able to enjoy Pitshanger Park is just scratching the surface! Hope you can see from the photos why Pitshanger Park is such an appealing place! Another beautiful park in London.

Autumn In Pitshanger Park





Winter In Pitshanger Park







and Spring in Pitshanger Park









Hope you enjoy some of the photos, and if you get the chance hope you get to try out and enjoy Pitshanger Park! Feel free, the more the merrier and there's room for everyone ;-)

Have fun

Cheers

m

Plotting An Early Morning Escape! The Poppies Break Free!

Took this photo this morning and for some reason it has me in stitches. All I can think of is the poppy is desperately trying to break free and unleash itself in the morning sun. Our first one has come out and is huge. On one of the morning's this week on stepping outside the front door I was greeted with this pleasant site

When they do break free it happens so quickly! They are such bizzare flowers as well. For some reason they remind me of a cross between the Alien eggs in the movie Alien and the blood eating plants in the Little Shop Of Horrors! Below are examples of both of these. Tell me you don't see the resemblance! Firstly the eggs from Alien

and now the blood eating plants in Little Shop Of Horrors

Hmmm as I finish writing this I am wondering if I should actually venture near these plants any more!! ;-) Well I think if the bees can handle them then I can probably get away with walking past them without being attacked and my body becoming an incubator for an acid blooded nasty. Below is a picture I took last year of a Bumble Bee absolutely drunk on poppy pollen. Have not had a repeat performance yet but I will keep on the look out. This little blighter below was crawling about in a frenzy in the poppy having a merry old time

Hope I haven't put you off your poppies. As far as I am aware there have not been any incidents recently of poppies mutilating humans. Could be wrong and maybe the government is covering it up? Who knows? I will keep an eye out for the Gardeners' World or Country File expose on this sometime later in the year. Until then don't say I didn't warn you!!!

Have fun

Cheers

m

Sonos Plus Spotify - a Killer Combination.

I have always been a huge fan of the concept behind Sonos. Wirelessly streaming music all over your house and being able to play different music in different rooms. I have a friend who has be raving about it for years, however he had to have a media server, essentially a crappy old PC, running in his loft to serve the music content. Although loving the concept I never really wanted to leave a PC permanently on in amongst the loft insulation to play music.

This is where Spotify, for me, turns the Sonos into a killer music combination. Spotify basically rocks. A streaming music service that allows you to create playlists of you favourite music and chair dance you day away while at work. With access to something like 10 million songs, you are pretty much well guaranteed to find what you are looking for, although dissapointingly, when in a fit of nostalgia the other night, I was unable to find any tunes by Cold Chisel! Sure there is heaps of Jimmy Barnes stuff, but come on! No Cold Chisel! Dissapointing! Do you really want to listen to Jimmy Barnes? ;-)

Spotify has a free and premium service with the free service interrupted by ads. Think of it as radio where annoyingly ads interrupt the chat and music. I seriously hate radio advertising, although in the UK if you a BBC junky you don't really hear any! Tidy! Oh it should be noted that the free service is actually being limited further now, to encourage you to to become a premium subscriber, however I never felt the need to upgrade my account and pay for Spotify. I listened to Spotify at work but really that was it. Most of the time, dependant on what I am working on at home, I don't sit in front of a PC at home. Also I don't have a PC sat in the corner of my living room that is permanently turned on allowing me access to Spotify. As Spotify it is an internet based product it firmly lived, for me, in an at work stuck at my desk and stuck on the internet kind of way!

With the Sonos S5 though the game changes. As mentioned above the Sonos streams music from whatever source it has access to. This might be that PC you leave turned on in the loft, but not for me! It does however also stream music from the Internet. Very tidy. So you have access to pretty much well every Internet Radio station and also Spotify.

Access to Spotify, for me is the game changer. Now I have access to the 10 million odd tracks that Spotify has access to through a very cool and non intrusive Sonos S5 that sits tidily in the corner. It's trivial to use and set up, and although you might have to buy a remote control, handily there is a free iPhone and Android app that lets you control the system through your phone. A screenshot of the iPhone app is included above.

You do have to have a premium Spotify account, which costs you £10 a month, but with access to the volume of music that you have, this is peanuts. Since having access to Spotify through the Sonos S5 I have deleted every album on my Amazon wish list that is available on Spotify. that has saved me about £100 right there.

i find now, I want to turn on music and listen to that before turning on the TV and becoming a vegetable as well. There is something just right about having music on instead of the TV and the Sonos S5 sound, although I am not the greatest Audiophile in the world, is fantastic. To me, at least, it sounds great!

Also in terms of music discoverability it simply rocks! I love watching something on TV, or listening to the radio on the drive home, and hearing a track from ages ago and being able to search for it on Spotify, add it to a playlist and listen away. It has been a great deal of fun trying to figure out the names of artists and tracks that I used to listen to as a kid and see if they are available on Spotify. There is a lot that isn't as the afore mentioned Cold Chisel example highlights, but the sheer volume and choice that is available gets you past the slight dissapointment experienced when you cannot find Khe Sanh ;-)

Seriously love it!

There is a potential flaw in the whole concept though. Once you have one Sonos you want more! For some reason you start to think about all of the other rooms in your house and how you could stream music there! Also you then want to set up a NAS so, without having to leave your PC running permanently, you can have access to all of your own music as well that you have patiently been collecting for the past few decades! This is when the Danger alarms start ringing!

Cheers

m

Addition: Classic. As I was writing this and mentioning about hearing something on the radio or TV and then trying to find it on Spotify, I was thinking that a Shazam/Spotify integration would greatly help this discoverability use case! Well low and behold the good folks at Spotify and Shazam have been thinking the same thing! Information about that here.

Oh and for those of you who want to know what all the fuss SHOULD be about Cold Chisel ... enjoy!

Spring Waits For No Man - Not Even Peter Marius!

So gardening opportunities have been rare since the arrival of Peter Marius! Not that I am complaining what so ever! Running around like a headless chicken for the past month has been the most pleasurable headless chicken running EVA! You know its true if the word EVA is used over ever ;-)

A couple of pruning sessions, a couple of mowing sessions and some quick dashes to take a few photos when the light has been right. That being said it has been a real magical experience watching the garden evolve during the Spring, not that I have had a great deal of time to watch it that much. You turn your back for a day or two and all of a sudden another group of flowers has burst onto the scene.

So although I have not been able to spend a great deal of time in the garden I have been able to enjoy the fleeting glimpses I have been able to make! Although I have not been able to download all of the photos yet, here are a few that might brighten your spring day! Oh ... at some stage more about the results of the lawn scarifying as well. It has worked well! For now though ...

Forget me nots invading the garden

The Daffodils singing in the Spring!

The Furry Pulsatilla Vulgaris - Pasque Flower

and the glorious tulips!

and the pink tulips ;-)

OK more later, but there are more here on my Flickr Stream if you need another fix ;-)

Spring has been so special in the Garden and even more special as we have been able to share it with Peter Marius! That being said the little blighter is now making noises! Must sign off and see what the little tacker needs ;-)

Have fun and more later I hope!

Cheers

m