keeping my head above water

 

 Image by Deborah Stevenson.  You can buy it here...if you're quite rich.

Just to say, before anyone becomes concerned that I'm stuck in a permanent mire, that I'm back in the room, back in the saddle, back on top of my game, back in general.  Yes, I've picked myself up, patted myself down, been to work, been back to the pool, been for a walk...  Not feeling great, but feeling OK.  Onwards and upwards!

Here's a song I've been loving lately.

Want to know what I'm having for dinner tonight? Of course you do.  It's the super-healthy taste sensation that is soba noodle and edamame salad with grilled tofu.  I've been trying lots of new recipes from BBC Good Food lately, all with a nod to the wholesome and healthy.  They've all been pretty good, but this has been one of the favourites so far.  I really enjoy cooking these days, which is an unexpected development.  Dulcie's being really good about trying new things, which helps a lot.  I'm trying to eat slightly less bread so have gone back to this granola for breakfast, which I make with about 80% less honey and maple syrup than the recipe suggests.  Still really tasty and more than sweet enough, especially when you slice a banana on top of it.  Talking of bananas...I was.  Talking about bananas, I mean, and in my sleep, no less!  I was obviously very proud of the enormous bunch I bought yesterday.  Such stuff as dreams are made on... Ha!

And I think that's about it for today.  Good stuff.

home for hogmanay #6 and #7

Drowning in Thoughts by Kathrin Honesta, found here.

Thoughts are the only thing I'm likely to drown in at the moment, that or origami stars!  Swimming has not been going so well :(  Last week I was too busy to manage more than one swim (or to do my weekly swim update on the blog) and this week I was busy and not feeling very well and didn't swim at all.

Here are my "stats" from last week and this.

Lengths swum last week: 60
Target total last week: 510

Total lengths swum: 466 (44 behind target)

Lengths swum this week: 0
Target total this week: 595

Total lengths swum: 466 (129 behind target)

As you can see, I'm way behind and, to be honest, just wanting to abandon the pool in favour of halloween/birthday/Christmas crafting, maybe pick it up again in January.  But I'll see what I can do this coming week and decide on a new plan of action then.

home for hogmanay #5

 (I definitely don't look this cool in the pool, but who, other than Don Draper, ever does?!)

Lengths swum this week: 60
Target total this week: 425

Total lengths swum: 406 (19 behind target)

I've fallen behind target for the first time, but not by much and I haven't been feeling so good this week.  (Kidneys again?  Who knows, but I've got a blood test soon, so I guess we'll find out then.)  Strangely, swimming today made me feel much better than lying on the couch all day yesterday did, not that I didn't enjoy reading a book and watching two films, with a blanket, a hot water bottle and two cats!  So, swimming... I think I can claw back those missing lengths (and hopefully a few more for good measure) over the coming week.  No worries, cobber!

It was so nice to be able to google Don Draper images without fear of a self-inflicted spoiler, as Graham and I finally got to the end of the last-ever series of Mad Men last week.  So sad it's over, but I did love it.  I won't spoil any surprises for any of you, but I will share this picture of Don Draper's Double Denim (it's a thing, I swear!) which you can enjoy without fear of any major plot lines being blown.

Hummanah, hummanah!  The other weekend, I heard Katie Puckrik on 6 Music talking about the time Jon Hamm used the phrase "raging erection" in a television interview and it made steam come out of her ears.  I can quite understand and wish I'd seen it, though even hearing about it second-hand was enough to reduce me to a quivering, giggling wreck and I think I texted/whatsapped pretty much, er, everyone to share the news.  Yes, it's news! Don Draper + "raging erection" = news!  I'm going to miss Mad Men so much.  Could it be too soon to rewatch?  Probably.

home for hogmanay #4

(This was an eBay listing from the past, I think.)

 Lengths swum this week: 60
Target total this week: 340

Total lengths swum: 346 (6 ahead of target)

I only managed to squeeze in one swim this week, I'm aiming for two again next week.  I'm definitely getting back into the swing of it, craving the pool when I'm not in it and enjoying the feeling of exercising regularly.  Plus I treated myself to a new swimming suit as my old one (well, I say old, I only got it earlier this year) was embarrassingly faded in certain (embarrassing) areas and was quite close to wearing through in the, er, seat.  It felt nice to have a smart new suit and not to be checking for accidental bum exposure at the end of each length.

I was at the heart hospital today and had an interesting conversation about how patients who feel control over their situation tend to do better/have a better prognosis.  Swimming (and the fact my heart has shown some improvement for the first time since I started doing it) definitely allows me to experience the unfamiliar feeling of having some control over my health/situation, as opposed to just being a passive tablet receptacle hoping for the best.  What is the opposite of a vicious circle?  That's what swimming is - improves my health which gives a feeling of being in control which improves my health...  You get the idea.  Basically, swimming is a win-win activity.  I can't wait to get back in the pool :) 

home for hogmanay #3

Image from Seasons by Blexbolex

Lengths swum this week: 112
Target total this week: 255

Total lengths swum: 286 (31 ahead of target)

It's going well.  I think I'll only manage one swim next week, so I'm glad to have banked a few extra lengths.

In less impressive health-and-fitness news, I've gained so much weight since I got married.  Boo.  Our celebratory abandonment of our (slightly) healthier eating/drinking habits went on a bit longer than we'd planned.  I'm kicking myself.  Weight is so hard to lose and so easy to gain.  Sigh...  But you know what, I'm still a stone lighter than I was at the start of the year and am feeling like October is the month to be back on it.  I've gone tee-total for the month.  Graham and I both gave up booze for the first three weeks in August and felt so much better (and slimmer) for it.  I was so excited to lay off the booze again that I started a few days early and am on day four of my alcohol-free existence already.  I'm quite an all-or-nothing person and find it much easier to give things up completely than I do to enjoy them in real moderation.  And having a definite change in my habits is what I need to help get me refocussed and back on the straight and narrow.  I think if I lose about a pound a week between now and February (totally doable if I don't go too crazy over Christmas) I should be at my ideal/target weight by the time I next see my heart consultant.  I do love getting a gold star and a pat on the back from him, sad individual that I am.  I can do this!  Oh, yeah!

home for hogmanay #2

La Nageuse by Sabrina Arnault

 Lengths swum this week: 64
Target total this week: 170

Total lengths swum: 174 (4 ahead of target)

Squeezed in the only swim of the week at the eleventh hour.  So pleased to have managed to stay on track.  Phew!  Going to aim for two swims next week.

home for hogmanay #1

(I can't find the source for this image, sorry.)

Lengths swum this week: 110
Target total this week: 85

Total lengths swum: 110 (25 ahead of target)

I was pleased to discover my fitness levels hadn't dropped too much.  Still got it! :)

dipping my toe in the water

 

Image by Tatsuro Kiuchi

I'm going to the pool tonight, for the first time in ages, to begin my next swimming challenge.  I'm aiming to swim the equivalent of the Channel (again) by the end of the year, i.e. in a little over three months, which works out at 85 lengths a week.  That seems about right, I think, though I hope I haven't lost too much of my swimming mojo during my two months on dry land...

My weeks are running Friday - Thursday (that way I have right up until the 31st of December, should I need it) and I'll post weekly updates on a Thursday, so the results will be hot off the press!  Failing to come up with an alliterative title involving the word Thursday, I think I'm going to call this challenge Home For Hogmanay, but do let me know if you have any better ideas :)

I might as well confess

I haven't been swimming since I completed the Channel challenge and I'm meant to be 160-odd lengths in to the four-month challenge by now.  I've decided to postpone, I'm afraid.  I'm so busy with the wedding and (even more so) getting the flat sorted in time for the wedding, and swimming is just too time consuming an activity at the moment.  I've been going on my exercise bike instead, though even that not as much as I ought to.  I'm cutting myself some slack.  I'll only get married once (hopefully) and (hopefully) I'll be a swimmer for life.  So, for now, I'm going to squeeze in the odd swim as and when I can and start the four-month challenge in September.  Phew, it feels good to confess that!  The blog is also taking more and more of a backseat for the same reasons.  Meh, blogging mojo comes and goes with me.  I'll come back to it soon, I'm sure.

The upside of all this is that real real-life progress is being made.  I'll try to share some photos soon.

Right, better go.  Dulcie came down with a stomach bug at about 1.30am last night, so we're both having an unexpected day off work/nursery.  She's being such a brave soldier.  I totally love that girl, smelling of puke or otherwise.  She's currently asleep on the living room floor.  I wrestled myself out of a two-hour long cuddle a little while ago, only for her to roll over on top of my feet.  Oh well, at least I'm on the couch now, with the computer and TV remote within arm's reach.  And we watched The Wizard Of Oz (first time for Dulcie) at 5am.  I guess tummy bugs do have their upsides if you look hard enough.

swim sunday #25

Bonjour!

Lengths swum this week: 72

Target total this week: 1360

Total lengths swum: 1360

Je l'ai nage la Manche! (Translation: I've swum the Channel!)

I completed my Channel challenge on Monday, with an epic 72-length swim and 8 days to spare!  Yippee!  Given where I was at with this a few weeks back, I can't quite believe I made it, but I totally did!  I've been feeling very proud of myself all week :)

Swimming 80+ lengths a week now turned out to be easier than it was to swim 50+ lengths a week in the beginning, so I'm going to attempt to swim back in four months rather than six, meaning I should land in "Dover" by Halloween.  Yes, I'm doing it all again.  While it would be nice to think I could swim aimlessly and achieve the same result fitness-wise, I know I need a weekly kick up the arse to keep me on track and motivate me, so, in the words of Edith Piaf, "Je repars a zero," which (I think!) translates as, "I start again from zero." Quite a thought...but, weirdly, not a bad one.

For the swim back, my weeks are going to run Wednesday - Tuesday, so I'll be calling my weekly blog updates Wet Wednesday, unless I can think of something better.  If I've done my sums right, I need to swim an average of 80 lengths a week, but I'm going to try to bank more in the early stages in anticipation of the fact that August's wedding will likely throw a spanner in the works.  Watch this space/the horizon!

swim sunday #24

This print available here.

Lengths swum this week: 110
Target total this week: 1279

Total lengths swum: 1288 (9 ahead of target)

I'd need to swim 72 lengths this week to meet next week's target...AND COMPLETE THE CHANNEL SWIM!

Sorry I blabbed mid-week and made this post even less exciting than it might have been.  I actually hoped to squeeze in another swim over the weekend, but it was not to be.  But yes, I'm all set to complete my Channel swim on time by the end of the month and I'm so excited!  It seemed all was lost a few weeks back so I'm glad to have pulled it back together at the eleventh hour.  

 

I was doing a lot of reminiscing in the pool this week and realised how much fitter I am now than I was in January.  I can swim faster and further with less negative side effects afterwards.  I'm also finding day-to-day life much easier - I'm definitely stronger and puffing and panting a bit less.  And, of course, my heart scans have been showing better results too.  It's all good, good, good.  Hooray for swimming!

I'll tell you about my post-Channel plans once I've actually completed the challenge.  Watch this space... :)

check this out!

I know it's not Swim Sunday yet, but I'm just saying...  Getting so close!  Fate may be conspiring against me (work has chosen next week to send me on a three-day first-aid course and my usual Monday night swim-sitter can't do it on the 29th) but there is no way this Channel will not be swum on time!

swim sunday #23

This is exactly how I feel today.  Sketch of a tired swimmer taking a dive by the very talented Non-Indigenous Woman.

 
Lengths swum this week: 60
Target total this week: 1198

Total lengths swum: 1178 (20 behind target)

I'd need to swim 101 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

 

I was hard pushed to make it to the pool at all this week.  Dulcie has been off nursery, fighting off some sort of virus. She has been mum-limpeting non-stop (and not managing to sleep for coughing) since we got back from our holiday, so my planned mid-week/Saturday swim sessions were scuppered but I squeezed one in this morning - the first time Dulcie hasn't been physically attached to me since Wednesday.  Maybe I shouldn't have gone (I'm a wreck now) but I couldn't stand the thought of a zero-lengths total for the week. I'm only about four swims away from finishing the challenge.  Exciting!  But then what will I do to keep myself going back to the pool?  So far I haven't come up with anything more exciting than swimming back across the Channel by Christmas.  Anyone got any better ideas?

swim sunday #22

Lengths swum this week: 62
Target total this week: 1118

Total lengths swum: 1118 (on target)

I'd need to swim 80 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

Sorry this post is a couple of days late.  I didn't get round to blogging while we were at my sister's over the weekend, but the swimming was completed on schedule, I promise!

You'll have gathered we're back from our holidays, literally just in the door.  Dulcie had a blast with her cousins.  I was officially TOO HOT but enjoyed myself nonetheless and found a hidden talent for hula hooping.  I'm still feeling good health-wise, so it's back to work tomorrow morning.  It's been a long time (cue the deleting of a million emails) but hopefully I won't need to take any more time off sick for the foreseeable future.  How nice to be able to say that with a modicum of confidence :)

getting stronger!

Given my recent kidney incident, my heart checkups got moved forward by a couple of months to make sure there wasn't any sinister heart business behind it all.  Yesterday I went for an echo of my heart and today I saw my consultant to discuss the results and, for the first time since all the heart failure kicked off, I had bona fide GOOD NEWS - there has been a significant improvement in my heart function.  Whoop!  I mean, it's still essentially buggered and all, but not as buggered as it has been and I am delighted!  Beyond delighted!  Of course, my medication and "magic machine" may be helping in the background (they probably are) but I think we can safely put this recent improvement squarely down to...me!  It's my swimming and my exercise biking and my weight loss (1.5 stone and counting) and my general hard heart graft.  Go me!  Yes, go me!  Whoop!  I've been walking around with a cheesy grin on my face all day.  Well, apart from when I felt crap and had to have a lie down, but generally...whoop!  I'm super excited to think that I might be able to keep improving things, up to a point at least, and it's just amazing to feel some sort of control over the situation at long last.  And lately (since my kidneys started working again) I've been weirdly enjoying exercise and wanting to do it and I'm loving my new muscles and the feeling of being strong and on top of things.  2015 is going to be the year when things started getting better, people.  Whoop!

swim sunday #21

This is Gertrude Ederle, the first woman (and sixth person) known to have swum the Channel.  What a lady!  I think I might adopt her as my mental mascot, though my own swimming challenge is going pretty well at the moment.  I've rediscovered my determination.

Lengths swum this week: 110
Target total this week: 1037

Total lengths swum: 1056 (19 ahead of target)

I'd need to swim 62 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

Swimming highlight of the week: being overtaken (repeatedly) by a one-armed man.  Ha ha!

swim sunday #20

Lengths swum this week: 70
Target total this week: 957

Total lengths swum: 946 (11 behind target)

I'd need to swim 91 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

Swi-i-i-i-im in the end! :)

swim sundays #17, #18, #19

Lengths swum these last three weeks: 0 (I've been ill! I've got a note!)
Target total this week: 1034

Total lengths swum: 876 (158 behind target)

I'd need to swim 212 lengths this week to meet next week's target...and I think we can all agree that ain't happening!  Time for a rethink. I'd really like to complete the challenge on time if I can and, while I accept that might not be doable, I'm not ready to give up yet.  So my plan is to divide the total number of lengths left to do equally among the six weeks that remain, which means I'd have to swim an average of 80/81 lengths each week.  This is a lot of swimming, but not impossible if I don't have any more major health setbacks.  I can but try!  Plus I have two spare days to play with at the end of June too.  I think I may need them.  Gulp!

So, new targets in mind:

I'd need to swim 81 lengths this week to meet next week's new target of 957 lengths.

Wish me luck...

beaming into outer space

Or should that be BEADING into outer space?  Oh, my rapier wit...

So, all the beads are on.  I even went back and redid some bits after I discovered I had a much more suitable purple colour in my bead stash.  Now I just need to decide what to do with it...and how to do it.  My original plan was to make it into a bracelet, but there seems to be a lot of fiddly work involved in that and I'm not sure where to start.  It would be much easier to attach it to a piece of felt and frame it, but I feel like that might highlight its wonkiness more.  I might set it aside for a while and come back to it later.  

 

Either way, I've discovered I really enjoy beading.  It's just the right amount of fiddly - demands your concentration but in a relaxing way.  I'm sure I'll bead again, but I'll wait and see how this looks in its finished state and then plan my next project accordingly.

I'm chalking this up as a Craftathon 2015 success!

P.S. Apologies for the lack of Swim Sunday post this week.  I got confused by the bank holiday, but truth be told, I haven't swum in almost a fortnight because I haven't been feeling well enough.  Feeling a bit broken-record-like to say this again, but I'm hoping I'll feel up to a swim this week.  Either way, I'll do a proper progress report next weekend.

swim sunday #16

(This crochet pattern available here.)

Lengths swum this week: 38
Target total this week: 870

Total lengths swum: 876 (6 ahead of target)

I'd need to swim 47 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

Just one mini swim this week since I've been feeling rubbish.   I still am, so I suspect I might fall behind this week, but I'll do my best not to.