Scotland The Baked

“We haven't had rain for nearly two months (the covering of snow mid-April notwithstanding) and the ground is parched. We get the promise of rain with roiling clouds which then pass over without crying over our forgotten land [Ed: pretentious, much?] leaving blazing sunshine in its wake. (Oh woe for unseasonably gorgeous weather!)

The fields of wheat are turning brown two seasons too soon, the garden is alive but in stasis, yet the wildflowers and blossom of the countryside aren't bothered in the slightest! Vive La Nature!!"

My first Spring looking after a garden, and no rain. I mean, huzzah, because I can partake of a jolly good tramp around the countryside without worrying about slipping about in mud eight steps out of nine, but seven-and-a-bit weeks without rain? IN THIS PART OF SCOTLAND? This never happens even in the most Summery of Summers. No, scratch that. This just never happens, full stop.

Yet the earth along the track to Blebo begs to differ. 

I should have put something for scale in the photo, but that crack was about a foot long.

It's not like we've had record-breaking temperatures for the duration. It's been more of a long bake on a low heat than a short roast on a high setting! (Hey, look at that - culinary terminology in a non-Fake-Food-Blogger™ post - must mean that cooking lingo is starting to make sense in my old noggin at last!)

Still, it seems apt - the long leaves of the crops up Clatto Hill did look a little bit on the WE-SAID-FAHRENHEIT-NOT-CELSIUS side.

But for every desiccated piece of man-made ex-wilderness, there were ten examples of Mother Nature not giving a f*ck.

Broom

Perennial Cornflower

Common Dandelion

Red Campion

Gorse

Wild Violets

White Dead Nettle

Bluebells

Wild Cherry

She just didn't care about the drought, our Màthair Nàdar, she merely changed her style of creating art from watercolours to pastels and chalk! 

And Happy Birthday to my Granddad, who would have been 115 today. One day I'll get your garden back to it's full glory, promise xx

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

“Nicola hasn't seen snow in person since before she started walking for weight-loss, so never had the chance to indulge in splurging social media with snowy nature pictures! UNTIL NOW!!!  Mwahahahahah!

And yes, she seems to enjoy taking photos of fallen trees that have been artfully striped in snow by Mother Nature!"

It snowed! It really snowed! My inner seven-year-old was squeeeing with delight! That it actually hadn't snowed very much at all didn't stop me haring it up the hill towards Magus Muir (or as much as one can hare it up a hill through slidey, beginning-to-melt slush-snow, wearing very stout, very heavy boots) and stopping near the entrance to turn around and take a photo of the village in Winter Wonderland mode. 

Yes, yes, I've seen it whiter after a mid-Summer hailstorm.

Thankfully, the woods had kept more of their share of the white stuff, and little girl mode kicked in again!

Every time I walk to Magus Muir I take a photo of this fallen tree. It's one of the first things that catches my eye fifty metres or so into the woods, and I find the juxtaposition of its final resting place against the upright living trees incredibly beautiful. I'd never been successful in transferring that beauty to 2D until this dusting of snow was just enough to let my camera catch the criss-crossing of the boughs.

My timing couldn't have been more perfect - the rising sun (yes, 10am, but this is Scotland in Winter!) had just made it above the tree line but hadn't yet touched the snow in the hush of the woods, so what had fallen during the night was still lying undisturbed.

And lots of fallen trees that I'm pretty sure hadn't just fallen overnight with the snow. Fallen trees EVERYWHERE!! Not that any of them have actually ruined the lives of those growing up amongst, or indeed through, them!

It must be said that although many of the trees are quite young - the majority seem to be silver birch perhaps up to 50 years old - it's an ancient woods...

... which becomes obvious when looking up to see stark branches of old, old trees reaching up towards the bright sky, the tips of which gilded by the rising sun!

I do prefer this time of year to any other. No, I lie. I prefer Autumn, Winter and early Spring to the over-abundance of Summer. You can't see the woods for the trees in Summer!

Oh, how I make myself laugh. 

I loved how the stripes of snow added an extra dimension to the tangle of undergrowth that made my detail-loving self exceedingly happy! You can imagine how these woods would look if painted by Klimt or a young Van Gogh! 

And I couldn't pass my favourite old lady of the woods without a visit, to see her reaching out towards the rising sun. Just don't tell my other favourite near Kemback that there's a rival for my arboreal affections!

Not that they'd care one way or the other, but my imagination's on a roll now...

I'd show you this photo (above) in the original colour, but, if you remember from posts past, the camera on my phone does have a tendency to add more hues to white than actually seen with the human eye. Not that it's so fancy-schmancy that it has infra-red or whatever technology is needed to see more than what's there, it just has a dodgy lens that adds pink to the middle, and green to the edge of any photo that is overly-blessed in the white department. A pastel shot of the woods might be lovely for an 1980's themed post (mmm-mmm those ‘Whiter Shades Of Pale' I believe they were called by Dulux*...?) but an arty-farty photo attempt late 2010's? Nope.

Pastels and greys aside, the light was quite beautiful in itself:

creating beautiful yellows and oranges beside the blues of the shadowed snow.

Or beautiful pinks (greys) against the greens (greys) of the shadowed... nope. One day I really am going to get a decent camera!



* Mwahahahah!

Follow The Russet Leaf Road...

...Follow the russet leaf road,
Follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow the russet leaf road!*

I'd earmarked my day off in Den Haag for a good walk around the Scheveningse Bosjes, come rain or come shine. Hahahah! Sorry! Come shine! HAHAHAHAH! 

The thing I love about the gloom of a typically overcast Winter's day in a northern European forest is that glow. You know, the one I mean? The almost primeval light radiating from the earth through the ground cover of bronze and copper leaves.

Or is it just me...?

It's not just me! You can see it too, can't you?

Or, of course, it might just be my dodgy camera...

Nah, I don't think so!

I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining it...

and it's not the result of a migraine aura...

...but it might have something to do with the sun, when it finally deigns to join us, being so low in the sky to begin with...

Low-level lighting in every sense of the words!

*Apologies for the earworm!

Sun Dogs

It had been a trying day, beautifully topped off at tea-time when I had lovingly created tuna melts on special gluten-free pitta bread with my favourite Comté cheese for my evening noms and had watched them fall (in painful slow-motion) squidgy-side down on the floor before nary a taste was had.

Solitude called me after that, and beckoned me away for a walk far from frustrations and noise.

By the end of the road (the dead-end leading to next village by means of a muddy public footpath, in oxymoronic style) the sun had started going down, but something weird was going on with the light. I couldn't quite see what it was through the trees, but a man walking his little spaniel passed me going the other way and told me that there was a single sun dog in the sky.

Ah, said I. How wonderful, said I. I must have a proper look, said I, and left him, thinking that I'd somehow time-travelled back to ancient Egypt and was half expecting to see the sun being herded to its far-horizon rest by a particularly brave wingèd border collie.

Yes, yes, I hadn't a clue what he meant, but after finding a break in the trees I saw this, and realised that something special was going on, even if it wasn't solar deity-related.

No, that's really not a fault of my camera, although you'd not be penalised for that assumption. That, my dears, is the atmospheric phenomenon know as a left-hand sun dog. 

From what I understand, they generally come in pairs, one to be see on either side of the sun amongst some kind of halo effect, but this is Scotland, so you're not going to get two for free...*

I walked further east and watched the sun go down hounded by that dog, and have to admit the effect was incredible through the wispery clouds.

And then it was gone. It did, however, leave behind a spectacular sunset in its wake.

*Ah, stereotypes, gotta love 'em!

Fàilte Gu Alba!

It's been a while... A long and winding road, as the song says. One not unlike the motorway from Hull to Fife, the UK leg of my transit-van-full-of-not-quite-all-the-belongings-I-had-left-after-giving-away-2/3-of-everything-I-owned-just-so-I-could-fit-all-my-belongings-in-one-transit-van. I still had to leave some stuff behind. I'm still sad about that.

Anyhoo. This was my ‘Welcome [Back] To Scotland' moment. You'll notice the sign is partly written in the traditional Pictish rain dialect.

But let this be your official warning: I have a working computer again (my, but it's been a long time...) so I'll be adding quite a few posts over the next week or so to bring us all up to date. I was swithering whether to just add them dated when actually written, or add do a back-dated flip-type thing, but finally decided on the latter just to confuse you all when you see posts arriving on your feed *now* that are appear to be more than a few months old!

I bet you've missed me, haven't you! ;)

Muscle Amnesia

“Nic continues to mistakenly believe that, just because she studied ballet for 10 years before a knee condition stripped her of athletic ability at 13, any cardio-ballet workout will be a doddle, somehow forgetting that thirty years have passed with nary a plié nor arabesque to be seen.

#iHurt #KneesStillDontWork #UglyDucklingPuddle"

Yes, in a way it's just like riding a bicycle - once you know how to do it, you don't really forget. Muscle memory is a powerful tool in many respects, but muscle memory is not, repeat: is NOT the same as constantly putting those muscles to use over a long period of time. Anyone who's just ridden a bike for the first time in twenty years will tell you they're a bit wobbly at first, but then their subconscious and sense of balance will kick in, and they'll be pretending they're on their old BMX/Raleigh Racer in next-to-no time. Then they'll tell you the next day that they can't walk because their thigh muscles will have decided to shorten to half their original length, and that they're being haunted by the ghoulish pressure of a too-small, too-hard saddle between their cheeks, and can't actually sit down.

Yes, remembering the mechanics of how to do something you used to do a long time ago is so very much not the same as actually having done it continually over the years...

First position? Pff, please you don't have to remind me what that is!! Wait, I can't get my heels to touch because my calves are getting in the way... Hang on, let me really push them... Um, I don't remember my Achilles tendon twanging so much before, that can't be normal.

Second position grande plié. Ah, that should be fine. It's like a sumo squat without the pain. I SAID WITHOUT THE PAIN! Ah yes, my knees still don't work, but I'm sure that using my knee-supporting muscles, whichever ones they are, it'll be fine. Knees are supposed to grind and pop nowadays, aren't they? Add a port-de-bras first to fifth (holding a cardio ball) while you're dipping, and back again? Ok, but I'm not sure my core appreciates that its day off has been cancelled. There's a lot of internal moaning going on... More than usual, anyway.

Split-squats opening out into a low arabesque... I.. Oof. I seem to be too over-encumbered with booty to raise my leg more than a foot off the ground behind me.

I cracked open an old book of Haydn sonatas the other week, not having looked at it for years. Possibly even fifteen years. It lives sandwiched between my vocal scores, with some other piano music from That Time Before Singing, but I spotted the blue ABRSM cover and was overcome by a fit of nostalgia, opened it at an old favourite and sat down to play. Needless to say my actual piano technique has been shot to hell after being neglected for so long, but even though I stumbled a bit, my fingers, on the whole, remembered where to go. After a decade and a half! Then I felt my tendons in my lower arms twitch, and after half an hour of pretending to be Maria João Pires I had to close the book, and gingerly wrap my wrists in the elastic supports I have to use after a particularly long session typing up my thoughts on to my computer.

So yes, that cerebral muscle memory can be a double-edged sword, but practise, as they say, makes perfect less pain. Then again, practise also gives you the ability to do something you couldn't do before, too...

I visited Sorghvliet park last week to pay homage to Spring and her ability to carpet the place in bluebells for a month every year, and actually managed to crouch to take a close-up photo; a basic human ability robbed from me in my teens. But not only did I manage a crouch without too much creaking and complaining, I also managed to get up without my knees demanding that I get on all fours before attempting that tricky Standing Upright manoeuvre as they've done in the past. 

Those afore-mentioned knee-supporting muscles with whom I'm only now becoming acquainted might come in useful, after all...

Jessica Smith, I hate you, but I love you, too.

Muscle Bound

“Nic never felt so stiff and sore, in constant need of a good stretch (and something to steady her cup of tea) in the days before working-out. Surely there's a lesson to be learned there? 

True, she couldn't walk and talk at the same time without gasping for breath in those days before working-out, but at least her muscles never felt the need to complain about overwork! 

#ObliquesOfDeath #TricepKickbacksKickedBack #ThereAreAbsUnderTheFlabAndTheyHateMe

#ParallelUniverseSilverLinings"

All joking aside, it's quite horrifying to realise that there really was a time when I couldn't walk and hold a conversation simultaneously. A time when I'd seriously strain a hamstring attempting to climb off a chair after changing a light-bulb. A time when a trip to IKEA was looked on with trepidation thanks to the the mountain of steps to be climbed to get from the train- to the bus-station (and thence on to the store). Seriously. I love IKEA, but those steps would put such a downer on the whole trip that not even the promise of Swedish Meatballs would be able to save the day completely.

Yes, now I'm on the exercise bandwagon, I know it's not really advised to come off, either losing weight-wise or health-wise if you want to maintain weight loss, vigour, and/or flexibility. But don't get me wrong; if I could stop exercising tomorrow and not suffer from muscles turning to fat, depletion of strength, the inevitable weight gain, and a whole host of other detrimental health issues, I'd already be scribbling out a long list of TV series to binge-watch every evening for the rest of my life while vegging-out on the couch, instead of clicking on YouTube, and beating myself up with a variety of torturous exercise implements six nights a week.

I am not one of those born-again exercisers who only live for the time when they're sweating their guts out, whilst simultaneously, and loudly, spreading The Gospel Of Burpees. No. I shall leave worshipping at the Altar of Exertion to the sweating zealots (a band name for the taking if I ever heard one). But I do have to admit to enjoying the benefits of raising my heartbeat significantly for an hour or so at a time and of taxing my muscles to the point of fatigue, and truly appreciate not having to worry any more about people accidentally sitting on my lap when I'm travelling on public transport, because they thought they were going to sit down on my coat lying bunched up next to me on the other half of the seat, and not actually land upon my spreading thigh.

I mentioned this exercise con (as I'm now calling the exercise bandwagon in my head on days I'm aching more than normal) to a friend of mine - you know; beginning a new regime with good intentions, not realising that, like pets, it's for life, not just for [after] the holiday celebration of your choice, that is if you want to maintain the good work you've achieved so far - and she agreed that it is probably just as well that those at the start of a new workout programme, health kick, or attempt to lose weight aren't made more aware that once your body begins to get used to being punished, it needs more. Well, more of the benefits the punishment and suffering bring at least, and the stinger is that if you're hurting the best way to ease the hurt is to do more of the same!

So the only answer to workout-induced aches are more workouts, which seems rather unfair in the whole positive scheme of trying to better oneself, but it's probably just as well most of us don't know The Truth when we start out. I'm not 100 percent sure that had I been given a notice saying ‘Congratulations! You're about to embark upon a life-changing regime. It's going to be hard, and you're going to hurt a lot, but the benefits will be amazing! Disclaimer: you'll never be able to stop once you start because exercise malady begets exercise remedy. Vengeful God, Old Testament style' I'd have been quite so eager to start.

I exaggerate, of course. I'm only really complaining because I ache an awful lot more now than I did when I was a couch potato; a time when the only heavy lifting I did was the dragging of my larger self from place to place, and the only ‘cardio' my heart got was the straining it had to do all day and every day just to keep me upright. Ah, good times, good times!

In essence I was punishing myself a thousand times more per day back then than I do now, in an unhealthy and unconscious way, but even though I think I've now tipped the balance in my favour, I still maintain the right to lament over the fact, yes fact, that tomorrow my rear, thighs, mid-section, and upper arms will be ruing the day four years ago when I first picked up that Wii remote and changed my life!

I Dream Of Jeanie With The Size Sixteen Waist

“Thunder thighs? Check.

Round lower portions of which Homer Simpson would be proud? Check.

Muffin top more like a three-tier wedding cake? Check.

Overwhelming sense of fabulousness? Check.

Four years ago today I turned on my Wii Fit for the first time, in the hope I might change my life, and along the way perhaps reduce my girth from a size UK 32 to something a little healthier. Wearing size 16 jeans (tight though they are) was such an alien concept that it was never considered, even as a hope or a wish.

Yep, overwhelming sense of fabulousness (and maybe just a bit of delayed astonishment?) Check!"

Yesterday I posted a little teaser (although I didn't know it was a teaser at the time) of a close-up photo I took of the waist band of a new pair of jeans. A pair of jeans bought in a ‘normal' (i.e. not plus-size) part of a chain-store.

Yes, it says EU 44, which is the equivalent of a UK 16, yes, the jeans are from Clockhouse (the ‘trendy' section of C&A), yes, they're flared but not for long (as my short legs require less yardage than has been generously bestowed upon me by Clemens and August, and they will soon be set about with a pair of scissors), and yes, they took a little persuading to get on, but I'm pretty sure getting them buttoned, and the zip up, and not feeling like I'm about to be cut in half, means that they might actually not be far off the right size!

Now, I admit I already have a pair of jeans in a sixteen; from Evans in fact - their classic, and wonderful, ‘pear' jeans, for those of us with wide hips and a non-proportionate smaller waist who hate having to buy large jeans that accommodate our juicy mid-portions, because it means that we'll be beset by Gappy Waistband Syndrome. The thing is, their pear-style jeans seem to be cut just a wee bit on the large side. Most of the reviews for the product say that if you're an eighteen, then it's probably a good idea to get the size smaller. In fact, I pooh-poohed those reviews until I bought a size eighteen, and found them a little roomy around the thighs and, well, juicy mid-portions. I sold them on eBay suggesting that they'd probably fit a small-waisted (proportionally) size twenty. So yes, I already have a pair of sixteen jeans, but according to the reviews (of which I am now a subscriber) and my own experience (of which I am also a subscriber - better late than never), they're more like a seventeen, if such a size existed.

It's intriguing for me, though, this getting into a size sixteen jeans thing, because, believe me, I haven't done much in the way of actually shedding weight this past year. I've been working at it, gods, I've been working at it: exercising; walking (oof, lots of walking); 5:2-ing, etc but it's been a bit up and down, and I've reached no milestones since March. (In fact I've rather back-pedaled.) So losing a real dress size in a year, and not a pretend Evans pear jeans dress size, is rather confounding. But don't get me wrong, I'm loving it. I had to try very hard to contain my jubilant WHOOP in the changing rooms when I got everything closed without trapping skin, or harming any major organs, especially as I'd taken the jeans to try on as more of a ‘let's see how far off I am from getting this size to fit' rather than an honest-to-the-gods ‘I need new jeans and these should do'. That I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, is, as you can probably tell from the above, an understatement.

Of course, I wouldn't actually get into a size sixteen dress without it straining considerably at the stomach (if I could get into it at all), which would make me feel horribly self-conscious and lumpy, but jeans are supposed to be tight, no? I'm sure a thousand adverts showing both guys and gals huffing and puffing to get into their pair of 501s can't be wrong! I wear jeans for comfort, and for warmth, because sometimes going outside wearing a long skirt and a pair of tights to fend off the chilly fingers of Jack Frost just isn't enough. (Which makes him sound like a right letch. Sorry for the character assassination, Jack.) And I normally wear long jumpers and tops to cover my stomach anyway, so who's to know that although technically I might not *be* a size sixteen, I can certainly rock a pair of size sixteen jeans?! 

My new confidence-boosting mantras include: My Thunder Thighs Are Worthy Of Hugh Grant In Love Actually (although I believe the expression used was ‘thighs like tree-trunks', but it's close enough), and My Muffin Top Could Be A Bakeoff Showstopper. I'm still trying to find a positive spin on having Homer Simpson's rotund lower portions, but I'll get there...!

Great Balls Of Frying Pan Into The Fire

‟Nic's day started off poorly. The electrician who was called to fix the faulty bathroom light did so by properly screwing in one of the 3 new light-bulbs already tried by your author. It appears her wrists are pathetically weak when faced with these new-fangled CFL bulbs. :: sigh ::

The day continued in a better vein, however, when 2 parcels arrived from her very kind little sister, one containing lovely things for Christmas (which may or may not include chocolate), and in the other 3 kettle-bells of differing weights, which will not only help work off that Schrödinger's chocolate, but will also strengthen up those obviously weak wrist muscles. 

It's almost like she knew..."

The postie rang my door buzzer and presented me with a rather large and heavy parcel from Amazon the other morning, and once I managed to drag it upstairs and open it up, this was inside (well, this plus and awful lot of packing air pockets - Amazon do seem to enjoy sending their wares in disproportionately large boxes, and this one was no exception. I don't have photographic evidence, because, really, I think we've already seen more fantastic examples of ridiculous packing practises on social media, so you can use your imagination!

Now, I have to point out that I was not responsible for the order (I know, I know; that spoiler was already broadcast in the status, but bear with me), so I made a bee-line for the little card glued to the top of the box, which read:

The blanked-out name is my sister - the Queen of Sarcasm! (A very kind, and benevolent queen, it must be said!) She had ordered some kettle-bells for herself when I was last at home and we were both fair taken with them; they seemed well made, looked great, and handled nicely. Or as nicely as we could tell by pretending to work out then and there in her kitchen, whilst also trying to avoid squishing her box-loving kitties.

To understand the full meaning of the note, you need to go back a couple of years here on the blog, and you'll find a post or two :: coughs :: (I shan't be winning Miss Graceful Co-ordination any time soon) about my extraordinary gift for thwacking myself in the face with various supposedly weight-losing, health-improving exercise tools whilst attempting to work out. I can't quite remember the last occasion I committed actual bodily harm to myself (although no doubt it's not that long ago - I stopped taking note once it became obvious that the first three or four times weren't going to be isolated incidents) but one thing's for sure; I'd be left with more than a graze or two and a bloody nose if any part of myself was on the receiving end of one of these babies:

Two, three, and four kilogram kettle-bells from DKN. (Not an affiliated link, but maybe I should start thinking about touting for business... Or maybe not. I suspect most makers of exercise equipment don't really want to be associated with Little Miss Clumsy here.)

Aren't they pretty, though? (Hey, sis - the blue one'll go with my kitchen!! Sorry, private joke. Ach, not so private - most of my El Cheapo accoutrements de cuisine, ranging from plastic spoons, to mixing bowls, to sets of kitchen knives, to silicon cookie mats, [hey, I forgot I had that - this blog is coming in very handy for rediscoveries of all kinds] are turquoise. It started with a whisk in France, which is a lot less exciting than it sounds... A little shop opened up near me, selling all sorts of wonderful kitchen gadgets and aids, but it was all a tad out of my price range, until I saw the silicon whisk in a tantalising turquoise blue. It was love at first polymer compound.)

But getting back to the pretty cannonballs with handles, I can tell you that the pink kettle-bell has already been put to the test in a kettle-bell inspired video workout by my online trainer of choice, Ms Smith of JessicaSmithTV fame, and I think my arms and stomach muscles may stop complaining in the next day or so.

I'll keep you informed once I have control over my upper body again...

All Workout And No Moan...

“There's nothing quite like sweating through a painfully efficient workout followed by a hot shower in a cold bathroom, then stepping into a toasty pair of pyjamas and settling down with a cup of tea to unwind, and realising that you still have to take the rubbish out for tomorrow's early morning collection and it's blowing a gale and pouring with rain outside."

It was a good workout, though, comprising of three videos from Jessica Smith TV; one a yoga/strength-training mash-up, one more general aerobic circuit training, and the last a power-walking workout:

I admit to being a sweaty mess by the end, but one of the great things about the myriad of videos available from this online trainer is being able to choose a combination of exercises influenced by how I'm feeling, or what I think I need to concentrate on, which then become my nearly daily hour of self-induced torture health-improving cardio and/or strength-training. A pot-pourri of pain, if you will, or a pick-and-mix (for those of a British disposition) of muscle misery.

I moan, of course I do. It's hard work, and I make it even harder work for myself by pushing as physically hard as I can safely can, but in a positive let's-try-and-improve-my-quality-of-life way, not in a negative I-hate-myself-and-want-to-feel-even-worse way. Even though, yes, I moan about it. But as we both know, complaining is half the fun!

As a tiny, but relevant aside, I had a lovely catch-up with a dear friend recently, and conversation turned to jobs, bosses, earning a living, and that although we sometimes weren't keen on what we had to do or who we had to work with, we were glad (in a it-could-be-worse way) that we had the possibility of someone to rail against, something to throw our frustrations at, and in that respect we were fortunate because otherwise we might instead be railing at ourselves, perhaps even to the extent of hitting self-destruct buttons. 

So in rather the same way, I moan about putting myself through challenging workouts, but in this case choosing to shoot the video messenger with my grumble gun, instead of shooting myself in the foot for being the one to impose such hardship in the first place.

I purposefully make it hard work for myself because I came to understand early on in the exercise process that you get out what you put in. I reckon that if I did my workout half-assed (as our American cousins so colourfully describe it) instead of whole-assed (or whatever the equivalent is) it would more than likely lead to retaining the full form of my entire derrière (and other wobbly bits that I want to de-wobble) for a much longer period of time, and therefore I'd have to work twice as long for the same end result than I would if I had thrown my entire energy at the workout in the first place.

Now, I know the mathematics, statistics and number-type thingies may not be so easy to manipulate (wordz ma thang, yo) so half-assed workouts may not precisely mean half as many calories lost, or twice as much work needed to create the same result, but you get the picture. I'm not really a lazy person, but if I can get my calories burnt or my muscles fatigued in an hour while sweating hard, instead of two hours of playing along with the videos, then I'll go with the first option. And, although my claim to a lack of numerical aptitude is true, I'm of the suspicion that one hour of full energy and muscle use, and two hours of perfunctory fannying around do not the same calorific deficiency make.

So I try to push myself to ensure I'm getting my money's worth (I'm Scottish - this analogy works for pretty much everything) out of this exercising-at-home-using-free-YouTube-videos lark by making sure they're intense, and then I moan about it. But I'd be moaning more if I knew it would be taking me twice as long to get to this chapter in my weight loss and getting healthy story just because I didn't give it my all in the first place!

But excuse me if I also moan about having to get changed out of my cosy jammies, and drag my rubbish bin down two-and-a-half storeys and out into the cold and rain. It's truly grumble-worthy!

Twenty Seven (Uh, Wait) Five Dresses

“Nic is making heart-breaking decisions over which of her concert gowns are salvageable or not. She has three that just can't be taken in any further without losing their shape entirely, one that was too magnificent to take in but was kept *because* of its very magnificence (bought in Paris in 2001, 1930's style, jet black floor-skimming dress, with a beaded and sunburst halter-neck collar, and matching short-sleeved mandarin collar jacket), and one that was never worn but is just too complicated to alter.

In other news, take note, Queens of Drag - eBay will soon have 5 spectacular evening gowns going for a song!"

They're gorgeous, these dresses, but they have to go and live out the rest of their lives being worn, and not hanging on the back of a bedroom door, loved but useless. It does make me sad, though. I had history with these dresses. Some, perhaps history of the more obscure, or even pernicious in one case, but we've been through a lot together, these dresses and I, and they deserve life back in the limelight, and not a slow fade into dusty obscurity.

But let me present unto you the Fabulous Five Dresses Of Past Glory:

There's the burgundy gown with the white 'underskirt' that I bought new from a seller on eBay in the days before it was inundated with El-Cheapo dresses from China. It was expensive, but still much cheaper than buying in a store, and was nicely made from thick, luxurious satin, complete with pretty crystal and embroidery detailing to the front, finishing with a faux over-skirt/underskirt effect that was the fashion fifteen years ago. (You can still find the style if you search hard enough, but they're really quite the product of their time. I'll attempt to spin that to make it retro and glam when I sell it, though...) 

Then we have the exact same dress, but in pale blue satin and white underskirt, bought a couple of years after the burgundy one. (If it ain't broke, etc.!) This is the dress that only had one outing (for a concert in Portugal), for the simple reason that it was evil. Jinxed. Beset by satin devils who were only content when they caused harm and embarrassment to the wearer, in this case ensuring that a broken zip and a broken foot was the end result of a tumble down stairs outside the venue just after the concert. In front of the entire audience. I haven't worn it since that fall, and it's only today (ten years later) that I finally got round to repairing the zip and making it look all pretty and un-jinxy again. (I shan't be mentioning its ill-fated history on eBay, either. There's no spin doctor in the world that could make that story sound like anything other than a Stephen King novel.)

Next we have the dress I described in the status update. Oh my, but I thought this dress was the bees-knees! I bought it in Paris in 2001, albeit in a discount dress store on the Boulevard de Magenta. Still. I bought it in Paris, and that's what counts. The fabric itself is rather rayonesque, but it draped beautifully. The halter neckline  (although in all honesty one that I should have avoided, having no neck at the time to actually speak of) was a triumph of beading, and matched together with the little jacket, looked like something out of a golden-oldie Hollywood film. It made me feel very glamorous. I managed to time things just about right in the Summer of 2013 and I was able to wear it one last time in concert before it started to swamp me, which was wonderful. (Please excuse the light patches on the photos. The sun shone. My phone's camera wasn't sure what to do with such a rare phenomenon.)

The purple gown is a bit of a mystery to me. I got it in a sale, but I don't remember when. Possibly last millennium. I do have a vague inkling that although I thought it was a tiny bit too small for me at the time, I felt like it was a bargain that had to be snapped up, because it would fit eventually? Ah, I'm rolling my eyes so hard at my past self right now. It's quite a simple dress, with a gorgeous curved V neckline, but you know, I strongly suspect the Cadbury purple colour had a lot to do with the belief that the gown needed to come home with me... It actually fits a little loosely around the hips just now, but because it's such a classic dress there's nowhere to hide my amateur bodice-alteration skills, so it's joining the others in the way of eBay. 

Last is the dress I don't really want to sell yet because I managed to alter it so that it sits nicely at my waist and doesn't gape at my bust, and continues to sit without rucking at my hips even with all my taking in. And I did a fantastic job, even though I say so myself - check out the seven inches in total that I took in at the side and the back. Yes, that's right. SEVEN INCHES in total! Those stitches were tiny, even and beautiful. Not that you can actually tell, given that the dress was chucked on the bed to take an impromptu photo. But they are. Those stitches were exemplary!

I don't really want to sell it because it still fits. Just about. It's on the verge of being baggy, and there's no way I'll be able to take it in anywhere else without making it look like some designer wannabe from Project Runway had a massive amount of fabric to use and got way too creative with ruching. It's such a gorgeous dress; bought on eBay (you may be noticing a trend here) from a private seller in the States around 2004, it fit me absolutely perfectly when it arrived. Described as 'apple red' (which I found charming, because if there's any colour I'm used to associating with apples, it's always green) and beautifully beaded at the bodice and at the opening to the faux underskirt at the back, it was a dream to wear. Once. Then I got too big. And then I got smaller again, thought I'd lost out on being able to garb myself in its glory, then discovered that my sewing skills were enough to render it sing-in-able again!

So it's there, hanging on the back of my bedroom door, waiting to be worn before it's too late. But there's more chance of me being able to sell it if I have other dresses for sale at the same time. Such is the nature of the eBay selling beast. And it won't be long (fingers crossed) before it's not a wearable option any more. I  just can't quite bring myself to attack it with my seam ripper and give it back its former glory.

FOUR DAYS LATER...

Well, attack it with the seam ripper I did. I figured that as I already knew what colours I was to wear for all concerts until March (a combination of certain ensembles having their own colour scheme; and a couple of other soloists who like to organise what dresses they will wear well in advance of the actual performances and wanted to make sure we didn't clash) and that I hope to lose something in the weight department at least by March (the fates willing), Apple Red will be made redundant. And because it's such a glorious gown I'd like someone else to partake of the joy. I was sad to rip out those threads just the same, even though the dress is now back to it's original (and beautiful) dimensions. I hope they all go to people who will enjoy wearing them as much as I have.

:: sobs quietly ::