A weeks worth of activities plus the Gower!

So last week on Monday I went home, got changed and then Welsh Chris came and picked me up and took me to the Riverside gym. We did something called "Body Pump", which was an instructor-led class involving various weights and cheesey music. The work out was good, though, was quite knackered afterwards.

Chris dropped me off at my parents after that and I went in and had some tea - salmon with carrots, marrow and boiled potatoes.

When I got home I looked for my football boots and shin pads (for the next day's training), but I couldn't find them anywhere. Well, I found one shin pad in the attic - but that was it. I hadn't used my footy boots since I moved into my house in 2003, so there was also a possibility they might still be at my parents.

I asked my parents to look and luckily my Dad found my boots in the garage, so I went round and picked them up on Tuesday morning before work. I also picked up some self-inflating airbeds for the Gower trip, which when I put in the boot of my car I noticed my other shin pad in there - so I had all the kit necessary for football training after work!

At lunchtime I thought I would have something substantial, so that I wouldn't be hungry later during footy practise, so I had a vegetable risotto with cauliflower cheese and roast potatoes.

I was aching all day, due to the weight training the night before, so was slightly relieved when I turned up for football training and the session had been cancelled (as the reserve team had a friendly). At least I know I have my kit ready for tonight now!

I went home and opened a tin of tuna, which I mixed with some philadelpha cheese spread and some cheese and herb dominos pizza dip (which was in the fridge) and ate in some pitta bread with salad.

Then I got changed and went to the gym. I had quite a light session, as my legs were still aching, but felt quite good afterwards. I weighed myself and was 100kg on the nose. Considering I ate before I came out, means I am probably around the same weight as I was last week.

On the Wednesday morning, I was aching even worse than Tuesday. I managed to crawl somehow to work and, later that day, was pleased to find lamb lasagne on the menu in the canteen. I had this with courgettes, sprouts and carrots. After that, I then had a vegetable broth with a bread roll. I was nice and full after that.

After work, Sarah came down from Surrey and we met up with Michelle and Mike to go out for a meal at the Swan in Tockington. This pub is renowned for their pies, so I duly ordered a very spicy beef pie (the demon devil pie). Mike recommends the beef and stilton pie, so I may have that next time.

The next day was roast dinner day in the canteen and the meat was baked ham. A tasty meal including stuffing. As Thursday was the last working day of the week for me, I met up with Mike and Beaton at the Black Sheep for a few beers.

After work I went to the Orchard with Mike, Gibson and Boz and waited for Sarah to arrive. When she did we had another drink and set off to Asda to pick some stuff up for the Gower trip.

After buying beer and food provisions (coming to the sum total of £111), we went back to the house and got packing.

Well, Sarah got packing - I just cooked tea (ham and cheese Asda pizza and some garlic bread). I also prepared some pitta bread filled with asparagus tips, salad (with balsalmic vinegar) and mushrooms for the impending journey.


The Gower Trip

Friday
We got up on Friday morning nice and early and Sarah drove me to the Gower. We followed Welsh Chris, his missus Sarah and Marcus to the Gower. I ate the pitta bread on the way and tried to sleep. There was some mad traffic on the M4 into Cardiff, but the journey wasn't too bad.

Once we arrived at Hillend campsite in Llangennith, I payed for 4 x tents for 3 nights (coming to a sum total of £216) and then we set about finding a spot in the already busy campsite to pitch the tents.

It took ages and didn't help when we began drinking. We eventually managed to erect all the tents (partly thanks to Welsh Sarah keeping us going with cheese and ham rolls).

We explored the dunes and kicked the ball out for a bit and drank lots of booze, while we waited for everyone else to arrive. Details in my head are sketchy, but I think Tank and Carly arrived shortly before Mike, Michelle and Kathryn (that is apparently how you spell it).

I ate some tins for my tea, although a few days of eating these hunger breaks things (cold) kind of got a bit boring after a while. Mike had a stove and earned himself some happy camper points by making lots of cups of tea - as well as bacon sarnies for everyone on Saturday morning.

Friday night was quite sophisticated, as we finished the evening with various cheeses and port. Tasty.

Saturday
On Saturday morning, I had an all day breakfast in a tin (another hunger break thing) for my breakfast when I got up and some tinned fruit. I washed this down with a can of stella.

The weather on Saturday was a bit brighter and I did get a little sunburnt, Carla and Lee arrived and we all went down to the beach. I had a swim in the sea and we played American Football on the beach. My team got completely hammered and only scored one touchdown. It would have been two, but a lethal tackle from Lee sent me bundling over in the sand just before the end zone.

We got back to the campsite and I was feeling hungry, but luckily Sarah had gone shopping and bought lots of barbeque stuff. Mike was chef and sorted us all out with burgers, sausages and baps and stuff. All very tasty.

One of Welsh Chris and Marcus' mates, Dan, arrived on Saturday and he put his tent up and we all went to the empty car park and played rounders until it got dark.

When we got back to our campsite, Bud had arrived and got his tent up. We all then armed ourselves up with beer and other alcoholic goodness and headed into the dunes for some night time dune partying..

Sunday
On Sunday morning, everyone went to the site's greasy spoon for a fry up. I missed the chance as I was still asleep, so in the afternoon I went up there with Sarah and Bud and had a vegetable lasagne. It was extremely tasty, but that may have been because I hadn't eaten any real food for a few days..

When we got back to the camp, everyone was talking of walking to the Worms Head hotel for a meal and some drinks. It was a long walk to get there, but the food looked nice. As Bud and I had just eaten, we had to watch everyone else eat and just drink ourselves. By the time everyone else wanted to go, we were not moving from the pub and ended up staying there a lot longer.

We had some food (me the lasagne and Bud the ribs), before trying to make our way back in the dark.

All dunes looking the same at night, we were lucky to bump into a couple of Welshies who showed us the way back to our site.

Monday
Yesterday morning, Bank Holiday Monday aka Lee's 30th birthday, we all packed up our tents in the morning and then went to the greasy spoon for breakfast. I had a very tasty fry up.

It was quite filling, but as luck would have it, a few people left certain items on their plate. I don't make a habit of mopping up the leftovers usually, but I was bemoaning my missed opportunity of using the toast to make a fried breakfast sandwich with mine - so I used this chance to have a leftover sandwich.

Using leftover rounds of toast, mushrooms, bacon, beans, fried egg and hash browns I created the masterpiece (thanks Michelle, Welsh Chris and Welsh Sarah!!)

It was quite a messy experience, but a tasty one.

Sarah drove me home in the afternoon and we arrived back in Bristol in good time.

In the evening, we met up with some of the Gower crew (Welsh Chris, Welsh Sarah, Mike, Michelle, Carla, Lee and Sarah and I) along with Tony and Terry and went to the Bradley Stoke and had a meal.

I had the salmon and it was right nice and kind of healthy.

Today
I was back in work and was really knackered all day, didn't sleep great last night (must have been the comfy bed..)

Had a canteen meal for lunch, a reasonable attempt at a lamb curry with rice, naan (albeit a lame one) and some coconut shavings and chutney.

After I had wolfed that down, I had a soup and roll. It was pea and ham flavour, but I only found one peace of ham. It was kind of like watered down mushy peas - but still quite tasty.

I should be training with Greyfriars tonight, feel quite knackered - but I've certainly been constantly kicking a ball around all weekend, so might be alright.

A busy week ahead?

Thursday night I got home from work and was hungry as soon as I walked through the door, so I opened a tin of vegetable curry (that I had bought for Global Gathering) and heated it up, spiced it up with some extra hot curry powder and ate it on toast.

I didn't do much else that evening, if I remember correctly, as I loaded up my old game of Football Manager and ended up reigniting my addiction.

On Friday I had an early bite to eat, so I could go to the pub during my lunch hour. The canteen now sells tubs of food as well, so I bought a tub of prawns with spicy noodles (which were really nice) and a tub of mixed fruits (pineapple, peach, mango and melon) - both of which I ate at my desk.

After work I went home and started playing Football Manager again immediately, then Sarah called to say she was just hitting Bristol and did I want her to pick some food up on the way through.

Obviously I was all for that, so she picked up a lasagne, some garlic bread and some oven chips. She then cooked this up and we ate it before going round Nathan's to watch the Big Brother final.

The next morning I was woken early by a callout, so when I had finished that I went back to bed - but Sarah was up then. She wanted to go pick up some food for the day, so I gave her my switch card and PIN and let her go out and fetch some food.

She came back with lots of ingredients and a crate of stella (for me, paid for by me). So for lunch we had chicken goujons, salad in balsalmic vinegar and chips with pitta bread. For the rest of the day we just lounged around and watched Life on Mars on DVD.

In the evening, Sarah cooked the rest of the chicken in with mushrooms, peas and broccholi in a cream and Philadelphia sauce with egg pasta. We even had some garlic bread with it, very filling! Still managed some fruit for dessert though.

Yesterday was my parents' 29th wedding anniversary, so I went round there for Sunday lunch. Sarah had already made arrangements to see her friend, Craddock.

I went round there at 1.30 and had a breaded camembert starter and the main course was roast beef, with lots of trimmings (leek and cabbage in a cheese sauce, mashed swede, broccholi, cauliflower, carrots, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and gravy) - was a shame I left my phone in my jacket pocket, as I didn't get any pics. Needless to say it was all washed down with lots of red wine and Stella.

Later Sarah picked me up and we were supposed to be going to the Croft to watch a mate's band play, but everyone else bottled it - so Sarah and I also decided not to go. We went home and Sarah ordered a pizza, but I was too full. Sarah then put on a DVD, but it was absolutely pants - The Libertine. I am fairly sure I fell asleep.

I got up early this morning so I could return the damn thing, as Sarah had got it out in my name and gone back to Surrey this morning before the place opened. However, despite getting there at 9.20 - the blasted place (Cyclops) was still not open. So I drove there at 13:00 instead to return it.

I then got back to work and had lunch the in the canteen, the food on offer was some kind of lamb curry with rice. It was tasty, but I still needed a vegetable soup and roll to fill me up!

After work this evening, I will be going to something called Bodypump at the Riverside gym with Welsh Chris. Tomorrow I will be training with my mate Gale at Greyfriars Athletic FC and Wednesday I will probably just go to the gym.

Then Thursday night I should be going to the Gower for a long weekend camping.

Pizza - like a sandwich, but flatter.

After work on Monday, I was driving home when my mate Chris (not Welsh) rang me. He wanted to go over some details of his wedding next year (I am going to be best man) and show me the suit that we'll be wearing. We had a few beers and Tony and I ordered a Dominos each, I had a Dominator again (my second ever). The Dominator is a large pizza, with a filling between the crusts (not as much as a Double Decadence, though). The topping I chose was the chicken feast (chicken, sweetcorn and mushroom).

On Tuesday I had a meeting over lunchtime and no lunch provided, so I had to grab some food beforehand. So I bought a prawn cocktail roll from the canteen. Is was OK, but the bread was quite tough and was also sopping wet with cocktail juice.

After the meeting was another meeting.. and this one had cakes - so I had a few cookies, doughnuts, muffins and even a jaffa cake bar.

After work I cooked myself some pasta. The actual pasta was spinach and ricotta parcels and I ate it with bolognaise sauce. I also spiced the whole deal up with plenty of extra hot chilli powder and various ground chillies and black pepper.

Finally, I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on the top and ate it up.

Yesterday lunchtime was lamb and vegetable pie for me. It was pretty good, as canteen pies go. Especially as I covered it in lots of lovely pepper.

After work I rushed round Asda and purchased myself a slab of Stella and a bottle of Strongbow. Then I went home and started drinking.

Nathan came round and then Welsh Chris came round with his missus' Dad and we all had some drinks and watched England trounce the current European champions, Greece, 4-0 in their first match under Steve McClaren.

During the game Welsh Chris ordered him and his in-law a large pizza from some pizza delivery place I had never heard of (Simply Pizza). Shortly after he had ordered, I cooked myself some chicken kievs and ate them.

In the end his pizza took over an hour to be delivered, but Chris managed to hustle a couple of quid off the order. The pizza looked alright, too - but I don't think I will use them, given the long delivery time. Damn I love pizza. I wish I was eating one right now!!

Today I was pretty hungry all morning, but the promise of roast dinner kept me going. However, when I went down the canteen the roast beef looked dry and horrible - so I had a vegetable lasagne instead.

Then I went to the Black Sheep for some lunchtime beer with Mike and Beaton.

Not sure what I will eat this evening, not got much in the house (I don't think). I guess it's a case of "wait and see".

I suppose there's always pizza..

Zoo food rocks!

Last Wednesday after work I went home and then picked up my Dad and went to the gym. First time back for a while and it was hard work, but at the end of it I weighed 99.2kgs - which is totally my lowest weight yet since starting the gym.

Afterwards, I went round my parents. My Mum was out playing skittles, but she had left Dad and I some tea. Dad had sausages in mash and I had fish pie with veg.

Thursday is currently roast dinner day in the canteen, but I do miss roast dinner Wednesday - a great half way point through the week. By the canteen moving it to Thursday has really thrown my internal clock out of whack. I keep getting my days confused, but it does mean the week seems shorted - imagine if they'd moved roast dinner day to Tuesday!!

Anyway, the roast meat of choice was turkey (much to the displeasure of some colleagues). In fact, it was a very tasty meal and I no doubt followed it up with french onion soup.

After work I went to the gym again. This time on my own, which meant I got there quite late. I worked quite hard, but still nowhere near as fit as I need to be. In any case, my weight was still 99.2kgs. When I started at the gym I was 17.5 stone, now I am 15.6 stone, it's slow and steady progress.

When I got home I had the last of my cans of "Hunger Breaks" (beans with various additional things in there), this one was "kebab attack" - so had kebab meat in there. I spiced it up with very hot chilli powder and had it on toast. Proper job.

Friday lunchtime was, of course, pubtime. I did grab myself a prawn cocktail baguette to munch on the way, which was quite tasty and kept me alive for a bit.

After work I went to the pub again, I had got a lift off of Higz in the morning - so could drink as much as I wanted. I bumped into an Aunt and Uncle in the pub, so had a few beers with them. Mike, Michelle, Katheryn and Sarah arrived shortly after and we drank some more, before going back to Mike and Michelle's house to order in a takeaway Chinese.

We opted for a meal for 4 (Sarah had something seperately). I also had a quarter of a duck and some spring rolls.

After some more drinks, Sarah and I went home. She had bought me some Bock Artois (a new beer from the makers of Stella).

On Saturday we (Higz, Lee, Sarah and I) went to the zoo. Not sure why, someone suggested it and I hadn't been for a while so I went. Obviously there were loads of animals or whatever there, but the highlight for me was the pizza I had. Only 4 quid for a ham and pineapple, which was pretty darn tasty too.

After the zoo, we tried to go to the White Lion hotel around the corner for some drinks - but parking proved impossible due to the Balloon Fiesta that was happening over the bridge at Ashton Court. So we ditched that plan.

I ended up driving to the Three Brooks in Bradley Stoke with Lee and Tony for a couple of pints.

Then Sarah and I went to the Hungry Horse for a meal, she had some 2-for-1 vouchers which made the meal much cheapness. I had a chicken roast dinner, but ended up eating a fair bit of Sarah's meal too.

On Sunday, Sarah had bought some chicken kievs so she cooked that for me with roasters and veg in the afternoon and I watched the Charity Shield on TV.

Later on we went to watch Superman Returns at the cinema, followed by a meal at Frankie and Bennys. Despite there being much of the menu that appealed, I went for the barbeque chicken lasagne again. It was well tasty and the waitress was a gashead, so a very good meal out.

We then went back to the house and watched "Bulletproof Monk" on the telly.

So this morning Sarah went home and I went to work.

I had a spicy sausage hotpot for my lunch - with carrots, green beans and sweetcorn. This was followed by a bowl of vegetable soup (with ground black pepper) with a roll.

Stay tuned for more food related adventures..

Season 2006/2007 kicks off

My plans to go up the gym on Monday night were scuppered when I got a text from Welsh Chris asking if I fancied a kick about. I had a microwave meal (barbeque chicken and pasta), which I sprinkled some kind of Italian cheese over. Surprisingly tasty and then set off to the Downs.

My team again won (well, we had the higher score - but lost in the next goal wins scenario at the end). I was plagued by a stitch (presumably where all that pasta was still travelling through my stomach).

Yesterday I was in work early, Tony drove me in so I could leave my car at home (so I could go straight to the Rovers match after work). Tony then invited me down the canteen for breakfast and I was rather hungry, so I agreed.

I had beans on toast, with a sausage and a rasher of bacon. I also added a few dollops of scrambled egg (which I covered with a load of pepper), but the egg was tasteless and watery. It did fill me up, though and I didn't need any lunch.

I did go to the canteen for lunch and eyed up the goods, the only thing that took my fancy was the noodles. But they ran out when I got there and the dude said some more would come out in 5 mins. I wandered off and came back in 5, but the same dude was again dishing up the last of the noodles to someone else. I was like "Dang, man. Where's ma noodles!?!?" - so I never ate anything. Which didn't bother me much, as I wasn't hungry anyway.

My plan was to get the bus to Horfield after work, but my mate Trew was going that way anyway - so he gave me a lift. We then went and had a few beers with Bud at the Inn on the Green pub.

As ever, with beer in the mix, it was difficult to tear ourselves away from the pub and so Bud and I arrived at the ground seconds before kick off. We then picked up our complimentary tickets that my Mum had sorted us out (through her work colleague who lives nextdoor to Craig Disley). The tickets meant we sat (yes, SAT - this is the first time I have ever been sat at a Rovers home game - ever!) up with the journalists and players friends/family in the Mead Civil Engineering Stand.However any dillusions of grandeur were robbed of us when we noticed that the visiting team, Wycombe Wanderers, were wearing the Rovers' away kit. How professional.

With the score at 0 - 0 and the clock showing 42mins, Bud and I scooted down to get some half time snacks. I opted for a chicken balti pie, it was ace - although I did burn my mouth. Luckily, our tickets gave us access to the MCE Suite.. so we went in and had a pint and checked out the half time scores elsewhere.

We returned to our seats for the second half and Rovers were kicking off.. spotters badge for Bud who noticed we were 1-0 down. I tried to get the stand singing, but it didn't really work out and I kind of wished to be back down the Blackthorn end (actually, that's called the Bass stand now) with all the atmosphere and swearing.. then I remembered I was SAT down and had beer in my belly, so those feelings were gone.

The game ended 2-1 to Wycombe (the same score as when I saw the same fixture on NYE last year). We soon churped up when we were back in the MCE suite supping Stellas. I was told the players come out in this suite to mingle with us what pays there wages - however the gaffer must have kept them in the changing rooms for a proper larting, as they never came out. Bud and I got kicked out at closing time and then we lucked out as my Mum rang to see if we wanted a lift back.

When I started waking up in the morning I had left my bedroom light on and door wide open, so I must have been in some state!

Anyway, when I got in this morning I was starving - so I went down to the canteen for a fried breakfast. I went for the exact same brekkie as yesterday.. and again didn't need any lunch.

I did go to the canteen for lunch anyway and had a bowl of soup and a bread roll even though I wasn't hungry. The soup was broccoli and cheddar.

So I am actually going to attempt going to the gym tonight, although it will have to be quite a light session as I am aching a bit from playing football on Monday night. It will be interesting to see how far I've gone from the 100.4kgs that I weighed when I last went (given that I haven't been for well over a week). I am on-call next week too, so probably won't go then. Might take Matt's advice and run round Patchway. But then I will look like a gimp.

There's never enough Prawns..

So after work on Thursday I went round my parents and picked up a few tubs of prawns, one of which I ate in the evening (with just a small pot of seafood sauce. I love prawns).

Friday rolled into existance as Thursday expired and I woke up several hours later and went into work. A server had died over the road, so I went over and battled through security to fix it. To help me on my journey I enlisted the help of 2 sandwichs. 1 was Mexican chicken and the other was chicken and stuffing. Both were 95p each. Bargain. Anyway, I munched on these and stomped over to the necessary data centre and "fixed" the problem using a tried and tested restart method. Then I hooked up with Mike, who works at that site, and went for a few beers at a nearby pub (The Black Sheep). I was appalled that the prices here were so high and the beer so crap, but I plugged away anyway. God knows why we used to drink there all the time, in fact, I have even seen a New Year in there (possibly twice).

I then walked back to the office and got back to work. When home time came, I got home and was immediately invited to the Patchway Sports and Social. I hadn’t been there since the England v Ecuador World Cup match, so I instantly agreed. I had myself a prawn sandwich and met up with Lee, Holder and Welsh Chris for a few beers. Luckily I wasn't paged out all evening.

Saturday roared into action with me waking up quite late in the afternoon. I felt quite rough from the night before, but I went downstairs and had a ham and cheese toasty.

Nothing much of interest happened Saturday, just a nice relaxed evening in. I think I ended up watching Jackass the Movie, which was on the telly, and had a microwave sausage hotpot for my tea.

On Sunday I woke up and made myself a prawn sandwich using the last of my prawns. I then worked for 4 hours on a a call out, which tied into around the time my parents came back from Exmouth - so I went round there and had a roast beef Sunday dinner.

After that I drove to the Avon Gorge hotel (White Lion?) to join Mike, Michelle, Bud, Boz and Poj for a few drinks.

Today is Monday, which means I am no longer tied to my pager. This means I can start going to the gym again, I wonder what I will weigh now. I haven't been to the gym for over a week.

I was hungry in the morning and was easily talked into going downstairs for breakfast by a work colleague. I had a bowl of porridge, but couldn't help but yearn for the heart-stopping, artury-clogging, gut-busting fried breakfast that my colleague had. Porridge was nice too, though.. :-/

I was disappointed with the choice available in the canteen at dinner time, though. I ended up choosing a pork chop covered in a honey and apple sauce with sweetcorn, carrots and green beans. Frankly forgettable. I hope they do better tomorrow.