#784 Let me bore you to sleep - HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022 - Jason Newland (1st JANUARY 2022)

Hello. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

It's 2021. Yeah. So welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland.

And this is let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. I need to maybe I need to get an introduction, you know, like a recorded introduction, I just post at the beginning of each recording.

So I don't have to say the same boring things every time. If you hear a little bit of humming in the background, hopefully you can't hear much. It's just my laptop being overworked.

I've unplugged it. So it's not connected to the mains because that's usually when it goes all out and hums a bit. But I'm uploading quite a few recordings to my website to my podcasts.

You know, versions with five hours and 10 hours music in the background. And it's taken for ever and ever and ever. Really.

I'm also uploading the recordings to my website as well. So that you can both stream and download. Eventually, every single recording I've ever done, including with background sounds, and all five hours and 10 hours ones as well.

But it's time consuming. So it's going to take it probably will hopefully be done by the end of this month, January. That's how much work there is to do.

It's a lot, a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot. So you know, keep visiting and eventually everything will be on there. I'm trying to keep it updated so that at least the most recent recordings have been uploaded.

But you know, there's 1000s of recordings to do. So it's going to take a while. And although it's not, it's not kind of the most important thing that I need to do, but it's it's I just want to get it done.

I want to, I want to make the website a place worth visiting. And the whole point of it is to have all of my recordings on there. So that's what I'm doing.

And it's, if you have visited, have a look, it's a lot easier to maneuver around and find what you want, because it's all on there, organized, very well organized. Although not every section has got stuff on there, because I'm in the process of uploading, or producing, editing and uploading. So there's quite a bit to do.

But I don't want to, it's easy to get caught up in that stuff. And then to neglect making new recordings, which I don't want to do. I do want to do.

Yeah, I do. I do want to do new recordings. I don't want to neglect that.

So it's a case of trying to balance that. It's not easy, man. It's not easy.

So hopefully the the ones I'm uploading at the moment are the the, what are they? The? Oh, okay. Although there are yeah, still got a few, but I've been doing the relaxing sleep hypnosis daily ones. And I've got up to 127 done out of about 100.

And it's 149. So they're nearly done. They're not all uploaded on my website yet.

But as soon as they're done, I'll start making new recordings for that podcast. So that will be within a few days, a couple of days, probably. And I'm now in the process of uploading the to my website, deep sleep whisper recordings with background music, then I'll do the have to do five hours in time 10 hours.

So that's going to take a while. I'm also going to do some for the Let Me Boy To Sleep podcast, I'm going to do the same. Because at the moment every new recording I do, standard one without music, just me and my voice.

Then there's the background music one, which is the same length as the original, but with background music, me talking and with music as well. So at last just know there's no it's just that's just background music. Forget that last bit.

That's just background music. So there's no talking underneath just me talking above it. And then also there's the five hour one, which is at the end of the recording, it continues for five hours with me talking with music.

And then the next the other one is 10 hours with me talking music. So there's four versions of each recording for whatever suits your needs. I'm trying to sort of cover every every angle really.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to upload, I'm going to edit and make every recording when I finished doing what I'm doing now and that'll be the end of the month probably hopefully I'll finish that. I'm going to then start to edit and all the old Let Me Boy To Sleep from number one all the way through and do those with background music, five hours and 10 hours. And then I'm going to upload them onto the website.

And then when they're all done, I'm going to have a big blast and just upload them to the podcast as well for those that want to listen to them. But because there's so many, it's going to be a struggle to do that. I mean, it's just it will take a long time.

So I might do I don't know what I might do is upload them, leave them on draft until I've uploaded all of them and then just release them all at the same when all the same time one by one. And so that it's just one day of inconvenience for those that don't want to listen to those. And for those that do they can listen.

So you know, I mean, or maybe do one, but 101 day and then at the end of that, the most latest recording will be on there. And then wait another maybe 12 hours or whatever, or 24 hours before I release the next 100. And then, you know, so the top one will always be the most recent recording I've done.

It makes sense in my head as I say it. I'm not sure it makes sense to the eardrums that are listening. Did you just call me an eardrum? eardrums to twa.

No, duh, not twa. Different language. So yeah, New Year.

I, as with Christmas, I saw the new year on my own. And my friend came back so I didn't see them all all Christmas but he was I thought he was so tired. I think he went to bed.

I don't know. So I didn't see him. So I kind of just saw in a phone my dad.

And I realized that what he does, he hasn't he has it on loudspeaker the phone. So him and my stepmom listen. And if they don't say anything, I end up talking.

And I end up talking about absolute rubbish. And they just keep quiet. And I realized they do that.

I don't know why they do that. And I feel uncomfortable for me. I don't like it.

I like talking rubbish on the podcast, but not when I'm with a person. Because like, why are they sitting listening to me talking and not actually really contributing to either just me just let me waffle on. It's almost there's a there's a thing.

I've seen Buddhists do that as well. They keep quiet and let you go on and on and on. And some Buddhist friends I've had in the past.

And it's almost not trickery. But there's something in that just letting someone go on. And you're not contributing to the conversation.

You're just letting them waffle on and on. And then the person ends up maybe making themselves look a bit silly. And not meaning to but just you know, there's I'm trying to it's hard to explain.

But anyway, it feels uncomfortable to me. I don't like that. So I have to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I actually mentioned that I said I'm just you just you're not saying anything. If you keep quiet, I'm going to talk and I'll waffle on. And they found it funny when I said it.

But it was uncomfortable. So I just feel I embarrass myself. That's what it is.

I think I proved if nothing else, I'm a bit embarrassing. If you leave me just to talk, now, you're not saying anything, say something, man. And I will just keep talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking.

And there is no stop button. Sometimes it just keeps going. And the thing is, I know I'm being judged by what I'm saying.

Now when I do these, I don't feel judged because I guess I'm not getting that kind of feedback. I assume people that listen to me on these podcasts are listening because they like listening to me or you like listening to me. You're not doing it out of being forced to do it.

Unless you're married to someone that insists on listening to me on loudspeaker at nighttime. And you're kind of almost forced to listen to my silly voice. If that is the case, I apologize.

And all I can recommend is earplugs. That's all I can really, you know, it's a bit unfair if you have to be forced to listen to me droning on. But, you know, there's always options, you know, so I've tried, I'm trying to get rid of my audience.

Stop listening to me. Yeah. So yeah, I want to really start the new year by saying Happy New Year and all that stuff.

But say thank you for listening. Thank you. You know, it's been another year of me making these podcasts.

I don't know how many I've done. I could check probably to be fair. Oh, no, he's going into stat territory.

No, I'm not going to stats territory. Yesterday was awful. To be fair, it's New Year's Day.

So I shouldn't expect too much. But 17,000 downloads yesterday. That's a really low day.

But then Christmas Day, I think that was quite, quite low as well. Christmas Day, 20,000, which is a little bit better. But 17,000.

To be fair, I do get the occasional day where it's lower. I mean, the 4th of December, I had 10,000 downloads. 18th of December, just under 12,000.

19th, just under 13,500. But that's the lowest. But then I've had high days, the 12th of December, 50,638 downloads.

I thought you said you weren't going to talk about stats. Okay. I wasn't.

That wasn't the reason I came on here. But I got distracted. So let's have a look.

Overall, I can't do I can only go back as far as April really, to see how many, how many people have kind of listened. If that makes sense, just to see what kind of literally beginning of April, I think. So beginning of April.

And I think it goes beyond that because they changed the stats. Yeah, nothing after the beginning of April. March 31st? Nope.

What about April 3rd? April 24th? Yeah. April 17th? 16th? 15th? 18th? 17th? 16th? 15th? 14th? 68? Right, the 11th. Since the 11th of April.

So was that May, June, July, August, September, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. So that's a eight and a half months. So you know, it's quite a few months missing.

So there's 3,768,000 downloads. 3,768,000 and 68 and 681. So three 3.7 million.

So if you include January, February, March in the past first part of April, so clearly 4 million, four and a half million, maybe. So that's all right. So that's thanks to you.

I mean, I have I've got something to do because I make the recordings but just making recordings isn't enough. If you haven't got an audience, it's pointless. So I've got the best audience.

So that's what I want to say. Thank you. I'm being genuine here.

I know it might sound like I'm not but I am. But don't laugh then if you're being genuine. I am being genuine.

I really am. Without you, it sounds a bit silly. But in a sense, without you, there's no me.

Without you, there's no podcast. And I definitely would not do this if I didn't have an audience. Oh, well, I would but not.

I wouldn't put the energy in that I put in and I know I haven't been making lots of new recordings in the last month or so. But that's because I lost a lot of recordings in December at the beginning and had to redo a lot of stuff. So that was a hurdle that I had, which it was kind of a do or die situation almost.

I almost, well, what's the point in doing this if they're going to, if I'm not going to, if I can't do what I want to do, what's the point? You know, if I can't offer what the audience want, because some people listening might think, well, we don't want, I don't want to record in the last 10 hours with music. But a lot of people do. They are my most popular podcast episodes, the 10 hour ones.

So, you know, it just felt a bit, it was upsetting at the beginning, you know, it literally was the first of December and December is the busiest month for podcast, well, for most things, for most things, it's the busiest month. And although I did all right in December in the end, you know, I started off, I mean, blimey, it's, if I literally last month, I started off with 16,000 the first day of the month, then just 12,000. And by the fourth, it went down to 10,134.

That's the lowest I'd had probably for a long time. I really thought that's where it was going. Now, 10,000 a day is 300,000 a month, which is 3,600,000 a year.

So like, technically, what's wrong with that? But what's wrong with that? Well, to me, it's, it was a shock to the system, because I've been working so hard to, to increase the audience, to suddenly lose the audience to lose at least half, not the audience, but half downloads, half of the downloads were gone. So that was a shock. Anyway, I'm getting it back.

And I will be making more recordings this year. Maybe tomorrow, I'll talk about my plans for the year. Maybe today, I'll talk about what's happened during the year.

So tomorrow, I'll talk maybe, if I remember, I'll talk about my plans for 2022. But today, I will talk about what's happened during 2021. So I, yes, I just want to say thank you again.

I mean it, honestly, this is my life. This isn't a hobby. This is my life.

This is the most important thing in my life. Doing this, making podcasts, it's an opportunity, I guess, for me to express myself. It's an opportunity to help people, hopefully.

I'm hoping out of the, the amount of people that I, that listen to my podcasts, someone is, you know, benefits. So December, last month, I know it's only the, the first of December today, last, happy New Year's Day. December, I had 849,000 and a half, well 425.

So 849,000. I'm hoping out of that, that a few thousand people have been, have benefited from what I do, may be able to relax, fall asleep, feel a bit more positive within themselves, within yourselves. And I guess I'm a bit of a slow burner.

I don't, I don't chuck all the suggestions at you all in one go. But I try to, maybe not with this podcast, but with the others, I try to, I like to think that by listening regularly, there's a benefit. There's a gradual increase in maybe self-confidence, the ability to relax, not just when you're listening to me, but also, you know, when you're out and about and doing things, and able to step back from difficult situations.

So as to not get involved in drama or arguments, maybe be able to step back and perhaps when there has been a difficult situation, you're able to let it go, to not hang on to it for too long, not hold on to it for as long as maybe you used to. And that's all something that you've done, that you, you should, if that is the case, if you can think of examples when things, how things have changed for you since you've been listening to this, you're the one to congratulate, because you've done it. It's you that's done it.

So I wish you all well, and I am going to continue to make recordings. One of the things, I'll say quickly, I'll say quickly, I won't say quickly, but we'll say it. I'm looking to do, I'm looking to make some changes this year, to do some new things.

One of those things was possibly some live streaming, some live broadcasts, maybe a regular live recording every day. Now I don't know how I'm, if I'm going to do that or not. It's something I need to think about logistically.

Another thing I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be making more stop smoking recordings for that podcast, maybe a weekly one, and sort of cover different angles, different positions, different ideas, because as you know, with, if you listen to those recordings, the, the, not those, but the relaxation recordings or to the chronic pain relief sessions, I do different things. They're very samey in some ways. Some of them, sometimes there's technique, there's different things, but I try to come from different angles.

So instead of just doing one recording to stop smoking, I'm going to end up doing lots of recordings for stopping smoking. And the last time I did one, I think was blimey about six years ago or five years ago, whatever the last time I made a new one. Let me have a look.

It's quite a while back. It is quite a while. Stop smoking.

I've got eight recordings. Yeah, it was 2014. Blimey.

I think that was the last one I did. So, you know, there's room for a new one, I guess. The thing is with this is the pot, there's people are watching that podcast, like keep an eye on it for new stuff, because although it's nowhere near, you know, my most popular podcast, not even, not even anywhere close.

I have had nearly 4,000 downloads in the last 30 days. So it's growing. It's growing.

And every time I release something new, like when I released one with background music, and the stats went up 805 downloads in that day. So every day I'm getting 150, 160, 170 downloads, and that's without producing anything new. So as soon as I start producing new recordings, that will become, there's a chance that could become one of my most popular podcasts.

And I base this on pre, that was loud, wasn't it? I base this on previous experience. And so the Deep Sleep Whisper record, I've got 400 plus episodes on that podcast, Deep Sleep Whisper. And I didn't bother with it.

I had seven recordings, and that was it. And I noticed that people were listening more and more, you know, it's getting more and more to the point where 50, 60 people a day were listening. And that's rare for something where I don't upload anything.

And the old recordings were old, old sessions from years ago, like 2000, probably six, seven years ago. And I kept thinking, if this keeps up, I'm going to release a new recording just to test it, to see because clearly people are coming onto the web, going onto that podcast, maybe hoping for new recordings, maybe I don't know. So I released a new recording, and straight away, the stats went up, people were listening.

And so I just thought, all right, we'll test it. And then it ended up, I've got 600,000 downloads on that podcast. And regularly, even when I don't make a new recording, I'm still getting six, seven, 800,000 downloads a day.

That's when I don't make anything new. When I make new recordings, it's a lot higher. So isn't it weird? Isn't it weird? Blimey, on the 12th of December, I had 7,000 downloads on that podcast.

So talking about the past, this year, podcast-wise, it's grown. The audience has grown, the stats has grown, everything's grown, which is great, compared to... I can't even give you the stats from last year, because I don't have them. But I started this back in 2000 and... Was it 19 or 18? Please, someone, when did I start? Doesn't it tell me? Does it tell me? I don't know if it tells me what date they created three years ago.

So these podcasts are three years old, all of them, pretty much that I've got on there, most of them. And before that, I was on SoundCloud. Before that, I was on Spreaker again.

Before that, I've been on different podcasts for since 2007, I think. It's been quite a journey. And this year, I reached a million mark with three different podcasts.

So the first one was the Relaxation, Hypnosis and Stress for Stress and Anxiety and Panic Attacks. I've now reached a million. It was about four months ago, five months maybe.

I'm now 1,936,000 on that one. So that's good. Even yesterday, or today rather, the most, one of the lowest days I've had for a four days ago, I had 12,500 downloads.

And the highest amount in the last 30 days was 14,000. This is in the middle of the month. So that was the first one that reached a million.

So thank you, whoever listens to that. And the second one to reach a million was Hypnosis for Sleeping Deeply. That reached a million probably about two months later.

And now it's at 1748. So 1,748,799. So that's really started to kind of almost compete with the other one that I just mentioned.

So you know, by the end of the month, it's going to probably be I'm getting nearly 300,000 a month on that one. So it'll be over 2 million, which is brilliant. So that'll be by the end of January, I'll be over 2 million if it continues as it's going.

And I'm getting less a month on the other one. So isn't it weird? It's the other one's almost taking over. It's winning the race.

It's not a race, but it won't reach a 2 million mark before this the first one I mentioned. But it will reach the 3 million mark before the other one if it keeps going away is because it's shooting ahead. The third one to reach a million was recent.

It was only very lately, very, very lately, which is Sleep Insomnia Hypnosis, which is 1,150,967. So it's pretty much 1,151,000. And that reached a million just a while ago about, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago.

And now maybe a month ago, and it's got 137,000 a month getting on there. No other podcasts anywhere near the million. Really? Let me bore you, the sleep is still low, just under 400,000 downloads, 393,000.

So that's, it's well off reached a million and the Deep Sleep Whisperer, just nearly 600,000. So and the other only other popular one really out of all of them is the Relax and Sleep Daily. And that's 311,000.

I say popular, but I get 30,000 a month there. So it's not really, it's only 10% isn't it of what I get with the really popular ones. Oh, how weird.

Yeah. Oh, well. So that's that's enough about that.

So this there's not much really distress and panic. I don't get many on there. Although they are listened to on other podcasts, it's not many listened to actually on its own podcast.

114 in the last month, which is just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Why can't you see how wonderful it is? Chronic pain podcast.

Yeah, don't get money on there. Weird. But that's it.

So things are going quite well with all that stuff. Some podcasts aren't doing great. Some are doing really, really well.

But by my standards, really, really well is probably quite low compared to some other, you know, by a professional standard is, I guess, for some people, anything under 10 million a month would be 10 million downloads a month would be very small. And, you know, I'm not even not even reached a million yet. Not that far off just over 120,000 off.

That's not all about the stats anyway. Yes, that's not it. No, it's not.

So some things that's been going on in my life this year. So the year started off. How did it start off? Pretty much the same as this year.

Last year started off I was sitting there watching the fireworks on the telly. And I don't really recollect anything for January. Don't really recollect and I was just making recordings.

February just making recordings. March, April, I think in February, I started looking. So January, February time, I started to plan to get better equipment for the podcasting for the videos and stuff like that.

And I have, I mean, if you listen to the audio of my podcast in 2020. Compared to how they are or at the beginning of the year compared to how they are now. The quality of the audio is way, way better.

Because I'm using better equipment, basically, a much better microphone. This is a, you know, high end microphone. I've got two actually.

One for when I make videos and one for when I do the podcasts. But I could use either for either really if I wanted. But I just like this one.

It, I think it picks, it picks my voice up quite well, I think. So I've invested quite a lot, a lot of my time, invested money in, got into quite a bit of debt this year, getting stuff for, so that I can improve the quality of the sound and just improve generally quality. Not all of the equipment worked out okay.

Not everything that was, I didn't find it easy to use, or even ended up using because it wasn't really suitable. But I managed to get a nice, in the end, a nice setup for both video and for audio. And the only thing really missing is some lighting.

And I'm thinking about that. But at the moment, I'm not sure where I want to go as far as lighting goes. And also, I'm not sure I really want to get into any more debt right now.

The most important thing, well, not most important thing, but an important thing is to pay those debts off and get out of debt, which I'm trying to do at the moment. Over the next few months, hopefully get clear of all that stuff. Over the next few years, by the time I'm 70, by the time I'm 70.

So it's worth it for me. It was a plan. I wish I'd done this sooner, if I'm honest.

I wish I'd done it sooner. Got this decent equipment. But it was, I don't know.

Okay, I did buy microphones, I did get decent equipment. But there's more to it. There's more to just getting a microphone, there's all the other stuff you got to have to boost the microphone, the and all that, you know, so it took ages to with reviews and to find stuff that worked for me, that worked for my needs.

And this seems to do the job. And the Deep Sleep Whisper ones still got to work on that because of the volume is so low with those recordings. Maybe I might, I'm thinking of getting a different microphone for those, which is an these basically like a pair of ears on a microphone.

And the they're quite 3Dio, I think called. So I'm thinking of getting one of those to make the whisper recordings. We'll see.

We'll see. I'm just playing with that idea. The other thing is the yes, like February, March, April, it's a bit of a blur for me.

With the there's a lot of restrictions. And I'm sure there was a period when we had to stay in the house, we're allowed to go out or you know, whatever. I forget.

It blurs all into one really the last two years when it comes to restrictions and wearing masks and all that stuff. I'm not even going to mention the word, I'm not going to mention the word. But you know, if you're listening to this in 20 years time, just Google 2020 2021, the lost years, and it will come up guaranteed, honestly.

And so yeah, I don't remember much of that time, other than I was working while I was doing the podcasts and trying to improve what I was doing. If you can hear the birds were singing outside, they've been doing it for about an hour. And I don't know why I mentioned it, I don't know if you can hear it or not.

So the other things this year, February, March, April, not really anything that I could think of that happened in my life. Of course, there's always stuff happening in the news and you know, things like that. But I'm not really talking about that stuff.

More talking about my own existence. And I don't recollect anything particularly interesting that happened during that time. And I don't know, which is weird, because now we're moving towards that time again, towards spring.

So yeah, there's, I can't not mention Andre. So Andre, bless him, got ill. And in May, I lost him.

So that was the, that was a shock to the system, shock to me. And shock to a lot of people, really, because, you know, I know, it's just hearing him in the background, and anyone that's watched any of my YouTube videos, especially the Let Me Boy To Sleep ones, I had him on so many of those videos. And on Facebook videos, so there's a lot of film footage of him licking my face and just, you know, me cuddling him and him trying to get away from me.

So there's a lot of those, there's a lot of videos of him. So that's nice. I'm glad I did that.

Glad I made some videos of him so I can, I look at, I watch them occasionally, but still feel very sad when I watch them. But so I lost him. And yeah, just, it was the hardest, so far in my life, the hardest thing to happen as an adult, hardest thing to deal with as an adult.

It was harder than when my nan died. And that was hard. But there was, I guess, because with my nan, we discussed it.

We talked about it for years. She didn't want to be here. You know, she was, wanted to be in heaven with my granddad.

She wanted, she didn't want to be ill and be blind and be dead. You know, she, she'd had enough. I'm not trying to be too depressive in that.

Just, she was very matter of fact about the whole thing. It's almost like she knew it was her time. And when I saw her, she was going to my nan, she's going over to her daughters for Christmas.

Because she died on the, I think it was the 29th of December. And yeah, well, and I guess that, to me, that just, I've always struggled with Christmas and that made it worse. I think her dying at Christmas, literally, I know it's a few days afterwards, but, and that was obviously very, very, very, very hard.

Obviously, it's hard when you lose someone that you, that you care about deeply. But with Andre, he was my boy. He, you know, I spent every day with him for five years, five and a half years, every day.

Sometimes, you know, I'd go out, obviously, I'd go out, I'm saying obviously too many times now. It annoys me when people say obviously. It's like, they assume you know stuff that there's no way you could know.

Well, obviously, we had to sell the house. Well, obviously, it's not obvious to me. Why did you have to sell the house? Tell me every detail.

And then carry on with the conversation. So yeah, obviously. Yeah, it was very difficult.

And a part of me, I feel a part of me went, part of me's gone. He was a part of me. He's, he was, and I feel this is more about me than does anything else that I can only build a relationship up with a ferret.

I can't do it with a human, but I can do it with a ferret. I can have that love that I guess most people are able to have for a child, you know, but I had that for a ferret. But hey, it's just the way it is.

And I love that little boy. And I can at least know that I used to get angry with him sometimes because he was very naughty at times. I mean, really naughty.

But I treated him well. I looked after him. And I took him out for long walks regularly.

Even when it was horrible weather, especially if I knew he didn't want to go out. But you know, I took him out and I looked after him and I gave him all the love. And every day I told him I loved him.

Every single day. You know, when he lived, when he slept in his cage for the first few years, and I had him out all day long, when he wasn't, when I wasn't in bed, he'd be out every night. It'd be like a Walton's thing.

Good night, John boy. It was like that, like, goodnight, Andre, I love you. And he'd go piss off trying to sleep, put me in this bloody cage again.

Not an animal. So yeah, it was, it was just beautiful. It didn't hurt, you know, the fact that he had a beautiful little face.

You know, it's hard not to fall in love with him because he was so cute. I'm sure, you know, all animals are cute. But he just, there was something about him that I just fell in love with when I first saw him.

And he hated me, didn't like me when I first met him. He kept trying to bite me, well, he didn't try, he did bite me really hard. And he didn't want anything to do with me.

And I've told this little story, but I'll tell it again. The first time I knew that he loved me, that he at least accepted me, was when I was sitting on my chair, cataloguing my hand in my dressing gown. And I was just watching TV.

And he climbed on my lap onto my legs, because when he was little, he could just jump, you know, so easy to climb around, climbed onto my legs, climbed up to my stomach. Obviously, he had camping gear on because you know, my stomach is so big, sometimes he had to, he had to sort of settle down and put a tent up halfway up, because it's such a long journey, shut up. So he climbed through and he went up my left sleeve, because my hands were resting on the, my arms were resting on the armrest.

And he climbed up my sleeve of my dressing gown and went to sleep. And he was asleep for hours and hours. And I was even, I remember going to the toilet, just trying to hold him up, so he didn't fall in the toilet.

Like with my left arm up, trying to aim. Okay, I wasn't trying to aim, I never tried to aim, it doesn't matter. No one else lives here.

I just, it lands where it lands. But he, it was so beautiful. I didn't want to wake him up, because for me, that was the first time that I felt close to him.

Because he didn't, before that, he didn't want me anywhere near him. He'd play with me, you know, if I was giving him stuff, and he'd always try and do stuff. But I'd say this is probably about a week or two in.

So it took him a little while. He stopped biting me after about five days. But then when I got to pick him up, he'd try and get away.

Didn't want me picking him up, but I kept picking him up. Every opportunity, because I wanted him to get used to it. I wanted him to get used to me touching him and holding him, and I guess eventually he did.

And then he came over, and when he did that, he fell asleep. He never did it again. That's the first time, and only time he ever did it.

Like climbed up my sleeve. And the rest of the time, after that, we were cool. And he was just much more affectionate, and almost accepted to be in his life.

It was hard work. He tamed me, I think, in his mind. So yeah, so I lost him in May.

I've got a stomachache. I probably need to eat something. Another thing that happened in May is near the end of May.

It was literally the end of May. I went on a holiday. I needed to get away, but I didn't have any money to go anywhere.

And my friend, knowing that I needed to get away, because I told her, she invited me to go on holiday with her and her family to Cornwall. So I said, okay. I said no to start with, because I don't like you that much.

I don't want to spend that much time with you. And then she laughed, thinking I was joking. And then eventually I thought, okay, why not? So I went.

I needed to get out of there. I really did. And it was a difficult time.

Difficult. Parts of it were really nice. Parts of it were really horrible.

I just, you know, so it was a mix mash of, you know, we were in the middle of nowhere. People were still, everything was like distanced and wearing masks. And even the local pub that was on the place where the chalets were closed at eight o'clock in the evening.

And, you know, it was just, everything was not as it would normally be. That's a busy time of the year, May, end of May to June. That's a busy time.

That's pretty much peak time, isn't it? Wasn't a lot going on. There was still a lot of people about, but not as it would be, according to the shops. Because we spoke to a few people in the shops and they said it's probably about a third of what it would normally be.

Busy wise customers. So, so I did that and then I got a cold for the first time in two years. I got a cold.

And so that was weird. And then that was in June, July. Did anything happen in July? I can't remember August.

I can't really think of anything that happened. And September, August is my birthday. I was 51.

That was a non-event. August, September, October, November, December. I can't think of anything really that happened at all during those months.

I just continue to do what I'm doing. It's weird, isn't it? A whole year's gone by and pretty much it's a year of nothing. I'm sure, I mean, things did happen all around the world, but in my life, I just, I hardly went out at all.

Hardly. I was very ill at one point in about a month, two months ago. I was very, very poorly.

And then I had the vertigo thing I went to the hospital with and that's come back. And that's just basically when I, when I moved from one ear to the other. How'd you get from one ear? Okay, I'm going to explain.

If you're laying, if I'm laying down in bed, I'm laying on my left side and I moved to lay down on the right side. It just, things go dizzy for a few seconds. And then I'm laid down on my left ear.

Things go dizzy for a few seconds. So it's an inner ear issue. I'm not quite sure what's going on, but this is a, this is a very common issue that some people have.

So I've got to check up with my doctor in a few days time. So what I might do is mention it. Just say, well, this is what's going on.

Please help. Please help. I had, I had really bad back pain a few months back.

Yeah. I went, I ended up going to the doctors for that. And he said it was muscular, sitting down too much, probably not being active enough, not using the back muscles.

So this is my upper back. I've had problems with my lower back for years, 20 odd years, and it's got worse gradually. So I kind of, I expect that and I'm used to it, but my upper back, wow.

It's amazing how much area my upper back takes and the middle back. I've got a big old back. Yeah.

I'm not, not muscly at all, obviously, because no muscles were being used, obviously. So what I did is I decided to strengthen my back with weights, weightlifting and training, which is what I've done. So I spent the last two months using weights.

Every day I do the weights, do some, sometimes I do a bit more than others. And the result is physically, I don't look any better, but my back feels a lot better. You know, I can, I can tense the muscles now and they're being used.

You know, they're, they're active again. Um, the only, my biceps have grown, my forearms seem to have grown a bit and my shoulders, um, my chest is a little bit firmer, but it's still nice. I've still got lots of breasts there, which is nice, but very, it's got to be at least C to D cup.

It's nice. My left nipple is hard for some reason. What is that? That's weird.

Oh, I'm kind of not playing with them. I'm just touching them. Just, just, um, let's move on.

So I, I feel a bit stronger maybe for doing that, but the novelty wore off a bit, if I'm honest, because doing weights is a little bit boring. It, I guess for people, especially young people, well, not just young people, but people that are physically fit going to the gym, uh, maybe showing off to their friends or showing off in front of other people, taking their shirt off and doing must, you know, lifting weights in front of mirrors and they look good. Their muscles are bulging and everything.

I can't do that. Uh, you know, I don't have that kind of body, so I can look in the mirror and think, okay, yeah, my biceps are definitely grown. And, you know, but unfortunately if you're in public, people aren't just going to look at one part of it.

Well, they probably would my belly. Cause I've got the biggest belly in the world. So no one's going to notice.

No one's going to look up. God, look, he's got quite nice biceps. His shoulders are quite, you know, he's, he's got quite a good, you know, even his chest is a bit firmer than it used to be.

And no one's going to do that. First of all, cause they'd probably, they wouldn't know what I looked like before. They're just going to see the big wobbling belly that's knocking people over as I walk.

So the mountain, the mountain belly. So yeah, I'm thinking of, um, getting the exercise bike, putting it into the living room and only watching telly when I'm on the bike and trying to wrap up a few miles doing that and perhaps losing some weight. Just, I don't want, I'm not bothered about losing weight.

It's about losing fat and about cardiovascular exercise, getting a bit fitter. Not bothered about losing, cause I'm not heavy. I'm a hundred kilos, which I think is about 225 pounds.

I'm not heavy. I'm just not, I just got too much fat. I need to reduce the fat level of my body.

That's all I need to do. I wouldn't, it wouldn't bother me if I went up to 120 kilos providing my fat ratio was a lower level than it is now. You know, I'm not bothered about weight.

If I was another 10 kilos, then it's only acceptable if I'm 10, if that's 10 kilos of muscle, then fair enough. But I'm not gonna, you know, I don't want 10 kilos of fat because apart from being extremely dangerous, probably, I just don't look a mess. I already look a mess, that would be even messier.

By the way, if you like chubby men, big fat, smelly men like me, then get in touch. I'm looking for someone to date. Of course you need to be, you have a perfect figure, but I don't want to date someone that looks like me.

Otherwise I'd drill a hole in the mirror. No, I'm just, just joking. Yeah.

No, there's someone locally that started working in a local place. I'll be very vague here that I really like, liked, but she's not available. So that's, that's the end of that one.

But it kind of, what it did is it, it almost switched on, switched on my, my engine as it were. I don't want to be very vague, but you know, it kind of, it, Oh, I forgot that was down there. And he's like, then he's looking up like, what's going on? What's going on dad? So it's, it's very, it got me thinking maybe, maybe this year is the year to get into a relationship.

But then I thought to myself, if I asked this person out, which I couldn't anyway, cause she's in a relationship. I got nothing to wear. All I wear is tracksuit bottoms.

I've got six pairs of tracksuit bottoms and I just wear them all the time. I just wear tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts and whatever top that I, you know, when I go out, I've got two hoodies and I wear one of those. And at the moment I put the hood up because my hair is a mess.

I tried to cut it myself the other day. Don't do that. Don't ever do that.

It's a proper mess. So I wear my, basically wear a hat. It's not a hat, but you know, the hoodie top, the hood.

Yeah. Hence hoodie. I know, I know.

And I just thought, well, I've got nothing to wear and look at me, look at my hair. I can't go out like that. I can't just, there's nothing, I got nothing kind of to offer physically either.

Unless you're into unfit middle-aged men. I'm not that unfit actually. I do have a bit of energy in me sometimes and I don't struggle walking upstairs.

I know it's not perhaps what you look for in a man. What's the most important thing about a man for you, whether he can walk upstairs without collapsing? Probably not on your list like that. But I guess I'm less interested in the things I was interested in before when it came, comes to females, but that's because I don't have a female in my life.

A girlfriend. That's what I'm talking about. Girlfriend.

And so I'm not interested in cuddling or kissing or touching or anything. It doesn't interest me because I've got no one to do it with. So I don't, it's not very helpful or healthy.

I don't think thinking about stuff like that when there's no one to partake, it can be frustrating. It can be frustrating. But I think if I was in a relationship, then that'd be different.

Of course, I want to do stuff with that person and spend time with that person, but I just haven't met anyone that I wanted to spend time with. Because you got to get to know people and I've not met anyone. There's been people that listen to me that like me and they've let me know they're like me.

And you know, I like that. It's nice. Not always easy to fulfill, you know, if you live in a different country and that, especially when travel is so restrictive at the moment.

But coming into this year, I've got more options open to me and more possibilities regarding travel. So there is a potential that I will be able to travel come kind of summertime. So meeting up with people is not, it's not like a never going to happen situation.

It's a real possibility. So yeah, I think maybe would it be nice? I don't know. It'd be nice to have a girlfriend.

It's been so long. It really has been absolutely years and years and years and years and years. I'm just surprised it hasn't fallen off.

It's been that long. So yeah, it's I don't know if I've got what it takes to maintain a relationship. I don't know.

I don't know. So this year, I mean, that's not on my top of the list of things to do to have a relationship, but it would be nice to, you know, to touch, to touch, to, to, to, to, to do something. It would be nice.

But most importantly, is get myself out of debt. And I guess more important than that is to keep doing this to grow the grow the audience, to keep making new recordings and to keep hopefully helping more people. That's, that's the bottom line, ladies and gentle man.

That's the bottom line. That's what I'm here to do. So hopefully, things will come together and continue in a positive way.

And I'd like to be able to say, you know, come this year that come the end of the year, that actually things have improved. Whether it's my health, whether it's my mobility, my back being my lower back being a lot better. Maybe financially, even romantically.

It'd be nice. I mean, I'd love to be able to say that to look at the stats and say, Oh, December, let's say December next year, or this year now in 2022, December this year, to be able to look at that month and to be getting I don't know 100,000 downloads a day. I mean, if I get 50, I can get 100, you know, so 100 isn't an impossible number.

Before I was, it took me two years, over two years to get to 10,000 a day. So the idea of 100 was like, stop being so silly 100. We'll try getting to 8,000 first, then we'll discuss the 100.

Okay. So to get to 10,000, then to 20, then to 30. And then on occasions 40 and 50.

There are rare occasions, it's not an often thing. But it just shows that it's possible in the future. And I'm in no way, I'm not expecting to be able to get 50,000 downloads every day, anytime soon, you know, might be months and months away before that happens.

But if I can get to 100,000 today, by the end of the year, I'll just be so cool. And I'm thinking a few a few ways to do that. Maybe Facebook advertising to advertise the podcasts to reach people that don't even know that I exist.

I don't know. But the battery on my iPad is about to run out. So the recording will cut off.

So I better go before it does that. Otherwise, I will lose the entire recording. And I don't want that to happen.

So I'm going to say goodbye. Happy New Year again. Remember to be kind to yourself throughout the whole year.

Be gentle with yourself all year long. Okay. Remember, you deserve to be happy.

And remember all the things that you've done to help other people. Throughout your life. You're an amazing person.

And try and remember that. Get hold of that feeling and keep hold of that feeling and remind yourself regularly that you really are amazing. So I'm going to go and I'll speak to you tomorrow.

Lots of love. Bye