#804 Let me bore you to sleep - BACK TO THE GYM - Jason Newland (7th MARCH 2022)

Hello and 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. Hello, how are you doing? So today is Tuesday the 8th of March 2022.

It really is, it really is. Wow, wow. So I hope everything's going groovy for all of my listeners around the globe.

I went to the gym today for the first time in, wow, three years, maybe, maybe longer. And it's good, it's nice. How did I work out here? I've got weights and I've got a punch bag and I've got an exercise bike, or as I call it, the dust collector.

It's not even a comfortable seat, it's not a comfortable seat at all. It's very, oh, but you know, I might try and start using it. And so, you know, I've got a few weights and a few exercise things here, but it's not the same.

It's just not the same as actually going to a gym, to an actual place that's there for that one purpose of health and fitness. And the place I go to has got a swimming pool, although I'm not going to go in there anytime soon because it involves, you know, showing off the old flesh and I'm not, I'm not prepared to do that. This, well, it's just not fair on everyone.

It's not, it's not fair. It's kind of like, you know, there was probably, I think it was about six people in the swimming pool when I got to the, to the gym. I did kind of look, I didn't really want to look at them all because, you know, people are pretty much half naked, aren't they, when they're in a swimming pool? So they want to start staring at people.

But I kind of, with my peripheral vision, sort of counting, there's about eight people or six, maybe five, but there was a few. It's not a big swimming pool. It's not like massive.

It's, it's the kind of swimming pool that you'd have if you had a, I suppose you had a mansion and you had a swimming pool in your garden. It's that kind of size swimming pool, big enough to swim in, but not like, not like a leisure centre or Olympic size swimming pool, nothing like that. But it's big enough.Me getting in there would just spoil their fun. They all looked like they were having a really nice time, splashing around and giggling and that. And I thought, no, that's kind of, that would be the equivalent of inviting me to a little kid's birthday party.

Good little kids there, five-year-olds there, enjoying himself. And I turn up and him and all his friends know that I'm going to eat all the cakes. You know, just to spoil things.

I'm going to eat all the cakes and I'm taking the presents home with me. No, I wouldn't. But I would eat all the cakes.

And that's not fair on anyone. So I wouldn't, I don't want to spoil it by undressing and I'm not saying, I'm not saying that I would undress at the side of the swimming pool, you know, start playing some kind of weird You know, I wouldn't, wouldn't have that kind of music going on. I wouldn't be stripping off sensually because that's impossible with my body.

So I just, no, it's one of those weird conundrums of I need to get myself physically fit before I will get undressed and go into a public swimming bath or swimming pool. But the reason I want to go into a swimming pool is to get myself physically fit. You know, it just doesn't work.

Which is a shame because if there was no one around, I'd happily get in there and maybe, because I'm not, I'm not a swimmer, I can swim, kind of. And I did have swimming lessons when I was about, I don't know, nine, about nine, 10 years old. I had swimming lessons, like every week for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

Because we had a swimming pool in, in the school, not if it wasn't in the school, but, you know, on the school grounds. The only school I've ever been to that had a swimming pool. It was pretty cool.

You know, I went to two other junior schools in that town. They didn't have swimming pools. And I went to high school, they didn't have a swimming pool either.

In fact, there wasn't even a swimming pool in the town. How about that, eh? So when I was at school, there was no swimming pool. Well, not until I was about, probably about 14, maybe 15.

And the leisure center was built. And there's a swimming pool. But before that, there was no swimming pool in that town for the public to use.

The girls college had a swimming pool, which they had like separate. And I used to go there with, with the sea cadets. We used to go there in the summer, I think once a week, use that as a resource, you know, and it was like a swimming pool on its own outside as well.

And I think it was, if I remember rightly, I went there again another time. Yeah, during the summer, but the only school or the only like this swimming pool we had was on it was undercover. And it was at the junior school, so it was only the little kids could use it.

Wow, what an amazing thing for a school to have when the whole of the town didn't have anywhere to swim. So I learned to swim basic swimming. The problem is because I nearly drowned when I was a little kid in a swimming pool.

In the 70s. I don't know what I was about. I was probably too young to remember a lot of things that happened.

But old enough to remember certain things. So maybe I was about four, maybe five, four, something like that. And, and I honestly don't know.

I might have been six. I'm really not sure. And I don't know where I was.

I was in a swimming pool. No wonder you no wonder you didn't couldn't swim if you don't know where you were. You think you're in a restaurant like no, you have to swim you have to move.

No, I knew where I was. I was in a swimming pool. But there was a fad back then.

A new fangled thing called wave machines. Now, these were new. This was very, as I was very popular in the day.

So we're talking mid 70s probably. 75 probably about that time. Maybe 76 maybe 74.

But it was mid ish 70s. And these wave machines seem to just become popular. Now, I didn't know that there was a wave machine.

And the only thing I ever did or pretty much and I still would even now I'd get in the swimming pool in the shallow end. And then I just sort of walk gradually sort of moving up to my chest. When the wall got above my chest, then I used to struggle a lot.

You know, I mean, when I got older, I mean, when I was little, I mean, the wall was pretty much above my chest, even in the shallow area. I mean, it used to be up to my neck just in the footbath. But apparently not supposed to swim in that.

It's, you know, especially if you inhale water. I ended up with Veruca lung, which is weird. And so I basically what I used to do is hang on to the edge of the swimming pool.

You know, a little curvy bit. So you got the edge, but then you got below it there. It's almost like I think it's there to be held on to this.

It's good for that. It's like a ridge. I don't know if some pools still have that.

But he used to go all the way around the in the conscious on the inside of the swimming pool all the way around. And then what I would do, if there's no if there wasn't many people in the swimming pool, I would do I, you know, I'd maybe try and do a width, try and swim or, you know, move, but in the shallow area. The problem is, quite often, it was very busy.

And I think I was probably there with either school or, you know, as a group, which meant it was busy. So I was holding on to the side, as I normally do. As I still was, I mean, when's the last time I went swimming? When is it? I can't remember.

It's been so long. I can't actually remember the last time I went swimming. And I'm pretty sure I haven't been swimming in the last 20 years.

Pretty sure I might have been but I don't think I have. Not in my memory. It's not there.

Although I've got this faint memory of going swimming with one of my Buddhist friends. But it doesn't strike me as something that I would do. No.

No, I really don't remember going swimming. For I can't remember the last time I went. In fact, I'm trying to remember even one time.

I have been swimming. I've been in the swimming baths. But I can't remember.

I used to go to the leisure center, this the one that opened up. And, you know, generally I'd stay in the shallow area. Occasionally, I just, if there wasn't many people around, I would perhaps do a length.

But I had to stay on the edge of the pool. Because if I got out of breath, or maybe didn't feel very safe, I'd hold on to the edge and I was fine. But quite often what I noticed is, if I did do a length and then I went back to do another length, someone else would cut me off and they'd end up, someone else wanted to swim on the edge.

Just on the, you know, right on the edge. So almost pushing me into the middle. And that's not what I wanted.

You know, I needed to be near the edge so I could always have that safety net. Eventually they said, you know, you can't come back unless you leave the net at home. But yeah, for me, I needed to do what was necessary for my own peace of mind.

Why am I talking about swimming pools? Oh yeah, I went to the gym. I was going to say I felt really good. I don't feel so good now, but I did back then.

And used the, the first thing I did is, because I used to be a member of this gym before, I stopped going for a while. And then I went to, I went to rejoin and then suddenly everything closed down in 2020. So, you know, two years later, I'm thinking, okay, might as well give it a go.

So go in there, fill in the paperwork and everything to rejoin. They had my details on the system, but I still had to fill in new forms. I can go anytime I want when they're open.

Before I, there's different membership levels and the level I had before was going there between one and one in three in the afternoon. Something silly like that, which is just pointless. What's the point in that? I never made it.

It's just, it's too restricting. So I've got a membership now, which means I can go anytime, which is the whole point. You can't, it's, I mean, it's very disciplined to be able to get to somewhere for a certain time, but it's not a good time of the day.

It's lunchtime, isn't it? But, you know, I want to be able to just go whenever I want. So anytime after 6.30 in the morning to seven in the evening, weekdays, and then Saturday, I don't know what time, Sunday, I don't know what time. So it's open seven days a week.

And you go in and there's a reception and there's a swimming pool and then you walk up. There's no, there's no men's changing room, because it's been refurbished or something. So I didn't have a locker to put my stuff in, so I had to carry it around with me.

And you know, which is a shame, not really anywhere to change, but I did need to change because I just wore me tracksuit anyway. But I need to wear something different to come home in, because I was all sweaty, you know. So I went in, there is a lady are running on one of the running machines, treadmills, and I think there's four treadmills.

And yeah, pretty sure it's four, maybe five. Yeah, maybe five, maybe four. And then there's some cycling or cross trainers in front.

And it takes up the majority of the room of the gym. And there's a separate room, it's got one, two, three, four, five machines. And then there's a set, another room, it's all open plan.

But they're, they're clearly another room, but they're taking the doors off and stuff. And there's a punch bag in there and some loose weights. So I thought, okay, you know, I knew that there's a punch bag from before.

So I took my boxing gloves with me on my bag, my bag gloves. And I had a little, little punch up on the punch bag for about 10 or 15 minutes. So that was nice.

It's nice to, you know, have a nice, have a nice little workout without having to be concerned about maybe disturbing the neighbors, because punch bags do make quite a lot of noise when you punch them. So it's nice to have that. Just to be able to just let go and, you know, just punch.

And then after that, I went into the gym, the gym bit where the machines were. And I did one, one, one, two, three, four, five, six, six different exercises with weights, or six different weight training things. And then I finished it off by going on a treadmill for, it was only about 12 minutes, but I did very, I did like a power walk, very fast walking.

So that was, yeah, it was cool. Just to, I needed to have a, just take it easy, you know. What did surprise me though, is, oh, it's getting so uncomfortable.

What did surprise me is the amount of weights that I'm able to lift. I don't know why I'm surprised, but I don't normally go for, like worry about lifting heavy weights. For me, it's more about the exercise and just, you don't have to lift heavy weights to, to get fit.

And technically, I didn't, still didn't lift, you know, didn't lift heavy, heavy, heavy weights. But I was kind of surprised at how much I was able to lift. So I've still got a bit of strength left.

And I just did sets of 10, three sets of 10 on each, each machine. The thing is, I was just surprised at the, I don't know, I just, it's not that I expected them to, to myself to be weak or whatever, just, I kept putting the weight, you know, put the peg into the higher weights and it was still easy to lift. But then I thought, okay, yeah, but if I do 10 reps, relax for, you know, maybe a minute and then do 10 more reps and then relax for a little bit and then do 10 more, how easy will it be? You know? So that's what I did.

I tried to keep the weights, not, not light, not easy. So, but at quite a heavy level, but at the same time, not, not silly, silly heavy. And I was just surprised that I can lift more than I thought.

I mean, comfortably, not properly lifting because, you know, I could probably, I could lift a hell of a lot more than I did, you know, in a, an emergency situation when they turn into, into a Hulk. Hmm. I'm, it's not even, it's not even 10 to 11 yet and I'm tired.

Very, very, very, very, very tired. So after doing the weights, yeah, I went on a running machine for a little while. Didn't, I didn't, I didn't run, but I did walk incredibly fast because I thought, no, I'm not going to run.

Just take it easy. Personally, I would say my legs were moving faster than the person that was on the treadmill next to me and he was running. My legs really were very, very, very bionic-y for, you know, it almost, they looked speeded up, but they weren't.

They were my real legs walking very, very, very quickly. Oh yeah. So I'm just looking at the weights and thinking, yeah, I was quite surprised at, not, not, it's not that I thought that I was weak, but I was, you know, pleasantly surprised to my strength levels.

And I can see how, if I went regularly over the next year or two, I could potentially lift all of the weights, maximum weights on the machines. Which, I mean, they're not, they're probably not huge weights, but still, it'd be quite cool. But I was, yeah, pleasantly surprised because I could have gone heavier, but I didn't want, I didn't want to, I wanted to have like a level where, because I was doing, because blah, blah, blah, blah.

At home, I do about 40 reps. In a gym, normally you do like 10 reps. You do three sets.

I'm just like, when I used to go to the gym, I'd do 10, have a rest, do another 10, have a rest, and for maybe 30 seconds or a minute, and then do another 10. And to do that, I started doing it, but the weights were too light. So I thought, I have to do heavier weights if I'm only doing shorter reps.

So what I did is, that's what I did. I just increased the weights and it was like, oh, it's quite nice just to have a little bit of a, a little bit of a workout, but to not have it be light, but not, not too strong where me, me bum was popping out, you know, I didn't want to sort of cause myself an injury, you know, but enough to feel it. And that's what I did.

So I did the weights and then I went on a roam, walked on the running machine, but I walked very, very quickly. And my lower back started to hurt. So, and that was, oh, that's not good.

So during the weights, my back didn't hurt and I do the weights to strengthen my back, my lower back, but on the machine, that constant movement, because I have arthritis in my lower back and that constant movement was just aggravating it. So I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with that. And I started thinking, oh, cause I have to walk home.

It's a half hour walk back home. And I thought, oh, this isn't going to be, it's not going to be good. But when I got off the, I got off the machine, off the, the walking treadmill thing.

And when I left, I walked home and my back didn't hurt at all walking. So walking at a normal, the normal pace or speed didn't hurt my back, but walking at that super, I mean, I was walking at a speed that I'd normally jog at, but I just didn't want to push myself too much. Cardiovascularly on the first time back, doing weights is easy because I do weights here.

So it wasn't a huge stretch to just do a bit of extra heavier weights, but I haven't done much in a way of cardiovascular exercise at all. Really. There's no excuse for that because I've got my exercise bike.

So I didn't want to just push myself too much. I want to do it gradually. I'm a very gradual person, very slow, very slow.

I like slow, suits me. I like to take my time, you know, there was no hurry. It's the first, also in the past, you know, I've gone to the gym after a break and I ended up being sore and not being able to go back for a few days, maybe a week because of all my muscles are aching.

And you know, I didn't want to do that this time, especially from a, like a running position. I didn't want to sort of run too much and just, you know, not enjoy it. I want to, you know, with the weights, my muscle, my body's not going to ache because I do weights anyway.

So it's not like a, I don't do heavy weights at home, but it's quite regular. So my body's not going to ache the way it would normally if I'd gone for the, and hadn't done it for ages. So that, that's a good thing as well.

So I can, I can go back again tomorrow and the next day, which is a plan. I want to go every day from now on until I get fitter until, because the thing is I need to lose fat. You know, I'm a big, I'm a bit of a big fat smelly pig at the moment.

And I'd like to, well, I need, I think from health and also age wise, you know, I could, I could walk around being fat in my twenties, which I didn't because I was very slim in my twenties, but it wouldn't have been a big issue health wise compared to walking around in my fifties. Now this is more of a, a more dangerous time to be walking around overweight. So I need to address that.

The thing is for me, I don't feel overweight. I just feel over fat. Now I'm quite happy to be at this weight, my hundred kilos.

This is a nice weight for me. I feel strong and I just need, all I need is just to slim my belly. So I'll be quite happy.

I wouldn't even mind if I went up heavier, as long as it wasn't fat. I need that, that ratio of, I forget what they call it. Is it a fat index? Whatever.

So I need to reduce the fat percentage of my body. But at the same time, I quite like to be muscular. To even get into bodybuilding, because I always wanted to be a bodybuilder, but I could never put weight on.

When I had the energy and the motivation and I'd go to the gym all the time, I'd even eat bodybuilding diets. I'd be eating every four hours, chicken and loads of vitamins, protein powders, all kinds of stuff in the past. Never could I put weight on.

Very frustrating. Now I'm putting weight on. To be fair, I don't really put weight on either.

I'm just, I seem to be, I don't eat a lot and I don't know if I can go above the weight I'm at. I seem to have hit a certain level of fatness, of weight. So I've been a hundred kilos for years.

And I went to the doctors and had a medical the other day, a couple of weeks back. And I said, I'm a hundred kilos. And the lady said, when's the last time you weighed, you were weighed? I said about two and a half years ago.

She said, well, you might not be a hundred kilos now. I said, yeah, I am. I can feel it.

There's no change. I'm a hundred. I was a hundred on the dot.

Now it fluctuates. When I used to weigh myself every week for about 10 months, I'd go, I used to go for counselling or psychotherapy and they had scales. So I just weighed myself every week, just to see.

And I was always either, I'd go between 99 kilos to 101 kilos. It'd vary between those two points. So, you know, a hundred kilos is pretty much my weight now.

And if I was to lose weight, I'd only really want to lose five kilos. I don't want to lose any more than five. All I want to do is just reduce my stomach.

The rest of me, I mean, I might have the biggest bum in the country. I don't know. I can't see it.

So I'm not going to worry about it. I've got enough to concern myself with, with things I can see without worrying about stuff that I can't see. So slimming my waist line is something that's the priority because I don't have fat arms.

I don't have fat legs. I don't, I don't know about my back. I can't really see it, but it doesn't feel like I've got a fat back, although I probably do have fat in it, but it feels okay.

My shoulders aren't fat. My neck's not fat. In fact, I've probably got less chins now than I had 10 years ago.

I've only got about seven chins now. My chest, yeah, there's some fat in the chest, but there's also muscle. So that just needs a little bit of working, a lot of working to eventually get my chest back to, well, it won't ever be like it was because I'm bigger.

And it might sound like I'm bragging about being muscular. I'm not. I just, if you, if you do weights, which I've done for my whole life, really, since I was about 13, not constantly, but I go through periods when I do it.

And I've had weights at home pretty much most of my adult life, well, since I was a kid. I've got a punch bag. And this, this, I think you get to a certain level where if you have muscle, say if you're in your chest, for example, it doesn't kind of go down.

It's almost like, well, that's, that's there. Fat adds to it, but the muscle doesn't seem to go away, which may be completely untrue. I don't know.

But I don't feel that I could go down to being, I mean, in 2004, I was 11 and a half stone. 100 kilos is just under 15 and a half, I think. It's something like that.

It's a little bit less. So I've, you know, I don't want to lose, I want to lose fat, not weight. For me, it's not about losing weight, just losing fat.

I feel quite nice being heavy. Because I spent so much more time being light, and I didn't like being light. I wanted to be heavy.

I wanted to be, I wanted to feel strong, physically. And it's, you know, it's weird, because I would have given anything, even though my arms aren't like huge or anything. But when I was younger, I'd have given anything to have arms like I've got now.

To have the biceps and the trice. To have that size, I'd have given anything. I was very defined.

I'm not particularly defined these days. When I was very young, I was very defined. But it was just I had no fat on me.

My fat percentage was like 1% or something silly like that. I was completely, absolutely skinny, but muscular. But no one knew I was muscular, because I was so skinny.

And I remember when I worked in a chip shop, and I was 16, or 15, actually. And the, my boss was like saying, Oh, because I was, I was, we had a potato delivery, like big bags of potatoes. So I was like moving them in and out.

And my boss was making fun of me being weak. Because I was so little. I said, I've got muscles.

He said, Yeah, yeah. So I took my top off. And, and what I pulled, and I showed him my biceps.

And he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe I actually had muscles. Because I was so skinny.

I was literally eight and a half stone when I left school. That is, that's not even that's, that's the way of a teenage girl. You know, fully a 14 year old girl would be about eight and a half stone 15.

You see, it's not that girls are lighter than men, but generally, you know, possibly they are statistically, if you pull the men together and all the women together, men would probably come out as being heavier. I was like a little girl. I was very, very skinny.

And I absolutely didn't like it at all. I was embarrassed. Now.

I've always been embarrassed to take my top off. First of all, when I was close to skinny, now because I'm too fat. And then if I get a good body, it's because I'm too hairy.

There's no time if I ever felt confident to take my top off. I felt confident to wear a tight top. That was only back in about 99 1999.

When I got pretty fit physically, just had a little regimen of weights and sit ups and press ups. I did that every day and I got really fit. And I was wearing tight tops and I look good.

But I was still slim. But I probably weighed 10 and a half stone. So still very, very, very, very not quite sure I'm five eight.

So 10 and a underweight. 11 and a half is supposed to be the average ideal weight for someone of my height. But sometimes with muscle, you can look bigger than you are.

I don't know. But I was little, but physically quite fit. Now, I suppose Jabba the Hutt, I'm a bit like Jabba the Hutt now.

Kind of that kind of that level of fitness. Except I haven't got any princesses dancing on chains around me. That's a little bit of difference.

Better hair than Jabba had. Probably better skin as well. Mildly, mildly better skin than Jabba the Hutt.

I'm really selling myself. By the way, I'm single if you're interested. So yeah, weird.

The day before yesterday, I went to decided to go or get a bus and go in a different direction to the way I normally go. Different town, different direction. So I went, I thought it's going to go out for the day.

So I got on the bus. The bus broke down. So we stopped at one place on the way and he stopped and had a break because a long quite a long journey actually.

So hour and a half or hour or whatever. So he'd been driving for about getting on to an hour. So he had to have a break.

So he got off just for about five minutes and he got back on the bus and it wouldn't start. And so we had to wait for the next bus. We got on there.

It was quite weird because I think I was the only person. No, I was the only person on the bus. When we stopped there, we got off and then two more people got on and then it wouldn't start.

So he asked us to get off, to drive. He said we might as well get off and wait for the next bus, which is what we did. When the next bus turned on, loads of people just ran in front of me to get on.

Even though, well, in my mind, I had priority to get on first because I'd already, but I suppose technically I didn't. I found it quite weird that these people knew I'd been on the other bus and all like literally were trying to push their way in front. It's a bit strange behaviour.

But, you know, what can you say? I think, I think in that area, they're a bit, a little bit backward. I'm joking, I'm joking. So, and then there's this, they had a baby or toddler screaming the whole journey, the whole journey.

And I didn't have my headphones with me. Now, I was going to take my headphones, but I just forgot. So in future, when I go anywhere, I'll take my headphones with me because they're noise cancelling.

So I can just listen to some music or listen to an audio book and I wouldn't hear anything, which is, yeah, definitely worth, worth it. And then we get there. And I look and I said, oh, it's all these, all these, the bus stops and all these bus, buses around.

And I thought it looks a bit different. But I haven't been there for 10 years. So I get off, bus drives off again.

Oh, I wasn't at the bus stop at all. I was at the hospital. So I got off at the wrong stop.

The day was going a bit weird. So I thought, oh, I might as well use the toilet. So I use the toilet in the hospital.

And then I come out. And I managed to catch another bus that went to the town, got off there, walked all the way into town. There's no, there's no hardly anybody around.

And I'm looking for McDonald's. I thought I need to eat something. Couldn't see McDonald's.

In the end, I see a Burger King, which is, it's almost like a last resort. And I went in there and again, hardly anyone in there, because Burger King isn't very popular, not not here in this country. It is kind of like a, I know some people would prefer Burger King to McDonald's.

But it is still it's, to me, it's like there's nothing else. It's like Pepsi. It is no Coke available.

And there's nothing else available. Maybe I'll drink some Pepsi, but don't you know, I'm not, it's not really my, my thing. But I had, I think it was a double cheeseburger and fries and a milkshake.

The milkshake was, it's okay, but it was a bit different from the McDonald's one. Couldn't really put my finger on why. But the fries were much better.

Oh, they were nice. I quite enjoyed the fries actually. And the burger, of course, it was warm because they, I think they microwave their stuff and they heat it up.

Because, you know, basically the burger bun shouldn't be hot. Not really. Should be the contents that are hot, not the actual bun.

So I had that. It was okay. It was all right.

I chomped, chomped it down. And then I thought, should I go to the bookstore? Because I passed Waterstones and a WH Smith. And I thought, maybe go and buy a book or just have a little look.

And in the end, I didn't. Because it was cold. It was getting cold.

It was, it was cold anyway, but it really turned cold. I mean, it was lovely earlier in the morning, in the daytime. But it's, it was gradually turning chillier.

And it was one of those scenarios, you know, when you're in the sun, fairly nice. It's okay. Soon as you was, well, they had these, the roads are really high buildings.

So no sun was getting through. It was blocking the sun. So it was very cold.

But it was no wind. Luckily, because it was sheltered because of the buildings either side. And then I see a McDonald's.

I passed the McDonald's on the way there. And I didn't see it. So I think there must have been a van or something in front of the, of it.

And it's not like a normal McDonald's. It's almost like a little shop. And very low down.

Because usually the signs are really big. And you can see them from miles away. This one is almost like they were hiding.

So I thought, well, I was already eating. So it's too late. So I thought I'd just walk back to the, just to the bus stop.

I get lost. I literally get lost. I don't know where I am.

So I have to ask for directions. Eventually, I found my way back to the bus stop. And it's 25 minutes to my bus.

So I'm just waiting around and it's getting colder and windier and colder and windier. And we're waiting. And there's a bus there at the bus stop.

But it's just, I didn't know if it was someone's going to come and get in there and drive that or usually a bus comes and continues. Or maybe stops for a few minutes. You know, part of the route.

So about five minutes before the bus is due. I thought, you know what I'll do? I'll stand. So I'll go ahead and I'll stand in front of the bus.

Because that should shelter me from the wind and it did. And then I'm looking at the clock because there's these boards that tell you screens or I don't know what you call them. You know, they light up and they tell you where the next journey is and when the next bus is due and how long and the number of it and stuff like that.

Well, I'm waiting and then I see it's five minutes and then eventually it's due but there's still no bus. And because I'm standing in front of the bus stop instead of everyone where people will normally stand. They couldn't see anything because there was this bus parked there.

So I stand, I look around and I see a double-decker bus the other side of the bus station. And I'm thinking that looks a bit like one of the buses that I normally get because usually they're double-decker, not single. And I thought no, surely not.

Why would it be over there? This is the stop it's supposed to go to. So I wait and people are getting on it and then it pulls out and it was my bus. So how did people know to get on it? How did people know to stand over there when I was at the correct bus stop and there was another there was a young girl that also was waiting and she was regular I guess.

Well, I call her because she's still waiting at the bus stop but she can't see anything because there's a big bus sitting in front of you know parked. I say no, the bus is there. So I decide I'm just going to stand in front of the bus and stop it so it can't go.

So I'm standing in the road with my hands out and the bus didn't want to stop. And I was like waving it down like come on and I'm pointing to the bus like this is the bus stop you're supposed to be at. And he reluctantly stopped and I called the the girl over let's get on this is our bus.

She said oh I would never have known. I would have just gone off. It was it was going to drive off not even like look to see if there's anyone waiting at the correct stop.

Anyway he stopped and let us on and then it was a long journey. I just sat there for over an hour. I think I fell asleep at some point.

I didn't know where I was didn't know what I knew I was on a bus but I didn't know where. I knew the rough area you know but I just didn't recognize anything because I'm not used to that journey. And then suddenly my road where the bus goes down appears like out of nowhere.

So we almost come out of the countryside and suddenly we're there. And I get off and I come home and I can't remember what else happened after that. I might have gone to bed for a little while just to sort of recover.

It was so nice to get back indoors though into the warm because it was cold. I mean it's cold it was cold last night but after being in the gym and working out I didn't really it didn't really bother me because I was walking home and it didn't really feel it as much but when I got in again it's nice to be oh nice to be indoors and just nice and comfy. Weird isn't it? So what what turned out seemed like a good idea just seemed to drag on and not be particularly pleasant.

I think an hour plus is too long to be sitting on a bus. It's just yeah I think it's just too long. So that's two hours then you've got to probably put a half an hour waiting time for the buses on either side.

So that's suddenly you've got three hours of the day gone and just I don't know seemed a bit much you know seemed a bit much in it. Seemed a bit much la la la la la la la bingy bingy bingy bong bong bitty bitty bitty bitty bong bong bong bong bong bong So yes it's weird I don't know I'm gonna go to the gym again tomorrow. Yeah I am I'm saying it I don't know how much I believe myself but I is gonna try I am I am yes I'm gonna really do I'm gonna really give it a go.

I wonder how slim I can get I suppose time will tell. Because I don't want to base I don't want to base success on losing weight I want to base success on slimming down. I don't care about weight it's about fat just reducing the fat levels.

Yeah apparently we've got some really nice weather coming sort of over the weekend a Saturday and early early next week Monday Tuesday according to the weather forecast is going really nice. But then you know it is March and we're heading towards the middle of March. So like you know we should normally start having nice days we have nice days in January.

So you know by March the days we get more nice days and then April again and then what was it April May after May and it should technically start to be summer I guess. Yeah all right I'm gonna go. I hope this wasn't too boring.

Hmm so thank you for listening. I know some of it's probably been a bit waffly and I'm quite tired so it's maybe not quite as cohesive as whatever. So thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy.

Be gentle with yourself. Lots of love. Bye.