Finding the chase and cutting to it

OK, last weekend the clocks changed and I did have that extra hour in bed last week. But I am still working on summer time, so when I woke up early this week, I seized the day.

My beloved husband has taken up a lot of the slack since I got a bad bug last October (October 2024). It not only knocked me for six for the couple of days I was really ill (temperature, upset stomach, the works), but I have really struggled the past year. That includes much of the outdoor work: sweeping the leaves, weeding, and the other smaller jobs I tended to do.

Today, I got up and huzzled. I knew we were heading out for lunch later, but got a loaf on for this evening. Packed the dishwasher, plugged in the car to charge, and prepped for the day.

A beautiful, crisp but not freezing autumn day. I sorted out my clothing, keys, equipment, and started the leaf sweeping job that is essential this time of year. Only to find my air sourced heat pump was a perfect collector of fallen leaves. That took 15 to 20 minutes to sweep up as many as I could but it got me thinking as I did the rest of the garden.

The final bit was finishing off by the shed and I spotted the old remains of a raised bed – mostly rotted, but enough wood, I thought, that could provide a protective run around the heat pump. A physical low barrier would stop a percentage of the leaves collecting while allowing air to pass into the system, so it could work well. It would also be easy to pull apart as soon as the leaves stop dropping.

So I built it. I will have a look next week and see if it worked.

Doesn’t sound lazy at all, to me!

I’m getting to that. To support our local hospitality industry, we try to eat out two or three times a month.

Our first choice was fully booked, so we headed to our local town’s quai and had pizza watching the clouds chase across the sky, eating pizza, sharing a single glass of wine and large bottle of mineral water, and a salad. It could have been any port anywhere in the world.

We then waked back through town, looking in shop windows, soaking up the sun, basically busy doing nothing.

I’m a little tired as the sun sets today, but feel like I have made a small difference to my world, and am very relaxed and happy.

I’ve also managed to lose 7kg over the past six months and hit my target weight. I have done this by eating less, substantially less chocolate and treating hypos. Along with the energy levels, my blood glucose levels have behaved themselves far more predictably. So, that’s another boost to my feeling of contentment.

Any one who says it is easy to lose weight is making a mockery of the human condition – we are the decendents of people who had periods of starvation and feast and we live in a world of plenty.

We eat feast food every day, sugar like it is going out of fashion. So to all those others out their who are trying to lose weight too, keep up the great work. You can do it, if I can.