Moonraking

A bit of culture today rather than my usual moans and groans about my flabby belly.

Why do I call myself moonraker.  Well you know what it’s like, you pick something you can remember.  Moonrakers are close to my heart because I am one.  No, not that James Bond movie in space.  No the original legent of the Wiltshire Moonrakers.

 I come from a small market town in Wiltshire (for those outside the UK - Wiltshire is in South West England, it’s rural and has no coast and has just about the prettiest villages I’ve ever seen.  When I go back there I still can’t get over how pretty it is.)  Wiltshire folk from my neck of the woods are called Moonrakers because of this tale:

The Story behind the “MoonRaker” name

In the old smuggling days two men came from Bristol with a cask of smuggled Brandy. Nearing “Vizes” (Devizes) their donkey ran away, throwing the cask into the river. An Excise man came upon
them trying to fish it out with a rake. The men seeing the moon reflected in the water, and wishing to mislead him told him they were raking for the cheese.

The “Ziseman” was convulsed with laughter that two men could so foolishly rake fer “The shadder of the moon” thinking it a cheese: they on their part rejoiced that they had fooled the “Ziseman”. The Ziseman” zoon let the tale to a’ll the country round about, and even now people da teaze a’ll Willsheer voke about the cheese.  Bit ’tis thay, as can avoor’d to grin to zee how nice he wer took in!

This story curtesy of Stu Wright.   

So basically just because we talk like country bumpkins - it doesn’t mean we’re daft!!

I’m totally indulging in nostalgia today by posting a couple of my favourite villages on my post.  The one to the left is Castle Combe - a really pretty village often used in the movies. 

Another of my favourites is Lacock.  There always used to be a film crew down there in the summer holidays.   I guess it’s most famous nowadays for Lacock Abbey being used as Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter film.  You know where all the kids are outside learning to fly on their broomsticks.   See pic below to jog memory.

There - that’s better - I’m not just a weight problem!!  We all have so much more to talk about. Loves, lives, lovers, livers!!

What an awful week weight wise.  I’m back to 172lbs again - basically right back where I started.  I know finding something to blame for my lack of control is pretty poor, but I know that I got into a fat, lazy, mindset this week and stayed there.

 I had to research online bingo for my work.  So there I was sat on my fat bum on the PC for hours on end playing, watching and taking notes.  I started getting into it.  Sadly I have one of those addictive personalities, smoking, chocolate, basically give me something nice and comforting and I’ll quickly become addicted to it.  Mind you I can be the same about exercise too - but never good and bad at the same time.  It’s like having different personalities on different shoulders nudging you in one direction or the other.  They can’t ever work together to have a happy medium though.

Back to the bingo.  I even started participating in the chat rooms on there!!  Then started to see the bad sad of it.  People who had lost money that evening and were trying to win it back. It made me sad to think of people paying and playing for the chance of a dream that the odds of getting were just so stacked against them.  I was glad when I’d spent my money allocation on it.  I did have a couple of wins but ended up putting it all back 

 And that’s what happened to my weight.  I ended up putting it all back on.  The 4lbs I’d worked really hard to lose crept back with a bit of bingo evening snacking.

 Bingo - it’s a waste of life, time and money.  The only real way to make money is to earn it I reckon.  And the only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise.  Now I need to take my own advice and get back on my cross trainer.

 So I’ve done 10 mins on the bike and 20 on the cross trainer today - hopefully back on the straight and narrow.

Oh dear I took a tumble from the weight wagon yesterday evening - wine, bread sticks, salami, parma ham, ciabatta - I weighed this morning - stragith to the thighs.  I need to try not to weigh every day, it’s quite disheartening when you don’t lose an ounce or worse still put some on.  You find yourself taking every last piece of clothing off to try and weigh less, and even squeezing a wee out to try to make the scales drop another ounce.  Then you convince yourself that your hair must weigh about 2lbs and that the pmt and water retention is another 5lbs.  Who am I trying to kid - I need to stop eating on an evening and get on my Robbie Reebok instead.

I quit smoking in October - I’ve always quit when I’ve been pregnant, breastfeeding etc, but I’ve found it hard to stay off them indefinitely.  Now a lot of the stress in my life is being addressed I decided the ciggies had to go first.  Amazingly it was a piece of piddle to quit this time round.  I did it for myself.  I stuck a fiver a day in a jar (yep I was a 20 a day girl).  In the January sales I invested in this beauty - a reebok cross trainer.  It was reduced from £299 to £150 (that’s about $300 US).  I got it at argos sale - oh and that’s the catalogue picutre, not my house (oooh noooo with 3 kids my house always has bits and pieces on the floor).

Anyhow, I love this bit of kit.  The first 10 minutes are a bit of a slog, but then I get into auto pilot.  I also got a DAB radio and I found this brilliant station to workout to.  It’s called Gaydar radio.  They play really great workout music on there.  There’s not much chit chat on there, just good music.  What chit chat there is is quite good though, I’m not gay so I’m getting a bit of an insight into the scene - hey I have 3 daughters you never know when you might need to be supportive!  Have a listen for yourself though it is really good for workouts www.gaydarradio.com

I digress - I started at about 20 minutes on the cross trainer.  Now I do 40 and some sit ups.  It’s great I just let my mind go and step in pace to the music. 

Exercise Log

Basically i’d let myself go.  The usual story - 3 kids, pregnancies (not losing all the weight between), the breast feeding and a relationship which had gone past its best before date.  On top of that the smoking and other comforts.  Then one day you say “enough - I want to see these kids grow up and I want to be happy myself”

So changes were in order.  I amicably ended the relationship of nearly 20 years - and the kids are fine.  I think that is the hardest and most terrifying thing I have ever done in my life.  I’d been down for a long time, but had kept quiet about it - you know, chin up, stiff upper lip, that sort of thing.  I didn’t want to hurt anyone.  I cared deeply about them all - I had looked after them all, including the husband.  But it dawned on me that we could continue with me very unhappy and him oblivious - and the kids not exactly blind to it all, or I had to take a huge step and the responsibility/guilt/call it what you will, and change things and hope for the best.

So I dropped the bombshell last March, I wanted to get a place and make a new start, but he decided he wanted to be the one to move.  He left in September and moved a couple of miles away.  We get on fine and he sees the kids all the time.  It was difficult and stressful living together for those 6 months, but it gave us a lot of time to talk about stuff.  The worst fear was telling the kids.  Which bizarrely after a few tears all round was probably the easiest bit. 

Anyhow that chapter is all sorted - my eldest daughter (12) who was becoming a bit of a handful suddenly became a wonderful helpful girl - I think she’d been expecting the split for a while and it was a weight off her mind that it had actually happened and she could get on too.

So I quit smoking in October.  And now it’s high time I sorted the weight out.

12 stone 4 lb on 2nd January.  Have lost 4lbs already.  I don’t want to be super slim - crikey no, I like my cleavage too much for that.  Nah 10 1/2 would be a dream! 

I’m enjoying life again and I want to live to be an old lady with a hat with fruit on it!