PigPog

Whilst wandering around Tiverton, I spotted a stone wall (the side of a council building on Old Road) with some interesting patterns.  Yes, of course I took some photos…

One of the things that really surprised me about coming to Devon was how common buzzards are here.  I’d only seen one once or twice in Nottinghamshire, but here there are plenty.

Yet somehow, I’ve not managed to get a photo.

They aren’t the friendliest of birds, I suppose.  They don’t come close, and although I’ve caught glimpses of them quite near, they’ve mainly been from a moving car on a main road.  I got a much better sighting on a wallk a while ago, but I only had my Canon G9 with me – a great camera, but not quick enough to catch a buzzard on the wing.

I got my chance on Sunday.  We were walking along Canal Hill, when a buzzard flew across in front of us and perched on the top of a house, right on the nearest corner to us.  This time, I had my Nikon D40 in my bag, with my 55-200 VR lens fitted.  I only got a couple of shots, but they’re the best I’ve managed so far, so here they are:

While we’re on the subject of photo themes, how about animal bits?  We called in at Sheppy’s on the way to Taunton, and they have a few animals in fields next to the car park.  A big hairy pig was next to the fence, and seemed to be enjoying the attention of any children who were around.

For some slightly worry reason, though, I was quite taken with grabbing a photo of a sheep’s rear end:

I processed a batch of photos yesterday, and uploaded them to Flickr.  Without realising it, four of them in a row were just titled for the letters and numbers that appeared in the photo:

HELLO

GRIT SALT

G

From the same grit bin, just the G:

68

I loved the colours in the peeling paint on this door:

Donkeys May Bite

The next one was a sign, so it almost counts too:

Unusual new design of donkey.

This bit of brain fluff was created a few weeks ago during our downtime… er… enjoy…

(INT – DAY – SAM approaches Slimming World scales)

SAM – My name is Sam Randall. I’ve just eaten a pizza and that slice of pepperoni has taken me back to over 18 stone. I may be four stone away from target, or four stone away from the cardiac unit. All I know is I have to keep fighting. Fight to live, fight to get in a size 16, fight to get slim.

“Venetian Blind” cut to BOB (black Honda CRV) turning sharply in St John’s School Car Park, driven by DCI PIGPOGM.

Various shots of SAM from lardy pre-SW wedding photo to Greatest Loser pics, drinking wine and then grimacing on the scales. Caption “Sam Randall”.

Cut to more aggressive driving shots of DCI PIGPOGM, caption “Michael Randall”.

Grinning bouncing, pointing and clapping from DCI BARKER, caption “Katrina Barker”.

Crowd shot of the Thursday 5pm group “Slimming World”

Shot of the “Sizeable Rump” thread, caption “The Rrrrrrrrumpettes at Luigi’s”

Finish on shot of SAM getting ‘er arse stamped as a new and bizarre way of inducting target members.

DCI PIGPOGM – “Right then, Tesco-Cheap-Chardonnay-Knickers, what’s for tea?”

John and Phil together again:

Looks good.

I will spend September kickin’ ass on various issues. By the end of September life will be substantially better in a number of areas. Watch this muddafuddlin’ space.

PS – Of course I gained weight after my comfort eating fest. But I stand by my words – if you’re going to do it, make an occasion of it and enjoy every last mouthful. As the book says: “When you eat at the refrigerator, pull up a chair.”

Life is a bit of an assault on the senses for us at the moment.  Our house sale is rattling on nicely, but is at that stage where it could all go pear-shaped any minute.  I’ve got a job interview coming up and at the moment I’m working in probably the least mellow working environment there is – I sit in a big room with lots of other people, we all wear headsets and talk a lot.  Yeah.  That kind of job.  Needless to say, I’ve been comfort eating.  Until recently it’s been little bits here and there building up into one huge guilt-inducing binge.  It has, of course, caused my weight to fluctuate an awful lot and hasn’t done me any good at all.  Which then, of course, brought me down and led to even more comfort eating.

Yesterday I decided to beat this – not by being strong and having a nice salad with a low fat yogurt for pudding, but by seriously comfort eating.  Michael and I bought pizza, garlic bread, wine and ice-cream, dedicated the evening to a certain crappy housing association for screwing us about and having a severe lack of cross-department communication, fired up Episode 3 of Ashes to Ashes and indulged our way through a fine old evening.  And yes, I did eat the entire tub of triple chocolate fudge brownie ice cream and enjoyed every last bite.  I went to bed, happy, slightly tipsy and comforted, and although it’s weigh-in day today, I don’t feel remotely guilty.

So there’s my insight for today.  If you’re going to comfort eat, do it properly, enjoy yourself, and most importantly, don’t feel guilty about it.

Right, off to magic headset land for another day as a mystic phone pixie.

And here’s my Face Your Manga pic.  Hm.  Not all that accurate… yet.   One thing is accurate, though, I forgot to put make-up on.

Me, by face your manga

Me, by FaceYourManga

After seeing almost everyone’s Twitter avatars changing into little cartoon faces, and lots of links to FaceYourManga, I finally gave in and installed the latest version of Flash to give it a go.  The result isn’t bad.  I think it looks reasonably like me.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually start using it as my avatar, but I do need a new one, and if it has to wait for me to get around to getting a new photo and processing it, it could be a while…