PigPog

Sam and I volunteer at the local Blue Cross animal shelter, giving the animals some social time. Yes, they need people to volunteer to walk dogs and play with cats and kittens.

This weekend, we were having big problems with PigPog, so we didn’t have as long as we usually do. We decided to skip the dogs, and just do the cats. The cats had recently had some play time, so they asked if we’d mind playing with kittens instead.

Well, alright then. If we must.

The first bunch were lively, and wanted to explore everything. Some of the others didn’t want to get out of bed, so we had to crawl on the floor to get to them. All good fun, though. More pictures:

I used flash for the first three, but it seemed to be making them nervous, so I turned it off. I got very few decent shots after that, but they did occasionally stay still for a second or two.

Sound like fun? Contact your local Blue Cross centre – they’re very grateful for volunteers, even if you are only doing the most fun things.

This is Pixie:

We wanted to take part in a sponsored dog walk for The Blue Cross, especially since it was along the canal that passes a few minutes walk from home. Only one problem: we don’t have a dog.

Since we volunteer at the local Blue Cross centre, though, they said they’d bring us a dog we could borrow for the walk. When we turned up, we were greeted by that happy little puppy, Pixie.

Pixie had an exciting time, meeting quite a few other dogs. We think she pulled twice. She had the new experience of meeting a horse – the shire horse that pulls the barge along the canal – which she seemed quite happy with.

Typical for me – there was a brightly painted barge full of people, and a shire horse, and all I took a photo of was the knot keeping the boat still while the passengers stretched their legs and the horse had a drink.

The fields of rape beside the canal were in their full yellow glow.

Oh, and we found a stash of canal boats – it’s not often we see boats other than the horse-drawn barge along our part of the canal, but there are a few parked further along.

Of course, I kept stopping to take pictures, so Sam kept vanishing into the distance with Pixie, leaving me to hurry to catch them up.

We didn’t manage a great distance. It was a very hot day, and Pixie was only six months old. We did have a good time, though, and Pixie had fun too. We even both jogged a few times. It’s funny what a happy puppy can do to you.

Welcome Express and Echo readers! Nothing like a bit of press coverage to wake up the old blog. Since Katy was so kind to give this here site a mention, I figured it was high time to catch up on how my weight loss journey has been progressing.

Birthday Celebrations

To celebrate my upcoming birthday I decided another spell off the wagon would be fun, and indeed it was, filled with meals out, takeaways, chocolate puddings and copious amounts of wine. I gained an amount of weight that could only be described as ‘whopping’, and I deserved every ounce. Having said that, I’m still impressed that in just over a year I have managed to lose around 130lb, so I’m not beating myself up too much.

Sponsored Dog Walk for the Blue Cross

In an attempt to justify my week of gluttony, Michael and I took part in a sponsored dog walk on Sunday. Since Sweeney wasn’t up for pretending to be a chihuahua for the day, we borrowed a dog from the centre. A gorgeous little critter by the name of Pixie.

Man of the Year

Monday night was the Man of the Year competition, and in the absence of any fellas, a few of us marked the occasion by dressing in man drag for the night. Seizing the opportunity to make a fool of myself in the guise of the sexiest DCI ever to kick a nonce, I borrowed Michael’s big black overcoat and spent the duration of the meeting having rather more fun than I really should.

What a fine bunch of fellas we were.

Back on plan and looking forwards

No more messing around with breaks here and there. I’ve had my big blow-out and now it’s time to get back to business. I’m halfway to my target now, but I still have a long way to go. After such a big change, from 28 stone down to 18 stone, I sometimes find it hard to keep going. But I’m going to keep going because there’s so much more to celebrate along the way. Mum’s visiting us again in July, so I’ll be staying on plan until then, and then may take advantage of Flexible Syns to enjoy myself when she’s here. Also coming up in July is the Race for Life at Westpoint in Exeter where I’ll be joining in as a member of Team Slimming World.

So, moving on from the last few weeks and looking forward to the second half of my adventure, the journey continues…