Mutterings for the Minority

For the first time in my life I actually did a spot of wallpapering today. Well when I say wallpapering what I mean is I put up DDWT Junior’s dinosaur border up in his new bedroom – using the good old fashioned wallpaper paste.

I now understand and fully realise why I’ve never wallpapered before and why I never intend to do so again! What a fiddly, messy palava it is. Novice or not I reckon it’ll always be the same, little wonder then that I’ve always been an emulsion man

The other major downside of course is getting the old darn wallpaper off. You should have seen me struggle, even with a steam stripper. Still it’s been an experience and one which I won’t be repeating ever again I suspect!

As today was officially the last day of my enforced absence from training – due to my knee ligament injury – it seemed a sensible time to weigh myself, ths laying down a benchmark for future progress. It wasn’t a pleasant experience – 17st 5lbs. You can tell I’ve not done ANY cardiovascular training since December 19th.

Despite my frustration at only being able to do some upper body weight training, the rest has certainly appeared to help my knee ligaments, with the original pain and discomfort having now disappeared.

So it’s onwards and upwards starting tomorrow with a commute into work on my trusty old mountain bike. Fingers crossed for a safe return to fitness with no reaction in my knee.

We’ve had another busy day really even without leaving our humble abode, although the general mood has been of the bah humbug variety – due to me having to return to work tomorrow.

I can’t believe how quickly the past 2 weeks have gone by, but having said that it does feel like a lot longer, so that can only be good news and means that I’ve switched off from work and chilled out completely

So how have I spent my last day of the holidays? Well, I’ve put up our new bathroom cabinet, got a load of stuff ready for a trip to the civic amenity site, sorted out the paperwork in the office (@ home) and played Lego/Hotwheels/Leapfrog Clickstart – oh and cooked a lamb dinner which was lush (from what the Mrs tells me).

I also decided to weigh myself just to see what impact the festive season and the injury enforced absence from training had on my body. The result was 17st 3lbs, which isn’t as bad as I’d feared but means I have work to do, i.e. lots of walking and a keener eye on my diet!

Talking of health ‘ish matters, my severe bout of man flu (LOL) seems to be getting better by the day – aided admirably by some vicks (no not the rub on variety) but the liquid type.

I decided to give it a try a few months back when I had the most irritating dry cough. I found that the honey soothed my throat and obviously the cough syrup did the rest. So here’s a tip for any guys with man flu, get yourself some vicks and some extra strong menthol lyptus – that’ll get rid of the flu, as for the rest of it, well try a good lads mag, Sky sports and some over-egged “I feel terrible” ramblings to the better half. It usually works

If there is such a thing as computer addiction then I think I’ve got it ….no seriously I really do think so. Why else would someone who works 5 days a week in a ‘computing’ day job and runs a ‘computing’ company in the evenings/weekends, stay up until gone 2am – yes you’ve guessed it on a computer?

You’d have thought that catching some zzz’s would have been far more important and beneficial wouldn’t you. Well I keep asking myself the same question – why. Unfortunately, I don’t know why I do it, I just do – but it isn’t doing me any good.

As a result of my lack of ‘shut-eye’ I woke up like the proverbial bear with a sore head and my mood was as dark and dingy as the gloomy cloud cover outside. Not a good start to the day and the ideal ingredients for an argument – which we thankfully managed to avoid

For the first time in ages, I actually did what I used to do every Sunday – no not go to church – go to the bathroom to weigh. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was 16st 12lbs, which given the recent lack of training and my apparent poor diet was far better than I’d anticipated!

Being a glutton for computing punishment, I returned once again to my myriad of laptops, PCs and wireless kit in the office in another attempt to get a darn Cisco Aironet 350 series wireless PCI card to work with my Ubuntu laden Dell Latitude.

It shouldn’t be difficult but getting the whole thing to play ball with my Netgear DG834N router with WPA (TKIP & AES) encryption is proving nigh on impossible. Despite trying several different drivers, ndiswrapper and even a lighter Xubuntu installation, I failed miserably once again. I’ve now finally decided to give in for the sake of my sanity.

Having heard plenty about the Swans pre-season signings in the local media, today was my first opportunity to see them in action at the liberty stadium, with the Swans taking on Spanish la liga outfit Levante UD.

The game also gave me an opportunity to check out my new season ticket seat in the Asda East Stand – also known as the Asbo East Stand due to some of the clientele that frequent it at Swans home games. Thankfully I was impressed and happy with my lot – a more central view of the pitch – so it was a wise move

A short video clip of the kick-off – which I took – can be viewed at the usual location on YouTube. As for the game itself, well the Swans ran out comfortable 2 nil winners (with 2 goals also being disallowed for offside) – so the 7,000 odd crowd went home happy in the warm, bright August sunshine. For me, the new boys impressed and I’m looking forward to seeing them take on League One’s finest during the season.

Darius De Vries pulled off a couple of decent saves, but more importantly commanded his area and those in front of him well – take note Willy G (whether you’re to be a Jack or an MK Don).

Angel Rangel impressed me more and more as the game went on. Hungry for the ball and good link-up with little Leon. The downside for me was his positional play or rather his tendency to go walkabout.

Jason Scotland – touted as LT10′s replacement, but for me a different type of player tbh. Another one who came into the game more and more – a strong and skillful player though and whom took his very 1st Liberty Stadium goal with a cool finish (as can be see in the picture below).

‘Bussy’ Bauza (should be called busy or bee – ‘cos he was buzzing around), Paul Anderson (very very pacy), Joe Allon (is he shorter than Leon?) and Matty Collins also made appearances – alebit very late in the game.

But the pick of the bunch for me was Ferrie Bodde. A fiesty fellow who commanded the middle of the park and certainly made his presence felt. Definately someone who could go further. One negative comment I would make about him though is that his temperament will need to be controlled – as today he began to let the Spaniards niggly off-the-ball antics wind him up, culminating in a bit of pushing and shoving.

Still on this showing I’m optimistic of our League One chances this year – more optimistic in fact than I’ve been for a long long time. Oh well, it all starts in earnest next Saturday with a visit to Boundary Park when the Swans take on the Latics in the opening game of the 2007-2008 campaign.

With the weather being so warm and sunny we all decided to head out on the bikes this morning – after taking the best part of an hour to get DDWT Junior ready. The 12 mile ride along the cycle path took us up as far as Ystalyfera. It’s on days like today when you realise how picturesque the Swansea Valley is, especially when you take your time to explore the best that nature has to offer. It’s true what people say, we really do take for granted what is in our very own backyard.

As Sunday is always my weighing day – I’ve decided that after today I’ll be moving onto a fortnightly weight check not a weekly one. My reasoning is that I was beginning to beat myself up psychologically when I wasn’t achieveing my target for that week and consequently it’s been proving detrimental to the longer term goal of getting to 16st exactly. Anyway, until next time the tale of the scale is 16st 11lbs.

With the weather still wet – so what’s new – it was little wonder that everyone in the house of DDWT felt like throttling each other due to being in the house again. In fact we’ve been pretty much confined to the house most of the time lately, with outdoor activities pretty much a non starter – thanks to all of the rain.

Things did did improve this afternoon – after a roast pork dinner (cooked by moi) I hasten to add – and we thankfuly managed to get outside for a bit. The way our moods lifted was almost tangeable. In all seriousness though, it was great to be able to go into the back garden and have some fun – especially for DDWT Junior.

Now on the subject of pork dinners, well perhaps more porker in my case – the result of this week’s weigh-in was 16st 9lbs. Not a lot to say about that is there really!!

With ‘Daddy’ trying out the scales, DDWT Junior also insisted on having a go. He is now 2st 11.5 lbs and quite a little lwmpin in the making