May was mostly excellent thank you for asking. I have now consistently been getting my active minutes way over the 100 minute per week goal for the last few months. I am now getting better at the 2 mile distance and feeling a lot stronger and more focused in general.

From physical health flows everything positive.

First Weekend

I thoroughly enjoyed the long weekend. Birthday at a softplay/Library/Date Night/Football/Movies. All good things. Time as a family, time alone, time with each kid, time with my partner. Excellent times.

During the first week I did some gardening which gave me many active minutes so I smashed the 100 minute target and hit 170. There was only one jog in there so it felt like a bit of a cheat. However, active minutes are the target and active minutes were achieved.

Second Weekend

During the second week I tried to get back into jogging again. I smashed out a good hour on the bank holiday Monday and then did enough to reach 170 active minutes over the week. This was good.

On the weekend kid B had a friend’s birthday party at a soft play first thing on Saturday. We did that and then it was lovely and sunny so I put out a tent in the back garden and enjoyed the sun from the shade for a bit. The day ended with us watching Eurovision and enjoying the absolute spectacle of it.

On Sunday kid B had another friend’s birthday party at the same soft play arranged. I got them ready for that one and even drove half way there. I think I had not had enough sleep due to the late Eurovision finish so I had the starting of a panic attack while driving. I looped back home and then felt like a dick for disappointing the kid, their friend, and friend’s parents. A reminder that I always need to get the right amount of rest and that I have rules about how many things I arrange on a weekend for a reason. A minor thing really.

Third Weekend

We left our kids at home for the first time overnight and got away to Oxford for a wedding reception. We got all dressed up and spoke to a bunch of lovely people and had a thoroughly excellent time.

Which all sounds very normal right? Because it is. However, this is a major win. I have had insane anxiety issues for several years now. Travelling has been pretty much out of the question.

I have been working on it by challenging the wonky thought processes that were diminishing my quality of life. I have coping strategies and skills to spot and address the spiralling thoughts. There were obviously moments where the strategies were deployed but on the whole it went really well. As always the trip HOME was completely joyous. Man if I could just make every journey OUT feel like the way I do on the way HOME all my problems would be over!

Final weekend

I had a super long weekend with the Friday and Monday off work. It was nice to relax in my house and hang out with the kids.

I took them outside every day for hours and caught a lot of sun myself. I managed two jogs and I got a bunch of tasks done such as finally packing up the old living room floor and getting most of it to the tip. I found a frog living under the wood and wondered exactly how far this guy had travelled since there are no bodies of water or even ponds in anyone’s garden nearby.

I played some Football Manager and watched the entire season of FUBAR. This is a TV show on Netflix which is basically a live action Archer. I thought it was really well done.

It would have been nice to hang out with my partner more but they were preparing for an exam

Other bits

  • DIY Guitar Kit – I have *still* not started work on the kit guitar finishing like I thought I would. I have all the items. But I lacked the energy to sand a guitar for hours and hoovering up the dust from the living room is going to be an ongoing chore. I will get on it in March April May!
  • Football Manager 2023 – I have progressed the Birmingham City save to season 3 having survived in the Premier League and somehow won the Carabao cup. This success really broke the game as I had made so much money for the club but they still gave me 0% of transfer revenue to spend. With the cup win we qualified for the UEFA conference league (of which I had no experience before). This would put even more pressure on my small and young squad. This league has been amazingly easy so far and each victory pays you £400k a match. The wins in this have easily covered the wage bill this year several times over. This has massively boosted the financial might of BCFC! To cope with all the fixtures I have had to heavily rotate the squad such that everyone is going to play around 30 matches this season. As I write we are hovering around euro qualification via PL, in the UEFA conference league, in the Carabao and FA cups and just about to complete the January transfer window. The board *finally* gave me a transfer budget this January (when they finally realised how we are insanely profitable). However, the club’s prestige is such that we cannot attract better than we have and about 6 of the first team have release clauses that make them tasty targets. I added 3 players to the squad of similar quality to what I had. That has helped the team continue to perform with boosted quality from the bench. Yes I have to rotate but now you are basically full strength every match.
  • Fubar – A TV show on Netflix. This was like a live action Archer in many respects and I am totally here for it. The humour isn’t the same but I got a lot of fun out of this.