August over all was a month with challenges. However, nothing was completely dreadful and I did make positive inroads with changing my lifestyle. So lets say it was good!

Somewhere in the month we finally made it to the Burrell Collection. A lovely building, an epic park around it, and lots of things to look at.

Health Update

As I said last month I now am serious about tackling my weight. I have stuck to the intermittent fasting and started integrating walks and a little weight lifting successfully. The onus is on what is going in and not what is going out.

At the end of August I am almost down one entire stone so that is working out a treat for me.

I took my partner swimming which was great. Booked a babysitter and off we went. A cheaper and better date than going to eat food with no idea of the calories. I hope we do this more often.

Weekend 1

We achieved nothing. We needed to do nothing. We literally needed to sit at home and do absolutely nothing. So nothing happened.

Weekend 2

On the Saturday morning we achieved some things from our wall of tasks. Then I tidied our bedroom which had accumulated various things that should not be in there along with some dust from the building work. It is great for the mind to see a bit of floor space I feel.

In the afternoon my partner and I got out for a lovely meal sans kids. It was very relaxing to get some respite. We do have these scheduled once a month but it isn’t quite enough is it.

On the Sunday we went to the cinema to see Elemental. Pixar only went and bloody pixared me again. Weeping like a child.

Weekend 3

I cannot remember what we did on the Saturday at all.

On the Sunday we tried to go to a Junior Parkrun. We were late and the kid that asked to do it refused to do it. Still we had a lovely time playing in the park anyway. I met up with my longest serving friend for lunch and ate a lovely pizza and had a great catch up. A very good weekend overall.

Weekend 4

On the Saturday we got out in the morning for a long walk. Kid B was an absolute nightmare throughout. Though we did eventually get home after 3 miles and had a more relaxed afternoon.

On the Sunday I took kid A out for a big long walk in the morning. Then Kid B went out to a trial class for tennis. Kid B is willing to try stuff and so we are trying to find some sort of hobby they want to keep up. They had a laugh with 3 other kids and so now the difficult part; making them go BACK to something. A serial tryer but then no follow through.

Other Stuff

Life rumbled on and some good stuff did happen. So I have summarised it in photos and briefly:

• The Witcher – my partner and I have barrelled through all three seasons of The Witcher. Don’t care about truth to the books or the games. As a TV show it was great but it was entirely weird how it refused to tell you where in the continent or timeline things were happening. There was stuff in there that just made no sense at all with no exposition as to why it was happening. Still. We enjoyed it.
• Death’s Door – one of this months game for PlayStation Network subscribers. I really really enjoyed it. It looked beautiful. The fighting was at times challenging but possible. Within a week I had completed it twice and unlocked my second ever Platinum achievement award (an award for unlocking all achievements). I would recommend it.
• Football Manager – I enjoy playing this for the fantasy part mostly to would generally financially dope a team to allow me to sign players to watch develop. I have tried a “clean” save file with Wrexham over the last month where I have not cheated and enjoyed a 30 match unbeaten run and am currently top of the Vanerama League. The Wrexham squad you start with is massive and I would normally have cheated to sign about 10 of them away to give me funds. Here funds was not the problem. So I am just trying to wait on other teams to sign the players I don’t want, or for their contracts to expire. This makes progress really slow… But I guess this is why I am doing a save game without cheating to see what that gets me. A different perspective is what.
• Slay the spire – a sort of card game. I quite like it. But it is frustrating to play. If it is a card game why do you have to earn XP in the game before you get access to the powerful cards in the deck? You have literally no hope of completing the story until you have sunk many hours into it as a result. Still it has worked to kill 30 minutes after lunch and 30 minutes after dinner every day.