Category: Journal

Last weekend we went on a trip into the countryside to visit Wroxeter Roman Vineyard – a treat that Fliss had bought me for valentines day last year, but we hadn’t managed to organise a date to go on until recently.

We stayed in the small village of Brosley, just east of Shrewsbury, in a hotel/inn which can only be described as… unusual. The rooms had just been refurbished, in fact – the whole place was being refurbished, except for the rustic looking dining area inside the front door. Our room was nicely themed with roman looking items, a nod to the ancient heritage of the place, and the bed was large and comfortable. But, from the large cat who appeared to be the only one in charge when we arrived, to the 1981 published book on Nude and Glamour Photography which sat on the bookshelf in our room, the place was just plain weird!

Brosley itself was a bit of a one horse town, but did sport Indian, Thai, and Chineese restraunts and several pubs on the high street. We managed to do a lap of the central village area in about a 20 minute walk on Saturday evening, before calling it quits and returning to the hotel with a stash of junk food to see us through the evening.

On the Sunday morning we had some hours to kill before the wine tasting, so we decided to drive into Birmingham for a bit of a shopping expedition. With a some help from Kieran via sms we managed to find the dilapidated shopping centre which housed an American Sports store I wanted to have a look in. I’d seen a feature on the store on TV a couple of years ago, but unfortunately the shop and the building looked to have been closed on a permanant basis since then. With nothing much else to do in that area we were beginning to give up hope that there was a decent shopping centre in Birmingham, however a short drive further into the centre of the city revealed The Bull Ring.

After years of biting my nails on and off, I decided to get myself some of that stuff you put on your nails to stop you from doing it. Stop ‘n Grow is the little bottle of choice, and I applied it for the first time yesterday lunchtime – heeding the instructions’ warning that it must not be applied to broken or sensitive skin.

An hour or so later and things were going well – I had no desire to bite my nails at all, but all of a sudden I became aware I have another disgusting habit. The burning sensation in my right nostril indicated that I perhaps picked my nose… or at least gave it a minor probing a bit more than I thought I did.

Of course, this brought up another reason not to bite my nails – I had no idea which finger I’d been using for said nasal probing, although now that I was aware of the finger to nose problem, and that it caused the burning sensation, I wasn’t doing that any more either. A friend noted that “at least the burning sensation isn’t in your arse”, which I agreed with wholeheartedly!

So here I am on day two – I haven’t bitten my nails yet, and my nose feels fine today too, so obviously that problem is being held at bay by the Stop ‘n Grow into the bargain. Best of all is that I haven’t had to taste the stuff yet – judging by the expression on Fliss‘ face last night when I managed to con her into biting my finger, it’s bloody awful! :o)

Fliss and I joined a gym at the weekend there, in an effort to stave off unfitness and to tone those lesser used muscles. (i.e. all of them.)

After signing up on Saturday, we returned on Sunday with our paperwork complete and ready to work out with the best of them. First up was a stint on the stationary bike – a good ten minutes of that and we were off to a flying start.

While I had a look around at some of the more daunting looking weight machines, Fliss jumped onboard the “waggly stick machine” – a sort of power walking thingy that looked like good fun. After watching for a minute or so I decided to join in on the one beside hers, but it turned out not to be as much fun as it looked and was a bitch on the calf muscles too. So as not to look like a wimp by jumping straight off, I gave it five minutes before calling it quits and heading for the weights area.

They run a cool electronic key system that keeps track of everything you do, so I was eager to try it out on different equipment. After performing a couple of sets of bicep curls on that particular machine it said “Good Job” on the screen, before telling me that it was saving the recorded data onto my key. From that I went onto a tricep exercising machine, but managed to mess up the initial rep of my first set, which is the one it uses to set the parameters for the exercise. Due to that it badgered me through the rest of the set, and the next one, saying that I was doing it wrong, but at the end it still said “Good Job” regardless.

I was slightly disappointed at that – I was hoping for a slightly more Full Metal Jacket drill instructor type attitude from them, you know? if I put in a lousy set I should be getting “Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? Then quit, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit. Get the fuck off of my obstacle. Get the fuck down off of my obstacle.” rather than an oblivious “Good Job!”