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Hitting the Wall

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It’s been a while since my last post and it’s fair to say that I’ve well and truly hit the wall in more ways than one . Diet-wise, I’ve fallen off the wagon and landed on Pie Island in the middle of a sea of cool, cool beer. Anyone who’s following me on Instagram will have spotted, in amongst the photos of Richmond Park deer, visiting cats and old tube trains, increasing numbers of photos of food and drink, leading up to the nadir: a Sunday Roast at the New Inn’s gut-busting carvery. Not a morsel was wasted. Sorry, not sorry. It had been going so well . Half a stone dropped pretty quickly and the exercise was paying dividends with my general fitness. I was eating well and all was going according to plan. But it’s so easy to slip back into old ways. Beer, bacon, brie and bread have started to become staples of my diet, rather than occasional treats. My exercise regime is also flagging; from three times a week at my zenith, down to once or twice a week now. But this is ...
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Up Against The Clock - A Play In 24 Hours

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It’s Easter Sunday at about 8pm; seven people sit around a table and ponder an antique bed warming pan. Twenty four hours later, five of these people will perform a twelve minute play based around it. This is the essence of the Overnight Plays which has become an annual event at The Questors Theatre in Ealing. This year is my debut as a writer for the plays and as I look at the warming pan I wonder, not for the first or last time, Why On Earth I have decided to do it. The Prop! The Overnight Plays were instigated six years ago by the inimitable Tristan Marshall and he is still the head of the show. Each year, he gathers together seven writers, seven directors and a group of around thirty actors. At precisely 7.45pm, he splits the assembled actors into seven groups and matches them up with a writer and director. There may be two actors in a group or there may be seven; only Tristan knows beforehand. The groups are then assigned a mystery prop, which must form a central par...
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(Not) A Stroll in the Park - My Introduction to the World of Walking Football

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The last time I tried any competitive sport was three years ago. I joined an impromptu cricket match in the park with some friends and after five minutes fell over chasing the ball, smashing my knee which blew up like a balloon! My retirement from any further such activity was immediate on the basis that I was too bloody old for all those shenanigans. However, after reading one of my previous blog posts, my friend Andy suggested walking football to me as a good way of getting fit. And at first glance, sport at a walking pace on a flat and true artificial pitch carried no threat of repeat damage to my personage. Even though Andy is as fit as a butcher’s dog (despite being roughly the same age as me, for shame!) it still sounded like something I may actually be able to compete at. Or at least something at which I wouldn’t embarrass myself. I signed up for a trial session the following week. My knee performing a perfect impression of a cricket ball just to mock me! It was on...
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Battling Bertram for Supremacy - Back to the Gym

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I’d like to start this post by introducing you to an acquaintance of mine; Bertram. His full title is Bertram Beer Belly and he is my central circumference, as christened by my better half. When my stomach starts to grow, this is a clear sign of Bertram taking charge. Bertram is the beer-guzzling, pie-eating demon that I must conquer; he is the one who orders the Beef Wellington, rather than the salmon and insists on that one final pint before we go home. Bertram is the bad pixie sitting on my shoulder, listing all the fun things I could be doing rather than exercising. He is the dragon I must slay. Bertram wins again It is fair to say that Bertram has been in charge for some time now and as part of the process of wresting control from him I found myself at the gym on a cold Tuesday morning in January, after an absence of a good eighteen months or more. The gym is one I know from previous ‘get fit’ campaigns – there have been several, as I’ve mentioned before - and it’s a ni...
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Fifty, Fat & Unfit

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The snap of a latex glove and the ominous phrase “now you’re over forty” will resonate with any man who has submitted to a doctor’s examination at that stage in their life. Mine occurred at a company medical, a biennial event that involved me pretending that I didn’t drink too much and the GP pretending to believe me. Prostate checked and composure recovered we addressed the other reoccurring elephant in the room. “Your extra weight is all around your stomach which is the worst place for it”, he would say, “and it’s much easier to shift that weight at forty than it will be at fifty”. His own failure in this regard merely underlined his point, I suppose. I am now in the position to put his supposition to the test. I shifted much of that extra timber in my forties but will now have to do the same in my fifties , having put it all back on plus a little extra for good measure. For it is true to say that I am currently heavier than I have ever been in my life right now, tip...
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More Than a Milestone - That Fifty Feeling

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How the hell did I get here? Fifty! It’s such a big and scary number, especially when I consider myself to be no more than 35. But there’s no denying that I am, without question, fifty; all the birthday cards on my doormat displaying that squalid number confirm the fact that I’m now a quinquagenarian and entitled to join Saga. I am five years from being able to buy a designated retirement home and ten away from getting my free bus pass. The only thing that isn’t getting any closer is my statutory retirement age which seems to be as far as away as ever. At least Her Majesty’s Government is doing its best to reassure me that I’m not yet past it. Trying to see where all the time went I woke up on my fiftieth birthday in a hotel room on a beautiful island with a glorious sea and mountain view out of the window. However, a relaxed day amongst the bars and restaurants of charming Corfu Town was not what I had chosen to do. Instead I got up at 5.30am and embarked upon a nine-hou...
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