I tried talking to the person in the car again but he/she drove off before I could get there. (I think its a 'he' and today he was wearing a hat!) Me and the neighbours even tried sneaking up on the car from various different directions (the neighbours are as concerned as I am). Finally Laura (one of my neighbours) decided to phone the Police but the car drove away when the Police turned in to our little road and it hasn't come back yet. As far as the Police are aware it isn't one of theirs. I still think its a case of mistaken address and he\she is supposed to be watching the people with the similar address to mine.

:) I had another lovely visit to the Monsoon shop at Castleford Designer Village this afternoon - bought myself the most amazing skirt - this time I bought a size 14 which is a size smaller than I am at the moment - I've got it hanging on the outside of a wardrobe which is in my workout room - sort of an incentive to lose another stone!

Def best to get the police involved. Mind you if they are a PI or something they aren't very subtle about watching people.

I went shoe shopping again today but still nothing lets hope Leeds tomoz will yield results otherwise I'll have to try meadowhell

BOING! :hyper:

I'm all bouncy and sore! :lol: Kickboxing last night was GREAT! WOOOOOOOOO! :hyper: Oh and pregnant girl is STILL training... Just in secret and is now doing her purple belt on Saturday! :mad: I am training for my purple belt too. Of course, you know, THIS, means war! :rofl: It's really silly, she is a good friend, but we are so secretly competitive against each other it's funny! I could never do the "Let's get our black belts together and help each other train" thing. :rofl: I think Lee is secretly enjoying our competitiveness! After all, anything that makes us both train harder can only be a good thing right? I'm sure he'll rig it so that we both get our black belts at the same time anyway! :rolleyes:

I'm off to gym tonight - either with or without my friend. I can't decide whether to go round tonight or tomorrow. We'll see what happens!

Sounds like it is a private investigstor fo some sort. If so bit silly having an expensive car like that then. Duh! Or maybe an upmarket burgular!!!

If those people are benefit cheats then lets hope they get caught. Probably best to leave the PI to it or the operation will be a failure.

He doesn't sound like a very good PI to me... Totally conspicuous and watching the wrong people... :chin:

:doh:

Sounds well dodgy then. Don't engage him.

All done and dusted - the Police traced him from the registration number and he works for the DSS (or whatever its called nowadays). They talked to his boss and he's getting a reprimand for being a) in the wrong place and b) behaving in such a stupid way.

Stupid really, the entire village know about it now so he'll never catch the scroungers.

:rofl: Nice one! What an arse!

Dito what Frus said really. No wonder there are so many benefit fraudsters if they can't even find the right addresses for them. You'd think they'd just put the postcode into multimap or something, then at least they's have the right street!

At least it wasn't a nutter!

Yeah at least it wasn't a burgular.

Dopey S*d!. Never catch the cheats now and the fact that someone had obviously let them know - they will wonder who in the village ratted on them.

I would think that most of the people in their road (if not the entire village) ratted on them!

The people here tend to be not very well off but are VERY hard working and the general feeling is that the spoungers (as they are not-so affectionately known) are not just defrauding the system but are also stealing from their own neighbours by living off of the taxes that the rest of us have to pay. They are not at all subtle about doing well with their market stalls, etc, they both drive nice cars, are constantly decorating, having expensive holidays and their kids have the most fashionable clothes/toys. I'm only surprised their neighbours haven't done even more to drop them in it.

People like that make my blood boil!!

Woo, 7 miles at just under marathon pace on the treadmill this morning. Now I'm intending to rest for most of the day before my 14 miler tomorrow :faint:

I'm in a good mood, the rugby seems to have turned round a bit and we're actually winning. Still bottom of the table, but winning... I'm trying to work out whether to go down to London next weekend for a game on Saturday, I wasn't going to but now we're playing a bit better I'm more tempted. The sad thing is that one of the factors I'm weighing up (as well as whether I can afford it) is whether I'll still get my runs in, it's meant to be a 15 miler next Sunday (with 7 on Saturday).

I had a nice surprise when I got up this morning, I went downstairs and realised I'd been to Tesco on the way home from the rugby at about midnight. I'd completely forgotten overnight, so that's one less job for today, although I have some work I really should do over the weekend :(

And only 2 weeks til my holiday now :)

I've found myself a lovely new route for my walk - the direction I normally go in is a bit flat - this one is VERY hilly. I thought it was private land but I found out that there is an unused ancient public right of way across it. Some of the hills are very steep and are more like a scramble, on a couple of them I'm having to pull myself up on the bits of shrub/grass clumps.

This is my second day for it and, for the first time in ages, I'm REALLY feeling that I'm getting a proper workout with my walking, especially in my :censored: This was the idea of the trainer who takes my Monday exercise class - she recommended that I incorporate as many different gradient hills as I can in to my walk and that I run up the hills and walk down them and interval jog on the flat. The dogs think its great fun, especially as the new route has a HUGE bunny population for them to chase (they are too slow to catch one) and they've been coming home exhausted. The only problem is that its quarter of an hour shorter than I've been walking.

:( :( I lost my pedometer yesterday - this is the fourth one I've lost this year!

:wave: Hello all!

Sarah - your scramble sounds fun!

YP - only a few months to go and I will be running 14 miles too! :lol:

I have been to kickboxing, only to find PG is 2, yes count them 2 belts ahead of me. I am so :censored: :tantrum: It's not FAIR! But still, respect to her, but now I feel like a failure... Why, God only knows!! :( I was really :censored: up my grading things too, just wasn't feeling confident enough I guess. Although we did do lots of rolling around on the floor things :chin: And I did my first backward roly poly ever!!!!! It's only taken 23 years :rofl: And I can NOW stand up from forwards roly polies too! :faint: It's a miracle! :lol: I think the real reason is no-one ever really taught me... We were practising a flip move, from lying on your back to flipping up onto your feet... I can't quite do it yet, but I seem to know what to do - practise methinks, then I will be able to do cool martial arts flips whenever I am lying down! :hyper: Can't wait! :hyper:

Apart from that, not done a lot else, just been lazing around and reading, which is good - I need my R&R! Tomorrow we are visiting cardiff by coach :rolleyes: The fun just never ends! :lol: It will be a nice day out though, the Cardiff Bay bit is nice and we shall have a little wander round the shops and bars, then sleep on the coach! :D

Frus, you won't need to run 14... unless you're planning a marathon too! ;) I like Cardiff, I've raided many shops there over the past couple of years!

I've had a nice lazy day today, trying to eat a few more carbs than normal then an early night. This training really eats into your social life, it will be hard enough with a clear head and lots of sleep so I dread to think what it would be like with a hangover. I'm trying to decide whether to change my planned route for tomorrow, I've realised that part of it goes round the course of a local 10k that's taking place tomorrow and I don't want to get in the way of that! I must tell myself that that's not an excuse to not do the last 2 miles though (that's the bit that's affected)...

I'm back, and my run was SOO much better than last week. I slowed the pace down a bit and ran it all at a slower pace rather than doing the running bits faster but needing walk breaks. OK, I lie, there were 2 walk breaks, one up a steep but short hill that I'd always planned to walk, and one after 11 miles or so when I got a bit of a twinge in my hip and had to walk for a while before running the rest. But still, it was so much better, and a confidence boost because most of it was the same route that kicked my :censored: last week.

2 things I'm definitely going to do in future. First, lucozade on long runs is a lifesaver. I usually just take water, but the lucozade did make a real difference. And secondly I ate a lot more carbs than normal yesterday, I figured that if I carb load for a half marathon I may as well do it for long training runs, particularly as I'm on my feet for longer because I'm running at a slower pace as well as running further.

Now I'm going to relax and put my feet up I think! I never thought that I could run for well over 2 hours with only a couple of walk breaks!

Phew! Just finished my walk/jog/run/scramble (not sure what to call it!) and I'm :censored: Its re-starting the interval jogging along the flat after running up the hills which is a killer for me and George is also finding it a struggle - Fred's okay though.

Time to do some abs work and stretches, then some gardening then a Delia dinner. Good ol' Delia - her recipes are so reliable. We're having chicken done in sherry with tarragon and shallots, jersey royal spuds, spinach and runner beans.

I can't drink Lucozade - I used to live on it until I started low GI and now even a mouthful makes me hyper. I don't know if its all the glucose/sugar, the caffeine or that strong colourant. Probably the colourant.

I don't particularly enjoy the taste, it tastes very artificial. But it does make a real difference on long runs, so I tolerate it. I drink it very slowly (a mouthful every three or four minutes) so the hyperness is spread out throughout the run...

I actually like the flavour, even though it is very artificial tasting - it just makes me very jumpy, like I've had too much coffee - which is probably ideal for running.

Sarah your scramble sounds like a good idea. I'm in the flattest part of Yorks - the Vale of York. I think the mole hills are the only gradients here. Great for cycling, but I'd like to try a bit of hill running. It's 20 miles to the Wolds which are the nearest hilly bits!

:wave: Hello everyone!

I have been for a morning fat-burning run! :faint: Getting up at 6am to go for a run in the rain I must be :crazy: I'm turning into one of those people I used to make fun of! :lol: I even have my gym kit with me for weight training at lunch time, then it's teaching small children to beat :censored: out of each other tonight! :lol:

Official weigh in after France - I'm up quarter of a pound! :carrot: I think it'll be gone tomorrow! :D :D :D

I feel very :yoga: today. I'm still narked about PG's blue belt though, but in a more determined way now! :tantrum: I will be practising what I need tonight as well as teaching!

I bet the rest of you were doing very energetic things over the weekend!

Well, I was too (sort of). Walking all over Windsor and Ealing broadway looking for a suitable party dress. I am knackered! And dressless.

Really it was too hot to try anything on. The Sales assistants would have to wring it out after I had tried it on! I saw some lovely things in Monsoon but had no energy and was too sweaty to do a try on.

Next had nothing much. I tried some other shops but when the dress looked nice the material was of the 'boil in the bag' type. NOt good.

I will have to get something soon as the shops will be full of Autumn fashions!

Can someone tell me where the place is that you can get Monsoon stuff cheaply and how to get to it. It might come to that!.

I might also brave Oxford Street next weekend (gulp!).

Morning all,

Well most of you seem to have been very active over the weekend - I've just been for a couple of walks with the dogs so I feel very lazy in comparison. I also didn't go for my run this morning , mostly because I was very tired after a late night (v bad :devil: ), but also because I am nervous about doing damage to my knees which I hurt running over rough ground last wednesday. I've been very unsure about whether I should just keep going unless the pain gets worse, or stop running until they are completely better. I have almost convinced myself to go out this evening and have a go... but I think that will take a lot of willpower!

Frus, it would be really cool to do one of those martial arts flippy things. I have always wanted to get into martial arts, but I live in the middle of nowhere :( . I'd have to drive for at least 40 minutes to go to a class, and they all seem to be at a time where I would have to go straight from work with no dinner, and come home at about 9.45 by which time I will be starving! I'm hoping to go back to uni in a couple of years though, so I should have more access to martial arts clubs and things then.

Anyway, have a good day everyone :)

:chin: My martial arts class is 25 miles away, it takes a nice hour on the M25 and M4 straight from work - 1 or 2 hours in the dojo, a quick snack and about 40 minutes / 17 miles home again! Getting in at about 9pm :lol: I did start out when it was just a 15 minute cycle ride from my house though!!! Unfortunately we moved further away from kickboxing to be nearer to work! Damn that work stuff! :rofl:

My god that is dedication! :smoking:

:crazy: Yuh huh, Student of the year - that's me! :D :rofl:

It's not just the class that I enjoy, it's the people, I have made some great friends there and the travelling's not that bad.

:eek: :whoo: OMG - I just found a new meaning for agony!

This afternoon was the 'Movement to Music' class - aka 'Push Yourself to the Absolute Limit and Beyond' class. The golden oldies refuse to accept that the first 30 mins of what they are doing is aerobics - but it is! As with last week, the second 30mins was salsacise and the last 30 mins was resistance mostly with those resistance strip thingies. Anita, the trainer, is so funny - she said seeing as last week we all moaning about the fast resistance work, that this week she'd 'let' us do it all nice and slowly..... Among other things she had us doing body weight sumo squats - you wouldn't think that would be a problem because I normally do sumo squats with weights - except she had us doing them sooooooo slowly and then they got slower. I was at the front so I couldn't see what everyone else was doing but she started off with sets of 3 at a slow count of 6 going down, hold for 2 (in a slight hover) and 6 coming back up, then went to 8 down, hold for 4 and 8 up, then 10, etc, etc, etc, I gave up at 20 and she carried on until the last of us gave up at 22! It sounds so easy when you read it written down but my thighs and :censored: are on FIRE! I have a feeling I won't be doing any running tomorrow.

OWWWWWWWWWW!

Oh! Meant to say, my neighbour was in the local pub the other day and the Scroungers walked in (the ones being investigated by the DSS). She was a bit tipsy and just as they were about to take their first sip, she walked across and told them what had been going on and suggested that they clean up their act before they end up in prison from benefit fraud and that the entire village knows whats going on. Apparently they left fairly very quickly looking shaken. Good ol' Laura - you can rely on her to say what she thinks when she's had a few! :lol3:

:rofl: :lol3: Nice one Laura! :rofl:

I'm all excited about some developments in kickboxing. I'm not sure that I'll say quite what, spies might be out! Anyways, so I rang DF all excited and he is really skeptical and all not at all excited for me or anything like that. :tantrum: I'll show him! HUMPH!

I've done 2 out of 3 exercisey things so far today, 20 minute run, light weights at lunch and I'm on my way to *cough* MY *cough* *cough* kickboxing class in a few minutes. :D

Hello everyone

I had a very healthy weekend went to the gym Friday and Saturday,did
some dancing whilst out Saturday night. Saturday morning I found I am
10 stone three pounds and a bit. Work seems to be the biggest temptation
we have so much rubbish around. I must make sure I am prepared and have
snacks.

My nine and half target is in sight so I am going to cop on as my father
would say and get going. Two people today said I had lost even more weight
and I was called tiny twice!!!

I am off to the gym shortly and intend having a good old run on the treadmill.

However I am a bag of wind so I don't know if I dare if you get my drift!!!

Anyway have a lovely evening. I've read all your posts you lot do make me
smile.

Enjoy the rest of your evening

Michele

Nasty cough you've got there, Jen :) Your own class???????? Tell us more about the 'developments'...... we promise not to tell anyone! ;)

Good luck with the running, Michele, I'm sure that if your gym plays loud music like mine does that no one will notice your windiness :)

We definitely need the kickboxing gossip!

Today was my cross training day, so I just did half an hour of weights and a twenty minute swim. 4 miles tomorrow though, I haven't decided where I'm going to run yet though, round home, round the gym or on the treadmill. I'll probably see what the weather looks like when I get up.

I had to go to a meeting in Sheffield earlier, it really :censored: me off, it was an interview for a tender we've put in, and I was basically there as the token female - the council we were tendering to said that they would prefer a mixed gender team, so even though my part of the work would be relatively minor (and fairly irrelevant to the interview) I had to traipse down there to sit there in a skirt demonstrating how equal opportunities we are. grr.

:lol: Oh the joys of being female! Did you have to flutter your eyelashes too? :rofl:

Sarah guessed it - I get the cash and everything :sssh: Huge honor and all that :D It will be fun, and I'll hopefully be able to get more than the 5 regulars coming! :rolleyes: Advertising here we come!

Yeah, so fun last night, then home to beddy! :yawn: I have just got gym and kickboxing today, gym at lunch briefly.

I have a big box of strawberries that I'm going to munch on today, and some nice vitality yoghurt :T

I'm signing up for another 10K to go with half Marathon training - I found one in Ultra Fit so I will have to look at the details of that and work it in!

WELL DONE JEN!!!!!! Thats wonderful! Fingers crossed that the advertising works and you get more students.

I'm all aches and pains today - the post exercise class agony really caught up with me just before bedtime last night and I had to take some ibrufen so I could get some sleep. By the time I woke up this morning I could barely get out of bed I was so stiff. Never mind, I did a stretch routine and finally managed to take the dogs out for the walk/jog/run/scramble thing. (Must think of a name for it! - IS there a name for it??) I quite like the running bit but I don't enjoy the jogging.

Its my afternoon for working so I'm getting all my exercise done this morning - abs next! DH thinks its weird that the more exercise I do, the more energy I seem to have. I'm on a weight plateau at the moment but I'm not bothered, I don't want to reduce my calories any more in case I lose all this lovely energy.

Well done Frus, your own class, that is too cool :dancer:

YP1 I know what you mean about equal opportunities, that sort of thing really annoys me. Not a problem for me in my current job though, we are all women; the manager, me and two receptionists, and the manager is indian/african, one of the receptionists is disabled and the other is over 60 and I'm ginger so we tick all the boxes!

Sarah, hope the stiffness subsides before you have to go to work. Your walk/jog/run/scramble thing does sound like fun!

I managed to pursuade myself to go for my first run of week 3 c25k last night. My knees felt fine while running (although they are talking to me today), but I really struggled. I was running for 90 seconds last week and felt like I could do a lot more, but yesterday I was tired before I even reached 90 seconds - very strange.

Have a good day everyone

well done frus

I am fed up my foot still hurts I have huge PMT still not properly on and I'm so bloated but on the plus side I went to have a PJs smoothie out of the fridge and it was yukko so I thought sod it plenty of fruit here make your own (I'm home home so have my blender yay) and its yummy yum yum

I must get some kiwis as my friend had a kiwi apple and mango (or it might have been apple and orange I forget) smoothie and it was amazing the best thing I've tried in ages.

Am about to sod the foot and go running I need to cut through feeling down and hopefully that will do the trick lets just hope the playing field isn't full of idiot boys yelling at me like it was last time. And I'm cooking tonight so need to think of ideas. What goes with quorn swedish style balls?

Pasta goes well with meatballs - especially tagliatelli (hope you feel better soon). :hug:

Mm Definately pasta or rice for the meatballs. You might want to put a sauce on it as a bit bland if they are the Sainsbury's one - or some gravy or some such.

SOrry to hear about the foot.

We got the work, so my skirt was obviously the right length and my lipstick must have been the right shade...

Nothing too exciting going on today, I ran for 40 minutes before work, went to work, came home... I tried putting a support on my knee this morning and it seemed to make a difference so I bought a better one from Boots at lunchtime which I'll try out tomorrow morning. Another 5.30 Wednesday morning start for my 7 miler.

I'd go for pasta or rice with the balls, I've just had pasta with broad beans, green beans, sundried tomatoes and feta. Gotta get those carbs in for my run!