The Psychlist

2004-02-26T10:08:00.000Z

What's been happening?

Haven't posted anything here for a while: things have settled down a bit. I have been cycling most days, so that's good. However yesterday I felt really knackered and booked a room in a B&B near to work. Much cheaper than a hotel, cosy, informal. So that was alright. I think I might have to do that now and again in order to just be able to "have a night off".

2004-02-16T21:31:00.000Z

To my surprise...

I've got thru a whole day sticking pretty well to the detox diet. After the soup of lunchtime, in the afternoon I scoffed: nothing. No Kit Kats, no Galaxies, no Mars Bars, no Snickers, no Bounties, no Minstrels, no Yorkies, no pains au chocolat, no croissants, no espressos, no teas, no Boosts, no crisps, no panini, no sandwiches, no baguettes, no Topics, no Maltesers, no Ritter Sport mit ganzen Mandeln, no Twixes, no Picnic, no Flyte, no Aeros, no Dairy Milks, no Whole Nut, no Fruit'n'Nut. No. Chocolate. Just drank healthsome H2O.
This evening, got home, drank water and consumed a Stir Fry of Extreme Virtue, featuring kidney beans, beansprouts, etc. Followed by some stewed apple. Taken plain. With no lashings of ice cream and maple syrup, like usual. And that's it. I'm not even going to have a bedtime cup of tea. I have had, in principle, no dairy, no wheat, no alcohol, almost no salt, no sugar (apart from the banana and apple). Not much of a headache. See how it goes tomorrow....

2004-02-16T14:09:00.000Z

Monday morning

Got up late this morning, although wasn't TOO lazy. At least managed to drag myself from the comfy pit with a bit of spare time for ablutions. Got the 09:01 train though, just, and of course no bicycle. Still feeling achy, throat is still inflamed, still generally blech. Sauntered into work at 10:45-ish. I think my low health status makes me immune to the cuts, thrusts and pressures of corporate life, however, which is a mercy. People are rushing around and panicking about stuff, and I'm very much like that guy in that lovely film Office Space who just decides that he couldn't give a toss anymore, goes into work, but takes it REALLY EASY. So there's a problem with the E2E Test Feeds run, so what?? Next I'll get a memo about the cover sheets on my TPS Reports...
However, a plus positive on today's chart is that my diet is offically sorted. Oh yes. Breakfast = 1 banana (OK and some coffee, but come on! It's my first day.). Then no snackeries or anything til 12:30 when: Potato and Leek Soup. Equals Vegetables. Equals Virtue. Now, this is CANTEEN L&P soup - so is no doubt brimming with salt and artificialities, and is disturbingly gloopy which suggests some form of thickening agent. But at least it's not wheat... I've had no bread anyway...
Am drinking quite a few glasses of water. So far so good. Just one coffee today is in itself progress....

2004-02-15T23:09:00.000Z

Time has passed...

And bugger all cycling has been done. Maybe it's back to the old wobbly regimen of indecisive avoidance? Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it's something to do with the real MUTHA of a cold bug thing that I've unendingly had the last fortnight. Bloody awful, it's been. Flu, aches, coughs, sneezes, inflamed throat, all the usual suspects lined up and mugging me every morning and night.
So now I need a serious detox. Am thinking about taking a late-ish train into work tomorrow, maybe cycle/maybe not, maybe find a B&B and stay over tomorrow night, get some serious sleeping done with no bastard journey to get thru (other than the pleasurable cycling bit). Might look into B&B possibilities tomorrow.
Anyway, maybe I could now move onto to using this weblog as a drone-sink for my further attempts to slap my willpower into some sort of shape. Having wrestled with, and prevailed against, my inherent laziness and risk-aversiness with regard to cycling to work, perhaps I could use this to record my upcoming battles with that ever-present bugbear of my waking life: food.
Appropriately enough, given the title of this weblog, my eating tends to go in cycles. I try to keep to a good diet, and sometimes it works for a bit, but I always, ALWAYS, fall into bad eating habits again. I managed to keep the Atkins diet going for a good few weeks - months even. But it stopped, and I before I knew it I'm back on the doughnuts and gaining weight again.
Ten years ago I was 82 kilos and pretty fit. Now I'm 106 kilos (maybe more, I haven't been near a gym to find out as Helen won't have scales in the house (apart from the culinary variety!). The last five or six years have just been a slow decline into compulsive scoffing, junk food, mad dieting, vague attempts at regaining fitness, and failure. Each cycle has got worse - in the sense of leaving me heavier, flabbier, and wheezier than the previous one.
How to kill the cycle and get back into a proper eating mode? I often eat to kill a gnawing emptiness inside me. I'm not actually hungry, of course I'm not. It's amazing when I hear fit people saying things like "Gosh I'm so STARVING!" when they had to skip lunch due to an ill-planned work schedule. Really? Starving heh? Like they do in Africa maybe?
OK, so, but for me I compulsively eat, scoff, gobble, cram because I feel empty. Unloved, unlovable. Etc, etc. Sometimes when I stuff a massive stack of choccie bars into my slavering gob I can literally hear this baby screaming inside me for food. I munch, it bawls. Then it's quieted for a bit. Then the cycle begins again.
So I thought I could combine cycling, exercise, diet, self-esteem, etc. etc., all those elusive things which turn my life into a confusing haze, into a diary subject. Get some of that confusion down in print. And also note the turning points, celebrate the successes, see if this method can help keep me on a path which I seem determined to fall off every time I try it.
Like at the moment, I'm thinking of trying out a new and quite radical health-food-freak-type diet. I could write down stuff about that. Combine it with how things are going exercise-wise. Try to get the measure of it all.
Gotta sleep, bugger it. I have to show up at work tomorrow or I am seriously for it.
Night.

2004-02-12T23:45:00.000Z

Spanner in t'Works

It's now Thursday and I haven't cycled since Monday. What happened? OK it's not exactly down to laziness. Monday I cycled back home and it was fine. Old Brompton Road route and it was barely much more than 30 mins, really. Tuesday I knew I was going to be off because I had a doctor's appointment, also the woodworm-checking-man was coming to check for woodworm, and also Sophie was off with a bad cold. So I was "working from home". But about 2pm I was feeling shite myself and took myself off to bed where I remained for the rest of the day. Felt very flu-ey, achy, generally shite. And so it continued. Wednesday I was officially off sick, but in fact worked most of the day on feeds (groan). Thursday (today) I was supposed to be doing more feeds (more groan) but spent most of the time farting around with a facility to upload a file to a JSP page on the intranet and cause it to be emailed as an attachment to Helpdesk. This is for Sebastien who needs this facility. I got it more or less working (we will see tomorrow) and wrote some notes on it on my other weblog.
I think I will probably stay off again Friday and go and face the music on Monday...

2004-02-09T17:03:00.000Z

Monday again

Just a quickie. Monday again. Did the route via Hyde Park Corner, Thurloe Square, Old Brompton Road, Earls Court, etc. 5 miles by my reckoning. Was amazed to find myself almost there before I realized I would be. Could be 35 mins? Or less? About that anyway... I'm sure that going back will be worse though...

2004-02-06T08:29:00.000Z

Friday Morning

Got up without too much of a struggle - but feeling a bit stiff. Strange that once again I woke up at 03:30 thinking it must be time to get up - went back to sleep straight away though I think. Train was normal - I must remember not to let anyone on the train in front of me! They parked themselves in the bike bay (=disabled bay!) and someone else meanwhile nicked my favoured seat next to my bike. I went thru a pantomime of struggling with the bike, suggesting by means of feigned (OK, mostly feigned) clumsiness that it might end up all over his business suit. He got the hint and moved. I feel a bit guilty though - he can of course sit where he likes, I would have coped somehow and I can't assume I'm going to get that seat every day...
This time I went to Charing Cross and carried the bike down the stairs to Embankment. Then up the Mall, Eaton Square, Sloane Square, Kings Road, out thru Fulham, almost to Putney Bridge and then up towards Hammersmith. The actual trip took 40 minutes today - plus then I have to get showered and all... Roads not bad at that time of the morning - and when you hit the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, the cycle lanes suddenly get a lot better...

2004-02-05T19:57:00.000Z

In One Piece

The journey back from Hammersmith was kinda scary. This morning, it was mainly a pleasant run without vehicular snarl-ups - but on the way back (I should have guessed), I found myself in queue after queue of nose-to-tail, diesel-belching traffic.
The first bit was fine - West Fulham seemed pretty quiet. But it soon got very snarly as I got near Chelsea Embankment. I think I'm gonna need to find some nice, quiet bike-shaped rat-runs. Once thru there, it was a part-exhilarating, part-terrifying zoom thru Pimlico, up to Victoria (where I seemed to wait at endless traffic lights - once again, some rat-runs are needed I think...), then in front of Buckingham Palace (which I hardly dared even glance at), down the Mall to Trafalgar Square and up to Charing Cross. Only took 45 minutes, including a couple of wrong turns and some map-reading stops...
So was in plenty of time for the 18:00 train and I felt so at peace with the world I even wandered off the train to get a drink, and even bought the train guard a drink of orange juice. Maybe he'll be nice to me at some point in the future...
So I'm back in one piece. Not quite sure how I feel about doing it all again tomorrow: on the one hand I'd like to refine the route a bit to avoid some of the problem spots from this morning, on the other hand, can I be arsed? We will see...

2004-02-05T08:58:00.000Z

!

Well, I finally did it. To no one's greater surprise than my own. Yesterday I deliberately went out and bought a train ticket that would only get me as far as Charing Cross - no tube included. I slept fitfully - waking up at 03:30 (thinking it must be about time to set off), then again at 04:30 (thinking I'd overslept), then at 05:30 I actually managed to get out of bed without much struggle, dressed in my new cycling gear, bowl of rice pops (all there was) and a banana, then out into the fairly quiet streets. Train was on time, I got a space in the disabled bay for me and the bike, and snoozed til Waterloo East. Manhandled the bike down the stairs, and then had a fairly confusing few minutes picking my way round the sidestreets near Waterloo. Then down Lambeth Palace Road to Lambeth Bridge, down Millbank and West towards Chelsea Embankment. You see the strangest things: a group of Buddhists beating drums by the river opposite the Buddha in (?)Battersea Park. The worst bit was the part from Chelsea Wharf to Putney Bridge - tight little streets with loads of traffic. Must try to find a way to avoid that. Got to work and showered by 08:30, but surely I can cut down the time quite a bit - I had to stop and map read a few times. The showers here are pretty good - and there are lockers too. So now I've had my double espresso and in theory should feel raring to go... hmm we'll see...

2004-02-03T15:23:00.000Z

Tuesday. Again.

Once again no bike. In my head, my cycling has a lovely dreamlike quality. I think I've been thru the whole journey - in my head. Just, not in actuality. The way I imagine it is as follows. I rise from my bed, filled with energetic anticipation of the brisk ride to follow. I get kitted up and push my bike out of the front door and onto the path. The freewheel makes that delicate clickety-clieckety sound. I mount the sturdy machine and leisurely cycle thru the quiet streets of Tunbridge Wells for a few minutes until I reach the railway station. The weather is calm and mild, the roads are dry. At the station, the train already waits for me, its warm compartments sparsely populated with early-morning commuters. A smiling train guard ushers me into the cycle compartment, where there is ample space to secure my machine, and a generous seat awaiting me from which I can observe my bike and pleasantly read or doze during the journey. The train sets off and whisks me speedily and quietly to Waterloo East, where I descend with my bike. The guard holds the door open for me and wishes me a good day. I walk the short distance to the platform end, from which there is a short, downhill ramp to the start of the perfectly marked and maintained cycle path. I set off thru the streets of London, which are just starting to awaken. I cycle smoothly and rapidly along the paths by the river, occasionally exchanging greetings with fellow cyclists coming the other way. The cycle path meanders thru Battersea Park, across a bridge, thru Chelsea and before I know it, to Hammersmith, where I lock my bike up in the underground car park and stroll upstairs for a warming shower. I feel braced, energised and exercised. I feel good. I have a double espresso and sit at my desk ready to look at whatever needs doing next. I exchange a cheery wave with the CIO - I am almost the first person to arrive.

OK - so much for the dream. With that sort of fantasy it's no wonder I haven't actually done it, since the reality is more likely to be the following.

The alarm goes off at 05:15. I can hear a howling gale and lashing wind from outside, and inwardly groan. Still, I don my cycling kit, still damp and clammy from yesterday, and shiver as I trundle on skaty streets to the railway. The train is cancelled. I wait 30 minutes, along with a growing horde of grumbling commuters. Finally a train deigns to arrive. It is a piece of pre-war wreckage pressed into service at the last minute, especially kitted out for pygmy-sized commuters. I try to struggle onto it with my bike only for some unsmiling, hatchet-faced ticket-Nazi to bellow "Nah boikes on this train! Gainst the rules, innit?". I sheepishly remove my bike as the stern commuters glare at my audacity, and I wait for the next train on which it is permissible for me to take my bike, some three hours later. I get on the 09:01 train and stand in the guard's van surrounded by a seething horde of angry passengers who were kept waiting for 20 minutes at East Grumblewich for a reason explained to them as follows over the PA: "We apologize for the delay to this train. This is due to train delays which are currently occuring to trains in this region." Finally we arrive in London. I totter down the stairs carrying my bike and try to edge myself onto the streets of London, which by now are a terrifying racetrack of white vans, diesel-belching buses, and immense 4x4s driven by chic London housewives. The journey proceeds as I run the gauntlet of gesturing cabbies until I finally arrive, in a fearful sweat, at the office. Everyone is in by now, and some of the trendy young office-girls titter openly at my cycling garb. The shower is broken so I change into my office wear and sit, steaming gently, and open my email. I wish I could climb straight back into bed.

Yep, all in all, better not to cycle, if that's what it'll be like. In fact, I didn't get up this morning because I have been stricken down by a mystery ailment, featuring achy joints and muscles, sniffling, headaches and dizzy spells. Well, there's always tomorrow, which I await with my usual optimistic anticipation. Bye for now...

2004-02-02T09:20:00.000Z

Surprise, surprise...

It didn't happen. Got up at 05:30 and stood vacillating in a pathetic way. Finally copped out, and without even time for a shower, walked down to the station for the usual train + tube journey. Sigh. I think what really put me off was the worry about whether I would be able to get enough space for me plus bike, and what on earth would I do if I couldn't? I tend to feel, generally, that I don't have "a right" to be somewhere, and this is a further example of the same. I worry that someone will call on me to justify myself for taking up space on the train, just with me, let alone the bike as well. Further, would I have the "presence" to have a right to cycle thru Central London itself without being annihilated (figuratively or literally) by someone. This is "An Issue" for me, I know. Perhaps it is in itself a useful lesson that I have failed to stick to a plan that I did want to do. Anyone who chances on this blog will surely not have a clue what I'm on about, but since I'm the only reader, I know what I mean! Will try again tomorrow I guess... he says... without enthusiasm... I feel a bit of a failure this morning...

2004-02-01T15:27:00.000Z

A Day Of Rest

Sunday today, and tomorrow I have absolutely ZERO, ZILCH, NADA excuse NOT to cycle to work tomorrow. So I need to rest up. Boy, do I need to rest up. Woke up at six-ish, and congratulated myself for a bit on waking up so early, which will of course make it that much easier to get up early for tomorrow. Read a bit of The Miserable Mill, which Sophie has lent me (I am gradually working my way thru all the Lemony Snicket books. And then fell asleep again. Finally woke up at half past nine just in time to scurry around getting myself ready and chivvying the girls to be ready for church. We were a bit late, as usual. After church the girls were staying around for some Sunday School Sunday Lunch Thang - so I wandered into town, bought a couple of books and naughtily browsed them in the Prince of Wales on Camden Road over a couple of pints and a ploughman's. I got Stupid White Men and ASP.NET Unleashed. The former I'd been meaning to read for ages, the latter coz I'm trying to get a bit of .NET knowledge under my belt. Not old-style ASP you understand, since I have no desire to go near any Visual Basic or VBScript, but ASP.NET supports C# which is much more Java-like and comprehensible for me.
I still favour Java and the whole framework but I can also begin to see how .NET really does give you something which is quicker and easier to work with. Anyway, it will be good to know a bit of both.
Next entry in this blog SHOULD be a description of my early-morning bike ride thru Central London! Why do I still find it so difficult to believe that it will actually happen?

2004-01-31T22:20:00.000Z

Equipment

Now we all know that the crucial part of getting out there and cycling is having lots of brand new EQUIPMENT. (Hey - whaddya mean you think I'm just buying stuff in order to put off actually doing it??) So today I went out and bought a hi-vis jacket, and some cyclo-trousers (although not the really tight flab-showing ones). The jacket is bright yellow (although I'm not sure it's actually the reflective sort) but it has a bit of thickness and a fleecy bit round the collar so it might help keep the freezes out of my neck area. I hope. Both trousers and jacket by Altura. Got them at Wildside Cycles on Camden Road in Tunbridge Wells - a good shop and so brilliantly local for me - just down the road.

U-oh - battery is getting low.... gotta go...

2004-01-30T14:56:00.000Z

Hi-Cal food, especially for regular cyclists such as myself (ahem)

I really like those chunky Kit-Kats. They're just the right shape. When you bite into them, you really feel like you've got a big, satisfying gobful of chocolate. Contrast, for example, with the slightly pathetic Wispa, which although much the same shape in cross-section, hits the palate with an insipidity reminiscent of an unseasoned, overcooked carrot julienne. Or something. I'm rambling.

2004-01-30T12:30:00.000Z

Friday

I'm afraid this weblog is turning into a collection of sob stories about crappy trains. This morning I struggled to chivvy the girls out of the house and up to school in time so that I could get down to the station in time for the 09:01 train. OK, it's a far cry from the 06:07 which is what I had been congratulating myself for getting just a few days ago. But the weather is crap, and I did want to help Helen out by taking the girls up to school so that she wouldn't have to turn into jelly again on the icy slither-surface...
We were a teeny bit late getting going, of course, mainly because Judy does tend to dig her heels in if she feels like she's being hurried. Nothing wrong with that, I would probably do the same, but it does increase the frustration level. So I wished them a good day at the school crossing and then walked gingerly, but as fast as I could, down to the station. I got there just before nine. The 09:01 was cancelled. Bastards!!!
So then I had a half-hour wait for another train. I got myself a coffee and paper and sat out the intervening time in a fairly calm way. After all, it's not like I was late for a meeting or anything. It's just that when people see you turning up at half eleven, which I did, you sort of get the impression that people "think things"...

Next week my Travelcard with Zones 1-2 expires, and I have to make a choice. Do I get another the same for another 280 quid or whatever it is, or do I actually IMPLEMENT THE PLAN. Yes - the Big Plan, the Plan to just get the train to London (and pay the commensurately lower fare), and cycle out to Hammersmith. I think I need to get some more cycling kit so that I'm not bothered by rain or wind, because there's bound to be quite a bit of that...

Mind you, I've got a job application in at the moment which would solve this whole commuting problem. It's a 15 mile drive or something like that. Maybe even doable by bike. The job itself looks possible but it isn't Java, it's more of a Microsoft environment which may be easier to learn but who knows if they will go for me... I tend to think probably not but we'll see...

2004-01-29T09:39:00.000Z

Not even a train today, let alone a bike

Yes, due to snow the trains are all up the creek. It says so on the website. So I felt inclined in telling work I am WAH-ing. WAH=Working At Home. Helen turns to jelly when it's icy so I have taken the girls up to school. I was thinking that this is one of the few days in the year that all the drivers of huge 4x4s can sit smugly behind the wheel and feel justified in owning a huge roadhogging tank. However I notice there don't seem to be many of them out there today: presumably because the owners don't like to get their shiny vehicles dirty...

2004-01-28T12:58:00.000Z

Another day, Another excuse...

This morning I got up late. You can call Wednesday "Hump Day". If I can get over the hump, I can manage the rest of the week. Mind you, every day is Hump Day. So anyway. I went to bed early last night - before 21:30 - but just could not be bothered to struggle out of bed for the six o'clock train. Hit snooze repeatedly for the next couple of hours and eventually got up round seven. Then Helen looks out of the window and mutters something like "That's all I need". She was referring to the couple of inches of snow on the ground.

Now, we all know what snow means for British trains. Snow equals chaos. So with barely a thought to finally getting on my bike today, I got thru the shower and out by half past seven, stepping gingerly over the slippery pavements. Train was late arriving, then not sure of where it was going, then making additional stops, then sardine-packed with squawking schoolgirls, then dawdling all the way into Charing Cross a good 45 minutes late.

I did see some brave soul getting onto this train with his bike at Tunbridge Wells. It was old stock, so I guess he can get away with it. I should've asked him how it works for him. IF it works.

So actually I don't need an excuse for today. And that's that.

2004-01-27T09:36:00.000Z

Another day has passed...

The only thing stopping me getting on that bike is the cold, honestly. Coldest day of the year with snow still forecast. I saw one guy getting off the 06:07 train at London Bridge with a bike. So that looks possible, although I don't know what he does for the journey. Yesterday (unusually) it was an old banger of a train - but at least that has a guard's van. Normally there's just the seat-free space near the bogs. I assume you can get your bike in there but it would seriously piss me off at that time of the morning to find it was somehow "a problem".
Getting back would be the other bugger. In theory you can't take a bike out of London til 19:00, and you can see why: I got on the 17:40 from Charing Cross last night and it was completely rammed. Sardines 'til Tonbridge, by which time my legs had frozen into an awkward standing position and I couldn't be bothered to get one of the few remaining seats which would have positioned me in yet closer proximity to another grumpy commuter.
If it's that bad just with a human being, being+bike is going to be a no-no.
Perhaps tomorrow...

2004-01-26T08:00:00.000Z

Well, I thought about it...

On Saturday I walked across to the garage where my bike is stored and got it out for the first time in about a year. The tyres were a bit soft but generally it's in good condition, so I rode it back home, a journey with a slight uphill gradient and a duration of approximately 5 minutes. When I got in I was KNACKERED! Which is quite disturbing. Still, I parked the bike in the dining room (nowhere else for it!), and proceeded with my plans.

I work in Hammersmith and live in Tunbridge Wells. A 15 minute walk to the station, followed by a 50 minute train ride, followed by a 20 minute tube ride followed by a 10 minute walk. In practice this means over 2 hours door to door, much longer if I miss a connection or there is some problem somewhere along the line. It's a bad commute, but that's where my job is at the moment. Which is another story.

Having such a long commute, I don't get much time for exercise, and as the months have gone by I have put on weight and become generally listless. I would like to do some cycling again, but how to fit it in? Hence the idea that I could start commuting by bike. Not all the way, obviously, that would take about 4 hours each way I reckon, churning thru South London with the white vans, the Spirito di Puntos, the Va-va-voom Renault Clios, the huge 4x4s, X5s, Freelanders, the artics whizzing past my ears at breakneck speed or else nose to tail fuming in a crowded-car jam, each immense lump of shiny metal encasing approximately ONE commuter. So: what other options? I could try to take it on the train and then ride down to Hammersmith! Brilliant! Bit of exercise, plus cheaper fare because I wouldn't have to buy a tube ticket. OK: but practical? We will see.

So this morning I got up as usual at 05:15 for the 06:07 train. I then spent a good 20 minutes vacillating about whether to actually take my bike. It's not helped that I have chosen the start of a major cold snap to consider this. An icy north wind and snow is forecast, although in fact this morning it's lovely and clear, and dry, and fairly calm. Eventually I wimped out, with just a few minutes to go before actually leaving the house. I went thru all the options from zooming straight out on my bike, all the way down to just giving the whole day up as a bad job and crawling back into bed.

I did make it to the usual train though. I thought it best to check things out with regard to cycle-commuting before actually doing it (you see? The procrastination starts already!). I wanted to see if anyone else was doing it, where they put their bike on the train, etc. Because in theory the rules on the trains are that there are a "Limited number of spaces available on all services except those timed to arrive in London between 0700 – 0959 or to depart London between 1600 – 1859 (weekdays).". This effectively rules out any normal form of cycle commuting, because you would have to leave very early and get back very late in order to avoid these restricted times. But I know for a fact that people do still do it, particularly on trains which still have the old slam door carriages and therefore a guard's van with space for bikes. The newer trains don't have as much space generally.

So now, I've got to work as normal, by train and tube, and my bike still waits in the dining room (from which I've a feeling Helen is going to evict it pretty soon...), waiting for that fateful day when I actually do manage to Get Back On My Bike...