Living Life . . . though it seems to fly past!

It's August again already! Which is when I wrote the bulk of my last post. So what are the changes?

Boar continues to go to work everyday and keep in good health, and though it's about 4 1/2 years away he is looking forward to retirement. That will mean a bit of a change for the pair of us!

Sunshine and Halfpint have both turned 5 and started school.

In May we were blessed with a new grand-daughter, a third daughter for A-M Prof and Moneypenny. I'll call her Blossom, she is now 3 months old and a wee sweetheart  😃 

Frosty and Chip are living here at the moment, and will be for a few months more at least.

Pa had 3 admissions to hospital in a 4 week period back in late January-late February and has now moved into Johnsonvale Rest Home where Ma was. The good thing is that all the staff know him already from when he used to visit Ma. He has settled in well and I usually go and visit him once a week and have afternoon tea with him. I also take him down to the shops and other places he might want to go.

Brains is up in Auckland at Unitech studying and doing Contemporary dance. Locket is in the second year of her Arts degree majoring in photography.

Braveheart continues to work for Kato, when there is work for him to do. He has Halfpint and Battler most weekends.

Smurfette continues to work at the same place. There was a bit of a re-structure meaning she, and others, had to re-apply for their jobs and thankfully she was offered a position. So she is happy about that.

As for me - I just carry on as usual doing what needs to be done. I've been doing a bit more sewing work this year, fitting it around all the other things there are to do. Which are the necessary but not that wildly interesting things!

One thing I have been trying to do is work on my fitness. Back in 2013 I was searching for information on how to work out walking speed, and how far I would walk in an hour. Because everyone's walking speed is different. I used to walk quite quickly, however these days my pace is slower. During my search I found this Walking For Fitness pdf on a site called Metrication Matters. It had a walking plan as well which I found helpful since I was pretty unfit. This walking plan seemed achievable in that to begin with you just walk for 10 minutes a day.

For quite some years on and off I've had a struggle to maintain my iron levels - meaning my haemaglobin drops. Which in turns affects fitness. Walking along flat places is o.k., but as soon as I start to go up a slope, or steps, I get breathless pretty quickly and then my heart starts thumping. 10 minutes a day was a walk around the block, or as I found out last year Alex Moore Park close by has a paved track all the way round and takes me about 12 minutes at a steady pace. It's mostly flat too.

So on and off for the last couple of years I've tried to walk 10 minutes a day . . . a lot of the time I haven't though. Last year I found NZ Mapometer site and I was able to create a whole lot of different walks and know how long they are. This gives me a bit more variety. Plus I'd begun to feel the need to push myself a bit more. I made up different routes, some with only gentle rises, some with hills. The first lot are just over 2km each, 6 of them so I can walk Monday to Saturday and have a rest day on a Sunday.

This is a photo I took one of the mornings I was walking round Alex Moore Park. I loved the way the clouds are lit up by the sun.