Quit Smoking

I am saddened today to hear the news that Allen Carr has lung cancer. John bought me a copy of his book in 2004. At the time, I wanted to quit smoking, but it was never the right time. I was a little put out that he had bought me the book, to be honest, but I was curious. I started reading it, with the firm belief that it wouldn't work for me, and quickly became gripped. And boy did I smoke a lot of cigarettes (you can carry on smoking whilst reading, and I found that I smoked a lot more than I would have otherwise)! It's not full of horror stories, it doesn't bang on and on about your health or the money, it just tells you stuff you already know about cigarettes. And more importantly, shows you how most of the things you believe to be true about smoking aren't really true. It really changed my viewpoint, and I was soon worried that although it might work, that the change wouldn't be permanent. However, by the time I reached the end I was convinced that I could give up smoking for the rest of my life. And here I am, nearly two years later, feeling better and healthier (and, more importantly, free from the cigarette, which had been ruling my life).

I never had it as bad as Allen Carr did - He was smoking 100 cigarettes a day when he discovered his method (which is likely to be the cause of his illness), but the point is that his method works. Have a look at his website, see what you think.

Tattoo

As promised, here is a picture of my tattoo. It's been finished for a little while, but now it's all healed (and everything and everything) so here it is. The last bit I had done was the little swirls here and there (which don't actually show up on the picture very well). Not even sure how many hours it was in total, though I think it's been over 6... And for anyone who's thinking of asking, no, I'm not planning on getting the other side done...

On another note, sorry for all of you who have received random emails. Yahoo! Mail is being weird at the moment, sometimes the emails come through and sometimes they don't. That and the fact that Feedblitz has been playing up have had me tearing my hair out. However, it seems to be working now! If you aren't currently subscribed, you should be able to do so here using the box on the right (under my picture), you just need to enter your email address and click 'subscribe me'. You then go to a page where you enter in some characters for confirmation, then they send you an email. You just click on the link that says 'Click here to confirm your registration'. Simple really (!).

En vacances!

Hello again!

Just got back to Leeds after a wonderful week away in France! We took the Megabus down to London, and then the train back to my parents' place in Sussex last Saturday, then set off on the ferry on the Sunday morning. We had our only spot of rain for the week (if you discount the - literally - two drops in Rennes) on the way out of Dieppe, but as we carried on down through Normandy and into Brittany the weather cleared, and it was hot and sunny from then on.

After settling in on Sunday evening, we got up bright and early on Monday to catch the train (for free, only a coin machine on the station platform, and no conductor) to Rennes to meet Kim, who was staying with Sev for a while. We walked around the city, had lunch and did a little shopping, then when Sev got back from work we all went up to Dinan for dinner, taking a walk down to the old port to enjoy bolées of good breton cider before heading back to the town for some galettes...


On Tuesday we headed over to the west coast of Brittany to visit the little port at St. Goustan, then headed along the coast to Arradon, where people were sailing around the archipelago, before heading back to the house.


Wednesday was a day of cleaning, painting and hedge trimming at the house, although we managed to get to the beach at Pléneuf-val-André for a little while and some swimming, although the water was a little chilly in places (I won't say which places)...


On Thursday we headed back to Normandy, where John and I were staying with Babeth. We had a long walk around the town, and I showed John the places I used to shop in, where I used to live and work. That night we headed to the beach in Fécamp to see the Retraite aux Flambeaux, which should be a torchlight procession down from the church at the top of the cliffs, Notre Dame de Salut into the town, but instead took the form of thousands of motorbikes heading onto the seafront.

This was all really a preparation for Bastille Day on the 14th. We spent a few hours on the beach, swimming in the (admittedly colder and more treacherous, but somehow easier to manage) sea, and then prepared ourselves for the evening. We bought what seemed like several hundred bangers and headed to the beach to enjoy the fireworks.

Then it was the end of the week, or so we thought. On Saturday, we got up and got ready to leave for England. However, due to a technical problem with my phone (user error?), we missed our ferry! I won't bore you with the details, but you can read what happened here... Luckily, there was another boat at 8pm, so we had a few hours to kill. We were told by the woman at the tourist office that:

a) There was no bus to the port
b) There was nowhere to leave our luggage
and c) There was nothing we could do in the town if we had our cases.

We spent the afternoon nursing various cokes, coffees and beers, outstaying our welcome at a few of Dieppe's finest establishments (and some of the worst, too), before catching the ferry back to England!

All in all, a very good week, lovely weather, lots of good food and drink and great company!

See the photos here (including some taken at my sister's place at the start).

The Projects at Hifi

Went out last night to see my friend J. Low's band The Projects at Hifi in Leeds...


Twas a wicked night, apart from a silly woman called Emily who was standing next to me in the crowd, who said in a rather loud voice pretty much as soon as they started playing, "They're very good, but she's miming!". Cue a very long, drawn out conversation about how Jen wasn't miming, which ended up with me asking Jen to sing "Emily doesn't believe I'm singing live, I'm not miming" along to one of her songs! Cue stupid Emily woman leaving with her tail between her legs.


Much appreciated getting a shout out before Averse (keep your ears peeled for the forthcoming remix), made some of Jen's housemates a little jealous, though, hehe!
All in all, well recommended, next time there's a gig in Leeds I shall be telling everyone (they're mainly York-based), although you can check out their stuff on their iSound page, or if you're a myspace fiend, their profile is www.myspace.com/thebristolsound...


More photos from last night here...

Still Recovering

Well, this weekend sure was fun! Around 20 of us from the Centre for Translation Studies took a little trip to the Yorkshire Dales to stay in a 'hut' owned by the university... Which generally involved a lot of booze, much singing of Moulin Rouge until very, very late in the morning, and not very much, er, walking!

We all settled in the hut, arriving at various points of the evening on the Friday, and proceded to eat most of the largest pot of spaghetti I have ever seen (Jo Drugan managed to snack on what was left upon her arrival the next day) and onto an evening of poker and firewater (personally speaking).

We did manage a little wander the next day, however, taking in the sights, sounds, smells and, er, sheep of the area around Selside and Horton-in-Ribblesdale. The journey was a little rambling, but we managed to find our way, passing through the only patch of the area where I received mobile signal (only to receive 2 text messages from the previous day from Dragos!), and passing Serge coming back the other way, surprisingly!



We did manage to watch the match, which was a little disappointing for those of us not supporting Portugal (Rute and Sol were sitting in the corner of the pub, Rute kept clapping her hand over her mouth everytime she yelped when Portugal got a chance!)...I would have preferred to continue the walk a little further, to Pen-y-Ghent (which I'd been eyeing up ever since our last little excursion to the Dales, when we climbed Ingleborough) and get back to Horton-in-Ribblesdale in time for the France-Brazil match, which would have been infinitely more interesting...

More drinking, copious amounts of curry and yet more poker (mixed with a little Rummikub) followed, thanks to Kirstin for starting the Moulin Rouge thing sometime after 2 or 3am...

So that was this weekend - no lasting physical effects other than the thousands of insect bites (I don't think any of us were spared!), though there are lots of photos, some of which are here, or you can see the whole set here: