Walking the dog

I've discovered that our spotty-dog machine has been telling me porkies; now I know why it was going cheap on the telly-shopping channel.

It seems that some technician in a far-away land got all confused between miles and kilometres when he programmed the counter on the cross-trainer. So instead of registering the industry agreed circa of 100 calories per mile, it's only registering about about 58 which coincidentally just happens to work out to be about what the average person burns off per kilometre at a brisk walking pace. Also it seems that in 2006, these cross-trainers were recalled in the States, but ours wasn't supplied with the offending parts that apparently can break off if you try breaking into a (un)healthy sprint.

So as a result, tonight's figures look like this :-

Duration: a little over an hour
Calories burned off: 440.2
Distance covered: 4.7 miles

Total distance covered since New Year: not quite enough to get to Southport and back.

Forward look
Karen is coming down again next week; it will be great to see her. Di has invited me to join her and Karen with some outline plan to go to Liverpool for the day - I don't want to risk driving there and the thought of the train is a little daunting to say the least. Decisions, decisions..... I can't make my mind up about which would be the lesser of two evils; if I go by train I should at least have the benefit of being eligible to receive the tranny-by-train merit badge!

Bizaare in the least

I got my night out (at last) - it was either that or go stir crazy; we had a nice meal and nice company in Velvet with Di who had recently escaped her temporary offline status, and from there we went on to Manchester Concorde. It was here that the 'bizaare' happened; the place was full of girls - not that there was anything really special on (no insult to Lisa and Zara from Transfixed!), but it was like many of the girls in and around Manchester all decided at the last minute to come out for the evening.

And many of the especial girls too, such as Kay, Jane, Becky and even June and Penny who on the spur of the moment, travelled all the way from Ireland. Ok so we were missing some of the other regulars, but it was indeed a really nice surprise to see so many familiar and friendly faces; it made me feel all warm inside.

Then we went to Naps.... don't ask! - except to say music was better but I can't say the same for the 'visiting' clientele who (still) persist in taking over the dance floor.... keep off the funny tasting smarties boys; sad-o's.

Please Miss, can I have some more?

I guess I'm more fortunate than some girls in that I have an understanding wife, partner and friend, and an opportunity to be out at least once every week - at least that would be the case if neither of us had been taking turns to suffer colds and other dreaded Winter nasties and of course, we can't have a downer without mentioning the financial doom and gloom. And I really miss my outings ... having the opportunity to do a bit of girlie dancing at Naps - assuming it isn't crap when we get a visit (mental note: ask Naps to get their act together for us girls).

So in the intervening time :-

• I've made the effort to get in some workout time on our 'spotty-dog' machine;
• Had a medical which told me my bad cholesterol is up a little and I'm the wrong shape for my height;
• I quickly managed to feign surprise and shock at my medical results;
• I keep hoping for an outing - amongst other things!

What's a 'spotty-dog' machine?

It's the pet name I give our cross-trainer since exercising with it makes you swing your legs like the way spotty dog walked in that ancient kids TV program 'The Wooden Tops' - spotty dog was the biggest spottiest dog you might ever see!

This evening I set a record for the spotty-dog machine, burning off the calories at a rate of 250 per hour; that's what the readout reckons, I've no idea if that's good or bad but what I do know is I worked hard to get that result.

So that should be worth an outing this week shouldn't it? - so Mrs Kate, please can I have some more (outings) ?

Note on the financial doom and gloom: the 'Sales' are not as good this year; the shops peaked too early in the run up to Christmas. Having said that tho', got a couple of bargains from my favourite, nearly famous fashion designer, Rachel Roman