Jarric

I've been discussing this with WW, and she's raised a very interesting point - what would a British s'more be like? British biscuits and chocolate are totally different to American cookies and chocolate. I have no idea if marshmallows are the same or not here either. Even if you made a truly authentic s'more with British ingredients it would presumably be a totally different thing. Not that I think Paul Hollywood does care about authenticity, but if he did he probably still wouldn't make an authentic s'more recipe if he was targeting the UK market.

I'll hold you to that mate.

Another alternative you could consider; do the weight based on feel each session. I know there's programmes which put this together a lot better than I can, but for example build up to a set of 3 at RPE 8. Take off 10% and do a set of 5, then another 10% off for a set of 7, and call it a day. That RPE 8 set might go up or down in weight each session, and that doesn't matter, you've just worked within your ability for that day.

I once attempted to make a s'more over a barbeque (under the direction of @Charlie_Quinn if I recall correctly?) . I can confirm that I still don't really understand what they're supposed to be like.

I've always found it funny that Scar invented the boy scout motto...

Thursday - week 1 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. Did the first session of Literal Immortality in the morning, and that went pretty well, and was actually quite challenging. Then e-mailed GMB and found out that I was supposed to do the supersets as supersets (with rests in between), and not as one long circuit which is what the video does. Work was ok, busy as ever but I got in some time starting to think about my next essay too. After work I threw together the weirdest Bolognese I've ever made. It included aubergine, parsnip, and pinto beans, because I wanted to use stuff up and wanted to bulk it out to 4 portions. The sauce included tomato paste, beef stock, spicy vegetable stock, Worcester sauce, and paprika, and somehow ended up tasting like cream of tomato soup. It was all actually rather nice. In the evening WW and I went to a local charity quiz, which was good fun. We came second, and the winning team were so embarrassed that they won they gave their prize to us! So we each walked home with a bottle of wine. I stayed up late watching TV and hanging out the washing, but kept beer within sensible limits and calories were spot on. 5/5 goals for the day.

You could always leave your fancy lawyer shoes at work, walk in in trainers and change when you get there? If I ever have to go into the city in rush hour I see a lot of people in full suits and running shoes. WW's sister used to work in the city, and she told me that when lockdown hit she realised she'd left about 8 pairs of heels under her desk for the same reason Loving the narrative man, though there's no hope I'll ever keep up with it!

I've never had issues before. Then again, I've never bought from a website who just use Amazon as the courier before ?‍♂️

Wednesday - week 1 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was farmers' walks - 100ft in 30 seconds for load. I worked up to 164kg in total (361#) in 25 seconds, which is about where I usually end up, and called it there as it was bloody heavy. Then we had an 8 minute AMRAP of 2 x hang power snatch and 10 x reverse dumbbell lunge. I kept it light at 35kg on the snatch and a pair of 15kgs on the lunge, and focussed on form and not destroying my knee. When I got home I did some calf stretches to help the knee too. At work I took the study time I'd missed on Tuesday to finish and submit my essay. I've actually got it in early enough that there's a chance I'll get my result back before the deadline, in which case I could pay to resubmit it if I fail. Hopefully that won't be necessary, but it's better to have that allowance. Now I need to start on the next one, another 3,500 words which is due 6th December Work was otherwise busy and stressful, not helped by suppliers trying to impose unnecessary deadlines on me. By the end of the day I was absolutely fried, and just wanted to crash and do nothing all evening as a result. WW cooked an excellent fish pie, we watched Bake Off and Question Team, and had a few beers. Calories were if anything a little low, plus the beer which was within a sensible range. I did a tiny bit of token French and Dutch for the goal before bed, and brushed my teeth, so 5/5 goals for the day.

I mean, I'm definitely not complaining at getting free stuff from a courier's mistake . I do wonder who paid for that though; was it the Protein Works, or do they reclaim it from Amazon? I was watching a show last night about British kids TV through the years. There was a guy talking about Grange Hill (which I never watched), which got a lot of complaints for dealing with some quite gritty and serious topics. The guy being interviewed was saying that kids TV can be just entertainment, but it can be a way to get people talking about important social issues, and he felt that it was particularly important to do the latter on programmes for the public service broadcasters. So I'm kind of not surprised that BBC writers had a similar feeling for Doctor Who. I think they still do as well, the BBC definitely likes a light dusting of social issues (as a minimum) in its drama. Tangential but vaguely related thought; I wonder if Mexican week and the ruining of Smores would have happened on Bake Off if it was still on the BBC? I have never known a show like GoT. It was the biggest thing in the world whilst it was on TV, and as soon as the last season finished it seems that mass amnesia gripped everyone. No-one talked about it, anywhere, from the instant it finished until House of the Dragon started, it's really odd when you think about it.

My protein intake over this challenge so far (grams of protein per day, starting Monday of week 0): 156, 140, 153, 160, 120, 102, 92, 85, 89. Can you tell when I ran out of protein powder? So I ordered more protein powder last week. On Saturday morning I got a message that it had left the depo, and would arrive that day. On Monday morning the last update was still that it left the depo Saturday morning. On Tuesday I contacted the company, and they said it looked like Amazon has lost my order, and they'd send a new one next day delivery by DPD. This morning I got a message from DPD saying delivery would be today. I also got a message from Amazon saying delivery would be tomorrow. Then another message from Amazon saying delivery was today. Long story short, I came home to 8kg of protein powder this evening Tuesday - week 0 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Went for a very short 2 mile run first thing. Even then I had to stop half way through and walk for a bit as my knee was hurting. Not ideal. It was also pay day, so when I got home I decided to invest in a GMB programme called Literal Immortality. It took me longer than expected so I only ran through half of it; I'll give it another go later in the week. Work was interesting. First thing I found out our company has been sold. I spent a long time reading the information we've been sent about that, and then walked into the office for a meeting about the sale. That ate the half of my day that would have included finishing and submitting my essay, unfortunately. After work we had Pathfinder - we wandered around a temple city that appeared to have dropped out of the sky, found and destroyed some bleeding skeletons, and gave offerings to Aphrodite. It was good fun. Calories were about spot on at 2,030, I managed to squeeze in French and Dutch somewhere, and teeth were done. 4/5 goals for the day.

Oh wow, ok, I think I need to watch both of those series now. Thank you for that, it was really interesting to read (and cool to see your enthusiasm for it). From the creature next to her I'd assumed it was Star Wars for some reason. Pretty sure Doctor Who is cooler than GoT to be honest.

Money challenge It's payday today, so I get to calculate how much of the money I bet on myself that I get to keep. I hit 73.57% goal completion over the last 4 weeks, so I've paid £66.07 into my mortgage, and the remaining £183.93 I get to keep. I've used some of it to buy Literal Immortality from GMB, which looks like a cool programme that I am looking forward to playing around with.

Monday - week 1 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. When we got to Crossfit someone had left the gate to the industrial estate shut, so we had to crawl under it to go and work out . The workout was 3 intervals, each for time, of 3 rope climbs, 4 deadballs to shoulder, and 5 bench press. It was a fun minute and a half or so of work, but man 60kg on the bench felt heavy at the end of that! We finished off with a ton of reps of single arm dumbbell row. Work was ok; busy but surprisingly quiet for a Monday. In the evening I did an hour or so of essay writing so that I could give it to WW for a proof-read, and then finish it off and submit it today (which may not happen; more on that tomorrow). The rest of the evening was spent in front of the TV. Calories were kept well in hand and I finished almost bang on at 2,080 for the day. Teeth were done, French at lunchtime, Dutch in the evening, and a few stretches before bed. 5/5 for the day.

It's never occurred to me to put soup in a casserole, so I'm gonna say yes You, sir, are a true gent. To be fair though, a taco spiced cottage pie doesn't actually sound half bad. Oo, or a Moroccan fusion shepherd's pie, I could see that working too. I sense a plot forming...

Will the text boxes on here accept HTML then? I don't think I've ever actually tried that. Or is it slightly more complicated?

I don't think I've seen that episode, but now I want to watch it. Do you know what it was called? My knowledge of 'old' Doctor Who (pre-Eccleston) is severely limited.

That's a beautiful painting. Hope the vets are able to help Tricolore soon.

Great to see you back man! The deck's looking good! If I'm understanding you correctly, I think it lining up and not having the gap on the left looks better.

Thank you! It was really nice, just what I needed I'm even happier when anyone cooks well, and I get to eat it Thanks man! Thank you

Wise words indeed. I hope you find your seeds soon.

If you make a table in Word/Google Docs etc. and then copy and paste it in it usually comes out ok. Might take a bit of playing around with the initial formatting. Don't know if there's a better way though.

Week 0 wrap-up The Chosen: 6/7 Whilst I passed on effort most days, I was well over on actual calories. The target was 16,486kcal for the week (2,355 per day on average), and I finished at 17,767 (2,538/day on average). That's still comfortably a deficit, just not as big a one as I'm aiming for. The scale says I've lost 2lbs this week, but my scales aren't accurate enough to draw data from a single week, and even if they were it could easily be a fluctuation. Weight is now 12 stone 5lbs (173# or 78.6kg), so the goal this week is to lose 1.2975#. I'm going to keep the calorie goal where it is for now and see what happens. The wronged: 7/7 Stretching and physio-style exercises are going well; just need to keep at them. The expert: 5/7 This isn't too bad, and the goal of daily work definitely helps me keep momentum on this. If I can spend an hour on proof-reading tonight, I should be able to put in a final hour and get this essay submitted tomorrow. That's good, because I've only got a month to write the one I haven't started yet! The monstrous: 7/7 So far, so good for my new tooth-brushing strategy. I do tend to do well at the start of a challenge though, and motivation wanes as the challenge goes on, so I don't want to speak too soon. The spell-slinger: 7/7 All good here. It's not always easy to fit in, but language learning is a nice distraction from work worries and I like that. Running Not a challenge goal, but something I want to report on as it's going to be a focus as my knee recovers. I ran 2 miles this week, and haven't felt good enough to run since. This is not encouraging for the 10 mile OCR I'll be running at the end of week 2. (I was a bit torn, but I think it's fair to say that Doctor Who is a monster of the week format)

Sunday - week 0 day 7 Yesterday was a good day. Got up lateish, had breakfast at the hotel, and made our way home. D&D was cancelled due to internet issues, which was a shame, but it meant that I got a lot of extra time I wasn't expecting. In that time I caught up on here, and did a bit over an hour on my essay. WW cooked roast beef for dinner, and after that I was feeling pretty energised and productive so I did some washing, boiled eggs for the week, did some knee exercises and stretches, practiced French, and made sandwiches for Monday's lunch. I had a decent breakfast at the hotel and dinner was a normal size, but I skipped lunch so I came in very low on calories at 1,700. I want to avoid doing this too often, but knowing how far over I was already for the week I thought this would help to salvage things. Teeth were done, 5/5 goals for the day.

Yeah, you're probably right. I'm going to regret saying this, because I've been wrong the last 3 times we changed prime minister, but it really is hard to see how it could get worse. And thank you Please do! Armchair philosophy is very much my level.