Holding Back The Years

Happy 92nd Birthday Mummy!

We were so pleased that she was well enough to be taken out for a family birthday lunch today. Though honestly she was very frail and clearly doing her best to enjoy it for our sakes. So very different from last year's birthday, and so different from a similar outing just a week before Christmas. 

Infinitely healthier!

I'm keeping up my daily running ( OK - striding out, and walking with intermittent slow jogs) following the Run, Fat Bitch Run, book and blog by Ruth Field, see here. Actually I'm not keeping up with Ruth but going at my own pace and still enjoying it. Her wonderful mantra, "Get your arse off the sofa and run, fat bitch run", got me going and I recommend it to anyone who's never been able to summon the courage or commitment to do it before. I just get up, throw on my loose comfortable clothes, (I don't waste time getting washed), drink a glass of water, and step out of the front door on a circuit I worked out beforehand. It only takes me three-quarters of an hour door to door. I don't care if amazingly fit looking joggers or runners pass me. I'm doing this for myself and my health. In fact I am surprised to notice that very few of the other runners, and the occasional other togged up walker, look that good.  An awful lot of fat wobbly bums out there - or maybe that's just here in my town! And you do get a bit of respect from casual walkers and passers-by who thankfully tend to give way on the narrow footpaths and sometimes even respond to my cheery, "Good-morning!"

My circuit is only 3km ( 2.5miles) but I try to keep at a steady 5km hour pace as apparently this is the optimum for health benefits, and just pre-holiday I don't want to risk a knee or ankle injury. I have gone out in all weathers, rain, gusty winds, even very gingerly on frosty mornings avoiding icy patches on footpaths. I can't tell you how wonderful it is. I guess all you dog walkers out there already know this, but I'm not bundled up and ambling. On the coldest day I only wore a fleece on top of my (very old) long-sleeved sports top. I always wear my Occupational Therapy (OT) 'infinity' scarf doubled round my neck as it's so comforting. I made the scarf during visits to my mother in hospital when she took up knitting after an OT session. We would sit there happily clicking needles and sometimes my sister joined us. We nicknamed ourselves, "The Knitting Nanas", to the amusement of the nurses. Previously I hadn't knitted anything for donkey's years and then wasn't very good at it, but I'm very proud of my scarf! 

And now I've inspired my rather fitter daughters to join me on my daily 'runs' when I get to Australia. They already do Pilates and Zumba but it's all indoors and they want to get into a daily, and by the way TOTALLY  FREE, routine of running/jogging/walking ( delete as appropriate). 

I won't ask if any of you elegant ladies and gents are still keeping up with your New Year Resolutions, because I didn't make any! This 'running' thing stems entirely from shame and from necessity in trying to fit into summer clothes (which have strangely shrunk), in time for my Australian trip.

PS - HELP needed from fellow Bloggers! When I tried to change my header picture on this blog, I was informed that I had exceeded my storage on Picasa web albums. I had no idea I had such a thing. Went to look and there's hoards of photos on there that I don't want/need them to store. I certainly don't want to pay for more storage as I store all my photos elsewhere. How to delete these please? Or will all my pictures on earlier blog posts disappear???

Note added 22/01/2012

With advice from my web developer, I think I've sorted the Picasa problem for now. I clicked on Picasa web albums, went into 'my photos' and found hordes of dupes and deleted those. Apparently every time you upload one or more to the waiting list before 'adding selected' to the blog post you are composing, these are also stored in your Picasa web album, even if you don't use them. And many's the time I've uploaded several, added one or two pics as I'm composing, then gone back to add more of my selection to find that they've disappeared. So have to upload again. All the time the disappeared ones have gone into the web album. Resulting in all those dupes. 

And take note anyone else experiencing the same, Picasa is the WEB album for Blogger. It's where your Blogger pics that you have uploaded from your computer files are stored as, even whilst your computer is switched off, your blog is live on the web. I assume that the pics you upload from some other URL link are already out there on the web and so are not affected by Picasa.  A lot of bloggers mainly use embedded links from other sources on the web, like YouTube etc, and only occasionally publish their own photos so never get near their Picasa web album limit. So if you delete everything in your Picasa web album all your own pics from your blog will disappear. (There must be something similar for Wordpress etc too, otherwise it could not work.) While Picasa is free, it only offers a certain amount of storage at that price! After that you have to pay. But a good way of delaying that moment, is to find and delete existing dupes and unused pics, then to make sure you keep on deleting unused and dupes in future. Though eventually you will have to delete pics from your very old posts, to 'free up' more free space for current blog posts. Or accept the deal and pay a very modest fee for what is, after all, a brilliant service.

And you're right MMMC - there probably was a warning somewhere about storage limits and fees, though clearly not made very obvious (Shoe Lane Parking? - is that still the precedent? Or caveat emptor! Although not quite the same, because you can back out without cost, though there is removal of facility. Nearer to the cases on the 'free' money off coupons that now actually state their value as 0.001p to avoid monetary claims, perhaps? Interesting.) 

Actually I wonder if you could just delete your first Blog (having given fair warning to your followers) and start another, so getting a whole new load of free storage?  Or maybe it's tied to your email so you'd have to use a different one. Mmmmn. Will have to consult my web developer...