March 2019 update: The one I wrote the morning after a stag weekend

April 4, 2019 6 By Caveman

Ah Spring. As I write this the clocks have just changed so the days are getting longer. Everywhere blossom and daffodils are exploding into bloom. The sun is shining, and Easter is just round the corner. Frankly you can’t turn around without the sap rising somewhere.

And, in the middle of all of this, I’m broken.

Don’t feel too sorry for me.  I’ve just come back from a stag weekend. It may just be a sign of getting older but I can’t hack the pace any more. My thigh ache from the quad-biking and my shoulders ache from the clay pigeon shooting. That really is just me getting old isn’t it? It’s not even that we were that outrageous. More, that can’t cope with the staying up until three in the morning drinking rum and talking rubbish.

*sigh*

Fun times!

Ironically there weren't any of these at this stag weekend

Ironically there weren’t any of these at this stag weekend

But, through my fug, what better use of my time than to reflect on how March went?

As always I’ll cover:

  • Money
  • Health
  • Exercise
  • Sleep
  • Books
  • Film and Theatre
  • Friends and Family; and
  • Blog and social media.

Read on through, or jump to whichever bits you’re interested in.

Money update

Moneywise things mostly just ticked forward as per usual. The regular direct debits went through and I renegotiated a renewal on an insurance bill.

The big atypical expense was the stag weekend that put me back around £600. But it wasn’t unexpected so I had been saving for it in my ‘pocket money’ account. When it came round the cash was waiting to cover it. It was still a lot of money though. I haven’t got comfortable in my head yet as to whether it was a good use of money or not. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time. I’m just not sure if it was good value for money. What I can say for now is that at least I didn’t spend money that I didn’t have.

The one thing that I did off the back of Fretful Finance’s post was that I checked my NIC record for me and my wife.  This is something that I had intended to do for years. It made no sense to me at all as it suggested that I only had to make less than 10 more years of contributions to get my full state pension. I mean I’m good, but that suggests that I started making contributions when I was at school, years before I actually had my first job. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I guess there may be some quirk in the rules that means it’s correct but I want to dig into it a bit more to make sure that I’m not caught out.

Health update

Weight loss this month was, well slow. I’m down four pounds to 216 pounds but that was hard won. I’m at that point where there are occasional weeks when nothing changes. Also this stag weekend did not involve the healthiest eating. Pub lunches and greasy fry ups were had in abundance. I’m looking forward to getting back to eating vegetables to be honest.

I also had my first alcoholic drink of the year. And then my second, and my third and…you get the idea. With all of us being late 30s or early 40s professionals the quality of the booze was pretty good. Craft beers, quality G&Ts, aged rums. There were a few wine snobs connoisseurs amongst us so the wine was more than decent as well. I have no idea if it’s just a myth that you get less of a hangover with good quality alcohol but my head was/is OK,  Having said that it’s entirely possible that I’m still drunk.

Having said that it’s not made we want to go back to drinking much though. I think that I’m going to go back to being a social drinker but only occasionally. So, for example, I’ll have a drink or two when I go to this wedding, but I probably won’t bother if I’m just catching up with friends on a week night. The incremental increase in fun on the night isn’t worth the next morning.

As a friend of mine said:

“The thing about any drug [and let’s not pretend that alcohol is anything other than a drug] is that it doesn’t increase your total pleasure. You’re just borrowing pleasure from the future. And the thing about borrowing is that you always have to pay interest.“

Weight update as of March 2019

Weight update as of March 2019

Exercise update

It was a solid result on the exercise front this month. I averaged 15,773 steps per day which was up on my February average of 15,627 and well above the 12,329 that I would need to walk every day to hit my 4,500,000 step target for 2019. I also had another few sessions at my medieval sword fighting class which continues to be a lot of fun. I’m not convinced that it’s good exercise as I don’t really get out of breath, but never mind!

Steps update as of March 2019

Steps update as of March 2019

Sleep update

Sleep was utterly rubbish this month. Obviously the stag weekend meant that I only got a 4-5 hours of sleep every night but that was right at the end of the month. I don’t really have an excuse for why I was averaging around 6 hours 20 minutes per night for most of March. The thing is that also masks a lot of sub six hours nights. They are the ones that leave me wiped out, unproductive and frustrated the next day.

It would be nice to blame this on it just being a busy time. And it is. But it’s normal busy. I have a tendency to put things off. To say that I’ll just wait until this thing is over, or that milestone is passed. But there’s always another thing, another milestone. It’s a type of procrastination I guess. I’ll always be able to delude myself.

I know what I need to do but I’m just not doing it. When I get to points like this I realise that I have a self-destructive streak within me. If this was Victorian times I guess I may have been described as a person with large appetites. It was worse when I was younger but I’ve learnt to keep it under control. But there are just times when I go screw it. It’s not just with sleep, it still happens to me with food and it used to happen to me with alcohol but I’ve got that one under control.

Looking back, when I’ve not been sleeping enough it’s been because I’ve not been happy about something (and that’s true for all of my self-destructive behaviours). The things is though, I feel pretty happy at the moment. It could be that there’s something underlying this I guess.

Not trying to come up with any answers right now, just trying to get inside my own head.

Books update

After my pretty poor effort last month, March was a good reading month. I cracked through a re-read of Mort by Terry Pratchett, The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, and The Council of Dads by Bruce Feiler.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things was a book that I had been deliberately been putting off for a while. Not because I didn’t want to read it but because I was looking forward to it so much. Patrick Rothfuss is one of my favourite fantasy writers but he is SO SLOW at writing. He has been writing a trilogy at a glacial pace with the second of the three books having come out more in 2011 and there being no sign of the final part. The Slow Regard of Silent Things is set in the same world but it is a quirky short novel about one of the tangential characters. It certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I enjoyed it. Now I’ve read it though I just have to wait for him to finish writing the final book.

Mort. Terry Pratchett. Nothing more to be said right? Awesome

The Council of Dads was a bit of a let-down if I’m honest. It was the true story of how Bruce Feiler went through cancer treatment. I started it thinking that it would give me some insights into the human condition but, well, it didn’t. Maybe my expectations were too high as I read the excellent Breath like Air by Paul Kalanthi last year that tackled the same topic amazingly. In comparison I found it a rather self-indulgent and more than a little boring.

Film and theatre update

No theatre or cinema trips this month but I did watch three films. The best of the bunch was Christopher Robin which is all about what happens when Christopher Robin grows up, has kids of his own, and then rediscovers Winnie the Pooh and his pals. Surprisingly affecting in how it deals with childhood and growing up.

I also saw Warcraft and Man on a Ledge. Both a little bit silly but quite fun.

Not quite related but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the new series of Fleabag. Just as amazing and dark and true as the first series.

Friends and family update

I’ve probably gone on about the stag weekend quite enough but that was the big social event for me this month. One thing that struck me over the weekend was that all of us in that group were pretty bad at catching up. Not just with each other, but with anyone (just in case you think that is a gender thing there were women as well as men on this stage weekend). Most of us were good friends at university and through our early twenties but then life took over and the days and then weeks and then months would stretch out without us getting in touch. It’s just that bit too easy to feel like you’re busy and seeing people when actually you’re just staying on top of family life. Properly seeing people takes effort and organisation.

For completeness I did also manage to have dinner with my best mate again, go to have dinner with my parents, and go out for Sunday lunch with some other friends. So not bad overall.

There was a lot of sitting around and a lot of laughing this weekend

There was a lot of sitting around and a lot of laughing this weekend

Blog and social media update

With 1,909 pageviews It’s been a great month in terms of people reading this blog. I fully expected the numbers to be lower this month but actually it’s up from February’s 1,502 pageviews. If anyone’s interested that’s from 757 visitors (up from 522 in February).  That’s in part as the way March fell meant I put up five posts last month.  Even before my February update I did a piece on achievable ethical frugality, I wrote a quite personal piece on the shame I felt from being poor, I talked about saving for my kids (and why it is a bad idea) and then I talked about why to live an M-Shaped life.

I would love to say that I knew why people were heading over to the blog but I don’t. I mean I get more referrals from Twitter when I’m active on it but that’s not too much of a surprise I guess. Otherwise there’s no obvious trend in terms of referrals. One thing that I think has been happening is that some new people have found this blog (Hi there!) and have been wandering around looking through a few posts. That’s certainly what I tend to do when I find a new blog. Hope you’re all enjoy it!

Whatever the reason is for you folks reading, thank you very much. It makes writing this stuff more satisfying if I know that people are reading it.

Blog housekeeping

I’ve been doing a bit of housekeeping on my blog this month as well. The fact that I’ve not been backing up my site has been niggling at me. While I write first drafts of my posts in Word, when I upload them I edit them a fair bit before publishing. In addition to that, all of your lovely comments are only found here. I don’t want to lose any of that.

As a result I’ve finally got round to adding in a backup plugin (UpdraftPlus in case you’re interested) that I’ve that set to automatically backup to a free DropBox account. Given that I’ve now been at this for five months that’s well overdue and it’s given me some peace of mind.

Twitter

On Twitter I ended March with 564 followers. So I have more than met my goal of having 500 followers by the end of the year. Hurrah! One resolution ticked off my list for the year.

As I said last time I’m finding Twitter fun (even if I don’t always have time to engage with it very much). It’s continuing to make me feel part of this community, so I’ll continue to play on it when I have time. Thank you to all of those people that follow me!

Conclusion

I’m going to grade March as a B. I’ve let a few things slip this month, not least my sleep. Given that I know it underpins my ability to pretty much everything else that’s just stupid. I think that is what I’ll try to prioritise this month.

April is going to be all over the place for reasons that I’ll explain in my next monthly update. All for good reasons but it’s definitely going to be atypical.

That’s enough from me.  I’m going to go and drink lots of water and pretend to do some work.  Hope you all had an excellent March!

Thoughts?

How was your March?