It is 16:25 as I begin writing, I mean typing this post. The Spring Bank Holiday Weekend is slowly drawing to a close! I have quite a few things to mention and for a change do not have any blog notes prepared to jog my memory. Overall a very good weekend, got a few jobs done, met up with friends, had fun, got a heavy session in on the gym and finally started the book I have been wanting to read for some five years. Saturday morning and the comfort surroundings of home. It was great to be in Wycombe but it was a short stay, on Sunday afternoon I would be heading back to Newbury. I got up around 8.30am and then enjoyed being able to channel hop from 350 up to 370-something. I spent a little time on the computer and actually went through all my mail before sitting down to watch Football Focus. It was the last weekend of the EPL. Then I got the call from Ryan that we would meet at 3pm in Hurricanes. So I decided to get ready and then head into town to go for a bit of a walk around before meeting my old school friends. While waiting for 100 bus on Cressex Link, I noticed a dark blue Honda Civic drive up very slowly and then park in the bus stop. I could see the lady was lost and offered her some directions. I tried to explain that as it was a restricted junction she would have to go straight across at the lights and then right. She drove off but within minutes was back and then I had to give her directions again but for the opposite route. That was my deed of the day. Wycombe has not changed that much in the time I have been away, but as Ryan said later, I make it sound like I have emigrated abroad, when the reality is I have not actually moved more than an hour drive away. I went into the Sony Centre to see how much a screen guard was and memory. I think the teenage sales assistant was a bit shocked when I would not let him touch my camera and just explained that it was the CyberShot DSC-T77 and I was also looking for 4gb or 8gb memory. £29.99 and £59.99 respectively. It was that point I walked out of the store, to the shock of the assistant who was still pushing buttons on the computer. How can Sony justify £9.99 for a screen guard when you can get the same piece of sticky back plastic for £1.49 on eBay. I checked prices elsewhere in town (SanDisk were slightly cheaper) but am just going to get the Memory Stick Duo using my Sony Pulse Points. I even went to check at Argos before then finally going to meet up with Trev and Ryan at Hurricanes. This was the first time I was going to the pool club. I had never been to the establishment when it was under the guise of Fast Eddies. Well I only actually went in around 3.15pm as I had been waiting for Ryan to turn up but it was only when Trev rang me to explain he was inside already that I went up. I met up with Trev and said hello, only to then be accosted by the owner, manager or grey haired guy in charge to be given a telling off. Yes, I was not following the house rules and I needed to sign in and pay my guest fee. Just as I was about to sign the book, Buckle turned up and flashed his membership card. Buckle being in the generous mood he was, got the drinks and the pool table in and we then headed to table ten. I am rubbish at pool and have been for as long as I can remember. Although I suppose with practice I could improve ever so slightly. It all goes back to the days at secondary school. My friend Richard and I would cover lunchtime duty in the Youth Centre (which was right next door to the school). Once a week we were not behind the till serving food so we would either play basketball in the court or more often play pool. I was so rubbish that a crowd would rather to see how badly I could play this week. It was a whitewash, Ryan won all four games and then we decided what to do with the rest of the afternoon and subsequent evening. Ryan suggested going to the park in Marlow, although I would have been happy to stick in Wycombe and go down the Rye for old times sakes. So we headed to the car, which was parked the other side of town. However, first we had to stop by WHSmith so Mr. B could buy a photo album. We then got to the car which was park in the car park by Kings Church opposite Second Hand City (which is no more). Now Ryan does not drive direct, he has to take the back route, it would have been easier and quicker to go down the by-pass but no, he had to take the back route. Never mind, we parked up and headed down to the park. Trev bought a football from the Toy Shop on the High Street and we then walked into the blazing sunshine to the park and started to have a kick around. It was around 5pm if I remember correctly.

So after kicking a ball around for an hour or so, we headed back into Marlow. Straight to the Slug and Lettuce. It was here we spent most of the evening from 7pm until about 9pm. I got texts from Kev and Pav that they were going out in Reading and they needed my company. However, I was busy and would not be able to make it. There will be plenty of nights out in the future. It was nice to just chill out and catch up with my old school mates. Trev I had not seen since August last year and he had not been able to make it to the other nights out we had arranged more recently. Then around 8.30pm, Trev made the announement that we had to leave and meet his friend Wayne in The Prince Of Wales and off we went. The night was drawing in now and I felt very tired (I am getting old). Around 9.30pm, we finally decided to leave and head back home. Ryan gave me a lift. He still has only the trusty classic cassette player in his Punto. He had a tape with *NSYNC on and I requested Bye Bye Bye, which took him so long to find (skip to) that we were almost at John Hall Way by the time it came on. I was home and shattered, even though it was relatively early on Saturday evening. I had some food and went on the computer for a short time but after fifteen minutes, there was no way I could keep my eyes open and went straight to bed. Sunday was a productive day, I set out to get plenty done and did! In the morning around midday, after writing some letters and clearing loads of paper work I got to washing the car. It did not take that long, as it had only been three weeks since the last wash but it was satisfying to get it done. Around 2pm, or perhaps a little later I finally came in to get some food and watch some television. I was annoyed that I had missed Transformers on Sky Movies. Well missed the main chunk of the movie and it was now the climatic last act. Friends will have noticed my status update to both Facebook and Twitter. My friend Bhavna had only recently seen the movie (in the past few days) and I was commenting that my favourite character was Sector 7 chief Reggie Symmons. His line still has me in stitches some two years after I saw the movie (and then again at IMAX). I cannot wait for the second installment in the franchise. The Revenge Of The Fallen looks even better than the first outing. Roll on June! Then I watched the start of the Newcastle Villa game on Survival Sunday. The wonderful sunshine in Birmingham reminded me of the same day three years earlier in North London. The final salute to Highbury. But there was no time for sentimental nostalgia. I was going to be headed back to Newbury very soon. I had originally planned to leave at 4pm but it was coming up to 5pm before I actually left. My sisters had just arrived, so I saw them briefly. I got to Newbury, unpacked the car and put a few new mp3s onto my Coby MP3 player and then headed directly to the gym. The weather was awesome and it was the first this year I was wearing shorts (yes I really thought I should share that with the world). The gym was dead, as I expected. Everyone was outside enjoying the weather but it meant I had practically free roam of the free weights area. I decided to not do my complete programme as I had the Gym Xchange the next day and could get some more exercises done then. It was a steady session before I came back to the flat and then planned the rest of my evening. I was contemplating a movie but instead got watching the first semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent and then spent the rest of the night online chatting to friends on MSN and Facebook. On Monday AKA today, I got up early but really should not have bothered as Pav was late. Originally I had wanted him to get over to Newbury for 8am, so we could hit the gym as soon as it opened but he insisted on a lay in (what a poor excuse!). So we agreed on 9am, however he did not arrive until 9:32am precisely (the moment he called me). While I was waiting, although I had been tempted to go on the desktop, I resisted and went onto the laptop. I have loaded on Puppy Linux but the boot was not working, so I just used the live distro CD which was still in the drive. All I wanted to do was quickly check my e-mail and update both my Facebook and Twitter statuses.

Unfortunately this was a very different affair in comparison to earlier this month. No protein shakes, no crazy concoctions to eat. It was on my patch, so it was my rules (well kind of). I was not bouncing off the ceiling and it would tell later on during the session. It was just nice for The Beast to see the gym where I work out. He was very impressed and gave it a big thumbs up! 🙂 On the drive down to Nuffield, Pav passed over his new regime as provided by the legend that is flexsingh. It was the standard three day affair, heavy weights and five sets of ten on average. It was only a little later that I noticed an extra box at the bottom of the page. There was the extra “4th” day. This was called Tabata (although I stupidly would refer to it as Tambata). Well unfortunately there is surprisingly no Wikipedia entry on this subject (or the creator Dr. Izumi Tabata) but Google does always provide an answer. We would get to that later. First, we had arrived at the gym and had to sign in, then go and pack our things away before heading up the stairs to the fitness suite. Pav was very impressed, it reminded him of Rivermead (but with a good free weight area). We then did a quick ten minute warm up on the cross trainers before then hitting the bench press. I really do not want to bore everyone with the programme but it was good fun. Pav was pushing me hard, even though I did not do that well on the bench press. If anything towards the end, I was helping Pav with the dumbbells rather than doing any crazy exercise of my own. For desert, we had a bit of tabata. We jumped onto the rowing machines and set them up for twenty seconds of rowing and then a ten second break and then twenty seconds of rowing again and so on. We aimed for eight sets. Pav told me to fill up my now empty Powerade bottle with water, I was going to need it. I did but only had one opportunity to drink it during the ten second break. I kept up with Pav and was only a metre behind on average. It was a great way to end the second gym exchange. I really enjoy cardio workouts and this tabata was fantastic. I am thinking of fitting it in alternatively into my cardio sessions but on a Thursday morning I do not have that much time before I have to rush back to the flat and into the office. Before we left, I introduced Pav to my personal trainer, Adam, who had been hiding in the consultation room most of the morning as he was hung over! He looked at Pav’s programme was was duly impressed and of course the results speak for themselves when you see Pav now and compare it with a photograph from even a year ago. Pav then went into a lecture on how I do not push myself and that I am never going to bulk up if I keep within weights I can manage. My only defense was that I was trying to hone the technique before pushing up the weights. My technique just goes to pot the moment I push the weight up, even if only a little. It was at that moment I booked in my next review with Adam, for Friday 5th June. That brought the gym exchange part deux to a close and we headed to the changing rooms to review the day. No celebrity lookalikes this time around I am afraid. I was hoping to fit in a 10k run during the afternoon but ended up opting out. James went for a run after his spin class was canceled due to the Bank Holiday. I had lunch, spent a little time online, decided to not going food shopping and instead around 3pm headed into Victoria Park. It was an amazing day and too silly to spend it inside. I had finished my book by Gordon Brown earlier than afternoon and began in earnest, reading Dreams From My Father. I have been wanting to read this book for a while but feel this has to be most appropriate moment in my life. From the first page, I could tell that this was going to be an enjoyable journey. I only read seventeen pages of the actual main book (there are two introductions) and can only say Barrack Obama has a very touching writing style, very poignant choice of words and phrases. I could tell that this book is going to be difficult to put down. Plus it is refreshing to read the journey a man can make from the days before his birth to finally making it to the White House. Around 4pm or so I headed back to the flat, I had to tidy up a little and then settled on the computer for a few hours. It was at that point I decided it was time to watch a movie. I chose Crank because I wanted some mindless action and explosions. I got that, plus a whole lot more. It was completely unbelievable. I mean a car stuck on an escalator? Please? Surely the blue screen or computer graphics can be used to make it look more realistic. Jason Statham gives another fantastic performance, as usually performing all his own stunts. It was just entertaining violence, drugs and rock and roll for nearly ninety minutes. A film you can watch with your brain left somewhere out in the garden. Perhaps not the ideal way to end a long Bank Holiday weekend but a good way to relax before the busy working week ahead. The only consolation is there are only four days instead of the usual five.