Gut Reaction

This week I became aware that my belly is getting big. It's starting to chafe against the top of my trousers. Living without a bathroom scale or bedroom mirrors, I don't get many reminders of my body shape, so it turns out that my clothing is my first feedback.

Now I've never really had chiseled abs, so it's not much of a surprise. A relaxed belly always sticks out a bit, and so long as I can suck it in decently, I'm not too bothered. And I am in my 40th year on this planet. A hundred years ago I might be considered in old age. A bit of a belly isn't completely unexpected. Especially here in England. I look at the other middle-aged men waiting on the train platform and I see belly, belly, belly, belly.

But really, this chafing business has brought me to a decision point. I absolutely refuse to consider getting larger trousers. I've been a 34 waist for as long as I can remember and am not about to change now. So I am declaring war. On my belly.

First I did some thinking as to how I got this way. My bike commute is much more infrequent and is considerably shorter, so I get less exercise than I'm used to. But I think the biggest change is that I'm eating more, and eating less healthy foods.

When I look back on my time in England, the pub lunch will be one of the most treasured experiences. Using the fancy a pint site and other sources, I've eagerly sought out pubs near my office and have greatly enjoyed such exploration. There's practically a pub on every corner, and I'd wager there's over a hundred pubs I could walk to on my lunch time. For a long time I favoured fish and chips constantly but lately I've found some nice salads, pies and burgers. I don't have a pub lunch every day, of course - I often get a sandwich or salad elsewhere - but typically 2-3 times a week. And all those beers and fried foods do add up.

After this full lunch, I'm also having a full dinner at home. And I'm still indulging my habit of trying to finish Sarah's uneaten foods so that they don't go to waste.

Now that I've declared war, I've also worked out a strategy. The first part is exercise. I do pretty well with this. I walk a good deal in London. I always take the stairs to our third-storey office (which would be the fourth floor for Americans). When going to the Ipswich town centre, I'll more often than not take my bike or walk. But I can do more. My schedule is quite solid until around 6pm, when I have brought Sarah home. Here I have about an hour before dinner, so I can use this time for some stretching, sit-ups, and perhaps a run around the block or a brisk walk. I can also be more stringent about getting regular exercise on weekends.

But most of my focus will be on my eating. First, I'll cut out carbs for a week or two, getting my body into a fat-burning state of ketosis. No beer, wine, pasta, rice, bread, cereal, potatoes, pastries. Margo's dinners are mostly low-carb already, so dinners are easy. I can buy salads or meat-and-veg plates easily for lunches. If I really want a drink, there's scotch and other distilled spirits. Breakfasts will be the most challenging, but I know of a food chain where I can buy chopped veg sticks with hummus, and I'll plan to chop up veg sticks from home also. I'll also cut back my dinner portions and let Sarah's scraps go to waste.

I'm guessing it will be two or three months before I start seeing results. I'm also not sure how far I'll take it. I know I'll gradually build up more carbs but I'm hoping to strengthen good eating habits.

Guitar

This morning I bought a little guitar for Sarah and I to play with. It's a second hand classical guitar for students. I've wanted to try a classical guitar as I think the fingering is a little easier, and this is a great size for Sarah. It brings music into our house again.

And all this and a carrying bag for just 20 quid! I am well pleased.

Brenda's Visit

It was so nice to be able to host Brenda on her European visit. I was quite sad when she left. She did bring us atholl-brose from Scotland and chocolates from Belgium, but we especially treasure the hallowed Stumptown coffees she brought from Portland. We will remember her and our old neighbourhood with each sip.

A Fine Day in London

Sarah wanted a weekend of downtime, and Margo was happy to oblige, so I took a day out in London today. But you won't see any pictures because I was lazy and wanted to travel lightly.

I was hoping for my usual Saturday morning cuppa at The Coffee Link, but I was up before they opened so instead I caught an 8:30 train, arriving at Liverpool Street around 9:30.

My first destination was a coffee house a few blocks away in Spitalfields, but they weren't open yet! It looked like they didn't open until 10. This boggled my uncaffeinated mind. So I made my way to Brick Lane on the way to my next destination, Rough Trade East; across the way was Cafe 1001 where I got my coffee and pastry.

Rough Trade East is the closest I've yet found to a Portland-style (Everyday Music, Music Millennium) music store in the UK. It's the largest independent store in London, as far as I know, and it serves coffee, has comfy chairs, has listening stations, and showcases local music via posters and flyers. Only it has a much lesser selection and no used music.

Walking back to Liverpool Street Station, without even looking, I was accosted by more examples of Portland's ubiquity. A shop sold Nikes restyled from the 1970s, prominently displaying their roots in Beaverton, Oregon. Inside on the walls I found the black-and-white Andre The Giant iconography found at Bishops Barbershops. A block further I came across the London office of Portland advertisers Weiden + Kennedy. Peering in the windows I saw the usual multiple wall clocks of a multinational corporation, but was chuffed to see Portland's time labeled on the far left.

Then I took the unusually-crowded Central line to Oxford Street to browse the HMV store. Next I walked through Soho to Charing Cross Road and Foyle's Books, catching up on the latest software development titles and browsing the guides to pubs in London and Suffolk.

I've been in the Covent Gardens area (especially the Seven Corners) but not to the Covent Gardens itself: a large building housing about three arcades covered in arched glass, joined by perpendicular entryways, and surrounded by cobblestones, the largest I've seen in London. It must be quite an old market. Most of the current tenants seem to be of recent fashion, however. Outside and within the market were found lots of street performers, including several frozen statue guys who would move when given coin; a very impressive human beatbox who seemed about 10 years old; and an opera singer. I also came across the London Transport Museum. The Musuem was temporarily closed, but the gift shop was open, and I was struck with childlike glee at seeing model buses for sale. Yes, die-cast metal buses, 1/76 scale, £30 each, but still, I want one and may come back for one some day. There are replicas of London buses, Colchester buses, and First services in Norfolk, but sadly I saw none for Ipswich.

When I walk in London I have a smile on my face because there's so much neat stuff to browse available within just a few blocks of each other. As an example, I will mention that minutes later I had walked to Trafalgar Square, watched some public performances related to the London Week of Peace, and was soon inside the National Gallery looking at paintings of the Suffolk countryside by John Constable.

After more wandering, I made my way to Charing Cross Station and crossed the footbridge to the south bank of the Thames to begin taking in the Thames Festival, a collection of performances and food and drink along the waterfront all weekend.

Making my way east, I met up with work mate Alessio and his partner Andrea at London Bridge. By this time there was much congestion along the south bank so we crossed to the north bank and made our way to the Southwark Bridge to get some food and drink.

The Southwark bridge was closed to all but pedestrian traffic. As the sun lowered in the early evening, we browsed the food and drink stalls, passing bridge sections alternately decorated with wooden casks for apple bobbing; artificial turf; and sand. Yes, sand, on a bridge, over the Thames. It was lovely. I ended up with a chicken tikka masala with a regional strong cider (not very tasty, unfortunately, but strong as promised) and we gazed at the Thames and all its sights in the waning sun, on a bridge with sand on it and no cars, and life was good.

We parted here as I wanted to return to Ipswich before dark. On the walk back across the bridge I passed a sharp-suited band playing (without amplification) joyous Klezmer music (I think; the kind that has oboes and clarinets and tubas and, on every eighth beat, a hearty shout of "Hey!"), and life remained quite good.

Racing across Essex in my train home, I spied nine hot air balloons in the setting sun. I dialled up Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks on my iPod. And life was still quite good.

Ely Cathedral

Sunday afternoon we drove about an hour away to Ely to see the Ely Cathedral. It's a local landmark we've been wanting to see for some time.

The cathedral can be seen from miles away; it's quite massive-looking on the horizon, but not so intimidating up close.







We were amazed at the density of detailing. There must be millions of man-hours of craft.





We also visited a museum of stained glass, inside the cathedral on a second floor.

I also didn't realise it until skimming the Wikipedia article, but the cathedral features prominently on the cover of Pink Floyd's last studio album, The Division Bell.



Afterward, we went to the Maybush pub for dinner, arriving just in time to see the waning sun before it clouded over again.

Aldeburgh (with Brenda)

Brenda's been with us for a few days - our first American visitor. Amazingly there's room for a visitor in our wee flat. It's been great having her here and catching up on Oregon life.

Today, after Sarah's swim class, we spent the afternoon by taking a road trip to the nearby coastal town of Aldeburgh. Parking at the beach, we immediately found "The Scallop" which I'd seen in photos before and was concerned about being able to find today. The sculpture was dedicated to composer and Aldeburgh resident Benjamin Britten; the caption is a quote from an opera of his: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned".









The water was cold, but not too cold.

Afterwards we walked into town. I was hoping we'd dine on fish and chips, as Aldeburgh has some famed chippies. I'd memorised the address of the most popular one. Arriving there, we were disappointed: it was closed, in between fry times. I suppose it's a sign of quality, a guarantee of freshness, but disappointing nonetheless. The only other chippie we found on the street was also closed. My vision of fresh fish and chips, preferably with some ale from the nearby Adnams brewery, evaporated. We settled on an Italian restaurant, which was fine food, just not expected. A walk to an ice cream parlour afterwards helped to soothe my disappointment.

Back to School

Margo got this picture of Sarah this morning on her first day back at school. She has a new teacher but she's with the same classmates. Today started with an assembly and Sarah also did some speaking and writing.

Her after school club is temporarily in a church a few doors down from school. The building it was in was torn down over the summer and the new building should be ready in two weeks. (It's a small building; not much bigger than a trailer.)

We've had to remember all those things we'd forgotten about over the summer: how much a lunch costs, which door to take her to, where is the lunch bag, the book bag, the reading record, the art smock. She has new school shoes and plimsoles and a new red cardigan. She's also agreeing to wearing clips in her hair.

Tallinn to Ipswich

We arose a little earlier than ususal. Breakfast was fairly typical except they offered what seemed to be French toast, which I got a few slices of, then noticed no syrup but ate it all anyway.

Later, we packed, checked out and got a cab to the airport. The Tallinn airport is smaller than most and quite easy to navigate. We had 135 krooni (no, not kroner, kronor, or kronier; krooni) in cash left at this point, but I wasn't able to exchange them for pounds as they didn't amount to a full pound. So instead I got Sarah a 7-up and a tall Kronenburg for myself.

Our EasyJet plane arrived but did not taxi quite to the gate and we had to walk on from outside. I thought this was perhaps due to adjacent construction but we had the same experience after landing in London Stansted so perhaps it's just part of the budget airline experience, such as a complete lack of free food and drink.

I noticed that people do not queue in as orderly a fashion as in the UK. It was more of a mosh towards the gate. We saw the same on the ferry yesterday.

Landing in Stansted, it was nice to hear English again, though we were reintroduced to the concept of overweight people as well as ubiquitous football shirts. Margo and I, both well-educated professionals who read vociferously, were completely unable to locate local bus services. We had decided to avoid a train to London to Ipswich and get a bus to a closer town, but in the end we had to ask staff for directions and recommendations. We ended up on an express bus to Chelmsford and then a train to Ipswich, saving us lots of time and money as well as inconvenience since One Railways was doing engineering work and therefore running buses between Shenfield and Chelmsford anyway.

So now we're back in Ipswich, reading the Saturday Guardian and hanging out. Margo's cooked us a proper meal and I've had the chance to hang laundry again, and we're relishing the ability to set something down and let things be for a while.