Well Happy New Year to you all. That’s another festive season whizzed by in a blurr of tinsel, parties and mince pies. Oh….and snow. Snow, snow and more snow. Never in the 14 years I’ve lived in Tranent have I seen anything like this. I have been on holiday since the 20th December and it has snowed pretty much every day. I am due to start back at work tomorrow and judging by the fact that my neighbour has just had to dig her car out, I don’t hold much hope that I’ll get the car out the driveway, never mind get it on the roads to attempt to teach. It is causing me to have a mild panic to say the least, as having gone 2 ½ weeks without income, I really need to get back to work!

Christmas day went well, spent with mum and Holly – although she was a bit naughty – Holly, not mum!! I think the excitement of Christmas and opening her pressies was a bit overwhelming for her. I let her open one of her presents before we went to pick up her granny but that was a big mistake. She then took it upon herself to open all the rest of the presents under the tree and that kind of set the tone for her behaviour for the rest of the day. Poor Holly, no wonder she was a little miffed. Her Christmas dinner consisted of half a raw carrot as mum and I tucked into a succulent three course meal of pure fat and calories and Her Ladyship shrivelled away to a skeleton in the corner looking suitably pathetic!

Holly’s walks became quite a challenge, given the dreadful weather. I was up to my calves in snow and she was up to her belly. I think she wondered where all the grass had gone and was a bit bemused as to where to deliver her Christmas offerings. However, all the hard work sticking to her diet and all the plodding through the snow has paid off. She had her first visit of the year to doggy weight watchers yesterday and she has lost another 900grams and a further 2cm off her waist. She is now down from 62kg to 44.1kg and with her target weight set at 38kg there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. All of a sudden, she seems able to do much longer walks and is now managing 2,3 and 4 mile walks with relative ease and not too many ill effects.

Hopefully Holly’s ability to do longer walks now will be really good for both of us and our continued efforts with weight loss. I managed the gym 6 times over Christmas and New Year (aren’t I self righteous!) which included two sessions with Tarzan, so hopefully I’ve worked off a few of the mince pies by now. I must admit, I’m starting the new year and the new decade feeling pretty fit and healthy. Just got to get back to work and give the finances a bit of an injection. Once that’s done, dare I say it, but we’ve both got the year off to a pretty good start.

I’m not a great lover of New Year Resolutions as I often feel it’s just setting yourself up for failure and come February, you’ve failed at every single one of them and are feeling downright miserable! However, I have set myself a few goals this year which I am pretty determined to achieve. I want to lose another 3 stone, I want to get Holly to lose the last 6kg and I would like to try and do a parachute jump to celebrate once I’ve achieved these things. It would have to be a tandem jump as I’d be too scared to do it on my own – and at least I’d have company as I plummeted to my death. Also and another great incentive to keep the diet going, there is a weight limit for the tandem jump and let’s face it, I don’t want to leave too big a crater when I hit the ground!

That’s the plan……plenty time to change my mind though!

So….here’s to 2010 and a great year for one and all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL FROM ME AND HOLLY

I hate wallowing in self pity but I seem to have been doing a lot of it lately. No doubt like many people, money is really tight at the moment and the futures pretty scary. The bills come in quicker than I can pay them and my bank account feels like it’s haemorrhaging my hard earned cash.

There are a great deal of things I love about being self employed, working the hours I choose, only having myself to answer to and of course not being stuck in an office from dawn to dusk make a welcome change after 20 years of office work.

However, the financial insecurities that come with being self employed can weigh very heavily. Despite having a clear cancellation policy for pupils failing to show for their lessons, it can be very hard to enforce this at times and if I do, I often end up cutting off my nose to spite my face. I know the maximum hours I can safely work and I have calculated the minimum hours I have to work to make enough to pay my bills and I cut my coat according to my cloth if I have anything in between that. I usually overbook, working on the basis that I’ll get a certain percentage of cancellations but the minute I fall below the minimum hours I need, I immediately run at a loss with no way to recoup the money. This can lead to very stressful times and I’m sure many self employed workers have faced similar worries. Despite what the adverts say, driving instructors seldom get anywhere close to ‘earning £30000’.

Sadly, following my redundancy I accumulated a lot of debt simply trying to make ends meet and keep my home. Also with my impeccably good sense of timing, I got myself tied into a high rate fixed interest mortgage just before the market collapsed and interest rates plummeted. So, as many people mortgages tumbled, mine stayed high and indeed increased, being a stepped mortgage.

I would like to think I’m a fairly switched on person, and I don’t stick my head in the sand. I have addressed my money worries from every angle possible including requesting a payment holiday from my mortgage for a couple of months to allow me to save a little to downsizing to a one bedroom house. However, the former, I have been advised by my lender would be classed as mortgage arrears, something I am unwilling to have after 20 years of never missing a mortgage payment and the latter option, after putting down a deposit, would see me in a house the size of a shoebox, with the same size mortgage, and no savings, so in a nutshell, no better off. Needless to say, and no doubt like so many other people, I feel pretty trapped at the moment.

I don’t have much choice but to ride the storm for the next 18 months when my mortgage rate should come down, my credit card debt will have been reduced and hopefully, although I’m not holding my breath on this one, the cost of fuel will have come down, something on which I spend a fortune on a monthly basis.

It is no wonder people buckle under financial pressure and the worry it brings. I have never in my working life been so fraught about how I am going to generate enough income to pay my never ending monthly expenses. I absolutely loathe the fact that this worry seems to dominate ever waking moment and certainly a good few sleepless nights too! I hate that money or the lack of it is dictating what I can and can’t do, forcing me to turn down wedding and birthday invitations because I can’t find the money for a gift, never mind a new outfit. I feel mean and stingy and hate the thought that people will judge me on the currently financially crippled me rather than the generous person I have always been and loved being, up until this point.

I hate the fact that I wear the same clothes day in and day out because, to buy anything new, I would have to run up a store card – more debt. I hate the fact that I have two pairs of ‘work’ shoes, one that I can only wear on dry days because it has a great big hole in the sole and the other that is so run down at the heal that there is a stone chip from my driveway stuck in it! And worse than anything, I had Holly at the vet for her monthly checkup yesterday. The vet has recommended that she has some sessions in their new hydrotherapy pool to help her joints. I utterly loathe that anyone would ever accuse me of not doing everything I can to help Holly regain her health but at £20 per 15 minute session three times a week, I’ve got some pretty difficult decisions to make here.

Like I said, I hate wallowing in self pity and believe in or not, I do try hard to focus on the positives. At least I have clean drinking water and a warm bed at night which is more than a lot of people have. But I hate even more being in this rotten position at the moment, with what feels like, no way out.

Friday is September the 11th – the 8th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centres in New York. The impact of watching these events unfold in front of me on the TV in my living room, will stay with me forever. The horror of helplessly watching as people fought for their lives and the trauma they and their loved ones must have endured that morning, will never leave me.

I watched one of the tribute programs shown on TV this week depicting the events of 9/11. It was a documentary with a lot of previously unseen footage. There was one shot, which showed the harrowing last minutes of one of the victims in the tower. He was hanging on to the outside of the building hundreds of stories up, half in and half out of the window with the flames and smoke raging behind him. It was devastating to watch.

There is no doubt, these are difficult times right now for many of us. There is seldom a minute in a day that I am not worrying about things. I am permanently exhausted, permanently stressed. I can’t afford to take a day off work, never mind go away on holiday and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future and goodness knows how I will deal with Christmas. I have so many dreams and so many goals I want to achieve and I can’t do any of them because of lack of money. I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water. I am stagnating. I am living to work and I want to be working to live.

However, I must keep things in perspective. Until I am faced with the choice of jumping 100 floors to my death or being burned alive after simply turning up for a days work at the office, I really have nothing to complain about.

A depressing post I know, but perhaps, appropriately for this time, a reflective one for those who feel life is getting on top of them.

Where on earth is the time going? I promise it has not taken us two months to finish the walk! Holly managed around 2 miles as it was a very warm day. She raised a massive £600 for the bears, and has decided to put her paws up for a little rest before her next fundraiser.

It was quite an incredible week in the run up to the walk, with Her Ladyship appearing in no less than 5 local newspapers attracting headlines like ‘Hefty Holly sheds two stones to help the bears’ and ‘Portly Pooch pounds the pavement to raise funds for animals’. She even had three photoshoots and had to strike a number of poses in nearby fields. She did disgrace herself at one point true to form by squatting for a jumbo poo the minute the lens was on her but when a girls got to go, she’s got to go.

I thought I better not let the side down and since Holly was wearing her special pink ‘Princess’ collar, I thought I better smarten myself up a bit and put on a nice satin type blouse with dress trousers and a bit of lippy, hoping the photographers would take their photos in my newly designed and decorated patio. But no. Off to the overgrown, dandelion strewn fields we trotted.

One of the photographers had designed a makeshift ‘sponsor me’ sign with a bit of A4 paper and some thread to hang around Holly’s neck. She asked me to get Holly to sit down. I had to stand over her with a leg either side, holding her collar with one hand and stopping her bolting after a spaniel strolling nearby all while, holding the sign down to stop the wind blowing it, with my other hand and with me feeling a tad flustered, she then told me to keep my hair out of my eyes – how many hands did she think I had?!

Next the second photographer, wanted me to kneel down beside Holly so we were face to face. By this time Holly was getting thoroughly fed up with the Paparazzi, and bearing in mind, this was our local field where everyone walked their dogs to relieve their bowels and bladders, I was none to enamoured myself with the thought of having to kneel beside her. By this point however I think I was willing to do anything to get it over and done with as Holly the Diva really wasn’t cooperating any longer, so there I was, lying on the ground with Her Ladyship, in a poo riddled field, looking like I was dressed for dinner!

I think we both found this little venture into the world of the media slightly stressful but it was worth it if we could help the bears and raise awareness of the terrible practice of bear farming in China.

I just wanted to up date this part of the blog in case any of you kind sponsors and supporters of Holly’s efforts were worried that she was still wandering around Arthur’s Seat two months after she set off!

We’ve had a lot of ventures since the sponsored walk including our first holiday together so a further update and more adventures are to follow …..

Well, the time has come at last. The day of Holly’s fundraising debut. She has had quite a week, being featured in five local papers and even getting a mention on BBC Radio 2. She’s had photographers and journalists all wanting to cover her story and admiring fans stopping her on her walks.

The weather is looking pretty good for her walk this morning, dry and not too hot.

I am really hoping that since cars are not allowed in Holyrood Park on a Sunday, if Her Ladyship gets stuck half way round the radical road, one of the nice park rangers will come and rescue her.

We will update the blog later today with her progress. She is on target to raise around £350 which is brilliant.

If the blog is not updated for a while, don’t worry. I have a feeling Holly will be like one of these disabled marathon runners and will come in 3 weeks after everyone else!

Holly’s certainly embracing her new zest for life. Last month saw her embarking on a criminal career with a bit of shoplifting and breaking and entering and this month she’s exploring the life of the celebrity.

With only one week to go until her fundraising debut for Animals Asia with her sponsored walk to help the poor bears imprisoned on bear farms, she’s becoming a bit of a star. A couple of local newspapers have picked up on her story and are wanting to do articles on her, so believe it or not, Her Ladyship has a photographer coming tomorrow. So I am having to bow to her superior public standing and get the housework done, so she can be presented in her full glory in surroundings befitting of her new celebrity status.

To be honest, I am happy with anything that will help raise awareness of the dreadful practice of bear farming in China, and with Holly having already raised nearly £300, I am happy for her to get the credit and I’m sure she will love every minute of it. If the headline “Abused dog, helps abused bears” goes some way to get the message across, then I am all for it. I just draw the line at having to curtsy in front of Her Ladyship!

I have an appointment with the Doctor on Tuesday to see if I can get some physio on my back. Unlike Holly, I have to get my medical treatment on the NHS. Usually in the past, on the rare occasions I have had to visit my doctor, every single ailment I’ve had, seems to have been blamed on the fact that I am overweight. If I went with a sore ear, I would be told it would improve if I shed a few pounds and if I had a sore thumb, it would undoubtedly be down to the fact that I was too fat. So it will be interesting to see what happens this time when the injury I’m going with has been due to excessive exercise and the reason I want treatment is so I can exercise more. When there is so much publicity about how much it costs the NHS to treat obesity, surely they will be hard pressed to deny me some physio to enable me to continue my efforts to lose weight and get fit.

So in between Holly’s press conferences and photo shoots, I find it amusing that the chain of command seems to have shifted somewhat in my household since her arrival. She’s the one that gets private health care while I get the NHS, her monthly visit to the beauty parlour are made possible by the fact that I get the cheapest cleanser out of Poundstretchers and have a haircut once every six months. There is no doubt that I’ve had to work pretty hard to keep her in the style she’s accustomed too but she’s worth every penny. I just hope this celebrity status doesn’t go to her head too much or she’ll be wanting her hair and make up done next and will follow in the steps of all the top models and refuse to get off the couch for anything less than £10,000. Perhaps if you made that 10,000 bonios, you may have a deal!

Anyone who wants to sponsor Holly can do so at www.justgiving.com/hollysjourney Thank you!

Well I did it. I managed to leg press 200kg. The first time, I managed 10 reps and the second I managed 30, spurred on by the fact that Tarzan said he would do double the amount I did. ‘At last!’ I thought ‘A chance to make him suffer the way he makes me suffer’. So 30 I did and 60 he did, with sickeningly relative ease I hasten to add. It must be great to be so fit. I left the gym feeling very proud of my achievement and the fact that I’d reached my goal and indeed done so many reps.

A few days later, my back went out. The pain was excruciating. It was my own stupid fault – I’d pushed myself too far trying to prove a point and I have noone to blame but myself! I was out of action for a good few days in a lot of pain.

I had to skip my training with Tarzan this Tuesday but tried to make up for it by doing a walk with my friend who did the Moonwalk for breast cancer, last year. I’d love to walk a marathon someday, so we agreed we would do some gentle walking together. Therefore, we started with a short 3 mile walk, but bearing in mind, my friend is a tall, slim, leggy, superfit, glamourous blonde who’s glided through a marathon with ease and grace, and I was a short, stumpy, rotund novice walker who may be able to lift heavy weights but can’t walk for toffee with a back injury, we must have looked like Little and Large striding out around Tranent. What seemed like a mini marathon to me, but a hop skip and a jump to my friend, was culminated by the fact that we arrived back at my house with me puffing and panting, looking like a walking beetroot and my friend looking like she’d been out for a gentle stroll after a visit to the beauty parlour. I just wanted to keep up the exercise since I was missing the gym, but I guess I am a long way off a marathon at this stage!

I would love to reach another couple of goals, one of walking a marathon and one of climbing a (small) mountain, but considering my walking effort and the fact that I can’t even climb a speed hump at the moment, I’ve got a way to go with both I think.

Although I had to take a few days off, I managed to do most of my lessons with pupils that would throw me around the least, with the help of anti-inflammatory painkillers. However, I began to think the discomfort and the painkillers were getting to me when at one point, I told one of my male pupils to put his ‘handbag’ on instead of his handbrake and I told another pupil to ‘take the next gear in second bend’. I came to the conclusion, that even the most supremely tuned athlete like my good-self, needs to submit to injury at times!

I think Her Ladyship has been feeling it a bit, the fact that her mummy hasn’t been as mobile as normal and she’s had a bit of suppressed energy. I am trying to keep up her training for her sponsored walk but there is no doubt it has waned a bit while I’ve been laid up.

My sister and I took Holly up Arthur’s Seat last week, pre injury, to try a trial walk for her sponsored walk for Animals Asia and she did not too badly only having to stop occasionally for a pee and a pooh (Holly, not my sister!). Once we’d finished our trial walk, we went back to my sisters for a cuppa. Holly was invited to join us and immediately disgraced herself by jumping up on the counter with her front paws to make sure the tea was being made properly. Bearing in mind, only a few short months ago, Holly couldn’t even put one paw in front of the other, never mind lift them off the floor, watching her jump up on the kitchen counter was somewhat a mixed blessing. On one hand I wanted to give her a big cuddle for her amazing progress, but on the other hand, I appreciate that this is somewhat socially unacceptable behaviour that requires some strict parental control and discipline.

Well, if I thought that behaviour was bad, the parental control and discipline were rendered completely null and void when she decided to check out the garden. My sister had gone out to speak to her neighbours, when Holly decided to have a good wander round her garden…..then through the fence to the neighbours garden.... then let herself into the neighbours house through their back door, then had a good wander round their kitchen. I was mortified!! That’s another thing she can do now that she couldn’t do before – move!

Once I’d tracked Her Ladyship down and ended her ‘Breaking and Entering’ spree, I guided her back into my sister’s garden. She then did something that took me by complete and utter surprise, that I would never have believed had I not seen it with my own eyes – she nimbly leapt off a three foot wall!

So, it has been a week of extremes. I’ve been grinding to a halt in pain and misery and Holly has been abseiling down walls and embarking on some criminal activity. In my defence, she’s got youth on her side. After all, it’s true what they say – ‘You know you’re getting old when your back goes out more than you do!’