Mixed bag...

Hi bloggers to this new week with some good news and less good news. Firstly, I would like you to do me a favour please. I would like you to read this blog by one of my regular blogging correspondents Magnumlady (Val) in Sligo who is experiencing a lot of frustration through the ineffectiveness of their local health service and the plight of her son Jonathan as a consequence. Let her know what you think by leaving her family a message of support. Thanks.

The diet is going on apace and today was 'weigh day'. The treadmill has been a big help I must admit and my other half has been very supportive of its use and indeed has started to use it herself. The sweat has been pouring off (yuk) in this warmer season - note I didn't say 'hotter'. In the last four weeks, I have lost over 12 pounds (5.6Kg). In her efforts to support me, my wife has been eating the same food and exercising herself, although she does have a job which involves a lot of walking and lifting and therefore is reasonably fit already. She got weighed herself and she has lost 19 pounds (8.6Kg).

In total then, since the end of February - I've lost 76.78 pounds, or 34.9 Kg, roughly five and a half stones.

Ironically, the picture above is my great grandmother who had this'fun' picture taken whilst on a trip to the seaside, just over seventy years ago (July 1939) - she looks a bundle of laughs!

My good friend Middleagedgapper will return in the next couple of days from his exciting adventure holiday in Turkey and I look forward to reading his blog with all the news and pictures. I am meeting him for a spot of tiffin on Friday this week. Welcome back. I wish I had the guts to do something like that, but it'll take me ages to get fit and I can't afford it (that's my excuse)! I would like to go and visit my ancestors First World War grave in Belgium one day and that might be a short break we'll take in the late autumn - in the car and across the North Sea ferry.

You may recall Ive been doing my family history for about thirty years now and I keep getting correspondence from all round the globe enquiring about the family and rarely are they connected - the enquiries are little more than a shot in the dark usually. I have however in the last day or so been corresponding with a lady in Kent - Janis who may well be connected to a great, great, great, great, great grandmother of mine, born back in 1769 in the sleepy hollows of Lincolnshire. Good to meet people from around the globe - like visitors to our blogs.

My story today concerns our favourite profession, bankers.

Two women were walking through the woods one morning when they nearly stepped on a frog on the path. "Help me, help me," croaked the frog. "I'm a banker, but a witch put a curse on me and turned me into a frog. If one of you gorgeous ladies would like to kiss me, I'll turn back into a handsome hunky banker."

One of the ladies picked him up and put him in her handbag. "Didn't you hear what he said?" Enquired the friend, "Kiss him and he'll turn into a handsome banker."

"Listen," her friend replied, "These days, he's worth more as a talking frog than a banker!"

Chat soon

Ta-ra