A Text and a Call.

I've not seen or heard of Steve since Carnival weekend, and so he hadn't been on my radar at all. Then a week last Friday night he texted at gone 2am - just 'hello u'. I am sure one of the list of exes he sent that text to will have felt compelled to reply, but that ex was not me. Since I was feverish at the time, I did waste a good few minutes composing variations of a 'fuck off' text, but then I realised that any response at all would only encourage him, and so forgot all about it.

Yesterday morning the home phone went and despite suffering from Fever II - the Virus Strikes Back, I answered it because I was expecting a call from Naughty Little Sister.

Male Voice: 'Is that Mrs Reed?'

Me: 'No, I think you've got the wrong number [Wheeze. Cough] What number did you want?'

He read out my number.

Me: 'Oh, that's my number....'

MV: 'Is that [my address]?'

Me: 'Yes....'

MV: 'Well, some time ago you spoke to someone from this company about having new fascias installed, and I'm phoning to ask a few market research questions..'

Well by this time I was properly suspicious. I haven't spoken to anyone about fascias, I close the door in their faces because I'm sick of them knocking on my door with their rip-off pretendy bargain offers for shoddy work done by scary builder-types, who block my toilet with their clay-textured poos.

Me: 'What company is this?'

MV: 'This is erm...'

SECOND MALE VOICE IN BACKGROUND: 'Ask her about [mumble mumble mumble]'.

I hung up. That second male voice was Steve, I was completely sure of it. I also realised I could hear TV in the background, not the noise of other people on phones. 1471 told me the caller withheld their number.

WTF!!!

I spent a lot of yesterday wondering what the hell was the point of it? Why the 'Mrs Reed' palaver? Why was he even bothering with me still? What could he possibly hope to gain?

This morning I woke up with an immediate knowledge of why Mrs Reed, in that way answers come when you sleep on a problem.

Just like with cold-callers at my door, I now hang up immediately on cold-callers to my home phone. As soon as, 'Can I speak to, erm, Miss Field?' is out of their mouths (or when I hear the delay of an auto-dialler), I'm off that phone. The number of cold calls had indeed increased last week. 'Mrs Reed' was a ploy to engage me in a conversation they were never going to have when asking for 'Miss Field'.

And the reason he is doing this? Who can fathom his crazy brain? It's certainly not something I have time or energy for, though at a guess he's between girlfriends again and is bored and has nothing better to do. Fortunately he's not doing anything more annoying. 

But don't you just despise a half-hearted stalker? :-D

The Circus Boy Always Rings Twice

Those of you who have been reading for a while (or who know me in real life) will possibly remember me giving the brush-off to Circus Boy after finally getting sick to the back teeth with his antics over the charity unicycle ride. Like me, you probably assumed that this was the last I would see of Circus Boy's sorry arse, apart from a minor sighting during Carnival when I wasn't sure if he was ignoring me or hadn't seen me, and a 'from-the-car' sighting when he raised his arm to wave, then pulled it down again quickly as I stared stonily in the opposite direction.

Really, we should all have realised that he was bound to turn up sooner or later when he wanted something - and so he did, one Thursday in the school summer holidays. As usual, I was looking a bit less than lovely, this time wearing a round necked t-shirt. Round-necked T-shirts always make me look like Hattie Jacques - all low-slung boobs and excessive flabbage.

I heard a knock on the door and answered it thinking that it was someone wanting to discuss the state of my fascias and guttering. You can imagine how it felt - that awkward moment when you come face to face with the person whose texts and calls you have been avoiding since February. Except after Feb I don't think he texted or called anyway, he's not as unbalanced as Steve (though this is no great compliment).

We said hello, and I invited him in and gave him a cup of tea out of sheer confusion. Son was in and made a small deal about pretty much ignoring him. After a little small talk, I said, 'so what are you doing here; what do you want?'

'Nothing, I was just passing, so I thought I'd pop in and say hello.'

'Oh. Only I haven't seen you since that night just before the charity unicycle....'

'Oh yes, I wanted to tell you about that too - I did it, and it's on YouTube, so you can look it up and make sure I did do it....' and he went on to tell me in great detail all about it and the charities. It's true, checked it out after he left.

However - maybe I'm being picky, but by this time it was August, and the unicycle ride was February. Had he lost the use of his mouth for the whole of that time?

I did manage to get distracted by his tales of his new girlfriend, and here we had perhaps the reason why he had turned up. He was wondering did I need a haircut? Because she cuts hair, and he thinks she should build her confidence by cutting hair for people he knows. This isn't actually a bad thing, because I never go to the hairdresser's, and the answer to 'do you need a haircut?' in my case is invariably 'yes'. But I was wary of agreeing to anything, as I can just imagine Circus Boy with his girlfriend - 'oooh, yes, you should cut people's hair more... <remembers erstwhile fling he met last summer, the day after she had gonked her hair>...In fact, I know just the person - and it won't even matter if you completely mess it up, her hair looks utter shite anyway!' So I said I'd call him if I decided I did need a haircut. Instantaneously realising this was never going to happen.

But lucky me, he gave me two of his cards, because he has a business renting out sound systems, and was telling me about how he now has a van and a car, courtesy of his dad. So if anyone ever needs a sound-system.....

Finally he was telling me about how his girlfriend goes to a local pub (that he is unfortunately barred from) every Thursday. And then, at last, he asked about me - but I'd just got as far as talking about my spiritual awareness group that is a couple of doors down from him, and he lost interest, mostly because he thinks the group leader had complained about his music being too loud once. Not that this was a bad thing, but it meant he decided right then and there to go and have a chat to her about the group and general spiritual things.

And that was that, off he went. Well, I did kind of encourage him to go to see her before 9pm, because he is far too much trouble: he was giving me that searching look that is a bit sexy but kind of freaks me out, and I think he is not actually my friend, I think he is after something.

Once he'd left, I asked Son, 'well, I wonder what that was all about?'

'He wanted sex.'

I wasn't so sure. So I took to Facebook to ask what people thought he had wanted. 'Oh Karen, what do you THINK he wanted?' was the consensus.

In retrospect, I think that's right. I think it was Thursday, and his girlfriend was busy, so he thought he'd chance his arm. The Hattie Jacques t-shirt is probably all that saved me from a more obvious proposition - oh, and the ever-present and distinctly unimpressed Son of course.

Since then, no more Circus Boy. Is that the end of that? I suspect so. Until his girlfriend turns crazy. They always turn crazy on him (according to him). I wonder......

Ending The Insanity - Sort Of

So at some point last month I completed Insanity. I ended with more of a whimper than a bang though. First I went on holiday again and so I missed a few days, and then I got slightly ill - nothing serious, in fact I was able to exercise a couple of days, but I knew I wasn't at full form. So I actually didn't even do the final fit test, which part of me felt was a bit of a cop-out (especially as Eve posted her final results especially for me on Twitter!), but the larger part of me thought would be silly to do as I wasn't fully functioning, so what would I rally be testing?

The strange thing is, Insanity had become so much a part of my life that there was more a feeling of emptiness than of completion. I knew that I would no longer have that daily routine of working out to an exhaustion high. No longer would I have that daily sensation of sweating from every pore in my body - I mean, I've had sweat run down my back before when working out, and I've even had sweat run down my legs - and with Insanity during the summer, sweat dropping off my nose wasn't unusual - but sweat running in little rivulets down my FOREARMS??!! That was new in the last month of Insanity.

BUT - I knew I had to do something different to another round of Insanity. Whilst my cardio capability has gone through the roof with it, I was well aware that my legs and arms had lost strength. I also found that I was gaining weight rather than losing it - and not only because I was constantly starving hungry, because I'm actually pretty good at ignoring hunger if I have the motivation. I think it's just something about my body - it needs muscle to burn fat or something, and too much cardio sends it fatty. It sounds mad, but I think it is true!

So I've started using P90X, another Beachbody programme. I began by following a hybrid routine of P90X and Insanity that I found on the Beachbody website, but I found I preferred to mix it up my own way. What I do currently is alternate P90X and Insanity during the week, roughly following the hybrid programme, but doing one more 'normal' Insanity and missing out the cardio recovery/X-Stretch - then at the weekend I usually have more time so I do P90X Kenpo or Plyo, then cardio recovery or  X-Stretch or Yoga-X. And I usually have one or two days off exercise a week.

After Insanity, P90X actually seems really slow on the weight workouts, so I have printed out the routines and once I've run through them with the DVD once, I just do the routines myself watching Corrie or whatever, and do it way more continuously - no pausing or hanging around. Even so, the weight routines and abs take about an hour to get through. I'm already feeling the benefit, feel stronger again, can see more definition on my triceps and on my shoulders - the guy has even the women doing chin-ups etc. Not that I can do even one full chin-up or pull-up, I have to use a chair, but that is my new goal - I WILL be able to do a chin-up by the end of this!

I've also found that I'm not losing my cardio ability - I was initially shocked at how much easier the Insanity workouts were the second time through. I really did think the second month's workouts were easier than the firsts, and yet coming back to those first month workouts, I was much better able to do them this time around. And I'm still improving. So I'm thinking I'll do the final fit test at the end of this P90X/Insanity hybrid to see if I've continued to get fitter - because although I was aiming at maintaining fitness, I can see that there are places to improve strength, and maybe that will improve my cardio performance too?

As for Insanity - I cannot recommend the programme enough. Not as a first step into fitness, but as a follow-on to something like Jillian Michaels it is perfect. It is a lot of money, but if you compare it to a gym membership - well, I was a gym member, and despite being 13 years younger and spending two hours in the gym daily doing various classes and using the machines, I was not as fit as I am now. Insanity did that, and for me that makes it a BARGAIN.

So that's where I'm at right now with my fitness. Feeling really good. And only slightly obsessed :-)