one man blogs

It’s not easy being green

2012-05-22T10:09:40Z

Last year I flew to America (visiting Boston and Chicago) and this year I’ll be flying to London (twice) and to Singapore later in the year. I’m travelling much more than I used to so I guess it’s only natural that I’m pondering how to rebalance my carbon emissions.

This definitely played into my decision making when I recently changed cars and whilst it wasn’t my main focus, I was pleased to get a hybrid engined car (petrol/battery). It’s also a nice side-effect of getting fit and cycling to work now and then (not as often as I should mind you) that I don’t run my car as often either.

However, to properly rebalance things I need to do more. Recycling at home is one thing but given the air miles I’m clocking up I’ve been looking at other options.

On the face of it, it looks quite straightforward, carbon offsetting through something like carbon credits seems to be the right thing to do but, as ever, when you start to dig a little into the motivations behind some of these things and part of me does agree that all I’m really doing is ‘buying absolution’.

So what to do? Stop flying to far away places? Having not travelled much beyond Europe until recently (one trip to San Franscisco 11 years ago this feels a little bit harsh but no, I’m not suggesting I’m in ‘carbon credit’ already. Perhaps the bike thing is what to focus on first and foremost?

Anyone else got any ideas/suggestions/thoughts?

Back from Tunisia

2012-05-11T10:45:41Z

We did done a holiday!

We had a few simple criteria for our holiday. It needed to be under £500 each, it needed to be somewhere hot and sunny, and ideally it needed to be all inclusive.

After various online searches, we had it narrowed down to a week in Cyprus, or a week in Tunisia. Icelolly.com helped keep the price to just under £400 pp and we ended up picking Tunisia as it was a bit different (and Kirsty has been to Cyprus before).

It’s safe to say we lucked out and had a fantastic holiday!

We stayed at a hotel that was built in the 1970s, built in the style of an old Medina, mostly two stories tall and sprawling over the area of a small town, it was Tunisian to the core. Driving past other hotels in the area (Yasminne Hammamet) and I have to admit it was nice to be in one of larger hotels (the more typical Costa del Sol style, 6-8 floors with boxy rooms).

The room upgrade helped too, of course.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Tunisian but I’d heard good things about the country and the people. I wasn’t proven wrong. The Tunisian people were friendly and, with a few words of faltering Arabic, always ready to help with a smile and a laugh.

The hotel itself was great, the staff efficient and an enthusiastic ‘animation’ team meant there were plenty of activiteis for us… to largely ignore (we did a bit of archery but our focus was to be lazy!), the food was great and well enough varied that you never got bored, and the sun did it’s bit and for the most part shone brightly, keeping things at toasty 28C or so (we think we topped 30C one of the days).

I ate camel steak, bartered in the souk (and no doubt still got ripped off), visited Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, had a wonderful Turkish Bath and massage, and did a whole lot of lazing around and chilling out.

In fact the only negatives were the security queues at the Enfidha airport, but such is life.

I’m back home now, feeling properly relaxed and upbeat, with a reasonable tan (we were only there for 7 days) and a desire to go back again. The resort itself is very similar to Andalucia, there is a Moorish influence to be found, and a similar climate. Learn a few basic Arabic phrases and don’t get put off by the sellers in the souk, it’s part of the fun to chat with them and avoid getting dragged into their stores ‘just for a look’.

I’d happily, highly, recommend it for a sunshine break. Yes, it was a package holiday, but with excellent customer service, it really did feel like we got a lot of value for our money.

Some of our memories of Tunisia.

Not stopping…

2012-04-13T14:59:46Z

But thought I’d say hello.

Gosh, quite a lot has happened in the past, what, 10 days.. hang on, IS THAT ALL? Blimey.

So, I bought a new car. It’s blue (Horizon Turquoise Blue to you). It’s a hybrid. It has a few nice gadgets. It’s quite small. It’s rather bloody lovely and looks like this:

Honda CRZ.

That website is about to get switched on so I will have a fair bit less stress and will finally be able to build my Lego Space Shuttle (my promise to myself for getting it launched… see what I did there…).

I’ve lost some more weight.

Then put some of it back on.

Then lost some more. The trend is still downwards but I also ended up on antibiotics so I’m not disheartened. Determined still!

I have also toyed with writing up my own inner thoughts as I continue to battle to lose weight, largely prompted by reading The Skinny Conspiracy which, if you battle with your weight, or an eating disorder, or just generally struggle with your own body image, then you might want to give it a read.

Ohh yeah, and one of several PPI claims came back with a settlement figure that was a VERY nice surprise (five figures nice!). So my ex-wife and I get a nice wee pot of cash. Smiles all round for that one.

Anyway, can’t stop. Website to launch and need to read up on my holiday.

Oh yeah… off to Tunisia at the start of May… didn’t I mention that?

Back on the bike

2012-04-03T11:41:08Z

April?

APRIL!

What the…

How does this happen?!

Anyway, life continues apace (it seems). Holidays are being booked, cars being pondered, and still in the background a website remains unfinished. Must. Get. It. Done.

Weight continues to fluctuate, the last two weeks I’ve been ill (again) and as the course of antibiotics finishes I’m getting back on track, and back on my bike. Need to get rid of 5kg ASAP!

I know I work best when I have a goal so my first is a 50-mile pootle along the Forth & Clyde canal on the 20th May. Plan is to cycle to work a few times, and hopefully fit in a couple of weekend cycles from Glasgow to Balloch as well to get my legs moving. Add in a few games of basketball, the occasional game of badminton and I should be back on track in no time.

On ink and needles

2012-03-22T10:44:00Z

I have four tattoos at the moment and I’m scheduled in to get my 5th, and largest, on Wednesday. What would be my sixth just needs a design… and there may be a seventh starting to wander around in my head too; it’s fair to say it can be quite addictive.

Number 6 will also be a cover up of the second tattoo I got about 20 years ago. Back then it was, if I’m honest, more for shock value and the desire to be different and so I wasn’t really thinking about it terms of design or meaning, just something that (at the time) I thought looked ok.

I’ve been lucky in finding, via a recommendation, an excellent tattoo studio that only does custom work. They don’t have flash art on the walls, there are no Yosemite Sam tattoos available, so there is already a sense of something a bit more thoughtful. Any time I’ve been in there whilst other people are talking through a design, it’s usual based on some personal reason, even if that’s just a ‘I like this style of tattoo because’.

Bar my first two tattoos, the first I got when I was 18, the second when I was 19, the others all have some meaning.

Number three, my ampersand, I’ve discussed here already.

Number four was to mark the start of a new ‘life’ and driven largely by my divorce and a desire to re-learn who I am (again, discussed here).

Number five is part of that continued learning and discovery process. It is loosely based on a shape that ‘represents the nature of experience and the intricacies of both the enlightened and confused mind, or “a microcosm representing various divine powers at work in the universe’ with the inner design symbolising the ‘different stages in the process of the realisation of the truth’.

Photos will follow, of course, and I’m properly excited to get this one done!

Number six… well it will be Japanese themed, a style I love and which is definitely influenced by growing up admiring a print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and two embroideries that my Mum did of Japanese Geisha (must get a photo of those!). It’s likely to be a bigger piece again so I might need to save the pennies before getting that one!

Update: Here it is.