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I’ve not been getting many shifts at work. The last few weeks have been 2 shifts, 1 shift, 2 shifts. I think Wendy is getting worried about the money situation so I had a look for another job. I wasn’t expecting to find one, but I may have landed a beauty. The agency advertised it as £24.95 an hour, full time, permanent. Hmmm. Agencies. They said it was for a parcel distribution company and gave a postcode. I googled it, it’s a Yodel RDC, 2 stops away down the M62. I applied on Saturday, they rang me back today (Monday) and sent me an application pack email, which I’ve filled in and returned. They said they could get me an assessment for Wednesday, start work on Thursday. It’s 4 on, 4 off, 04.00 or 06.00 starts, doing a straight run to Glasgow and back. Around 12 hour shifts. Apart from the start times that’s about ideal. The driving involved with my current job is so tough, it feels like you are an inch from a crash at most drops. This is straight trunking. I’d know the route by the end of the first week, then just tootle up and back every day. I’ve just looked, Yodel, Glasgow looks to be less than a mile from junction 5 of the M74. So M62, on to the M6, carry on until it turns into the M74, come off at junction 5 and you’re there. Hard to make it easier. The email pack has already made it sound like dodgy agency stuff. The email says the hourly rate is £18.54 for days. For nights it’s £22.25. He said on the ‘phone that there was a seasonal uplift in operation, so perhaps that makes nights £24 odd. Another thing is it says there is a 13 week period before you hit pay parity, which is what the email wages are supposed to be showing. Dodgy, dodgy agency stuff. I’ve just emailed for clarification. As I was asking about it, it occurred to me I’d better check something else. There’s a growing tendency for agencies to advertise the job £p/h, then slip in later that that rate includes holiday pay. So this £24.95 job could be £18.54 (after 3 months) minus £2 p/h holiday pay. If it’s less than that for the 3 months, it could be a £14 or £15 per hour job, in real terms. And overtime rate only kicks in after the 3 months, then it will be £27 p/h for over 40 hours. Roughing up the figures to see if this would be worth it. A whole lot of ‘if’ coming off the workings out, but IF it is £18.54, PAYE, holidays separate, and IF it’s 12 hours a day, and IF I can get all the shifts I want, that would be 40k for 4 on 4 off. Or, if I was to do 5 on one week, 4 the next, around £56k. The latter would definitely be worth doing. […]

Well, what do you know? The Muay Thai guy didn’t want me training yesterday due to my tachycardia. He said I should see the doctor. I explained I’d already tried twice and got nowhere, the last one saying it was nothing to worry about. He wasn’t having it. I was a sad bunny. Not just because I’d started that club, but because I was worried all the clubs might react the same. In which case I can’t prepare for the fash. And I have to live in fear. Bad, bad, bad. I rang the doctors this morning. Our doctors is basically an overpriced triage centre now. I don’t think they have actual doctors there any more, just those fake ones. If you can get an appointment at all. I rang at dead on 08.00, when the ‘phone lines open and was third in the queue. I was quickly answered and they referred me to Guardian Street medical centre (in town) for 09.15, to see a real doctor! Unheard of! I was suspicious and waiting for the other shoe to drop. I got there and it was a young man who was indeed a real doctor. He took it all very seriously. He took my pulse (healthy slow) blood pressure (ideal) and listened to my heart (all good). I have recent bloods on record so he checked them and said they are all fine as well. He said he’s book me in with my surgery for a baseline ECG and write to Warrington hospital to have them fit me with a heart rate monitor for 24 hours. The ideal is to have a normal reading first, then try and catch an episode over the 24 hour period. That should be simple enough. Neck a cup of coffee then do a one mile, flat out, sprint. That should trigger it. An hour or so later I got a text, I’m booked in for the baseline ECG on Saturday! The doctor said it sounds like SVT (supraventricular tachycardia), the NHS website says they can control it with drugs, electric shocks or cure it completely by sticking a wire up your vein and burning out the faulty bit of the heart. I am going to be pushing hard for the latter. I had honestly resigned myself to enduring this for the rest of my life. Now I’m hoping they are going to fix me. It would be so great! It goes to show how far the NHS (GPs service) has been destroyed that this seems almost unbelievably good treatment. Anyway, if I can get properly fixed, the training is back on and I stand a much better chance at cracking sub 3 for the marathon if I don’t lose minutes to tachycardia every time I go out fast. I so hope this works out. And quickly.

I have really got my head around this Muay Thai thing. Book in advance, then you have to go, ready to go all in, first belt in December, black belt in 3 years. I have got over my resistance to going. I managed to talk myself around from real aversion to going, to nervous excitement tonight. It’s a brutal, real, martial art. I want it! I went tonight for my third lesson. I possibly went too hard in the pre-session warm-up, but 10 minutes into the class I had tachycardia. In retrospect, I think I freaked the guy out by going head down, arse up, on the mat. It probably looked like I was keeling over, but that seems to be the quickest way to settle the damn thing down. I got it to settle and wanted to carry on, but the guy wouldn’t let me. He refunded me the lesson and said to go an rest for 24 hours. I’ve got to ring the doctors in the morning and him at night. I think he’s not going to let me train until I get it sorted. That could take years. I’ll find out tomorrow, but that might be that for that club. I stupidly committed and bought the basic club kit package, which is £175 of (mostly) club-specific kit. So that’s lovely. There is another Muay Thai club in Warrington. If this one has binned me off I’ll ring them, explain the situation, and see if they’ll let me train. If not, maybe try some other martial art. If not, keep up the punching and kicking drills, the press-ups, sit-ups, and skipping. Owt’s better than nowt. The other thing is I’m going a bit mad obsessing over a Yamaha Tracer 900. I think I’m going to up my shifts and try and save up for one. Especially if I can’t do martial arts. Stupid heart sucks.

I went to the Muay Thai class today. New things are always a stressful time. This was newer than most. It is completely unlike any martial art I’ve ever done. I think it must be like boxing. I did the usual stretches and warm up, then the instructor had me do a jab, a left/ right combination, knee strike and a pushing front kick. Then it was timed intervals against someone with pads calling out each move and moving around, so I was constantly moving and having to punch, kick, and knee. The few minute (I wasn’t wearing a watch obvs, and there is no clock in the gym) intervals were exhausting. There were an even number of fighters there and me, so they had me do one interval while someone sat it out, then I’d cycle for an interval, then back fighting again. I can see why MT is so effective. It’s actual fight training from lesson one. No disrespect to the other martial arts I’ve done, the black belts are all scary, but in my experience it takes ages for the lesson to work as a fighting system. You go to the dojo, warm up, do a kata, then do specific drills each week. The trouble is it’s a different drill each week. For a noob it’s confusing and you don’t retain much beyond the basic principles of the moves. And you do a bit of light sparring every now and then. Eventually it all must gel. I swear down though, in that one session today I must have thrown more punches than in 18 months of Taekwondo. That is what makes it such a real world fighting system. If you repeat a move often enough it becomes muscle memory. And the fitness needed is extraordinary. I have high hopes for this one. It’s a great beasting, (which I enjoy) it’s tons of repetition of real world skills, and the training is all real. You don’t have to wait for it to make sense. Also they seem to ask for bookings in advance, which plays to the strategy I employed for the swim sessions: book it the night before, when it’s future-me’s problem, then I have to go. And curse past-me’s betrayal. I never missed a booked swim. Also there were only 6 men and 2 women there today. That’s not a overwhelming mass of people who’s names I’ll never remember. I’ve already got the names of the main bloke, the instructor and one, possibly another 2, of the fighters. This is all do-able. They reckon that it takes 3 years to get to black belt. That’s not so bad. I’m officially adding it to my life goals. Knee-down, sub 3, LEJOG, black belt. It is something I’ve wanted all my life. Well, for as long as I’ve known what it was. I could be 3 years away from achieving it. Perhaps that would even be something I could feel proud about. Apart from the cost (£12.50 a […]

That simple idea I had to line the shed. Bloody hell, what a pain. So far I’ve put the clear plastic tarpaulin up on the window side and lined the ceiling with heat retention foil and bubble wrap. It’s taken me 2 days. I still need to fit the tarpaulin over the insulation on the ceiling. It’s a full-on pain. It doesn’t help that my staple gun is totally temperamental and only works every few goes. To do the ceiling and the other walls I’m going to have to cut the tarpaulin to size in sections. It’s been blowing a gale so that’s not happening. Then I’ve got to take of all the tools I’ve hung on nails on the end wall, move the racking out of the way, and have at it. It’s going to be a nightmare. Also the Harley is still in the shed, so that’s less than ideal. I got a new tool chest and put that in the shed. Then had a clear out. I’ve brought my tri bike indoors and put my touring bike out behind the shed. I’ve covered it over with the two motorbike covers that were also taking up room in the shed. Then put some plastic roofing sheets over that. It should be pretty dry and snug. I don’t know why I get these sudden enthusiasms. And why I didn’t foresee this project was sure to be a hiding to nothing. Ho hum. It will be better. At the moment everything is stapled in place, but when I’ve got it all up I think I’ll screw down some thin slats of wood over the length of the edges. The Harley hasn’t progressed. I’ve still to suss the rear indicator. I’m waiting for the Chinese LED one’s to arrive then I’ll make a proper job of it. I’ll whip the back wheel off to get access to the indicator wiring under the mudguard. I was about to say I’ll spray the back wheel, which I will, but it strikes me if I’ve got the wheel and the indicators off, this will be a perfect time to take the rear mudguard off and respray it. Still no word from the army about my pension, so the 900 Tracer is burning behind my eyes, like the One Ring. Meh. I’m not great at delayed gratification. I’ve had two good bits of training the last two days. Yesterday I went out for a bog-standard 8 mile run, did a pretty nippy 7.50 first mile, then a 7.39 second mile, so decided to go for a fast progressive run. I made every mile faster until mile 7, which was flat out at 6.41, I couldn’t keep up that pace so I called it quits at that and jogged back with a 8.07 last mile. I uploaded it to Smashrun and they said it was PB for 8 miles runs, of which I have done many, many, many. It’s probably not a good thing, the 8 […]