A Photo an Hour (ish) – 24th June 2019

Back in 2016, I started taking a photo an hour at the end of June. The 23rd in 2016 and 2017 and then the 24th in 2018, because I forgot about it until Timehop reminded me the day after. Which is exactly what I did this year

I also failed to take a photo an hour, and they’re all taken on my phone so they’re not exactly fancy, but for me they’re a bit like a digital time capsule of my life, so here we go!

7am

I actually got up at 6:30am as the Pugs insisted it was breakfast time. I fed them, made coffee, and by 7am was back upstairs drinking coffee in bed and checking my emails on my phone.

The Pugs had returned to snoozy state, this is Peppa, do you have any idea how difficult it is to get up in the morning and do things when dogs this cute wan’t to sleep on you?

8am

I have 2 clients at the gym this morning, the first one at 8:30am, so at 8am I start walking.

I am wearing my green Fabletics leggings, I am very pleased with how well the green matches my green trainers. I am even more pleased when my second client also notices the co-ordination.

At 8am it is warm and muggy already.

9am

My first client session overruns slightly, as it always does as I am terrible at keeping to time.

Here is a photo of a bosu ball and some dumbbells to illustrate that I am at the gym.

10am

With my next client we are working on strength, and specifically push-ups. Push-ups are hard. We do variations on them such as box push-ups, elevated push-ups and adding resistance with bands as well as accessory work like bench press and cable presses.

Not all in one day, I hasten to add.

Hey guys, y’know, while you’re here, if you are interested in Personal Training sessions with me then check out my new Personal Trainer website and send me a message……

11am

Once my client sessions are finished I do a short workout of my own. Only 30 minutes, focusing on arms and core work today.

Arm stuff is tough as I have injured my shoulder, so I go a little easy.

This exercise is an overhead plate hold. Just choose a challenging weight and hold it overhead for 30 seconds. It’s surprisingly hard to keep your arms straight and your core stable, that is why I look so serious.

12pm

I get home from the gym just after 12pm and Peppa greets me by rolling over and insisting she gets belly rubs.

Waldo acknowledges my presence by opening one eye and twitching his ear.

1pm

Meal prep time!

I prep my lunches for the next few days, and today.

At the moment I eat vegetarian approximately 90% of the time, my planned meals are almost always vegetarian and I eat meat and fish mostly when I’m out and about, or sometimes when there is some on the reduced shelf in the supermarket as my brain feels like I am saving it from the bin.

There is no huge ethical lifestyle change in this, I just wanted to make the effort to eat less meat for many reasons, but I’m not ready to give it up completely.

This weeks lunch is a greek salad type thing with cucumber, red onion, black olives, feta cheese and cherry tomatoes, it was going to be with quinoa, but apparently I don’t have any, so it’s with cous cous instead. I make a dressing with olive oil, white wine vinegar and dijon mustard and it’s delicious.

I mix it all together by putting the lid on the boxes and giving them a good shake, except on one of them I don’t press the lid down properly and end up with cous cous all over the floor, kitchen surfaces and front of my washing machine.

Peppa and Waldo come and help me clean up.

2pm

By 2pm I am working on my laptop. Mondays are a busy day for me work wise as I have a lot of client work that needs completing. Some weeks it only takes 3 hours, other weeks it takes 5 or more and I never know how long it will take until I start.

As I’ve been out all morning I am hoping this will be a 3 hour day.

3pm

Mr LLL comes home and brings scones. So I make coffee and have a scone as an afternoon snack.

I have my coffee in my comedy mug because it makes me smile even though a) It’s not tea I’m drinking and b) It’s a really terrible cheesy mug along the lines of those signs about having a messy house.

Also pictured on my mantelpiece here are 2 small unicorn gifts I got at Roller Derby when we played pass the parcel (long story), a tiny glass Pug we bought in Venice, the edge of the incense burner my friend bought me for my birthday and a piece of flint I picked up on a walk.

4pm and 5pm

I completely forgot to take photos, but that’s ok, because it turns out this is a 5 hour kind of a day and all I did was sit at my laptop and work.

A noteworthy thing that happened during this time that I wouldn’t have photographed anyway was an Hermes courier turning up to collect a parcel that I have planned to return, but actually hadn’t booked a collection for so wasn’t quite ready.

It was weird and spooky.

I also fed the Pugs their tea as they were looking at me funny. Like they were trying to work out if I was tasty.

6pm

At about 6:45 I finish work and decide it might be cool enough to walk the dogs. Mr LLL cooks for a soup kitchen on Monday nights so I walk the Pugs alone, we kept it short because it was still stupidly hot and humid.

I forgot to take photos again, but here is a photo from another day we went for a walk, they all look the same anyway….

7pm

When we get home we are all very hot so we move the fan right in front of the sofa and sit in front of it to cool down.

We also make sure we drink plenty of water like sensible Pugs and People.

8pm

I cook dinner. It is Salmon (bought from the reduced shelf like I mentioned earlier). I use a Gousto 10-minute meals recipe (this one), except I bought all the ingredients myself and cooked my own rice instead of using microwave packet rice.

It is tasty and easy and looks fancy. It’s also really healthy, so I cancel that out by having a glass of wine with it because it’s been a long day and I am in a grumpy mood.

9pm

We settle down to watch some TV. We are currently watching Glow Up on BBC iPlayer. If you haven’t watched it, it’s like Bake Off for Make Up Artists, it’s surprisingly fun even though some of them are kind of irritating.

I decide it’s to change the smell in my Scentsy warmer that I got for Christmas. I choose “Just Breathe” which is refreshing for the stupidly hot weather.

10pm

Peppa sometimes does this weird thing where she licks the air. I think she does it because she has wind, and sometimes taking her for a little walk around the garden settles it down.

As it’s so warm we take our drinks outside and sit for a little while. It it is too dark to take photos of the garden on my phone without flash. I am too lazy to get my proper camera, so instead I take a close up photo of the pineapple lights that live in the garden. They are strung among the grape vines we have and look really pretty.

Waldo sits quietly on the bench with us while Peppa barks at birds and runs around.

When we go inside she has stopped licking the air.

11pm

Just after 11pm we make hot chocolates and go to bed.

The Pugs sleep on the sofa until normally somewhere around 3am they wake up and realise we’re gone and decide they want to come upstairs.

At night I take a blood pressure tablet, a tablet for my asthma and a 5-Htp tablet which is good for sleep, and also helps with anxiety.

Lights are out by midnight, my Fitbit insists that I didn’t go to sleep until gone 1am, but this definitely not true.

And that was how my day looked on the 24th June 2019.