Showing posts with label Denton Burn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denton Burn. Show all posts

Thursday 4 May 2017

So Much For May Songs

Games For May - 1967

I was going to post a tune a day in May but I thing two songs in four days has scuppered that idea, although I will maintain the May theme if I can, and today's will be "See Emily Play" by Pink Floyd which features the line "Games For May" the titles of summer events Pink Floyd were involved in around 1967.

This week has been a little fraught to say the least, starting the Million Step Challenge then my Samsung Note becoming unreliable, replacing it with a Huawei P8 that wouldn't run the Barclays banking app (this has been the situation since January with no resolution in sight. Huawei blamed Barclays, Barclays pretend nothing is wrong much like Apple. EE gave me a refund on condition I bought another phone. I pointed out it wasn't actually fit for purpose and they replied "we just sell the phones"


Anyway I ended up with a Sony Xperia XA which was much cheaper and isn't too bad, apart from slow start up. I'm also worried it is not recording my steps properly . What I was sure was 4K steps recorded on the Samsung (home to Denton Burn) was recorded as less than 2K steps. Tomorrow I will walk to the Post Office Depot to pick something up and that should be about 2.2K . If it's less I will know I have a problem.

Anyway if I post another May Song tonight I could be back up to speed tonight, though I am feeling very tired.

So that;s what's happened this week so far, I'm sure it's not finished yet.

Sunday 30 April 2017

The First of A Million Steps


Tomorrow is May Day, The first of May and tomorrow I embark on a Million Step Challenge. That's a million steps in three months taking me through to the end of July. To do this I need to average 11.5K steps a day, so that's nearly two hours a day walking.  That is not a major challenge really apart from the fact that today I ran for a bus and have pulled a muscle possibly , somewhere round my hip region. If I don't move , it doesn't hurt, but to continue the step challenge , I have to move (obviously). I have 4K steps to complete today to do my first month in years of more than 10K a day , and hopefully hit the average that I will need to maintain over the next three months.

I know I don't HAVE to do this, but I want to do this. Today I managed my ten thousand steps, but intended to do the last four thousand downhill past Hadrian's Wall and through Denton Burn. That all went well but I intended to get the bus back , but that didn't turn up. Twenty minutes after it should have been there I started walking back ... and then it flies past me. If I was paranoid I'd think the bus driver was waiting for me to set off. The major thing is I got the steps done, and I am in a good position to start the Million Step Challenge.

The other thing is my phone is playing up and that is what I use to measure my steps. I have a feeling the problem is the battery, but the replacement battery doesn't seem to work at all, so hopefully that will get resolved soon.

Sorry if all this seem negative and mundane, you know I don't like to be either of those, but tomorrow is a good way to start the week , with a day not going to work , because it's the May Day Bank Holiday.

I'll leave you with the excellent "Genesis" by Grimes, which I haven't heard for a while but when I first heard it, I went out and bought the album. Take a listen and enjoy my friends. Then for some reason on the same page, one of my favourite singers Peter Gabriel covering the song that got me into Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood" . I'm not sure if this is available on an album (it is here), but check it out and then check out the original (on "Swordfishtrombones")

Right , it's Sunday, the weather is beautiful, go out and enjoy yourself.


Saturday 15 December 2012

Potatoes Eggs and HMV

The Potato and Egg Shop
It's over ten years since I moved into my current address and at the time I noticed a shop called "The Potato and Egg" shop. I always wanted to visit it just to see what was in there and about a month back when I picked up a hire car I stopped to have a look.

The shop does what it says on the front . It sells potatoes and eggs . Nothing else . Potatoes generally come in 25 Kg bags ranging in price from £9 - £15  , providing excellent quality products and more that reasonabl prices. The lady who runs it tells me she's been doing this for over thirty years.



This may seem a surreal post and hardly related to what I normally write about but we really need to support outr local shops otherise it will just be a Tesco Extra or Sainsburys Local , probably leaching money from the economy by tax avoidance.



Lots of quality Potatoes
The proprietor is an extremely helpful lady and I so prefer this sort of shop to the massive supermarkets.

And it got me thinking , that this shop is successful in providing two basic food staples and has been since the last century . I feel slightly guilty that I havent visited before now and must admit that carting a four stone bag of potatoes home on the bus was not exactly easy , but it does mean I don't have to buty potatoes for two or three months.

And Theres More
If you live in the West End of Newcastle I would recommend that you check this shop out if you use potatoes or eggs in your cooking . It's open 9 til about 4 all days bar Sunday and longer during the week.



Compare this with HMV , a music shop , who  now dedicate most of their floor space to iPod docks. The one I visited in Harrogate recently had relegated CDs to a far corner, this is a company who have lost their way. The Potato and Egg Shop hasnt !.