A Delightful Fella

 Heading home with this fella is alway a pleasure: 

Weight Loss - Job Done!

I set myself a weight loss challenge around New Year to lose 3 stone. At the time, I weighed in at 13 stone 13 lb. Here is a pic of what I looked like around that time:

Chubby Me

Whilst my diet proceeded exceedingly well, with my weight dropping to the 11 stone 1lb mark by May, that last 2lb of fat I needed to lose to reach my goal was as stubborn as hell to shift.

This morning, however, the scales were very kind to me and clocked me in at 10 stone 13lb. 

Here is a pic of me in the London Dungeons from last weekend, which shows my weight loss rather graphically:

Job done. 🙂

Anxiety Dreams

Whilst things have been going well in my day life lately, my dreams seem determined to balance things out by streaming all kinds of anxiety-provoking scenarios  to ruin my nights.

Yesterday was stressful. Editing videos with a new piece of software and trying to format Avalon 2 ready for publication has been a royal pain in the bum. Grrrrr...

Good newscin my office job though. Hybrid home working has finally been accepted for our department. Its on a 40/60 split though, which equates to x2 days a week working from home and x3 days working at the office, but its a big step in the right direction for as I am really struggling having to go in for five day stretches each week, and my annual leave can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And it doesn't renew until next March!

Anyway, I will close this post with a pic of something that caught my eye as soon as I woke up this morning:

The Son of the Werewolf by Guy N Smith (2)

continuing from this previous post, here is the book, featuring an introduction from yours truly, in the flesh - so to speak:

✍️

Ghost Story 2 Update

I took the opportunity of working on my second ghost story whilst on the train to London. As well as adding to the word count, I have also decided that the story works better as a single scene story, rather than the original 3-scene plot I originally envisioned it being. Best not to over complicate a simple idea, me thinks...

Solo London Journey To See My Firstborn

I took the train down to London yesterday to spend the day with my daughter and her fiance. 

We all had a fantastic day, having a good old nose around the Sea Aquarium and an impromptu, but exhilarating visit to The London Dungeons. Unfortunately, no photos or videos are allowed in the latter, but here are some pics and vids of some of my favourite bids from the London Sea Aquarium:

pIc taken of yours truly
by my daughter

The London Dungeons was a thoroughly enjoying experience. It was more of an immersive drama than a display and were full of jump-scares, disgusting fluids squirting towards and onto you, or in the case of the old woman emptying her pee pot from her bedroom window, thrown at you. The numerous, suitably garbed, actors all deserve the highest praise, as does the set maker. The tour through London's dark history places you in the world of Guy Fawkes'  horrific tortures, the Bubonic Plague, persecuted witches (probably my particular highlight), Jack the Ripper. We then made our way through the best mirror maze I have ever seen, to your death sentence at the end of a rope. A note of warning on this final event, it is physically as well as scary and certainly not suitable for people who do not like hair-raising fun fair rides as you literally experience the plunge to death of the condemned. 

Afterwards, as I forced my stomach back from my mouth, we were led into an olde worldly pub where visitors can partake of refreshments before heading back into the sunshine with the feeling of being born again.

From there, I took some tourist shots as we made our way through the London crows by Buckingham Palace before saying our teary farewells.

Then it was back on the train to Swansea for yours truly.

Son of the Werewolf by Guy N Smith

I'm am so thrilled it's hard to even put my excitement into words. Even though I have wanted to be a writer since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I never once imagined when, as a teenager, reading this book by my favourite author, that when it was next re-issued, it would  feature an introduction written by me!

I am a very proud man tonight and am as pleased as Punch that the book in question was published today. I am even credited on the Amazon page, should you with to take a look. 

And, adding the icing to my slice of cake, who wouldn't be happy when they are described like this when news of the publication broke on the Guy N Smith Appreciation Group:

Go on, grab a copy of the book. You know you want to lol.