Only 12 more days until my birthday now I’m going out for drinks on the Thursday of next week, then heading out for a meal on the Friday evening, driving up north to see family Friday evening and then a meal out with family on the Saturday – so I’m certainly getting my times worth for my birthday this year (it would appear ). I’ll be taking a lot of pictures on the different days and will upload them to the website (especially since uploading to the website is a built in feature of my phone now). Looking forward to everything at the moment though – I’ll have to make sure not to go too mad with any of the days however as I dont want to undo all of the hard work I’ve put into dieting so far. I’ve lost a whole BMI point since I started checking my measurements (which wasnt at the start of the diet) and have lost around 1st in weight since that time too, so all in all I think it is going rather well I am getting the occasional craving (usually for creamy items – like Mac&Cheese – which I don’t even usually eat – and Spagetti Carbonara) but they aren’t especially powerful cravings so I’m not finding it too bad keeping away from them. I’m also happy to have found (a while ago) that the ‘Zero’ versions of soft drinks are allowed in the diet too. I always used to drink zero anyway so I really like the flavours and they almost add in a dessert/treats feel to the diet without actually adding on a load of calories.

Sarah and I have signed up for our first couple of St John duties, the first of which is coming up at the end of the month as we are coving the second half of the cricket at Edgebaston cricket ground on Saturday 27th August. I’m a little nervous about our first duty – I mean, I think we are medically prepared for it and everything, but it’s still the daunting task of getting used to how we are supposed to react to certain situations with regards to ‘red tape’ and dealing with real situations rather than example situations in which everyone is co-operative and happy to sit down or lay on the floor Still – I shall let you know how it goes. I’m looking at picking up a pair of steel toe capped boots if possible too to prevent anyone standing on my toes or anything Sarah’s dad mentioned that he may have a couple of spare pairs from when he worked at Triplex (glass factory) so I’ll have to check his shoe size We also have our AED (Automated External Defibrillator) training here at work this Wednesday which should be interesting. It’s a SJA course too – so once I have passed the course for work it will also count towards my training with SJA. Sarah is also on the course here at work too so will get it marked as completed for her too

We also have the next LAN party coming up at the end of the month too. Stu and Phil will be back over with their PS3s and TVs to play Brink in 4 player over the Sunday evening through to the bank holiday Monday (28th – 29th August) which should be good fun. Its been a little while since our last LAN party – however with Sarah having an accountancy exam at the end of this week, and my birthday being the weekend after – this is the closest we could arrange one (which is handy as we’ll also be going on holiday to France during September, so that will be a more difficult month to try to plan a LAN party in