Soap and shaving!

When I was about 19 years old I decided to grow a beard. The reasoning was very simple. It was around the summer at the end of my first year at University. It wasn't just a student thing, but a response to seeing a photograph that made it look like I hadn't shaved for a day when I'd shaved a few hours earlier!

It seemed pointless going to all that effort to scrape the hair from my face if it didn't really show, so I let it grow instead. Over the years it got neater as I moved from scissors and a comb to a proper beard trimmer! Occasionally the beard disappeared, but never for long. Shaving was just too much effort.

Then, about 6 years ago I decided to try a variation and drop the full beard in favour of a goatee style. A new era of shaving began. Now, given that it had been over 30 years since I'd dragged a sharp blade across my skin, it was almost an all-new experience trying to figure out what to buy and where to get it. The opportunity of the internet presented me with a flurry of new possibilities for reducing my sensitive epidermis to a raw but smooth finish. I even bought a book!

I opted for a wet shave solution because I find the process somewhat therapeutic and relaxing, as long as it's not a last minute thing. So I set about buying a nice soap, a nice brush and most importantly a nice razor. This is where the advertising starts and stops! Meet The Shaving Shack.

It's the internet equivalent of some old-fashioned high street shop where you can browse, albeit electronically, through some amazing shaving tackle and accessories. Who knew you could buy a drip-stand for your brush in a variety of styles and colours, or that there were so many soaps and creams, lotions and potions to try.

Dragging a sharp blade across tender skin in a half-asleep state everyday is a necessity rather than a joy, so why not try and add a little refinement with something called Colonel Conk in a variety of flavours from lime to almond, whipped into a rich lather in a hand-turned beech shaving bowl! My preference is a will fat soap that produces a rich lather when the water is nice and hot.

Or you could try a nice cut-throat razor, but remember to stock up on styptic to stem the blood loss!

If you're only approach to shaving products is to grab the 5-bladed, head-swivelling, celebrity endorsed products on offer in your local supermarket then why not take a moment to check out the website and treat yourself. Or drop less than subtle hints given that Father's Day is looming in a couple of months time. You might find you begin to enjoy the experience of shaving rather than simply enduring it.

As for me, well I'm fortunate that I don't have to shave everyday to do what I do. Perhaps if I did I might have gone back to a full beard by now!!

A Grand Night Out

I must admit, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one, that when I saw the email that alerted me to the arrival of Paul Simon and Sting on stage together at the O2 I was rather surprised. Somewhat bewildered if the truth be known and a little bit intrigued. How come I'd missed the announcement last Autumn and not pondered then how interesting it might be to see these two musicians together on stage.

A short conversation with Anne and a check of the ticket standings last week and we were booked in for what turned out to be an amazing three hour non-stop concert. A mix of solo sets and duets saw the time fly by once things got started. From Roxanne to Every Breath; Homeward Bound to You can call me Al, it was a great evening's expression of the collected songbook of these two performers.

Paul Simon was everything we expected him to be and more. A few years ago we saw him on the Graceland 25th anniversary tour and as then it was great to hear him 'play' with his own songs, allowing the music to take different, yet easily recognisable, shapes. Sting was outstanding. I still think Ten Summoners Tales is one of the best albums I've ever bought, and we were not disappointed with versions of Fields of Gold and Shape of my heart.

What is it they often say in sport? Form is temporary, class is permanent. Well these two were both class acts and on great form. The odd couple they might have appeared to be, but together they entertained in wonderful style for three seemingly very short hours indeed!

Ah, the election and all the fun of the fair!

Do we really have four more weeks of electioneering to go! Perhaps it should be only four more weeks given that this campaign seems to have been running for a year now. I thought yesterday was a fairly low point as the day began with a government spokesperson failing to correct the misrepresentation of SATS as exams that must be passed rather than assessments to support progress. All the talk about resits just goes to reinforce the idea that it's possible to fail the assessment. As I understood it SATs were never intended to do that, but politicking requires a stick with which to beat the educators and SATS are as good a stick as any.

Later in the day, having switched from TV news to the radio, I heard a vox pops about the new requirement to check passports for people leaving the country via ferry and international railway termini. Apparently, according to many of the people interviewed, getting the wrong end of the stick is also a national pastime. How exactly checking a passport as you leave the country is going to stop "all these immigrants" entering the country has me confused, but that seemed to be the popular view. Perhaps we've become so confused over the whole immigration issue that we really don't know whether we're coming or going.

And then today I wake up to Conservative claims that the Labour party will be forced to do a deal with the SNP to remove Trident in order to form a government if they have to form a coalition with them, and that is somehow a stab in the back to nation. In all the confusion I'd clearly forgotten that to be antinuclear weaponry was to be unpatriotic! How sad that it's impossible to love your nation unless it has the capability of annihilating another country and doing significant long-term damage to the ecosystem in the process.

The reason this makes me angry and frustrated is because I think there's a fundamental issue being ignored in the kick-about of the debates and interviews. It's difficult to argue with the facts and figures that are presented about how well the economy seems to be doing now compared to 5 years ago. I know the numbers get massaged to show things in the best possible light, but even I would accept that things are in better shape as a whole. But someone needs to ask about the price that has been paid and by whom it has been paid to get us to this point.

I believe that the poorest in our communities have paid the biggest price. It's hard to argue against that when you have falling tax rates for the very richest and politicians who seem to run scared of the financial sector and big business. Unpaid corporation tax still outstrips benefit fraud by an enormous margin. Minimal wage rises in both the public and private sector have left many workers in a worse position than they were 5 years ago whereas little seems to have changed for CEO's of large companies. Bonuses are still paid while staff are made redundant.

Those on the right of politics would have us believe that paying tax is a bad thing. At least that's the way it looks when we hear rumours of reducing higher rate tax. Increasing the personal allowance to £12000 sounds good when you can put a figure on the number of people who won't be paying tax because of that. But it still means that some people are earning less than £12k a year. Dropping 5% of the highest rate of tax might only affect a small number of people, but I'm willing to bet it means more than £8 a week going into their pockets compared to the low end of the income scale.

Voting for me has always been about ideology and not personal gain. If paying more tax lifts more people out of poverty, provides a better healthcare system, and a better education system, then why would you not want to do that?

I'm sure there will be much more irritating and annoying posturing before polling day. I just hope enough people will see through it and not be swayed by those campaigners who want to make the election only about a referendum on Europe or immigration and not about the next 5 years of government.

Enough said!

The Prophetic Voice of the Preacher

Having been "out of the pulpit", at least on a regular, week-by-week basis, for over three years now, I find myself less inclined to return for a number of reasons. Not least of these reasons is the sense of being out of touch with what needs to be said (in the context of serving a local congregation) and out of practice too. I've always seen preaching as having a prophetic element to it, and the role of the prophet has always been something that has sat in the back of my mind as I both prepared and delivered a weekly sermon.

So what is the role of the prophet? It cannot be denied that Biblical prophets spoke about coming events, about the future both near and far. From something imminent, "Go to this town and you will find...", or something more distant, " In the last days". But to reduce the role of the prophet to that of one who talks only about future events is to do the office a disservice.

It seems to me that the role of the prophet has a much more immediate context than the foretelling of future events. As I read the prophetic narratives of the Old Testament I hear the voice of the prophet describing the world as it truly is and not as society sees it. It presents us with a heavenly perspective, the world as God sees it. Humanity is called to account in the present and not some distant future as the prophet speaks out against injustice, selfishness and unrighteousness.

But the prophet doesn't stop there. Having described the world as it, the prophet goes on to describe how it should be, how it could be. In other words, the prophet tells us what's wrong and what needs to happen to put it right. He, or she, shows us the right things to do and how to do things right. There is, in the prophetic voice, a call to action, a call to make a difference, to change something.

All of this comes through the promoting of God's Spirit of course, that goes without saying. Preaching without the Spirt at work is pointless, but preaching without a prophetic edge is probably going to reduce the practice to recycling a teaching programme. I've been around church long enough to hear the constant refrain that what the church needs is more and better teaching. More exposition of the scriptures.

Well let's be honest, we've some pretty good teaching over the last few centuries and I'm guessing many of our churches are pretty well educated. I'm not sure we need more of that. I am sure that we need more experience, more active engagement with God's mission and plan. For that to happen we need to hear a louder, clearer call from the prophet.

Club Therapist

In about three weeks time the rugby season comes to an end and I'll have completed my first year as the therapist for a local lower league rugby club. We have one league match left and the possibility of three cup matches, the first this weekend.

We've had a good season. An understatement given that the team got promoted last year losing only one game and so far this season they haven't lost a league game. That's two seasons without losing a home game, quite an achievement. In fact the goal at the start of the season was simply to do enough to stay in the league.

I can't take any credit for the team's performance, although given the amount of tape I've put around ankles, thumbs, shoulders and knees, I made my own contribution!

I've really enjoyed the season. I've learnt a lot, dealt with a few situations I've not come across before. I've been able to apply my skills as a therapist and learn some new ones. I've watched nervously from the sidelines as the team has had to defend its line and shared the frustration of players and spectators alike when passes haven't gone to hand or scoring opportunities have been lost.

Not everyone would want to spend their time standing in the wind and rain of a cold and wet winter Saturday afternoon, giving their time either for free or for a fairly nominal fee. Clubs at this level rarely have the financial resources to offer a competitive rate. On the other hand, it's a great way to extend your skills. If you can afford to do it, then I'd say give it a go. I got involved by being asked by the new club coach whom I'd met previously.

After the end of the season the team has a couple of months off and then pre-season training starts in July. Hopefully, if I'm involved with the pre-season training, we will be able to do some work that might help reduce some injury risks. I might even do some fitness work or functional movement stuff with them if I get the chance.

And who knows where it might lead. Perhaps in a couple of years time I'll actually be making a reasonable living out of it all!!

Dreaming of a workshop

I was pottering around the garage earlier today, thinking about the partition wall we want to build and sorting out some of the timber to use to build it. As I pottered I thought about how I'd turn the larger part of the garage into the workshop I've always craved.

I'm not a big woodworker, but I've always wanted to develop a space where I can be creative and make things as the need and fancy takes me. I've even drawn up some plans for a multi-use workbench incorporating my drill stand, a mitre saw and storage space for tools.

Along with the dream plan, there's a dream list of things I'd like to have in there. This includes a sharpening system like the Scheppach Tiger. This is a wet and dry system with jigs to help put a keen edge on a wide range of blades. I'd even sharpen the kitchen knives and garden shears!

It would certainly get some use given the 15 chisels, 5 hand planes and 1 or 2 other sharp implements at my disposal!

After sharpening comes the possibility of a saw table. I have a circular saw (actually I had 3 but I've just given one away), and I've worked out a simple way to make repetitive cuts on a bench, but a table saw might be nice. Similarly a nice piece of kit to have would be a planer thicknesser.

Whether I'd go for a stand-alone saw like this, or a bench top one that I could build a rolling cabinet for that would also house the planer I don't know.

And while I think about, maybe a sanding machine would be a nice touch!

How far I'll get I don't know. At the moment the garage is full of bits and pieces, timber, old garden chairs, insulation left over from the log cabin project and lots of tennis kit. If I get the partition built and then build some shelves and cupboards into the utility end of the space, then the workshop end might start to take shape. I've seen an idea for making some insulation panels for the up-and-over door to help make it less draughty.

Here's to the dream!

God doesn't make junk

If you could travel back in time, what would you change about your life? Of course, if time travel has been developed, then you might already have done this at least once and the whole space-time continuum thhas been twisted in and around itself into some horribly contorted knot as you've tried to rearrange everything that each previous change has unwittingly affected elsewhere along your timeline! But let's not go there.
If I could travel back in time I might be tempted to tell my younger self that becoming a church leader would not be worth the pain and sadness that it brought into my life, but then I'd miss out on doing some remarkable things with some remarkable people. I'd miss out on all that experience of seeking to help people, of learning how to do that to the best of my ability (even if they didn't appreciate it!), and the spiritual and emotional growth that comes through all of that.

Over the weekend I got one of those reminders that nothing is ever wasted. Someone once said that God does make junk, but there are times when I have to say that looking at my life I feel I've had cause to question that assertion! There is much that I would change if I could, but I can't. There are some poor decisions that I would change, some habits I'd like to change, some issues I'd address much sooner than I did.

Our last two years in full-time church leadership were pretty tough. In fact they were the just about the worst two years we've been through. At the end it felt as though everything we'd done over the previous twenty years was just rolled up like old newspapers and thrown in the bin. We, I, felt totally rejected and discarded. It felt like a complete waste of my life. It still does some days. If I could go back in time, I'd probably be tempted to avoid those two years at all costs. If I did, we wouldn't be where we are today.

This weekend I was reminded that God doesn't waste things, he doesn't make junk. It came in two unlikely conversations.

In the first I heard the story of one person's working life and how failing in one area brought success in another. They could have persevered and passed a particular exam and that would have taken them down one route, but instead, having failed, they went in a new direction which turned out to be far more successful for them.

The second conversation came about because someone recognised in me something that they needed. Through simple conversations we'd built a relationship and now they needed someone with whom they could talk through a challenging situation and they called me.

All those years of heartache and questioning have shaped the pastoral side of my life. Without it I'd probably be no use to that person, I'd probably not have been able to see the lessons from the first story in the way I could, and I wouldn't have been able to provide the listening ear of a critical friend in the second.

Interesting isn't it, that if I could travel in time I would probably change so many things that I doubt I'd have been there for this friend in need. I'd have studied sports therapy or become a physiotherapist. I might have been working with elite athletes or weekend warriors. Who knows.

I am what I am, as Popeye used to say, but unlike Popeye I know I am not all I could be. In God''s hands he continues to shape my life, and he continues to use everything I've experienced to shape me. I seem to remember that Michael Angelo was once asked how he turned a lump of marble into a beautiful carving of a horse. "Simple," he said, "you just chip away everything that doesn't look like a horse."

My prayer for this Monday morning is that God will continue to chip away everything that doesn't look like the life he wants for me. If it doesn't look like a horse yet, that's because it isn't finished!

Rambling thoughts of a non-economist on budget day

I believe there is a little matter of a budget being announced today. Get ready for all the analysis and speculation about the relationship between the plans and the upcoming election. Get ready for all the arguments about who has the right numbers and who's spinning them to make them look better or worse than they really are. Prepare yourselves for the voices of big business and the city bemoaning or celebrating something.

In all the bluff and thunder of budget days in the past, recent years have become somewhat antiseptic. There are very few shocks and surprises. Perhaps there never really where. There will be lots of self-congratulations and probably a few stern warnings that the process isn't over yet. I dare say a lot of important things will even get lost in the smoke and mirrors of complex fiscal accounting. And then the counter arguments will start.

But even if the numbers point to a positive state of affairs, even if the chancellor can demonstrate a recovery with falling unemployment and a few other positives, there remains a single, important question to be be asked.

At what cost?

Who has paid the dearest price for getting us to a positive position and who will continue to pay that price? As the gap between rich and poor continues to expand, we must answer this question. I grow increasingly weary of calls to protect the city (the financial district) as if it is the engine room of the economy. It may be, but only at the cost of a manufacturing and engineering sector that has shrunk exponentially over the last 3 decades.

Executive pay continues to outstrip the wages of the ordinary employee to the point where a CEO is, in no uncertain terms, grossly overvalued, especially so in today's economy. The whole thing is unbalanced in a hugely detrimental way. We're not talking about seeking some idealised equality, but some sense of equity wouldn't go amiss.

If the figures I saw a few weeks ago are correct and our debt is rising at the alarming rate of £5,000 a second, then by the time this business day is over we will have added around £150M to that debt. That can't go on. But if we are truly all in this together, then the solution must be to share the burden not equally but equitably among the people. I just wonder if we're too scared to do it.

Breaking an activity record!

I think I had my most active day on Friday since I began wearing my Polar Loop. According to my diary, I managed to do 319% of my daily activity goal! It all breaks down like this:

The 7 hours 16 mins of active time comprised 3 hours low intensity, 1.5 hours moderate and 3 hours high intensity stuff. The latter coming from the 3 hours spent on the tennis court practicing.

It's quite funny when you read the standardised notes that go alongside the analysis. Apparently I spent 8 hours sitting down, but not for too long at a time. I think after 3 hours on a tennis court a lie down was more likely than sitting down!

Setting a new goal

So, yesterday I missed my 10k step goal ending a run of 188 consecutive days. The reasons were simple enough: we travelled to Nottingham for a celebration lunch and I also managed to pop my calf muscle again while coaching in the morning. Taking these two together, I decided to rest my leg and forgo my target for the day.

Now, once the calf strain is better, I need to work out whether to return to focussing on 10k or setting a different daily goal. As you know, I received an activity monitor for Christmas, the Polar Loop, and I could focus my attention on hitting my activity goal every day rather than the step challenge. The interesting this is the difference between the two.

Generally speaking, if I play tennis for an hour or so or do some interval training for an hour, I usually hit my activity goal but not my steps goal. On the other hand, I can go out and walk and hit my step goal but miss my activity goal. I think it will be interesting for a while to focus on the daily activity goal as measured by the Loop, and thereby build a picture of what the impact of doing is likely to be. As you've probably already guessed if you read some of my ramblings about health and exercise, the data fascinates me and can be part of the motivation for getting up and moving in the first place. 

So I think I'll go for activity for a while, and se how the data stacks up!

Another active day!

This is my activity report for today.

Surely I'm allowed one inactivity stamp after such an active day!

February stats

Well, we've reached the end of February and the numbers loo like this:

Total Steps: 340079
Approx. miles: 170
Best day: 20288

Not bad. No days missed, which means 6 straight months of hitting 10K a day. In fact two more days and that will be 183 days, passing the half-way point for a year.

Comparing these numbers with Polar Loop is quite interesting.

Total active time: 6 days 13 hours

Steps: 464940 (remember this is body movements converted to steps)

Distance: 370 Km (231mls)

Kcal burned: 86824

In other words, I was pretty active in February!

The book remembered!

I've done a bit of digging and found the title and author of the book on guidance to which I made reference in my last post. The book is called: Decision Making and the Will of God, by Gary Friesen. It is still available, albeit with a new cover by the looks of things.

It's been such a long time since I read it, almost 30 years I think, that I certainly couldn't do it any justice in terms of a review. However, I still think it's a book you might want to read if your interested in thinking through how you understand and apply the principles guidance in your life.

I know some might suggest that the book dispenses with the idea that God has a plan for your life, but I don't remember thinking that at all. In fact my memory of reading the book was a sense of liberation from the debilitating need to have everything confirmed by some sort of sign. As with all things, there is a need to keep a sense of balance and to understand the interrelationship between obedience, choosing freely and applying what you already know about God's general will. Too often Christians can become paralysed, unable to make a decision because they are unsure about what God wants them to do. I wonder if that is in some way because we have a showed view of God's will, not grasping the differences between his revealed will, his sovereign will and possibly something more specific to particular events or decisions we have to make. I wonder too if there are not times when we want God to be specific because we don't want to do the "wrong thing".

Complicated stuff, guidance.

Unrealised dreams and the question of guidance

As a short follow-up to my previous post about unrealised dreams, I beleive the particular Bible reference I had in mind was from 1Kings 8:18-19:

But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’ (‭NIV)

I guess the hard part is always going to be figuring out which dreams are going to remain unrealised and which are not. We would love such a clear message from God about such things, but our reality is that things are rarely that clear cut. Guidance is not that clear cut.

I recall reading a book about guidance, but cannot remember either the title or the author (was it Gary something? I'll have to check my library catalogue). at the time I found it a really interesting read and very helpful. I don't remember too much of the content apart from a small part about marriage that sparked an interesting debate with a couple of friends at college.

Marrying, excuse the pun, guidance with dreams and discipleship is a challenge. What is harder perhaps is not beating ourselves up about it all when we either get it wrong or when he hear others talk in a way that makes us feel totally inadequate in the area of hearing from God.

Maybe the answer is simple. Rejoice in those times when God speaks clearly and don't fret on the days when he doesn't, just continue to live as a faithful follower of Jesus.

Unrealised dreams

I was thinking about my previous post about waiting and it reminded me of something else. I remember years ago when I was in my first church leadership setting that I was reflecting and praying about the future and how things might develop. I wasn't sure whether it was time to move or whether we were to stay in that place for the foreseeable future.

A wise person said to me, "Don't let the size of the task keep you here." Their point was that there would always be something that needed doing, always a reason to stay. I had my dreams, a vision for the church and what we could become as long as we walked with God. I may not have articulated it in the words I'd use today, but it would have been along the lines of partnership with God in whatever he was doing in our community. We had a passion to figure out how to reconnect people with the God who misses them and we were exploring how we could that. I'm sure that if we'd stayed we would have found our way towards the kinds of things I've been discovering over the 20 years since I left that place.

The turning point for me came as I was working my way through the story of David. I came to the part of his story where he decided it was time to build a temple. David had great plans, he had the dream, the vision to build a permanent home for the Ark. It wasn't about him and his achievements, but about his relationship with God. Although I can't quite track down the specific verse (I have a note somewhere in a journal form that time), the phrase that has stayed with me since the day I read it goes something like this: It was good that he had it in his heart... David was not going to get to build the temple.

I realised then that two things were true. Firstly, I was not going to stay and see the fulfilment of the dream or vision for the church at that time. It was not going to mine to build. Perhaps God knew I didn't need an empire! The second thing I realised was that God remembers and honours the dreams of his people. My vision wasn't wasted, even if it wasn't realised. It's okay to have an unfulfilled dream.

I know that some people might look at my ministry and see a list of failures, of unfulfilled potential and missed opportunities. I think that too from time to time. But what I remember and what I hold on to is that it was good to have had it in my heart to do something great for God. I'd rather have an unrealised dream than no dream at all, and after all is said and done it's not about my dreams, it's about God's grand plan, his mission among the people he misses most.

The waiting game

I decided to pick up the story of David in the Old Testament at 2Sam. 3 this morning. It begins like this:

That was the beginning of a long war between those who were loyal to Saul and those who were loyal to David.

How long, I don't know, but it had already been quite a long time since David had been anointed as Saul's successor and still he wasn't fully established as king. That got me thinking about a few other stories in the Old Testament.

Abraham, for instance, was around 75 when God called him and told him he would be the father of many nations. Yet it would be another 25 years before Issac was born. Joseph spent something like 13 years in prison and Isaiah spoke about things over 700 years into the future. Things he probably longed to see but would never do so.

So, how long is long enough to wait for God to fulfil a promise? Days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries?

It wasn't an epiphany this morning, just a reminder that things can take longer than we'd like them to, and that God moves at his pace and not ours. There are times when I wonder why I'm where I am doing what I'm doing. Days turn into weeks and months with no apparent progress and then all of a sudden something happens and God's hand is revealed. Learning to live with the wait is quite possibly the hardest part of being a disciple.

In support of exercise

I like these kinds of visualised talks, and although this doesn't tell you anything radically new it is still worth watching (unless you don't like illustrated talks!).

We all know that exercise is good for us but sometimes the message is confusing. Hopefully this talk will encourage you to make moving a part of your day. With all the recent talk about how much exercise is good for you and whether running long distances is ultimately damaging, this talk gives a research perspective on the value of exercise for positive health outcomes. The debate will still rage about over-exercise but the value of moderate exercise cannot be understated.

What is fascinating is some of the research cited. Another interesting thought is the "Whole Body" impact idea that comes up when he talks about stents. Think about the implications for a while. If a stent only fixes one part of the problem, but exercise addresses a wide range of factors, ho might that be true for other diseases/ risk factors?

 

Inaccurate fitness monitors

Lara Lewington at the BBC's Click has an article on the website about fitness/activity monitors that's quite interesting for those inclined towards gadgets. How long it will be available I'm not sure, but currently you'll find it here. Thanks to Adam for pointing to the article.

In simple terms, the article points out that if you take four of the most prominent players in the market, you will get significant discrepancies in the data they present to you about your activity levels and related data. I have to say that I don't find that particularly unexpected, and it certainly fits with my experience of my Polar Loop (which wasn't among the four tested). I guess the object lesson in all of this goes back to something I learned doing physics at school. We were taught the difference between precision and accuracy. As I recall, and it is a rather long time ago, the difference is that you can have very precise measurements that are inaccurate and conversely you can have accurate results that are imprecise. Sounds crazy I know, but we are talking about the mysteries of physics here. In common usage we might use accurate and precise to describe the same thing, but in science they mean different things.

So what does this mean for the activity tracker you're planning on strapping to your wrist? The most important implication is that the data you get has to be understood against the way the technology works, the kind of sensor it has and the maths it uses to convert what it measures into the data you get to read off the device. I've already blogged about the differences between a simple pedometer and my Loop and how the Loop converts body movements into steps. Even my pedometer doesn't necessarily measures steps exactly.

So why would you spend your hard earned cash on an activity monitor that can't tell you either accurately or precisely why you've been up to? I'm not sure the technology exists to do that, but that doesn't mean a monitor is a bad thing. The reason to buy one of these gadgets lies in a quote from one of the companies making the devices has to say.

Managing director of Fitbit Europe Gareth Jones advises people to simply be aware of the trend.
"Rather than get down to the half step or the next calorie is to look at the trend in their step pattern," he says,
"Are they increasing the number of steps in their day all week? Are they increasing the calorie burn day to day, week to week? Because it's that trend that's going to make you healthier."

It's pretty obvious that a device worn on your wrist is unlikely to give you a proper measure of steps taken, but it will indicate how active you've been. It's these trends that help you make choices about what you need to do to improve your health. So buy a gadget if you want, or get someone to buy one for you (mine was a Christmas present) and use it to motivate yourself to move. It's fun to see what yo've been doing, how far you've walked or run, how long you've spent sitting down. But don't get hung up on the raw data, look at the trends. Look at the bigger picture.

Is it a habit yet?

Well, as I've just tweeted, I passed 2 million steps and 1000 miles yesterday (4th February 2015). I've been recording the data since September 1st and I haven't missed my goal of 10000 steps a day yet. It's a record by some way given that I purposefully took a day off at 104 last time I did the 100 day challenge.

So, apart from some self-congratulatory back slapping, have I formed a habit yet? Actually, I don't think so. A habit is something you do almost automatically. It's a response, something you do because you always do it. It happens without much predetermined thought. Getting up and going for a walk everyday takes discipline, so I guess you could call it a disciplined habit, but most of the habits we do without thinking require no discipline at all and are usually bad habits. Maybe all habits that require no thought are bad habits.

No, habit is not the tight word to describe what I'm currently doing. At least not the right word for me. If I think it's a habit I'll more than likely stop thinking about it and that inevitably leads to a breaking of the habit. So I'll continue to call it a disciplined choice. There are days when I really don't feel like hitting the mean streets of Ockendon and pounding away at my goal. But I choose to do it.

Take yesterday for example.

I had two funerals to do and a visit to make. That doesn't sound like a lot of work I know, but funerals carry their own stress for me and I like to be there early so I'm settled and ready. Having said that, at yesterday's second funeral I managed to leave a candle in the chapel office and had to nip out doing a piece of music to get it! I did tell the family what I was doing, just so they didn't think I was running away! I've also got a nasty cold and I've got my torn calf muscle. Add to that the temperature and the fact that I didn't get ready to go out walking until gone 5:00pm and I definitely didn't feel like doing it at all.

But I did. I made he disciplined choice to exercise. Even with base layers, mid-layers and top layer on it was still cold. I wore a hat and gloves and I still found myself having to take some painkillers for the ache that gets in your face when it's been too cold for too long. This is why it's a disciplined choice and not a habit. You have to choose to do something like that, it doesn't come naturally. Of course once you're into your stride you mostly forget about everything else. You remember how much you get out of simply being outside and the pleasure of the walk or run. holding onto that memory is what helps making the following day's discipline choice to get moving.

Speaking of which, it's time to pull on the trainers and get out there again. Normally I'd be off to tennis, but I'm rehabbing my calf, so no tennis this week. All my steps will have to come from running or walking in circles.

Rehab progress

I thought I'd do a quick update on how my rehab is going on my calf injury. Friday was the first real opportunity to assess the damage, and it didn't appear to be quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. Everyone is different, and every injury is different. The muscle was certainly tender to the touch and there was a reasonably sized area that was both tender and firm to the touch. Dorsiflexion (imagine pointing your toes towards your nose) was the most painful movement, and I was most definitely limping. Running was out of the question!

I'd applied a Physicool bandage the previous day and rested it. I'd also put on a compression bandage, the good old tubigrip sort of thing. I decided that I would try walking and although it was obvious I was limping, I managed to do a steady, if rather slow, 4Km. Once home I reapplied the cooling bandage for 30 minutes before removing that and putting the compression bandage back on. About every 20 to 30 minutes I made sure I got up and walked around a little.

Saturday morning I went out for another walk and this time things were much better. I did a little bit of gentle massage of what had been the rather firm and tender area before setting out on the walk. My stride pattern was much more even, and I concentrated on making sure I was flexing my ankle while not stressing the soft tissue by going too quickly. There were still a few movements that were painful, but generally it was okay. I still couldn't run and when we were at the rugby match that afternoon it was pretty clear that running was difficult every time I needed to get across the pitch to deal with an injury.

By Sunday, walking was good, with very few issues. I even went for a faster 2Km walk on my own to finish off my sets for the day. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I will be ready to try a little running. Before I try that, I will do some simple weight-bearing exercises, and if they are pain free I'll try some short intervals.

And that's my rehab plan! I guess the lessons are pretty simple. Start moving sooner rather than later. Work within pain free ranges. Don't push too hard too soon. Listen to the feedback your body gives you.