A couple of shifts in the month of May, and I’m getting this out early as I’m going to be at the UK Games Expo over the next few days:
Weight
Target weight loss: 210lbs. Current weight: 235lbs. Weight
lost this month: 1lb.
I knew my weight loss journey was going to slow down a bit
in May. I’ve been trying to control the amount of sugar I’ve been eating over
the last month and while I have been somewhat successful, there have been a few
days when I’ve lapsed – mainly due to the time and place. For example, last
Monday, Kirsty and I went up to Liverpool to see Hamilton (excellent piece of
theatre,) and due to a matter of inconvenient timing, ended up eating a McDonalds
for dinner at beyond 1am, a Subway for breakfast the following day, and finished
the day with a curry for our anniversary. I got up the following morning to find
that I’d gained a pound.
There’s still a way to go with this. While I don’t need to drop
back down to “lent” levels of looking after myself, I still need to be a little
more careful – although I’ll be at the Expo this weekend so who knows.
Board Games
This month: 3. Total so far: 20
Three board games played in May:
·
Blood Bowl: I’ve been playing various iterations
of the video game for over a decade, but never played the tabletop game. Simon,
one of the lads at the Safe Haven Gaming Club in Netherton was kind enough to
run me through my first game with the Chaos Dwarfs I showed you last month – I know
the general flow of the game, but the ins and outs of the dice rolls that video
games are designed to remove was something I needed a bit of help with. I won,
and may join a league at the club next month.
·
Takenoko: A delightful little game about building
a garden for a panda to live in. This is a significant game for me and Kirsty;
it was even featured on our wedding cake! We’d picked the three games we put on
the cake – Takenoko, Hey That’s My Fish and Ticket to Ride – as the “first”
games we played at different points in our relationship. Hey That’s My Fish was
the first game we ever played together when we got together in 2017, Ticket to
Ride was the first game we played after we moved in together in 2018, and
Takenoko was the first game we played when we moved into our house that we bought
in 2020. It features a cute panda, that we’ve named Sprout, so it was always going
to be a hit for Kirsty!
·
Ticket to Ride: Most of us have played this or
one of its variants at some point, but it was nice to introduce a new friend
Ruth to it. Everyone enjoyed it, although Jessie might have been more
comfortable with one of the smaller variants.
Gigs
This month: 2. Total so far: 8
I managed to get to an open mic this time! It’s been a long
time since I played at the Stile – I used to be regular there, but Bash stopped
running it on Fridays, and while someone did get one going again on the last
Sunday of the month, I wasn’t able to make it happen. I’m glad I have now,
though, as I played some songs I haven’t yet played live before – Distant Colours
by Manic Street Preachers, The Messenger by Linkin Park, and Heaven Ain’t Much
Better, which I wrote a few months ago.
Video Games
This month: 1. Total so far: 8
I haven’t beaten many games this month, but this is because
I’ve been interested in the online element of Blood Bowl 3. I know questions were
raised about the quality of the game compared to previous iterations, but I
really enjoy it. For this season, I’m running Chaos Chosen with the colours of
the Jamaican flag, inspired by the “Bad Boy Rammy” video put up by White Yardie
– I’ve never seen anything so funny in all my life.
At the top of the month, I reached the end of Donkey Kong
Country on the Switch. This was another game I played with my friend Matt on
his SNES years and years ago. We enjoyed it a lot at the time, but going back
to play it now reveals quite a few flaws in the game! Nonetheless, it was nice
to go through it again.
Models Painted
This month: 0. Total so far: 26
I’m about halfway through painting some Skaven Clanrats (or
equivalent!) from the Age of Sigmar boxed set – I’ll finish these off next month,
but between various family commitments, there just hasn’t been the time.
