Leaving Liverpool

Well, I've arrived back in Belfast for my penultimate visit before leaving for World travel. I've brought my car and most of my possessions home for safekeeping.

The 8 hour ferry was good practice for long lonesome journeys to come, though in new places; which will hopefully make those long journeys more interesting.

Liverpool (Wirral) welcomed me in 2009 with chatty cleaners and patients' visitors in the hospital lifts, a gradual discovery of vegetarian cafes, art galleries, theatres, second hand shops, as well as outdoor gems; Thor's Rock, Red Rocks, Fort Perch Rock, Marine Lakes, beaches, forests, Mother Redcaps, as well as surrogate mothers and a church family.

The Liverpool skyline, which I could see from one of my 5 bedrooms (over 5 years of different homes), could be a symbol of the unity and closeness of the Liverpool community standing side by side, perhaps waiting to welcome those arriving.

Operation Backpack Fitness

Decided I need to step up my fitness in preparation for lugging a backpack around my wee back, and hiking up mountains such as:

             and 

Perhaps after the year, I might have developed back and shoulder muscles I never knew I had. So, this morning, seeing as it was too windy and stormy to go for a run (my friend Ieuan is a fairweather runner!), I decided to spend 30 minutes this morning doing lunges, squats, weights and other painful exercises.

The regime, which I plan to continue, went something like this:

• 2 minutes marching to raise heart rate and blood flow
• 3 minutes lunges
• 4 x 15 second squats
• 5 minutes weights
• 10 backwards pressups (is that a thing? I used the window sill)
• 10 normal pressups (NOT the girlie ones)
• 25 second plank
• 50 sit ups
• 5 minutes weights
• 4 x 15 second squats

with some breaks in between to breathe!

As I write this at 9:30pm, the wind and rain are battering my windows, so a repeat of today might be on the cards....

In 10 weeks I will have just arrived in Vietnam. I have a lot of planning still to do!
Here is my route starting from Belfast: