Re-retired and not eating cheese....or anything else with flavour....

What song would you choose to listen to if you could listen to any tune again for the first time - as if you had never heard it before. Personally I would choose Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen or This is the One from The Stone Roses. That has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but Queen have just been on an ad on TV and it reminded me of the question. Anyway - Hello... welcome back... there have now been over 50000 visits to this, my silly little blog - so its time to add a few more views and let you know whats been 'appening........

I finally finished work at the end of March - I quit my job with Magdalene and re- retired on 31st March. It wasn't half as exciting as the first time I retired in 2010, but hey ho - how many other people have retired twice by 45? Maybe Ill get another job in Canada just so that I can get my hat trick!!

The life of leisure wasn't quite as much fun as I had hoped however for two reasons -
1. I started to feel ill during my exit interview - a sore throat started which for the next week developed into a bad cold, headache, aches and pains and meant I spent my first week of mostly sleeping and coughing.
2. I don't really like to hide too much about myself. Anyone who knows me well may well also know that as a bloke, I sometimes make weird and bad smells as a natural bodily function. Well, Buffy and me had decided to try and see what foods cause these wonderful aromas to arise from my bowels. So a few weeks ago we started what is called 'The Elimination diet' as its called means cutting out wheat, dairy, gluten, added sugar, eggs, red meat, pulses, and a few others for two weeks before gradually introducing the one by one over a number of weeks. So for two weeks I ate plain rice, rice cakes, gluten, dairy and wheat free bread (Which is disgusting and is like eating clay) no beers, no crisps and basically nothing with any flavour except chicken - which gets really boring after two weeks with nothing else.

Anyway, after all this dieting and food control I have fund out that the only things that apparently make me smell are dark beers, peas, smoked fish and porridge. We haven't quite finished the diet yet and I still have eggs and a few other things to add but I am not affected by beef, lager, chips or cheese which is great! You may notice a lack of smell if you see us before we leave for Canada.

On the subject of Canada you may be aware that we are having a get together in The Urmston  on Saturday 25th April. If you want to come along we would love to see you there. Unfortunately we wont be able to get to see many people before we leave as we now don't have a car anymore - it was sold yesterday.

Our lovely little car has gone to a new home!

We do still have a list of things we want to do in and around Manchester before we go - but we have already managed to do a couple of them. One was to have an afternoon wandering through Manchester taking photos and the second was to visit Victoria baths - a wonderful old listed building with a lot of original features and lovely memories of the good old days f traditional swimming baths. They even have a metal old whirlpool bath and turkish steam rooms which they are looking at re-opening sometime in the future. If you are ever in Manchester it is well worth a visit - Here's a few photos from both days out.....

Down by the canal....

Bloody Gooses!

More canal views

More of Beetham tower

Buff taking pics

Bricks

Cool views of Manchester

Town hall and fountain

Alan Turing statue

The Pev

The Pev in colour

Beetham from below

  Here's a few from Victoria Baths

The clock

Exterior

Moody inside shot

Stained glass

Inside

No water

Buff getting changed

Upstairs?

Colour reflection

Tiles from the 20's

Light

The futuristic control panel for.........

The futuristic whirlpool

Fashion show

Entrance grand style

We are hoping to get out and about the local area again to get more photos before we leave, so we will post more on here when we do.


For the family who read this I have completed scanning the photo album's from mum and dad in Skegness. They are all available to look at online with all of my photos...please fell free to take a look by clicking on this link....

Photos and albums