Gareth’s blog- welcome!

Step, row, cycle, run a few km, hom, shower, healthy food, bed- that is now my life. Having hit the gym 5 of the last seven nights, with only a small break to fall off the wagon at the CIPD awards, I feel great. The very nature of pushing yourself as far as you can go (without having a mild heart attack) really does make you feel like you have done something with your day, much more than watching football in the pub.

Yet I know only too well, I am still fat and unhealthy, so these days will need to turn into months for me to do myself any real good.

Until the next time…

“You’ll feel better for it”, the words of a many a friend when I told them I was to start hitting the gym and “Bollocks” I replied in turn. I feel better watching Fraiser on Paramount TV2 with a bottle of wine and some cheese traditionally, but that has now changed. Having sweated my proverbial breasts off on a variety of equipment, I traversed the country lanes that lead to home with the windows down and a fine mist of sweat escaping the car, when suddenly my whole perspective changed. A mild form of intoxicating elatedness washed over me, followed by a sense of self-praise and happiness. I wanted more and like a junkie I will be back for that feeling again.

Its bloody June! Where did that come from? The last thing I remember was ho-ho-ho’ing my way through a party at Christmas, and consuming huge portions of turkey and whatever wine was closest. Now however my weekends consist of BBQ’s, cricket, beer gardens and sleeping with the window open.

I remember my Dad saying when I was a kid that the older you get, the quicker time passes: and my reaction which was something along the lines of “yeah, ok dad- bollocks”. Yet it is TRUE. I am 26 this year and yet in my head it feels like about three weeks since I received driving lessons for my 17th birthday.

So what is the best course of action- be bored and live forever, or have fun and get shocked when you make an involuntary groaning noise whilst putting your shoes on.

I am off now- I think it has just started snowing.

Interesting point- for the last couple of years I have noted that who is actually in love (yes I am watching the film at the moment)? My parents of course, a couple of friends and colleagues but that’s it: we were all single merry men.

Now however, but a few short months after, I am the only single person in my house- I watch Megastructures on Tuesday nights and “I’d do anything” on Saturdays.  I have nobody beside me, no one to cook dinner for nor argue over the remote control with. I am the forgotten one.

Still, I do love the Hoover dam!

It’s hot, its humid and I have no idea what to think about it. Having spent this afternoon mowing waist high grass and sweating like a Turk’ s jockstrap I long for the cold wet winter months.

Yet now as I enjoy a cold beer in the late afternoon with the sun going down the scene has changed and is blissful.

I have no idea what I now like, thus I will never look at the weather report as I know it will disappoint me or thrill me in equal measures.

It is September 11th 2001 and four plane crashes iniated by radical muslim fundamentalists have shaken the world, aftershocks from which continue to be felt everyday since. A day that saw New York, the US and the World pull together in a way that lives on for ever saw a recovery from the attack on freedom as the Western World weeped.

Fast forward 6 and a half years and families continue to mourn their relatives and friends lost in the destuctive attack on freedom and New York, Washington and Pensylvania are still counting the cost of the attacks. Yet fighting continues over the large symbolic void which is the space left by the demolished World Trade Centres 1 through to 7. Architects criticise the design, banks and hedge funds moan about the lack of office space above the 82nd floor in the new building, and a small forgotten voice whisper of dreams of a memorial for their lost loved ones. This has culminated in the new ‘freedom tower’ only recently emerging from thirty flights foundation. This bitter squabbling has deprived the World of any momentum of a true staging post for a long term memory of those citizens, and hero’s the World lost that day and as each day goes on, a part of this memory fades.

Yet who cares? The new tower and complex will make many people lots and lots of money, which is exactly what the first tower was designed to do…. and exactly why it was attacked.