Living the Dream: Is ice my key to winning weight loss challenge?

No doubt, as we saw last time, Gavin would only start fighting with the new man in town. The thing is we only have a certain amount of space for our goats and as Gavin is a wether - a castrated ram - he was never going to be able to help the ladies in their desire to raise a family.

The best thing that we could do was to find him a lovely forever home, and that is exactly what we have done.

Good old Gavin has gone to live on a farm, with another wether who was lonely and keen to have some company and I’m sure they will get on great.

I have been having a bit of a struggle over the last few weeks. The thing is, in my wisdom I agreed to a challenge with one of my daughters and my mother to see who could lose the most weight before Christmas Day.

But you see, that’s not the whole story. We have each put £100 in the kitty and whoever wins, takes the lot!

Well, maybe I was bit hasty in setting out on this little journey for a few reasons. Firstly, as you can see, I don’t have much additional poundage on me to start with - although that might just be in my head - so how much was I realistically going to lose in such a short time?

Secondly, I love my food and multiple times each day when I go past our tea shop and smell the delights coming out of the kitchen, it sets my taste buds tingling and that is never going to help my resolve, I can tell you.

It feels as though so many factors are conspiring against me, including these women I live with who are clearly supporting my daughter’s challenge. For example, my wife recently decided that she fancied fish and chips and so I was sent out to our favourite chippy, at Railway Street in Pocklington, knowing full well that the temptation was always going to be too great for me, and you guessed it, I succumbed once again to the call of the fryer.

With a touch of added salt and lashings of vinegar, how was I ever going to resist that one, and that’s exactly why I was sent.

The third reason I was maybe a little fool hardy in agreeing to this challenge is that I am in all honesty just really tight. It has been said that Yorkshire folk can be a little tight with their money, well according to the Yorkshireman’s motto:

‘Ear all, see all, say nowt;

Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;

And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt -

Allus do it fer thissen.

And as I’m a Scot living in Yorkshire, and again we are a people who are often labelled as being somewhat overly thrifty, I could be seen as being doubly tight, so why in heavens name would I agree to hand over £100?

If I fail to win this weight loss challenge, I swear, I must be going doolally tap.

As a side note, the fact that the frost has arrived recently has in fact assisted me in burning off some additional calories, as each day I have had to do extra trips and therefore extra mileage, to make sure all the animal feeders are clear of ice.

You never know, I might just win this challenge yet...