Older, but no wiser

I didn’t mean to drag this meme out for quite this long, but it’s been hard lately getting any words out. So here is drip #3 in my drip-feeding of those 5 things you might not know about me. Largely factual; I can just about manage that at the moment.

You’ve seen a representation of me from the neck up - both the rather inscrutable picture over there in the sidebar, and a reflection in words of what goes on inside that head, but what of the rest of me? Am I a superman look-alike? A lithe champion athlete? Or maybe I can’t even see my feet past a huge beer gut?

I’m not about to go posting any self-portraits; because I know which side of a camera I prefer to be, I make good and sure that photos of me are kept to an absolute minimum - like the one in the sidebar, which originated as my passport photo. But on a scale of typical male weights, I’m probably almost as far to the left as you can get without being underweight. In other words, as my best friend at school used to say, I’m a skinny little runt, tipping the scales at a mere 9 stone 6 lbs, give or take a couple of pounds either way. That’s 132lb or 60Kg, to save you doing the conversions. At 5 foot 7.5 inches tall, that give me a Body Mass Index of 20.4. Apparently I only need to drop 3lbs or so (which I sometimes do) to be classed as underweight, whatever that means.

It’s a build that’s well suited to the sporting activities I’ve chosen over the years. I was never much good at sports which require muscle, aggression, or limbs like spiderman, but I surprised those who’d written me off as a non-sporting type by being good enough to represent the school at middle and long distance running events. I fancied a go at gymnastics, and joined the university gym club, but I hadn’t the upper-body strength needed. Later on though, I found an outlet for that desire in trampolining although I never progressed past the basic somersaults.

I did a little rock climbing when I was a teenager, but didn’t take it up seriously until about 10 years ago, and of course having relatively few pounds to lug up a rockface is a distinct advantage. As indeed would be arms about 3 inches longer... But it’s now over 2 years since I did any climbing and I’m beginning to wonder if all the gear stored in my garage will ever see the light of day again. I need to find a new climbing partner now that the kids have grown up.

I guess I’m lucky in that I have in-built regulation systems that keep my weight pretty much constant - I’ve never been more than 136lb or less than 125lb. Believe it or not, over-eating, for me, is positively unpleasant - strange, but true...