It is cold and my month off wine (I take a month off alcohol each year).

By the way, have you seen anything different on the forum lately? Look at my data (location, join date, etc. to the top right)! Do you see the blog number / link?

I have just added vbulletin's (the people that make this forum's software) blog module on to this forum. It is not as refined as other blog types like wordpress IMHO, but I am sure it will get there as they develop it. But it does interact with the rest of the forum and photo gallery as you can see (if you click and look at my blogs).

I was actually going to get a blog package anyway at some time, then they released this, so........

In case you are wondering what the difference is between a forum and a blog, forums are for posting messages to one another, blogs are for writing stories. If you do your own blog you are also in control of it; you can select whether anyone who replies (posts a comment) to your blog, if their reply is seen / approved by you or not! So if you do not like what someone has to say.............. I have not enabled "moderation" on my blogs though

By the way, the header graphic (the little girl logo) at the top of this forum will also be changing very soon. It will still include her but will be a lot more tropical and topical.

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There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

I hate november too. I really don't like winter and the grey, dark nights and cold weather. Had to stay off wine at the moment and that is not helping me like november even more

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

Thing is, I have never known anyone that goes on holiday as much as you! So I think you deserve November in Blackburn! Ah yes, medical conditions and alcohol! I actually stop drinking for a month each November as this undoes the damage I do to my body the rest of the year (really, it does) and also is a good test to see just how reliant you have become on booze.

It is actually much harder for me here, as the wine selection is so good. I actually prefer, generally, Spanish wines to Portuguese, but only by the narrowest of margins. The other day I bought some adega (local co-operative wine maker) made Borba, a Portuguese white from the Alentejo region, for 1.4 Euros per bottle; Borba is the best of the region and Alentejo is THE white wine region of Portugal. The adega co-operative stuff tends to be a bit higher in sulphates though, as spraying vines with cheap sulphate prevents mildew and increases crops. I like to drink a bottle of good, more expensive wine (like a Rioja Grande Reserva, Cava Reserva or organic Douro) one day, and then a cheapy the next.

Oh well, just another 28 days to go!

__________________
There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

Have yet to see how i can tolerate wine after this gastric bypass. sugar is a no no it causes something called dumping syndrome......you don't want to know but the name says it all.
I like a nice rich shiraz meself well did. I can't have anything fizzy now as well so I was toting with the idea of whiskey and water. It will be a reduced amount though.
I think that the month off is a good idea. I once met someone else who did that as well...do you find that you lose weight as well?
You are doing a grand job with the site. wish that others would use the other threads such as these.
27 days to got now LOL

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

Thanks for the kind words; hopefully all the ingredients are right now to make it a more popular place. I know some people are put off by my ethics thing, a case of not wanting to know the hotel they want to stay at is not so nice to the locals as they would want so it is easier perhaps to find another forum where they paint nothing but sunshine, but hopefully here will come of age.


I have done the month off things for years; it does work and there is hard medical evidence to show it too. I do not have too much of a podge to lose as I do not drink beer any more and limit the amount of red meat, especially fatty meat I eat; more for me a taste choice as it happens. We get superb chicken here (not the fat broiler things) plus damn good seafood. We also do quite a bit of walking as we are lucky enough to have quite a bit of land and direct river access, so walking along the river is easy for us. Plus I busy myself in the garden, although not as much as one might suppose as we have a gardener. But still, I just chopped up a "ton" of oak for the fire tonight if we need it. So exercise is pretty automatic for me as well. I may give the impression I am on the Internet a lot maybe, but I just walk past the one we have in the study which I leave switched on and take a look and do whatever. Being Saturday, not having a glass or 6 or wine though is a tough one!

__________________
There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

I have found that it becomes a habit - bad day at work, umpiring hockey at the weekend (did 2 games today) and somehow a lime juice and soda just doesn't hit the spot.

I manage to go for a week but am looking to try an alcohol free January. Tie this in to the post Chritmas need to loose a few pounds and see how long it lasts.

Jax - I expect one of your outcomes will be a couple of glasses will have a much quicker effect so think of the money you will save!

Will try out the new bits to the forum over the next couple of days.

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Alison

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It's Better to Burn Out than just to Fade Away!

past the fact I like a tipple of course.

But then I finish drinking wine at least an hour before I go to bed and then drink at least 2 large glasses of water anyway, so the water becomes a trigger mechanism; if I drink my bottle of wine and want more, I drink a glass of water instead and my brain detunes to the wine desire. Same thing now, I just drink a little more water and earlier. It is not so bad, the weekends make you think about it more or if you go out for a meal (that does not happen as much as it used to for sure). Certain foods probably trigger a desire for certain drinks as well (curries and beer, red meat and red wine, etc.), so maybe eat less trigger foods (my neighbour can not eat a fresh fig without drinking a glass of white port).

Ah, New Year Resolutions! Planned all year, broken in a minute! Take the plunge, do it now before Christmas!

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There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

Good idea about the water, I'll try that.

Yes, I know new year resolutions are there to be broken so I will start the alcohol free period earlier - in fact from tomorrow. If Mark is on a teetotal month and Jax can't drink whilst she is recuperating then it seems only fair I should try as well.

Will report on progress.

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Alison

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It's Better to Burn Out than just to Fade Away!

I doubt it will work if you simply do it like that tomorrow, but good luck to you; I did do it just like that one day when I gave up smoking, so who knows.

But if I were you I would get into the habit of drinking two large glasses of water after booze (wine) and before bed; yup, you will get up a few times. This will do you good in itself. Then once you get used to and want that water, use it to stop drinking at night if you are tempted to going over whatever limit / amount it is you have decided; for me, it is a full bottle of wine. The water then acts like a trigger mechanism and kills the urge; you just have to fight the urge to forget about it. Then you are set to using water to also help you stop for a month.

Anyway, if you can stop just like that, good for you. It is not a chemical / substance addiction with me, and I know this because of the month off. But those glasses of wine sure help you unwind and make an evening, so to cut that "addiction" out takes a bit of planning. I even have it down to a fine art during summer when the alcohol consumption can easily rise by either a) drinking Lambrusco (yuk), b) drinking spritzers (actually this is the only time I can drink heavy whites as I dislike "Oaky full bodied" white wines), or c) use the same wine glass to drink a glass of water between galsses of wine.

__________________
There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

I have often said that wine...the ones that I like are the only alcoholic drink that i actually enjoy. I mean that i have spent years drinking bacardi and coke etc but i do like thw taste of wine and the mellow that it gives you.
I do hope that i will be a able to still have the odd glass.
I think that association has a lot to do with things you know like it is saturday so must have a glass or it is that time of day.
Food and drink and smoking are all hooked up to the same.
I or should I say me and Dave together stopped smoking 6 years ago. We were heavy smokers and smoked 40 a day each, I am trying to use some of the tools that I used then to help me over the first part of this op.
Feeling a bit better today but i know that I am still on the roller coaster emotionally.
Grey days here don't help it was lovely and bright yesterday and that lifts my mood any time.

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.