EARLY ACCESS: GRETNA GREEN - PLUS BYAMPOD, PLUS A GIVEAWAY!

If you found the Sellafield video a tad on the heavy side, this is the perfect antidote.

it probably won’t be available to the general public for a few weeks, so this is proper early access; it’s just a brief one, about our hop over the border to visit Gretna Green. We made it to Scotland!

Just.

There’s some nice chatty stuff in there too. And we go in a maze.

We’ve been intending to do some shorter vids to sprinkle in among the longer ones; they don’t need to all be epics, and shorter videos are an easier jumping on point for newcomers.

Who'll be immediately repulsed by the sight of me twerking.

Skip to the bottom if you're just here for a free postcard.

DIET MIGRAINE

In other news… I got hit with another bloody migraine yesterday. If you’ve never had one, they’re almost impossible to explain. I rarely get the full pounding headache with mine. It tends just to be visual distortion – like a vibrating neon crack (hello!) in my vision - followed by feeling absolutely wiped out for 24hrs afterwards.

I only started getting them about 15 years ago. I remember the first time; I was in the middle of a game of Call of Duty 2 with a mate when I suddenly couldn’t see the screen properly. My ex used to get them quite often, and if it wasn’t for her describing them I would’ve thought something was seriously wrong.

Both Sanja and I started doing keto last week, and I remember from the last time I did it that it messes with my brain at first, and is a migraine trigger. Though keto does work for me – and fast - I’ve decided to come off it, and just try eating a bit better instead. Cut out the snacks. Believe it or not, I don’t actually eat that much, but my job is just sitting down. Our life so frantic and full  that when I do get down time I just want to flop on the sofa.

It’s hard to lose weight as we get older, of course, though with me it’s not so much because of my metabolism – though that’s obviously a part of it – but because I have less and less motivation to do it.

That voice saying “You need to look perfect! Others are judging you!” has become quieter over time. I’m less hard on myself than I was. I spend a lot of my life editing videos of myself, and for the most part I just see myself and go “Ah, you’ll do. Whatever. You’re 52. Go easy on yourself”…

Nevertheless, somebody did tell me last month that I’m “fat” and “need to lose a few pounds”, and it stuck. Yes, that was probably rude of him, obviously, but still. Without wanting to reveal too much, it was the week before we filmed this video, which is why I’m a bit harder on myself in it than usual.

BYAMPOD

At the minute, I'm hoping that we'll record BYAMPOD this week, but in all honesty it's just a hope. I'm still feeling a bit weird about it. The old enthusiasm has been dented more than I thought by the Fish stuff. Not so much from Fish's email, but more that I've been left with this feeling of... well... maybe the fans don't want a podcast that's like ours. Not about Marillion anyway.

Maybe we take aim at too many sacred cows? Maybe we're too disrespectful? It's that which I'm wrestling with, and I've not even wanted to listen to Marillion since it all happened. We're due to see them live next month - and though obviously this began with Fish - my enthusiasm is at an all-time low.

I'm hoping it comes back soon, because we SO loved doing it.

ANYWAY - HERE'S THE GIVEAWAY

We bought a bunch of postcards from Gretna Green, plus some from a shop near Hadrian's Wall (including one of that poor tree that got chopped down).

We'll sign them and scrawl a doodle on the back, so if you'd like one of these, leave a comment below - any comment you like - and we'll pick a winner using Sanja's Magical Random System.