Deputy Blog: No, it's deputy blob!

 THE rotten weather has got to me this week - and I'm considering going into hibernation until it all goes away.

The ice-strewn roads and footpaths have made getting about so treacherous that my healthy fitness programme has taken a real whack.

We've done so little walking due to the conditions underfoot that I have clocked up only 42,000 steps according to my hip-fixed pedometer.

That figure, says the experts, should be up over 70,000 a week (10,000 per day) and with a combination of getting out for a walk with Mrs W and my weekly winter golf match I wasn't having any difficulty hitting those sort of numbers.

Well not this week.

The longest walk undertaken has been to and from the Chronicle car park - now being used as a practice rink for 'Dancing on Ice'.

It has been full winter gear each day with the real prospect of having the leave the car somewhere stuck in a snowdrift.

Well that didn't happen as Tony Noblet's gritting heroes have done their bit - I suppose they've done it too well because if I'd not been able to drive I would have had to walk to work and put a few thousand steps on the hip.

But it's been tricky enough under foot and wheel to put me off going up to the gym - plus the fear of a snow flurry and problems getting home.

The other aspect of the inactivity has been food. I now realise why the couch potato is such a fat species... when you are sat there night after night there is a real temptation to reach for the nibbles to go with the endless stream of cuppas.

Don't get me wrong, we have not found it necessary to turn to pudding, chip and mushy peas for the week but being inactive is almost a viscious circle.

I'm inactive so I eat. And then I feel pigged out so feel like a slob and I don't feel like doing anything... it just goes on.

Not even having a training session with my teenage football charges on 'all weather' was enough to break the cycle.

Surely we can't call them all-weather pitches if we have to call it off when the snow comes.

We've lost about 4 sessions this winter to snow. So from now on it will have to be the 'most-weather' pitch.

My inactivity has seen me spend too much time in front of the tv.

The saving grace of that was that I would probably not normally have been home to watch Terry Pratchett's incredible documentary on fighting the battle against early-onset Altzheimer's.

This inspirational and moving programme certainly made you thankful for what you have.

And I was also indoors working on some paperwork when I looked up to see darts world champion Phil Taylor playing darts ... in the Rover's Return!

It was a great cameo as 'Disco Dave' in an opposition All-Star team and Phil hit a 180 and finished on the bull. I looked at him and felt like he'd done more exercise taking the few paces to the board and back to retrieve his arrows than I had managed in the week.

And when I got the Get Moving to Health session on Monday night and tipped the scales at my starting weight my bad week was complete. You fat git Whaley.

NOTE TO DIARY: Cancel Canteen Kath's Xmas card.

First she came to my office on Thursday and asked me if I was going to have a bacon butty?

Outrageous temptation after such a tough week.

Then she 'just happened' to walk past with one of the said weapons of belt destruction on the Friday morning.

How cruel can you get?

PS: One of the people at the very core of first launching the Get Moving to Health programme back in 2007 was Chronicle Advertising Manager Jim Whittingham, who died suddenly last week of a stroke at the age of 60.

Smoker Jim would never have classed himself as an athlete but on the Friday we were cracking jokes as we planned another project.

Days later he was taken from us. Jim was a career Chron man, much respected in the industry and a Latics fanatic.

It was his funeral today and we will all miss him deeply.