Snow? What snow?

Winter has well and truly set in. Which for us in Manchester seems to mean freezing cold temperatures rather than anything else. So much so the canal next to our flat has frozen over (which is pretty cool). Across the country, however, I keep hearing tales of snow, snow, and more snow, but to look out our windows, you'd never know.

I've been quite jealous, to be honest. I love the snow. All cold and pretty (and not as wet as rain!) I know most of our friends are pretty fed up with it now, but it sounds like there has been epic snow up in Edinburgh / Glasgow. Typical! The year I move away, Edinburgh gets the best snow in over 10 years (roughly how long I lived there). Booo! Reason number three hundred and five to move back (if more reasons were needed). Although, knowing my luck, the year we move back will be the year of crazy snow in Manchester!!

Ok, so we have had the odd flurry and I was filled with hope on trudging to the dentist on Wednesday in a snow shower, but it just hasn't really been anything worth mentioning at all. I was unable to get to work (in Sheffield) last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and I just kept wondering why... Well, until I got in yesterday that is and saw that there were still several inches everywhere. Very greedy of them to have hogged it all... ;o)

Not that Manchester is anymore attractive in the snow...

Maybe more will come, the country again become gridlocked, my trains cancelled so I have to 'work from home', (which was great!). No signs at present, so for now I can only keep my fingers crossed.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod

An update on the weightloss/exercise

I know I said I was bored of the diet and I wouldn’t talk about it for a while, but I think that was mostly because it wasn’t going so well. I seemed to plateau for a week or two, around that annoying stone marker and it was a bit depressing. These last couple of weeks, however, have been better. I’m not sure why. I don’t think I’m eating any differently and I don’t think I’m exercising any more (in fact I know I’m not), so I’m not sure what’s happened there. I have changed my exercise regime in the gym a bit. As any long term reader will know I don’t enjoy running. Or to put it more honestly, I hate that bit when running when you can’t really do it and it’s far too hard work to even run for five minutes. I don’t mind it so much when I’ve built up from that and can “comfortably” run for longer – that’s achievement – but I hate the back at zero stage. So after a week or so of doing some speed splits (2 mins walking at 6.5 km/h, 2 mins running at 10 km/h) and then a couple of weeks of really not wanting to be at the gym at all, I decided to ditch the running and use my time on the treadmill to walk uphill, fast, instead. I set the programme to ‘Rolling Hills’ and the speed to 6.5 km/h and off I trot. I’m quite enjoying it as it’s still a sweaty work out (I aint no mountain goat), but I’m not having to run. Hoping to see some benefit too if Flâneur and I ever get out into those hills I pass every day on my way to work...

I’ve also started using the bike more, to do a bit of different exercise, and I’m quite enjoying the rolling hill programme on that too. It’s sore on the arse, and I have a tendency to slip a bit off the seat every now and again, but it’s good to be doing something a bit different and not letting the gym routine get stale. That’s what I tell myself anyway!!

On the weight loss front, I’m pretty pleased as I have now lost (drum roll please) just over half a stone, since starting on this latest kick. Ok, so over the course of however many weeks it’s been (quickly checks back in the blog, oh, 8 weeks – eek!) that’s not so much, but it’s a good steady loss and it is loss and I’m now down to X-2 stone 10 lb, which is nearly what I was just after Christmas. I must be doing something not quite right though as according to the food diary I’m supposed to have lost double that. I must be going off the rails somewhere…. Still, I’ll take a half stone loss at this point over no loss!!

Some of my friends are coming down to visit for my birthday this weekend, so I had better be careful not to put those pounds back on. We have a habit of eating a lot when we get together… hmmm… wish me luck!

A little bit behind...

I'm running a little behind with the quilt along. I had meant to sew up my pieces this weekend, but a short notice visit from my parents on Friday night/Saturday morning, shopping and a bit of a hangover on Saturday afternoon and a job to apply for on Sunday and it just didn't happen. Sunday was definitely supposed to be the sewing day, but it took me about 5 hours to sort out the personal statement and a new version of my CV for the job application that had to be done by today, that I just didn't have the energy or time in the end... *

What I did manage to do, however, was work out the arrangement of the quilt top. I used our bed as I'm not sure how clean the floor is and I didn't want to totally disrupt Flâneur who was trying to write some lectures, and started roughly in the middle, as it seemed to be the easiest way... I tried to do it in a considered way, trying to make sure that none of the edge fabrics repeated in any rows or columns, but in the end held a pile of squares in my hand and stood thinking, 'Right. Where will this one go...'

This is the final layout I ended up with:

I didn't quite manage to get all the squares in the picture as our bedroom isn't big enough for me to stand far enough back!! But you get the general idea...

When I see it like that I'm rather pleased with it. Up close some of it does mess with your eyes a bit, but I must say it's turning out pretty well for my first go at a quilt that isn't just made up of ordinary squares!

*I don't want to say too much about the job I applied for, other than it's a permanent one, which would trump the temporary one I have at the moment. Fingers crossed eh?

Quilt Along update

Having cut out all of the pieces last week, this week's task in the Fat Quarterly Quilt-Along was to piece it. With 80 blocks to sew, not small feat! I had meant to do a little each evening, but after a trip to the gym on Monday evening left me knackered I was slow to start... I then got a cold at the end of the week, which saw me taking two days of work, so no chance for sewing then either. Boo hoo... I had matched up all the fabrics into their blocks at the start of the week, deciding on a random approach. Well contrived random (as Flâneur put it), as I went to great lengths to make sure that a border fabric wasn't used as the centre fabric for any of the borders made of those fabrics. Hmm.. convoluted. Basically I tried to make sure that over all the 80 blocks I never got the same pairing of fabrics. Tricky, but I managed it!

I think this took me most of Monday or Tuesday evening to do! It was tricky trying to make sure the fabrics went well together whilst not repeating the pairing - and some I'm still not entirely convinced work... No doubt it will look better when it's all finished.

I was feeling better yesterday so I decided to take that as a signal that I should start the sewing. I was still pretty tired after the cold (they tend to hit me with major lethargy regardless of how severe the cold actually is), so only managed to sew 28 of the blocks. Which is pretty good going really. As the next stage starts tomorrow, however, and I didn't want to get behind, it did leave me with the hefty task of sewing up the other 52 blocks today! Phew! Still, the weather was typically Mancunian (rain, rain and oh, more rain) so I had no intention of leaving the flat anyway. So I chained myself to the machine and set myself a sewing. And this was the outcome:

A neat little pile of 80 pieced blocks. I'm pretty pleased with them, especially having never tried this style of patchwork before. Here's a picture of a selection of them:

I think you'll agree that some look better than others, and that some really do mess with the eyesight:

The two top left and one bottom left are among my favourites and some of the ones that I think work particularly well. The other three, well, let's just say they'll take some getting used to! I think the whole thing should look pretty good when I'm finished though. Fingers crossed!

Because I want it...

It is no secret that I am becoming increasingly obsessed with fabric. In a way that Flâneur is about paper (particularly Japanese paper), only I like to think with more commitment at the moment. My stash isn't that big, but it is growing. A trip to Liberty here, a Festival of Quilts there, so many online sources and an obsession grows and grows... I might even start blogging about some of the lovely stuff that I buy so you can all appreciate it too... I'll start when my Saffron Craig parcel arrives - so excited about that!!

While reading the blogs of friends I also read the blogs of quilters and other crafters (in an attempt to motivate myself, which does work sometimes) and from here I often find fabulous fabrics being promoted or mentioned and the drooling starts again. One such occurrence at the moment is on Sarah Fielke's blog The Last Piece. One of her recent posts was just a sea of fabulous fabrics that she has designed and had just had delivered. Oh my but it's lovely. And now she's giving some of it away.... Oh please let one of the lucky people be me... If it's not, well, maybe I'll just have to buy some of it anyway (if my paltry budget allows), as it's so pretty... I have one of her books 'Material Obsessions' and the other is on my Amazon wishlist, but to have some of her fabric too would be brilliant.

Keep your fingers crossed for me readers!

Redesign

I've been looking at my blog a lot recently as I have been posting to it more and I have decided that the red template that I recently changed to was just a bit too red, a bit too much. So I've changed it again. Quite pleased with the new version, what do you think?

Let me eat cake!

In a further 'I have a wonderful husband' post, just to make sure you know how lovely he is (and maybe to make you sick a little), I post the following:

Yup. Today my lovely husband made cupcakes. Yummy! And delightfully put them in alternating coloured cupcake cases. Ah, the things that make me happy... ;o) While he needs to learn some piping skills (he'd be the first to admit that too, so I'm not doing him down, promise!), they looks very tasty. Especially that lovely large one two from the right... ;o)

From the top! On a cool plate he bought in New York. I don't care that they don't have perfectly formed piped icing. They look delicious.


Post script - and taste it too! Yum! ;o)

My cute husband...

...went up to Edinburgh for a couple of days for a seminar and left this scene on our bed:

We started writing letters to each other when he was in Manchester and I was still in Edinburgh, and occasionally, when we are apart, we still do. So he left me a letter on our bed, and decided that his little green knitted dinosaur Raar (a birthday present from me last year after seeing the one belonging to a friend's 2 year old) should deliver it to me:

Hiding behind the letter with Raar is our little Koneko Basu, a fabulous little cutie from the Gibli museum in Tokyo...

My husband really is a wonderful man and really knows how to cheer me up!

All cut up and ready to go...

The diet can take a back seat for the next few weeks (I'm bored bored bored of it). I am mostly going to concentrate on the sewing project. I am still trying to lose weight, as ever, and still logging all the eating and exercise, but it just bores me to talk about it at the moment. On the sewing front, joining a quilt-along, I have realised, is fantastic motivation not only to do more sewing, but also to do some fabric/sewing related fun in the evenings and not just at the weekend or on a day off. Hurrah, just what I hoped.

This is week 1 of the quilt-along and that means cutting up the fabric. Something it often takes me some time to get round to plucking up the courage to do! But I have followed the instructions and my lovely Moda jelly roll (Hello Betty) is now ready to sew:

(The lovely jelly roll bought in New York on our Honeymoon 1)

(All the pieces cut up - 12 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares and 8 2.5 x 6.5 inch rectangles in each fabric)

I'm loving the colours, the teals, the reds and browns. Hmm... lovely! (That dark solid colour is brown, by the way, even though it looks black).

I think I need a bit more practice with my camera though - it was new before going away in March and I still haven't quite got the hang of it beyond auto shooting. It was a total lust object, an Olympus Pen EP-1 , a micro four thirds interchangeable lens, retro beauty. Ideally I'd like to do a beginners digital photography course so I can learn (in a class room based environment) how to use all it fabulous features, but I am scunnered by there being no such course in central Manchester. I don't want to rant, but this town is so rubbish for interesting evening classes. The art school has decided that it's too good to do that sort of thing and the local college is only interested in getting you back into work. What happened to learning for the sake of learning? Honestly... If we lived in Didsbury, there might be more going on, but that's a half hour bus ride from us, and after the train ride back from work I don't want to then head off somewhere on a bus!

Anyway, so I need to practice more at the moment, at the very least. Meantime, roll on next week and the start of the sewing!

Sewing Motivation!

Having spent some time sewing over the last week I am determined to do more. So much so that I'm going to try and join in the Fat Quarterly Quilt-a-long (see new button on the side bar). In an attempt to drive me on to actually doing something!! Sewing motivation for once (rather than exercise motivation!) Ah, if only I didn't have a full time job...

Just have to hope that neither of us goes crazy over the next few weeks with my sewing machine constantly being out on our dining table... dum di dum...

Will consult my stash and get a started tomorrow and hopefully have some progress to report on the old blog shortly!

(On other progress notes - I am now nearly 6 pounds lighter than when I started my latest eat less and exercise more regime. Not bad, eh, particularly given the weekend away in Edinburgh and a week off and a weekend in London...!)

Holiday sewing projects

(Warning - lots of pictures in this post!)

Have just had a week off and as well as spending one weekend in Edinburgh and one in London, I also spent a little bit of time doing a little bit of sewing. I finally got the quilt for H and CMcM's wee one finished (I only started it, what a year ago??):

(The finished article, laid out on the table.)

This is only the second quilt I have every made, and the first one that I have actually properly actually quilted. I'm still not confident enough to do binding yet - hopefully with the next one, but I think it looks ok without it. I love the colours in this - always a wrench to give it away! I stitched in the ditch to quilt it, which helped keep my lines straight, but not always very straight:

(Spot the slightly wobbly lines...)

The back was a single piece of teal fabric. I'm pretty pleased with it all in all. :o)

(I quite like the squares on the back caused by the quilting, as well as the colours!)

(The final item, all nicely folded and ready to be given to the new owner. I hope she loves it as much as I do!)

I also made myself a ring pin cushion. I saw some (frankly much more finished versions) at the V&A quilting exhibition, which were lovely but £35, which was really just a bit too much for me to pay. After a wee search online, I realised that it wouldn't be that hard to make. All I needed was a bottle top from a 2 litre bottle of coke or lemonade (Schweppes in my case), some stuffing and a bit of fabric and some elastic (and some glue) and I'd have a rudimentary version.

(Not bad eh? Can you guess where the little fabric scrap came from for it?)

To really finish it off I ought to cover the bottle top itself in fabric, but that's perhaps something for another day (and I sort of like it in its raw state). Anyway, it's very very useful. And anyone who doesn't have one, should - they're so easy to make!

And then, finally, I made one more project. We've needed a new door stop in our flat for our bedroom door, since we moved in a couple of months ago. I have a great pattern from a Lotta Jansdotter book Simple Sewing, that I have used twice before, so I broke it out and a cool bit of fabric from my stash that I was just waiting to know what to do with. I mostly stuff them with soft toy stuffing, but then add some rice at the bottom (in food bags) to give it the necessary weight. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out though:

(Loving the funky fabric)

Here it is next to the other two that I made:

(They look cute all lined up, eh?)

The robots on the right was the first one I made - a present for Flaneur for Christmas a few years ago - and I clearly went crazy on the stuffing as it looks very 'comfy' next to the others! The chickens was used in the kitchen in the old flat. Unfortunately the freezer leaked a bit once and it got a little wet. I use it in my 'utility cupboard' now (the cupboard in the hall with the washing machine in it - it's great to keep the cupboard door open so I can use the blinking thing). I'm pretty pleased with my little family of door stops. And I think the last one I made is definitely technically the best.

Just need to work out what my next project is going to be now!

Rant alert...

Oh dear.

Only two weeks in to writing on my blog again and already I’m slipping on the updates. Working miles from where I live isn’t helping as I find that I am just too tired in the evenings (when I’m not going to the gym) to think about anything other than watching trashy telly! I need to get a job closer to home… Speaking of which, I actually applied for one recently. It sounded really great – at a posh school as the only archivist. It was part time (term time working), but I worked out that if they paid me similar to my current salary I wouldn’t exactly be down very much, when you take my season ticket into account, and the school holidays would give me loads of time to do other things that I want to do – like sew more! There was no salary on the advert but ‘salary negotiable dependent on experience and qualification’. Well, I’m definitely qualified and having worked professionally for 9 years, definitely experienced (and worth what I’m paid). So I thought, why not give it a punt – I’m prepared to haggle for what I’m worth!

Well, turned out that they had no idea how much a ‘qualified and experienced’ archivist should be paid. And that those negotiations would be based on the most insulting and paltry figure. I had a phone call last week from the deputy head somewhat apologetically saying that they’d love to interview me, but the salary they were offering was considerably less than I was paid at the moment, was I still interested (he knew my answer would be no though). I though, ok, maybe they’re looking to pay around £25K ish, and I can’t afford to do it at that, but no. They valued their archives even less. If the post was full time the most they could offer was £22K!! I mean, really… that is just an insult. And a total waste of my time (and probably some other people’s too, I wont have been the only one earning more than that who will have gone for it). That is the absolute minimum that the Archives and Records Association recommends that recently qualified archivists are paid, and even then the average salary for a new start is around £24K. It was really just an insult and clearly they didn’t really want a qualified archivist (and definitely not an experienced on) and it just left me soooo frustrated. You have to jump through so many hoops to get into this profession and then people who probably get paid quite well themselves insult you with crappy pay. They’ll probably end up with either an enthusiastic amateur or someone recently qualified, who I’m sure would do fine, but shouldn’t have to settle for such crap pay!

Argh….

And I think it would have been a good and enjoyable and interesting job and I had to turn the interview down. I’m not sure quite why I’m so angry about it, I might not have got it anyway, but I am…

:o(

So the possible glimmer of light at getting out of the commute and the relatively dull job I have ended up with has been snuffed out and I’m back to feeling knackered all the time and feeling under used and under valued. Ok, yes, so the pay I am on now is great, but I just don’t know if I’m going to get a job at the end of this that will even come close to matching it, let alone be in Manchester… Or even get a job at all! In the current economic climate, now is not a time to be looking for a niche job… Don’t get me wrong, bits of this job are interesting, but I do feel that it under uses my experience and skills and I find myself getting bored quite easily… I never thought that I’d miss the responsibilities that I had in my last job, but turns out that I do. There you go.

Sorry for the rant. I have also been to the gym three times since my last blog, lost another 2lbs, and had a lovely visit from HL and BC. Flâneur also joined the gym and we had our first session together on Saturday, followed by a lovely Japanese lunch, so things aren’t all bad! ;o)

In need of a holiday...

In keeping with the new new regime, I went to the gym last night. Go me. Turns out it’s not so hard to do after all. ;o)

I get changed at work before leaving for the station so I’m all set to go when I get to the gym. Just have to take the joggers off to reveal the running tights (well, cropped leggings really), and away I go! Last night wasn’t quite so quick off the mark though as I faffed around with a padlock for the lockers for about 10 minutes, totally unable to make it work properly. And getting increasingly frustrated as I’d only just bought the damn thing in one of the vending machines in the gym. £3 it cost me and it’s a piece of junk! Luckily the gym wasn’t so busy so I could use machines that I could put my coat and bag next to, in plain sight of me, so no-one would nick them. But I don’t like doing that really…

So I did my usual running machine/cross trainer routine managing:

Treadmill:

2 mins walk at 6 kmph
5 mins run at 8 kmph
2 mins walk at 6 kmph
5 mins run at 8 kmph
2 mins walk at 6 kmph
5 mins run at 8 kmph (more or less, I did walk for about 30 secs in the middle)
4 mins walk at 6 kmph to cool down.
Total: 25 mins, 2.94 km (how annoying to just miss the spot on 3)

Pretty pleased with that and it’s definitely an improvement on Monday and much more what I want to be doing at this stage.

Cross trainer:

25 mins on manual setting (including 4 mins of cool down), going an average of 6.7 kmph, swapping between level 1 to level 4 every 3 minutes. Which I figured was better than every two I had done on Monday! Total kilometerage: 2.79 km.

Pretty pleased with all that.

Wont be back again this week as we have HH and BC visiting this weekend and I have lots of hoovering, cleaning and tidying to do on Friday night before they arrive… Our first visitors, it’s very exciting. And I can’t wait to see them as I find I am missing my Edinburgh friends terribly at the moment. I need to make it back up there very soon, but I just don’t know when I’ll have the time or money. More importantly the money (trains really should be cheaper)!!

I am desperately in need of some time off though. Since April I have had proper time off only for moving house, which is not exactly a relaxing holiday. In fact it’s horrible and stressful and I will always need a holiday after doing it… So I feel like I have been working relentlessly for the last 4 months. And I need a lie in! I’m hoping to take a week off at the beginning of September, to lie in, read (totally engrossed in my book at the moment, reading ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. So much so I hate it when my train journeys end at the moment and I have to do work – I could just keep reading and reading. Must get the next one for when this one runs out…) and hoping to do some sewing, which I have not done for ages! Still have a project for little IMcM to finish off and have more projects buzzing round my head but no real time to do them at the moment. I’m taking Flâneur to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August, so I’m hoping to find more inspiration, some supplies and a bit of oomph while we’re there! That’s the theory anyway…

Short progress report

Today is weigh-in day, having started my newest regime last Wednesday. In my first week of using an online food diary I have lost (drum roll please):

2 1/2 lb.

Which is good as I am aiming for a 2lb per week weight loss to get to my first target (10% weight loss).

On the down side I'm back to X-1 stone 2 1/2 lb, which was what I had been static at for ages... Ok, so this had gone up to 5 lb over a few weeks, but I feel like I'm back where I started and it's taking quite a lot of motivation to see it as positive weight loss at the moment and not some sort of fluctuation. Only next week will really have me believing that this is working...

Being tired today probably doesn't help. Ah well. Roll on next week.

Getting back on track...

Haven’t blogged for a while, but with starting a new weight loss and fitness regime, I feel I ought to have somewhere to record my progress, and this is what this blog was supposed to be...

A lot has happened this year so far… Far too much to put in one post. To sum up though:

• I got married. This was brilliant. I had the best day, the sun shone and it was just fantastic.
• We didn’t go to Tokyo on honeymoon. Bastard BA greedy scumbags… (don’t get me started on this, I’m still very upset about it)
• We did go to New York instead. Which was brilliant. We got upgraded at our hotel, ate in a couple of fantastic restaurants (including 3* Daniel), ate lovely cupcakes that we travelled across the city for, and had fun with a stuffed knitted green dinosaur at the top of the Rock…
• We moved. Three times. First Flâneur moved to a flat in a new city in January, then I moved to join him there in April when we got back from New York. Then we moved everything to one flat in June. At one point we were renting three flats at once, and I couldn’t recommend that less! This was all very stressful and expensive, but at least we now live in one flat together.
• I got a new job. And now commute for 50 mins by train every day… Ah well, at least I’m not spending every other weekend travelling up and down the country anymore.

All this has not exactly made it easy to keep off the weight and keep up the exercise. I can’t remember the last time I went to the gym and my weight has crept back up to X-1 stone and 5 lb! Not good. Not good at all.

But now things are settling down I can finally start to sort this out. Finally I can try and get things back on track! Thanks to RF mentioning it in an email, I have started to watch what I eat by keeping an online food diary with Nutracheck (http://www.nutracheck.co.uk/). I have toyed with doing this before, but hadn’t found one that was as easy to use or as cheap. It took a while to get used to, but they give you a five day free trial, which was enough for me to realise that it could work. It’s quite an eye opener if you give it a go. You may sit and think (like me), I eat quite healthily, I don’t over eat, why am I not losing any weight? And then you write it all down (you have to be very honest) and you realise that actually you eat far more than you thought, calorie-wise, don’t exercise nearly enough, and that there are definite areas where improvement could be found! The things I like particularly about this online food diary are:

• You can easily create your own recipes. So if, like us, you make most meals from scratch, you can find out how many calories they contain based on the ingredients, rather than guessing. We even did it for some oaty biscuits Flaneur makes (which are quite calorific it turns out…).
• If gives suggested Food Swaps. So you can find similar things that have fewer calories and fat. For example I like a biscuit or two with my morning coffee. This week I have ginger snaps rather than bourbons, thanks to the food swap! (this feature can be amusing however, when what it wants to swap is already pretty low in calories and fat, and what it suggests instead is something with the same number of calories!)
• It shows you (very clearly) how many portions of fruit/veg you are eating.
• It lets you copy stuff easily into another day.
• It lets you easily add in exercise from a very comprehensive list of options (including exercise DVDs and the Wii fit!)

One downside might be that the database doesn’t contain a lot of foods from M&S, which is unfortunately where we do most of our food shopping (not because we are posh, but because it’s closest and we don’t have a car). There are probably some other plus/negative points too, but those are the ones I’ve got so far.

So that’s the eating getting under control (hopefully). I’ve done my first full week using it and I have lost 3lb. So far so good.

Now onto the exercise! Taking the train early every day doesn’t help. Living where we do doesn’t help (not great for running outside as there are no green spaces nearby and not really gyms that close by). Gyms being very expensive also doesn’t help (the nearest one to us is a Virgin Active, and tragically I cannot afford their prices). I did try and run outside with Flâneur a few weeks ago (ok 6 weeks ago), but to get the right distance I had to work out a very convoluted route that took us through some dodgy looking areas, so we abandoned that. He has since worked out another route that involves running round the block 3 times (the block in question being about a mile). Me, I don’t enjoy this so much and always feel like I’m holding him back when we go together as he’s quicker and fitter than me. And then it hit me. I was actually missing going to the gym. Missing it! I didn’t realise it had had this effect on me, but I realised that I had to go back. So I did a lot of looking around and found that my best option was Pure Gym. There’s one in town that is only 10-15 mins walk from one of the stations and then only 20 mins walk from our flat. They’re quite good as it’s only £15.99 a month and there’s no contract to tie you in, so if it doesn’t work out I can quit whenever. So on Sunday, I joined. And then last night I went. And I must say, it was great to go back. It was hard, very hard, and I didn’t do a lot (don’t want to push it on the first go after such a long gap), but I did enjoy it and now today I don’t ache (very much) and have a great desire to go back. What I did was:

Treadmill:

2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
5 mins run at 8 kmp
2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
5 mins run at 8 kmp (oh. my. god. this hurt.)
2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
2 mins cool down at 3.3 kmp
Total: 18 mins, 2.2km.

Cross Trainer:

20 mins on manual setting, going around 6.5kmp, swapping from level 1 to level 4 and back every 2 mins. Around 3km total.

A good slow build up. I had wanted to do 30 mins on the cross trainer, but it hurt too much and I thought it best not to over do things. It also took me about 6 mins of relentless movement on the one setting to realise that it would be better to chop it up into chunks of different levels, and that really made the time past.

I shall try and ramp it up each time I go, but it certainly feels good to be back.

So Pis**d off...

I am more furious than I ever thought possible… Here was me having a nice stress free run up to the wedding, doing bloody well thank you very much not to get stressed by anything and then Unite go and ruin all that. Due to the potential strike action by BA cabin crew announced yesterday I am now turning in to a gibbering wreck about whether or not we’re going to get away for our long anticipated and looked forward to honeymoon on the 20th.

The most annoying things is that the strikes may not happen or may not affect us and then I will have done all this worrying and stressing for nothing!! If a strike does happen we are covered by insurance, BA will refund or change our flights and we can cancel our hotels with 24 hours notice, but that doesn’t stop me worrying about it now!!

It isn’t helped by the fact that I think the actions of the cabin crew are totally and utterly ridiculous and unfounded. I wouldn’t mind quite so much (or at least be as apoplectic with rage!) if I thought they had good cause. But I don’t. I tried writing the following rant on Facebook by was restricted by the amount of space they give you…

Do they not realise that their actions will eventually cripple the airline and then many of them will lose their jobs? Do they not realise that the economy is not healthy and that the airline is being hit by falling revenue?? Do they not realise that none of them are losing their jobs over this stupid issue or having their t&c changed (only new entrants are) and that the public sympathy is not really with them (according to comments I have read on the BBC website and the Times online)?? Do they not realise that their T&Cs and pay are better than any other airline's, even though they don't offer the best customer service anymore?? Why does the union not see that loosing two high court battles, the last of which stated that BA was correct in its course of action to try and save the company from going under (!), means that it should let this one go.... The Unite leaders behind this are clearly living in the past and have no concept of current economics or the necessary changes that have happened to business in the past 20 years.

And breathe.

Not exercising

Well, it's been a while! I didn't mean to leave it so long between blog entries. I think if I had actually done any exercise in the last couple of weeks I might have been more motivated to blog!! So, we'll get that out of the way to begin with - I haven't done any meaningful exercise since I last blogged, or, let's face it, this year. The weekends are better than the week days as I can generally find myself walking many (as in 5-10) miles over the weekends, but I have become chained to my desk and a desire to build up flexi time that the gym and pool are abandoned, along with my walk to work.

NOT GOOD.

I've had a bad cold this week too, so have been stuck in the house on my own, largely bored. Unfortunately when I'm bored I eat. And when I'm ill I don't eat well. So it hasn't been a good food week... Today was better (back at work and therefore no snacking at the desk!) - I had rivita and mackerel pate - my new favourite lunch - and an apple and raw carrots and a light yoghurt, all during the day, and then a light pasta of crevettes with chili and garlic, sugar snap peas and tomatoes. Very yummy. Just have to keep on with that sort of day I think...

I'm reaching the stage as well when I'm sure I should be obsessively dieting or exercising or something to 'lose a dress size' for the wedding... Just five weeks to go now. Eek! Thankfully I'm just not motivated in that way... And probably a good thing. While I could probably loose another half stone before the wedding, and that would be no bad thing, I'm not one of these crazy people who thinks that crash dieting is a good thing. I'd rather be plump than a crash dieter.

Getting very excited about the wedding now. Really really looking forward to it. Flâneur has got his suit, shirt, tie and fabulous shoes and boy he looks good. I know I'm biased, but he looks very handsome and I'm going to be the cat who got the cream with him on my arm (or on his arm, you know, whatever... ;o) ) on the day. I've had my first fitting with the dress maker where I could actually see what the dress is going to look like. That was very exciting (if not a bit daunting as she kept giving me options - don't give me options, I have no idea what these things would look like or if they'd look good!). We're also starting to get our RSVPs back - so nice to see that people are actually coming. It's nice to see people putting the effort in to let us know they're coming, after the effort Flâneur put in to the invites!! All hand painted by him, all different. He's so clever. We gave people til the 20th to RSVP and haven't had so many back yet - may have to start poking people soon, we have a seating plan to organise!! I am a bit disappointed that some people think it might be optional, the 'you know we're coming, right'... Well, we do now, but what ever happened to etiquette?? I have never considered RSVP (when asked to RSVP) to be unnecessary - why else ask for an RSVP if you don't want to receive one?? And they are really lovely to receive. We've even had some formal ones by e-mail, which has been quite funny, but there are still a lot of people to get back to us...

Anyway, don't mean to rant. The fact that people are coming is lovely, no matter how they tell us... and I'm really looking forward to the day more than anything right now.

2010 - Hit the Ground Running

What a start to the year! I’ve barely had time to do nothing, let alone the time to blog about it…

We started with one of those sorts of weeks that should make your head spin, if it weren’t that things would never get done if your head was spinning all the time. After Christmas and New Year were over with, it was a hasty finish off of packing for Flâneur and then pick up the van, drive across to his parents, realise the screen-wash in the van isn’t working properly, get very frustrated as the slush on the road made the windscreen filthy and then drive down to Manchester. The latter of which would have been fine if it hadn’t been freezing cold, mucky roads and no working screen-wash. It was pretty hairy at times as I found my vision seriously impaired while driving and I was very thankful (a) that the motorways were quiet on the first Monday after New Year and that (b) it started to snow on the outskirts of Manchester, just as the traffic was building up and that meant my windscreen cleaned itself for the first time ever!

We did get there in one piece and the flat wasn’t so bad (not as nice as our Edinburgh flat) but the snow unfortunately did not stop. It was pretty at first, until we woke up to 4 inches of the stuff the next day and a rising panic about how I was going to get to Sheffield for a job interview!! (Oh, yes, nothing like packing it all in in one week!). A hasty call to my colleague to get her to check the railway websites and a phone call from the people in Sheffield to see if I was going to make it and reschedule if not (very nice of them!) and I was on my way. It was very very pretty, but I just didn’t feel like I could really appreciate it while I was worrying about whether or not I’d get to Sheffield, get back or get stuck!!

As it was, it all went ok. I got there, I got the job and I could then relax a bit. Well for a couple of days until the drive back north! I kept scouring the sky for more snow and examining the roads for signs of ice and checking the van would actually move again… The drive back was no less terrifying as this time the screen-wash was actually frozen, not just broke. We got pretty far without having to stop and splosh screen-wash directly onto the windscreen, but after that we stopped at nearly every service station to clean the damn thing. Freezing fog (and no idea where the fog lights were) made things even more ‘fun’ and by Hamilton I was ready to give up and stay the night in a travel lodge, anything that meant I didn’t have to drive anymore. But I pulled myself together and we made it home (with one or two more stops) and I have never been more glad to see my flat as I was then…

I did manage to fit in a swim when I was down in Manchester, in their lovely Aquatic Centre – the first swim in a good few months! In fact probably the first proper exercise I have done in a good few months… (so much so that I am surprised that I only put 2 pounds on over the festive period and that they have gone away again – hurrah!). It was lovely being able to go mid morning for a swim, so quiet, I could really get used to that! It was at its full 50m (and took some getting used to that there was no shallow end) and I managed my usual 1km in a very respectable 33 minutes 33. I was very happy with that. I had time to kill so I did a few lengths of backstroke too, timing myself to see which I was quicker at. Surprisingly the breaststroke beat the backstroke by a good few seconds. I’d always assumed it would be the other way round…

Now we are firmly in January, Flâneur and I are also firmly into our weeks apart. I managed to fill my first week without him to the full, seeing my dress maker (she’s starting on the sewing now!), teaching my class, trying to build a new bed with HMcM (who I think surprised herself with how straight forward it was), and then a FABULOUS night with my FABULOUS friends at Hotel Missoni, where we drank cocktails, ate lovely food, drank nice champagne and wine and generally appreciated what greats friends we are.

I shall miss them very much when I move south. Even though we don’t all get together that often, I like having them nearby, just in case an emergency night out or dinner is needed… ;o) But there will be fabulous weekends to be had in the future, and I’ve not gone yet…

I’ve had my first weekend trip down to Manchester (arriving late on Friday and leaving early on Monday), which was lovely – it’s a bit like dating again. Only with fewer meals out because we’re very poor having to run two flats in two expensive cities! It was nice to wander round the shops – Manchester is cracking for shops – and generally hang out with F. With a realisation that the wedding is only two months away now we also got a lot of the little niggly things sorted, on paper at least, if not in reality!

I find myself exhausted now though and looking desperately forward to the first weekend where I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything in particular. A real bum-about weekend with no travel!! I think I’ve got just two weekends to wait, maybe??