Busy, busy, busy

Phew. So starting with the exercise, which is the boring bit. I'm still going to the pool, which is good, but I still haven't got above twice a week. And last week I only managed to go once. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as I only got a five swim voucher for the pool and want to join the Sports Center when I get paid in April. So no point in getting another one really when pay day is tomorrow! So, I went last Monday and was pleased with my times. Quicker than before and I even overtook someone in my slow lane. Not ideal as I'm not fast enough for the other lanes, but the other people in my lane kept stopping at the shallow end and then setting off just as I was about to turn! Grr... So, the stats for last Monday:

40 lengths (1000m)
34.13.74 (nearly a whole minute faster!!)
Average time for length: 51.34
Fastest Length: 1 at 43.12 (the slowest for a while, but it didn't seem to matter)
Slowest Length: 28 at 55.38

So not too bad. My Flâneur went off to Jakarta on Tuesday so I didn't want to get up early and bugger off to the pool when we could spend a bit more quality time together on Tuesday morning before going to work. I meant to go on Thursday instead, but when the alarm went of at 6:30 I just curled up in bed and refused to get up. There being no-one to either make me get up or lure me out of bed with breakfast, I just stayed there until I had to get up to get ready for work. On Friday I was a bit hungover so that was definitely out!!

But I managed to get my backside out of bed today and head off to the pool this morning, which was pretty impressive as Flâneur isn't back yet... I think a little habit may be forming, which is no bad thing. The pool was really quiet this morning, which was nice. Just me and one other girl in my lane for most of the time, with most of the other lanes pretty much the same. Usually there are between 20 and 30 people in the pool, but today it was probably 12-15... Must be University holidays or something.

And today was my best day yet at this pool. It didn't seem like it was going to be when I started off. I felt slow and the swimming felt hard work. Well it is hard work I suppose. I felt so good when I finished and checked the time on the SportsCount for my total. That's partly why I do it, I must say. So (just to bore you some more) today's stats:

40 lengths (1000m)
33.35.28 (that's nearly at the time of my first swim in the local pool at the start of the year! Yeah man!)
Average time for length: 50.38
Fastest Length: 1 at 40.84
Slowest Length: 10 at 53.24 (nearly my fastest slow length of the year!)

So really really pleased.

Other than not swimming this past week has been pretty busy as I try desperately not to miss Flâneur too much (didn't quite work). Everyone has been very sweet at making sure I'm ok and not too bored without him! Very lovely... He left on Tuesday last week and that evening I was out having dinner with TS who I teach palaeography with. We had a great time, but I'm not used to drinking half a bottle of wine on a Tuesday and it went right to my head!

On Wednesday it was the last of my Japanese classes of this term. It's gone really well and I can't believe how much we can now do! It was Japanese 1, Course 2, so we're talking beginners stuff here, but I don't think that at this stage in any other language that I have learnt have I been able to say what I have done/will be doing/am doing using past and not past tenses. It helps make me feel like I'm getting somewhere! I was even able to construct the fairly complex sentences of: "Yesterday, R-san went to Jakarta by plane. He is doing research work there. He comes home on Friday next week." I'm not sure if this will work but:


きの　ラエイさんは　ジャカタに　ひこきで　いきました。レセチャの　しごとを　します。　ラいしゅ　きにょび　うちに　かえります。

Cool. I think I might have got 'Jakarta' wrong, but otherwise it's not bad!! Impressive, no?? ;o)

Thursday I was out again, this time at HMcM's for dinner and chat. We were joined by RF and HAL and talked about all sorts of grown up things that made us feel very old... Again, too much wine was drunk and my head was sore on Friday morning. I'm lucky if I have a few glasses of wine on a Friday/Saturday these days, but at H's I had two glasses of Prosecco and then the best part of half a bottle of white! Urgh... Made me feel totally out of it on Friday and I ended up leaving work early because of the stinking headache. That'll teach me. I was very glad of a night in to myself on Friday night. It's lovely seeing people and having company (eating alone is miserable), but it was good to have a night off!!

Saturday saw me in Glasgow with RF trying on actual bonafide wedding dresses! God, it was terrifying... Mostly the hideous monstrosities that these places sell (we saw one girl trying on a Jordan-esque poofy thing that had a sky blue top and too much netting on the bottom. Eek!). It was all very eye opening and confirmed that that is definitely NOT what I want. I just didn't look right in them. So we came up with a good list of dos and don't to take to a dress maker and I'll get what I want, not what someone else thinks I should wear. So there. ;o) Two things though that the woman said that had me raising my eyebrows:

'when you find your dress, you'll know' - hmmm...
'Is your mum coming up to help you dress shop at all?' (answer: 'no') 'so she trusts you then...' Err? sorry? I love my mother and respect her opinion but wtf? Did she think I wasn't able to chose a frock without mummy?? That she had any say in what I wear on my wedding day?? Anyway, I know there are plenty of mothers out there who do hold that kind of sway over their daughters, but mine aint one of them. I would take her opinion (at a pinch), but other than that, she'd be the first to say that it's my choice not hers.

Anyway... it was a great day with RF and it was really nice to go back to her gaff in the country for the night so I didn't have to spend the weekend at home on my own. AB made us dinner, which was yummy and 'all organic, all local' as he'd been at the farmer's market in Edinburgh that morning. Hmm... It was a lovely chilled evening and much appreciated. RF dropped me back in Edinburgh on Sunday around lunch time, which gave me loads of time to get the (much needed) housework done. Phew. All this stuff going on though and I've not yet finished the quilt!

It's been great while Flâneur's been away. I've missing him like crazy, but my lovely friends have made sure it's not made me too crazy. ;o) Thanks guys!! More to come this week...

Quilt update

The cinema having failed us this afternoon, I spent part of the time working on my quilt. Where I left it last time was:

I had sewn up the pieces in strips and then sewn all the strips together. This took me pretty much a whole day, but part of that was all the ironing that I had to do. Iron all the seams of the long strips down the way and then all the long seams to one side. God it was tedious. So what you see above is the result of all that effort, laid out on our King Sized bed! Raw like that it was bloody massive! Not that it's much smaller now...

So, having done that bit I just need to get some fabric for the backing and some wadding for the middle. My favourite fabric shop is Mandors in Glasgow, which I drag my Flâneur to whenever we're through. It's fab, full of loads of great upholstery fabrics as well as a massive amount of 'crafting' fabrics. It's where I got all the fabrics for the front side of the quilt. Joyously from my point of view they also had cotton wadding (Warm and Natural, an American needled cotton batting that is soft and warm and crucially comes in big enough amounts for my project!). So I got a lovely red cotton for the backing and a huge amount of the cotton wadding. And I'm talking huge! Here they all are laid out on our floor ready to be cut to size:

Bear in mind that the quilted bit will fit on top of our king sized bed... This was a tricky stage as it turned out. As you can see from all the wrinkles the fabrics kept sticking to each other and it was very difficult to get them flattened enough to be able to pin and cut them. But I managed it, and then just had to sew up the edges. Phew! Like most bits of long straight stitching that didn't take me that long, so here is the (nearly) finished quilt!!

That's it being held up by my 6ft Flâneur, just so you get some idea of scale!! It's not quite finished yet as I have still to sew up the hole at the top where I turned it and then quilt down the gutters, but I must say I'm really pleased with it so far. :o) Until next time...

The last few days...

Well, I did pretty well this week - I was up and at the pool again on Tuesday morning, which is pretty impressive after going on Monday...  This could be the start of something!!  Getting up was a bit easier but the swimming was still tough.  I think I still ached a bit from Monday.  I should probably build up to doing it more often... On the plus side I'm clearly using my legs properly in the new pool as my thighs and gluteus maximus were really quite sore on Wednesday/Thursday.  In that, using muscles you don't usually, kind of way.  It was good, but hard on Tuesday and for most of the time quite satisfying as it was just me and this one other girl in the lane and we appeared to swim at roughly the same pace, passing each other in the middle of the lane and turning at roughly the same time.  Then she left and I was joined by this big Polish guy.  I saw him come in as I thought - gosh, he looks like he swims aaaallllll the time, all muscly and stretching himself out quite thoroughly.  All professional like.  And then he got in to my lane!  Not the fast one at the other end of the pool, mine.  And I was quite surprised as he wasn't that fast at all.  Faster than me, which isn't difficult in that pool, but not the super swimmer I took him to be.  Just goes to show you shouldn't judge people based on what they look like!!

So, the stats, the stats... Slightly slower overall on Tuesday, but not that much and I went which was the important thing:

40 lengths (1000m)

35.09.10 (only 26 seconds slower than Monday)

Average time for length: 52.73 (the reason for the above)

Fastest Length: 1 at 40.80 (quicker by 15 milliseconds!)

Slowest Length: 26 at 56.52 (also quicker)

It's funny, my fastest length is always number 1, which makes sense, but the slowest one changes every time!  No consistency what so ever...

Anyway, didn't go again this week as have Japanese classes on a Wednesday evening, which makes for a long day anyway, and I was off work on Thursday/Friday for a bit of leave.  This new regime isn't crazy enough to get me up to go for a swim early on days when I'm not then going to work...  Not yet, anyway...  ;o)

Had a very lovely lazy day on Thursday, sleeping in, picking up a car for the weekend and pottering about.  We dropped some old electrical bits that still work off with the Bethany charity shop on Leith Walk, and then headed to Portobello for a stroll along the prom.  It was a beautiful day and nice to be out and about enjoying the sunshine.  

Friday we headed up to St As for a look around and to stay in the Guest House that I want to use as a base for the wedding next year.  Decided that it was better to try it out before booking it.  Had only seen it on the web, and while it looks lovely, you never know until you try it out...  We were not disappointed at all.  Brooksby House is a lovely little house set away from any noisy streets, tucked away near my old hall of residence from my Uni days.  We were met by the proprietess Caryn, who greeted me by name.  It probably helped that they didn't have many other guests staying, but it was a nice touch.  We had picked Friday night to stay there as it marked a year to the day before the wedding, and it was nice that she also remembered that I had mentioned that when booking back in November.  We stayed in the Nicklaus room, their luxury room and it was just lovely.  Very clean, great sized bathroom (with long bath), super comfy king sized brass bed and a view over the garden.  We were very pleased.  

It was another beautiful day on Friday so after checking in we went for a wander round St As.  We popped in to the Chapel and found ourselves in there spookily at the exact time at which the wedding is booked for next year!  I found my heart racing with the anticipation and we've still got a whole year to go!!  We also took a nice long stroll with ice cream from Janettas (essential) and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine.  It really was just lovely.  To the point where I was getting a bit fed up with people saying 'oh, I hope it's like this for you next year'.  Honestly.  It's not going to be.  It will rain.  Guaranteed!  But having been there on a 20th March will beautiful weather, it's difficult not to hope...  ;o)

We dined in Pizza Express that night, both of us feeling the pinch by all the saving for the wedding and honeymoon that meant a more pricey meal somewhere else was not really an option.  But we didn't care.  We like PE and the most important thing was spending a nice evening together.  It was a bit cold after dinner for a walk, so we headed back to Brooksby where I practically fell asleep as soon as getting in!  All these early morning are getting to me I think!

Had a good nights sleep in the comfy bed and woke early as usual.  Breakfast was between 8 and 9, so we headed downstairs around 8:30.  It was another beautiful sunny day and we chose to sit in at the window in the dining room, thus roasting ourselves in the sunlight!  This is Scotland in March, for goodness sake....  Breakfast was served up by Chris, the proprietor, who was just as nice and friendly as his wife.  They have a good range of items on their menu and both deciding that a full fry would just be a little too much, we both plumped for tattie scone and bacon.  With a fried egg added at the suggestion of Chris!  Hmmm... it was great.  The tattie scones (2) were great and the bacon (2 large rashers) cooked perfectly.  Not overdone with lovely crispy edges.  And a perfect fried egg too.  Yum!  

You can tell we liked the place, yes?!  Well on leaving I asked if it would be possible to book it in it's entirety for next year.   For the bridal party.  I could think of no better place away from home to have as my base when getting ready etc.  Chris said he'd confirm in an e-mail, but that he didn't think it would be a problem.  They do exclusive bookings quite often I think, and can cater to your requirements when doing so.  They have a golfing group coming in the week before we want it, but he was pretty sure they were staying only til the 18th.  Finger crossed, crossed, crossed!  It will just be too disappointing if he comes back and says it's not possible...  As they only had one other couple staying he was able to give us a tour of the rest of the guest house and show us the rest of the rooms (other than the one in use).  They are all finished to a really high standard and I can't see any of the party being disappointed with any of the rooms.  They look even better than they do on the web.

Seriously people, I thought this place was great!  Pricier than you would expect from a B&B, but I think it was worth it.

We pootled back to Edinburgh after a long walk along West Sands, enjoying the morning sun.  We decided to take the coastal route through Crail, Anstruther etc, to enjoy the best of the day.  We stopped in Anstruther to stretch the legs and have a chippy lunch.  You can't pass through without going to the Anstruther Fish Bar...  Hmm...  We're not very good with the grease of f&c anymore, but it was good.  One fish and a portion and a half of chips between us was quite enough!  So nice to be able to enjoy the sunshine while we have it.  Great to have a car too, even if the Ford Fusion is basically quite an ugly car.  ;o)  

Good to be home and we still have one whole day of the weekend left.  Phew.  Need to recover from all this galavanting!  

A new pool and a new regime...

Well, I did it. I got up at 6:30 this morning (or thereabouts) and was out the house by about quarter past 7!! And when I say I got up I should be clear that this was after much protesting and whinging and whining… If it wasn’t for my Flâneur I would have very easily gone back to sleep. But he’s a real trouper and a real motivator and just a truly wonderful person (pass the bucket. ;o) ).

It didn’t help that I had a terrible night’s sleep last night (again…). Tossing and turning, periods of being awake, periods where I’m fighting between being awake and asleep (the only way I can describe these episodes) just generally rubbish! And I had been really tired yesterday owing to a similar period of sleep on Saturday night. That was entirely caused by alcohol (not even that much), which always disturbs my sleep, but I could think of no reason for it last night. Humph.

Anyway, despite all that I got up when my Flâneur made me, ate my breakfast (poached egg on a muffin, prepared by himself), sorted my lunch and swimming gear and was out the door before I would normally be thinking about stirring! Well, when I’d be creeping under the duvet pretending the radio wasn’t on and I didn’t have to get up…

The early start meant I could finally try out Edinburgh Uni pool. And I must say I liked it. There were a reasonable number of other crazy people there, but enough lanes (6) variously marked out that I could just pootle at my own speed up and down the slow lane without feeling I was keeping anyone back, and certainly with no chance of overtaking anyone! There was one girl in our lane who clearly didn’t realise the lanes were marked by slow, medium and fast, as she was way quicker than the rest of us, but mostly it was just me and these two guys, swimming up and down.

It is a larger pool the Uni one, at 25 meters, rather than 25 yards. I still made myself do my 40 lengths, but owing to the extra 85 meters or so I was a bit slower and a reasonable bit more knackered!! Feel the burn, oh yes. Still feeling it in my thighs I think! But it was great. Despite it being hard I enjoyed it and felt great coming out. Meant that I could face the readers at work without too much pain and with a smile, which was good because we were really very busy today! Normally I’d be practically slumped at my desk, but not this morning. I’ll be slumped on the couch later, but that’s ok, I’ll be at home then…

So pretty pleased with my times, considering I was doing the equivalent of an extra 3.7 (or so) lengths of the municipal pool, and here are the stats:

40 lengths (1000m)
34.43.99
Average time for length: 52.10 (not that much slower really)
Fastest length: 1 at 40.95
Slowest length: 6 at 56.76 (but I paused at the end of it to demist my goggles)

Pretty pleased, all things considered and love the fact that I swam 1km! Cool.

More swimming

Yep. Back at the pool last night. Which after having taken most of January and February off is a good thing. Good to get back in to it and remember just how much I enjoy it and how good it makes me feel. Like last week it would have been so easy to have just gone home, particularly as I was running late having bumped into HMcM on my way to the bus stop. Haven’t seen her for AGES so good to have a brief catch up, leaving on a promise of catching up properly when both our boys are away in a couple of weeks.

So despite feeling tired and running late (have to be out of the pool by 6:30 as an Aquafit class takes over the shallow end at 6:40 thus making it impossible to get a decent swim), I still went and still got in my 40 lengths. It was touch and go whether I was going to complete them in time, but I managed it and it probably helped me push myself and swim a bit faster!!

I am getting increasingly frustrated and annoyed with the other women in the pool though. Like black ducks just bobbing around either end they seem to do nothing except get in my way! Oh dear, I am becoming one of those swimmer that I always disliked… Still, if they’re actually swimming I can just about tolerate them getting in the way, it’s when they are casually chatting (in the middle of the pool people!!) and getting in my way that I get irked. I spent half my time trying to come up with a suitable analogy to fit them. Crows… hmm.. they don’t really bob about on the water, but they do hang out and are dressed in black… some sort of watery things then – fish? No they actually swim. Ducks was the best I could come up with as they bobbed about in the water, but if anyone can come up with a better one, please let me know!

So I still think that I need to find another, quieter pool and am still determined to try the University one at some point. If only they had better opening hours and didn’t restrict numbers in the pool (although I imagine I might actually be thankful of that). I am actually seriously considering getting up early to go before work. Yeah, will believe that when I see it!

So my stats from last night (for anyone who is interested and to keep track myself):

40 lengths
31.44.65 (yay! over 45 seconds quicker!)
Average time for length: 47.62 (yay! Quicker)
Fast length: 1 (it’s always 1) at 38.78 (way quicker)
Slowest length: 40 at 52.94 (in my defence I got off to a slow start on this one due to people in my way!)

I also decided to keep track of my progress using good ol’ Excel and was pleased when I input all my data so far that last night was quickest all round! Fastest 40 lengths, fastest fast length, fastest slow length, oh, except the average which was 30miliseconds slower than the previous fastest. I think I said I would go up to 50 lengths once I got to doing 40 in 30 mins. Not far off now!!

Sorry to bore you with all the stats. I have been doing other stuff too, but that will have to wait for another time…

Back at it

Not such a lazy slug today!  Yes, I was back at the pool today.  Hurrah!  I said I was going to go and I went.  Phew...  

I didn't sleep so great last night.  Well I thought I slept ok until around 4:30 (ish) but was told that I was thrashing about and muttering during those first few hours, so maybe not!  But after 4:30 I was in and out of sleep until the alarm went off at 7.  Urgh...  Hate those sorts of nights.  Was similar the night before too.  Not so great for my poor Flâneur either who didn't even get to sleep properly in the first 5 hours or so...

Anyway, I didn't expect the swimming this evening to be up to the same standards as before, seeing as I hadn't been since mid January (the 15th I think, shame on me) and was pretty tired today.  It wasn't too busy when I got there, but I figured there were too many people in the slow lane for me to have a satisfying swim in there, so I joined the main bit of the pool.  It got busier as the evening went on, but I was mostly able to swim up and down unhindered.  There were two women who seemed to just be chatting in the shallow end who were a bit irritating, particularly as they were stood exactly where I wanted to turn after each even numbered lap.  Grrr...  They only did 2 lengths the whole time I was in the pool doing my 40.  And they probably wonder why going swimming isn't making any difference to their fitness...

So, I did my 40 lengths and surprisingly enough they were a little bit faster than last time I went!  Not sure how that works, but I'm not going to question it too closely...  Think I could have not counted one length or something, but here are the stats from the SportsCount:

40 lengths

32.06 minutes (that's nearly 20 seconds faster than last time!)

Average time for length: 49.38 second (hmm... slower)

Fastest length: 1 at 43.03 seconds (again, slower)

Slowest length: 34 at 54.18 seconds (ah, faster)

Really pleased I went.  Feel really good for going.  Just need to keep it up again now.