Aperol Spritz. First one of 2016 at Polpo, Farringdon.
A lovely lunch of meatballs and other tapas-y things, followed by a double-desert of ‘Panna cotta, Campari and rhubarb’ and a ‘Tiramisu’. Washed down with a lovely Old Fashioned.
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Stacey
I haven’t read a book for ages – not since Christmas. It seems the only time I get to do so now is on holiday, and I’m probably in a minority here, but I just don’t enjoy reading so much on my Kindle.
On my way to my Mum’s just before Easter I arrived early at Paddington so went to kill some time mooching around the bookshop. 10 minutes and £60 later, I’d bagged a haul of interesting new books to read.
I started with this biography of ‘Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin’, which I really enjoyed. I read it pretty quickly and it stayed with me for days after, in the way that a really well-told life story can. There was so much in here that explained the complex character of the brilliant designer – drugs, abuse and sensitivity, his complex relationships and the successes of his spectacular shows. I took to YouTube to find footage of the catwalk shows referenced and I’ve now become even more of a fan of the work. The story is so sad because all the way through reading it, I already knew how it ended, and that made it more powerful in a way. Definitely recommend.
I thought I’d try something lighter next, so have started the new Jenny Éclair novel, ‘Moving’. I’ve read the first part so far, and while it was okay, it’s not really grabbed me. I found the story of ‘Edwina’ too melancholy, maybe a story about a woman on her own following some apparent tragedy (I haven’t found out what it is yet) was not the right choice after the McQueen biog. I think I was expecting the book to be funny, which was a wrong assumption to make. I’ll stick with it, hopefully it will pick up a bit.
I also started a more work-related tome, with ‘HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Teams’. I am pretty fascinated by teams – what makes them work (or not) how to improve them, the psychology and emotions of them, and how create the conditions for successful teams. This is a key part of my work, something that is essential to my role but also something I have a great interest in developing my skills in. I’m hoping this book will be good insight. The book is a collection of 10 articles previously published in the Harvard Business Review, which is perfect length for a train journey to work, and much more productive than scrolling through tweets for an hour! I’m 2 articles in and so far really enjoying it – especially as I can dip in and out easily.
Lastly, I also bought ‘F**k It – Do What You Love’ and ‘Mindfulness’. I pretty much already do a job that I love, and have a life that I love, so I’m not looking for an earth-shattering revelations in this book, but I thought there might be some interesting ideas in here. And ‘Mindfulness’, well, I’m programmed to always think in the future with my mind on the next thing – my job is entirely dependent on it and I’ve operated that way forever, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to learn some techniques to slow down a bit. Apparently I’m in for ‘ideas, tips and techniques to help you enjoy a more mindful approach to life, you’ll learn how to:
- Adopt more positive ways of thinking and behaving
- Become calmer and more confident
- Break free from unhelpful thoughts and thinking patterns
- Bring about positive changes in your relationships
- Achieve a new level of self-awareness and understanding
That can’t be a bad thing, right? 🙂
… is paved with good intentions, so they say. Well, with all the good intentions in the world to make the most of my holiday, the training plan this week has utterly gone to pot.
I started well with Body Pump on Monday and Virtual Spin on Tuesday. By Wednesday I was feeling good and strong, but my willpower had other ideas and when a few cocktails were suggested to celebrate finishing work for 6 days, I gave up the gym in favour of that option. On Thursday I went to my Mum’s to stay and to visit my Nan in hospital so didn’t have chance to do anything and Friday was filled with getting home and going shopping and relaxing. A bit of a disapointment really.
I find that without the routine of the gym near work and knowing there are classes to attend I haven’t yet got a set of things I can do when I’m not there. On Saturday I tried the Virtual Spin class at the local leiscure centre and on Monday went for a bracing windy walk locally, but I need to get my arse in gear to find ‘non-London’ things to do, either indoors or out. Trouble is, the revolting weather this weekend didn’t help with any motivation to leave the house. There was definitely more cooking and eating than training done!
Madge has ordered some resistance bands, which arrived, so I’m going to trawl YouTube to find ideas of how to use them.
So, 2 sessions in 6 days is not good. But I’m not giving up. While I might not get every day of the 90 ticked off, I’m still doing more than I was before (which was nothing) and was really starting to love how I was feeling last week, so I shall try extra hard with the exercise and eating from tomorrow. Thankfully all the chocolate has gone!
And my Mum has booked me a ticket to join her and Dad on holiday for 6 days in Antigua in June, so now I’ve got an extra reason to train hard.
I was working from home on Friday, but still got up at the usual time. I decided to do an online yoga class, as I was really, really aching and still not feeling right. There’s no way it could still be jet lag related, but I definitely still felt out of sorts. So I did this.
It was really hard. Mostly because I was aching and stiff as a poker, but also because I don’t do yoga regularly enough to be any good at it. I got properly fed up half way through and really frustrated with my inability to move and stretch and moaned to myself about how yoga is just not suited to fat people. I persevered, but didn’t really enjoy it. I was feeling a bit low, exercise-wise, and wondering if the travel earlier in the week and missing a night’s sleep then going into work was catching up on me. I didn’t feel despondent in terms of the challenge, but I did in terms of how unfit I am and how far there is to go. I also realised I need to book in for another sports therapy massage as my neck and back are still tight.
On Saturday I woke early, still aching! I felt tired and run down when I woke so decided to swim. I went and managed to swim for all full 30 minutes. It wasn’t non-stop but I did do as much as I could and pushed an extra 2 lengths, so I felt satisfied I’d done enough. It was also lovely to be in the pool floating my aching limbs in the water.
I made a bit of a radical decision on Day 6 – and decided to rest from ‘formal’ exercise. Radical, because it’s so early in the 90 days. I actually felt right for the first time all week, and had lost that weird feeling I’d been carrying since Monday. It was a hard decision, whether to push myself to do 30 minutes, but I figured that my body was crying out for the rest so I listened to it. I am hoping that is the only rest day I will have, but realistically in a 3 month period you are going to get times when you just feel a bit under the weather.
That said, I still had a pretty active day. I did loads of stuff around the house, and made sure I was squatting and doing core exercises while I was doing everything! I ran up the stairs a few times and ended up being on my feet and active for 4 hours without stopping. So, while I can’t claim it as real exercise, it was an active day and I feel pretty comfortable that there was a good 30 minutes of running around in there! I don’t feel like I’ve given in early, and I know that if I had been feeling better all week I would have been able to carry on today. I also wanted to be strong to start the week, and not go into Monday feeling weak.
So, tomorrow is another day, as they say…bring on the virtual spinning.
A Saturday at home and without any arrangements – what a joy! We popped into Brighton to have lunch with the kids, though only one kid actually turned up. I suspect the other one couldn’t quite make it out of bed in time 🙂
We had lunch at the ever wonderful Chilli Pickle and I had to rush off to get my nails done at The Lanes. They’ve had a revamp in there and it’s looking ultra stylish.
Such a pleasure to get my nails done there after the quick ‘in and out’ nail bars in London. They’re fine when you’re in a lunchtime rush, but you can’t beat proper service, proper quality products and a nice cup of tea and a chat when you’re having a a pamper. I even tweeted ahead and a selection of new colours were waiting for me to choose from. I went for a Spring frost pink called ‘Woman in the Mirror’ and teamed it with a cool grey. The name of the pink made me laugh, considering that’s exactly the shot I accidently captured above 🙂
On the way back, wandering past the shops to meet the boys, I popped into Irregular Choice and couldn’t resist adding these wonderful yellow shoes and bag to my collection. I can’t believe I’ve bought shoes in such a bright colour. They are properly cute.
Here they are in a much better, properly lit (much less green!) shot from the Irregular Choice website.
We also picked up Madge’s Easter present from Gresham Blake, a polka dot shirt with a twist.
I bought this gorgeous lemon wraparound dress from Get Cutie in Brighton four years ago, and I’ve never been able to comfortably fit into it. This year I’m determined to do so. Not just because it’s a beautiful dress, but it was expensive and I want to wear it drinking Aperol Spritz with my friends on a Summer’s day.
This dress is my inspiration.
Feeling achy but not jet-laggy, finally. My legs hurt walking up the stairs at the station this morning, which was not a good sign considering I’d booked a circuit class for lunchtime.
I was a bit blasé, thinking that a ‘fast 20 minute circuit’ wouldn’t be too hard. Not that I’ve ever done a circuit before, so had no idea what to expect. Let’s just say I’d lulled myself into a false sense of security. It was awful.
There were only 2 of us in the class, so that meant maximum attention from the instructor and absolutely no hiding. There were 6 circuit stations, with 2 exercises for each. Each exercise lasted 20 seconds with a 10 second break between them, and they ranged from such horrors as jumping squats, ‘mountain climbers’, lunges, planks, something I couldn’t pronounce, dips, a press up thing against a box and steps ups onto a step the height of a table. I’m sure there were more, but my memory has blanked them out!
In reality I was definitely not ready for that type of class. I’ve not got enough strength yet in my arms or legs and both were aching from the previous two days of effort. I also don’t really like that being shouted at as encouragement thing that personal trainers do. I’d rather have a nice chat 🙂
Anyway, to keep this up for 90 days I’m going to have to try lots of things for variety, and there will be some I don’t like, or can’t do. I wonder if going on my own today made a difference.
The girls went to another spin class, but I wanted to do something at lunchtime, and it definitely wasn’t so much fun.
Tomorrow is a ‘rest day’ so I’m going to find some yoga or a light workout on YouTube I can do at home for half an hour, and look up some classes at the local council-run fitness centre that might work for Saturday and Sunday.
Daily exercise: Fast Circuit
Venue: City University Gym
Type: Mix
Duration: 30 minutes
Woke up this morning feeling a bit achy in the neck and mid-back, but to be honest, the continually brutal jet lag is far worse than the workout twinges. I’m also still dehydrated so I remembered to drink lots of water before I actually got the headache today.
Choosing from the list of classes at the gym, we booked the Virtual Cycle – a kind of spin class without an instructor. I was pretty concerned as I know you need to be super-fit to spin, but the idea that there was no one there to shout at me convinced me it would be OK.
After you set up the bike the video starts running on the big cinema screen. ‘Tom’, the virtual studio coach, leads you through a 30 minute cycle, which includes 2 climbs as well as the warm up and down.
I didn’t do any of the hill work, keeping my resistance at zero and concentrating on being able to complete 30 mins. I reckon there’s plenty of time to build up to that! The fist 15 minutes were fine, if not a bit uncomfortable (those saddles are hard!), and minutes 15-20 were the hardest. But just after 20 mins it seemed to get easier, almost like my body and mind were getting in the zone and it felt quite easy to get to the end. Obviously, that’s without any resistance, and an RPM of only about 80, but I was chuffed to finish something I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to do.
Lauren, Nikki and Madge all did the class with me and once again having people to go with makes it much more fun. We’re already planning tomorrow’s session…I just need to fit it around meetings.
Daily exercise: Virtual Cycle
Venue: City University Gym
Type: Cardio
Duration: 30 minutes
While I was lounging around on the bed in the hotel in New York I watched a dreadful infomercial for a set of exercise DVD’s. The terrible ad went on for about a week, extolling the virtues of a very expensive set of fitness videos – but it did plant a seed of an idea in my head.
I flirt with exercise on and off, I have done for years. But since giving up martial arts I’ve never found anything I could stick with to replace it. I’d like to go back to some form of fighting sport, but I definitely couldn’t keep the pace these days, and my flirtation with other forms of exercise very rarely leads to a second date. I’ve lost count of the number of gyms I’ve joined over the years or the number of false starts. Or the number of excuses I’ve used to to not find a way to fit exercise into my day.
So, my plan is quite simple, though fairly ambitious for me. I’m going to fit in 30 minutes of any type of exercise for 90 days. Ninety days. It seems like quite a long time, but the duration of the experiment isn’t the important bit – it’s saying to myself ‘it’s only 30 minutes, you can make time for it’ that will be the biggest behaviour change. It feels achievable. It feels quick and it feels like something I can stick to. So I’ve joined the gym next door to work, I’ve downloaded My Fitness Pal and Day 1 is done!
Day 1: Body Pump
Daily exercise: Body Pump
Venue: City University Gym
Type: Weights/strength
Duration: 40 minutes
I decided to do a class as the first exercise, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a 40-minute class that they run straight after work. It’s mostly weights-based, with lots of work with a bar. It felt hard, I couldn’t quite do it all and my arms are still like jelly while I’m typing this, but I do feel good for getting started.
Thanks to Lauren and Nikki for taking up the challenge with me. It’s good to have other people to egg you on. Let’s go on this journey together.
