Not a lazy weekend...

Jogging with A on Friday evening – we didn’t get anything like as wet as I thought we would, given that it was raining en route to A’s. I’m now in non-thermal tights as the weather is gradually improving. A’s waterproof is looking huge on her now – she’s definitely starting to look more svelte and trim.

Digging on Saturday – planting potatoes at the allotment. We’re doing charlotte for the 3rd year, but are experimenting with pink fir apple as a maincrop. None of us eat masses of spuds and M has an aversion to floury potatoes – so having 2 lots of salad varieties will probably suit us better. Good to see D down there – who was the beneficiary of all the spare chitted seed potatoes.

And boogying too on Sat – saw a Guns’n’Roses tribute band at the Brook then went to the Dungeon. I danced lots (well, bounced around lots) and was sporadically joined by J, S&X. Very grateful to S for the lift home.

31.7 km mountain biking route from the house on Sunday morning. A wasn’t feeling good so M&A headed back around the halfway point – which was a shame as the 2nd half was so much easier than the first. I’m starting to think that getting all who set out to complete the route is turning into a new major objective! I’m enjoying the routes from the house – so good not to have to mess about with roofracks & to spend time driving to the start. It’s a good reminder about how much countryside we have on our doorstep.

Sunscreen – must start using it again! Didn’t this weekend but looking at the area on my face that was most mushed in my accident, it’s now discolouring, giving me white patches. Discounting leprosy, I figure that it’s worth re-discovering my factor 40 as something I don’t leave the house without applying…..

Novel Exercise

Just been climbing over pallets of leaflets – very elegant & ladylike! Glad that I’m wearing jeans today & that I managed not to damage myself – mostly because filling out the accident report would have been embarrassing…

Anyhow, skating was good last night – still can’t get the forwards to backwards switch move – but I wasn’t alone. Working on improving my general technique as I tend to push off from the toe pick. Still loving my skates!

Ireland, Skating, Gym

Jogging on Friday - which demonstrated that rest days are important as I took about 1 minute longer to complete the route than last time!

Fabulous weekend in Northern Ireland - courtesy of C & R's engagement party. Spent Saturday walking around the 60 acres that comprise the Ulster Folk Museum - lots of buildings form all over Ireland from churches to teeny tiny cottages that apparently accomodated families with 7 kids.

Boogying on Saturday night at the party - the highlight was Husband whisking me around to Mack the Knife.

More walking on Sunday - we went up to see Giant's Causeway. The coast was beautiful and it stayed dry! Also went to Bushmills (discovered that I do like whiskey despite hating scotch) and to Dunluce castle. Husband was suffering though - he had pain in his ankles and knees by the end of the afternoon.

Flew back on Monday. Skating with G - our last session before next week's test. A couldn't make jogging last night so I spent the evening cooking soup. Missed Body Combat tonight as I had a dentist appointment - dragged myself down the gym (seriously lacking motivation!).

Playing Catch Up

Weekend in Northumberland with family - very impressed that J&P went running both mornings, but we restricted ourselves to a couple of short walks - into the village & back on Saturday, then a wander with the children on Sunday - I enjoyed racing D's buggy against P!

Skating on Tuesday as a pre-pub thing. I thoroughly enjoyed it (again!) but I seemed to be the only one who did. Husband had a very odd technique - threw himself as fast as he could & then crashed into the safety barrier! Kind of human curling without a broom....

I did go to Body Combat on Wed: 3 tracks from new routine - including the Killer's "Somebody Told Me" - it was tough singing whilst learning new moves.... Then Juliana put in some oldies inlcuding YMCA - very happy!

Today, went geocaching in the New Forest as a work team thing - good fun and my team won. Geocaching is hunting for tupperware boxes hidden at locations you can find through www.geocaching.com - it maybe as simple as going to the co-ordinates posted for a geocache or there maybe puzzles to solve. Exercise wise, probably not bad - we drove between the points but each involved a walk of up to half a mile once parked.

Very foggy - which made it seem very atmospheric - our voices seemed to echo & there was an odd sense of isolation. Walking in the Forest definitely beats glaring at my laptop as an entertaining thing to do on a Thursday afternoon.

Mozart's Balls

I've spent 2 hours wandering around Munich - bit of sightseeing (a little limited in the dark!) and bit of shopping. And I feel as if I've spent lots of time on my feet today - traipsing around electrical & other retailers in Munich & Salzburg. Feeling very pleased with myself at resisting buying yet more kit in a fab Intersports store.....
Anyhow, bought Husband some Mozart balls & was really looking forward to telling him about them - and seeing how long I can go before revealing that they are chocolate - but just called & he is too far gone with martian death flu (a cold to a woman) to even talk to me. Ah well. At least I have 24 hours to build up some sympathy for the poor soul (sympathy 4 man flu is not my strong suit).

Paved with Good Intentions

I did mean to blog wholst on hols - honest!

Anyhow, a summary:

• 3 jeeps
• Desert
• 2 bike rides
• Hoodoos
• Umpteen mini hikes
• Humungous portions
• A natural water slide
• More Desert
• Chipmunks, mule deer, turkey vultures, wild turkeys & lots of flowers I'm yet to identify
• And Desert

Not a great weekend for calorie burning

I seemed to be rushing around all weekend without getting to do any exercise! That's unless you count emptying my Watford flat of its bed and stuff and transferring it to G's new house - I guess there was lifting & stairs.....

Anyhow, gym last night - 45 mins on the cross trainer & some time on the leg press. Just bear with me until next week when I will have pretty pics & much more interesting activity to record!

Water water everywhere....and cross trainers

Gym on Friday evening (guess what - more cross trainer!) & then went swimming on Saturday at the gym and again on Sunday at a spa. Spa day would have been great but C was very unwell - kind of defeated the objective of a nice relaxing day for her - poor thing.
Tonight we went to the gym again - yet more cross trainer - my excuse being that my chest is a little sore after boogying on Saturday night (not blogging the details!) so impact is a bad idea atm.

Another lovely weekend that was rubbish for Big D

Torquay with Husband, B&J to visit in laws and to enable B to try sea fishing from a pier (he's only done it from boats before). It was great but I ate & drank way too much and didn't do much exercise bar a little walking.
Highlights included finding some good watercolours in an exhibition of local artists - 1 for us and 1 for R&T.

Plymouth Gin Distillery tour - small but extremely well led by an enthusiastic & knowledgeable tour guide - it explained why I prefere Plymouth to Bombay Sapphire!

We tried playing bowls for the first time on Sunday - interesting & very good of T to show us how it's done but it's not a sport I'm now itching to take up!

Sunday breakfast was a full english at the beach hut - always a winner but I'm a little pink due to not using enough sun block.....

Husband & B enjoyed their fishing - Husband has a great photo of sunrise from Babbacombe pier. Apparently, B apologised to each mackerel he caught before despatching them to the great ocean in the sky.

TMI

Gym last night - 15 mins X trainer & 40 mins cycling followed by some weights. I opted to keep it low impact as I am avoiding bouncing around due to injury sustained at the weekend (see my last blog!). Air con was working a bit better.

And some unexpected exercise this morning. Came downstairs & when I got to the block's door, remembered I had forgotten my lunch. Up to 2nd floor to get it, go back down again. Get half way acrosss car park & realise that I've forgotten my tooth! Back up to 2nd floor & down again. According to WLR, that's 50 cals burned already today....

Licenced to drive powerboats

It was a very active weekend - but not many calories expended unless frantically spinning the wheel of a RIB counts.... Husband & I completed the Level 2 Powerboat course that now enables us to rent powerboats out. The course was great - 2 days on 7.6m RIBs with 3.2L engines delivering 250bhp. 1 instructor for the 2 of us on day 1 and 1 for 3 of us on day 2.

Husband loved the high speed stuff, I was pleasantly surprised that I could do the slow speed manouvering OK, given my inability to reverse or park cars well!

Lack of gym & cycling means that my weekly calories expended was way under 1,000 last week. This week may not be much better as I've got lots of stuff to do in my spare time - but will be cycling next weekend.

Beach & Spa

Not a hugely energetic weekend in terms of exercise - but a very enjoyable one.
Went to the beach on Saturday for barbecue and boules. I did swim in the Solent but I don't think that really counts as exercise as I was only actually swimming for about 10 mins tops! Husband & I agreed it was one of the best evenings we'd had for a while - great company, beautiful setting.

On Sunday, I had a day at the spa - and swam for 40 mins. The fitness pool at Nirvana is lovely - rarely more than 3 people in it and immaculate.

Last week, did 1313 calories worth of exercise - 500 down on previous week. Should focus on squeezing some more in this week, but it's going to be a busy one for me, so we'll see!

Does boogying count?

Got to the Dungeon on Saturday for the first time in ages - Arrived at about half 10, left at 2 and I seemed to be dancing most of the time. SF is great coz he tends to dance by default - like me - as opposed to MS who saves his energy for his faves. Music was good - no idea what most of the recent stuff was - but enjoyed it - older stuff that included AC/DC and Blondie. SF and MS had curry afterwards whilst I tried to pretend that waiting to eat rice cakes later on was of comparable gastronomic pleasure....

No bike ride today coz Husband haas been bombarded with pollen and has been struggling with his hayfever - poor lamb. Instead, we hit the beach and went to the gym later on. Husband swam whilst I did 30 mins on the X trainer, 20 on the bike plus some weights.

Tenuous excuse to include a gig....

I promised myself this wouldn't be a general diary as such - I really was going to focus on exercise...... but seeing as it did include about an hour in total of walking followed by much bouncing up and down with my arms in the air, I've decided I can include the Bon Jovi gig I went to last night in St Marys Stadium. He still is one of the sexiest men on the planet. The set was close to 2 hours 20 minutes and included considerable quantities from the old days - Bad Medicine was a particular highlight! And so was Keep the Faith, Dead or Alive, Runaway, Livin on a Prayer etc etc. Weirdest bits were a cover of Rocking all over the World and working Jumping Jack Flash into Bad Medicine. I didn't know if they would be good live, I'm not a huge fan of big stadium venues, but it was one the best gigs I've been to recently.

No cheese no chocolate no chips no life

Embarked on the dreaded "D" word today - resurrected my membership to the www.weightlossresources.co.uk website which I've found suits my aversion to diet sheets/plans and the weight watchers opaque points system. So long as calories in minus calories out (i.e. exercise) = less than 1500 calories per day, I'm OK.

Blog title is misleading as I will still be ingesting cheese and chocolate - but will be exercising restraint! I think it suits me because I feel that it allows me to enjoy food by having what I fancy.

Anyway, back to exercise - some interesting numbers - the calories that are expended doing everyday type stuff (based on 20 minutes and applying to somebody my weight):

Ironing 42, Hoovering 74, Laundry 45, Weeding 111, Digging 190, Mowing 164, Supermarket shopping with a trolley 74, Going up & down stairs 201

Hmmm - is ironing less appealing than going to the gym?!