my new 'personal trainer'...

.... well I say personal trainer.  i get three free sessions with Toby thrown in with my new gym membership.

So anyhoot - I've got my second session tomorrow and I'm only half looking forward to it.  Last time was an hilarious.  I've never done weights before and I was shown how to do all the arms ones, including dips and chin ups.  I was given a little sheet of my workout on it, but when I had to go an do my own circuit, I got all confused and flustered and forgot which section was which.  

Basically, I thought I had to do 150 chin ups at twice my bodyweight.  I got to 35, practically WEEPING.  My arms had turned to jelly and I had to be helped off the machine by a sneering muscle mary.  I sat on my own in a corner for a little while then wobbled into Toby's office trying not to look like a massive loser who couldn't event lift a tea cup without complaining.  

Turns out, I'm supposed to only do about 20, lifing my own body weight and now I've got to lay off the weights tomorrow incase I've ripped something (my right arm still hurts 7 days later).

What a DICK.

settling in by the sea side

As well as joining a new gym, when one moves house, a lady has to try and find a plethora of new establishments to help her stay the ravages of time.

Being ginger (or strawberry blonde, depending on how grumpy I'm feeling) i have a variety of ridiculous practises that i indulge in to try and make myself feel better.  The mojority of them involve factor 50 and a yashmack when sunbathing, but every 5 weeks, I enjoy painting my eyes with peroxide and hair dye in the name of tinting my eye lashes and eye brows.

Believe me, it's worth it, I have naturally white eyelashes and eyebrows and I actually look like Boris Becker (but chubbier and more rubbish at poker and tennis) without the burning (no really, its like effectively pouring burning acid in your eyes) effort of it all.  

So off I go at the weekend to try and find a lovely place for my eye replenishing.  I find a lovely smelling, relaxing, lovely, friendly place and ask for a menu of treatment delights.  I stick it in my bag and wander off, happy that I have found my new sanctury from a busy week at work and nagging Sweetheart.  

However, dear reader, what's a girl to do when she gets home to find that her new sanctury, haven and place of indulgent is endorsed by...

HEATHER MILLS

"I HAVE TRAVELLED ALL OVER THE WORLD.." says wor Heather "AND NEVER HAD A BETTER MASSAGE AND FACIAL..."

oh dear :(

it looks like an amazing place, but how can I relax when I am going to be on tenter hooks listening for the sinister tap, tap, tap of a Mills on her hoppity adventures?

Danny Wallace

um, I had a dream that TV funny man and comedic author, Danny Wallace, asked me out the other night

AWESOME.

The fact that he is (very probably - how would i know, he's a total stranger?!?) happily married, I am too old to have stupid dreams like this and I didn't think I even fancied Danny Wallace, seem to have not mattered.

The only thing that does matter is that now Sweetheart does anything I don't like, I say.. "Danny wouldn't do this..."

mwa ha ha!

commute update

so it's the start of our second week of the regular commute and I'm starting to get the hang of it.  I definately want to start getting a delishus steamed soya milk (well i did live in london for 10 years) to drink on the way in, as getting up at 6am and not having breakfast until 9am is a mistake - my tummy has been growling at people on the train.

I have the following observations about my fellow south coast commuters:

• they like their favourite seats - and don't like you sitting in them if you are new
  
• the bigger and more exciting the breakfast pack up the better - last week I sat opposite a lady who had a thermos of coffee, a little plastic box with yoghurt, fruit and cereal in it and a thermos of porridge
  
• yoofs with loud headphones are not tolerated - people OPENLY stare, yes, OPENLY - gadzooks, in London they just stab you...
  
• Reading materials are quite similar - there's a lot of sci-fi
• Everyone agrees that the service has got a lot worse since the timetable change in December - although i dont really understand that, surely the route and the trains are the same....?

 

the seagull has landed

It's been ages since my last post, apologies dear reader.

but there is good reason - we've MOVED! Yay!  We now live in Brighton in an awesome 4 storey , 2 bedroom townhouse with a great view of the sea and only 5 minutes away from the train station (very handy when you have to get the 06.51 train every morning).

the commute is pretty brutal at the moment and I'm going to have to really get used to it, but so far it's OK.  If the trains run fine then it's not the worst thing in the world.  If they don't then of course you're sat there for sometimes an extra 30 mins, but you can't have everything and if it was easy then everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't be fab living here because it would be full of cockneys.

more good news - exchanged on the flat yesterday too! yippee! the stupid boiler, broken tiles in the bathroom and damp is now all someone elses problem! horrah!  it's amazing renting again.  it does feel wierd that this isn't my home, I've been a home owner for more than seven years so of course there is randome anxiety about "not being on the property ladder" for a bit, but the fact that when something is broken someone else fixes it and pays for it, totally makes up for it!  

So, on wednesday next week a big lump sum arrives in my banck account - AWESOME.  Will i be able to resist spendiong it all on stupid tat from Primark?  Who knows, but its a nice feeling and i'm really pleased and happy that little headache is over.