Cripes

I don't know whether to make this a long or short post, so I'll just blurt stuff out until I run out of things to say. That's what blogging is all about, right?

So I came back from my snow holiday. I don't really know what to call them anymore since I rarely just ski. This time I spent 2 days on skis, 2 days on a snowboard, another day on skis and then 2 days on snowblades.

The skiing went pretty well considering I had a fractured rib. I was just hoping it was a bruise but a fall on my snowboard while being cheeky and riding backwards confirmed the fracture when I heard and felt the tell-tale cracking noise. Ouch. The rest of the day was spent struggling to stand up on the board. When I went back to skis I felt better, but sustained another crack when I hit a mogul too hard. I'm not going to blame my lack of skill for this, rather the stupid skis the rental shop gave me. Humbug.

So after that I had a go at snowblades. OMG they are the best thing ever. I felt like I should be given an asbo on those things. For example at one point I felt like I had so much manouverability I tried to ski around a tree (like back up the mountain and all the way around it). Another time I was in a gulley that was a bit of technical off-piste and all I could think was "out of my way, old man!" What a laugh! The downside is they are not great for off-piste. I tried skiing around a steep bowl deep with snow, ran out of momentum and sank. It took 5 minutes for me to dig myself out!

My rib still hurts, especially when I sneeze or cough, but apart from that it seems to be getting better. I was hoping to make a getaway to the mountains again this weekend but I don't think it will happen as it's too expensive and I should be resting really.

OK that's it for now. I've run out of things to say. Well, I probably have other things to say but I don't want to say them here.

Ouffff

Ouch.

My entire body hurts... *groan*

So on Monday I cycled to work. Nice ride. All happy. Tuesday, went climbing. My life was saved several times by multiple climbing buddies, but my arms and legs were aching afterwards. So much so that I struggled to move the next morning. Rode to work again, and back home. Great, getting good at this cycling malarkey.

Unfortunately a by-product of cycling was that I'd stopped looking out for rough surfaces in the road, because the bike just goes over them without any problems... so when I was skating last night I fell. Twice. Hard. Now I have multiple injuries, shoulders, elbows, wrists, knee and ribs. Ouch. This wouldn't be a problem ordinarily, were it not for the fact that I'm supposed to go skiing tomorrow.

It's going to be a long and painful week (and free of further blog posts because I won't be online).

This may well be the last post I make in a while, because I'll probably forget when I'm back.

Another day, another blog post

Good morning everyone!

What a glorious sunny day ^_^

Yesterday I got a parking ticket in Shoreditch. How annoying. I am always very careful where I park and I was on a single yellow line on a Sunday morning. The adjacent resident permit bay was in force, but I wasn't in it. I suspect the stupid traffic warden was confused or just trying to increase his quota. I shall have to dispute it.

What was I doing in Shoreditch on a Sunday morning? I went to the Albion for breakfast. It was a rather nice breakfast, but £15 for 2 sausages, 2 eggs, a bit of toast, a cup of coffee and a marmite and cheese swirl is excessive. If I end up having to pay the parking ticket as well, £75 will make it the most expensive breakfast I have ever eaten, and this coming from someone who used to have to get work to pay £20 in the Glasgow Marriott just so I could have a bowl of cereal.

What else happened yesterday? Some nice skating, oh and then a fairly nice dinner in Dalston. It wasn't the best I ever had, but I did manage to clean the plate, and it cost considerably less than the breakfast down the road.

I have no idea why I even wrote that. Nobody reads this anyway.

Oh yeah, this morning I rode my bike to work again. It was rather splendid, but I have decided I can't ride it in less than 25 minutes so I'm not going to try and go any faster. Happy to be passed by the crazy Lance Armstrong wannabes in their lycra.

If the weather continues like this I may have to ditch the car and ride to work more often! Yay :)

Everything and Nothing

24 hours ago I woke up with nothing to do but watch the F1 qualifying. A lot can change in 24 hours.
Since then I have cleaned the inside of my car, gone to see the London Philarmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, gone out and met with some good friends and had a great time until the early hours of the morning, and explained a brief history of the Earth to a random new person I met.
Today I woke up to awesome gorgeous sunshine, and I'll watch the F1 race, followed by some skating later this afternoon.

On days like this I think to myself "Life's Good" ^_^

F1 and other things

Wow I haven't followed Formula 1 racing for a loooong time. Probably not since I started skating really.

So Michael Schumacher is back. I was always a fan of him but even I got bored when he kept winning. He seems slower than he was, so I can take comfort in knowing that even the fastest people slow down with age.

It's also nice to see Lotus returning to racing, though would be way cooler if they could be sponsored by John Player Special again (yes the cigarette brand) to get the black and gold colours they used to race with. Then it would remind me of my old Lotus Scalextric car :)

What else is nice? Oh yeah, it's back on the BBC. What's not nice is that I can't seem to get rid of the bit in the corner that says 'Sport Home' with a red button.

Now I am torn between watching the race tomorrow and going to see some random film I never heard of at an obscene hour (something like 10am).

Focus

This morning I found myself unable to focus on anything (with my eyes). It was quite disconcerting, but my boss suggested I go for a walk. So I did.
During my travels I went into Robert Dyas, and bought myself a set of Allen keys and a shower hose thing. I got to the checkout and the nice lady asked me if I wanted to buy some antibacterial soap for £1. Apparently the Tesco price is £1.29, so I said ok. After I paid, she gave me a 20% off voucher, valid the same day. I said "aww, you could have told me earlier" so she refunded everything except the soap, then charged again for the Allen keys and shower hose and saved me £3.20. And as an extra bonus, the computer printed another 20% off voucher! Woo-hoo!

Now what else do I need to buy from Robert Dyas?? :)

Capitalism

So I just got back from seeing the latest Michael Moore documentary.

I am not a huge fan. As my accompanying friend said, her colleague thinks he's a douchebag. It was actually a very good documentary to be fair, but in this case the problem is as a viewer in another country I feel powerless to do anything about it.

Anyway I'll have to add being a senator or CEO of a top investment bank to the list of things I want to do. After Bowling for Columbine, all I could think was that I want to own a gun. I felt like a McDonalds after Supersize me, and now I want to be super rich at the expense of the poor.

Yes I know, something wrong with that, but it's not like he's completely innocent himself. He's released the film in the cinema. If he was that keen to do good, he'd release it for free on the Internet, and I'd be able to link to it here so you could all watch it for yourselves. All zero of you.

Oh and another thing I really want to do, is camcorder that anti piracy thing they put at the start of every film, and put it on YouTube (you know, the one with the annoying-but-cute girl who tries to explain how recording films in the cinema harms the industry).

Wow, 2 blog posts in one day.

One week of movement

Awesome! Yesterday I finished one week of exercise every day. I didn't intend to, but I've been feeling much better as a result.

It started with Rock Climbing at the Westway sports centre last Wednesday. I totally sucked at it and slipped a few times. Good thing I was secured with ropes or I'd have suffered yet more horrific injuries.
I skipped a fast skate to go climbing, so when the weather was good on Thursday I organised a skate of my own, which worked very well.
More skating on Friday, though this time I managed to skip dinner and while assisting a friend who was lagging behind, I ran out of energy myself and couldn't quite keep up either. Still made it to the end.
Saturday was epic. Intended to go for a short cycle ride and then do some more climbing in the afternoon. Epic fail for climbing though. What started as a short cycle ride ended up being a 40 mile mission to Richmond Park and back. Still, the weather was great and I could still move when I got home.
Sunday saw a return to skating, this time just a bit of gentle exercise on a lovely sunny day.
I woke up on Monday to gorgeous sunshine and a cloudless sky, so out came the bike again, this time to cycle to work and back. For a special bonus, my boss managed to fix the gearshift on my bike, so the ride home was even better (despite the sore bum I'd suffered from the epic Saturday mission).
Yesterday, another trip to the climbing centre where my buddy pushed me pretty hard and I bashed my knee on the wall. Still feeling it today so time for some rest. Yay!

Happy International Womens' Day

Happy Day to all you fabulous (and not so fabulous) women today, international or otherwise.

In other news, I cycled to work today, for the first time ever. It was quite nice, but I think I'll go back to my car tomorrow because it's going to rain. Cycling in London (as well as skating and driving) confirms that the average motorist here is completely clueless. It's all about following stupid rules that try and fit everyone, but really fit nobody, and there are so many of them that people just switch off as long as they are below the speed limit. In the car at 30mph I switch off because there is nothing to engage me, so I'm probably more of a danger to other road users at this speed than I would be at 40 or 50mph along the same stretch of road. On my bike it's frustrating having to stop at red traffic lights when there is no other traffic around, not to mention inefficient. And cycle lanes often run in stupid places. One nice thing about cycling though, is that I can hold buses up. Makes me feel all smug when I manage to do that :)

When I am in charge of the universe, the DLR will be replaced with a covered cycle and skate track, with rope lifts to pull skaters up onto it.

Ok, so... I made a second post. Yay!

My blog

A few people told me I should write a blog. Or a book. A blog is easier because I don't have a printing press. Or a printer.

It will be full of random thoughts about random things that affect my life.

At the moment one of the people who told me to start a blog is on facebook, so this message is intended for her.

Look, here's my blog, mysterious facebook friend.

So there.

I will think of more stuff later. Or maybe I will just forget about writing here again, but at least I have the URL reserved now.