My Knight in Shining Lycra

For those of you sharing my mum’s worry that I’m squished under a bus, fear not – I’m still alive. Although there have been a few close calls.

Ed kindly volunteered to meet me at work last week so that we could cycle home together. I couldn’t really understand why but he said it would be ‘nice’. I rarely associate ‘nice’ with sweating profusely while your legs refuse to turn fast enough to keep a bike moving – but I went with it. I think he was being encouraging. Being an amazing personal trainer, Ed looks on my dalliances with fitness in the same way that a mother looks at her child’s primary school paintings – there’s a small amount of pride but the main focus is on spotting some indication of future improvement and reassurance that their child isn’t going to be kept back a year and end up playing with plasticine instead of learning algebra. As he has a similar reaction to my fitness efforts I can only imagine that his ‘nice’ bike ride was a way of encouraging my latest cycling venture.

I want to ride my bicycle

It’s been a while since I’ve written on here but I have good reason – I’ve switched job and my mind’s been completely overloaded with lots of new info…adding a blog to it would’ve just completely fried my brain.

Since moving jobs I no longer have to drive up the M1 each day. However, for a little while this was replaced with a 20 minute journey on the Northern Line. Not too bad you might think. Well, you’re wrong. And you’ve clearly never been on the Northern Line at 8.30 in the morning. Hot, cramped and with no room for considering other people’s personal space. And sweaty. Very sweaty. I stuck this out for a few weeks. The final straw was when I endured a whole journey being talked at by a middle aged man. I didn’t know him. The only thing we had in common was that we’d locked up our bikes at the same time. Other than that I didn’t know him from Adam. Although 20 minutes later I was completely clued up on his 2 children (both girls – 7 and 9), the history of his bike and his recent holiday in Spain (not the touristy part). So that was it. I decided to extend my cycle ride from the short journey to the station to the full 5.3 miles to work.

I love trash tv

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged anything because I’ve been in revision hell. However, my exam was over last Wednesday which was perfect timing for the television highlight of the summer – Big Brother. Now I know that most of the country is spending all their viewing time watching football but it really doesn’t interest me. For a start, I’m Welsh – football is hardly our national sport. And secondly, well…I just don’t really like football. However, I do like watching 13 strangers put together in a house and forced to endure the annoying habits of others whilst trying to smile for the cameras and forge utterly fake friendships.

Just a little flaw

I’ve lately discovered a bit of a  flaw in my character. Those who know me might wonder how it’s taken me 25 years to realise this and to be honest I wonder too. I lack perception. How fast things are moving, how much furniture can fit in a room, how long it’ll take me to iron things, whether or not a sofa will fit through a door (this was proven during the last move, much to my dad’s annoyance). I can’t answer any of these things. It never really bothered me. Actually that’s a lie. I hadn’t even realised it. That was until I lived with Ed. In the same way that you don’t realise how many near-misses you have while driving until you have a passenger in the car (in my case lots apparently…I blame my lack of spacial awareness) there are some things you don’t realise about yourself until you live with someone. And now it’s been pointed out I can’t stop noticing it. To start with I seem completely unable to estimate my own physical ability. I watched the Sport Relief cycle which went the full length of the UK and thought ‘I could do that’. The same with the the James Cracknell/Ben Fogal trek to the South Pole. Don’t get me wrong I know I’d have to do some training but in my head I think I could do it without too much pain! Part of me knows that this is utterly ridiculous but there’s that little voice at the back  that says ‘yeah you could do it’.

Shared furniture = big commitment

An update for anyone who read my earlier blog about the perils of moving. We’re finally in our new flat and have settled in nicely. I’d like to say the move went well but I’d be lying – after 3 major leaks (bath, sink and washing machine) and umpteen problems with setting up utilities we’d argued so much I feared that we’d be packing up and shipping out pretty soon. When I brought this up Ed laid all my fears to rest with a firm assessment of the situation ‘we can’t split up now – we have wardrobes’. Yep that’s right – we’d made the next step towards commitment and bought some shared furniture. And apparently this has now provided the level of commitment that most women dream of. All these years women have been going about this the wrong way, getting pregnant to keep a man when all they needed to do was head down to Ikea, grab themselves a Billy bookcase (comes in a variety of colours) and maybe some incredibly cheap glasses and candles and make him pay half.  Bob’s your uncle -  practically a ring on your finger.

Can you imagine not having Google?

Once upon time there was no such thing as Google. It was a bleak dark time where people roamed the streets, full of unanswered questions. They lay awake at night trying to remembers things that darted around their minds alipping out of their grasp. That was until 1996 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin brought Google into the world. And then there was light.

Why I hate the Daily Mail

On the train this morning I found an abandoned copy of the Daily Mail and, despite knowing what would happen, I read it. On one hand it draws you in with its tabloidy of Jordan and Alex’s love (if you don’t know who these are then you’re an infinitely better person than me) and how John Terry and Tiger Woods exchange notes on getting away with affairs. Incredibly trivial gossip and scandal that I should be ashamed of indulging in (very ashamed – but I’m not). But then there’s the ‘serious’ bits. I know they’ll make me angry but yet I still read them. I don’t know why I do it. It’s like going to McDonalds – you know you’ll feel sick afterwards and a little bit dirty for indulging in such a crappy meal (can McDonalds be called a meal?) but you do it anyway.