if you bring yogurt in with you to work...

..don't leave it on your desk, put it straight in the fridge... otherwise it gets warm

when it gets warm, the air inside expands... such that when you finally attempt to peel the lid back it goes pffft and splats yogurt all over your top and, if like me your hair is longer than boob-length, your lovely locks

attractive!!

if you're reading this you've thankfully not been bored to tears by my extensive photo coverage of the first part of my hols (or you've just not yet read it ;-) )

I'm gonna post about the other days (maybe not today though as I've got lots on at work)... whether or not anyone actually reads it (a constant fear of any blogger?!) is by-the-by as I'm enjoying recording my holiday, it's good to have a photo-diary that I can look back on with fond memories :-)

for now, here's a quick round up of the week thus far

Monday - back to work, ick.
My son's day was infinitely better than mine, he got three 'positive red flags' (I thought a red flag was a bad thing?!) and was pleased to see that he'd outgrown all his friends... and is one of the tall boys in the class, but nothing compared to the tallest who is already 6'2"!!
Scary.

I cooked a very nice prawn and vegetable stir-fry (minus noodles pour moi)

Tuesday - got up at stupid o'clock to go to Sam's Psycho Spin Session. The last class I did before my hols involved lots of sprint intervals, hugely enjoyable, knackering endorphin-inducing fun

Tuesday's class was all about the hill work baby. ouchie. had done (what I felt was) enough actual mountain climbing on bikes during my holiday, legs felt like lead!

I was meant to cycle to work and home and go to the gym. I only managed the first part of that plan as I had to work late, dammit :-(

cooked spaghetti bolognaise for dinner with extra lean beef mince - managed to prevent Joe from pouring over 1/2 a bottle of red wine into it... lol... my son might have had a *little* red wine and water with his food in France but let's not overdo it now huh?! I'm also not drinking at the mo so more reason to tell him to bugger off ;-)

found out over dinner that my son had been elected class representative - hurrah! he got at least half of the class votes, not bad eh? He's very pleased as he said he's been wanting to be a class rep since he was at primary school. Just goes to prove that perseverance pays off in the end!

Wednesday - I went to the gym at lunch time to do my first upper body weights session in about 2 weeks. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be but I ached pretty much straight away afterwards, and I still do today!! For dinner we had salmon, wild rice and corn on the cob :-)

Thursday - had a great meeting in the morning regarding my company's charity week early November. I'm representative for our corporate division so I was involved in the brainstorming session and we came up with some great ideas. Our charity of the year is The Alzheimer's Society which I'm very pleased at as, like with cancer, pretty much everyone knows somebody who has been affected directly, or indirectly by dementia, it's such a horrible debilitating disease :-(

My ex's granny had it and the last couple of years of her life were awful for her family to cope with, especially her daughter as Paul's Mum and Gran had always been so close. Towards the end she couldn't remember who she was.

I hope to God that neither I, or anyone I know, ever get that. I think it's worse for the sufferer in the beginning when they first realise something's wrong but don't know what or why, but eventually it must be heartbreakingly harder for their family to cope with because I guess they're still the same person in the end, unlike their loved one. To watch someone deteriorate like must be the hardest thing in the world, it's just cruel :-(

Anyway, re the fundraising idea - it was mentioned that last year during corporate charity week they had a rowing challenge so, fresh from my holiday cycling fun I said "how about a stationary cycle race?". Fortunately everyone thought that was a great idea and it has metamorphosed into a challenge with 2 cycles and 2 goals - one is to cycle the distance from London to Paris (over the course of the week that is!) and the other is to see who is the fastest to cycle a much shorter distance, say 5 miles... We're hoping to have two prizes too. One being tickets for the Eurostar to Paris - keeping with our French theme, and the other is a bike. Obviously we have yet to source these but we do have a sports buying department and various entertainment functions too - so it looks good!

Unfortunately, as Joe pointed out yesterday, given that this is my project and I'll most likely be manning the challenge, I won't be able to take part myself, boo :-(

This means that everyone else has a fighting chance, hurrah! haha kidding, there are some seriously fit people in our head offices, I know one guy, who's also on the climbing club committee with me, who cycles every day from Surrey to Victoria and back again (can't remember the distance but I think it's at least 15 miles each way) come rain, wind, sleet or snow!!

nutter

At lunch I did my dumbbell lower body routine. I figured that, having been able to power up mountains quite effectively the previous week, going back to weight training would be a doddle!

Hmm, that was foolish. I was wobbly and knackered by the end and today... I can't walk properly! EVERY part of my leg and arse hurts like hell!! My hamstrings are the worst, I think it was the deadlift... no, I'm convinced it was the deadlifts!! I'm getting really good at them and keeping my back dead flat with no shoulder rounding - my previous form was dreadful!!

anyway, my son was out last night for his best (female) friend's birthday so Joe and I met up in Fulham as he was collecting the keys to the flat that (fingers crossed!) he is finalising the selling arrangements on. We went to GBK for burgers. I ordered the Buffalo burger as I've read that Buffalo is a far superior meat - higher in protein and lower in fat and cholesterol!

The burger was really tasty but the salad that I ordered instead of chips was a complete let down! It was meant to be salad leaves, pine nuts, cherry tomatoes and avocado... it had most of the ingredients right, but in teeny supply! it was a small plate with salad, not bigger than a side dish and was advertised as a 'main'? Plus, the 'avocado' was in guacamole form and tasted like shit. Luckily Joe took it to the counter and they agreed that it was sub-standard and he got a refund - I'd have rather had a nice salad tbh!

bahh

anyway, got to get on with some work so speak soon

TJx