Category: General ramblings

I love reading the day in the life posts, and I have not written one for ages, so today I thought it was about time!

Although it is about today, which hasn’t finished yet!

Anyway, here goes.

7.45am Wake up- I did set an alarm luckily- usually I wake up at that sort of time at the weekends, but I have had a cough this week so less sleep. Potter about and get dressed.

8am- Drive to parkrun.

8.20am- Collect the bib and map, and head off to my marshaling position.

On my drive there, there was the most beautiful sunrise- really pink, and when I was in my position it was still visible.

I took some pictures of the course, although it is one big loop so not all visible from where I was.

Such a pretty place to have a run in.

I was cheering runners past until about half 9, and then I collected the sign and the gate lock and headed back along the path to the start.

Then I walked back to the car and drove home.

10.10am- Have some breakfast- toasted sourdough bread and tea. Then I straightened my hair, put some washing away, weighed out some dried fruit to soak and watched The Soup with Andy.

11.15am- Drove to work. I was helping out at the Christmas market- I had worn a festive t-shirt to get into the spirit.

(Hard to photograph while I am wearing it). Anyway my stall turned out to be outside so no-one saw it! Ah well.

2.45- Get home and have some lunch (ryvita and hummus, and festive clementines hooray!) and watch a bit of TV.

Head into the kitchen to make some stollen dough. Pop onto the computer for a bit while it is doing the first rise, and peruse shops for Christmas present ideas. Suddenly I am feeling festive!

4.30pm- Walk up to the shops with Andy. I needed a few bits for work, and for my lunch on Monday. Urgh Tesco was just horrible- the heat was blasting out and I felt like sweat was pouring off me within seconds of getting in the shop. It was also heaving and horrible annoying Christmas music was playing- makes me want to get out of there as soon as possible! Festivometer is going back down! We got a chai latte to share on the walk home as I had a free drinks voucher.

6pm- The stollen dough still needs a bit longer so went back on the computer for more browsing of shops and general time wasting. I do have work to do but that will have to wait until Sunday now!

The rest of the day will look something like- finish making stollen (hopefully feel more festive again), have some dinner (spiced butternut squash soup), watch a film, and get my running gear ready as I have a race tomorrow morning.

Have you put up your decorations yet? I have not, but some friends have. And for the record, I think they are crazy! I mean, it is not even December yet. I love having decorations up, but having them up for weeks on end makes them feel less special. Also, people with children should remember that it hypes the children up even more…

So, back in the summer, Andy’s brother was given one of these fitness bands for his birthday. I used to have a pedometer, but got a bit fed up of the noise, and also it counted steps while I was driving and things, so it was not that accurate.

More recently I read Anna’s review of her vivofit, and started looking into them. There are other bands out there, but the Garmin one appealed as I already have a Garmin GPS, so I could use the Garmin connect software to see all my activity. Plus, I did not want one that vibrated, or beeped or anything like that. Sometimes at work I have to sit still (long assemblies or meetings) so I liked that the Garmin one just had lines on the screen.

I looked a few times on John Lewis (as I had some vouchers) and one day in half term I decided to go ahead and treat myself. I went for the grey, even though I really liked the green as I wanted it to go with everything.

It comes with two straps- I went for the smaller one but on one of the largest settings as I don’t like really tight things.

Apparently you can wear them in the shower and everything, but I have been taking mine off for that.

Setting it up was so simple. I mean, I am a bit of a technophobe still, but I followed the little guide, turned on the bluetooth on my phone, and straight away it was there. You can add your height, weight and birthday and then it apparently works out calories used, but I would take that with a pinch of salt.

I don’t normally have my bluetooth on (it seems to drain the battery on my phone pretty quickly) so I tend to turn it on once in the evening, synch the band (you just press and hold the button until “synch” appears on the screen), add my sleep time and then turn it off again.

The strap seems pretty secure- I read some reviews where people had lost them after a few days, but I think perhaps they had not clipped them in properly. There is a little additional strap that goes around the part where it is fastened, but I wore it for a few days without and it stayed on the whole time.

The screen is pretty clear- again some reviews complained about it not having a lit screen, but I would not be looking at it while running in the dark anyway, so that doesn’t bother me at all. You can flip between the different displays (time, date, steps, steps til you meet your goal, miles or calories)- I tend to leave it on the time screen and wear it instead of my normal watch. But at home I quite like seeing the steps mount up. If you are inactive for a while a red line begins to show along the top of the screen, which gets longer the more you sit still.

Although I don’t think the mileage is very accurate -one day I did an 8 mile run first thing in the morning (listening to a Richard Herring Leicster Square podcast, which is well worth hunting out by the way- the Russel Brand one was hilarious and very disturbing) and it thought I had done 11 miles or something by the time I got home- it will of course track patterns and I can compare if I did more or less steps than the day before. Mondays are now a day spent out of class, mainly in front of a computer, and I walk loads less, but I have been making the effort to have a walk in the evening as I am more conscious of it now. These past few days we have had Ofsted at work and on both of those days I did over 10.000 steps (although I was at work from 6.40am-9pm)- this was more rushing about than usual although I do tend to walk about quite a bit when teaching.

I am really glad I got it anyway- would you be tempted by something like this? Andy has got himself an app on his phone that tracks when he walks, but it would not work for me as we are not allowed phones on us at work, so mine is in my bag in my cupboard all day as I am rushing about everywhere, but if you had your phone in your pocket all the time some sort of fitness app thing would be a lot cheaper than a band.

Walking in the leaves in the rain.

The park looks so pretty, even in miserable weather.

Baking Christmas cakes.

Seeing Dave Gorman.

Runs in the daylight.

Muddy shoes (should have worn my trail shoes).

A leisurely breakfast.

Tesco treats from my mum.

A walk through the fields, spotting poppies.

A haircut ready for a wedding. And yes, cake is the best part of a wedding.

Baking cakes ready for the wedding.

Don’t the cakes look stunning?

 

 

But as you will see, it has not stopped me visiting them…

Recently I have been having a Monday morning treat of a visit to Starbucks on my way to work- I am out of class and always have a mountain of paperwork to get through, so it is a nice treat.

They normally ask for your name now (did anyone see Dave Gorman’s thing about that? Worth a hunt on Dave if you didn’t- Modern Life is Goodish), but one week they didn’t ask me. When I got back to my car I noticed that they had written my name- creepy! I think this was my 5th Monday- not as if I was in there all the time!

Excuse the chipped nail varnish!

Later that week I was sent an email saying that I could get a bakery item for half price, and double stars. Andy was out on Thursday evening which meant cooking my own dinner before body pump, and I left work pretty late. I decided to pop on my way home to get a pre-pump drink, and a post-pump treat.

I did have a sensible dinner I promise!

Yummy bean and mint falafels with salad and hummus.

And this was waiting for me when I got home.

Then the other weekend after the 15k race (and slightly tricky journey home) I had to dash back to work on Saturday evening as there was a disco. By the time that finished it was after 6pm but Andy would not be back from football for another hour at least, so I popped in for a drink, and got us a cinnamon roll to share. When I got home I lay on the sofa with my laptop- what luxury! (Spot the glo-bracelet I was given at the disco!)

However, the staff redeemed themselves in the final week of half term. We had consultation evenings for two nights, which are just such tiring evenings (on top of full days of teaching) and by Thursday I was so tired, losing my voice, I got into my car to come home and realised I needed petrol. I drove to the petrol station near work, only to see it was all cordoned off. It was right by Starbucks, so I popped in for a drink to take home. I am sure I smiled (and I always say please and thank you) but I think I must have looked like I needed cheering up, as it was only when I got home that I noticed that someone had drawn a smiley. Starbucks staff take note- I much prefer a smiley to my name.

The petrol saga continued on Friday morning- I went to Asda before work, but it was cordoned off. Never mind, I thought, there is a new petrol station opening along the dual carriageway on my way to work, I can just go there. Well, when I got there the sign said “now open”, but the entrance was still fenced off! Argh! Luckily the petrol lasted until Saturday when I finally managed to find an open one!

Are you a fan of the name-on-the-cup fad? Any shops where you are a regular?

Last week I was kindly sent some new nakd bars for me to try for the blog.

I had already tried the Christmas Pud bar (Sainsbury’s stock them- I have found them in two so far), and although I liked it (fruit and spices are a good combo), it was not my favourite. I told Andy I thought I could taste the alcohol (he thinks I am ridiculous, but I did think that the hint of natural flavour was hinting at the alcoholic  pudding).

But, the Bakewell tart ones, well, they might be my new favourite flavour. As someone who can happily cut a slice from a block of marzipan, I am rather fond of that almond extract flavour, and this bar has it. I thought it had dried cherries in there too, but it didn’t. I mean, I could go on for ages about the wonderful natural ingredients of dates, nuts, raisins and natural flavour, and how they survive a week being squashed in the bottom of my bag, and how they are the perfect snack size etc etc. But I am sure you all know how much I love them already, so I won’t.

Anyway, I loved it so much that I ordered a case on their website (they were having 20% off, although when I checked it had changed to a multi buy offer). I also bought a mixed box of Trek and nakd crunch bars, and they included a couple of freebies.

I tried the cocoa chaos bar- tasty. Although it made me think of Professor Chaos. Just me?

Do you like the sound of the new bars? I am thinking of wrapping one Christmas pud bar in marzipan to make a Christmas cake bar. Good plan.

* I was sent the bars to try, but all opinions are my own.