christmas

Happy New Year folks.

In amongst all the technical learning I’ve been doing there’s been plenty of other stuff going on that I’ve not had time to write about.

Christmas

We hosted Christmas for the first time this year.  It was quite a success too!

• We’d planned the meal well, keeping it simple but tasty.  Hint: smoked salmon on garlic-rubbed bruschetta with a dollop of pesto…YUM!
• Our fears of not finding a Turkey were not met (but we were surprised at how expensive they were).
• We learned how not to make stuffing.  We’ve yet to learn the correct way!
• Starting cooking was much easier than finishing it all off.
• We learned not to plan to host a big meal with lots of leftovers and then go away for a week!
• Washing up is more of a job than the preparation and cooking.

Anyway, a good experience of cooking a fancy meal for five and we’d do it again!

The Cough

I’ve been fighting off my FOURTH attack from the really nasty cold that’s been going around this year.  I don’t know if it’s the same one and I’ve not been able to fight it off.  The last few months has been really bad for illnesses for everyone.  Even the toughest people I know have had some sort of illness and time off work, and most have been got several times.

We’re now also in the grip of a really cold snap which can’t be helping.

Anyway, I had a couple of days of feeling really cold-infected whilst we were down in Devon over Christmas and New Year, and that quickly went away, but I’m still dealing with the aftermath – an annoying tickly dry cough.  It’s almost gone now but has been quite an irritant in the last week and a half.

Back and Cycling

Unfortunately all the sitting down I’ve done as a result of lazing around in comfy chairs and extra-soft mattresses in Devon over Christmas has given me a bad back again (seems to be a normal way for me to start the year).

This along with extra-cold, icy, and dangerous weather, and the need to shuttle various things to work and back, has meant that I’ve not been cycling much.

This is a bit disappointing for me, as I really wanted to try and keep my fitness up over the winter for a good start in the spring, and I was getting all kitted out to do that!

It’s also annoying because once you’ve had a bit of time out it’s even harder to get up the motivation to get going again.

I did manage to cycle-commute once this week, on Thursday.  But to my dismay I found that the council don’t seem to do much (any) gritting of cycle paths, and there were some fairly treacherous bits of cycling to be done.  So I really need to wait for a thaw.

Today it’s been sub-zero all day.  Let’s hope that the forecast for a warmer Saturday is correct!

In any case, I still have a good 2 months of winter left so I need to be disciplined and get some daylight riding in, alongside some trips to the gym, to get fitness up!

Roll on 2009 then!!!