More Creepy Pictures of Other People's Bikes

Yeh, yeh, I know... I'm not really doing well to hide my geekage but I couldn't help myself.  This vintage lovely was parked out in the damp cold, cheerfully racing green with it's little red/burgundy mud-guards, and pristine white bar tape.

I particularly love the old fashioned dynamo lamp (when it's this senior it's not a light it's a lamp)....

and the new bell with the bright red/orange toggle - it just screams 'In Emergency Only'.

Jx

Out of 52 Mondays of this year...This one has a colour

I started to write this post like this:

It's nearly the end of January and I'm thinking of how we've all done.  I have managed three weeks out of a six week programme and today I'm finding it a struggle today.  It's more than likely due to a Hen weekend with a cracking group of girls and all that prosecco, fried eggs, and hoola hooping has gone to my head.  Pinterest, particularly of the Health and Fitness threads with all those Fitsperation (a mash up of Fitness and inspiration, eugh), are getting on my nerves.  

Then I find out today is Blue Monday.  The thing is, I like blue (only as a colour, not as a band).  The sky is blue today. The colour of the coverlet I have on the bench at my window is blue, my living room is blue, my Brompton whilst officially Turkish Green, really wants to be blue and does a damn fine job of it.

What cake would be if it could be today.

It's wrong to call today blue, Shitty Mustardy Nappy Monday would be better.  Or even Black Monday would do but I think Baby Cheesus might have already seconded that one.  

I don't know why I'm taking today soo bad either.  I haven't made any resolutions, so I've really got none to drop.  The programme thing I'm doing no one would know if I said I did it or not.  It also doesn't really matter to any one else, the gids doesn't care what I do with my time as long as it doesn't make me miserable.  Not doing the exercises today wouldn't make me miserable, it'd just compound the mood I'm in.

Way more arsed than I am

I'd be annoyed less if everyone else in the world (well, all those with a lot of first world problems) wasn't having such a hard time of it.  Not because I want everyone else to be happier but because with us all in it together, it means I can't even be original.  Perhaps I should just embrace my basicness, get myself a pumpkin latte and some uggs whilst complaining that my I-Phone's all bendy.  Oh god. Perhaps this is the beginning of the wall of careful alternativeness I've been cultivating all these years crumbling down.  I'll have to quit the cycling, join Jazzercise classes, watch Eastenders, and before I know it I'll be decking a woman in tescos over a cheap giant tv that'll show the ravaged contours of Phil Mitchells face just so (Is he even in 'enders any more?)  I'll have to stop fancying Keanu Reeves and David Grohl and fantasize over Brad Pitt (meh) and Ryan Gosling (he's not really very interesting to look at, is he? Be honest.) I'll have to grow my hair, get fake tan, and all my clothes will have to be from Superydry and I'll have to  pretend I don't know the Japanese style writing is gibberish (we actually asked a japanese person).  I'll have to trade in the bike for a Quigo, and read the Daily Mail and not vote.

Oh well.  It might not be all bad.  I suppose there'll be a comfort in knowing why everyone's talking about Danny Dyer, and what a pumpkin spiced latte actually tastes like.  Perhaps, even Mr Gosling's interesting to talk to, you know, perhaps there are finer points of his personality I've missed.  I doubt it, but gotta give the guy a chance.  

Jx

Don't forget you can join me on bloglovin', Twitter, and Pinterest, if you so wish. 

Chilly Willy!

One of the joys of living in Scotland is that there is weather. Proper weather.  The kind of weather that does something, demands to be noticed and given it's due respect regardless of the season.  This can be anything from gale force winds in spring, hailstones in the summer, trampoline blowing storms in the Autumn, and minusy looking temperatures in the winter.

A singular joy of living in Aberdeen is that generally, if it's raining in the rest of Scotland, guaranteed Aberdeen will be having it's driest week ever.  Same as we could be having to moor the house to the land due to torrential rain whilst everyone else is being sung to by the sun.

In this particular instance we're being frozen out whilst the rest of the country is thawing.

And you have to agree, sheet ice is difficult to cycle on.  The proof is here:

I am perhaps a little more resigned to the lack of gritting in Aberdeen than others.  In Glasgow, the gritters were usually out before the temperature dropped, and it is certainly anti-intuitive to grit the busiest roads but not their cycle paths.  

It's pretty much an ice rink in my street, so I've been hitting the turbo trainer.  A strange phenomena is occurring though.  Usually I hate HIIT training - which is generally wanky sports person talk for going really hard and then slowing down for what doesn't seem long enough before going hell for leather again (it's supposed to be good for you) - but recently the reps for my sessions have been going past pretty quickly.  I do 1 minute on it, 30 secs rest for 13 reps but I seem to be eating them up at the mo'.  My garmin's been out of cync (truth: I've been lazy in making sure it's charged and it keeps shutting down on me) so I can't say exactly what's going on.  It could be that I'm not working hard enough, though I am concentrating on getting my pedal cadence up, and I've always got a burn in my legs when I'm on my minute.  

What's the weather like in your neck of the woods?  How have you been coping?  If you're training/keeping fit, is there anything that's surprised you?

Don't forget you can join me on bloglovin', Twitter, and Pinterest, if you so wish.  And if I don't see you through the window, I'll see you out cycling! *

Jx

*I agree this is awfully naff.