Tricky run this evening around the Hagaparken: chilly and a tight chest (tree pollen or asthma maybe?)
We have also bought some Garmin Index Scales which are wireless and mean we can track our weight individually direct into Garmin Connect without having to use a watch and then upload from there; much easier.
Talking of which, my weight is down 0.4kg since the start of 2019.
So my planned extended test ride all went to pot when, instead of relaxing after a long-haul flight back from Johannesburg, I had to travel instead to San Francisco to win some work for us, meaning three long-haul flights in as many days and losing the weekend as a result.
Fast forward a couple more weeks and more changes – a potential client meeting in Stockholm – and I’m now trying to squeeze in a proper test ride before April. Luckily Jack Lilley have been really accommodating, including truncating this week’s planned two day ride into just the one day tomorrow without complaint and fitting the bike with a full luggage set so we can see if they clash or make things uncomfortable on the back.
Day 2 here at the DusitD2 Kenz hotel so another 5km-ish
Seven weeks since my last trip overseas with work: same project, different continent.
My first run in 6½ weeks! Away in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa on business so after a 12 hour day with a Client, I decided to hit the treadmill in the Park Inn by Radisson
-1.1°C and -6°C with windchill with a sprinkling of snow, mixed in with manflu. Still nice to get out before a long day ahead.
On the Betty Sutherland Trail
After a flight in from London to Seoul and having been up for 22 hours now, I thought I’d brave the -2C to +2C temperatures to see what my mapped out 7km run would be like this week. “Hellish” is the answer: the first 2.7km is pretty much all uphill gaining some 500ft and just when I started coming back down, I discovered that the back part of the route was under hard-packed ice and snow. Ah…
Well November ended on a high: whilst up in Norfolk for the weekend, I took Amy – Jack baled out at the last moment – to see London Grammar play the Open in Norwich and very good they were too (as expected).
I was also impressed in particular by one of the support acts: Josh Record, who may or may not use my suggestion of “Geoff” for the title of their presently unnamed track. Or not.
Tuesday of the following week and I was back off to Canada; Toronto this time to speak at a major exhibition (people actually had to pay to see me speaking). This time, it was a morning flight so I arrived at lunchtime EDT . Straight from the Airport via our offices to check the venue out for the following day, then off to the hotel to do a quick shower and change and back out for the evening: dinner at the Toronto Maple Leafs where their top player, Phil Kessel, celebrated his career 200th goal after scoring against the San Jose Sharks. Very enjoyable evening.
Wednesday and it was up early for breakfast and meeting colleagues before heading down to the convention centre to do my thing. A quick drink afterwards – bought for me by an ex-pat British lawyer (I didn’t have time to get her name) – then off to the airport for the red-eye to Heathrow.
Friday I had the day off: I was heading down to Gloucester for the PurplePort social. Great fun with lots of drink and chat: Katra was memorable for touching my face all evening looking for (non-existent) plastic surgery scars and Ali was memorable for not falling out of her corset despite all odds!
After breakfast, I headed back to London … via Bourton-on-the-Water where I lived when I was a little boy and we’d come back to the UK from Malta. I’d been taught our address parrot-fashion as we all do with our kids, so I popped it in to Waze on my iPhone and headed there. It was still as I remembered it, bar the houses that had been built behind the bungalow. Off into the village centre which was as I remembered it for a coffee and a walk around.
More of the same the following week – another seminar to give in London – and then the following week was fabulous, starting with the Placebo gig at Brixton on Monday 16th with GT. Really, really good they were too and it was nice to see GT after a few weeks.
Later that week, in Crawley at a Client’s, I dropped the RX-8 off at the nearby dealer to see if they could sort out the headlight washers: hitting a pheasant at {cough} MPH had split and lost the thick hose that feeds the headlight washers. They have had to order-in the hose which will be a massive £380 fitted! Expensive car, this one. Then back on Thursday evening for the company Christmas Dinner Cruise along the Thames, during which I gave a younger colleague a pep-talk about his forthcoming new baby and how he shouldn’t envy my lifestyle. He didn’t go home that night, apparently. So much for mentoring…
Friday I had the afternoon off as a friend, NT, was coming to stay at mine for the weekend. I picked her up from the railway station and we stopped off at London Bridge to pick up my car from the office where I’d left it overnight. As it was a lovely day, I took her up the Shard – fnarr! – before heading home. A lovely steak at Gaucho that evening. Saturday she wanted to do some shopping for her kids so we went up to Camden; tapas and t-shirts. Saturday and it was off to Le Pont de la Tour for dinner from their tasting menu. Excellent nosh.
Then into the Christmas Week: Christmas Eve was peculiar as due to the storms that hit the UK, I was one of the first into the office and it remained that way until mid-morning when just a few made it in. Drinks and snacks at the pub and then home. Christmas Day and I’d been invited to GT’s for what was a lovely Christmas Dinner including her fabulous Cheesy Chestnut Roast. Feeling bloated, I headed home to an early night before heading up to Norfolk for Boxing Day and the first of two defeats this week for Norwich City.
New Year’s Eve beckons now – after a shoot I have planned tomorrow with Marlyn Lindsay – and my plans include a possible NYE at Slimelight. I did wonder about grabbing a last-minute flight to Moscow to see the New Year in with Manuel and Angelo (friends from Route 66) but flights are stupidly expensive for what would be a one-night stay!
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