Moving, eating, moving….

I am trying to wrap up many different strands all together in one little blog. Eating, exercise and moving house. As I type I reals that house moving will have to be a post on its own, as there is too much to waffle on about there.

The weekend just gone I did my very first attempt at “brick” training. This is when you combine 2 (or more) activities one after another. This weekend I did a 15km ride followed by a 3.5km run. It went OK, and to be honest the main reason I stopped was because I got bored. It wasn’t a difficult ride, although I kept up the pace up around 30kph, but the run was slow. What is it about treadmills that make them so dull? I can’t run as fast or as far on treadmill. But I got to say that I’m pretty proud of myself for doing it. Also made me feel better as I was meant to meet a friend and do some cycling since the 100km is looming. (7th July for any lovely ladies out there who want to join) and we had called it off due to the atrocious winds and potential rain.

We decided to still meet up, but our big cycle around Richmond Park ended up looking like this:

We went for a substantial walk afterwards which lead us to talk about dim sum and dumplings, which then lead to Sunday looking very much like this:

After this I proceeded to fall into a food coma and do nothing for the rest of the day.

So this week I have been back to the moving, with cycling to work, a swim this morning (which was long, slow and arduous) and running home, and a spin class scheduled for tomorrow morning. This is a good thing as I have been finding it very difficult to get up in the mornings as the light at the end of the work tunnel comes ever closer. The closer it gets, the less I have the motivation to go through the movements. Socially I love being in London, my brain however has checked out of work and is currently in the arrivals lounge waiting for the real move to happen.

5 weeks left…. Hopefully that gives me 5 weeks to get up to scratch with my swimming!

On another planet…

I found out some very sad news this week, that friend from Australia’s mum had died. I felt for her and my heart broke from this side of the world. I grew up with S and both her and her family are a prominent feature of my childhood. Since moving over here, we haven’t had much contact, except on birthdays and the odd comment or photo on FB or the rare occasion when we have travelled.

She changed her profile photo, with no status update or any comments, but it was enough for me to guess that something wasn’t as it should be.  This made me think of how far away all those people I love are and how we should appreciate the people we have in our lives. It also strangely made me think of what had happened to all the people I went to school with. Where are they? What are they doing?

I missed our 10 year reunion, as I was over here, so don’t really know. I didn’t really friend that many people on FB that I wasn’t friends with when in high school. Perhaps that makes me a snob…. I think that just stops people from being nosey too easily. We have enough shared friends to be able to get the general idea of what is going on. And by doing just that it would seem I am living on another planet.

The planet from which I came, people have around 3 children and husbands (I went to an all girl school). Out of those that I bothered to check, very few do not (2 don’t, one is engaged and the other is unknown). Some even have children that are about 13! Most of these people are in and around the same place where I grew up, and I am happy for them. Not so happy for my mum, who has to field the questions of what is Amanda doing. Goodness knows how she answers that, since I don’t know the answer and I’m doing it!

However there is one thing that I have realised. I fear commitment. Not the relationship sort. But the sort that locks you in for life. The sort that makes you make a decision on where you HAVE to be. I thought I was growing up when I thought that I could handle owning a dog. However I didn’t make any real effort to change my circumstance to allow me to get a dog. It was more a mental game that I played with myself. So I feel that I am taking big steps in moving in with Swing Boy. Not because we will be living each other and playing house, not even because I have ideas that we will be living in this house for at least 2 years. It is because we are looking at buying furniture! Not crappy throw it together furniture…. But actual furniture.

I am pretty sure my brain is broken….

Home is where the heart is…

In the last few weeks the topic of Australia and returning home has cropped up. I met up with a good friend from home who I haven’t seen in 2 years. He was passing through London and it was wonderful to see him. He is originally British but grew up in Australia and is currently waiting patiently to get his Australian citizenship. (They have changed the rules 3 times since he tried to get it). I have known Phil for more than 10 years and he spent several years over here in the UK and moved back to Australia about 3 years ago. He is the first person to say to me not to bother moving back.

I must say it came as a shock but I am not sure why, as more and more of me feels as if the UK is home. I guess I assumed that all my friends that moved back were all enjoying life, the sun, the weather and well, everything Aussie. It turns out Phil tells me that he thought so too when he first moved back, but since then has had second thoughts and has not slotted back in the way he thought he would.

His friends and family are all there, that hasn’t changed, but he tells me that if the reason that I don’t want to go back is because I feel that I will need to grow up and face life, the fact is that since being in the UK, I have grown up and have faced life.  Perhaps not conventionally but still have none the less. My turning point for facing life happened this weekend. I had a conversation with a child…. 2 in fact! For those of you who don’t know me, this is a massive thing. I don’t really know how to interact with children, and all my friends that have them live on the other side of the world (there are a few exceptions). Some now it happened while out in the garden today and Swing Boy’s parents place with his nephew. I didn’t even run away! In fact I kinda liked it!

Swing Boy and I are looking at living together next year, and the house hunting has begun. Couple that with talking to children, wanting a dog and living in the country, Phil maybe right and it would seem that I am growing up.