Monthly Archives: September 2010

pilates

I have long been a believer in Pilates – core stability and all that jazz – however I have never been much of an implementer. Yesterday I took a turn for the better though and went along to put my money where my mouth is (among a tone of other cliches!).

I met the very zen Georgina who put me through my rather limited, poorly controlled, wobbly muscled paces…. rather than floor work – which quite frankly I suck at. I was strapped into the oddest machine! Imagine ropes and weights, pullies and handles. I must have looked truly ridiculous, some sort of demented marionette. It was however great fun. She made me think about how I move, where my body sits in space and started, just slightly, to unwind all of those poor muscles which I treat pretty badly most of the time.

So I am going back next Saturday in my ambition to improve my work life balance.  Furthermore,  in a fit of massive exuberance I have also signed up for weekly yoga at the local church hall …but have until mid October before I have to embrace the Ohmmmmm

3 legs

A friend once said to me that life is like a 3 legged stool; Family, friends and work are each of the legs. In order to make the stool work you need all in some sort of balance. I think this is a truly difficult thing to achieve. If you live geographically apart from your family, when you have friends scattered about the world. Work is the only one that sits within grasp. And what you see is this leg of life taking on some serious significance.

London is full of people who are madly making the most of this leg!

bump in the road

Life is quite a ride sometimes – and flooding into my mind is that of a roller coaster….. Although it is a pretty rotten analogy, firstly because I hate roller coasters…. and also the down hill bit is something people like. Where as in real life the down hill slide is unpleasant, eye welling up, yuckiness.

For a little while there I was dating a boy. He was nice, and I thought….. well doesn’t actually matter what I was musing about in my mind! This being said I guess I am not surprised that things did not end in the fairy tale. He was complicated. He worked hard – too hard. He played hard – too hard. And I am not sure really whether he was always kind to me. It was lovely though to have someone who distracted me from work. Someone to think about and to care about.

Anyway, I guess I have done this often enough. I need to make myself busy. And I mean really busy. I need to focus on work, work, work and one day I will wake up and being by myself will be okay again.

open city

In my effort to regain a little bit of a life I went along to Open City today. As always I was quite aware enough to get into any of the restricted places like the BT tower or the Gin still in Kennington. Both of which sound cool.

I did have a gorgeous time looking at some eco-friendly renovations. They were very earnest people who lived in these houses – bits of paper were pinned about explaining light bulbs, boilers, solar panels, bamboo towels and providing lists to evidence their carbon neutrality. There was a lovely, lovely little house. Not very eco friendly but was just gorgeous.

It is a clever idea though – to give people a chance to see behind closed doors, into others lives and an insight into what you can do with spaces.

Helsinki

Interesting fact – Helsinki is the second most northern city in the world.

And it is just a lovely place to go for the weekend. Partly this is because you don’t wake up  on your first morning with an enormous list of must do, better do and well… if I have time will do. But also it is a quiet city with trams and the most enormous, delicious pastries ever.

The other win with Helsinki is the water. One of the down sides about living in London is the sense of being land locked. So, it is heaven to go to a city where the sea laps at its edges. Where boats sit in the port and you can catch the ferry to the islands just off the coast.

It was a lovely weekend and mad this week just gone survivable!