My new toy

For the first time since I started my new job I thought I'd treat myself...to a new bike no less! It is beautiful. For the bike nerds among you it's a Carrera Subway, it's a wee 16 inch frame and it has town/trail tyres on it. For the more aesthetically-oriented among you it's charcoal grey and has a bell! To keep my mum happy I have also invested in a sexy fluorescent yellow top - the complete look is something to behold. And so, on and off for the past two weeks (i'm a fair-weather cyclist) I've been cycling to work. It's a straightforward route with a fairly hefty hill at the end. This is fine though, since I get to free-wheel down that same hill on the way home! The fun comes towards the end of my homeward journey however, when I have to fight my way along the greenway buslane with all number of Lothian and private buses. I'm getting the hang of it, but I will say that I find it a bit ironic that the most vulnerable road-users are made to share the same lane as the biggest bullies on Edinburgh's streets (taxis are included in that)!

Alongside this lifestyle change, I've been upping my training for my 5k run on June 1st. I've been gymming most nights and on non-gym nights I've even been swimming - one of my most hated pastimes! In fairness, my trips to the swimming pool haven't been too traumatic. Having said that, during my most recent trip I was close to killing a small child in the changing rooms. Just when I was coming to the end of my swimming adventure, towel-drying my hair about to leave, a small boy arrived with his mum. He'd clearly just been dragged away from the TV and what he had been watching had had a profound effect on him...he was singing my most hated advert song: ah ah ah ahh ah ahhhhh, ah ah ah ahh ah ahhhhh, ah ah ah ahh ah ahhhh, ah ah ah ahh ahhhhhhhhh ah. If you haven't guessed it from that, I'll enlighten you - it's that damn Lloyds TSB song! Needless to say I decided I could finish tying my hair up in the car...