I’ve joined a gym.

I’m always really, really cynical about joining gyms - you get sucked into paying for a yearly contract, the novelty wears off quickly, I never seem to get the results I want.. but I think that joining this time around was the right thing for me.

The gym we’ve chosen is a Virgin Active gym, and is a 5 minute walk from our place. There’s really no excuse of it being too far away now, because I can visit on my way home. Secondly, well, the Summer is coming. I don’t get school holidays now that I’m working in Recruitment, but our hours will be reduced from 9-6:30 to 9-4. It’s the perfect time to get moving, since I’ll have a little extra time to myself.

As for goals? Well, obviously I’m there to lose weight. I never got around to mentioning, but I got myself through all 30 days of Jillian’s Shred, and while I definitely felt stronger (hello, biceps!) I didn’t notice any particular drops in my weight. That being said, I had an initial weigh-in at the gym, and I am less than what I thought I was (though still drastically NOT healthy), so maybe it did jolt me into action.

I’m also there to avoid laziness. Some people are extroverts, always out socialising, out exploring, out hanging around with friends. Over here, as much as I love the city, I’m just as likely to head straight to the comfort of home, chill out with Jason, or head for the internet. Now that I have this gym membership, I can still do all those things - but just not as much. I think that’s a good thing.

My biggest worry is burning myself out or losing interest, so I’m not under any false pretenses with expecting myself to work out every day. I’m aiming for every other day, but if I miss a day here and there, so be it. The gym itself is pretty nice - it’s in an old, converted school building and has a really nice feel to it. When you sign up, you have an induction with a personal trainer who sets up a program for you - my trainer was lovely and made me feel much better about being there, surrounded by fit people.

(Honestly… fit people in gyms freak me out.)

So for the next five weeks, I’m going to stick with my programme a few days a week and see how I get on. We’ll re-assess it then, and see if it needs changing. If only it weren’t so hot… 30o in London over the last few days has meant that I’m hot and sweaty even before I start working out. I’m also planning on being brave, and going to one of the Aqua Aerobics classes on offer at the pool this weekend, if I don’t chicken out about being in swimmers in front of people. We’ll see how that goes…

We’ve been in our new place for a week now - and I’m still too knackered to write up a post with real, actual words. Instead, let me share the experience via pictures for you.

First came day after day of Oscar and I camping out of the apartment, whilst our old flat was being shown to prospective tenants. It was nice enough at first. Not so nice when it was raining. And the real estate agents didn’t show up. Or bother to tell us. Yes, Oscar was just as impressed as I was.

Then came packing - a task which I actually rather enjoy, is that strange? That right there is about half of the things we packed. Remember, we both came over here with a single suitcase of clothing to our names. We are, apparently, hoarders. Note the cute packing boxes, saying ‘Seasons Greetings’!? Goodbye to our old, badly ventilated and horribly curtained apartment in Canary Wharf …

… And hello, to the West Side! This is our new place, in Notting Hill/North Kensington, depending on what you want to call it. Our building is on a street of old terrace style apartments, and on the first floor with a cute balcony. It’s awesome. And also pastel green. Hee.

This is the view from our balcony, up the street. I didn’t catch one of the five thousand buses that goes past every few minutes - a quick 5/10 minute ride to the station every morning. It’s great! We had so much stuff, that we had to hire a removal company for the few hours to move all of our things across the city, and up the stairs into our new flat. While they were driving, Oscar and I hoofed it across the city by tube. He was not a fan of the four interchanges we had to make.

The move itself went fine, except for the fact that we forgot it was a Saturday - meaning that the Portobello Markets down the road drew loads of visitors, and hence, no parking spaces. Being the slight perfectionist that I am, I refused to relax until everything was unpacked and put away. Let’s just say, I slept well that night. Oscar, on the other hand, found it hard to get used to the new place and spent the entire first weekend hiding under the bed.

And now, for some more pictures of the flat!

Oscar loves perching on the window and watching the birds & squirrels in the garden.

Just half of our GIANT wardrobe. It’s seriously awesome.

Our (still messy) living room - we still have a few bits and pieces that we need the landlord to take away, so it does look a bit cluttered. The walls and ceilings are really, really tall.

Laptop Central, aka the Lounge. Love!

The orange (yes, orange) kitchen. One would think it would be completely ghastly, but with the airy and massive room and wooden floors, it’s really quite funky.

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The built in bookshelf & feature wall.

So there you have it, our new place. I don’t think we’ll be moving anytime soon!!

Tonight’s our last night in the flat - we’re quite literally surrounded by boxes and cleaning products. Honestly, how we managed to accumulate so much STUFF after both arriving in London with only one 20kg suitcase to our name, is ridiculous.

Oscar has his very own box of cat things - his bed (which he doesn’t use), his toys (I really need to stop buying cat toys), his scratching post (he prefers our mattress) and all of his other bits and pieces.

Tomorrow morning, we make the move across to West London (google Ladbroke Grove to see our new area) and into our spiffy new apartment. I do feel a bit sad at leaving this one behind, but it’s definitely time for a change.

And the final icing on the cake? On my last journey home from work, the Docklands Light Rail (DLR of Doom) was suspended, leaving me stranded and forced to take the long way home. Goodbye, crazy driverless trains. I’ll miss you … or not.

See you all from the West side!

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned we had a lot of things coming up that were going to keep us busy? I think now is as good a time as any to explain what I was actually talking about, rather than leaving things all vague-like.

To cut a long story short, we’re moving. And to make a short story long… details!

Ever since I arrived here in December 2007, I’ve lived in the flat Jase arranged while I was still at home - a lovely little one bedroom place near Canary Wharf, in East London. It’s been great: a nice big living area, a relatively new kitchen, and in a nice quiet street. We’ve done well living here, despite my constant moans about the Docklands Light Rail, aka the DLR of Doom, not working. It’s getting to the point where we have to plan out our weekends in advance, because the trains are down all the bloody time.

<rant:> Don’t even get me started about the massive 48 hour tube strike that’s hopefully finished by now. Who would’ve thought I missed the sweaty germ-box (otherwise known as the Central Line) so much? </rant>

As is to be expected, our flat has had a few things go wrong with it, and unfortunately the real estate that manage the property are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. The handle of one of our bedroom windows broke off. The ventilation fan in the bathroom stopped working. The cold tap in the kitchen sink fell to pieces. The wiring on the bedroom light blew. We’ve lived with these problems for over three months, and guess what? They’re still not fixed.

Add the evil transport links, the inconsiderate neighbours and the constant vaccuuming of cat hair out of the carpet, and we were pushed over the edge. As soon as we gave our notice, our flat went on the market for an asking rent of 50 pounds less than what we currently pay. Per week. I’ll just pause here to let you calculate how much we’ve been overpaying. Yes…?

So, we started flat hunting about two month agos. Since I work late hours, J had the fun task of setting up appointments and viewings, and saw some real doozies out there. The recession over here has resulted in a lot of places going on the market for a lower rent - but because we’ve decided to venture out into West London to a more traditional flat, the places were a lot smaller than what we were used to.

After a few weeks of hunting, J found a place that he loved: nearly the same size as our current flat, with wooden floors and a nice balcony close to a tube line. I went to see it a few days later and thought it was ace, so we put the deposit down and have been waiting for our contract ever since.

We got the contract today. It’s been a stressful few weeks, not knowing what has been going on, or why it’s taken so long - turns out they couldn’t hunt the landlord down to get them to approve the tenancy. It should be sorted as of tomorrow, just in time for the weekend.

Our official move-in date is Tuesday next week. Talk about cutting it fine! The big moving day will be next Saturday, when we’re both off work. Next step? Operation pack-up-flat. Stay tuned…

There’s been a lot going on around here, and I’ve been neglecting (again!) to update things as often as I should. I had a friendly reminder emailed to me today from my bloghost, telling me that my hosting runs out over the next few weeks, and would I like to renew my blog? I’ll be honest. I came close to just letting it expire.

But my pride got the better of me, and I decided I like my personal space on the web far too much to just let it go completely. What does that mean for Alyndabear? Well, it means that I’ll be trying to post more often. I’m far too cheap to pay money for no reason at all, so this blog will be used. No promises on how much, but there will be content if it kills me!

First things first, I’m proud to announce the winner of the Swiss Photo Challenge. The runner up was Photo 4, Jungfraujoch taken by Jason. Second place was Photo 2, Zurich City taken by Me. As for the winner, the shot deemed ‘most awesome’, the title goes to Photo 3, Mountains & Waterfalls, taken by… Yours truly! Thanks to everyone for inflating my ego voting. I’m not sure that all parties were in agreeance over the prize of unlimited hair brushing, but I’m sure we’ll work something out!

We took hundreds of photos while we were in Switzerland, because honestly, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. We started in Zurich, leisurely enjoying the town and the hot weather. The next day, we drove past Lucerne and past Interlaken, where we boarded several mountain railway trains and headed up to Jungfraujoch. The views on the way up the mountain were just as amazing as the views from the top! I ended up a bit woozy from the altitude up there, but that didn’t take away from the day at all.

Once we were back in Zurich, the next day saw us drive north towards the Switzerland/German border, where we stopped at the Rhine Falls and enjoyed even more sunshine. It was off home after that, a mammoth journey getting back from Heathrow, thanks to the ever-efficient London transport system! (Oh, the sarcasm!)

Here are a couple more random happy snaps from the trip:

I’m back from our Swiss getaway, and have the Lindt choccies in the cupboard to prove it. Ah, bliss. If only every weekend were a long weekend . . .

So, as promised, I’m going to post six pictures today. If all goes well and my blog doesn’t explode, I’ll put a poll down the bottom, and you can cast your <extremely important> vote. In a couple of days time, I’ll check out the stats, and reveal a winner! It’s all very exciting, as I’m sure you can already tell.

(I’m not entirely sure if we’ve decided what the winner will get yet. I propose that if I am deemed the winner, I’ll get unlimited hair brushing sessions for the rest of my days. I also propose that if Jason wins, he’ll get the chance to provide these unlimited hair brushing sessions for the rest of my days. I’m sure he’ll be pleased.)

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And now, if my little polling gizmo-gadget loaded properly, cast your votes if you will!

I have quite possibly become the laziest blogger in existence, haven’t I? I’ve had the motivation and attention span of a toddler the past few weeks, honestly.

Tomorrow we’re off to Zurich for our second long weekend, which also coincides nicely with Jason’s 27th birthday early next week. We’ll be wandering around as happy tourists, and have a few day trips planned, so should be a nice cozy weekend - plus, the weather is meant to be mid-20’s (celsius!) and sunny. Until the thunderstorm that is predicted for Monday but pah! These things happen!

I have a bit of a fascination with photographing random objects lately. I’ve never been one to call myself a photographer, but I do like having a bash at pictures, especially since I’ve been travelling. They may not be artsy or creative or taken with an expensive camera, but there’s nothing more awesome than coming home, uploading the pictures and seeing how things look all blown up and fancy-like.

As a gift, my brother put money towards a camera for me while I was back home, and ohemgee, it is awesome. It’s a little teeny Sony Cybershot, and it takes pictures so fast - it’s what I used to capture the Oscar closeups from last month, as well as the Bruges pictures. Not bad, if I may say so myself! Jason has his own snazzy camera, so we’re having a bit of a challenge.

We’re going to be as snap-happy as we always are, but will purposely take pictures of similar items or scenic shots, and then share them when we get home. I might even put them up here for a voting/comparison session, and we’ll soon find out which pictures have the highest amount of awesomeness. It will be grand, I can see it now.

Lots more exciting things happening here … stay tuned for more details.

So last weekend, we headed off to Belgium - started in Bruges and ending in Brussels. Had a great three days, full of walking, cycling, chocolate tasting & beer indulging.

Pictures will sum it up better than I can in words… so enjoy!

I’ve been back home (London home, that is) for three weeks already. It’s good to have time speeding by as usual, rather than the excruciating slowness that was waiting back in Sydney. Work is work. Home is home. Kitters is kitters. Jase is Jase. Routines are lovely.

In saying that though, I feel like I’m ready for a bit of a change now. England has two public holidays coming up in May, so last weekend we spontaneously booked ourselves two getaways. Next weekend, we’re going to catch the EuroStar to Belgium for three days; we’ll travel through Brussels but have decided to stay in Bruges, as it looks much prettier. Towards the end of May, we’re flying to Switzerland for a few more days; we’re going to stay in Zurich, but also travel to Interlaken & visit Jungfraujoch and the Rhine Falls. I might actually burst from the excitement of it all.

How convenient that both destinations have one well-known food item that they are famous for… not that that’s why we chose them… ha!

Back on the London front, I’m ready to move house. Jason did a great job of finding this place when he originally moved here back in October 07, and it’s been perfect for us since then. The price we pay in rental was not bad, and the flat itself is quite modern and spacious for a one-bedroom. I think the main downfall of our little flat, is its location. We’re in East London, and our transport links aren’t that great. Yes, there is a fairly direct railway line near us, but it’s been undergoing renovations for months, and is totally unreliable. If you head closer to Central London, there are buses everywhere. What I would give to be able to catch a bus to work, rather than being cooped up in a clammy tube for another summer!

What started as a bit of an innocent look to see what flats are out there right now, has turned into a bit of an obsession. I’ve been checking online every lunch break, monitoring prices, getting a feel for different areas in the city. It seems like the prices are coming down a lot, most likely due to the current economic state over here, so our ‘good value’ place way out here, really isn’t all that great at the moment. As soon as Jase finds out if his work contract will be extended again, I think we’re going to make a decision on what to do next.

This next month should be great!

I think the post title about sums it up.

Apparently I have the upper arm strength of a toddler, because hoo boy, I cannot lift myself up easily. Even in the girly version. I suck.

(Though it doesn’t help when there is a cat nipping at your arms the whole time.)

Even so, I’m still persevering, and I suppose that’s what counts.

I still hate push ups, though.