Bridal Bootcamp June 29, 2009

OK, yet again I’ve been slack on the blogging front but I have a very valid excuse. Exercise has taken over my LIFE!

It’s now under 4 weeks until the big day and in preparation I’d been doing a moderate exercise regime for 6 weeks, produced by my rugby physio who’s also a personal trainer.  This finished a few weeks ago, at which time I asked for another programme from physio queen, stating that I wanted to be more hardcore and go for it in the run up to the big day.
She literally took me literally! My new programme looks as though I’m an athlete preparing for a competition. If my wedding day was sporting superstars, I reckon I would totally win!  It’s intense, it’s full on and it’s time consuming.  But, it’s also working – I’m now nearly a stone lighter than I was this time a few months ago and I even let people take pics of me in a bikini on my hen weekend (Um, but I’ve asked them not to post on facebook!).

So what’s the magic recipe? Basically, hard work, and lots of it.  Week one was 35mins cardio interval sprints three times a week with toning and core, plus extra toning another two days a week. Now on week three, I’m onto exercise six days of the week. Yesterday morning I was doing 45mins of 2mins on, 2mins off sprinting round my local park.  I think the kid on the swings was a bit perplexed the third time I struggled by – by the end, my sprints were more like feeble limps.  This morning in the gym for 0730, it was core and toning, involving gym-ball pressups (inelegant, and difficult!), tricep hell and another 45 mins cardio intervals, this time on the cross trainer.

Bridal Bootcamp

The Bridal Bootcamp regime means early mornings, motivating myself when I really really really don’t want to do another set of bilateral tricep exercises, and fitting in increasing amounts of exercise at the expense of some other things (no food shop this week, and minimal piano practice).

Alongside this, top physio lady has given me lots of nutrition information. I was a bit scared by her recommendation of six small meals a day, protein before and after gym and a list of supplements.  I admit, I’m not following this to the letter preferring real food! But the mantra is the same – I’m having rice cake and tahini before the 0730 gym, followed by a yoghurt or in some instances a protein bar (ICK!!). Then I’m having half my lunch around 12 and the rest later in the afternoon. I’m off bread for now and trying to avoid caffeine and added salt and sugar (although I had salt on my potatoes yesterday).  I’m also taking a joint supplement as I’m doing so much exercise and recently a friend got osteo-arthritis so it can’t do any harm.

It’s hard work. But the end is in sight and once I am a Mrs, I am going to have a lay in, chillax on the exercise front and eat a whole loaf of lovely crusty bread!

A memorable night at Never Forget June 10, 2009

OK I’m a bit late posting this but I’ve been a busy bee!

 

Last Thursday I got a last minute ticket for the Take That tribute band musical, Never Forget, at MK theatre, thanks to lil’ sis’ friend who fell ill (bad for her; good for me).

I wasn’t expecting that much, but actually it turned into a superb night.

The actor Phil Olivier, better known for his role in Brookside, was brave to be involved in this all-singing all-dancing affair.  At times, his dancing was almost robotic, which in itself was completely mesmerising!  His efforts at singing weren’t the best either but the producers had obviously accounted for this, giving him minimal exposure.  Yeah, ok, it was ropey – but his performance was still hugely endearing.  Never Forget is probably the best platform for him in musical theatre – it’s cheesy, camp and poppy – I can’t see him doing anything like Les Mis anytime soon.

 

Moving on, the cast was in fact incredible with Mark Willshire as Ash (the Gary of the tribute band) absolutely storming on the stage. His singing was amazing, flawless and his dancing looked exhausting.

A highlight had to be the top cheesy moment of ‘back for good’ set to the backdrop of rain absolutely chucking over the two main characters. Brilliant.

The encore for me was the best bit. The whole theatre was on their feet straight off as the cast ran through an exhausting medley of songs (6?7?) – as I said to my sis – this is actually like seeing Take That! (not that I ever have…but this must be close!)

So, an unexpectedly top night filled with brilliant TT songs. I recommend!

Severe lack of kerb appeal June 1, 2009

The wedding is fast approaching – it’s less than 8 weeks away now and yesterday on return from a mate’s hen do, I was perturbed by our front garden.  I realised that on The Big Day I actually will want some pics of me leaving home as a singleton, hence images of the front garden and front door are required. Let me tell you why this is bad news.

Our front garden, although low maintenance, currently looks like Steptoe’s yard with bits of car and van strewn around, some scrap metal for welding, a trailer and a wheelie bin parked up outside the bay window.

The front door is a peeling mess of once-vivid blue paint.  It’s been sticking for ages so we’ve been using the back door and I only really noticed how tired it’s looking yesterday avo. The porch paint is pretty grubby too. It’s not got the kerb appeal that Kirsty and Phil would be looking for!

So what does our yard say about us?

- The Boy is a DIY-er who hoardes potentially useful stuff from the scrapyard, in the hope that one day, it will be useful

- We neglect what we think are small things (painting front door) with the aim of completing big things (getting van working)

- We aren’t front door people. Back door people are less formal and less tidy aren’t they?  It means when mates visit they wave to us through the kitchen window before letting themselves in.

- The Boy is not a methodical worker, but a ‘get stuck in’ type who strews stuff around him in the urgency of getting things done.

However, there’s another side to this and that is that actually although we neglect our frontage a bit, no-one really knows what’s behind our peely front door and scrapyard-esque yard.  Far from being neglected, I think we have a very happy home and although bits of it are sometimes ramshackle (just as we are from time to time), we still love it.

Having said that and romanticising it,  it still looks pants so am still adding tidy front garden and paint front door to the ‘wedding must do’ critical path list.

Whassssssup? May 19, 2009

S’been ages since I last blogged. Seriously, ages.  Sometimes I go on holiday and I’m already thinking about posts I want to write whilst I’m mid campsite.  But recently, I’ve had a mini drought of some kind. It’s been almost a month!

Missed me? 

Hmm, possibly not…but in any case, here’s a quick run down of whasss been going on!

 - Cooked Father John thai chicken kebabs and rice, and showed him our veg patch. He was impressed.  Am sure this has convinced him that as our onions are in straight lines, we have a good marriage ahead of us.

 - The Boy survived his stag do, and came back with hair intact.  Involved Amsterdam, Skis, boiler suits and oysters.

 - Went to first wedding of the season and could tell I was B2B as nearly blubbed at arrival of le bride. Tres bon do involving pianist who played Spandau Ballet!

 - Have tweaked a tendon in my foot. This is not good news for Bridal Bootcamp regime and have tried to compensate for lack of running with swimming and cycling.

 - Work has gone crazy mental, am v glad we have a good gang of mateys in the office to keep sane with! Am looking forward to cocktail-hen-do type evening with les ladies on Friday, bring on wine time!

 - Invites have gone out for wedding and replies are trickling back. It’s quite frustrating waiting for people to reply. I would like to know in an instant whether it’s yay or nay, am v impatient!

 - Tried to inspire The Boy on the John Lewis gift list front with a very mild introductory visit, after work, for one hour. Including food.  He was quite good and managed to not break glasses, walk calmly through the towel section and even find an opinion on placemats. Good effort! Lack of opinion/caring means that Gift List is now in my lap. Woah yeah!! Bring on the soft furnishings!!

 

O my god. I realise I’ve written the list above and ALL of it relates to wedding! I’m not obsessed, seriously I don’t think I am but that makes me look obsessed and freaky bridezilla-y! Must try harder next time.

Anyhoo, that’s all for now, me is tired. Off to Bedfordshire.

We’ve come a long way, ladies April 28, 2009

Yesterday was the fairy tale end of a season, and the opening (hopefully) of a whole new chapter of rugby for Olney Ladies.
I’ve been playing for Olney for donkeys years, since I was 18 (I’m now in the 26-34 box on surveys, eeps!) – the Ladies section was formed around 16 years ago by a bunch of men’s team WAGs who fancied a go themselves. In the early days, the social side seemed highly important and I remember when I first joined some of the legendary drinking nights (three legged pyjama pub crawl? oh yes!), and the friendly faces down the club that made me stay – and which still make me stay. There are plenty of tales of games of old girls too, from the player who hoiked a tampon up her nose to stop a nosebleed, to the player who had no idea about rucking so just piled on with a bellyflop. Legends, all of them!

We’ve come a long way since I first started and we averaged about 9 people at training and scraped together a scratch side on a Sunday morning. Yesterday brought years of work from everyone involved to fruition. All those seasons developing training, recruiting players and creating a play hard/but have fun mentality paid off. We won our league, and we now are looking to go up to North One (subject to AGM vote).

me and my sis talk tactics ahead of the big game - or are we gossiping about our weekends?

North One is a whisker off the premiership – it’s going to be a big step up, and a long way off – some of our games will be 3.5hours drive away! But it’s also going to be an excellent challenge – we always play better against harder teams and we have nothing to lose. So what if we get mullered and come back down? It will be worth a try, and I reckon we’ll do better than we think.

So what’s next for Olney Ladies? If we make the move up, then we need ultra-dedication from the players to develop our game; we need commitment to training and playing away; we need to fundraise and get support from the club for coach trips (yay!) – and most importantly, we need to keep our ethos of playing to the best of our ability – but keeping our rugby FUN (in a bun)!

prettiful!

Campervan colouring contest – the winner(s)! April 14, 2009

OK, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived!!

 

We had a good number of entries in and after a lot of deliberating and cogitating over cups of tea, we have made the decision to go with not one, but TWO designs!

 

Yes readers, not only is painting a campervan yourself quite mental in itself, we are going a step further by having a different design on each side of the van. 

 

The two we are going with represented two things we love – gardening, and surfing – so congratulations to Dean first off for his sea and surf combo:

And the other side, garden related, actually goes to two people who came up with similar ideas: Monkey, firstly (remember those giant bees?):

And Mary’s garden wonderland:

 

Well done to everyone who entered, we loved looking through your handiwork (eerrr, but Mr Blobby was never gonna win!) – a special mention goes to Helen who submitted three strong contenders, Jessica our youngest entrant and also Susan Condon who did a great hippy theme.

 

Congrats then, go to Dean, Monkey and Mary all of whom will get a home visit from the pimped-up Trevor when it’s painted. And when it moves again. What horror will strike into the face of their neighbours when they see the camper rocking up??! Ha!

 

Anyhoo gang, we’ll be posting up regular pics of the new look Trevor for your delight, so watch this space (also I have the proviso that if it looks shite, we’re paying to have a re-spray).

campervan – some top entries! April 9, 2009

Some brilliant ones here. First Aly, who’s gone for the psychadelic type look:

Superb job, and I reckon quite easy to do?

 

Next, it’s over to Helen who’s done not one but THREE entries. This girl is keen! See what you think; I reckon she’s a contender:

Here’s entry number two…

And the last one, this is pretty good I reckon:

 

 

Loving the ‘proper job’ – Helen knows The Boy well!!

 

We’ll be looking at all of the entries over Easter and if we’re stuck between a couple I’ll stick them up here and you can all vote on it – we’ll be in your hands….eeep!

Campervan, in an English Country Garden (with giant bees) April 8, 2009

Two more lovely ones here, both drawing on a garden type theme.  Mary’s using a ’secret’ garden design with an ingenious blackboard paint section at the back where we can scribble stuff on.  Potential for lewd graffiti? Quite high; but I like it!!

And here’s the front and back of Mary’s design, with that all-important blackboard bit:

The other entry is from Monkey Morris, who’s developed a simpler but equally effective design, which includes the rather threatening giant-bees:

Nice work from you both!

Only two days left so remember, if you haven’t done so already, to get your entries in to : tartuptrev@live.co.uk

Movement on the camper van April 5, 2009

Here’s the entry form for the van design competition – only a few days left! We’ll be looking at all the entries over Easter so make sure you get yours in…

 

The good news is that a successful test of the van last weekend  took us to Rutland and back.  There was a hairy moment as we backfired our way out of Kingsthorpe and chugged painfully up hills, but Trevor made it and a few running repairs led to a much smoother journey back.

we made it...there and back...just

 

Now he just needs to look the part!  Get your entry in…

Wedding preparation: watch gory violent film April 1, 2009

Last night we met again with Father John from the Northampton Cathedral, who’ll be doing our wedding ceremony. He is very chilled about everything which in turn makes me chill out a bit (very useful following on from this post). Last night we got to go into the Church and experience where we’d be standing on the big day. Father John roughly ran through who goes where and what happens and then he did a nice blessing for us. Spookily, the blessing included the passage that we are having as our Gospel reading in the ceremony!!

It was really quite surreal to be stood on the altar opposite The Boy with a priest in front of us. I felt a bit emotional actually! But this is not good – must not cry and ruin mascara on the day. Must not.

Anyhoo, following on from our altar experience and The Boy quizzing Father John on the history of the church’s architecture, we were set some homework. Last month it was to finalise our readings and hymns (cue lots of early morning singing of hymns by me to The Boy and cue The Boy falling asleep whilst I read him potential readings). This month, we have to watch Gladiator, the film. That’s it!

All Father John will say is that this film shows the origins of the word “sacrament”, and as we’re going through the sacrament of marriage, it’s apt to watch it. This will be a lot more straightforward! I’m arranging to borrow the DVD from a mate and all being well, The Boy will stay awake and we’ll learn something.

Next meeting Father John is coming to our house for dinner which leads to more preparation – what to cook for a clergyman?!