Working out at home

I've got to get better at this if I'm going to stay active! Between ballet classes (which are down to one a week at the moment), I really should do a bit more. Unfortunately, I'm a bit useless when it comes to getting off the sofa and getting started.

1) Home barre practise
I use youtube clips of RAD grades to practise my ballet. They are all exercises that I have done in class previously (I was working on Grade 6 when I stopped lessons as a teenager) and it's relaxing to repeat familiar exercises to familiar music.
Time taken = 10-15mins
Equipment needed = a chair or similar height surface to lean on, ipad to play video clip, socks/ballet shoes
Enjoyment factor = 8/10

Been baking

Using this rather fabulous cookbook:

First there was lemon cupcakes. I experimented with the icing recipe to make it super-lemony and then proceeded to make a right mess of icing them - they ended up being re-iced to make them look remotely respectable...

Erm...by the time I remembered to take a photo there were only two left...

Then I made gingerbread men! I really like ginger so upped Mary Berry's powdered ginger (from three flat teaspoons to four heavily heaped ones!), and they turned out pretty much perfectly. Could even have added a tinsy bit more ginger :)

A beautiful February walk

For the first time in a very long time, I got out for a hike. And, completely by chance, we managed to choose the nicest day in February! Sunny, about 8degC and almost no breeze. Perfect.

I was slightly apprehensive as I haven't quite managed to keep active recently (a ballet lesson most weeks but that's about it), and we headed off on a bit of a trek. However, chatting took my mind off walking and we made fabulous progress.

The weather was so good that I ended up carrying all my "spares" (coat, fleece, body warmer, hat and gloves) in my rucksack. A bit tough on the shoulders!

The result - 2 1/2hrs of good, old fashioned hiking, a few hills and a couple of sore muscles the next day :)

The Turing Exhibition

To celebrate last year's centenary of Alan Turing's birth, the Science Museum in London has a special exhibition dedicated to his life and work.

If you don't know about him, Turing is often named as the father of modern computing. You can find out more about him here and here.

And he was my great uncle. I never met him, but it's still pretty cool to walk around an exhibition dedicated to someone you're related to and see people reading about him. Exciting :)

London Science Museum - Turing Exhibition

You can find further information about the exhibition here.

And after visiting there were homemade profiteroles (not made by me I hasten to add, but definitely enjoyed by me!)...

Team Tall Ballerinas

Last weekend I had a night out with my ballet girls - a group of adult ballet students just like me (although some are much more dedicated!) who I've met through twitter and subsequently in classes over the last 8 months.

We were celebrating a birthday in the only way possible - a trip to the Royal Opera House :) On the bill: Onegin.

It was such a lovely night out. I'm not yet used to the amazing, opulent design of the theatre. It feels so luxurious just to be there :) And we had a spot of bubbly (we were celebrating after all!) and a jolly good natter.

I really enjoyed the ballet too. It was easier to follow than Swan Lake, although it doesn't have the same iconic status or set pieces, and I thought it was danced beautifully. There was romance, dreaming, rejection, jealousy, a duel, everything you could ask for in three hours of entertainment. And with two intervals, the perfect balance of social time and intense ballet time!

Roberta Marquez as Tatiana, and Thiago Soares as Onegin in Onegin © Bill Cooper/ROH 2010

It was so good to get dressed up and get out on an evening, even if I did then have a very lazy Sunday (including a two hour afternoon nap!). I am not really a party animal!