A year of ballet

Really?!

Yup, it's been a year since I squeezed into some leggings and plucked up the courage to attend my first ballet class in 12 years. And it's been quite a year...

1) Ballet almost instantly replaced karate as my workout of choice (much to the disappointment of my karate chums). But whereas I quite enjoy karate and have good friends in the club, I really love taking ballet classes.

2) I bought a leotard, after a bit of soul-searching to figure out if a 30-year-old should be wearing a leotard.

3) I met the lovely Becca through twitter and then in person at a ballet class. A great post-class tea and chat partner!

4) We sat in Trafalgar Square to watch my first ballet (and got cold and stiff!).

5) Over the summer, I set some personal records: ballet classes attended in one day (two) and over one week (four). These numbers will be broken in the next few months!

6) I took part in the first Ballet Tweep Meet up, as organised by Becca, where I met several other lovely ballet-types and had a fabulous class with Karis from EverybodyBallet.

7) I attended my first (and second) ever live ballets at the Royal Opera House.

I've taken lessons with seven different teachers in five different studios and two different cities. Not bad going for 12 months :)

More panda-y goodness

I may have started a second blog, dedicated to all things panda...

You can find it here:

Enjoy!

Podcast-y goodness

Do you listen to podcasts?

I'm one of those "old before their time" people (or possibly "older than I like to think"!). I have always listened to BBC Radio 4, as instigated by my parents who had the news and Archers on during dinner every night. (The Archers is a farm and countryside based "soap opera"/daily 15 min drama that has been running since time began!)

Having grown up with this style of talk radio, podcasts naturally interest and excite me.

For a start, I can download and keep episodes of great programs, specifically the Friday Night Comedy (The News Quiz or The Now Show) and The Infinite Monkey Cage, a light-hearted science series. The Now Show is a favourite - very funny comedy sketches about the week's news.

Then there's running podcasts. I haven't really run at all for the last six months, but I still regularly listen to Marathon Talk. It is a great mix of chat, useful running information and fantastic interviews. If you are a runner then I definitely recommend that you check it out. I can't stop listening even when I'm not running!

Lastly, I have a new favourite set of podcasts: CoffeeBreak French. Devised and produced by Radio Lingua, these are very well written and have given me a huge amount of confidence and new vocabulary (baring in mind that I am a complete, absolute beginner in French). I usually listen to each episode at least twice, making sure I'm alone (driving or going for a walk by myself) some of the time to practise my atrocious pronunciation! They do lots of other languages too - definitely worth checking it out :)

What are your favourites?

A gentle stroll

In a bid to stave off a horrible headache and to try to be a bit more active in my day to day life, I went for a bit of a walk this afternoon...

I explored some footpaths in my neighbourhood that I hadn't previously discovered - hurrah for lighter evenings and temperatures above 10degC! It wasn't exactly a cardio workout either; I probably did close to two miles in 40mins.

Was rather surprised to see a deer, blue tit, chaffinch and Canada geese...

And the headache? It eased on the walk but unfortunately didn't disappear completely :(

Next idea: some gentle crochet.

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 :)