Not a pun about the bike riding kit the other girls are wearing but, in fact, proper green birds flying around in Richmond Park. I’ve mentioned them before but this time they sat still long enough. Sorry the picture’s not better, I still panicked a bit. Are they cockatoos d’you reckon?

Saw these very orderly young looking deer when I was bike riding. They’re so pretty with their light coloured fur. Sadly as I’d come into the Park I saw a sign explaining there would be ‘deer culling’ over the coming months. Makes me sad but presume somewhere someone knows what they’re doing…

Having been reminded that I wanted to run round Wimbledon Common (thank you) and given how nice the weather was today I kicked on my funky shoes and pinged off. The kit is still really good; this toe-strike thing is feeling more & more comfortable.
suburbs
Clapham Junction to Wimbledon is a funny zig-zaggy effort at the best of times (i.e. on a bike) and I hadn’t put a heap of effort into planning my route. In short I was lost within ten minutes of leaving the house. …

update
Hovering between 1 and 2 degrees this morning and a thick frost sitting on EVerything so oh-wise-one here went for a bike ride…
Well, I’d just got my little mitts on a road bike (thank you, thank you, thank you) and I’d just got my mitts back on it post-service so I was keen to give it a spin. Ah, I thought, how cold can it be… I won’t bang on; talking about the weather is dull. I’ll just say it was freezing, and that when I stopped …

update

Running shoes get knackered quickly don’t they. Annoying, but half the fun of sport is the kit. Lucky girl here because Marie bought my latest pair as a birthday present (thank you my gorgeous friend) AND they’re barefoot shoes, Nike Free 3.0 no less.

Over the last few months I’ve been doing a bit of running around the SW postcodes and it’s been fun. Actually at times it’s been knee-bashing (compared to usual off-roading), dark, rainy n grimy, and sometimes just way too my-gear-is-better-than-yours (yes, worse than Australia) BUT on the whole, good’n'groovy.

Not sure the pearlescent has come out (!) but shiny morning skies here in London.

With Kate in town for just 24 hours we went in pursuit of fun and decided to mix it in Shoreditch. We got our fun, plenty of it, and some of the best food I’ve had since being back in the UK.
The crowd was pretty funny – deeply, deeply, archeologically cool, lots of focus on primary colours, and non too interested in our main-stream giggly chat. It seems we don’t talk Hoxton…

Bikes are fun. So I went to get my cbt licence with Twickenham bike school, which is secretly in Sunbury-on-Thames.
I trained manual so now I can ride anything up to 125cc manual for the next two years, oh, but I have to have ‘Ls’. Learning the gears was alright, I struggled most with steering which was pretty funny. The instructor was wicked, made everything comfortable, easy and interesting. At the end of the day we rode out on the road (aaaaah) and I got up to …

Man this is a busy class (Salsa Partytime, Wimbledon). There were three different levels of Bachata to choose from, and then five of Salsa! I reckon there were around 130 people there, that’s a lot isn’t it.
My love affair with Bachata is showing no signs of receding – I just can’t let go. And it does really feel like I’m cheating on Salsa; all the sexy, up close, subtle, hippy movements, and the way they sneak the Bachata tracks inbetween the Salsa ones, ha ha. Actually …