Sas the scarecrow

If I am not going anywhere after the gym, I tend to walk home in my gym clothes and a cardi, thongs on my feet. My shower at home is much more comfy then the gym ones and I like the cool down a walk gives me. Today, I'd forgotten my cardi. And my thongs. So I ended up walking home looking like a scarecrow. Although on first glance, one might have thought I was wearing fancy shorts with a jacket, a closer look would have told a bypasser I was wearing running shorts with my high heeled cloggs and my linen jacket. Match that with a red face from the exercise, and a wet-cat-look from the rain that was coming down and I am sure I looked awfully attractive. I surely got quite a few stares. Thank god I didn't bump into any colleagues or clients. Although the moral victory would have been mine, as at least I had been to the gym!

An unexpected weekend

Rent-a-deckchair
Originally uploaded by Gypsy Saskia

What my weekend should have been was afternoon tea with the relo's (including my bro who was over from DC), dinner with old work mates, beers with uni friends, brunch with the girls and a lovely Indonesian dinner with other close friends.

But that was before the vulcano errupted. I was glued to the KLM and City Airport websites but nope... No flights. Gutted. But I was going to make the best of my weekend. And man, it filled up quickly.

A work friend came round for Italian on Friday night with a gift cause I'd had a tough week at work which I thought was incredibly sweet. She hadn't had the easiest of weeks herself so we hit the cocktails and wine pretty nicely. Which didn't seem as great an idea on Saturday arvo, when my gym had organised a zumbathon. Three back to back classes. Hugely tiring but oh my god, it was so much fun. Straight from the gym to Putney Heath, to spend the rest of the arvo in The Green Man's beer garden for a mate's birthday. Pimms and lemonade and ham, egg and chips. If I can't have Dutch beer and food, I might as well go as english as possible.

And today was a me-day. The sun was out, the legs were sore. Off to Regent's Park. I am ashamed to admit that in the almost two years I've been here I had not once visited Regen'ts Park. How bloody stupid. The next friend who's visiting will be dragged there straight away. All the herons, ducks, other watery birdy thingies, tulips, magnolia's, how gorgeous. Everyone seemed happy and smiley, and it was just the most pleasant place to be.

The weekend may have been very different from what I planned, but it was one of the best this year.

Zumbatastic

One of the highlights of my week is the 5.45pm Zumba class on Friday. The dancing makes me happy as a pig in mud and it signals the official start of the weekend. It's 45 minutes of dancing to latin music, some Bollywood, the ketchup song occasionally, Love Potion Number 9 rather frequently and much more.

My gym only started doing the classes recently. And over the past weeks I have seen the class grow from 20odd women to a record 45 or so yesterday. There were also three men, who I am pretty sure were there only for some oggling. Poor Indian dude may have had more sincere intentions but the guy couldn't dance to save his life. He just stood there staring at his feet trying to make sense of it all. Anyway. The reason for this increase in zumba-ets is not only due to the fun factor of this class I believe.

It must have something to do with Doni. Venezualan Doni. Professional salsa dancer. And sex on legs. That is, when he's dancing. I once saw him while grabbing a coffee and he looked awfully ordinary. But while dancing. Fock. I bet all 45-odd women were secretly hoping to be dancing in those strong muscly yet lean arms. Nothing is sexier than a man who can dance. Who does the manly stuff really manly and has the softness that goes with the more feminine movements.

Now the sexier I find instructors, the more I cover myself. So my Zumba class attire consists of long black running pants and a dark blue University of Stellenbosch poloshirt that I have had since 1997. Clearly not all the attendees think this way. The number of bare midriffs increases by the week. And the more flesh, the worse the moves generally are. These girls make me laugh. They stand in the front, don't seem to know their arses from their elbows and hang around after class to ask some undoubtedly very intelligent questions. Me? I simply hope my red face and not-so-latin hips have gone unnoticed and just massively enjoy myself.

Fetish

I'm afraid I took my bag fetish to a new level today. After four or so months of drooling over the Mulberry Alexa, my wallet was safe as I am not the type who's organised enough to get herself on a waiting list. For a bag. I'm a bag fetishist, not a bag victim. However, today, on my way to the gym, I remembered my local Waitrose has a Mulberry section in the non-food department. And there it was. In oak and butter. Waiting for me. First things first though, and throughout my zumba class, I could only think of That Bag. So as soon as the class was finished, I wet my face, sprayed some deodorant, and headed to the counter in gym clothes and uggs, asking to see The Bag. And it was as soft and beautiful as I thought it would be. The Bag is now mine.

Sports sports sports

After yet another week of cardio, pilates, aerobics and more cardio, I am pretty pleased to see a decrease in centimeters and a more toned body. The hard work is paying off. And the great feeling after a hard work out is so worth the effort.

The Irish' rugby team's hard work didn't pay off quite as much today. They lost miserably from the frogs. After a hugely exciting Wales-Scotland match, Les Verts broke their winning spell. Unlucky 13, after having won 12 matches in a row.

Now I am counting on Sven Kramer to make my day from a sports perspective. If only he can skate towards gold tonight.... While I am listening to Jochem Uytdehaage on the radio, I go back to the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002. While Jochem was skating his 10k, I was driving home from a farewell party of a colleague. I broke my own speed record on the A10, cheering and shouting whilst driving, hoping to catch the last laps. Just when I reached my exit, Jochem won gold. Tears of happiness running down my cheeks. Today I am lucky to have the combination of BBC internet and Dutch Radio 1. Go Sven Go! Make our day!

One of those Mondays

A quiet weekend, and still I woke up feeling not so great. Not ill. Just not so great. I must be coming down with a cold not-so-great. Not ready to go to work not-so-great. And on Mondays with no meetings in my calendar, the solution is easy. So I dropped my bosses a note that I'd be working from home today fighting off a cold.

WFH Mondays are great. I can look like a slob all day in my dressing gown or track suit. Hair is a mess, no make up. Cups of builders tea. Nice lattes. Loads of time for brekkie so I have yogurt with fresh mango, apple and blueberries. I watch the BBC breakfast news, which is not so newsy at all as they have all sorts of actors dropping by promoting their plays and films, while answering emails. I will spend the rest of the day ticking all the things off my to do list and be hugely productive, until it is almost six o'clock, by which I race to the gym for my pilates class assuming I feel all right.

Come Tuesday morning, I will be all relaxed, all prepared, and hopefully cold-free. And ready to face the world, the colleagues, and the office.

Just another weekend

Sleeping in till 8.30, 9 o'clock. Grocery shopping. A run on Saturday, aerobics class on Sunday. I may meet a friend for lunch or dinner, and spend time on the couch with a good book and the weekend newspapers (I heart Sunday Times especially). How different is Amelie's life. Since July we've said hi and bye at our Sunday aerobics class. This week, I got chatting to her. She works for a big Japanese (once American) investment bank. Not very newsworthy in itself. However, she does so all day and night Monday to Friday and a few hours Saturday and Sunday. Basically, all she does outside work is spending a few hours in the gym Saturday and Sunday before heading to the office. She asked me, knowing what I do for a living, if I had any time to see London or a museum or anything. Hell yeah. I didn't move here to work all the time. Surely, work can be a pain and some projects require round the clock attention. But mostly it's 40-50 hour work weeks. And nights off to go to the gym or meet friends. And the amount of work I've had to finish in the weekend has been very limited. Amelie is young, she only graduated a year ago. Will she learn what life is about when she gets older? Or is that me being judgemental and is she truly happy and fulfilled with her life as it is? The look on her face when I told her my working hours, suggests differently....

Right park, wrong dress

The Boatrace. Oxford vs Cambridge. The most famous rowing event in the world I think. I couldn't believe how busy Putney was, but as I was well early, I found a spot in the park by the river, right at the start. Zoe joined me half an hour later, and after freezing our *** off for another hour, the race started. And so did ours, as we raced to her mates Dave's place to watch the rest of the race. Glass of vino, two way too handsome brothers, and a whole bunch of Oxfordians, including another dutchy. Oxford won. Big time. We just chilled and chatted in the old fashioned living room of Dave's parents, in the beautiful little house in Putney. This was after a chilled and chatty 40th of an Australian mate yesterday and a chilled and chatty night in on Friday with Heather and Julia. I guess I can say I had a chilled and chatty weekend. The lowlight? The effect DST has in my body: it was nowhere near ready for the aerobics class at 10.30 this morning. But I went!

Oh, and the last words of the title? The dress below? Wrong dress. Or right dress, if it weren't so hideously expensive. Will take it back next week and use the cash to take my bro to Hakkasan. Money better spent.

Fun packed weekend

Man, this weekend was awesome. Fri nite Chantal and I had dinner in a wee French place near Covent Garden that's been around for fifty years and where the staff speak french. It was a very early quick theatre menu as we were going to see ballet afterwards in the ROH. Seven Deadly sins with Martha Wainwright singing, Mats Ek's Carmen and the amazing Dance Grande Vitesse, that Chantal wasn't too fond off, but I had been watching with open mouth. Loved it. A quick glass of vino in the pub afterwards was all we could fit in before taking the last tube home.

Yesterday I went to Borough Market to buy some veg (and unplanned Turkish Delight, damn Cranberry stall staff) and orchids. A one km swim (44 laps) in the arvo was enough to knock me out for the night.

This morning I went to the gym in preparation of my four course lunch at Foliage, a michelin star resto in the Mandarin Hotel. Thanks to the credit crunch you can now get some amazing deals in those places. I had scallops, sole, john dory and a calvados with apple sorbet dessert. Small portions accompanied by beautiful wines and nice bread. Food heaven. Heather and I had dressed up for the occasion, Trang had kinda missed the type of resto. Lucky girl still looks amazing in a garbage bag I'm sure so no frowning wait staff. Just a beautiful afternoon, great food, great convo, and great views of Hyde Park. Reality is going to kick in hard tomorrow!

Pilates

Man, this better be good for you, it is such hard work! I feel like a wuss when looking at the two 60+ women who usually come to class. But slowly and steadily the exercises get easier. I bought a cheapo pilates dvd to do exercises at home too to speed up the process. It is very rewarding if things I thought I couldn't do are finally mastered. Like today, the star (on photo). Not every time I tried, as going from press up into this position requires slightly more core balance than I often have, but it worked a couple of times. The next challenge: sideways plank. And please please please let teacher Paul not resign. He is bloody awesome. Need him on my journey to fit bottomed girl!

Tired body

My body is tired today. Not so strange, looking back at all the exercise I did this week. Steps class on Tuesday, 3k run on Thursday, 700m swim on Friday, pilates on Saturday and aerobics this morning. My ribcage and abs are so tight it ain't funny. A sixpack must be developing underneath the excess kilos. It's great to see my body changing and getting stronger. I know I had two options when I came to London: live a really healthy lifestyle with loads of sports and limited calories, or do the full-on expat thing and drink and party like mad. So far, I am glad I chose the former. Not only is it healthier and does my body look better, it also saves me a hell of a lot of money, that goes straight into my clothing budget. To the extent that I just bought a Nicole Farhi alpaca (lama-like animal) wool cardi. Elena can rest assured though. No new shoes since I last saw you!

Long weekend

Pakistani dinner with Amsterdam friends (a very serious looking Sat in the pic on the left), running, swimming, aerobics and a music festival in Clapham Common (Loaded in the Park, with Kate Nash and loads of DJ's whose names I didn't quite get) were the highlights of this bank holiday weekend. Ah, and shopping. A gift from my nan bought me a gorgeous classic leather bag, a pair of knitted Ugg boots and Jo Malone's Wild Fig and Cassis cologne. One happy girl. Having just done 36 laps in the pool, I am quite sure the rest of my day will be spent on the couch. All relaxed and grateful for many things.

Sporty spice

Not only did I go for a run yesterday (the first one since my bike-tramrail-accident), I also joined a gym. That itself doesn't make me sporty spice, but the intention is to keep running and to use the membership, so soon I'll be all toned from the yoga, pilates, aquarobic and other classes I intend to take. Now my old gym in the Dam is just your simple local small place. Nice and friendly. The Reebok gym I joined, is the size of three football pitches. Three floors of exercise. Sauna, steamroom, up to hair straighteners in the dressing room. The place is used by all the frustrated bankers nearby during the week, and will be used by yours truly in the weekends. Bankerfree is better I think. A new and improved version of Saskia should be available in a few months.