8 posts tagged “2007social”
Yesterday I went out for lunch. My first social outing of the year! A couple of things combined to make this happen:
- our friends who own the restaurant opened again this weekend after a two month vacation, and
- some of our neighbours wanted to try it and as he is having pretty major surgery Tuesday and he wanted to go now!!
Anyway we had a great food as usual, mixed paella, salad, tortillas cameron (deep fried shrimp omlette), sailors clams and catalan creme to finish. After 2 months without a drink I sort of went mad: 2 beers, 1 bottle of red wine and 1/2 bottle of brandy. We went out at 2.30 pm, got back at 6.30 pm (or so) and I crashed out at 7 pm until 8 am this morning.
We are experiencing a bit of poor weather here at the moment - the odd bit of rain and a lot of wind. As the wind is coming from the west it is blowing over the mountains, which are covered in snow. As a result id it pretty cold. Ideal weather to stay indoors, keep warm and catch up on reading the papers, watching sport etc.
So a break from our normal routine in that I drove down to the marina to pick up the papers, and we stayed in to watch the tennis from Australia - Federer is amazing!
Going to spend the rest of the day with the papers, some football, nice lunch, 24 and Moreno. So no social activity at all this week.
On the health side of things - running is getting better and I have lost 8.5lbs so far this month at this mornings weigh in!
Yep, another Sunday, so another week has gone by. Celebrated again with my one and only social venture out of the apartment.
And guess what - run along the beach, breakfast at Cafe H@ker (our regular) with the Sunday Papers, then back to sit on the balcony in the sun reading rest of the papers. Theory was that as it was a really sunny morning Moreno would enjoy sitting out there with us but he just wanted to play with one of his balls (plastic one with bell in is that is!).
So another week over - so far I have lost 6.5lbs this month. At 7lbs I get to shave for the first time this year (going to shave to 'celebrate' every 7lbs lost) so that is something to look forward to :-)
As for the rest of the day - football (soccer) game on TV later that I want to watch and Day 6 of 24 starts this evening which I am really looking forward to so apart from a healthy lunch, some home made soup for dinner and one more training session later that's it for my Sunday.
The hermit existence continues. Again another week has gone by and with the exception of running, supermarket and sorting out technology in neighbours apartments the only time I have been out of the apartment was this morning for breakfast in our usual cafe - and that was after a 2 mile run along the beach!
It isn't as bad as it seems in that for about the last 20 years I have always had a healthy January i.e. no alcohol, more exercise and bit of a diet. This year I am pushing it a little harder in terms of no alcohol, a more stringent diet (basically vegetarian with no treats) and a lot of running, with some pilates and light weights for good measure.
I am in pretty good shape (for my age) but technically was 20lbs over my ideal weight bracket on the BMI scale. This says that I should be at most 199lbs (I am 6ft 4ins), which is actually pretty skinny for me. The lowest I have been since leaving college i.e. since I started in the real world was 193lbs about 10 years ago, and that was after a VERY stringent January when I lost 22lbs in the month!
The heaviest I have been is 227lbs. I started the year at 219lbs, and after two weeks I am down to 214lbs. I intend to maintain this level of focus for at least two months (and probably three) as there is no way that I can see myself shedding all the weight I need to in a month - maybe when I was younger but not now.
This isn't as tough as it sounds in that:
- our favourite restaurant is closed until March 2nd so temptation is removed,
- the champions league (soccer) doesn't start again for a while (this is when I am most likely to go to bar to watch a game),
- the weather is perfect for running,
- I am just starting a three month consultancy contract,
- I have a lot of stuff I want to do on the Mac(s),
- I need to spend more time on my Spanish,
- I have a LOT of books and movies I want to catch up on, and
- Moreno is a joy to be with!
So for the forseeable future my social life will be zero, zip, nada, nil.
With the exception of one trip to the supermarket and 3 trips down to a neighbours apartment 3 floors below us I haven't actually been out this year - if you exclude running and cycling!
Anyway this morning we walked down to the marina as is "usual" for us to buy The Sunday Time and have breakfast in one of our favourite bars of a tostado and coffee. Is always nice to walk down listening to a podcast or some music on an iPod, then sit for an hour or so in the sun (yes even in January we have the sun), chat, read and just watch the world go by. Sometimes we see people we know, but today we didn't which was fine by me! Off to the airport later to pick up some people we know who went back to the UK for Xmas - and it rained all the time and they picked up colds. Go figure that one out!!
A bit like London buses, in my experience you don't know anybody that is getting married and then wham - a couple come along at the same time.
We are probably in the age range at the moment where we wouldn't expect many wedding invitations as most of the people we grew up and know are married (or have had their divorce and low key second wedding), or their children aren't old enough to be getting married yet.
Still, we have two invites for 2007. Alberto & Olivia who live here in Almerimar (he is local, she is from England) are getting married 24th March in England. I doubt very much that we will go as although we saw them a reasonable amount at the beginning of the year when they invited us, we haven't seen them for over 6 months now (apart from once when Chris went to the rugby) so it would be a little strange. Add to that we don't know anybody else that is going and the fact that it is in England and it is very unlikely. Sands would always have her family to see to double up on the trip but as my parents are in Florida it doesn't make sense for me to go back to the UK when they are out of th country. Plus, Mike from Minneapolis says he will be coming over to Spain about that time.
Talking of Minneapolis Tom my really good friend from school days at St Louis Park is finally getting married. I think he has been engaged five times now (must be like an Olympic ring), and a couple of years ago I was due to be his best man at a wedding in Sybiria! Needless to say that wedding didn't go ahead, but Kim is a great girl and I am sure she knows what she is doing :-)
The wedding is on the 1st September so too far away to know what we will be doing but I would really like to be there, maybe Sands will stay in Spain with Moreno and I will just go for the weekend? Who knows at this stage. As a rule I hate parties and large social gatherings (anything above 6 people) so even I have mixed feelings about going.
Will let you know no doubt what gets sorted regarding both weddings.
