Smug Cake

Okay, so nothing remotely to do with sewing - unless you consider that I will need to sew more (bigger) clothes soon if I don't start exercising again, that is. 

Baking with my girls is definitely one of my favourite things.

For it is no secret that I love cake. 

In order for the love affair to continue and my clothes to fit, this week was the week for me to come good on my new term resolutions to start finding an alternative form of exercise to running (just whilst my back gets strong again).

The very fact I am writing about this publicly is an indicator that I am feeling somewhat pleased with myself at this point in time. Here's how the first week has gone:

Monday - signed up for my gym and swim pass at my local leisure centre. Took younger girls swimming - included in the monthly fee, so this will no doubt become a regular thing. The youngest doesn't like swimming, but doesn't mind being cuddled in what is essentially a giant bath with plenty of brightly coloured toys provided for her by the pool. She currently has a complete tantrum if there is any hint of arm bands being put on her (this would, after all imply Mummy not needing to hold her the entire flipping time she was in the water). I am hoping this will improve if I take her swimming every week - we'll see who cracks first...

Tuesday - 6 am swim. Yes, am, not pm. Got there to find a queue of people outside the complex. There was a slight delay in opening due to the electrics being fixed. Didn't mind one bit though, because a) I stood there feeling incredibly pleased with myself for being out of bed and, b) was enjoying a great spot of people watching (was amused by the fact the person at the front was wearing an Ironman top, and looking decidedly bothered about missing a few minutes of gym time).  I think I swam 20 lengths. To be honest, I lost count, partly because I almost swam into the side a couple of times. Not sure whether that was down to poor sight without glasses on, or just general wonky swimming style. A nice thing about doing something for the first time is you have nothing to live up to and can just be pleased with whatever you manage to do. That said, if I am to make swimming a regular thing, I need to get help improving my stroke. It is very poor. I'd like to at least be able to pretend I am Rebecca Adlington whilst I swim, and even I cannot fool myself into thinking this all the time I am incapable of putting my head under water for crawl, without spluttering and reverting back to mum style hair out of water swimming.

Especially if I can think of an excuse to make things out of marzipan.

Wednesday - Ouch! Perhaps swimming is not such a soft sport (only to be attempted when too heavily pregnant of injured to run) after all. Arms and neck aching quite a lot after yesterday's efforts.

Thursday - 6.15 am appointment with gym instructor for my first induction. There will be THREE of these. (How hard can it be to use gym equipment, you may wonder? I did. But actually, there was quite a lot to it, all rather high tech... and I will have probably forgotten half of it by the time I go back on my own) She was very friendly, and I was a bit taken aback by how many people there were in the gym at such an early time. All seemed nice, though.

Friday - 6 am. Swam 24 lengths, and was very pleased with myself for beating Tuesday morning's efforts. Competitive? Yes. Must not set myself impossible targets of doing this every session, because I will surely need to spend the whole morning swimming by the time Christmas comes.

Saturday - afternoon saw my second induction session at the gym. A different instructor this time - and for some silly reason unknown even to myself, I felt the need to impress her by trying hard, without looking like I was trying really hard. Bizarre and silly competitive behaviour. Perhaps daftly spurred on by fact this instructor was considerably younger than me. I expect there to be many muscles I didn't know I had aching a lot in the morning. Oh well. May eat a smug cake or two now to make up for that.

And, of course, we ended up with too many carrots for the cakes we had.