citygirrrl about town...

flying ant day

when i got home yesterday, it was flying ant day outside citygirrrl towers - my least favourite insect-related annual phenomenon (antyversary?).

my first experience of this was in 1996, when i spent a summer living in nottingham.  citygirrrl has always suspected it was too cold for ants oop north but i've heard that it happens in sheffield and occasionally in scotland so that can't be true.  [horrible middle class thought - perhaps when i was growing up we were always on holiday when flying ant day occurred?]

either way, happened with a vengeance yesterday and i hate the nasty little buggers.  they bite, you know...  one of them got into my flat.  we assumed the insect-attack position: it rolled around on the carpet for a bit while i stood on the sofa freaking out until finally getting it with the dyson.  my courage knows no beginning.

glorious

it's gloriously sunny out there...  pity that citygirrrl is stuck inside working.  wish it was like being back at school and that i could encourage my boss to take the lesson outdoors, so to speak.  i suspect that hacking away at spreadsheets would be much more bearable if done in the garden in a bikini.

the office has gone "business casual" for the summer, because the aircon isn't really cutting it with the hotter weather.  i'm very lucky because my office has lots of windows and natural light but it's like a greenhouse by lunchtime.  always glad for the excuse to buy some new summer threads, and i'm very grateful to be in loose linen trousers and sandals.

speaking of which - want to know a top tip? to stop your summer sandals smelling of icky hot feet, you could wear them with socks.  or, less heinously, you could swab them with surgical spirit and leave them overnight to dry.  who says i can't be a domestic goddess now and again? martha and nigella, eat your hearts out.

no gain, no pain

citygirrrl is back into her exercise regime with a passion, and kinda feeling much better for it.

have been having wicked bad pmt for some time now, coupled with all sorts of weight fluctuation and generally feeling - and i'm sure also being - rather horrid.  am therefore off to the doctors tomorrow to try to get put on this instead. 

i remember with fondness the slob years, 2000 - 2003.  i was in my mid-twenties, and in those pre-gym days maintained my figure using a careful balance of
   - exercise: moderate walking, occasional clubbing and the odd tidbit of yentz
   - diet: stuff out of cartons (if i could be arsed at all)
   - late nights: sometimes at the office, sometimes down the pub.

i didn't even bother to register with a doctor.

these days, citygirrrl seems to be an increasing drain on the NHS.  since changing my lifestyle, i have had:
   - special ladies-only problems
   - a bout of nasty flu
   - a couple of kidney infections
   - worst. food poisoning. ever.
   - a problem with my neck

go figure.  gym bad, slob good. 

as i intend to persist with the whole exercise lark, whilst at the quack's i'm also going to have to see if i can re-run 2004's week of bliss... a combination of sleeping awkwardly on the OKC flight and probably overdoing it on the bench press has aggravated the neck problem and i can no longer look down and left.  better get it seen to - that or spend the rest of the week with only my right shoelace tied up...