I parted with my passport today. I have trusted to royal mail to take my passport away so that I can apply for my British citizenship. They dont make it an easy job, this is what you have to do to become British.

You must have worked in the UK for 5 years and not have left the country for more than 3 months in any one year.

You must have held permanent residency for one year.

You must pass a “Life in the UK” test, which asks hard questions about parliament, the queen and other trivia even the British dont know the answers to.

You have to fill in an application form and specify every time you left the UK in the last 5 years. You know how much travel I do!

You then send this information to a third party and pay them £1000 to make the application for you.

Then in about 6-12 months time your application is processed. If your application is successful you then have to attend a citizenship ceremony. I’m not sure how long it takes to get a British passport once you have become a citizen.

Anyway, this should make it all worthwhile having dual nationality. I can work anywhere in the EU and I’ll have two passports! 

 had my second session at the gym today with my trainer and I am well knackered. We did some interval training and supersets (pretty fancy “I think I know what I am talking about” words). 

Supersets are where you go from one exercise to another without a rest. This can be done for the same muscle group or for different muscle groups. By getting rid of the rest period between exercises, you are not only saving time, but adding intensity to the workout.

Performing supersets on opposing muscle groups helps create good muscle balance.

Performing supersets on the same muscle group gives the muscles an intense workout. For example, instead of doing your usual 12 reps on that muscle group you are now doing 24 reps.

We started with interval training on the treadmill As I havent been exercising for a couple of months we started slowly by running for 60 sec at 13kph, then walking for 60sec at 5.5kph. We repeated this four times, after which I was ready to collapse in a heap. My heart rate maxed out at 180bpm!

Then I did 3 sets of 12 squat jump type things where you jump from squat position and land in squat position on a bench. You really feel like a frog doing this.

The first superset was the chest press on the swiss ball followed by pushups. (first time I have done push ups in years and it was absolute agony. I grizzled and whinged and pleaded for mercy but she made me complete 3 sets of 12. )

Next superset was a shoulder exercise with my hips draped over the swiss ball and my legs up against the wall. This also worked hamstrings and glutes. Then the cable machine for squats and back work. Then those dreaded one legged squats (these are the hardest things I think I have ever done) All of the above was done for 3 sets of 12 reps.

The weird thing with doing weights is you don’t expect your heart rate to get too high, but mine was up to 165bpm (thanks to my polar heart rate monitor) for most of these exercises.

Now I am expected to be dedicated enough  to try all of this all on my own for two more sessions before seeing the trainer again next Tuesday. I’ll be sure to cheat a bit.

I went up to London today. I thought I should show my face in the office, though the real reason was to catch up with a mate who was over from Aussie. This basically ruined my alcohol free month but I did manage 4 days in a row!

Thankfully the cleaners had cleaned out the cereal and mouse droppings from my drawer and the trains were running on time.

Anyway I was up at 5.30am this morning so I am off to bed now for an early night.

It was a rather quiet weekend due to being able to hardly walk from my gym session on Friday. We went to Mikes daughters birthday lunch today at a chinese buffet which was really nice. All you can eat for £7.50. We totally stuffed our faces. We were supposed to go out to a gay bar with them last night but decided on a night in watching a movie. how boring are we?

Anyway this is day 3 without drinking. I am going to try and give up for the whole month just for a laugh. Hopefully this nice weather will keep up and we can go out for cycle rides and walks in the evenings instead of frequenting waterfront cafes and drinking wine. We’ll see how long it lasts….  

I found this on the internet and thought it was pretty funny/accurate. 

1 . You say “the City” and expect everyone to know which one.

2. You have never been to The Tower of London or Madame Tussauds but love Brighton

3. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Shepherds Bush to Elephant & Castle at 3:30 on the Friday before a long weekend, but can’t find Dorset on a map.

4. Hookers and the homeless are invisible.

5. You step over people who collapse on the Tube.

6. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multilingual.

7. You’ve considered stabbing someone.

8. Your door has more than three locks.

9. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

10. You call an 8′ x 10′ plot of patchy grass a garden.

11. You consider Essex the “countryside”.

12. You think Hyde Park is “nature”.

13. You’re paying £1,200 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in wardrobe and you think it’s a “bargain”.

14. Shopping in suburban supermarkets and shopping malls gives you a severe attack of agoraphobia.

15. You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the UK pay in rent.

16. You pay £3 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.

17. You actually take fashion seriously.

18. You have 27 different take-away menus next to your telephone.

19. The UK west of Heathrow is still theoretical to you.

20. You’re suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

21. Your idea of personal space is no one actually physically standing on you.

22. £50 worth of groceries fit in one plastic bag.

23. You have a minimum of five “worst cab ride ever” stories.

24. You don’t hear sirens anymore.

25. You’ve mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city’s air/water quality and what it’s doing to your insides.

26. You live in a building with a larger population than most towns.

27. Your cleaner is Portuguese, your grocer is Somali, your butcher is Halal, your deli man is Israeli, your landlord is Italian, your laundry guy is Philippino, your bartender is Australian, your favourite diner owner is Greek, the watch seller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was African, your newsagent is Indian and your local English chippie owner is Turkish.

28. You wouldn’t want to live anywhere else until you get married.

29. You roll your eyes and say ‘tsk’ at the news that someone has thrown themselves under a tube train.

30. Your day is ruined if you don’t get a copy of Metro on the way to work.