2011

2010 was an 'interesting' year - some good, some not so good.  I won't bore you with the details as I'm not the kind that broadcasts to complete strangers (what am I doing here then?!), but it has been a year of extremes; the good bits were VERY good and the bad bits were VERY bad.

I'm hoping this year to maintain (and even improve) the good parts of life and to avoid the not-so-good parts.  I'm not sure that I will be able to completely avoid the shit that life throws up, after all, that's what life is about, but I see it as something of a challenge to make life as enjoyable as possible - we shall see :-)

Why am I doing this?  Several reasons; I follow other blogs and (usually) enjoy them immensely - special mention to Lisa http://windymillar.posterous.com/ who I came across via John Girvan on Twitter, and wanted to do something similar.  I have kept a diary in the past, although not for many years now, and quite liked the idea of doing so again.  Finally, I am curious to see if I can do this blogging thing; numbers are more my thing so I thought I'd try some words for a change.

Where to start?  How about with me?  12 stone 10 pounds - heavier than I'd like to be, mainly because I want to be better at my main hobby, cycling - and 5' 9".  Anything else?  Well, yes, the clue's in the blog title - I'm an accountant!  These days it seems to matter less and other things matter a whole lot more.

I eat pretty healthily already, at least I think so.  But this year I want to look at what I eat in more detail and cut out some of the rubbish (I love sweet things).  This should help maintain my cardio system (I was a smoker for 25 years and had a heart attack at 42), make me feel better generally and make me better able to keep to the weight I want to be.  Currently I have about 38lbs of body fat (21%), I'd like that figure to be about 15% so I need to lose about 10lbs; we'll see how that goes!

One of the other things I have come across on the web recently is other (commuting) cyclists who post videos of any 'incidents'.  I now have a helmet camera thanks to my partner and will be attempting to take videos.  Tricky as my commute is in the dark both ways at the moment and my video skills are non-existent.  I currently ride to work on this.  This is what I use for enjoyment in the Summer, not that the Sirrus isn't a good bike, but the Allez is so much lighter and faster - puts a smile on my face as soon as my feet touch the pedals :-D

That's the first post out of the way - let's see how long this blogging malarkey lasts . . .