Monday's Post Christmas 43 Year Old Is Full of Sugar and Chocolate

I am sure I will pilloried by indolent Christmas sloths everywhere, but my cousin Ngaire and I went walking Monday morning. Yes full on exercised to combat the seeming never-ending cascade of calories tumbling into my mouth (through no fault of my own I tell you! Cashews and Lindor Balls can be aggressive when they want to be, and who am I to deny them entry to my digestive tract?) and really enjoyed it... well everything bar the scorching sun that beat down on us as we walked.... there is something about the sun up here that is so much worse than Sydney... I feel somewhat like a fried egg on the griddle (love that word... I feel like I need to belt out a rendition of "Oh Susanna!" with my ukelele when I use it), and while I know there is a cooling shower awaiting me after the walks, I do sometimes question my sanity.... hmm, OK, I question my sanity most of the time, but especially when I am walking in brain melting heat.... still I did lay waste to a large number of evil Christmas calories, and I cleansed my pores with all that sweat, so I am ahead on points....

Big event of the day was my cousin Gayle calling in for a visit with her husband Steve and son Phillip on their way from Sydney to the bright lights of BrizVegas... Gayle is the eldest daughter of my Dad's sister Cath, and so with Ngaire here (eldest child of Dad's other sister Eileen), we had the three eldest children of all three siblings in my Dad's family.... and where were Guiness Book of Records when all this was happening? Conspicuously absent is where!!... Gayle, who I hadn't ever met properly (long story) is wonderfully loud and extrovertive and a joy to spend time with, and we spent a fun 3-4 hours eating (yeah big surprise there!! LOL), talking about New York, family etc, and getting to know each other better.... it will be brilliant to spend some quality time with her in Sydney especially since she has some fab gay friends, and has promised to take me to "some interesting places"..... I am assuming she doesn't mean a museum.... lol....

... and then sloth and indolence did return.... we just lazed around, are some more (including a delicious sticky sweet coconut rice that Mum made for dessert last night), and then talked when a pretty fierce electrical storm prevented us watching TV.... yes I couldn't believe we actually had to relate to each other in the absence of 21st Century media, but somehow we coped....lol... I even spent some time sprawled out on the carpet reading my book, and the Sydney Morning Herlad, just like I used to do when I was a kid.... of course, my body doesn't spring back quite so Tigg'r-ishly as it used to so getting up was an exercise in "Ow!, Ouch! and Aggh!", a reminder that though I exercise and eat well (except rather blatantly at Christmas when my body completely forgets all and every healthy dietary habit), that my body is a little less sprightly than it was when I was 10.... yeah go figure! Still one thing my body is doing remarkably well after a busy, tense year is relax, and it's nice to not feel tightness in my chest as I spent time with my folks, finish up some photo albums Mum put together on our Asia trip in 2007, and realise that life is not just the 8-6 commute but a whole lot more, something that's easy to forget in the blindingly busy headlong rush of every day life....

....oh yeah and did I mention we ate more food? Yeah just in case you were wondering....