So it's the time of year where everyone gets fit, loses weight, restarts blogs etc. etc. Well, I'm no different and am restarting my blog as well as popping algae capsules :-S and drinking beetroot and prune smoothies. Tasty and nutritious, so I'm told. Must confess to feeling and looking pretty much liek the Good Year Blimp after the excesses of the last few weeks. It's always hard to get back into any sort of routine after Christmas.

But a good time was had by all... The boys were royally spoiled by all and sundry and we now have more Halo stuff than you could possibly imagine. It was great having a bit of proper time off over Christmas, I was able to spend the day at home and head over to my mum's on Boxing Day without stressing about having to head in for a back shift. Also had a great day taking Connor and his pals through to Xscape for his birthday - dodgems, Frankie & Benny's and Laser Quest - best birthday ever and I think Connor enjoyed it.

Into the New Year and as with most folk I've got aims and objectives. One of them is to read more books. I love reading, but never seem to get the time. Aiming to average a book a week for the year and I've whacked through two already - Loss by Tony Black and Long Time Dead by the same author. Both were pretty good, the third and fourth in a series about washed up journalist/private investigator Gus Dury and his trials and tribulations with the Edinburgh underworld. Quite similar in style to Ian Rankin's Rebus books and I do love a book set in Edinburgh.

Next is the get fit nonsense. I've got three 'ambitions' for the year. The first is Oxfam's Trailtrekker Challenge, a 100km, 30 hr stroll through the Yorkshire Dales. Have to say that the support from family hasn't been overwhelming and it is looking unlikely due to a lack of volunteers - I need a team of 4 plus another volunteer as support - but I'm giving myself till mid Feb to get people involved. Next is the Glasgow to Edinburgh Cycle. With this, I'll be aiming for the 47 mile course. Hoping to get others involved in this too and finally I'll be doing hte BUPA Edinburgh 10k and hoping to beat my time from last year. Although Glasgow may make more sense, I enjoyed the course last year and it'll give me a better comparison doing the same course again. So I really need to start getting into training. Going to start off the year with mostly walking, a little bit of cycling and getting back into playing fives again next week. Once into about June I'll start to focus more on the cycling in the lead up to September and introduce more running from about July onwards. As is the January way, I'm full of vim and vigour at the minute and definitely feel that all 3 are very achievable. I just need to make sure that I focus on them properly and stick to my training regimes.

Well, that is about it just now. Blog again soon hopefully :-)