I am trying to stave off a panic attack today. Two reasons, and one one brought on by the other. Firstly they closed the gym for three days this week, the reason being that no-one around here (including the gym staff) seems to be able to get to work right now (myself excepted) due to the snow. Secondly I realised that I have forty four days to go until I fly to Tanzania. Holy Cow!

So here are a couple of pictures of the ‘weather’ around here:

Pretty huh?

So this is the road next to my house. The temperature last night was -17 degrees celsius, which I believe is around 1 degree Fahrenheit. Just up the road in Oxford they had a record of -20C, or -4F. If I told you that my house has no central heating would you feel sorry for me? Please? With my few storage heaters I have managed to get the internal temperature to 8 C, or 46F.

Here’s a couple more:

The next one is my back garden:

There is a pond in there somewhere.....

And so thankfully today the gym was open again and I did my new routine. All I can say is that I asked for it. It huuuuurrrrts! 20 minutes on the treadmill at 15 degrees incline and then 20 minutes on a nordic climber just hurt me, especially when added to bench presses, leg presses, bicep curls, stationary bike, lateral pulls, and the big ball thingy for your hamstrings. There is even a box at the bottom of the form for your to grade your ‘enjoyment factor’ out of ten. I put ‘0’, and that was me being generous. I have a feeling that tomorrow morning I will hurt in places that I didn’t know that I had places.

So anyway – 43 days it will be by tomorrow. I will be walking somewhere tomorrow, -17 degrees or not. Probably the gym again too, if I can move. I have to push myself like I have never pushed myself before. Actually, I have never pushed myself before, full stop, so that could be hard then.

Wish me luck?