Sunny Spells.

It's been much the same as yesterday, hot sunny spells and cool overcast times. 

The cooker has been the object of my attentions for the last few days. I give it a wipe over as part of my morning kitchen routine but yesterday I put on my glasses for a closer look and realised it was not as pristine as I'd imagined. It took an hour yesterday to remove all the grease from around the control knobs and as far down the sides as I could reach with a knife wrapped in kitchen roll. Today it was the turn of the glass oven door which I'm sure I did fairly recently. That needed my last Brillo pad and then I carried on scrubbing away at one of the oven shelves with the remains of the metal pad which goes rusty if you try and save it for later use.  

It goes to show just how much our lives lack excitement when you stop your exercises to look out of the window to see what DIY tool is creating the noise outside. That is exactly what both of us did this morning. It sounded like a circular saw being used but eagle eyed me spotted one of the newer neighbours sanding the wall of a bedroom with a hand sander. Other exciting events included a neighbour going up a long ladder to clean his gutters and a young family out playing football and riding their bikes.

We still managed to spend time outside enjoying the relative lack of noise in the back gardens (our neighbours' radio is creating a disco vibe in the front garden today). The repair I made recently to my arm weight hadn't been too successful as the appearance of tiny metal balls on my yoga mat proved. Choosing felt for the original repair last year had not been the best idea so today I found some thick black plain fabric. This I used to wrap around the whole weight carefully folded down in an origami style method around the curved ends and the Velcro strap. The result while not exactly stylish is hopefully serviceable. I do my arm exercises with 1 kg wrap weights on each wrist and hold 1 kg dumbbells at the same time. I have to admit that my arm exercises are mostly for vanity, hoping to reduce the flappy 'Bingo Wings' that are a result of age. I think it's working and it is also good for general cardio fitness. That's what I tell myself anyway.