Bootcamp

I recently started going to "bootcamp". That is to say a high-energy fitness class held in the local park. Bootcamps have been enjoying an increase in popularity lately, whether that's because exercising outdoors appeals to those stuck in an air condition office for 45 hours a week, or perhaps because it's marginally cheaper than the gym (mine is £30 for six sessions), I'm not really sure. I have to say though that I am a convert.

I do enjoy exercising outdoors, even if other park users are scoffing barbecues under my nose as I dash past (I secretly hope they feel guilty for eating their gorgonzola stuffed beef burgers). It's nice to be out in the fresh air and the view is certainly better than that of the meat heads "spotting" each other in the gym. I also am in favour of the budget-friendly costs.

However, I think the real reason I enjoy the class is because I am inherently lazy when it comes to exercise. I'll mean well at the start of my health kicks and go to the gym twice a week for three weeks, and then I start missing sessions. My friend will only be able to meet up on an alloted gym day and instead of going to the gym a different day, I'll just not go. Then I'll start to feel guilty and have to avoid the gym because going back to the start - the muscle cramps, the feeling you're going to be sick and trying to remember how to programme the cross trainer again - it's all too much to bare. With bootcamp I seem to be able to commit - I go twice a week and the instructor, a lovely Austrian girl called Sybille will notice if I don't. She keeps saying impressive things like "this five minute sprint is as good as a 30 minute job" as I dash past her, sweating last night's wine from every pore. I believe everything she says and after four weeks of twice-weekly sessions, I am seeing results.

If all this has piqued your interest and you want to know more (don't worry, I won't mention sweating wine again - no one needs that), then I'll explain what a class is like. We warm up first - which includes stretches and balancing - I am told doing balancing exercises uses all your core muscles and tones you up without you even realising it. I am all in favour of that! Then we do a lot of lunges, squats, step ups and press ups in quick sucession. Sybille allows for beginners and is all in favour of going at your own pace, but she is encouraging enough to make everyone want to do their best for her. After doing all of the more static exercises, she has us doing a series of high-impact heart exercises - this is sprinting for your life to you and I. It is incredible how much faster you run when a super-fit, super-nice fitness instructor is cheering you on. At the end you cannot speak (and feel a bit like vomiting) because you've worked so hard. But it feels good. In the wind-down time, we do a lot of sit ups and then muscle stretches, which lengthen the muscles whilst they're still warmed up. Apparently lengthening muscles is good. Sybille said.

All this, for £6/70 mins is good value for me. I drag my housemates along with me and we have something vaguely resembling fun. I really can't recommend it enough.

For more info on bootcamps in your area, head to British Military Fitness or if you're based in North London, Sybille runs her Fit2Play classes on Highbury Fields.

You Don't Have to be Mad to Live Here...

... but yet nutters still reply.

My North London houseshare is going through a phase of transition. After three and a half years, a handful (we are a rather large house of nine people in total) of housemates moved to pastures more glamorous (Stratford-upon-Avon, Athens and Berlin are infinitely more glam than Holloway Road).

As we bid sad goodbyes to lovely (read: clean) and fun (read: contributes to communal wine cupboard regularly) housemates, our thoughts turn to finding people to replace them and the gumtree gauntlet.

For those not familiar with houseshares in the 21st Century, Gumtree is the source to find "randoms" to replace housemates. It's a internet message board used to pimp out rooms to the great, good and desperate of London – and, I imagine, beyond.

Replies to our ads come in and a good majority of them are nonsensical. It seems that some people are using a hammer to type out words, with the effect that there are at least three extra letters in each word. A person who uses a hammer to type won't make a good housemate, so they're relegated to the "ignore" folder.

Once we get our short list together, we begin interviews. I won't deny, we're a raucous group of housemates when we're together. It's sink or swim when you come to interviews, although we try our best to make the interviewees welcome. We've had a guy that didn't take his coat off and looked petrified. We've had an Aussie girl who was positively reeling, but didn't quite know when the polite time to leave was without giving away her horror. We've also had a guy turn up drunk, tell us he's been made redundant, likes the room and is now off back to the pub thanks very much. Perhaps most worrying of all, all of these fellows told us that our place was "the best place I've seen in so long". What do they do if they hate a place?!

And I'm not saying it isn't bad from the other side either. A friend of mine went to a housemate interview where a guy insisted on taking a polaroid of each person, as if it was a model casting. "I knew then that the flat wasn't for me. It totally put me off!"

It's all very well doing interviews but you'll never really know what someone is like to live with until you live with them. You might think you know, but you have no idea. I've lived with people who've seemed perfectly normal but have turned into horror shows after a while. There was a guy who only ate fried eggs – morning, evening and night. He went through a box of 24 every few days. Consequently, the house stank like a greasy spoon cafe. I like a good fry-up with the rest of them, but I could live without greasy eggy frying pans at every turn. I've also lived with a guy who banned us from turning the boiler on, even in winter in the cruel, bleak north west of England. He informed us that we should "wear four jumpers and run up and down the stairs a few times". I suspect he's not the only person in the world to impose such sanctions on a boiler to save a few quid, too.

Tonight's the night we're doing housemate viewings. Despite all the egg-eating, boiler-Nazi freaks, I remain positive we'll find someone decent. The recession is on our side - if the Metro et al is to believed, there are more renters out there now than there has been since 150BC. The law of averages says that we'll find at least one person who will donate to our wine cupboard...

Cupcakes and baths, Portobello style

This weekend I went to Portobello Market to see my lovely friend, Phoebe and her equally lovely boyfriend, Neil. We met up at 11am, having not eaten breakfast so headed to The Hummingbird Bakery. I got the recipe book from the lovely Charmaine (read her blog, food fans) but had never eaten any of their infamous cupcakes.

Phoebe and I walked in to an incredibly fresh, vanillay baking smell and were seduced right away. All the cakes look incredible - cookie cheesecake, carrot cake, banana bread, red velvet cake. I plumped for a chocolate brownie with a cheesecake topping which was then also topped with lashings of fresh whipped cream with raspberries muddled in. Chocolate and raspberries is one of my favourite combinations.

I fell in food-love on first taste, as did my boyfriend Andrew, who ordered the same. Phoebe got a black bottom cupcake (chocolate, with cheesecake inside and a cream cheese frosting), but I think Neil ate most of that after demolishing his apparently unimpressive savoury muffin.

Anyway, I'll definitely be making those brownies as they're in my recipe book.

After cupcakes, we battled through the crowds and antiques to the food stalls and gapped at the mile-wide (might be an exageration) paella pans filled with delicious seafoods and golden rice. We were almost regretting eating the cupcakes first. I picked up a few treats from Lush - my favourite sakura bath bomb, along with a new find - their vanilla bath bomb (comes complete with a vanilla pod). I also got a melting marshmellow island thing for my bath. I'm not keen on Lush's sickly sweet smells, so I'll see how that goes.

We eventually made our way to Ladbroke Grove tube. It took about two and a half hours. This is because so many bad idiots got in our way. I think you need a lot of patience for weekend markets in London.

Bad Idiots Check List

I'd say I look at people on average about ten times a day and think, "Why?" Now I've moved to London, my incredulity at the human race is only exacerbated. There are over 7million people living in London. I'd say 6.5million of those are what I technically classify as "bad idiots". Here are some examples of Londoners being bad idiots:

• Standing at the top or bottom of tube station staircases, chatting on their phones. Getting in the way, essentially. A tell-tale sign of a Bad Idiot is someone who gets in the way and remains oblivious to that fact they're pissing everyone else off, no matter how many people furious tut at them.
• Not keeping right. There are signs everywhere telling everyone on the underground to keep right. They have put railings down the centre of walkways for a reason. Yet some people think their place to be is much more pressing than everyone else's. So what do they do? They walk down the left channel. This forces everyone the Bad Idiot is walking against having to go single file, despite the fact they're following the rules.
• Pretending to have a chat on the phone whilst a mile underground. Joke's on you, BI.
• Pull-along suitcases. They are very convenient, and don't get me wrong, I love a wheely suitcase as much as the next harrassed holiday-maker. What I don't like is the idiots on the Piccadilly Line who behave as if they're not pulling a footlong dead-weight behind them. They weave through people, cut people up and leave a river of people behind them shaking their fists and rubbing their shins. BIs don't care - they're off to Tenerife and they're fucked if anyone is going to get in their way.
  
• Slopping drinks. Every freakin' where. It's especially annoying as you lean across the bar to key in your PIN, or in a desperate bid to get served next, and you rest your arm in slopped drinks. You don't know what it is. Hopefully water. Yes, it must be water. Surely someone would've wiped it up if it wasn't water. Oh no, my arm smells decidedly hoppy. Great.
  

Do you have any pet peeves or BI traits you've noticed (disclaimer: comments about blogging about BIs definitely isn't a BI trait)? I'm not really advocating a negative tirade against humanity here. OK I am; rant at will.