exercising with david cameron

28 mar 2011

i just saw at the 'breakfast news' on bbc 1, this very first news programme of the day i watch nearly every day, an interview with a personal trainer talking about the way Prime Minister David Cameron runs. they showed footages of the Mr Cameron running with his fellows and the trainer made comments on how wrongly he is running and he should run instead. apparently Mr Cameron is tense, which affects his running in an obvious negative way. they also pointed out the fact that if we today witness such an important person to the country exercising it does send out the message 'go and exercise you, too. it is important'. the personal trainer emphasised that people do not realise how much exercising affects our decisions we make daily. i feel like going for a nice walk at the common now, but i'll leave it for later on, when i leave the house for other things, too. one nice image from the minister exercising is the contact with nature. breathing pure air is so invigorating.

the gentle rain

20 aug 2010

sent out this sms this morning when i was back:

morning
just had a nice walk
on the common
with drops of light rain
on my face and arms.
it felt great.
have a safe journey.

spring in the common

30 apr 2010

i can't help but find the spring here so so beautiful. atchiiiiiim! these photos are from today in my walk through the common park, going to uni. this is the landscape i see everyday. i haven't taken the us at all lately, just enjoyed the beauty of the day, of the trees, the singing of the birds. the spring changes our life in so many ways. there are always people in the park, walking up and down, walking their dog, on a stroll with their kids, alone, exercing at the park's bench, as in the photo here. i love it. i have taken a few photos :-)

the cowherds, one of my favorite pubs, is right there in the park. they put this note warning customers who have an intention of taking a glass with them to the park. the basic policy from everywhere is that safety comes first. always. then fun is naturally granted.

cafe feliz

22 apr 2010

Dear Nene,

Super thanks a bunch for making me part of this special moment in your life. I am certain it was special for everyone who got together with you / us in any one of these days with Adriana, Marcos, and Rosinha. It made my day to meet with everyone and have the tour around uni, following the flowers way, listening to the birds, doing together what I do alone nearly every day. Really, really, it was such a great time for me to meet everyone. I already knew them and the rapport was established even before we met in person. Now it is official: I have more friends, and I add the kids – Nina, Dani, Lipe, and Matheus – to the list.

We were happy to come across the spring blossom with the colours and the beauty all the way in the Common, from one campus to the other, celebrating life. Hilra, I think I can tell you Louise was just as happy to be there with us. The aura of friendship has made us all inebriated with joy and, trust me, we did have fun. I believe Louise didn’t care one bit when we at times spoke Portuguese, which would in practical terms leave her out of the chat. I don’t really think she felt lost at any point. Well, I might be wrong, but she was in the same level of positive lightness and enjoying the great time together. And so were Hannah and little Tim. Moreover, food was good.

It was so nice for the ‘easy riders’ to finally reach here that there was no much need to dwell on the impeding bits that came on their tour through Europe (Mr. Vulcano). I was thinking that this special moment you could have chosen to pass alone with them, but no, you decided to invite me along. Such moments are only possible with special friends, people who know who we are, who follow the events of our life in their very truth. Hope you keep this priceless moment – the days – as a powerful file to be accessed during days when ‘funny’ questions inevitably come to your / my mind. I will.

I just think that the whole walk that we did together is very meaningful. And don’t forget it was on lovers’ walk. Again, thanks for inviting me along. Our café feliz was shared, not planned that way, but it was shared. Did you realize that?

Kalina

domingo no parque

28 Feb 2010

I like to name my posts after songs. This is why sometimes the title of the post's language and the language of post itself don’t match; but, trust me, there is always a meaningful connection between them all.

I went for a nice walk in the Common at about 9 o’clock this morning. When I woke up it was raining, not really a heavy rain, but wet enough to make me change my mind. However, not much later it stopped raining and I decided to go. It was so good. I am little by little becoming familiar with the park. I like it when I go and I see many people over there. There are people of all – all – ages, both alone and accompanied by all sorts of company: (a) dog(s), whole family, beloved ones, little children.

Once in a while it is possible to for us people at the park to exchange warm ‘good mornings’, along with a smile. In this sense there are two categories of people: the ones who greet you and these are the ones I love; and the others who ignore you’re around. This morning something interesting happened: I entered the park at the same time as this old couple did, in a way we walked together with me being ahead of them about two minutes, but I knew all the time they were there. Well, the park has many roads that I can follow and I decided to come back half through towards the road the lead to the Cowherds. I don’t know exactly why I did this. When I turned to come back and passed by the old couple the man smiled and asked me “are you giving up?” I found it so cute. I smiled back to him and said: “well, sort of, but not exactly, just going another way”. Later on (15 minutes later) we met again at the end of the same road, but I was coming a different way.

I believe if I go often and at about the same time I will get to meet the same people sometimes and perhaps make friends. The walking has made me feel very good about myself. I walked for 45 – 50 minutes today.

Once again I need to go shopping for fruits and milk but don’t feel like it. I was thinking I needed it so bad I didn’t have food in the house to eat for lunch. Then I thought it was not possible that I had no food at all. I went to the kitchen and found still some good stuff for my lunch: a salad with stuffed zucchini, hearts of palm, olive oil, and some veggies: Chinese leek, cauli flower, and broccoli. To accompany the salad I had pasta with green pesto sauce, mushroom and a little bit of cream cheese. It was quite good and I still have some left over in the fridge for other meal.

Note: I thought I was going to speak about the walk in the park only in the post. For this reason I did not take any photo of the food. :-)

Clive the clever

28 Oct 2009

Clive the clever & the gold run at the Common

I have a hectic day ahead and decided to gor a little walk in the Common, again following my sister's advice. i hade a sore body, and feel very much out shape, i mean, i AM in a unique / bizarre shape at the moment and i wonder if this is physically only.

well, in the very entrance to the park i saw this man running. i try sometimes to run a little, even if for 5 seconds only, as part of my plan to carry out 'unimagined tasks' :-) . as i attempted to run this smiley man crossed the walking track to speak with me. he said something like:

'never run on this, always run on the grass. i am 80 years old and i've been running for 40 years. if you run on the hard surface your knees are gone after 20 years. always always try the softer ground to run. try and buy the best shoes possible and run or even walk in there (pointing to the grass). it is wet, your feet are going to get wet, but it is much better than spoiling your knees.'

Chilly morning at the Common

Sunday 18 October 2009

i went this morning for a very nice walk at the Common, this awesome park in the city. you can in a way get to it from so many different areas. I am in the Hants now, and when i walk for some 20 something minutes i get to Shirley. sooo cool.

when i left the flat it was making 3degrees, very cold indeed. but as you walk for a little while the body warms up and the first impression turns into something more relaxing. i went to bed almost 3 o'clock in the morning, as i was reading a nice article by Dick Allwright about one of his many studies in Brazil. i wasn't really very tired bu decided it was time to go to bed anyway because i had this walk for the early morning today and i know if i come to uni it is very likely that when i leave it here it is already too dark for a walk in the park. plus today i am planning to go to church, to our 6.30 mass in highfield campus.

when i was back from the walk i cooked myself some pasta (fusili) and added stir fried mushrooms and pesto sauce to it. i will have it with vegetables. by the way, the most practicl way of eating veggies aroung - ha!! i bought this bag with four individual packs of a mixture of veggies. i keep the bag in the freezer and whenever i want to eat it i just warm it up in the microwave oven. what else can a lazy soul ask for? but it is good, trust me :-)

the walking this morning was a suggestion Kassandra gave to me the other day. she said i should take a nice walk in the park over the weekend, especially because we are happy for 'things' that are going so right for me these days. YEY!!! therefore, i devote this happy walk to my sister, my lovely sister.

sooo much love, but now i'd better go back to work because i go by deadlines all the time - hellooo!!!