Sunday and I find my partner up before me so I wander down stairs and make toast and marmalade with coffee after weighing myself in. Not good news, 96.8 kilos is a gain of 0.5 kilos. I need to focus. We chat for a while to plan the day over a pot of fresh coffee and decide to face time our youngest daughter early. We find her with her partner making cheese on toast for breakfast with the the second loaf she has baked in the bread maker we bought her for her birthday. We chat for a while and discover they are going to continue to redecorate two of the bedrooms in their house. So they were spending their day with paint brushes in their hands. My partner irons and hangs out washing and calls me out to see the first frog in the pond this year. Of course I take a picture.

Not only is it the first frog of the year but it has chosen to appear on the vernal equinox, which today is. The sun is shining and it is looking good for a few days, so my decision to mow lawns this weekend may prove to be sagacious. I think the Vernal Equinox means it is equal day and night and marks the start of spring. To try and counter my ignorance I look at the link a friend has posted to one of the groups I am on. I include it hear for clarity, or not.

Are you any the wiser, I think I am a bit. Its the 6th round of the cup this weekend so there is an early match to watch, which takes me through to a lunchtime dish of soup and bagel. I pack my gym bags and my partner and I go off to the gym. The place is practically empty, however when I get on the gym floor I find all four of the cross trainer are taken, outrageous really. I straddle a bike and pedal for an hour , but just for fun I use the machines course option and take a ride through champagne country learning interesting champagne facts as I go. By the end of this educational pedal I have burnt 596 calories and travelled 25.01 kilometres. Its a while since I cycled and I notice two things, one my bum is mildly numb and two, once again I have forgotten to put my Fitbit on my foot to get the steps benefit. In the end its a reasonable work out. I shower and repair to the lunge for a coffee and to wait for my partner. Today I am wearing my Honka football short as my favourite Finnish football team won the Finnish cup yesterday, beating Inter Turku 3-1. It looks like it could be a good season. The season is the shortest in Europe due to the cold and the lack of daylight in Finland. It seems to me that being a Finnish football fan is ideal for those with short attention spans.

We finish our coffee and drive home where my partner gathers in the washing and I set about mowing the back garden grass. It goes reasonably well for a first cut. I am hoping the next few days will dry the under layer out a bit and encourage new growth. With the grass cut the garden looks more inviting, but I have been careful not to disturb the hedgehog’s domain and left that area wild. As far as I can tell from the camera evidence out hog is coming out every night now.

I pack the mower away and now I am feeling the gym effort. I settle on the sofa to watch another football match adn to eat tea. As I watch the match I sip coffee and draft the blog. The Amazon knocks on the door with a package with my name on, I am bewildered as I have no outstanding orders, my partner says she has not sent me anything, I open it, intrigued. This is what was inside:

So if you were responsible for my surprise present thank you very much I really like and will be wearing it very soon. Now its time to do the weekly Tesco order and to prepare myself for Peaky Blinders and an early night as I have training to attend tomorrow and my partner is actually going to work.