Election mode
The no confidence vote in parliament might have been defeated earlier today but what this is what I found in my letter box when I got home:
Malta: Living on the Edge of Europe
Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta
Week 13 of 34 – Every 4th week
Every 4th week is one with a reduced training load and so it was this week – fewer and shorter training sessions. Besides giving my body time to recover from the incessant pounding of the streets and (less frequently now) trails, it allows me to reconnect with a world outside running. It was fun to meet friends for backgammon and go to the cinema again while not having to be in bed by 8.30pm. The wake-up time of 4.40am is a different matter though. That has been absorbed into my DNA so whether it’s the weekend or a day off, my eyes open to the darkness of the hour. I can sometimes force myself back to sleep but the night would have been interrupted nonetheless.
Overall a quiet week but with a curious heart rate anomaly. Although the resting heart rate has remained under the 50bpm mark, the active heart rate was somewhat higher than usual. This happened during the steady runs and also the speed sessions. I can only presume the climatic conditions played a part, such as a strong head wind or elevated humidity. Let’s see how it goes next week.
Training hours: 7 / Weight: 70.6kgs / Body fat: 12.1% / Muscle mass: 69.6% / Water: 57.9% / Bone mass: 3.0 / Resting heart rate: 47
Kinnie – Malta’s national soft drink
I have been enjoying this drink ever since I was a child. Way back then I also appreciated its angular shaped bottle, so distinct from other soft drink bottles and even more so when compared to the bland PET containers of today. I remember the pleasure and sense of pride I felt when I discovered it in a supermarket on the outskirts of Nicosia, Cyprus, in the 80s. At the time I was attending an international youth camp organised by the Leo Club and I couldn’t help but point it out to the fellow participants who were shopping with me; it goes without saying that I bought a few Kinnies to share with them too. Thirty years on and I’m still recommending the product, this time to my classes of mixed nationality students who come here for a few weeks, even months, to improve their English language skills. I don’t do it because I have a lucrative promotional contract with the bottlers, Farsons, but primarily because it satisfies my taste buds. Secondly, it’s a local product which I believe deserves more international recognition.
One of the ingredients which goes into the making of Kinnie is bitter oranges, although the label simply states “oranges”. Now I don’t know about you but I got thinking – just how many bitter oranges are actually used in a 1.5 litre bottle? Hence my email enquiry to the company yesterday, asking them exactly that. Once their reply comes in, I’ll attach the information to this post.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This is the filmed sequence accompanying the opening credits of the film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – the Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara version. It’s a dark, sci-fi horror style video that more than compensates for a movie which, as often happens, doesn’t do justice to the novel.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
"Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
Recent Posts
- Election mode
- Monday: after training, before work
- Week 13 of 34 – Every 4th week
- Kinnie – Malta’s national soft drink
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Week 12 of 34 – A solid week
- Three things I don’t like about Franco Debono
- Week 11 of 34 – Something’s happening
- A parliament for cry babies
- White fury
- Christmas dolls and St. Valentine bears
- Week 10 of 34 – It began as it ended
- Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
- Troubled skies
- Dying – what a jolly activity!