Eating the skin seems disgusting to me, it’s all hairy and prickly. To Jay that’s all part of it, although he admitted to not eating the bottom of the core of an apple because its furry – the boy makes no sense!

So readers, do you eat the skin or not on a kiwi?

Overall it was a great year; I finally got to see Take That in concert; Jay & I got back together and he moved in with me & my housemate in July; we went to the Canadian GP and New York to celebrate his graduation; I went to the British GP qualifying and my sister graduated from Plymouth uni, so we had a family holiday in Devon and Cornwall whilst we were all in the same place of the country.

My sister, Mum & me

The year ended on a high when I was asked to stay on at work permanently and Kimi Raikkonen signed to be our driver next season!

Not so good was my attempt at my resolutions in 2011. Unfortunately it was the resolutions left over from 2010 that I did the worst at – losing weight and paying off debt. I did end the year healthier and lighter than I started, but not by a great deal. I also ended the year in a better place financially but I haven’t made a dent in my debt yet. I’m working on it though!

What was successful was the photo a day challenge. I documented my year in photos – not always good quality or interesting subjects, but nevertheless I took a photo almost every day. I missed a few days here and there, but on the whole I’m pretty impressed that I carried the challenge on all year.

One of my favourite 2011 PAD photos - because I still can't believe I took it!

I also started marshalling and had a brilliant time at a variety of events.

So onto 2012.

A couple of weeks in and I’m still motivated, exercising and trying to make sensible food choices.

I’ve signed up for some STEM ambassador events so hopefully I can spend some time giving advice to young people interested in engineering as a career. Unfortunately this has taken some of my free weekends away from marshalling so I’m not sure how many times I’m going to get to Silverstone this year, but I should have time for a few events at least.

I can’t wait for Kimi to be back racing in F1, I really hope it’s a good year for him and the newly renamed Lotus F1 Team.

I’m hoping to go to Festival of Speed at Goodwood in June and Silverstone for the British GP in July. Jay is determined to get to North Carolina for a holiday in the shutdown in August, but that might be a bit too much!

After a manic month of blogging in November I had thought the momentum would carry me through December. How wrong was I?! Here we are in mid January and I am just about recovered enough to consider writing some new posts.

This year I am just making one New Years Resolution: to be fit and healthy by the end of 2012.

This has been one of my resolutions for the past few years and I did make some inroads last year losing about 5kg but that is nowhere near getting into size 10 clothing like I intended! I did the #petrovtoheidfelddiet but after going on holiday in June I didn’t regain my motivation and had a few weeks of exercise and healthy eating here and there, but not a continued effort.

I’ll revisit 2011’s resolutions in another post, but I am determined to make this one a success this year! This last weekend I’ve hit the streets by starting an app ‘Ease into 5k’ to get out running, after two walky/jogs running seems a long way off, but I am enjoying it and one day I will actually be fast and fit enough to be a runner. With my coilitis under control this week I’ve been trying to get some exercise every day for half an hour. I’ve been trying to vary exercise by swimming, doing Zumba on the wii and working out to another app ‘Nike Training Club’, so there really isn’t an excuse not to do something!

As well as the exercise I am eating healthier, more fruit, smaller portions and generally making better choices.

I know millions more will make the same resolution so good luck to everyone sharing a similar journey

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Here’s my month of blog posts:

1. Confession Time
2. Restaurant review: 4500 Miles From Delhi
3. Bempton Cliffs visit
4. British GP – Thursday
5. British GP – Saturday
6. Zumba Fitness Wii Game 
7. Very.co.uk
8. Top 6 Prediction for the Abu Dhabi GP
9. Book review: Life At The Limit by Professor Sid Watkins
10. My passions
11. Remembrance Day
12. I love this time of year…
13. Restaurant review: Atomic Pizza
14. My first year marshalling
15. Mercedes Benz World
16. Recipe: Mushroom Risotto
17. Prestigious Day for UK Engineering
18. Happiest moment of my life so far
19. Have you ever, ever felt like this?
20. Photoshoot with Chris Brock for the UKRC
21. Rally Show at Cornbury Park
22. Top 6 Prediction for the Brazilian GP
23. Kimi Raikkonen video
24. The greatest motorsport moment of 2011
25. Rant about bad driving
26. Bomber Command Heritage
27. Canadian GP 2011 – Saturday
28. A job offer
29. Kimi Raikkonen signs for LRGP!!
30. …this round up post!

Wow what a month. I still haven’t got through all the posts I wanted too, but it feels like I’ve climbed a mountain! I’ve really enjoyed writing daily (for the most part) and having the challenge of having to write something. However I will be glad when I do not have to write something if its late or I’m tired or I just don’t feel like it!

I’ve been reading a lot more blogs too this month, which I am glad I found. I’m not sure a month is enough to increase skills in reading and writing like I planned, but I certainly feel better for having exercised the skills at least.

The views on my blog have been greater than they normally have and yesterday the total number of unique views broke the 9,000 barrier. The first week brought an increase of views of 100% over the week before! The only month since I started the blog with higher views was March this year when I wrote about my friend doing a half marathon and it got retweeted across the twitterverse.

As part of the #NaBloPoMo challenge I have also been posting onto BlogHer. This is a great site with lots to read as well as organising the prompts and other resources for blogging. The only thing that sits slightly uncomfortable with me is that it is clearly aimed at just women (although men are welcome!). I also found formatting posts more difficult than WordPress.

These posts have got quite a lot of views between them, so its nice to know I’m reaching a wider audience than my twitter followers! Hopefully new readers have found something they like.

The most exciting aspect to posting on BlogHer was one of my posts being picked as a ‘featured post’ on the homepage.

At the time of writing, that post alone has had over 5000 views, 21 facebook shares, 52 tweets, 1 email, 1 sparkle (whatever that is) and 9 comments. That’s just scary!

I hope I’ve blogged about some useful / interesting topics over this month and haven’t bored you too much! Who knows I might start suffering withdrawl symptoms and have to start writing a post a day!

In the style of Gordon Ramsey; NaBloPoMo…. done!

Photo Credit: Lotus Renault GP

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Where to start? After the paddock rumours in Brazil that the deal for Raikkonen to drive at Williams in 2012 was off, I was totally gutted. What had been a certainty and just a matter of time for the announcement turned into yet another disappointment. There was more substance to these rumours than any come back rumours since Kimi left F1 at the end of 2009 and so I’d stupidly got carried away and was looking forward to seeing him line up on the grid in the very team that my F1 journey had begun with.

Bouiller made noises about the harem of drivers that were possibilities at LRGP, including Kimi, but it seemed like he had only been mentioned in passing. A friend last week commented that it either meant a deal had been done or there really was no chance; at the time I felt like it meant there really was no chance.

Then on Monday morning it all began to resurface – Peter Windsor tweeting that he’d heard Kimi had signed a deal to drive for LRGP. I laughed it off after discussing it with people at work, I wasn’t going to get my hopes up this time. A text came from a journalist friend telling me of the same rumour, not 100% confirmed but looking pretty likely. A bit more giggling, this time starting to get to me but no, I wasn’t going to be drawn into the hope and disappointment all over again. After all it looked like Bouiller had burnt that bridge.

Then yesterday evening the rumours were getting louder and louder, with more and more journalists reporting a deal was due to be announced.  I was convinced it was either a LRGP deal confirming Senna and Petrov for 2012 or Raikkonen announcing a third year in WRC. Still no harm in refreshing twitter, facebook, autosport and my work email every 5 minutes….

By about 11pm I’d given up, it was all a silly Twitter hoax with people getting misinformation. I remembered an offer for 30% off photobooks so set about doing one for my Mum for Christmas. I’d soon got fed up of faffing with the photobook website and it was looking like I wasn’t going to meet the midnight deadline, so decided it was bedtime. Once last refresh of email before going to sleep….

And there it was. Confirmation of Kimi Raikkonen coming back to F1 and driving for LRGP. I screamed, shouted a bit and then promptly burst into tears. How grateful I am that the email came whilst I was at home! I hadn’t dared hope that there was going to be a comeback 12 hours earlier, let alone that he would be driving for LRGP. And there it was in black and white.

To be honest I’m still in shock now, 22 hours later. It hasn’t sunk in. A sleepless night followed reading that email, I text a few work colleagues but wasn’t going to say anything to anyone else until I knew it was public knowledge. I marked the occasion on facebook & twitter with a smiley crying its eyes out & a link to Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ and spent a restless night refreshing Autosport to see if there was any more information! I think I managed about 3 hours sleep in the end.

Finally this morning the announcement was made and within seconds my phone was vibrating like there was no tomorrow. Friends, family, strangers all knew how much that one announcement would mean to me were sending tweets, facebook comments, emails and texts. Unsurprisingly my productivity at work this morning wasn’t as high as it could have been as the messages kept flooding in. Thanks to everyone who thought of me today, I can’t describe how much it meant!

There is so much uncertainty about next year – I’ve referred to the team as LRGP throughout this post but that’s likely to change given the team now has sole rights to the Lotus name. Raikkonen’s team mate is unknown and from the noises in the press from Petrov’s manager that’s at least 10 days away. Raikkonen’s race craft, his ability to drive 2012 spec cars with KERS, DRS and Pirelli tyres, his motivation, his ability, will all be called into question over the next few weeks, months and perhaps years. People will debate if someone who has had their chance, won their races and championship and left F1 deserves a highly sought after seat.  But I don’t care. Signing a world championship winning driver shows that Genii mean business and that they are serious about turning the fortunes of LRGP around. I know Kimi can deliver; just like he did when Mosley didn’t want to give him a super licence after only 23 single seater races. And then went and scored points on his debut race for Sauber a couple of months later. Just like when he almost won a championship in a two year old McLaren. Just like he did when won his championship in his debut year for Ferrari. And when he hauled a rubbish 2009 Ferrari to his final win at Spa. I know Kimi can perform, I know he can be great for the team, and hopefully he’ll stay motivated and push the team onto bigger things.

Now what have I been saying about looking forward to the relative calm of the winter? Screw that, come on Melbourne, hurry up and start the 2012 season already!

Well great news, today I was offered a permanent job, starting in January, a whole year ahead of schedule

Woohoooo

…Next! Learning. That would be going a whole lot better if I hadn’t have forgotten about a Matlab seminar I was supposed to go to last week!

Our F1 weekend started on a grey, cloudy Saturday. The track was a hop, skip and a jump on the metro from our hotel so we arrived quickly to walk across the bridge onto the island where the track is held. What a difference to the traffic of Silverstone and the trek via train, bus and walk to Monza! All circuits should be built nearer to cities if you ask me. The buzz walking across the bridge was great as the anticipation built up, and we had fun spotting the drivers on these flags.

We arrived at the circuit in time for free practice 3. Used to Silverstone’s roving grandstand tickets we tried to get into another grandstand for a slightly different view, but weren’t allowed, so we took our seats. Our tickets were for the grandstand at the exit of the hairpin, an absolutely fabulous view, so no real hardship there.

It was great to see this years cars up close and personal. The sound of the Renault was something else, like the screaming V10 Mercedes engine in the McLaren of years gone by, you could hear what car it was without looking at it.

Between free practice and qualifying we went for a walk around the circuit. I never realised how narrow the island is that the track is on! We only got half way around before turning back for quali but there was a surprising amount of lakes are around the track.

Our friends joined us for qualifying back at our seats. Not quite the atmosphere of Silverstone for qualifying but a great session nonetheless.

After qualifying we were really  lucky to get into the Force India paddock and garage for 20 minutes in between other guests. The paddock was tiny and very narrow, its funny when F1 has to fit in with the existing infrastructure, rather than the track bending over to F1′s demands (like the new tracks do). We got a garage tour where I respectively kept my distance from any of the parts and the cars; I didn’t want to get accused of spying! The PR girl showing us round was really friendly and took a picture of us outside the garage.

Unfortunately our time was soon up and we were walked back to the paddock gates and had to hand our passes back, ready for the next guests. It was a very much appreciated visit though

For the rest of the afternoon we watched the support races from various viewpoints, ending the day in the grandstand opposite the pits for the final race. It’s interesting to watch what’s going on as well as all the other races. It’s a great chance to see something unusual racing and this time we saw some old retro F1 cars (I think that’s what they were!).

As soon as the final race finished we were kicked out of the grandstand by security and hurried out of the circuit. Totally different to the other events I’ve attended (I know only two but still), we were pretty much the only ones left (in the grandstand and around the circuit as we walked out) and most food stalls were already closed up.  Thinking about it that might be a bit unfair as I’m not entirely sure I’ve stayed until the very end of the day on a Saturday, but  the emptiness did strike a chord.

For the final surprise of the day, not only had it been overcast but quite chilly, but still I ended up sunburnt! Maybe the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve isn’t that different to Silverstone after all

The rest of the photos are here on flickr (all taken on my phone so don’t expect too much!)

A fundraising evening was held in October at the fabulous new John Paul II Community Centre in Bicester, with a guest speaker – World War II pilot Tony Iveson.

Apparently around 200 people bought a ticket for the evening as well as taking part in the raffle, silent auction and other fundraising efforts on the night, so fingers crossed a good amount was raised for BCH. On their website it says a couple of thousand pounds were raised which is excellent news.

It was interesting to hear from BCH about their plans for the future and what they would do with RAF Bicester if they do get the opportunity to take over the site. They have such a great vision I really hope that they can get the funding and support to persuade the MOD to sell the airfield to them. It will be a great addition to the area and a really interesting attraction to visit.

The star attraction of the evening was Tony Iveson. Tony was a pilot in WWII, and spent the evening telling us stories of his life as a pilot and what went on in the war. He spoke of the many different aircraft he flew, and different missions he was involved in. His first hand accounts of the Battle of Britain and attacks on Tirpitz (a battleship in Norway) were extraordinary and it was sobering to hear the impact the war had on personnel involved.

What was all the more inspiring is that Tony Iveson is now in his 90s and recalled the events as if they were only a short while ago. After his speech there was an extensive Q&A session, where people asked all kinds of questions which led to more interesting stories.

Many thanks to Tony Iveson for doing the talk and all at Bomber Command Heritage for organising the evening. Also to D who took me as a birthday present

]]> http://kayelsm.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/bch-tony-iveson/feed/ 0 kayels http://kayelsm.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/rant/ http://kayelsm.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/rant/#comments Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:38:05 +0000 kayels http://kayelsm.wordpress.com/?p=1228 ]]> Probably every day we all see something on the roads that annoys us, or shouldn’t be done. I often drive behind people who annoy me, doing silly things like driving without lights in the recent fog and occasionally a dangerous driver who overtakes just before a blind corner.

Bad driving infuriates me, so often my facebook status update or tweet will contain a few choice words. Quite often I’ll do what I can to make a point at the time – for example earlier this week a driver pulled in behind parked cars when there was still two lanes worth of space along side of them. So I stopped behind the car but without pulling over. It’s quite petty really, but I made my point!

And the drivers in the outside lane of roundabouts that cut across the inside lane with you in it – well the horn on my Aygo can make a lot of noise if you push it hard enough!

But this morning was one of the most annoying bits of dangerous driving I have ever seen, and even swearing a lot didn’t make me feel any better.

My journey to work on a morning is a straightforward one, but at the moment a new roundabout is being built and the temporary traffic lights cause unpredictable traffic, so I’ve found its easier to go a more scenic route. Half of the road is a single lane track with passing points. There is a bridge over a motorway where the road goes to two lanes.

I was on the single lane bit of road, a lady in a 4 by 4 was on the bit of road with two lanes, just after coming over the bridge. I slowed down to give her more time to stop…but she didn’t bother. She just carried on towards me, and into the single track. I thought she was going to move onto the grass verge..but again she didn’t bother. She didn’t move her car an inch. I love my little car and didn’t fancy an accident so couldn’t compete in her game of chicken and had to pull over onto the grass verge to get out of her way.

On what planet is that a safe way to drive? I’m sure I saw a child in the passenger seat, why on earth would someone drive so dangerously with their most precious cargo? It was a big 4 by 4 so I can imagine you would feel very safe and pretty invincible driving it, but still I would hope all common sense wouldn’t leave the driver!

What can be done in these situations? Is that the kind of driving that can be reported for being dangerous? Assuming that the whole incident is longer than a few seconds and you are able to get any details. Or just hope that the driver made a simple mistake and wasn’t aware that the road narrowed down quite so much so quickly (even if all it takes is to have your eyes open)?

]]> http://kayelsm.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/rant/feed/ 2 kayels