The Power of the Commute

Having recently moved flats I took my phone out this morning and keyed in my works address to find the quickest route to work. Google maps threw out several options with varying degrees of cycle paths. I choose the quickest route. Incidentally, I listened to a podcast today about what I’ve just mentioned. I am not alone in asking google for the quickest route for my commute. So this got me thinking about my commute home, was the “faster” route really worth it? It would only get me home about 5 minutes quicker according to google. So as it was a nice day I decided to take the alternative path, the “slower” route. It’s easy to get caught up in everything and not be present when you continually take the same route. So was the alternative route any better?

Thoughtful Bike Rides

Have you ever sat down and actually thought recently about what makes you happy? Like actually happy. I’ve been thinking about this during my cycle into work the past few days. As I’m currently in between places I’m basically living out of a suitcase. Which for those of you who know me, will find hilarious. I’m the type of person who has everything and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Long skateboard – check. Hot glue gun – check. An ever-growing library of books – check. And the list goes on and on.

Fietsostrade Fun

Belgium for such a small country has a lot to offer and with over 1200 km of cycle track, it would be rude to not explore further!

The cycle motorway. 

 

So for our second cycle trip adventure we decided to go to Mechelen, a medieval village turned city. Again this trip was about 50km but this time we luckily didn’t go on a wee detour as Ellen works there so she more aware of the area.

When the Best of Plans Fail

So I’ve been pretty inactive recently and the main reason? An intensive few months of uni deadlines and exams. So to give me something to look forward to during those dire months I decided to plan a trip to the land of good beer and chocolate (yes Belgium). From there I would meet up with my friend Ellen (she’s just brilliant) and we would go on a 400 km cycle trip passing through Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium. Of course, I wanted to do this on misty so I booked my train tickets from Edinburgh to Belgium. Sounds like a good plan huh?

Don’t Forget About YOU.

So this has been a while, life got in the way AGAIN and now it’s 2017. Let me be honest with you I lost my drive and inspiration in December. I had a few ideas in November about posts I wanted to put up and then December rolled around and none of it happened. But do you know what? That’s OK because we are all human. So I got thinking about WHY I had this dip in enthusiasm. True, I like many others, struggle at this time of year because of the lack of light. This combined with the stress of exams, reduced exercise and a combination of other things resulted in a less productive Lucy. So now’s for the new year, new me thing right?