Jill

I totally fell in love with the place when I was there last month, it's my sort of city - all sorts to do, you can just wander in any direction and get lost in it all. I'd offer some advice, but it'd be woefully copied and pasted from Meenzer. So my advice is.. drink all the beer.

I've not been in for years, but it's always been a bit of a guilty pleasure place for me, because I love a lot of the music they play (most of my friends don't, hence rarely going anymore). I did, however, see the worst live band I've ever seen play there, which was very disappointing after the amount of arm twisting I'd had to do to get people in there in the first place.

Planks can absolutely fuck off. I always feel like my core is made of jelly and I'm about to die, to then realise it's only been about 5 seconds.

I've been exactly the same weight for the last 3 weeks. Consistency.

All the best, CT. It's a lot to be going through all at the same time, it's awful how that happens sometimes.

People not putting equipment away in the gym when they've finished with it, or alternating between about 5 different exercises in a circuit type thing, meaning there's very little left for anyone else to use. People sighing, can't bear it (especially if it's someone sighing while on the toilet at work) Someone coming up to me and starting a sentence with "I know you're on your lunch, but.." and proceeding to ask a long and boring work question while I've got a sandwich in my mouth. Contestants on Masterchef who get so far in then announce that they've never cooked fish, or something else really basic. They should be booted out on the spot.

It was a must for the Rush fan in me, but it's a very good read.

I know a few Heaton-based people who rave about that place, I'm yet to try it though as I don't get over that way very often anymore.

Yes to both. But still.

"Hot & spicy" chicken sandwich which was neither hot nor spicy.. it was still quite nice, but I can't help feeling disappointed.

Fed West.

The idea of this happening freaks me out all the time. I probably think about it too much but it does cross my mind when I'm rushing around getting ready for work that if I fell down the stairs or something, it'd be hours before wor lad got home (as he leaves before me). I'm fairly certain work would miss me, but not sure if it'd be enough to send someone round on day 1. Spent last night feeling really sombre after seeing someone stretchered out of the gym, still receiving CPR. He'd been on the deck about 40 minutes with defibrillators etc, didn't look good at all. The entire gym was in a bit of a state of shock after that. It wasn't something I'd seen before and the poor lad seemed to just be there on his own too.

I printed off a load of barcodes with the aim of getting to the Newcastle one ages ago and never got round to it. It's the idea of the bus journey there and back that puts me off, if I wake up and fancy a run I just do a similar distance round where I live, or if I'm getting the bus into town I'd rather head to the gym and do a bit of a longer workout.

I love a lot of curries, but never found a Chinese one that was anything other than absolutely vile.

If it was a sport where I could go straight through them (joke in there somewhere) with a hard challenge rather than being a shitty non-contact sport, I'd be a lot more up for it.

My work netball team has started up again and I'm wavering over whether to commit or not. I said I would play because I thought it'd be like a year or two ago when we just had 1 game a week against another team in the league, but today I had an email with a Powerpoint presentation on the rules and suggestions for drills we can do in training sessions. Don't think I'm that fucking interested like. I don't even particularly like netball, it's full of bitches. Actually, just remembered I'm also shite at it, so I think I'll sack it off. Must make up some other commitment that has come up.

In tomorrow's lunch with another full one, probably. They're piss poor bagels, I had one yesterday and was starving again about an hour afterwards. Since I'm in all day today I wanted enough so I wouldn't be tempted to graze on junk.

Three halves of toasted bagel with sweet chilli philly, cucumber & orange pepper. I'm going through one of my bagel phases. I do this occasionally then sicken myself of them.

I set out intending to do at least 4 and probably closer to 7 so it was a bit of an annoyance. Still, better than doing nowt, and I did walk about 4 miles later on in the day.

I went for my first post-holiday run this morning which was a massive fail. Did about 2.1 miles and felt absolutely battered so gave up straight away and walked home. Poor effort, but I know I can do better once I've had a few more days of eating right (and more importantly, no alcohol) so I'll get back into it. Unsure at the moment whether to do the gym or another run tomorrow, will see what mood I wake up in.

I'll keep an eye out for it. I made an effort to keep a list this time as I liked loads of the things I tried in Bruges as well but then promptly came home and forgot all of my favourites.

I think my favourite overall was the Brauhaus Lemke Weizen as I really liked their pub as well, it was exactly my sort of place. The original was nice too - although it was darker than I thought it wasn't too heavy. Also liked Schöfferhofer Weizen, Erdinger Kristallweizen and my well-hidden girly side loved Berliner Weiss with blackcurrant/raspberry flavouring. Special mention to the 1L serving of Paulaner Oktoberfest which I needed both hands to drink and also to the Köstritzer black beer which I shouldn't have judged based on its appearance because it was a lot nicer than I expected.

Tried many beers while in Berlin: Paulaner Oktoberfest bier Berliner Kindl Duckstein Berliner Pils Georgbraeu Schöfferhofer Weizen Berliner Kindl Weiss (with various flavoured syrups) Warsteiner Wulle Biere Schultheiss Engelhardt Brauhaus Mitte something or other Erdinger Kristallweizen Gaffel Kölsch Louny Böhm Brauhaus Lemke Weizen Brauhaus Lemke original Radeburger Bohemia Hell Köstritzer schwarzbier + a few mojitos and the occasional cider/glass of wine. Spelling may be a bit incorrect on some of those, was hastily making notes in my phone at times.

Feel like a fat oaf after my holidays. Can't wait to have a few days of normality. I've done a fair bit of walking, but consumed SO much beer and random foods. The scales said this morning that I'm several pounds up, but I was probably dehydrated at the time so that's not the best indicator really. Following on from JawD's post, I also returned to a letter from the doctors asking me to make an appointment to discuss blood test results. It says it's routine, non-urgent, but the earliest I can get in is next Friday so it's a bit of a wait to find out what the deal is. I'm not too concerned though, the blood tests were to find out any underlying causes of my Raynaud's so anything that may give an "answer" will be interesting to hear.

Yeah that treadmill scene was painful to watch. The latest series is a bit shit, but I'm sticking with it a bit like you would a dying relative.