Trials Invitation and a fat cat

The 2012 season has gone well for me so far.  Incredibly I seem to have cocooned myself from the usual sniffly January colds that make the rounds and have gotten through this first month injury free with some good training under my belt.  We did a 5k ergo on Saturday as part of the trials process, and although it was a personal best it is still a way off the senior girls.

I also got an email through last week to say that my performances this season have exempted me from the GB February Trials and given me a direct invitation to the Invitation-Only GB Rowing Team Trials in March, more commonly known within the rowing circles as the Olympic Trials!  This is pretty exciting and I am looking forward to getting out and racing in my lovely new JW Rihoy sponsored single.

Almost two weeks ago now I came home for a couple days to attend the Guernsey Sports Commission's annual awards evening.  It was a brilliant evening, congratulations to all involved and of course the award winners!  As one of the Rising Stars athletes I was asked to take part in a question and answer section on stage, midway through the award presentations.  Despite being fairly used to being interviewed I was really nervous about it.  I usually don't have an audience of a few hundred people!  Luckily the crowd was friendly and Dave Warr who questioned me was very good at putting me at ease.  Still, I'm positive I will not take up a career in public speaking.  Video can be seen here www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tSmgv_I0fw Dan, Sky Cycling Physio, on first, then I come in half way through.

At home my cat Simba continues to be a terror around the house.  He had been stealing food from the neighbours cats by getting into their houses by any means possible; cat flaps, windows, doors.  A neighbour brought him back to us one day, very upset because he had gotten in and eaten 3/4 of her freshly baked victoria sponge cake! He is a big cat anyway but with all the food stealing he had grown very fat.

So, he has now been house bound for a month in an attempt to slim him down.  Yesterday morning I awoke to find this in the kitchen:

In case you can't quite tell, that IS his diet cat food scattered all over the kitchen, not just some funky decorative tiles we have recently laid. Nightmare!