Exploring St Ives

Having only lived in St Ives for just under two years, every now and again I still enjoy a walk around St Ives with friends and family.  It's nice to take in the surroundings of this beautiful place - especially when it stops raining.

We walk along the different beaches and explore the woods and nature reserve, which is only a five minute walk from my home. On a clear day, the view from the Steeple is warming with the countryside on one side and the open sea on the other.

As St Ives reaches January, it becomes very quiet. When walking along the beaches, sometimes you may only come across the occasional dog walker, practically having the entire beach to yourself. I love St Ives in the winter because everywhere seems so peaceful, as if the town is at rest from the busy and hectic summer season. Here are a few pictures that I have taken in the last two weeks on my walks.

Hope you enjoy them! I'd love to hear about the atmosphere in your town or city this January.

A useful calculation...

If you want to start to take control over the amount of food that goes into your body then a great way to start is to have an understanding of how many calories you need on a day to day basis. The amount, which everyone has in their mind, is 2000 calories, however this is an average recommendation. The calculation, that can be used to work out how many calories you need if you are carrying out NO exercise at all during the day, is the following:

        Men:                                                               Women:

        10-17 y/o  = 17.7 x W + 657                             10-17 y/o  = 13.4 x W + 692

        18-29 y/o  = 15.1 x W + 692                             18-29 y/o  = 13.4 x W + 487 

        30+ y/o     =11.5 x W + 873                               30+ y/o    =  8.3 x W + 846    

                                          

                                         W= Body weight in kilograms 

As well as this, if you have a more muscular physique, then you should be adding approximately 100-150 calories extra onto the result, which you have calculated. 

Now having this result in mind, you can understand that if you are carrying out any form of physical activity, this result will need to be increased to replace the energy lost during exercise.

This calculation will give you the amount of calories which is good for you per day and this can then help you take control over your own diet. Once you know the amount of calories needed, you can start to adapt this figure to fit in with your fitness levels and other aims such as weight loss or weight gain.

Let me know your findings!

Morocco

In December, I travelled to Morocco with my family to take a break before the mad rush of Christmas and new year. We travelled up to London the night before catching the flight, the van fully loaded with surfboards, luggage - including half of my sisters wardrobe - and seven of us. After the long drive and restless sleep in the hotel from excitement, it was finally Saturday morning and time to fly to Morocco. Once arriving in Agadir, we faced the challenge of finding the man who was renting a car to us for the week. Whilst doing this, we were hoping that he had not lied on the phone about the car having roof racks, considering we were carrying around six surfboards. Once finding this man, we ventured to the car being approached suddenly by local men, whose jobs consisted of grabbing your luggage to help you to the car - obviously not initially mentioning that this would cost you - but this is a lesson to be learned for future reference if you want to save ten euros. Once seeing that the car did have roof racks, we all relaxed a little more and packed the car up ready to travel to the hotel. The hotel was beautiful and all-inclusive, which was great for our food loving family - and not to mention the open bar. The trip involved surfing at the popular surf spots, which Morocco has to offer such as Anchor Point, Panarama, Devils Rock and Boilers, all names which relate to their appearance. We also explored towns such as Taghazout, as well as visiting souks where we haggled with the stall holders for the best price we could get. The trip went smoothly and here are three highlights and memories of the trip:

• Being caught speeding. Although this may not sound like a highlight, it was a very amusing situation as it involved confusing the police officer as to who was the authorised driver for the rented car. We were told that mum was not allowed to drive as dad's name was on the car papers - this meant that we had to deal with slow and hesitant driving the rest of the holiday - and were sent away with a 300 Dirham (£23) charge. 
• The donuts, which are sold on the beach were a must-have! Some tried to sell them for more than others, but the general price, which we got them down to was ten dirham (76p) and they were the best donuts I ever tasted. 
• Everywhere we went to in Morocco always had animals roaming around. When eating our lunch in a café on the beach one day, there were lots of cats as well as their kittens following them. These kittens were adorable and enjoyed the occasional tip bits from the table. At Anchor Point, when the boys were surfing, three puppies and their mother approached us. These puppies enjoyed a play and a scratch, and their mother seemed to take a liking to us so much that she guarded us for the rest of the morning whilst we were sitting on the rocks. Some may say that these animals shouldn't be touched or trusted, however every one that I came across was friendlier than any animal in the UK.