Machi de Waard

YAWN. At first I thought, gah, it's hard to get up today, but then I realised that the hour change is what makes me feel still sleepy. Ah well, it'll wear off. Yesterday I jogged (think extremely slow running) 4.5 miles and man was it difficult. I just felt like a tortoise, just plodding along. sigh. I fear this 10k is going to be humiliating, with people whizzing past me. Well, I still have a week and a half left for practice.
So another little interesting tidbit I learned at the Google info day was the three busiest online shopping days of the year (in 2007). I thought it was interesting to know, in terms of having stock prepared and website in order. The online shopping trends, apparently, are more than ever mimicking the troughs and peaks of the offline shopping world. So it's normalising to some extent, becoming mainstream. Anyway, the top three busiest online shopping days were, in order:
1. 26 December (aka Boxing Day)
2. 10 December
3. 25 December (Christmas, obviously)

Another interesting thing I learned was about water filtering. Oh yes, water filtering. No, Google doesn't filter water as well.....this was just a woman I met on the day. She and her husband have set up a business selling Japanese bamboo charcoal, which is a natural water filter. It's a completely eco business. They have researched all aspects of the environmental impact of the charcoal and it's much, much better than Britta filters with all their plastic and so forth. Anyway, I thought it was quite fascinating and a very good alternative to Britta filters. I read the instructions on their website and it's a bit of a nuisance because you have to boil the charcoal every so often so it stays clean. But it's so much more natural and when you're done with the charcoal you just put it in the garden. Anyway....you can read all about it on their website, which is www.charcoalpeople.co.uk