McLaren Watch!

Whoop whoop - the return of F1 after the break finds a resurgent McLaren and victory for Lewis Hamilton ahead of Mark Webber at the Belgian GP.

An excellent start for Lewis and a shocking one for Mark saw Lewis take the lead and apart from a little foray, he stayed out of trouble to the flag.

Sebastian Vettel is becoming countryman Michael Schumacher ... at his worst, being responsible for booting various other drivers off track, including our very own Jenson *boo hiss* I wonder if he'll be penalised for it next week, I'm pretty sure the 'new' drivers would be.

So it's a return to the top of the leaderboard for Lewis: he's on 182; Mark 179; Sebastian 151; Jenson 147; Fernando on 141. McLaren are now just 1 point behind Red Bull in the Constructors' Championship.

Your Age in Chocolate!

It works, honestly, it really works!

Work this out as you read ...Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1760 ...If you haven't, add 1759.

6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born. You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).

The next two numbers are ... YOUR AGE! This is the only year (2010) it will ever work, so tell your friends while it lasts!

European Swimming Championships

Great Britain's swimmers returned from Hungary with their best ever medal haul from these championships - 18 in total!

There were 6 Golds:
Hannah Miley, 400m IM
Lizzie Simmonds, 200m backstroke
Fran Halsall, 100m freestyle
Gemma Spofforth, 100m backstroke
Rebecca Adlington, 400m freestyle
Womens 4x1 medley relay

6 Silvers:
Womens 4x100m freestyle relay
Gemma Spofforth, 200m backstroke
Lizzie Simmonds, 100m backstroke
Liam Tancock, 50m backstroke
Fran Halsall, 100m butterfly
Kate Haywood, 50m breaststroke

and 6 Bronze:
Liam Tancock, 100m backstroke
Womens 4x200m freestyle relay
Ellen Gandy, 200m butterfly
Fran Halsall, 50m freestyle
Joe Roebuck, 200m IM
Hannah Miley, 200m IM

For the day by day countdown and quotes, check out the BBC website here.

Sportsnight

Andy Murray followed his victory over Rafa Nadal to retain his Rogers Cup title in Toronto - with a win over Roger Federer.

A Gold and two Silvers in the World Field Archery championships, as Alan Wills headed a GB one-two in the recurve. And our paralympian archers have won 10 medals, including four golds at the Para-archery European championships in France.

In Equestrian, Emily Parker was a double champion, winning the individual title as well as GB taking the team title at the Young Rider European Championships. And there was a third place finish for Team GB in the Nations Cup series.

Celebrating Team GB's best European Athletics Championships ever!

The heady days of Split in 1990 have been eclipsed, with Team GB bringing home 19 medals from Barcelona and finishing third in the medal table, behind Russia and France.

Although we won 9 golds back in Spilt, the overall total is encouraging as we head towards London 2012, especially as some of our key athletes are currently sidelined by injury.

The six gold medallists are: Mo Farah (5,000m and 10,000m double); Phillips Idowu (Triple Jump); Andy Turner (110m hurdles); Jessica Ennis (Heptathlon); Dai Greene (400m hurdles);

There were silvers for: Chris Thompson (10,000m); Mark Lewis-Francis (100m); Michael Bingham (400m); Christian Malcolm (200m); Rhys Williams (40m hurdles); Michael Rimmer (800m); Mens 4x400m;

And bronze medals to: Martyn Bernard (High Jump); Martyn Rooney (400m); Perri Shakes-Drayton (400m hurdles); Jenny Meadows (800m); Womens 4x400m; Chris Tomlinson (Long Jump)

And here's what they said afterwards!

A day well spent ...

Hubby received a Red Letter Day gift and, as is usually the case, it ended up costing us a small fortune!

An Indian Cookery demonstration awaited us at the Zaika restaurant in London’s Kensington High Street and naturally, we didn’t want to travel up during the rush hour for the 10am start time. A bit of searching on-line found us a great deal at the Ashburn Hotel though, which was lovely and also well located, so we could leisurely make our way up town the night before.

Knowing we’d be eating a four course Indian the next day, we settled for a light bite *coughs* at the Garfunkels along the road (there’s a blast from the past!) That's just the starter ...

... oh, well, we did enjoy it! We walked a bit of it off on our way to Zaika the next morning, including a short stroll through Kensington Palace Gardens – an unexpected pleasure, right opposite the restaurant.

Chef Sanjay Dwivedi is so passionate about food – I had the grace to avert my eyes when he ranted about Microwaveable packets of rice – and every morsel he dished up to us was perfect! I’m just waiting to print off the recipe cards now, so hubby can crack on with dinner ...

McLaren Watch

It's all change at the top, unfortunately. Lewis looked set to gain another podium when transmission problems hit and with Jenson back down the field, the race belonged again to Mark Webber.

It should have belonged to Sebastian Vettel - and he didn't half get the hump when it all went pear-shaped following the safety car! Shades of another racing driver's arrogance creeping into him and Oh! talking of the other racing driver, Old Schuey nearly killed Rubens Barrichello because he didn't like being overtaken! *Tuts* Shades of Australia '94 there, methinks! Only no title up for grabs this time!

Mark Webber is now on 161; Lewis on 157; Sebastian on 151; Jenson on 147; Fernando on 141.Here's a rundown of the race, including the errant tyre!

Constructors wise, Red Bull take over on 312, McLaren on 304. They're off now for a month, let's hope McLaren come back re-charged!

McLaren Watch

A low key race for Lewis and Jenson, as they again pulled in a bunch of points in 4th and 5th places respectively. However, a resurgent Ferrari bagged a controversial one-two, taking points from Red Bull, as Vettel and Webber finished in 3rd and 6th.

Talking point was the alleged Ferrari team orders (again!) as Massa's race engineer advised him that 'Fernando is faster than you' and 'can you confirm you understood that message?' followed by 'Sorry' as Massa then slowed to allow his team mate through. None of which I remotely give a flying er, fig for, but it did give us the chance to see the lovely Rob Smedley again ...

The standings then:
Lewis on 157; Jenson 143; Mark 136; Sebastian 136; Felippe Massa jumps up to 123 in 5th. McLaren are still ahead in the constructors though, on 300 to Red Bull's 272, with Ferrari on 208.

Why do all my nights out happen in the last week of the month?

I'm cruising along quite happily, bang up straight on everything and then, wham! Piles of paperwork and ironing to sort through today!

That's because I finally saw Les Miserables on Monday - which I've wanted to see since I first heard Susan Boyle sing I Dreamed A Dream on Britain's Got Talent (I wonder how many other viewers were inspired to check it out?) I did see the Through The Barricade show in a local theatre a little while after, but Cameron Mackintosh's production at The Queens Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue took my breath away. Jean Valjean and Javert were incredible, whilst Lucie Jones (remember her from X-Factor?) and Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers acquitted themselves very well. It's so moving and powerful and while you may think the subject matter a little depressing, the comic relief in the shape of the Innkeepers is brilliant - honestly, the wife could easily be Kathy Burke in character as Waynetta Slob, she was hysterical. GO SEE IT!

Not just nights out either, on Tuesday morning I was attending the How To Do Your Self Assessment On-Line course (I never said it was all exciting stuff) before enjoying a very nice Nibble.101 at a local Chinese buffet - and collaring the teenager to take me there and back (which obviously cost me petrol. But it was nice to have some Tia Maria, I've missed it so ...)

The MumUltrapreneur radio show I was interviewed for was aired on Thursday afternoon and then it was onto the girls-night-in-although-we're-actually-out fun night of the Mums in Biz meeting in the evening. A couple of exciting opportunities arose there, which I'll be exploring further!

Finally, last night was the preview of an exhibition in our local art gallery - local artists creating pictures of each other, which took so many forms it was completely inspiring! Plasticine, film, paint, spam ... yes, spam!

I feel like I'm beginning to catch up - two blogs down, website and one blog to go!

McLaren Watch

And what an eventful first lap for the British Grand Prix! Mark Webber aced the start; Vettel and Hamilton lightly touched, but it was enough to send Vettel off the track after suffering a puncture, effectively putting him into last place. The safety car gave him the opportunity to close up though, and he rescued a 7th place finish.

Lewis held onto second throughout, unable to catch a seriously motivated Mark Webber (after Red Bull pinched the nose cone from his car on Saturday to replace Vettel's damaged one). He ended the race with a "Not bad for your number 2 driver" barb at the the team, live on the team radio - don't you just love the Aussies!

Meanwhile, from a dreadful 14th position on the grid, Jenson stayed out of trouble and cruised around and up to a fourth place finish, a charge for third hampered by having to conserve fuel. What a guy! It leaves the standings as follows:

Lewis on 145 points
Jenson on 133
Mark on 128
Seb on 121

Teamwise, McLaren maintain their lead over Red Bull, 278 points to 249 points.