Fore!

Last week my dresser arrived.

second hand from a local charity shop, a real find

Ain't it fab?  Well I think so anyhoo.  It fits just where I wanted it to, is a bit knacked pine and (I think) makes the room cosier.  The things on it, however, are there just to fill gaps - it is not in its finished full-of-my-crap state yet. 

Love you.

This week Oliver started his golf academy course.  He is really enjoying it, and I am really enjoying his joy.  We 'invested' in a second hand set of junior clubs for him this two week stint and he goes off kitted out with a Slazenger jumper, polo shirt and proper trousers every day.  Dressing up as a golfer suits him ha ha.  He has a nice little golf swing and could be quite good at it with some application methinks, but unfortunately he has seems to share both mine and Mark's antipathy towards the length of time playing a round of golf takes (hours and hours) and his concentration wanders.  This week is short sessions focusing on skills (putting, chipping etc blah blah) and next week is a series of 4 hour stints out on the course.  Blimey.  Hope he gets on OK.  I have no photos to share of the golf progress,  as the suggestion of coming down to take a pic was met with total horror and rejection.  Pah.

These shorter sessions this week are particularly lovely for me (yes, it's all about me again) as I get to sit in the clubhouse drinking latte and feel very middle class.  Ha ha.  I also sit my arse in front of the big screen, soak up the Olympics and continue work on this:

Happy days.

BTW, I think these Olympics have been brilliant for the morale and sense of 'belonging' in this country.  I was listening to someones opinion yesterday on how so many sports should not be included in the Olympics because they just 'shouldn't', apparently, and I listened politely.  (it was my uncle spouting forth whilst in my parents home, so it would have been rude to tell him not to be such a twat, although I was sorely tempted) Musing on this I have decided that I think, actually,  it's bloody brilliant to include as many sports and games as possible, as this is now the biggest sporting spectacle in the world and much anticipated when it rolls around every four years.  To win an Olympic gold is the dream of millions, and should be nurtured, not derided.   True, BMX and handball seem a little odd now, and tennis and football still both seem a little out of place at the moment, but to put yourself out there against the rest of the world and come out on top must feel wonderful, and should be thus applauded and admired.  Some puritans also bang on about the fact that the 'original' Olympic events were athletic-based and therefore feel that track and field are the only 'real' Olympic sports of worth.  As I understand it, the original Olympic games featured no women and clothes were not worn.  Some things just need to move with the times......

At the weekend, for the first time in a long time, I made jam.  I forgot how easy and bloody lovely it is.  The strawberries were given to me, and the redcurrants were from the Salvation Army hall next to the quaint musuem in MQ#3.  This has encouraged the making of hot toast and real lovely butter to go with the spiffing jam, so not sure how much of a good thing it will prove to be for my still-hanging-in-there at 9lbs lighter waistline.

On today's agenda is golf, library, haircut, butchers, doctors, swimming, and supermarket.  In that order.  Somewhere in there I have to make time to do the usual household drudgeries (dishes and washing) and eat. 

MQ#3 Exmouth

A big success this one.  I was expecting far less from Oliver this time and it paid off big time.  This is a small museum and pretty much what I expected in terms of content, but he loved it.  When Mark asked him what he thought of it later on in the evening, the answer 'it was brilliant, the best one yet', which took Mark aback somewhat.  It is small, charming and staffed with very enthusiastic volunteers.  There are things to engage youngsters such as find the cats:

cup and ball

back to school (ha ha)

a change from the computer

and things of interest:

Oliver asked for his notebook and voluntarily went off to do this:

which is this:

It might not seem much, but it is a lot for him, and his smiling face and 'I really enjoyed that' on the way out has lifted me enormously.  Ahhh, home ed.  When it works.  It so works.

meanderings

Well, I found that a bit of a let down in the end, sorry.  I know that the youngsters chosen to light the Olympic cauldron were representative of encouraging youth through sport blah di blah, but I wanted more of a dramatic choice.  I had built this up in my mind so much that no-one less than the Pope would have done in the end, I think.  Anyhoo, the games progress in a state of steady Olympic spirit and the uncanny ability of the British to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory wherever possible.


Off of the soap box now, and into Housewife World.  I wonder if that is a chain store in America?  It should be. The weekend saw me a-cooking muffins - 28 in all, in my apron, humming away to radio 2.  Happy days.  Really, it doesn't take much to make me content.  I have frozen said muffins, and  every night I take a couple out to defrost for the morning. Thus I find I can enjoy that well-done-me feeling on a daily basis as I pack Mark off to work knowing he will have a home baked fresh muffin with his coffee.  Like I say, it doesn't take much.

I have started a new project:

Quite simply a scarf, in the Baby Rico leftover from my lovely ripple I was doing at Christmas.

This scarf will be edged in black, I think, and nice and long to do at least two laps of my neck comfortably.  A la Dr Who.  Last week, on a hot but breezy day, too windy for the parasol, I set myself up in the shade around the corner, on a lounger, cup of tea to hand and carried on with this:

It was a bloody lovely way to spend an hour.  Yup, it really doesn't take much....

Scrapbooking was really good on Saturday.  I haven't got decent enough pics to share yet, so I will post them when I can get a good shot in a good light.  Or at least a not-bad one.

I have harvested a few courgettes from the garden so far, but found (due to inexperience) that I planted too many in the bed, and had to pull a few up.  Since then, they have done better and somehow I missed the big bugger there for days on end!  And, joy of joys, these are my first runners of the year.  These haven't done as well as previous years, and I am going to put that down to the rain.  So there.  We have had a snotty letter from the allotment manager about 'non-cultivation' of our plot so I have to get down there pretty sharpish and do a spot of 'cultivating'.  Since some people have rusty ploughs and eight feet tall weeds on their plots, I do feel a tad singled out for criticism.

Ooh, ooh, and yesterday I bought a welsh dresser for the kitchen.  Yay!  I have wanted one for a while - it is the epitome (for me) of a homey kitchen, and I found it in a local charity shop.  It is three door pine and is very 'homey' indeed.  Next I'm getting an Aga and a matching spaniel.  Text book life.  Haaaaa haaaaa.

I am taking Oliver off to do MQ#3 today.  Stand back, don tin helmet, adopt brace position......

For crying out loud....

We are mid-opening cermony on the TV.  Unbelievably (and very happily) Mark was as keen to watch it as I was.  It has been really good so far I reckon, but now the athletes are trooping in and Jaysus Mary Joseph, 'tis hugely dull.  Made more dull by the fact that it is in alphabetical traipsing order and they are only on 'B'. 

Yawn.

Oliver has given up and gone to bed with digital TV wired up for tonight so he can fall into an exhausted sleep when it all gets too much.  Oh how I envy him.

I have to stick it out as I desperately want to know who is will be lighting the flame. 

I was very moved by the rendition of 'Jerusalem' at the beginning.  sniff.

I've been up for hours...

This morning at 6.10am I was up and at 'em.  I went swimming at a local outdoor pool.  Yes, that was me, that was, thrashing out lengths before the sun had risen.  Well, it was up, but not out this morning.  Not sure if this is something I want to commit to on a regular basis, but I do feel as if I have had a little adventure all of my own already today.  Now I have officially finished (for now anyhow) my RC classes (final weight loss 9lb) I don't want to let my regular exercising drop, as I am starting to see a little of the shape emerging that I had many moons ago and I feel better about myself.    Apparently inactivity is now recognised as killing as many people in the UK as tobacco-related deaths.  Blimey. 

On that cheerful note, here is a luverly cake I made the other day from this recipe:

It is very moist, was very easy to do, but if you use spelt flour (as I did) I think a little milk chucked in at the end would not go amiss. 

I have managed a couple of lunches al fresco this week:

Believe it or not, I don't even really like Diet Coke all that much, despite the frequent appearances on my table. 

I picked up Fay Ripley's book Family Food at the library and found it to be very good, actually.  She touts quite simple do-able meals.  Last night we had this:

Btw, the food in the bowl is not the food in the book - this was lunch.  (spot the ubiquitous can of Diet Coke? haaaa haaaaaaaaaaa)
The food in the book turned out to be v.simple and v.tasty.  There is a 'hearty soup' in there too, which I have my eye on, but I have to get it past Mark and Oliver under a different guise, as the last hearty soup I rustled up closely resembled wallpaper paste and they have never let me forget it.  Bloody pearl barley, that's what I say. 

This very prettily wrapped parcel arrived in the post for me yesterday:

It was.....

This!

How fantastic is that?!  The apron, obvs,  not the pseudo-chef with the manic grin who is wearing it.  I have wanted an apron for a long time - I have just not wanted to splash out for a wipe-clean pvc one, nor an overpriced twee one.  But this one, THIS one - is unique, is made from stunning fabric, is exactly the design I wanted and is all mine.  It has pockets, buttons and everything, which you can see better in this blog post link,  and, best of all, it was made for me as a gift, and to have something made for me is rare, and therefore very special.  So thank you, thank you Mrs TT, you are a gifted lady and very kindhearted. 

Popped out to Killerton in the week on a hot day, for a picnic lunch. 

And I drank ginger beer that day, so there.

So, who's your money on for lighting the Olympic flame?  David Beckham or Seb Coe seem likely, although I would so love it to be someone completely different.  Prince William would be very popular (though a Royal is unprecedented).  I hope they don't choose some complete numpty.  (ie, someone I don't approve of ha ha).

Tonight is the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  After years of spouting about how we must go and see the games for Oliver's sake - this is the only time they will be in our country in his lifetime blah di blah, we are, in fact, going to see nothing.  Nada, zip, zilch.  And it all boils down to - not being arsed.  Ne'er mind.

Anyhow, what I find interesting is the speculation surrounding this particular opening ceremony, and the mutterings about how we are going to 'top Beijing'.  Well, newsflash - we can't, and won't in the wow stakes. However,  I am going to stick my neck out here and say that I think our opening ceremony will be unique, and indicative of the 'Britishness' which makes us so proud of the value of being British.  And that, my friends, would be job done.

self indulgent waffle

At last, some al fresco dining:

Lunch yesterday. (curried beef mince and naan).  Nice.

Some new pretties for my scrapbooking on Saturday:

Still not sure about this:

Carry on regardless.

Tonight I am going along for my last Rosemary Conley class.  (Still can't remember whether I had blogged about joining that or not?)  I joined just after the army exercise class debacle.  This is my eighth week, and I have lost 8lbs.  You can't really see it, and I can barely feel the difference, apart from feeling a bit better and a bit trimmer.  I can't face keeping this up for lengthy periods though, as a) to lose any more weight would be bloody hard and I KNOW I wouldn't keep it off - I already have increased my exercise, cut down the wine and cut the pigging and b) I find calorie counting very at-odds with eating 'good food' and I get resentful.   There is a lot of focus within the dieting community on low calorie foods, and many of these are full of bad stuff.  I find myself reading the articles about people who have lost 5 stone or more, and their 'before and after' styles of eating make me want to cry.  If I had to face life with a handful of rasisins for a mid-morning snack and a chicken salad for tea for ever more, well.  Think I'd take up marathon running to give myself a bit of leeway. 

I like a pizza now and then, I like to have a homebaked muffin with a coffee on the odd morning when I have them around.  I like to cook hearty foods without having to compile a long list of calories and fats beforehand.  This said, I also do like to cook sometimes without the addition of fat and find it tastes nice (curried beef mince) and I also do get a bit of a kick out of saying 'no thanks' to the offer of biscuits and sweets, because I know really don't need them. 

Dilemmas, dilemmas.  It's all about moderation.  Life in moderation.  

This is a bit of a blither about the work, life and times of me, me, me, so feel free to skim or skip.

On a couple of evenings a week I work at the local hospital as a ward support clerk.  This mostly entails trundling around the wards throughout the evening checking that the patients they have listed on their white boards match the patients recorded on the computer system as being there.  (ha!)  If they don't it's a case of either admitting or discharging people as necessary.  The real skill in the job lies in getting one of the nursing staff to commit to a better answer than 'er, um, if they're not on the board then they must have gone home', or, my personal favourite, 'yeah, she went to Budleigh, or Exmouth, or somewhere like that', which is what I got the other night.  This is, of course, assuming there is a nurse, any nurse, available for comment.  More often than not, it's like bloody Tumbleweed Town and I am left leafing aimlessly through piles of notes trying to match people to paperwork.  Maintaining accurate patient movements under these circumstances makes the job a little frustrating and I often end up in a filthy rage, cussing and a-swearing back in our little office. 

This was pretty much the case last night, when I was working alongside (there are two of us on any one evening) a woman I call Polly Pineapple.  She is, exactly as you would imagine her to be with this name.  Bubbly, positive, sweet, nice.  That aside, I call her PP because she eats fresh pineapple on a daily basis, and has done, apparently for many, many years.  We often have the pineapple debate of an evening when I challenge the availability of fresh pineapple and she is adamant (and I believe her), that she 'just always has fresh pineapple'.  She obviously knows a secret or two because she has just had her 50th birthday, and boy, she looks good.  As fresh as a pineapple. 

Last night she popped out of the office across to the kitchen (presumably on the hunt for fresh pineapple) and by the time she came back,  I had taken a phone call and was in a temper.  'Blimey' she laughed, 'I only went over there for two seconds, what happened?!'  I explained to her that in my world, things can tilt from good to bad and vice versa very suddenly and she remarked  'well, it must be on a dodgy axis or something then' to which I threw my head back and cackled out loud.  Oh yes.  Life on a dodgy axis indeed.

Give us this day our daily bread

Having scared myself witless reading this lately, I picked up some spelt flour at Sainsburys today with the good intentions of making wholesome food with which to feed my menfolk. 

If you have no knowledge of this book, it is basically about giving up wheat.  Last autumn, Mark went wheat free and dairy free for a few months.  I tried wheat free for a while, and it would be fair to say that we both felt 'better' and lost a bit of weight.  A pain though, as an incredible amount of foodstuffs contain wheat.  'The book' says that the main cause of any food intolerance is overconsumption.  Certainly in Mark's case, having gone veggie around 14 years ago, his diet has centred on meals around meat-free processed foods and they all contain wheat.  Of course they do, it's a filler ingredient, a bulker-outer.  Apparently there is more of a problem with food intolerances in the US with peanuts and corn because of the same theory - overconsumption.  In addition to this, the wheat we use today bears little resemblance to the wheat used by our forbears, the healthy wheatgerm 'bit' is discarded from it and as the kernel is so small it absorbs much of the pesticides and nasties we use for crop control.  As the body recognises these nasties as toxins, the liver tries to cope with them, and when it cannot, it stores them in fat cells where they sit.  Forever.  Being evil, and fat.  I shall never look at a loaf of Hovis in the same light. 

I was also inspired by this post over on the Quince Tree blog, (see blog feed on the right) which is such an unfussy and sensible approach to food.  I have been massively put off of making bread in the past because a) I am quite lazy and b) I am crap at it.  It's the kneading, you see.  It's hard.  I puff, I pant, I sweat and then I get cross and then I think '**** it, that'll do', and it never does.  Bread making machines?  Don't even go there.  I used my bread maker to make jam in, and it was bloody brilliant at that.  Shame it was so rubbish at the job for which it was created....

Sooooo, freshly buoyed up with enthusiasm, I managed to produce these results:

Not too shabby, but I think maybe it would have done better with more than two and a half minutes kneading.  Still, at least I haven't contributed further to the load of toxins making merry in our livers already.

He liked it.

That's alright then.  My poor boy is already having to eat and drink enough chemical-filled products because of the diabetes.  If he needs it - I'll knead it.