Category: dEAr diary

a chat about my day

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dear diary ~ well-being gets underway

No photos today as yesterday we had a trip up to see my mum – she lives in North Yorkshire 90 miles away and a day visit is rather exhausting and a bit hard on my back. She looks increasingly frail everytime we see her now but she seems more content in herself and has finally accepted she can do very little though she still talks about ‘when she gets better’ she will take us to x, y and z.

Its sad isn’t it as in reality she will never get any better. Which again leads me to think deeply about our own health and how to live the longest life and avoid chronic illness and mobility issues.

When I had thyroid cancer in 2008 I did a lot of research at that time to find anything helpful to recover my health. I say had cancer but the truth is I live everyday not knowing if I have any remaining rougue thyroid cells in my body – after two lots of radio active iodine treatment (not to be recommended as you become radioactive yourself!) there should be none but if there are there is no way for the doctors to know if they are cancerous unless they begin to grow and it can be picked up on the blood tests. With thyroid cancer patients the dose of medication (Levothyroxine) is always kept slightly higher than need be so that any lurking cancer is supressed.

At the time I came across a list termed The Heirarchy of Healing – a list of actions you can take that will improve any health condition starting at the top with the one that will have the most effect – although I saved the list I no longer have the link of where I found it.

Surprisingly, it is not food or exercise that is at the top of the heirarchy list but Meditation, Visualisation, Relaxation, Releasing emotions and of course Sleep that preceed these. I remember my own oncologist was a big supporter of this and would refer us on to a lady that did a meditation class every month for cancer patients.

Breathing correctly and deeply is part of this process.

One of the suggestions by many of the experts involved in healthcare that I have been listening to is practising some simple breathwork and one in particular I began whilst at the cottage (with all the new neighbour problems up there I needed a few relaxation techniques to control my blood pressure!).

The 4,7,8 breathing was developed by Dr Andrew Weil. For anyone interested in this technique just Google it or this is the link to his video https://www.drweil.com/videos-features/videos/breathing-exercises-4-7-8-breath/

It is a simple technique, that only takes a few minutes, to be done twice a day (more if you are feeling quite stressed). I do it first thing in the morning and last thing at night and again mid afternoon. It does as it says on the tin – it calms the mind especially at night before sleep.

This is the logic behind it – ‘The sympathetic nervous system controls your body’s stress response. The parasympathetic nervous system controls your body’s rest and relaxation response. When you activate one of these, you suppress the other. This is why deep breathing is so effective at causing the relaxation response’.  Also ‘when you breathe through the nose a molecule called nitric oxide, is produced. Nitric oxide is a very important participant in the body’s defence against oxidative stress (free radicals). In addition it helps opens the airways so you get a higher concentration of oxygen into the tissues and the brain.

I have been practising this technique now for over three weeks and I can’t recommend it enough and is well worth having a go – it can be done anywhere even whilst making a cup of tea.

But has it made a difference to me?

Recently with all the anxiety I feel over our new ‘cottage’ neighbour, my mum’s declining health and the impending birth of our 4th grandchild (it has not been an easy pregnancy) I have gone to bed and been aware of a pounding heartbeat in my ears when I lay my head on the pillow. Those unwanted thoughts come crashing in to my mind as I am trying to go to sleep – doing the breathing technique for a few cycles eventually calms everything down again and surprisingly, I have gone on to sleep quite well.

In fact it has been a gradual realisation that over the last couple of weeks I have noticed I have slept better and have had many more nights where I have slept through the night uninterupted which is a big plus for me. Of course that might be from being thoroughly exhausted since arriving home and looking after Master Freddie, doing a lot more gardening than I should and the trip to see mum but I have frequently had exhausting situations before and gone to bed feeling really tired yet my sleep has been irratic and interupted and I have often laid awake for ages with unwanted thoughts whirling around.

So I would say this is one benefit I will be continuing with and I will see if my sleep patterns continue to improve.

So today is recovery day – there is washing to do, seeds to water and soup to make. It is now more than a week since we went shopping (we went on 3rd May) but I think with a bit of creativity I can stretch it further although I have a feeling come the weekend we might need some fresh food and there is no way I would want to shop on a Saturday or Sunday – if at all possible I will aim for next Monday and just pick up some milk and whatever fresh veg we need from the local village Co-op.

Have a good day everyone.

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dear diary ~ pantry, preparations and pottering

The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse again and it has reverted back to cold, wet and windy. The garden doesn’t seem to know if it is coming or going and it will delay any chance of putting some bedding plants in.

Yesterday as we walked back from the dentist to the car we went past the Range and I couldn’t help but notice the bedding plants on sale outside were in a very poor state and some barely alive. It was the same on Wednesday in Sainsbury’s…. rack after rack in a sorry state – why are these places buying in plants just to let them dry out and die on the display trolleys? We will be paying for this loss of profits on our groceries or other products no doubt but how sad to have paid someone to set the seeds and tend the plants then transport them at huge costs (I am thinking C02 emmissions here) and then through lack of attention and watering let them shrivel and die.

I did go outside in the afternoon to start on sowing the seeds but somehow got diverted (story of my life) and ended up moving some pots around and clearing up the corner by the viburnum to create a more pleasing arrangement as DH says. We had missed the brown bin collection for the garden waste whilst we were away and it is full to the brim (and so is our compost bin) so DH took the additional 5 bags of garden waste I had generated from prunings and weeding down to the local tip and dropped in our four postal voting forms at the polling station as it was too late to post them when we got home. Later he helped me put the bunting up across the open porch that runs along the front of the garage and front door and together with my 2 small flags this will be my contribution to the pageantry tomorrow.

Today we should have had the pleasure of little Freddie but it has been decided that Saturday would be a better day for mum and dad to have some time for themselves. We are all feeling the mix of anxiety and excitement now as the due date for the new baby is only a couple of weeks away. Of course Freddie has no real understanding of what is about to happen and I hope that whether a little baby brother or sister he will be just as excited when they arrive.

So I have made alternative plans for today and will concentrate on catching up with the ironing and some paperwork. I have also to contact a few friends and arrange a day and time for meeting up with each of them.

This morning I busied myself pottering in the pantry again – refilling jars and containers and generally tidying up and wiping down the shelves and worktop. There is nothing to organise or reorganise much in here as everything has a place and is just where I want it and this way – even DH can find his way round or put the shopping away.

It is the smallest room in the house but the most important – the phrase ‘my heart sings‘ everytime I go in here is quite relevant to how I feel when I have a well stocked pantry and especially one full of bargains.

All the dry ingredients are in air tight jars and I stick the best before date underneath the lid to remind me of when an item needs to be used by. Most dry goods are OK even if they exceed this but can often result in a stale taste.

We have a couple of shelves of the usual standbys – tins and jars and packets – baked beans, mushroom soup in case we don’t get to make our own, prunes in case I run out of fresh fruit for breakfast and evap milk and ready made custard just in case we have an unexpected pudding!

And of course a few little treats…

I wonder who the Jelly Tots are waiting for? – I shall need to remove these from sight before little Freddie’s arrival – one or two at a time his mum won’t mind but not a whole tube.

I find it quite funny that all my grandchildren love to go in my pantry; it fascinates them like going into a toy shop and quite often it is just to have a look rather than to find anything to eat. They love to see all the jars lined up like in an old fashioned sweet shop. I expect most houses these days, like theirs, don’t have a walk in pantry – I grew up in houses with a pantry (when my dad built their last house it was the main thing my mum wanted).

One of my grannies had a large understairs cupboard in the kitchen, with no window in there it was rather dark and a bit foreboding to me as a little girl. The other granny used the cellar head of their terraced house and it was where grandad attempted his only DIY of a lifetime and put up a shelf for her – it sloped so much all the tins and jars would slide down to one end causing the fixing to give way – but ever resourceful grandad propped it back up with the broom handle. And there it remained for as long as I could remember. Eventually the weight caused it to drop off the wall altogether but luckily my dad was there to save the day and stepped in to fix it…..but grandad never attempted any other jobs again and gran wouldn’t have let him!

I thought I would make the quiche base today for Saturday. I am perhaps one of many bloggers making the Coronation Quiche or at least a version of – although I do like spinach I will be substituting the spinach with watercress – only because I have some that will need using and I don’t have any spinach – and for your information…. I love broad beans and they will be going in the quiche! The lard most definitely won’t be though.

I shall bake too – I don’t think it will be fondant fancies….they do look rather pretty but far too sweet for me with all that icing (I often notice how they cover everything in the bakers in Scotland with pink or white icing). Instead I might make a plain sponge tray bake and top with a layer of the cherry curd I bought in Booths sprinkled with coconut and cut into dainty squares. I shall make fresh fruit scones too and maybe indulge in a trifle.

The house feels like it needs a good clean again but it will only get a quick flick around with the duster and when DH is out of ear shot I will get the hoover going. Ever since I met him and that is well over 40 years ago he has always had an aversion to the sound of the hoover (well who hasn’t? a machine that is used constantly with enough decibels to bring on later life tinnitus – we must be mad, but there is little alternative in the modern world – who would prefer to go outside and beat carpets over the washing line!). So I try to work around this and where possible hoover when he is out or outside – this is increasingly more difficult now we are both at home together more but I know he would be just as considerate towards me. As it is raining today I shall have to entice him into the kitchen and close the door or search out the ear defenders.

Oh….I have just noticed the sun coming out – could the forecast for more rain be wrong again – I might just have to abandon the plans and go in the garden!!

Have a great day x

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dear diary ~ normal life resumed

Most of the packing has been put away now until next time and just the washing remains. Being in the garden most of the time at the cottage means a heap of very dirty gardening clothes but as usual I always start with the bedding and towels so I can get them ironed and repacked ready for our next visit.

Yesterday we went to the supermarket to gather up the groceries for the week and a few extra to cover the bank holiday and hopefully beyond. The increasing prices have become the normality now so I try to stretch the food out as long as I can though I much prefer to do the shopping on the same day if possible but no amount of careful planning can stretch it out to a fortnight as we would run out of fresh fruit and veg. Whilst in town I aslo picked up a length of Coronation bunting to put in the garden. It was hard to find – I tried all the most likely shops (B&M, Wilkos, The Works) to no avail and was on the point of giving up when I discovered The Party Shop in the precinct, but why they are still making bunting in plastic I don’t know, it goes against the grain but I bought it anyway; why couldn’t the manufacturers print it on a cheap cotton that would at least be biodegradable.

Added onto the grocery bill I bought some new insoles for my gardening boots (£4) to make them last a little longer as the soles are wearing quite thin now and really need replacing but new boots would cost me about £35-£40 (I buy yard boots which are actually used for mucking out but are more flexible than wellies). I do find them both comfortable and quite tough – they are waterproof too and fleecy lined so are nice and warm in the winter and they cover my ankles and provide extra support.

My menu plan is still mostly made up of winter meals and I really need to introduce some more summery meals as the weather begins to warms up – but this isn’t the week for that task. I have planned some fairly easy meals for this week as I need to spend time in the garden here at home – we left it two weeks ago just waking up and now everything is shouting for attention – flowers to be staked, pots to be refreshed and a lot of feeding required.

The back garden is starting to look better than the front though there is little colour in the back garden this year as I didn’t get to plant the tubs of tulips. The front garden has all the colour as the tulips I planted for last Spring thankfully came back again this year but other than a bit of weeding and digging out a frosted and very dead Hebe I haven’t done much work on the front as I have changes in mind and this will take time and better weather – I hear from DH (my weather man) that rain is imminent.

I did manage to clean out the greenhouse on Tuesday and before the week is out I need to get those seeds going if I am to have any flowers at all this year. I bought three outdoor bush tomato plants in Scotland (they are always cheaper up there) and before we went away I did get the seed potatoes planted – the ones in the tub are already making an appearance. I never sow the courgettes too early anyway as they need plenty of warmth and the selection of salad vegetables I usually sow straight into the outdoor beds.

But today the worst of all days in my mind – a trip to the dentist this morning. I knew before the check up that there is dental work to be done as I have a broken tooth and I have 3 options to put it right so I have been given a little time to think about it and decide which course of action I want to take. I was uneasy about going as the previous dentist who I knew for a long time and I trusted implicitly retired during the pandemic and I didn’t seem to quite gel with the person I saw last year that had taken over who is slowly switching over to mainly private patients (I am still NHS) but today my appointment was with someone else in the practice as it has expanded and I felt far more at ease with this guy and in fact one of the options is to do nothing at the moment as the broken tooth is not painful or inflamed and he wasn’t suggesting I had to have expensive work done so that must be a good sign.

As it happens our electric Oral B toothbrush has just stopped working – we hadn’t dropped it or anything but it just will not charge or show any signs of life and we have had to resort to the old manual toothbrushes until we research a replacement. Luckily the dentist said I am doing a good job of cleaning my teeth and not having an electric one is not having a detrimental effect but they do not feel as clean to me.

Well better go and get these seeds started. x

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dear diary ~ progress with the preparations

Well I certainly feel much lighter today with my new shorter hair cut but no less tired. I am not sure if it is a tiredness of the body or the mind but I expect it amounts to the same thing in the end.

Before we head off we are trying now to ‘eat the pantry’ and fridge of course, and yesterday we made an omelette to use up the last of the eggs and filled it with an assortment of left over veggies from the night before – sweetcorn, green beans, courgette, button mushrooms and cold potato – it turned out well and we used the last of the watercress and roasted a few baby potatoes to go with it. I tend to use watercress in place of lettuce because it is nutrient dense. Those tiny leaves and stalks contain good amounts of Vitamins A, C, and K and smaller amounts of vitamin E, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and copper as well as antioxidants and phyto-chemicals. So well worth eating some every day. I have been growing the American landcress in recent years which is quick and easy to grow and just as nutritious.

DH made a good quantity of leek and potato soup for the freezer and is making mushroom soup today. I have a tupperware box in my fridge named ‘Soup Collection’ and we put green bits and other odds and ends of veg in it like the thick broccoli or cauliflower stalks and the very green tougher ends of leeks etc to use up in soups. The red peppers and onions left in the pantry will travel OK as will the grapefruit and oranges and I can eat the two bananas before we go.

There are towels and tea towels left to wash now and dry but they are not ones I will be packing so if they are not dry in time it won’t exactly matter too much. So far today the weather is dry enough to put them out on the line with the duvet cover and sheets. I like to change the bedding before we go away so that we come home to a freshly made bed.

I have been busy planning meals for when we are in the caravan and making a list of things we need to add on to our general packing list. I have a little more paperwork to complete before we go and cards to write and then I can concentrate on the packing.

Fingers crossed it will stay fine enough to get the seed potatoes planted later this afternoon. This wet, cold miserable weather has gone on long enough now and has prevented us from doing much at all in the garden since last week. There are tulips in the borders waiting in the wings ready to burst out into flower once the sun appears and no doubt this will happen as soon as we leave and I will miss the best of them!

I have plants in pots that I want to take up to Scotland with me – a lot of self seeded aquilegia and fennel and I will need to put them somewhere sheltered overnight so they dry off a bit before they go in the car.

One of the lovely things that happened that I forgot to mention was the grandchildren did a surprise indoor Easter Egg hunt for me and DH before they went home. How sweet was that – they left little clues on Post it notes around the house that said things like ‘this way‘ and ‘up here’ for us to find the hidden eggs. We had to pretend they were hard to find and they got so excited when we discovered one. Sweetie, who is only four, could hardly contain herself and once or twice blurted out where an egg was hidden when we got close!

Yesterday I spent a bit of time packing away the Easter decorations – I didn’t have many but similar to the after Christmas period the house suddenly looks rather bare. I washed my windows and all the lovely Easter drawings the children did are now gone so I am pleased I remembered to take a photo. I will probably repeat this activity at Halloween and Christmas if they stay here – it keeps them busy and occupied for a while. I will keep the lovely cards up though for a while longer and then I will probably use them to make recycled ones for next year.

On my last trip to the village I called in at our local, but very poor library and managed to find a book or two to take away with me – probably won’t be taking Peppa Pig – the children enjoyed it (and secretley so did I) but I will skip packing it.

The watercolour book is very informational with lots of practical tips and illustrations and the aim is to try and improve my painting skills – same with the photography book although on first glance it looks a bit technical in places for me.

I think this might have been a bit of a rambling post and like my head at the moment all over the place as we now rush to be ready on time to go away.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and once again I apologise to anyone dropping by expecting to see a ScrapHappy Challenge here – there has been very little crafting going on, hopefully next month will be better.