Tag: Everyday life

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dear diary :: a new dawn, a new day…

As the title above I am reminded of the song lyrics this morning, ‘it’s a new dawn, a new day’…….the bin men are coming so I know the world is slowly returning to normality. A little sad to see everyone’s wheelie bins are out stuffed to the gills and some overflowing – maybe this will change over time as, like many bloggers, we begin to consume less and hopefully packaging becomes more recyclable. With the perils of climate change upon us surely this has to come soon.

There are fewer cars on the drives this morning as neighbours return to work and I feel quite grateful that I have the time to sort out my mess of a house and with the help of my trusty checklist entitled ‘getting back to tidy’ I can bring order back into my life once more, or at least come close to it….. probably the latter.

To help me along I bought one or two cleaning products and as it is very blustery here today I can throw open the windows to bring in some fresh air. I have taken note Sadie of your tip for using Grapefruit essential oil and that is on my list when I next visit our wholefood shop in town – until then I will make do by diffusing some lemon. I can’t wait to get the house smelling clean and fresh and the decorations put away. I have also been able to get the brushed cotton duvet cover and large white bath towels out on the line for a good blow.

My two daughters and the grandchildren will be travelling back from their short holiday in Norfolk today. I shall be glad to see them home safe and sound, like any mum I worry when they are driving about on the roads, everyone is in such a rush these days you take your life in your hands getting from A to B safely. The number of accidents we see now on the A1M when we drive up to North Yorkshire increased dramatically last year and hold ups were a common occurrence.

I thought I would take a few pictures of the lovely Christmas presents I received this year – my friends and family know me so well so everything I received I really love. Sorry for the blue picture quality the light inside is not so good at this time of year.

We are pretty light on presents at our house – as some readers may already know our family take part in a ‘Not so Secret Santa’ so only one gift is bought for each member and this year we reduced the amount down to £25 each rather than the previous £50 to take into account everyone’s changed circumstances. This skin cream by Liz Earle and the handmade glass star was my gift from Santa.

One of my daughters bought an unexpected present for us as a thank you for all the help we gave them to move house just before Christmas – theatre tickets to see the Alan Ayckbourn play Absurd Person Singular. We tried to get to see this before Christmas at the Bingley Little Theatre but could not spare the time, so we are delighted to be going.

DH bought me another subscription year to Country Living and the first issue came with a free china mug designed by Sophie Allport. He also bought me another of the ‘good as gold’ journals from WH Smiths – I use them as my year books filling them with all sorts of notes and cuttings for things I want to save.

I have already started writing and pasting in ideas and notes for January and have found a nice marmalade recipe to do in a few days time.

I had some lovely litle gifts from my friends – a set of white dishes just the right shape to hold an avocado, a handmade glass ornament lovingly wrapped in a piece of stripey cotton fabric and a very large bag of mixed pine cones, fir branches and cinnamon sticks. Wonderful.

One of my other friends always gives us one of those charity donation cards where a donation is made in place of a present. This is also very welcome by me – there must be many people who need the donation more than I need a present.

One or two bloggers have mentioned slow January….I can only hope this is the case. It is rather a hefty month for birthdays here…. six in all at the last count, four family members and two good friends. On the 20th it will be little Freddie’s 1st birthday so that will warrant something a little special, and mum will be 94 the day before. As well as the birthdays we will be hosting our Burns Supper event with our closest friends so we will be going up to Scotland for a few days and bringing back the haggis with us.

I have a cot duvet cover to make and we also need to finish the pantry shelving and do some DIY jobs in my daughter’s new house – coat hooks, curtain poles and renew the shower curtain and bath sealant.

Not looking quite so slow for us then!!

I would however like to think I can snuggle down in January, a little hibernating sounds good to me. Relaxed days by the fire reading or knitting, sketching out plans for shaping the year ahead, browsing through gardening books and maybe, dare I hope, planning that new kitchen or cottage.

And now to other matters – for anyone following along with my health challenge I will be adding this to the bottom of each post.

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Creating health and wellbeing

So what of my health challenge – my first day today – after much reading it is evident that to restore your body to good health it has to start with the mind….the brain is in control of everything, I am told, and to calm the brain so healing can begin the brain waves need to be at certain frequency.

We have 5 different types of brain wave: Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, each one has a normal frequency range in which they operate. It is the Theta waves that are most beneficial due to the deep levels of relaxation they facilitate so the body and mind can easily restore itself during and after illness, as well as after mental burnout and physical exertion.

Sounds like I need lots of these then.

With this in mind then meditation is first on my list to practice each day during January. Attaining deep relaxation without going to sleep is not easy. There are so many books and information on the subject though and it is not difficult to find something that will work for you. It might just be sitting and switching off for a few minutes, for me I am choosing to use a guided meditation tape, which is about 30 minutes long and I will block out some time every day, probably during the afternoon.

Alongside of course we are going to be eating healthier food. We are still in the process of eating through the ‘junk’ foods left from Christmas. I shall give away some Christmas cake to my daughter, hide the chocolate biscuits and limit the cream crackers to a couple a day.

We are starting the healthier meals today with a green soup for lunch made yesterday. Dark greens like spinach have plenty of health benefits – helps bone maintenance, lowers blood pressure, protects against eye disease and reduces cancer risk; cooking them in a soup preserves many of the vitamins and minerals too. You can pack a lot of spinach into a soup – more than you can easily manage on a salad.

We will have the soup with bread today but as we go along this will reduce in favour of adding extra chopped vegetables to the soup and some kind of beans for the protein.

My breakfast is low fat organic yoghurt and blueberries followed by a little no sugar museli with fruit and seeds. The blueberries are particularly good for those antioxidants we need.

I am drinking green tea in the mornings, besides reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease, green tea benefits the whole body, contains catechins, antioxidants and can help reduce abdominal fat. It increases the metabolism so if you sip green tea before a workout, the compounds in it increase fat burn during aerobic exercise.

During the afternoon I will switch to ginger tea for the anti-inflamatory properties and will only drink one cup of ordinary decaffeinated tea with milk after our evening meal.

Tonight’s evening meal will be a broccoli and cauliflower bake with potatoes cut lengthways into thick slices, covered in a little olive oil and rosemary and baked in the oven. We are feeding both daughters and partners and the grandchildren so it is something we can all enjoy.

It goes without saying that I will be reducing any cakes, biscuits, pastries, crackers and crisps as I work through January – this is not meant to be a change in eating habits that becomes far too difficult to maintain rather a slow and gradual transformation that is sustainable for the long term. Failing at the first post by restricting myself too much is not a good idea….phasing out (the bad) and phasing in (the healthier) in a more considered way is my plan and I am sticking to it!

I had intended to take body measurements and weigh myself this morning but in the rush to get my day started I forgot. Will do better tomorrow.

It may be a very short post tomorrow as my daughter and grandchildren will be staying until the car is fixed so my attentions will be elsewhere. xx

PS: this post is completely unedited today so apologies for any spelling, grammar and improper apostrophes! Must get my skates on now and get going.

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dear diary :: the close of the year

I thought I knew what I was doing today but then life happened. DH received a phone call from the garage about our car – they are having difficulty getting a part and it will be Friday before they can do anything. He asked if they had a courtesy car to tide us over, as my little car is away on holiday in Norwich with my daughters until Thursday………. but they didn’t. Then 30 minutes later they rang back and said they had managed to rearrange things and if we could get down to the garage in town straight away they could give us one.

So my original plans for today changed in a few seconds and we had to scramble around to get our things together and walk down to the village for the bus. It was one of those local independant bus companies that set up using the old cast off buses that are sold on from the main companies – Metro and First buses in our region. The bus called Tiger buses was bright orange and so clapped out I did wonder if it was actually road worthy as we rumbled and rattled our way into town. It was the ride from hell; I swear it had square wheels. I just managed not to be sick down the women sat in front of me ( a morbid fear of mine when I am on a bus).

Opposite us was a young family, mum dad, baby in a pram and young teenage daughter. It hit home how lucky we are to have a car and how difficult and expensive it must be when you have to use public transport. The journey cost £2.70 each into town – it is 7 miles so too far to walk. The young daughter must have been going to stay with a relative or friend overnight as I overheard the mum saying that she was to pick her up at 8pm tomorrow evening. Because there are no buses running on New Year’s day she would have to organise a taxi to go and collect her -I wonder how much that will cost her on double time.

We collected the rather striking red and white Citroen C3 (doesn’t quite fit with DH’s image – he is hardly a boy racer!) and drove round to Sainsbury’s with some returns and to get a bit more fresh food and bread. Then round to TK Max to exchange a fridge container that we bought yesterday, and was later found to be broken, for another one. I confess it is plastic but not single use and should last me for years even if we change the fridge. I already have one or two in the fridge and they are so useful to keep like things together and pull out so that you can see everything at once and saves me having to contort myself whilst trying to rummage to the back of the fridge past many jars and packets.

I aslo bought a few reduced Christmas cards ready for next year. They are handy to have in case I don’t get to make my own or don’t make enough of my own next Christmas. They are packed away now already for next year.

Before Christmas I made a selection of ‘Thank you’ notelets intended as a gift for a friend who uses a lot of them; but then decided they were not really good enough to give as a gift but are OK for me to use. So that is what I am about to do now – write my thank you cards so that I can give them out when we see our friends tonight for our new year gathering.

In fact I need to get a move on so I have time to have a shower and do something with my hair. It is not a dress up evening just smart casual – it is lovely to be able to end the year amongst good friends if you cannot be with your family. My mum is with my sister and BIL down in Torquay, my daughters, partners and grandchildren somewhere on the coast in Norfolk and my brother does not do new year – so we are so lucky to bring in the new year and share a meal and a festive tipple with some of our oldest friends and that they live close enough for us to walk round there and leave the C3 at home.

I hope whatever you are doing this evening you have some pleasant memories of the passing year and I wish you health and happiness for the coming year.

Thank you everyone who reads my blog and for those who frequently comment and those who drop me a line only once in a while. It is lovely to hear from you all with your good wishes and good advice. I send greetings and hugs to you all. x

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020

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creating a simpler Christmas * day 17

My days do not often go to plan and today was no exception. I intended to do the small pile of ironing, then a spot of wrapping, weigh out the fruit for my Christmas cake and then a little crafting.

I managed most of the things on my list – ironing (done), present wrapping (more or less done), weighing out the fruit to soak in the alcohol ready for making the cake (this is when I discovered that…shock horror…the brandy bottle was almost empty). I was getting on well with my tasks but then from this point on we had a visit from a very dear friend who had called round with his gift and Christmas card – I swear he can smell my chocolates from the other side of the village. He was in luck only four pieces left – we had one each and he had the spare one. He went away happy.

We had a late lunch of soup and then let it digest whilst watching a little Columbo on the TV. I say a little as I promptly fell asleep…but then awoke with a sore throat…where did that come from…and tonight a runny nose.

Mum and my sister are doing a flying visit here tomorrow; coming down by train as mum wants her old hairdresser to do her perm. The young ones don’t seem to have the training now in perms and mum’s new hairdresser where she lives is very young. I will pick them up from the station and deliver her at the hairdressers while sis and I will go for lunch somewhere and I will try not to sneeze all over her.

Only a little crafting got done this afternoon – it may even warrant a photo.

Meanwhile DH has just about finished the pantry. The flooring went down today – it is only temporary sticky back vinyl until we do the kitchen and whatever we choose for this will run all the way through both. There are shelves to cut down to fit into the wall cupboard and a little sealant to go around the edge of the worktop. I can then start to arrange things on the shelves.

I will of course take some photos to show you the finished result but right now I am off to snuggle down in bed with a hot water bottle and a drink of vitamin C. x

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creating a simpler Christmas * days 10-16

Doesn’t time seem to evaporate during December? One moment you are ahead and the next lagging behind. I am definitely behind. Most of our Christmas decorations are stored in the loft and as yet we have not brought them down but during the last week I have been slowly decorating parts of the house with posies of Christmas foliage and flowers and a very few special decorations that I keep in a box downstairs. But I am loving the minimality and I might not bring down the rest of the decor at all. Well I did say I was going for a simpler Christmas.

Christmas would not be Christmas though without an appearance from my knitted Christmas pudding tea cosy, my red china cup and plate and the handmade robin print napkins designed by my daughter and kept in an old Christmas tin from Crabtree and Evelyn.

In the last few days I have been making a few gifts. Starting with the chocolates. I always take a tray full round with me to our neighbours get together – they positively drool with delight; they are rather more…ish.

Homemade chocolates

Once the dark and milk chocolate are combined in a swirl I throw in handfuls of Christmas delights such as nuts, raisins and glace cherries in one half and pieces of fudge, honeycomb and glace ginger in the other. Anything goes. Sprinkle on a few tiny Christmas sugar beads, stars or meringues and decoratively lace all over with melted white chocolate. Leave to set and cut into small squares.

Any left over chocolate can be made into lollypops and decorated.

I made enough chocolates to give a box to a dear friend of mine together with the table decoration of hypericum berries, eucalyptus, euonymus and tiny cream roses arranged in……you guessed it one of those vintage style plant pots!

We have also been on a shopping frenzy – well it felt like it for us – we had one or two gifts to buy for the grandchildren and some temporary flooring for the pantry.

We have been particularly mindful this year with presents to buy items that are as ecologically sustainable as possible or make little impact on the environment. The grandchildren have got mostly wooden toys – the two babies have a little trike each and a smaller educational toy, they are far more expensive than plastic but are so much nicer. Little L has a new leotard (knitted cotton jersey) and ballet shoes (leather) for when she returns to her classes in January and my friends will receive the table decorations and either chocolates or florentines. So minimal plastic in any of our gifts.

I have bought one or two new decorations that again are wooden or of natural materials like hessian and pine cones. I did relent though and buy the little LED pink glittery stars which are £3 from The Works.

The cards and newsletters are all written and posted but I do need to deliver a few now and make arrangements to go and see my old work colleagues one day this week.

There still seems to be a lot on my list to do – lemon curd for the girls (can’t disappoint them), a cot duvet cover for Sweetie, the Christmas cake (yes you did read that correctly) and the mince pies. So it is a week of making and baking again – I had better get a move on.