This is a health and wellness blog and I rarely venture into current affairs except to express compassion for the victims of terror attacks or homelessness etc. However, I have to comment on this tweet posted by an American man to justify Americans carrying guns: he actually tweeted thatEngland has a terror attack every hour! As some wag replied: We don’t even get a bus every hour! Now, instead of being trolled or inundated with expressions of outrage, the replies to his statement are actually hilarious and get funnier as the thread goes on. As well as feeling proud of my fellow Brits, I get a smug satisfaction in knowing that this guy’s feed will be clogged to the gunnels with these replies. Please read if you can, it will make your day and make you proud to be one of the many who don’t share his viewpoint.
My justification for posting this is that it will make you feel better knowing that there are people in the world with a sense of humour and humanity, and laughter is good for you.
Update:
The man in question has since deleted his tweet but here are a few screenshots of some of the replies to give you a flavour, the tea and terrier ones went on for quite some time. Having later looked at his own feed, I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s really disgusting and not worth the negative energy.
It was my birthday recently (no singing, please, no really, it’s fine) and usually it’s the biggest non-event of the year! It’s right smack bang in the middle of a host of family birthdays. Moreover, most family members are often on holiday and we’ve usually already had Mum here for her July birthday, which generally means I don’t see anyone. And to be honest – I’m not telling any family secrets here – my husband is not the most imaginative or proactive when it comes to birthdays or presents or surprises of any kind. It’s just not in his DNA.
Flowers from Mum
Consequently, when he asked a few days beforehand what I’d like for my birthday, I thought I would prevent the inevitable purchase of some kind of gadget I would never use in a million years and ask for the kitchen to be painted! It is long long overdue, and this is what I opened on birthday morning:
I had told him what shade I’d like – Apple White – but he thought he’d give me a choice!
I had been cooped up for so long with the floor restoration going on and the decorators before that, so I had hoped we could go out somewhere, but when I got up the weather was cold, wet and grisly and I resigned myself to staying indoors. With my dodgy back, I rarely go anywhere, seating is always a problem. I am used to this, but sometimes I can go out in the warmer summer weather, when we take a picnic and drive around the countryside to see where we end up. (Last year it was Wroxeter – A Roman City on A Beautiful Summer’s Day. )
I mentioned as much to my husband, who suggested we go to a lakeside café he and his cycling pals sometimes stop at, but it wasn’t somewhere I could confidently get food or drink to suit my vegan, gluten- and nightshade-free habits – see last summer’s post Chillin’ on a Chilly Afternoon with Chilli and you’ll see what I mean – so I decided to Google vegan cafés in the area in the hope we could go out for lunch, something I have done only once in 30 years.
We came across O’Joy Wellness Centre & Bistro in Shrewsbury. As I read about it, I remembered that the BBC’s ‘DIY SOS’ and ‘The Big Build’ presenter, Nick Knowles, became co-owner of a vegan restaurant after staying at a retreat in Thailand and subsequently adopting a vegan lifestyle. The centre also offers counselling and psychotherapy. I hadn’t realised it was in Shrewsbury. The photos looked promising, the seating looked manageable, with my back cushion. We phoned them up to get directions and they told us where we could park.
Needless to say, we got lost! Again. No, we still don’t have a Sat Nav, but I aim to rectify that in a few weeks when it’s His Nibs’ birthday! So many new roundabouts with rubbish signage! My husband reckons the highways people expect everyone to have sat navs these days and so anything beyond a basic N, S, E or W is redundant!
We found the bistro eventually, having turned left when we should have turned right! A dark blue frontage and ceiling, rustic oak tables, cheerful yellow chairs and welcoming young and friendly staff greeted us on what had degenerated into a typical chilly blustery Shrewsbury day. We were shown to our table at the back, for which I was grateful as the door was kept open and I was cold. Our bubbly, smiley waitress waited patiently as we sorted out which chair was best and put my cushion in place. She asked if I would prefer to sit over the other side where there was a bench with lots of plump cushions, but I was fine and didn’t want to cause any further fuss.
We later noticed a large sign asking patrons to order at the counter during the day, but the place was quiet when we arrived and the staff seemed happy to wait on us.
Here’s what I ordered:
Everything is vegan and there are gluten-free options, like the bun with this burger. The Green Goddess salad originally came with croutons, but they were happy to replace them with toasted sunflower and sesame seeds. The raw carrot cake was gluten-free. I also had the Green Monster Burger with sweet potato fries, my husband had tomato and roasted red pepper soup, Cajun burger, and gluten-free raw brownie. There was a selection of herbal, fruit and green teas as well as smoothies and soft drinks.
We must have been there two and a half hours! People came and went, some with young children, ordering falafels or dips and pitta bread; others meeting friends and ordering tacos; all ate at leisure and no-one was rushed out the door. The place has a cosy feel to it and the staff were lovely. When I returned from the washroom, my husband had paid the bill and we said goodbye to our waitress who wished me a happy birthday and laughed at the look of surprise on my face. She had asked my husband what our plans were for the rest of the day and he said it was my birthday, so anything was possible. She replied we should have told her and they would have put a candle on my cake! There was no sign of Nick, he mustn’t have got the memo;-)
I had a lovely day and I was so full, I actually didn’t eat again until lunchtime next day, other than a small juice for breakfast. My husband came home and had to sleep it off for three hours!
If you’ve read The Tour de France & A Parquet Tour de Force! you might be interested in how things turned out, after the parquet was restored – that is, how the room was finished, and Mum and the family’s reaction.
Here is the finished room:
It is no mean feat decorating and furnishing a room that has to be used by toddlers, teens, twenty-somethings and my 87 year old mum! In its previous incarnation, it was painted in aqua and mostly used by the older boys, but more recently, it is increasingly used to sleep in by my youngest grand-daughter and my mum. The boys these days come on day-trips and mostly use it as a bolt-hole once they’ve raided the fridge on arrival!
They wanted white walls – but they’ve been brainwashed by their minimalist mother! My grand-daughter likes purple!! But she is three. I opted for a very pale yellow. I find yellow welcoming and uplifting but not so energising that you can’t sleep. It makes me smile.
My mum hates yellow.
She also dislikes wooden floors.
She was coming for her birthday visit and things were not looking promising.
There was the problem of the bed. The old bed had been our daughter’s: it was her half of the set of pine bunk beds she shared with her brother. All the grandchildren and my mum had used it. It had a memory foam mattress and was very comfortable. However, when my husband took it apart, we were appalled to find that it was cracked around one of the bolts holding it together and a slat was also cracked. I dread to think what could have happened when Mum used it. It was time it retired.
We thought we had come up with the perfect solution and were very proud of our find: a wooden bed that had a trundle bed underneath so the younger boys no longer had to sleep on the floor, and 3 storage drawers. The existing mattress fit perfectly, I bought a new duvet cover and some colourful cushions. But as soon as I saw the completed construction, I knew it was too high for Mum. It was the night before she was due to arrive when the room was not quite completed, but enough that she could use it. There was no option but to cross our fingers and hope that our only other alternative would work if my fears proved correct.
She loved the floor. She spent some time admiring it and asking questions. We told her the whole story of how we’d discovered it, the difficulties in restoring it and how long it had taken. She listened and ackowledged. We were prepared for the next question but it still made us laugh:
‘What kind of carpet are you going to put over it?!’ Oh, Mum. Every one of our neighbours is green with envy at our new floor. The rest of the family love it. Only Mum would want to carpet over it. It’s a generational thing. For her, wooden floors are associated with having a low income, you had bare boards or at best lino over it. Fitted carpets were the height of luxury and meant you were in a higher income bracket. She really can’t understand our fascination with wood. She likes the feel of carpet. We put a rug by her bed (backed by non-slip underlay) and she was ok.
The next hurdle was the colour. I was ready for her next question: ‘What colour is this?’ ‘Vanilla, Mum, vanilla ice-cream,’ I lied. ‘Oh, right, it’s very nice.’
And so to the final hurdle, the bed. I could sense her nervousness and building anxiety as she looked at it and I stepped in to reassure her. I acknowledged that it was too high and we weren’t able to change it, but we had a suggestion: my husband would dismantle the single bed upstairs and bring it down for the duration of her stay. This we did and will have to do every time she comes to visit. One final final problem (or so I thought): she couldn’t have it positioned with the headboard in the alcove under the window as she didn’t feel comfortable getting in and out of bed on that side. (At this point, there was no chest of drawers in the alcove). So it had to be positioned with the headboard in the middle of the room.
But we were still not done with the bed issues. I took one look and said to my husband, ‘I know what’s going to happen, the pillows are going to slip through the gap in the headboard and end up on the floor.’ My husband was of a mind to cross our fingers once more and see, we might get away with it.
Of course, we didn’t! So next day, he found a large piece of cardboard and attached it to the headboard with bicycle ties! Not the look I was going for, but it worked!
She slept well in it and was happy with the arrangement.
Mum’s birthday was complete when she received flowers from my brother who has recently emigrated to the US, she was convinced she would never receive flowers from him again – or indeed, see or hear from him.
The day after her birthday, she was returning home, but not before the Littles arrived to see Gran on her birthday, and to inspect their new room. They loved it! They especially liked the pull-out trundle bed and all the drawers with their toys in.
We can never have much of an overlap of visits by Gran and great-grandchildren as there is too much potential for tripping over racing toddlers and racing cars! Also, these days Mum tires easily and her deafness means she can never follow the conversation. So we keep visits short, just time for lunch together and then my husband took her home, while I got to spend the afternoon reading stories as well as catching up with my oldest grandson, newly returned from working in France – oh, and given there was no Gran or daughter-in-law present, we took a sneaky look at the Tour de France too!
Ps The painting by the window was done by my eldest grandson when he was still at school and the stars above the picture rail were made by my three year old grand-daughter, who gave them to me for Christmas. The boomerang above the door was a gift from our Aussie friends to our son when he was small and has been there since we moved here 30 years ago when he occupied this room. There is a smaller one above the door in our daughter’s old room. No-one can bring themselves to remove them, a small part of them is still ‘home’.
Having lived a life of intense pain through a series of injuries, it was refreshing to read such a positive post from Nikki on smiling through chronic pain and challenging the stereotype of misery by leading her life as positively and happily as possible, even though it often means people think she has experienced some miracle cure! I can identify with this. I remember many years ago having a visit from friends who hadn’t seen me for some time but knew of my physical difficulties. They were astounded to find me sitting at the table surrounded by course materials when they arrived, in the middle of writing an essay. I was excited to see them after all that time, I was smiley, sociable and happy despite being in appalling pain. They were very confused. It just didn’t compute. As Nikki points out, smiling and living positively is a way of coping with pain not evidence that you are cured or no longer need support. In my case, it is also a means of reassuring those around me, that they don’t need to worry or tiptoe around me. Furthermore, I am not my disability, I have a personality and that personality chooses to be positive and greet you with a welcoming smile, despite what’s going on inside. Being in a good mood is contagious, pass it on! 😊
Please visit and comment on Nikki’s original post.
I so wish this was scratch-and-sniff and I could fully share these beautiful sweetpeas wth you all! They have such a powerful scent, my husband’s allergies won’t allow him to be in the same room. But every year he grows me a pot full because they are my favourite flowers and they bloom in July, which is doubly significant as it is my birthday month and also the anniversary of the death of my younger brother, Dave, age 22, who also loved sweetpeas.
I have struggled for some time to find a way to mention him. We as a family find it difficult to talk about him, even after all these years. His death was so violent, so sudden and so incomprehensible. Far fom home. It is still too raw.
This month is so difficult because he died the day after Mum’s birthday, 5 days before my birthday and 7 days before my son’s second birthday, and in between all those dates we had to cope with a post-mortem, an inquest and a funeral. In fact, I learned of his death as I was getting my toddler son ready to attend his friend’s birthday party. I hid my tears as I operated the music for Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs. Since then, we have added three more July birthdays, so this month is bitter sweet.
One of my other brothers and I have spoken about him in recent times, we have different perspectives as I was away from home in the latter years and there are huge gaps in my memories. However, Judith at Nature Knows Best published a post today that happened to be about grief and the colour of one’s kitchen (yes, really, pop over and read it), and it struck a chord – in particular because we are currently choosing the colour of our kitchen! I commented on her post and it seemed to open a way for me to publish my own post on this topic.
Dave was an artist, poet, lyricist, bongo player; he loved animals, nature programmes and being outside; he hated being cooped up. He worked intermittently, finding it difficult to fit in and adhere to another’s routine. He worked for the park’s department so he could be outside.
When we were young, people thought we were twins, there were only 13 months between us. We both looked like our dad: mousey hair, skinny, short-sighted. He was not in robust health through his short life. I remember him having Scarlet Fever and breathing problems. But he was so strong, he could easily beat me at arm wrestling and I still remember the Chinese burns!
Dave was a bit of a cuckoo and there are few photos of him past a certain age as he rarely seemed to be present for family photos. He was always off doing his own thing. The one below was given to me by my best friend, Denny, with whom he wrote many songs and whose guitar he decorated. Denny still uses it. It is well-worn now!
I cut some sweetpeas every year and bring them into the house for him. They are fragile, colourful and last only a short time, but they have a strong impact while they bloom and few are unaffected by their appearance.
It’s that time of year again when the sun shines (theoretically), the men don their lycra for a cycling saunter around France and Chris gets house makeover ideas beyond her station! After a few years of not really tackling any major work on the house – I think the last big upheaval was for my mum’s 80th birthday celebration 7 years ago – last year, *we* (I ;-)) decided it was time to do over the front room, which had been neglected for many years. It was dark and dated, needed new curtains and carpets and I was dying to get rid of the 90s sofa, which to my embarrassment actually featured in an episode of Eastenders when Sharon and Phil ran the Queen Vic! Despite its age, it was hardly used until recently when we had a woodburner installed in that room. I found the room depressing and wanted to lighten it up. Bit by bit, I eventually won over hb and that’s when we struggled over the decision to give away our old piano (see post links below).
At first, we were going to replace the carpet with good quality laminate flooring, but when we lifted it we found this:
So we took the bit between our teeth, got some quotes and found it would cost no more to refurbish the old parquet than to buy good quality laminate or carpet. We had no idea what it would look like: Wayne of Acorn Floor Sanding aka wood floor doctor warned us it would be a lot lighter but other than that it was in the lap of the gods. We were lucky in that only a few blocks needed relaying, although there were many gaps needing to be filled and many of the blocks had warped as well as shrunk. There was also the hearth to take care of. We needed to replace and extend it as there was a strip of concrete where the old fireplace had been removed and there were no blocks to replace it. So we had that done first. The whole job took 4 days and we ended up with this:
The fire recess is actually dark teal. We were so delighted with the result that we decided there and then we would save up and do the back room this year and then the hallway next year.
The back room is variously referred to as the kids’ room or Mum’s room, depending on who is occupying it at the time: it is the original dining room but we have always used it as an extra bedroom/playroom for the younger family members. More recently, my elderly mum has been using it as she can no longer use the stairs. And therein lies the problem: trying to arrange a room that is suitable for toddlers, teenagers and my elderly mum! The teenagers complain it’s too babyish, it’s also a bit boyish as it was predominantly used by the older three, but now we have girls and Mum too.
It was going to be a thankless task. Mum doesn’t like wood floors, she likes the comfort of carpet under her feet, is convinced wood floors make a room colder – they don’t – and worried about slipping, but it is not slippy at all.
Six weeks ago, we grasped this particularly prickly nettle, emptied the room, pulled up the carpet and found a much more difficult project awaiting:
The blocks were badly stained with bitumen that had gradually worked its way through the many large gaps, the blocks were warped but also badly cut – few were squared off properly. There was a large concrete slab where the old fireplace was, plus cement-covered bricks supporting the sliding doors to the playroom. Worst of all, the entire room other than three sides of the border had to be relaid, a time-comsuming and expensive task.
A 4 day job turned into 9 days, Summer chose that week to pay a visit making it hot and sticky work. At one stage it looked like a humungous game of jenga was being played in there!
A large tin of filler for the gaps would normally cover 5 rooms the size of ours but it only filled two thirds of the gaps here! Every day there was a problem that delayed procedings. The concrete slab was more difficult to remove than first assumed and the floor wasn’t level, spare blocks were needed and dowelling to fill the gap that still remained under the skirting board.
We had tried to source reclaimed blocks on eBay, the internet and a reclamation site in our local Bermuda triangle where even Silly Sally SatNav got us lost 3 times! All to no avail. We needed maple and we could only find pine and oak and not the right depth. Our carpenter neighbour came up trumps with a random box of various-sized blocks that someone had given him and he’d never used, and which turned out to be maple. They weren’t the right depth, but Wayne removed some originals from under a built-in cupboard where the space wouldn’t be seen, used those in the middle of the room and our neighbour’s were used to make a slight ramp up to the sliding doors over the brick supports.
This is after the first sanding:
What a transformation already! It had 9 sandings in all, done corner to corner in 4 directions to go with the grain as much as possible. Then it was sealed with one coat of Bonakemi Traffic and 2 coats of Bonatraffic HD. This is a high quality low maintenance Italian satin finish recommended on a website about wood floors I discovered when researching the first room we did. It is hard wearing, not too shiny and requires no ongoing upkeep, unlike an oiled finish.
It was such hot, hard work and honestly there were times when I thought Wayne was losing the will to live! We kept him supplied with copious amounts of strong coffee and amusing (haha) anecdotes to keep his spirits up, and finally it was done.
Prepare to be stunned:
We are delighted with the result. The room is so much lighter and looks more spacious. I can’t praise Wayne’s work highly enough. A lot of improvisation and imagination was required as well as hard physical work in difficult weather conditions.
Mum came this last weekend. She loves the floor, said it’s beautiful, then ‘what kind of carpet are you going to put over it?!’
I need a rest, I’m off to watch skinny men in lycra riding bikes and swapping jerseys to see who fits what the best!
To read about our traumatic decision to give away our piano see:
As I type, there is an industrial floor sander working in the next room so loud I feel I need to wear ear defenders, there’s a plumber working on the shower in the bathroom, the Tour de France is on the telly, we are looking at websites trying to find suitable furniture for the room that’s being sanded and hopefully have it all done and dusted before my elderly mum comes to stay next week! It’s her birthday – and several other family members’ – so presents need to be found, wrapped and posted, too. All in all, I’m a little distracted just now, have been for a few weeks to be honest, what with having the decorators in (same room), choosing plants for the garden (which the snails and slugs apparently thought were Christmas lunch and so promptly decimated and killed them), trying to get a date for the drive to be resurfaced (in 2 weeks’ time) and fit in a haircut (next Wednesday).
This is all by way of a long-winded explanation and apology for neglecting not only my blog at the moment but reading and commenting on others. I try to fit in a few when I get chance, but now that all the Tour de France stages are being televised from start to finish, the men in lycra are just too distracting!
In case you’re wondering, that’s Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas winning the yellow jersey the other day. Unfortunately I don’t have him in our family Tour de France fantasy league, but I do have his teammate Chris Froome who took it over yesterday and I too am currently in the lead – my very competitive, bike-mad son sent me a text last night to tell me to look behind me as he is catching up fast! (He likes riding up very steep hills for very many miles and even managed to fit in a ride up one of the climbs of that year’s Tour de France when on his honeymoon a few years ago!)
When all the madness has calmed down, I’ll post photos of the parquet floor we’re refurbishing, but if you want to follow the process in real time, take a look at my Instagram account (@pearsnotparsnips) to see the transformation.
I hope normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. I’ll be posting a new gluten-free bread recipe soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the holidays and some relaxing days in the sun, fill up on Vitamin D (but beware of the midday rays), some fresh air and exercise – and commiserations to those of you in the southern hemisphere!
PS The plumber can’t fit the new shower, turns out the previous installer had extended the wires and connected them with insulating tape which makes it very dangerous! So now we have to wait for an electrician to come and rewire it – in 11 days’ time, the cost now being three and a half times as much <sigh>.
This may seem a strange question on a health and wellbeing blog but bear with me.
This morning, I was woken by such a commotion in our front garden which seemed to then moved and down our drive. I could hear children, adults, a dog barking, someone shouting to a cat and a child calling to someone or something else and a lot of running back and forth. It took me a while to process it all. At first I thought the neighbour’s dog must have escaped again. I couldn’t hear my husband so I hauled myself out of bed and opened the curtains.
Rabbits! Two of them. Scampering all over, children chasing, adults cajoling and admonishing, a cat and a dog being restrained, utter chaos. I didn’t recognise half the humans running amok on my lawn, jumping over the newly blooming irises. I reluctantly went downstairs and found my husband completely oblivious as he was making juices and hadn’t heard a thing.
I went back upstairs, looked out and one of the fathers gave me a smile and a thumbs up! I assumed that meant ‘success’ and ‘thank you!’
We went about our morning tasks, I had a shower and washed my hair, husband finished juicing, and when he took out the compost discovered that the rabbits belonged to the son of our newly-widowed neighbour, a birthday gift for her older son. But they were back in their hutch, locked up and she was going out, not being any the wiser as to how they had escaped. It appears it wasn’t the first time, and her son gets so distraught when they do.
Not half an hour later, husband goes outside only to discover them sitting at the top of our drive where the young apple trees and tomato plants are, the cat from next door keeping a nonchalantly watchful distance. We had no idea what to do, neither of us having the first inkling of how to entice a frisky pair of bunnies back to their home, nor being sprightly enough to chase after them!
Picture the scene: I am standing holding a towel not exactly sure as to when it would come into play, my husband is wandering about looking clueless and wishing his phone would magically conjure up the neighbour’s number, but we don’t have it.
I suggested he at least shoo away the cat – it doesn’t take any notice of me but doesn’t like him at all – and then he remembered he had neighbour number 2’s number in his cycling book (really) from when we rescued her escaped dog (do you see a theme developing here? We have also in the past rescued former neighbour number 3’s ducks, neighbour number 4’s chickens and neighbour number 5’s two daft senseless dogs from being run over!).
It turns out, number 2 doesn’t have neighbour number 1’s number either, they communicate via Facebook, but does have new neighbour number 3’s (who lives in former duck neighbour’s house, are you keeping up?).
To cut a 2 hour long story short, we got the rabbits coralled behind our shed, hemmed in by wheelie bins and a fireguard.
The end of the line, nowhere else to runGotcha!
Throughout the entire procedings, the robins kept a beady eye on us, their nest is nearby and they interrupted their collection of nesting materials.
Then the cavalry arrived – or rather by the wonders of bush telegraph, the local neighbourhood rabbit-whisperer!
She wrangled them into a plastic recycling box which was quickly covered with my towel and lugged them back to their home. Which, it soon became evident, was falling apart and all they had to do was lean against the door and the catch fell down, and out they romped.
The grandad had been so excited at making the hutch himself for his grandson’s birthday, but unfortunately the wood near the catch was rotting and the screws were loose. These rabbits were very nifty and not short of a few brain cells.
My husband made a temporary repair, the catch was tied up and a box leaned against the door. An hour later, they were still ensconced in their residence looking a bit out-witted and not at all happy, but safe.
Back home
We had all been worried that their young owner would come home from his school trip to find them gone – there are several dogs adjoining our garden, including a Jack Russell and a Retriever, so it could have been very dodgy – it would have been too much so soon after losing his dad, but hopefully he will be none the wiser.
His mum came home and thanked us profusely. She is going to buy a more secure hutch.
What I wanted to say here though, was that out of a potentially disastrous and emotional situation, a new friendship is building.
I have never said more than hello to our neighbour as she passes by on her way to or from school always in a hurry, but since her tragic loss, we have offered help in the form of using our drive for all the visitors coming to support her and her son has begun chatting with my husband when they see each other on the drive: it seems he has a keen interest in cycling, as does my husband. Today was my first proper conversation with his mum as I explained what had happened with the rabbits. She was so grateful and so relieved and as we chatted about her son, she mentioned that she wasn’t sure she had the confidence to take out the two boys on the bikes by herself. I immediately offered my husband’s assistance and she looked really pleased and suggested that perhaps he might take the older son out on the bike track some time. I said he would be pleased to, and he later agreed.
It was a good feeling to have helped saved the day and prevent the family from having to face another loss, as well as finally getting the opportunity to meet properly and offer our friendship if she ever needs it.
Postscript: This episode was particularly poignant on this day when news was coming out about the awful slaying of young children and their waiting parents and grandparents at the Arianna Grande concert in Manchester. It felt good to feel useful and to do something positive for our young neighbour at a time of helplessness in the face of such an atrocity.
Because I think it’s important to show the disasters as well as the successes, here’s a quick post to show you things don’t always go as you expect in a health/food blogger’s world:
Here’s what happened to my dinner last night:
It was supposed to be a fruity/spicy quinoa dish, with cumin, ginger, mushrooms, dates, sweetcorn and some veggies on the side, but even the most dedicated foodie can get distracted by the cycling at the Giro d’Italia! It practically needed a chisel to remove!
Here’s what I actually had!
Unfortunately, I lost the mushrooms as they were in with the quinoa and there was no time to redo it as the steamed veggies were ready, so the chopped dates and some pinenuts were added to the steamed carrot, leeks, sugar snap peas, asparagus and sweetcorn, with a little alfalfa on the side. It was surprisingly good.
But justto make sure I wasn’t going to be malnourished I had a lovely banana chia pudding afterwards 😉
I forgot to take a photo but the ingredients were:
banana, a little coconut water, chia seeds, soya yogurt, baobab powder, ground cashews, all blended, and served with a sprinkling of chopped medjool date, chopped cashews & dessicated coconut. Yum!
Here’s a video showing you how to cook perfect quinoa (although it’s a little overcooked for my taste, I don’t like it so soft and mushy!).
Quinoa is a complete protein and can be used in savoury or sweet dishes, you can also buy quinoa flakes for muesli-type breakfasts or smoothies. It needs some spices or sweetness added to give it flavour, or you can cook it in vegetable stock. It’s also gluten-free.
How to cook "with visual instructions" "using familiar ingredients from your local grocery stores" healthy, traditional and delicious Japanese dishes!!
We found the bistro eventually, having turned left when we should have turned right! A dark blue frontage and ceiling, rustic oak tables, cheerful yellow chairs and welcoming young and friendly staff greeted us on what had degenerated into a typical chilly blustery Shrewsbury day. We were shown to our table at the back, for which I was grateful as the door was kept open and I was cold. Our bubbly, smiley waitress waited patiently as we sorted out which chair was best and put my cushion in place. She asked if I would prefer to sit over the other side where there was a bench with lots of plump cushions, but I was fine and didn’t want to cause any further fuss.
As I type, there is an industrial floor sander working in the next room so loud I feel I need to wear ear defenders, there’s a plumber working on the shower in the bathroom, the Tour de France is on the telly, we are looking at websites trying to find suitable furniture for the room that’s being sanded and hopefully have it all done and dusted before my elderly mum comes to stay next week! It’s her birthday – and several other family members’ – so presents need to be found, wrapped and posted, too. All in all, I’m a little distracted just now, have been for a few weeks to be honest, what with having the decorators in (same room), choosing plants for the garden (which the snails and slugs apparently thought were Christmas lunch and so promptly decimated and killed them), trying to get a date for the drive to be resurfaced (in 2 weeks’ time) and fit in a haircut (next Wednesday).
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