The highs and lows of my November holiday!

The lyrics 'What a difference a day makes' are as true today as when they were written in 1934. My yesterday was indeed blue :( nothing felt right and I had nothing to do. Today, I have such a lot to do and yesterday, is thankfully, is history.

Here is my holiday A-Z...

A is for apple tv, airplay & Angelina Jolie, who is stunningly beautiful in 'The Tourist'
B is for feeling blue, brilliant Blue Planet series( yeah!) and buying my first purchase on my tv.. drum roll, a big moment!
C is for going to Cribbs, coffee, feeling crazy, chilling out & climbing mountains...
D is for missing dad on what would have been his 88th birthday :(
E is for my expectations, which need resetting & enjoying time with my wonderful mum
F is for feeling the fear, tasty fillet steak & the tiny field mouse I rescued from scary, horrid cat - HA!
G is for giving & getting the balance back...
H is for being horizontal :)
I is for indulging myself with half a box of orange matchmakers..
J is for jumping for joy when I got out of bed this morning and realised yesterday was history!
K is for... just being Komplicated
L is for wonderful lickle sister's birthday, Lisa's birthday meal at Brasserie Blanc and lemon drizzle cake
M is for MRI scan, which ranks in the top 3 worst things to happen to me this year & I never wish to have one again, EVER!
N is for no regrets & 'Not Another Bill' (fab idea!)
O is for OH x 3!
P is for Pudsey bear, photographs, of trees, trees and me :)
Q is for skipping the Q in B&Q...
R is for remembering to breathe, my Radley board & buying twinkling reindeer lights for my tree to cheer me up
S is for stuffin' things, sherry, speaking to my lickle bruv, scary dreaming & Skyfall; one of the best Bond films ever!
T is for tears, tidying up my airing cupboard (GOD, do I really have so little to do?!)
U is for underwear :()
V is for vacancy, vin & VIN!
W is for a lovely walk at Westonbirt
X is for bloody X-ray!!
Y is for surprisingly yummy broccoli soup, which I found in my freezer
Z is for ZIPPO!

Trees, trees, trees & me...

Blue sky is good for the soul, particularly my soul!

Plenty of autumn colours still makes this the best walk for me.

Dazzling sunshine piercing the haze it a welcome change from the drippy, dull, mist that was Friday's walk.

I love these massive trunks which stretch up into the blue sky. I am left imagining what kind of life they've seen over the years of growing to be this tall.

Ha ha, I was so busy taking pics of me that of course, I didn't spot the guy cycling up the hill behind me. Imagine my surprise as I spun around just in time to see him wizz straight past me! 'Ooops sorry' seemed to amuse him as he wobbled slightly, straightened up and kept on riding by.. :) I know I'm a muppet!!

I never imagined when I bought my San Fran sweatshirt from California a few years ago, that it would be such a great walking companion. I need my hood up to keep my ears warm and stop those drippy trees chilling me out! I'm currently listening to a new audio book, 'The Sentinel' by Mark Oldfield. It's 21 hours long and is the first of a Trilogy, 'Vengeance of Memory', so there's plenty more walking hours to enjoy with this crime author - hurrah!

Westonbirt walking & bean, green soup!

Me & Mum had a lovely few hours walking at Westonbirt. It wasn't what you might call sunny but it was dry & reasonably warm so we were quite happy. Many of the trees had already shed their autumn coats but we did find a few gems left in Westonbirt woods.

It's always great to go and have a walk in the countryside, particularly when there's a coffee bar, come restaurant close by. Westonbirt treated us to hot, homemade soup. Mum's choice, 'pea broad bean and mint' was a particularly dark shade of green. Mine was 'curried parsnip', which was very tasty too! The taste was enhanced by a delicious scone, which is the first for over 2 months!

Autumn DAM BUSTING & Wonder Walks!

Autumn is a glorious season. I am really enjoying my new walking regime (as instructed by my PT!). The leafy lanes are easy to walk, the trees are putting on their best show and I'm listening to one of my audio books, what could be better?! The leaves have changed colour within the last couple of weeks from summer apple green to a stunning display of amber and gold.

Here's my walk two weeks ago...

I love this moss covered wall and it certainly must have a wonderful and unique story to tell. Just imagine, years of passers by, snatches of conversation, people on horseback, bikes, cars, woodland animals, insects in the undergrowth, fairies.. !! Layer upon layer of amazing little stories to fill chapters in the book of this wonderwall..

And here it is now..  I think it's the best time of the year to walk because the air is crisp and my ears are  warm and toasty :)

Today I talked myself to walk into Minch and back, which took me just under an hour. I've wanted to walk this route for such a long time but never got up the enthusiasm to actually do it. I thought of all my inspirational friends who are walkers and I listened to 'Sins of the Father', an eagerly awaited sequel to 'Only Time Will Tell' by Jeffrey Archer. I felt such a great sense of achievement when I stepped back through my front door. A feeling which was much needed, having spent most of the weekend doing very little, apart from tiding and feeling out of sorts with the world and his wife.

It's a rare thing for me not to have plans but with shoulder and neck aches, lack of sleep and a general feeling of, what would I call it, novemberness.. I wasn't great company for me this weekend. The blocks of my life just weren't falling into place, I was overwhelmed by decision making which drives me bonkers at times, and being cranky has never really suited me. Don't you find that it's so much harder to be distracted from the negative things when there's just you in your head? Let's face it, we all have days when we just can't make up our minds what to do and mope about like a wet weekend. Those are few and far between for me but when they happen (I can even see them coming!) there's only me to give me a good talking to.

Fortunes can turn on a sixpence and that dam of 'Pollyanna gladness', built over years of positive thinking, can threaten to burst on a day when there are one too many cracks creeping in. Thankfully, there are ways to turn the sixpence and in the absence of family, friends make the best glue and one phone call can make me feel better. I guess I'm used to making others smile and when I need someone to do that for me, I'm not going to admit it. Feeling what people call 'under the weather' is such a distraction for me and has thrown me off course this weekend. I have been so focussed on being fitter, being smarter about my choices, slimming and doing well which has been brilliant roller coaster to be on. But when I'm out of sorts, not even the things I enjoy can put a smile on my face. It's like trying too hard, I know it won't really work so I have to wait.. wait for the 10% flip. The only thing I know for certain is that the feeling will pass and everything will easily, as if this never happened, get back to normal again.

I've never really got much joy out of tidying, sorting and hoovering, (it's a family trait!) so being out walking, even though it was a tad murky and very quiet, was quite thought provoking and least of all, enabled me to work up an appetite for my lovely home cooking - yet again!

And I'm fine now :) just like an ill wind that turns direction, today the sun is shining and all is good in my world again.. HU-blooming-RAH! X

Every day is another new challenge and I love it. Today was the hill walk challenge so we wrapped up warm and headed out up the hill. Now, I've always said that I don't do hills because I'm not a mountain goat! But times are changing and with my new attitude to getting fitter, I romped up the hill and more.. !

The sun shone, the sky was a deliriously, wonderful shade of blue, there was a lovely chill in the air following the first frost of the autumn and we were having fun.. !

Think of caramel, honey and cappuccino and what do you get..? These gorgeous calves!

They were very inquisitive, that is for a little while until they got bored with us and decided they'd seen enough...

 and wandered off... x

The Best Literary Festival so far.. !

The 2012 Cheltenham Literary Festival has definitely been the best so far! I've had lunch with my mate Kevin and Barry Cryer at the Daffodil, laughed with my sister and Pam Ayres in the town hall, travelled to Brazil with Michael Palin at the racecourse, rode to victory with Fi and Rob in the company of Claire Balding and Frankie Dettori, discovered how to grow all kinds of exotic delicacies with my mother and the highly active James Wong, debated the colourful world of street art with Terry in the absence of the infamous Banksy, swooned as a family over the gorgeous Ben Fogul, hooted with laughter with Paul O'Grady and dined like a king with my lovely mum, lickle sib and the Baker Bros in the Speigaltent!

I have attended so many events this year and invited some of my wonderful family and friends to join me. We've had a BLAST!

My last experience at the Daffodil was okay but I wasn't rushing back. So I was secretly not expecting Sunday lunch to be anything special. In fact it was a triumph! The starter of frothy mushroom soup served in a tiny china teacup, the deliciously tender beef roast followed by the 'piece de resistance', a tantalising mixture of caramel popcorn, peanut brittle, chocolate truffle squares, caramel sauce and panna cotta, mmm... made this an outstanding meal which was a great start to my literary week.

Michael Palin is always a pleasure to watch and his hour long talk about his new series and book, Brazil, didn't disappoint. He was entertaining, engaging and he has a voice that would melt butter.. mmm, and me...

The whole pleasure of coming to the festival is to experience the good, the bad and the Top Totty.. ! Ben Fogul is as good looking as he sounds. His talk was enlightening, wonderfully honest and he has enviable diction which is very endearing and isn't afraid to reveal his weaknesses. His talk was thoroughly entertaining and in my book, he is a 21st century 007! Loved the blue trousers too.. !

Wouldn't you just love to know as much about the equine world as Claire Balding and Frankie Dettori?! This was without doubt, a great evening of fun and laughter. They talked equally and frankly about their lives in the sports arena and captivated the audience with their wit and knowledge. I'm sure Frankie's life appears charmed but his description of how he achieves what he does as a jockey had the entire room in awe of him. Claire is a proficient host, commentator and sports personality who performed her duties as a interviewer with the right balance of ebb and flow of questions and interjections. All in all, a thoroughly fabulous evening. Fi and Rob also enjoyed the evening and we finished it off with a beautiful meal at Flynns.. 

What can I say, here is the wonderful Pam Ayres photographed in the Waterstones tent with my lickle sib Marie, who is our family version of this talented poet. Pam Ayres can certainly hold her own for a whole hour with her ditties, her stories and her infectious wit. The audience, not surprisingly, loved her and delighted in every bit of humour she conjured up during her short hour at the festival. Look at that smile! It's the face behind so many smiles around the country and I'm so glad we were there to meet her.

Great food and best friends make the world go round

There I was on Saturday morning having a right mare of a day! For one, two and three different reasons, coffee, lunch and dinner had gone haywire so I was deliberating my fate and what to do with a completely free day (ahhhhh!!) when the phone rang. It was truly a EURKEA moment, most definitely! On the end of the phone was my lovely, dear friend Kevin asking if I'd like to go to the Stratford food festival with him and Evie. Me, being me, impulsive at every opportunity - I didn't need a second to think about it. I raced upstairs, got ready and headed over to his place.

Food festivals are marvellous events to go to and I can't really understand why I've never been to one before! After having such great food at Chris Evan's Carfest, it makes sense to rock up to more and enjoy the best of the best, which is absolutely non-standard supermarket food. The choice was amazing and just like a tour around Borough Market where individual small producers can show off their brilliant olives, cheeses, meats, wines, vinegars, oils, garlics, chocolate, cupcakes, brownies and more.. so much more! I have to put more of these events into my diary for 2013!

I may be on a diet but that won't stop me enjoying my food. After all, it is supposed to be educating me to a better, less fat, healthier diet and there has to be wriggle room for sweet treats if I'm going to keep this up. So yesterday was what you might call a safari picnic, starting with a drink - I had Prosecco, of course, a delicious chicken and chorizo paella and for afters, Kevin bought a box of wonderful cupcakes to eat with our coffee for dessert whilst me and Evie were mooching and buying a pretty flower ring for her hair.

Stratford remains one of my favourite places on the planet and alhough it is often extremely busy, it just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't! The sun shone for us too, yeah!

It was truly a feast for the eyes and all those wonderful delicacies tasted like food from the Gods. So all in all, it was a perfect day.

SUNDAY, today I had paperwork and work/work to finish which I still hadn't managed to get done even having spent both of Thursday and Friday evenings on it! It's almost done now thankfully. It's also been a horrid day, pouring with rain for most of it and chilly with it. I've not stopped all day so when 4:30 came around, it was too late to go and have my walk so I walked and jogged around the flat for 20 mins. Oh how funny I must have looked but I don't care. I have done all my exercises, all my stretches, a good 'indoor' run and feel all the better for it.

Thankfully, the good planning fairy had bought lots of supplies so she could cook this evening in order to feed my big, fat freezer with yummy food! Tonight's menu was chicken Provençal with green veg and what was left of my crushed celeriac and potato mash from Friday night's baking. I've sat and watched Downton Abbey (series 3 is so much better than series 2) at the same time as checking over my percentage calculations (work!) and tidying up. I now have 2 lasagnes, 4 beef bourguignon and 3 chicken Provençal in my freezer and they're all syn-free! I love cooking :)

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Friends and other influences...

What do your friends say about you? And by that I don't mean 'what do they say' but what kind of person are you because of the friendships you have and treasure most For instance, my lovely friend Ginger inspires me. Not only in a creative way but also by her never ending energy and love of life. Although we don't see that much of each other, I find I have Ginger moments when we're apart. By that I mean I'll challenge myself more, do more and occasionally think, 'What would ginger do?' and that makes me fearless (yes, i know, slightly scary) so I'll be braver and bolder which can be nerve racking at the time but great afterwards! Like the time I was on a flight and the pilot invited anyone to pop up to see the cockpit. I was sitting on the very back row of the plane but I remember thinking, what would Ginger do? And before I could stop myself, I was down the aisle and taking a guided tour of the instrument panel! I love being braver.

So my Ginger lesson for the week has been all about food. Slimming World is now my Bible with Fry Lite my lubrication to keep my sweet little engine running on less fat! Tonight I baked a huge lasagne from scratch following one of the recipes for the magazine and it tasted absolutely delicious. And the recipe had made 6 portions, not 4 so there's more to feed my freezer. Ginger kept telling me she was so proud of me at the weekend. Perhaps she expected me to cheat because I told her that's how my low-carb diet went. Seriously, I cheated my way through that one and put on weight! It definitely didn't suit me at all. SW does though and along with my personal trainer, I have already reestablished ownership of a former pair of jeans and I tend moving back into other old favourites very soon!

I love that sweet girl lots - but right now, I love the recipe book she bought me almost as much ;) not forgetting the gift of pink Lanson champagne which we didn't drink because after meeting Rolf and running away to the circus, we realised we'd had enough excitement for one weekend!

More on some of my wonderful inner circle soon...

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This tastes too good to be slimming food...

Ginger Claire is here so we've had a fantastic Slimming World weekend!

She bought me a new recipe book so I've declared war on calories and am now counting syns. Well, just the edible kind ;-) I've also got something going on that I've never had in my life before - a personal trainer, no less named Carl. He's my ticket to fitness so I've ditched my stylish killer heels (well, mmm, almost!), in favour of some comfy walking shoes. Here's tonight's tasty pizza with a potato mash base. I haven't had pizza for at least four years because I can't eat anything with yeast so this was a really special double treat for me. And it tasted so yummy, my mind was conjuring up other tasty toppings to try next time.

Me & Ginger walked some of the lanes & hills yesterday afternoon and picked lots of free fruit (blackberries) on the way home. Tonight, Ginger has made sweet and lovely Eton mess (4.5syns) with a Muller Light coconut & vanilla Greek yoghurt, Morrisons chewy meringue and our lovely, sweet little blackberries - YUM! I did that advert-thing declaring "This tastes too good to be low fat". Believe me, the ML yoghurt really is too creamy and tasty to be diet food!

Here's a photo of yesterday's syn free brunch! Slimming food never tasted so good & better still it works!

 

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I'm running off to join the circus.. !

 Not satisfied with one amazing adventure today, we headed off to join the circus in Cirencester. OMG (not an expression I use very often) it was out of this world and me and Ginger Claire want to stay forever :)

The 'Saturday Book' is the 2012 performance from the Gifford Circus. If you haven't tried it, make sure you do, it's absolutely fantastic! But you'll have to wait until 2013 now because this is the last and final weekend of the season. How cute is this dinky pony?

The Gifford Circus orchestra were brilliant! I loved their quirky costumes, their brilliant range of instruments, their sense of fun and they really brought all the performances to life - well done them!

Mmm, I need to tell my personal trainer about this move. Perhaps he can include it in my new fitness regime?!

 The wonderful, kooky girl with the pigeons made us all smile. She played a brilliant character throughout the evening and was one of the stars of the show.

 Oh, here's a treat for next year! Gifford Circus serve dinner following the performance, how much fun does that sound?! I couldn't get in tonight because it's the last weekend of the entire season but it's definitely something worth remembering for 2013! Tonight I just had a mug of hot tea in the interval while Ginger queued for candy floss!

 These two gorgeous people were amazing. They tapped their way through the routine and here you can see Mr White Pants (I don't know his real name) spinning wildly on top of a set of stairs. Miraculous... !!

I wish I'd taken a photo just before we left because the tent looked brilliant lit up in the dark.