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.

Look out, it's a Ginger weekend...!

Starting with a trip to meet a very famous celeb artist! I remember Rolf Harris from my childhood. He was a big part of my childhood memories with his quick arty approach and his didgeridoo! We got there early and found ourselves first in the queue to meet Rolf. Being first through the door we made our way to meet the big man and weren't disappointed.

 Here's the great man appearing after taking a comfort break at the Red Peppar restaurant, over the road from Whitewall Galleries.

Rolf is 82 years old and has the looks and stature of a man much younger than his years. He is a beautiful man who has captured the imagination of the British public through his art. I shook his hand and he giggled and said I could have some of his fruit, so I took one of his grapes! The exhibition was brilliant, the people fun and all my lovely gallery friends were there, Anna, Marcela, Rachel and Alex - it was another truly, amazing experience!

I was at the Paralympic Closing Ceremony... YEAH!!

 There was only one better feeling than getting hold of tickets to Eton Dorney and that was getting tickets to the Paralympic Closing Ceremony!! Myself, Fi and Rob were having a crazy weekend. I'd managed to get 3 tickets to Eton Dorney for the Saturday and amazingly, I'd also got 2 tickets to the Carfest North from the lovely lady in the flower shop so when I managed to secure another 2 tickets to the Paralympic closing ceremony, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world!

Rob did remind me that I was going to be in Cheshire on the Saturday night for Carfest so how could I get back to London in time. Mmm, I must admit, I thought about it for a few seconds but I knew I didn't have a choice, I just had to go!

I am a girl with very few regrets but I know I would have regretted my decision for the rest of my life had I let the tickets go to someone else.  In my words... "There are 24 hours before the closing ceremony" which in true Ginger-style meant I was heading for yet another great Paralympic adventure!

 Me and Jeremy arrived early so we could meet up with Fi & Rob, who where there with their friends.

 Spot Fido & Rob..?!

Cirque Du Soleil kicked off the proceedings with a lovely mini scene which was just charming and delightful. I'm not sure that everyone would get their quirky humour but I absolutely love their work so it was a perfect start to what turned out to be an amazing night!

The blew up beautiful, crisp white sails that resembled the Paralympic logo - clever clowns :)

What I loved about this event was the sheer scale of the spectacles. This ring of fire surrounded the flag bearers - thank goodness they knew where to stand, inside the ring! The flames created a smoke heart - truly amazing!

I took my wonderful son-in-law, Jeremy to this amazing event. Seated in the stadium with 79,988 other spectators, we loved every single minute of the mexican waves, spontaneous standing ovations and joined in with every roar of this excitable crowd!

The ariel displays were stunning. I found myself going 'Wow!', then 'OHHH!!' as the sights unfolded in front of us. Although the stadium looks huge, visibility was excellent and it's just the best stadium - naturally!

Fireworks, whistles and loud bangs!!