Week-end

Well, it's been a bit of a long week. Definitely back into full-on work mode after my fabulous Italian adventure and I'm pleased it's now the end of the week. Some time for rest and relaxation hopefully. 

One of my plans for the weekend is to get back out running. The awesome Just Frances has challenged me to a race a month for the next year. Looks like our next one will be the Reindeer Run at Stirling University so I suppose I'd better lace up my running shoes and get back out there. 

But for now I think I'll just kick back, enjoy some good music and a glass of wine. Well, ok, it's G&T tonight, but you get the picture...

Have a great weekend, folks, whatever you've got planned. 

Lunch stops and coffee shops

I promised, so here they are - Stirling's lunch stops and coffee shops. All hand tested and with the Bex seal of approval.

Drum roll please for....

The Burgh Coffee House
Beanscene
81 Port Street
Cisco's
The Junk Rooms
Clive's at Bridge of Allan
Zak's at the Peak
Old Town Coffee Shop
Darnley Coffee Shop
Unicorn Coffee shop at the Castle
EC's in the Arcade
Pumpkin at the station
The Bistro at the Campus
Corrieri's 
Paparazzi 
Scottish Arts & Antiques Centre at Doune
Sunlite Cafe, Cowane Centre

And if you must, we also have a Costa Coffee and a Cafe Nero. But, really, why would you bother?

Finding peace

After a busy, intense day at work, how best to relax, recover and find peace? Quite often I'll take the easy way out and collapse on the sofa with a glass of wine and something mindless to watch on the TV*.

But every now and then I'm inspired to try something different, and remind myself that being active in itself can be a relaxation. I've blogged many times before about how much I enjoy cooking, that I actually find it relaxing. So sometimes, like tonight, I turn to cooking as a way of unwinding.

I'll not lie, it's also a way of using up what's left in the fridge instead of having to throw it out. And of having food in the freezer for days when I don't have the energy or the time to make something from fresh.

Tonight's creation was a vegetable and bean chilli - using up the fresh vegetables that I'd bought in a fit of optimism the weekend before last and were in danger of lurking and leaking if left too much longer in the depths of the chill box. I didn't actually eat it tonight, I heated up a pork and cider slow cooked casserole from the freezer instead. So now, I've relaxed, eaten and still have a meal in store for tomorrow night too!

What's not to be happy about?

*As regular Crafty Manoeuvres readers will know, I rarely actually just sit doing nothing. So collapsing on the sofa with a glass of wine usually also involves some kind of yarn project. Another one finished last night - what do you think? I think I have almost enough of these hats now for a different one each day of the week! 

The joy of cooking

I cooked again last night - to celebrate the start of the bank holiday weekend. Sadly I forgot to take a photo of the dish in question, but in my imagination it looked something pretty much like this!

In reality it was a bit less elegant, but still tasty all the same.

After one of the busiest weeks at work I can remember for a while, still not feeling great after my 'man flu' of last week, and at the end of not one of the best days, having sat in the late evening sun (yay for British Summer Time!) for a while with a glass of wine, I decided the best way to relax and cheer myself up at the same time was to do some cooking.

And a prawn curry was the result. Since I hadn't been shopping for a while I was restricted to what was in the cupboard/freezer for ingredients, but luckily I found some mushrooms and a pepper lurking at the bottom of the fridge that made up the bulk of the curry, with some frozen king prawns taking star billing. Rooting around at the back of the cupboard unearthed some ground almonds which, together with a generous dollop of natural yoghurt, helped to lift the dish from prawns in a tomato sauce with a hint of curry into something that, in all honesty, didn't actually look that much different from the picture above.

Mmm! Culinary adventures definitely lift the spirits.

And now, since miraculously the sun is shining on a bank holiday weekend, I'm off out for a tramp round Stirling with my camera. Watch this space for the evidence of my wanderings later.

Healthy weekends

A healthy way to start the weekend - just finished at the gym and now sitting in Beanscene with a paper, a skinny latte and a fruit yoghurt pot.

Mmm! Time to chill now.