The past is a different country...

Today is 1st August, also known as Lammas Day but I confess that until yesterday I didn't know what that actually meant. I could vaguely remember that there's a Lammas Fair in St Andrews in August but I strongly suspected that it was named after the day and not the other way round!

But yesterday I found out via an article in the Herald newspaper. And no, it's got nothing to do with llamas!!

Lammas Day is one of the traditional days associated with our agrarian past, in the days before we became an industrial - or as we are now, post industrial - society. Like Whitsun, Candlemas, Quarter Days and Harvest Festivals, Lammas has its roots (oh, pardon the pun!) in the agricultural traditions our ancestors used to follow when we were more closely tied to the earth and the seasons than we now are. (And no, I couldn't have told you when Whitsun was either before I looked at Wikipedia but I did know, courtesy of Philip Larkin, that it was some time in the summer.)

Get on with it, I hear you shout! Ok, Lammas Day is a day of celebration for bread, wheat and all things bakery. It was traditionally the first day of the wheat harvest - at least in the northern hemisphere - and the day, presumably, when we could start stocking up again on that oh-so important staple - flour. It's no accident that the best known prayer of the Christian faith includes an entreaty for daily bread, and the term 'breaking bread' has come to be understood as a ritual of sharing and trust.

Where would we be in our modern hectic full speed lives without the ubiquitous sandwich, pizza, breakfast slice of toast, biscuits, pies, muffins, cupcakes, pasta and noodles. Even our traditional Christmas dinner requires bread sauce and stuffing to be complete! Life on the go would be much less manageable, and convenience foods would be far less, well, convenient. And our coffee/tea breaks would be that bit less naughty.

Spare a thought then for the coeliacs and wheat intolerant amongst you. That's what life is like for those of us who can't tolerate the staff of life. When you stop and think about it (as indeed I now do on an almost daily basis) it's amazing just how many things have wheat in them and are therefore out of bounds. Some are obvious (sandwiches, rolls and wraps of all descriptions; anything with pastry; almost all cakes; most things in batter) while others are less so (soy sauce; semolina; anything with white sauce; most gravies; mustard powder; even some ice creams - no, I don't know either!). It can make life a bit complicated at times.

Nowadays there are many replacements and alternatives - corn, rice or potato flour; rice or millet pasta; quinoa instead of cous cous to name but a few. There are also some amazing brands and ranges, even in the most everyday supermarket, that make life that little bit less dull. Special mention to Tesco and Sainsbury for their gluten free ranges, and newcomer Marks & Spencer (although here's a hint, guys. If you have a 'free from' range - stock it in one place and don't mix it up with wheaty goodies, otherwise it defeats the purpose of having a range - ie you still have to read the ingredients list just to be sure!). Even some coffee shop chains are getting in on the act. My other recent discovery (and great joy) is a gluten free bread that actually tastes like 'real' bread - take a bow, Genius loaves!

So after all that, you can imagine I'm fairly non-plussed about the whole point of today!!


In case you were wondering - the rest of the quote in the title is "they do things differently there". Prize - ok just some kudos - if you know where it comes from.

In case you were wondering 2 - extreme bloating and fairly violent gas is the consequence of indulging in wheaty substances for me. Not, as I told my impressionable young nephew, turning green and growing horns!! 


By the way, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Lammas, wheat, bread, coeliac disease or anything sensible. I just found it while I was looking for a picture of llamas. Enjoy!

Homeward bound

Secret path, Micklegarth garden
Originally uploaded by bexybeads

After an exceptionally busy week at work I've headed home for the weekend. So what, you ask, isn't that what we all do? But for me, home this weekend isn't my lovely flat but my real home - where I grew up.

Mum and Dad celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary yesterday - well, celebrated might be a loose description since Dad forgot to send a card or buy flowers and Mum cooked him an inedible meal as revenge! But as part of their 'celebration' they've also got me to put up with for the weekend.

I'd not really realised how much this place is still home to me, until I thought about heading here after work tonight. Although I haven't lived here for over 20 years, and have actually lived away from here longer than I've lived here, it does still feel like home when I'm back. The things around and about the house may have changed but the place is still the same.

It was a magical place to grow up - a huge garden with lots of places to hide and trees to climb, set in a homely village you could wander around and explore without worrying about who everyone was and all set by the seaside - beautiful in all seasons. I think that's perhaps why when I needed somewhere to escape to at the start of the summer, my heart told me to find a place by the sea.

It's good to know that even in the toughest times, there's always somewhere that's home. I guess I'm lucky - I know that's not the case for everyone, and I can't imagine not having that bedrock beneath me.

Thanks Mum and Dad xxx

Still naked

 
 I blogged the other day about the experiment/challenge I set myself while I was on holiday of getting through an entire week without wearing make up. In it I'd said I deliberately chose to do it when I was away from home and there was no chance that anyone I knew would see me sans camouflage. I survived that week, albeit still feeling fairly self conscious about it all, but I got through and my skin did seem to be the better for it.

It was always going to be unlikely that I would carry it on when I got home and (up until this weekend that is) I didn't. What I did do was carry on with the lighter touch make up that I'd been trying before I went off on holiday - powder, concealer, blusher and mascara rather than the full foundation, primer, eyeshadow, lipstick etc routine I'd been doing before. Two things happened - my skin rebelled to having stuff plastered (however lightly) on it again and broke out big time, and I realised that even what I described as my 'light touch' make up was actually quite a lot. I also realised that I quite liked the look of my skin without the slap on and that I didn't really need it to make me feel confident.

As a side note here, the make up thing is a bit bizarre for me - whilst I worry about what I look before I leave the flat in the morning, and spend a while making sure my hair and make up are just so, once I get to work I pretty much forget about it. I've certainly never been the type to 'touch up' my make up during the day. For one thing, I already carry far too much stuff in my handbag as it is and there isn't really room for make up. For another, to be honest, I can't be bothered. Just one more of my contradictions I guess!

So, having decided I liked the lighter more natural look I decided it was time to take my skin in hand. Last weekend I made the effort to find a beauty salon near me that could offer more than just cosmetic treatments and this weekend I went in for my first treatment. I'd bought some of their products the previous weekend and had been using them religiously all week. I did feel my skin was getting better and I was both excited and nervous about going in for my treatment. I'll admit I was a bit disappointed when the therapist agreed that my spots were bad but I was extremely heartened when she said the rest of my skin (apart from the pigmentation around my eyes apparently!) is in really great condition. For the next hour and a quarter I submitted myself to her tender (and sometimes not so tender) mercies and emerged at 10.30 am (Yes, dear reader it was an early start for a weekend!) feeling glowing, relaxed and clean.

But the challenge was - no make up for the rest of the day. Nothing, nada, zip! In my hometown. Where people I know might see me. And, do you know what? They did - I meet up with and spent time with 2 friends - and I didn't mind. I'm not going to lie, it was a little uncomfortable but nowhere near as bad as I had imagined. So good did I feel about it that I ventured out again today with no make up apart from a tiny bit of mascara (and that doesn't count since it's not covering anything up!) and I didn't even give it a second thought.

I'm not sure I'm quite sure enough yet to do work tomorrow without at least some make up - but who knows! Meantime, I'm booked back in for 3 weeks time (another eye-splittingly early - for me - Saturday appointment) and I'll definitely keep using the products. I'm not naive enough to think that they're necessarily any better than stuff half the price, but I know that having invested in them, I will use them and I suspect the routine of using good products regularly in a sensible and consistent way (not flitting from one approach and one set of products to another) will be good for me, and more importantly for my skin.

And the picture? Well obviously it's me (with big sis) -not quite the last time I didn't worry about my skin, but a cute photo all the same!

And just one more aside before I finish - for my earlier post I used a photo mosiac I'd created on Flickr and titled Naked Week - showing as it did my 'naked' week without make up. I have been highly amused since posting it just how many hits that particular photo continues to get on my Flickr photostream. My sister reliably informs me that if I tag it feet, toes, naked and wellies (really!), the hit rate will increase. Hmm, now I'm worried!

Forging ahead

In my dreams, this is what I look like when I run. In truth, it's actually a bit more like this - or at least that's what I look like afterwards. Maybe 2 hours afterwards when my colour has come back to somewhere near normal and I look less like a cross between a lobster and a beetroot - with the colour turned up!

But anyway, even if I don't look this good, I am decidedly making progress. When I started running earlier this year I was struggling to do 2 miles, and struggling to get the motivation to run at all. Today I went out for 4th run of the week and hit the 4 mile mark for the first time. In a not too shoddy 41 minutes too. I freely admit I was absolutely shattered at the end of it and the best I could do when I got in the flat was lie on the floor for a good 5 minutes. But I did it and I'm really pleased with myself for that.

So, why the running? To start with it was because my gym closed and I couldn't get myself organised enough to join a new one. I had been a member of a great gym - really handy to work and home, women only and never too busy. I think it was probably that last part that should have been a warning! Unfortunately they had to close and I was left without a gym. When I'd chosen my last one a good friend had given me some very sensible advice - the most important factor to consider when joining a gym isn't what equipment it has, what the showers are like or anything like that; it's whether you actually go to the place in the first place. Is it convenient or do you have to make an extra effort to get there? And if you do, you're unlikely to go!

So, what could be more convenient than just slipping on a pair of running shoes and heading out of your front door? But what I've also found is that sometimes the discipline of the gym and a set programme is what get's me motivated to exercise - until now that is. I finally seem to have cracked it, and to be honest I don't know what it is/was that did it. But here I am now, running 4 miles, loving it, looking forward to it and getting better at it!

Maybe I will be ready to do the Stirling 10k in September after all!

Learning to fly ... again

I was sitting here this evening, thinking I should really blog, but to be honest, I was more than a bit bereft of inspiration. And then I started to think about what I was up to this weekend - and inspiration fell with a soft thud.


So, what is it? I hear you ask. OK, maybe not but I'm going to tell you anyway.


This weekend I'm off to view a place that's for sale and I might just be interested in buying. Nothing particularly exciting or bloggable in that perhaps, except it's the first place I've actually arranged to go and see since I moved out and into my current rented place just over a year ago. It's not that it's the first place I've seen that I've liked - it's that it's the first place I've seen that I've felt confident enough and ready to go and see. (There was one across the street from the flat but by the time I got round to it, someone else had already put in an offer!) When I moved in here I was of the opinion that this would do me quite nicely for the forseeable future - not forever, but certainly for a good wee while. I couldn't conceive of wanting to own my own place again, or of moving out of what had become my safe haven.


But now I am, and I guess that's the blog point. A year on I really feel like I'm making progress - feeling altogether human again as the advert said. I still get down occasionally (as regular readers will know!) but it's getting less and less. I do feel able to make some decisions in my life, and I'm certainly feeling a lot more in control.


So maybe I am learning to fly again - or at least taking a few exploratory steps and wing flaps. I'll let you know how I get on.

Wow, fridge surprise supper

I was pondering what to make for my tea tonight and was going to fall back on my old faithful stand-by dish of pasta with butter and black pepper. I thought before I started I would have a look in the fridge to see what I had - and more importantly what was close to (or more accurately passed!) its use-by date.

And that's when I found the beetroot and the goat's cheese. I remembered seeing a recipe for beetroot risotto in one of my cookery books. So I dug it out, read the recipe and then promptly ignored it and did my own thing regardless! Which is pretty much par for the course with my cooking.

Here are the results - a lovely rich looking, and even more fantastic tasting, beetroot risotto. I'm tucking into it just now and can safely say it was worth the extra little bit of effort. Which truth be told wasn't really that much. It took no longer to cook than it did to finish washing last night's dishes and required very little supervision. The trick with my cooking I find, is that, like my gardening efforts, it works best if it can survive a fair degree of neglect!

And for those wanting to emulate, the ingredients, put togethier in standard risotto fashion, are - arborio rice, cooked beetroot, chicken stock, red wine, crumbled goat's cheese, butter, black pepper and lemon thyme.

Mmm!


Now excuse me - I've got to dash and check the peaches and apricots that are baking in the oven (smothered in Cointreau so not as healthy as they sound) for pudding. Another Maxwell if in doubt faithfuls!!

Blue would still be blue

 One of the things about listening to music through headphones is that you (well, I) listen to the lyrics more. This one 'spoke' to me so much when I listened to it the other day on holiday that I played it 3 or 4 times in a row.

Thank you, Guillemots

"I waste so much time, thinking of time

and I should be out there, claiming what's mine

Any day I could die, just like I was born

and this bit in the middle is what I'm here for.

I just want to fill it all with joy.

And if I had you, all the stars wouldn't fall from the sky

And the moon wouldn't start to cry.

There'd be no earthquakes

I'd still make mistakes

But If I had you

There'd still be day and night

And I'd still do wrong and right

Blue would still be blue

But things would just be easier with you"