Journey to the centre of hell…

well, almost… I went to Oxford Street yesterday! I started the day with a long lie in (til 11am!) a yogurt for breakfast, followed by a trip to the gym, where I did a relatively speedy four mile run, and a few weights.

I then made my trip into town. I did the nice bits first – I had my free Subway (free because I was there in a ‘Mystery Shopper’ capacity). I chose a 6” turkey sub on white bread, with lots of salad, extra gherkins, and some mustard, washed down with a big diet coke. Nice! I then went to John Lewis to spend a voucher that I’d won at work for my efforts on a particular  project. I bought a teflon reusable baking sheet, which is something I’ve been meaning to get for a while – it’s easier to keep clean than a metal tray, it’s non stick, and it goes in the dishwasher! I also bought a box of the Dorset Cereal Fruit and Fibre. I confess that I only bought this because it has a ‘love it or your money back guarantee’, so unless I love it, I’ll be claiming my money back! (I am usually a big fan of fruit and fibre, so there is actually a good chance I will love it)

I then visited the big Primark. I always thought the flagship branch of topshop was bad when it came to screeching teenage girls, but Primark is horrid! I bought socks for Mark, pyjama shorts for myself, then escaped, as quickly as I could! I bought myself a snack to keep me going (a Boots Shapers chocolate bar and lemonade) then went to M&S, which always has a calming effect. I picked up our travel money for the holiday, then made my way home. After a bowl of my new cereal (nice, but I’m not sure if I love it, the flakes aren’t crispy enough) I went to our lovely local pub, the Bread and Roses, for the monthly quiz. It’s quite a house tradition. Maybe because it was pouring with rain, or because everyone’s on holiday, the pub was really quiet, and it was only us and one other team taking part, but we still achieved one of our highest scores ever, and we beat the other team, to win 6 beers and two bottles of wine! I had one small glass when we got home, and it’s very nice wine!

Room reshuffle

The room re-shuffle is almost complete (a picture will come tomorrow, once it looks tidy!) I spent about an hour and a half sorting through things, and throwing stuff out; realising I’ve got more shoes than I thought, and that I take after  Mum when it comes to hoarding stuff that *might* be useful (who knows when you’ll need a random metre of lace?!) I then stopped for lunch, which was half an oven bake baguette, with some salad and cream cheese, and a diet cherry coke (a favourite mid afternoon treat!)

Then I moved on to stage two of the reshuffle, which involved turning the bed round 90degrees to that it’s facing a different way – no particular reason, I just wanted a change! Tomorrow will be that last bit of tidying and sorting, maybe involving a trip to the charity shop to donate some things.

The evening was nice and relaxed, I had a sainsbury’s basics cottage pie for dinner (admittedly it doesn’t look too appetising, but it was only 45p, and it’s only 220 calories!) with which I cooked up some extra carrots. The housemates and I sat and watched Mean Girls, which is (surprisingly for Lindsay Lohan) a really good movie. Finally, I snuggled up in bed with my book and a couple of squares of Sainsbury’s basics dark chocolate – yes, I am a bit hooked on the basics range, but it’s so good! According to Mark, this chocolate is nicer than Green and Blacks.

Superfood?

This is my first proper day off in ages, which is nice, but a strange feeling. I had a lazy morning doing nothing, had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, watched the cooking channel,  then eventually decided to get up and go to join the gym (I had to quit my old one when I left my job) I am now a member of the swanky Virgin Active round the corner from my house. I had a nice 35 minute run whilst watching Murder She Wrote, then did about 15 minutes of weights and crunches. On my return home, I tried out a new purchase – a Fruitein protein shake. I chose the Acai berry (inspired by yesterday’s fruit research) and mixed it with water. It was nice, quite refreshing, and thicker than I expected. It has only 110 calories and 10g of protein per sachet, plus heaps of vitamins and antioxidants and things. I liked it, but I’m not sure whether I’d buy it again, £1.69’s quite a lot, considering I’d probably get the same health benefits from a poached egg and some salad!
Now I plan to spend the next couple of hours tidying, sorting and rearranging my bedroom!

I finally did it (sort of!)

I rode a bicycle! This is something I’ve not done for about 14 years, since breaking my leg really badly as a youngster (yes, I realise I should have tried much sooner!) Yesterday Mark and I went to Battersea Park and I hired a bike. It was VERY stressful, involved a great deal of me pouting and sulking like a 4 year old and refusing to move, but eventually I sort of got there. I’m not great yet, and I haven’t really done much turning, but I could go in a straight line, and also avoid cycling into oncoming pedestrians without squealing and screeching to a halt! I feel quite proud of myself now!
We then went to Whole Foods, partly on ‘business matters’ as Mark is researching what’s cool and trendy in the world of fruit, but also because I like trying all the free samples. This time I splashed out and bought  myself a salad from the salad bar. I was really hungry so forgot to take a pic, but it had spinach, butternut squash, aubergine, mushrooms, carrot, broccoli, some beans, and tomatoes – very tasty! We also got lots of interesting fruit things – it seems that everything is all about blueberry, pomegranate and acai at the moment. We bought some ice lollies, which, in the name of research we had to test!
In the evening, we made big simple salads, with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, peppers, tuna and sweetcorn, served with some oven baked baguette, which was a great dinner on a hot day. We then watched the Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which was a really good film – sometimes I lose  concentration when films have subtitles, but this kept me interested throughout! Halfway through I decided I was still a little hungry, so we stopped to make cups of tea and bowls of Start for supper – yum!

crazy!

I have just found out about this... it sounds like madness, but it sounds like madness I may have to try at some point!

a royal day out

Today we took a trip to Windsor, which we’ve been meaning to do for a while, and a sunny bank holiday seemed like the perfect opportunity.

We had a wander up to look at Eton college first (very Harry Potter-esque) then bought sandwiches which we sat and ate in the park (they were pretty huge though, I only managed half of my roasted veg baguette!)

After that, we went in to the castle, which was really beautiful. The ticket price included an audio guide, which was really useful, and very educational – normally I’m used to relying on Mum to tell me all the important bits of historical information at places like this! The moat garden looked gorgeous, but there was an extra charge to go around that, so we just looked over the wall at it! The chapel was fascinating, and I’m sure Mum would have been very pleased at the number of times the audio guide suggested we came on a sunday to share in their services! Queen Mary’s dolls house was very impressive, with its tiny version of the crown jewels, and real (but miniature) oil paintings. I also loved walking around the state apartments, personally I was imagining the Queen wandering round the rooms in her pyjamas, trying out all the fancy chairs and bouncing on the beds…! Eventually, after point 28 on the audio guide I was getting tired feet and needing a cup of tea, so after a photo with a guard, we left the castle. I was hoping to get a quick look in Lakeland, but it was already closed, so after our cup of tea we headed back home.

In the evening we decided to go Mexican, and make cornbread and chilli (vegetarian, with mixed beans, mushrooms and courgettes), which turned out pretty well – the chilli was quite spicy, but the sweet,  cakey-ness of the cornbread helped temper that. We had a nice chilled evening in, watching Footloose – which resulted in me wanting to go somewhere and dance to cheesy 80s music! One question though – does anyone really think Kevin Bacon is attractive?!

Ice cream… for breakfast?!

I am a huge fan of all things ice cream, and ice cream related, like frozen yogurt. I will pay to go to ice cream festivals, I will walk the streets of new york to hunt down as many branches of tasty d’lite as possible, and I will frequently forgo lunch in favour of a solero. So for a while now I’ve wanted to try out making banana soft serve, as seen on some of my favourite food blogs like eatliverun. All you do is take one frozen chopped up banana, stick it in the blender, and voila, you have ice cream! (with all the taste and none of the calories)