P and I went to the Real Food Show at Earl's Court yesterday. Billed as London's largest farmer's market, there were probably several hundred producers gathered under the one roof - lots of bread, cheese, wine, ciders, beers, chocolates... and hardly any veggies at all, which did seriously amaze me. We came away with far too much bread (because I can't resist dark, dense, artisan rye bread, heavy with seeds, or home-baked soda bread) and cheese (two varieties and ages of parmesan, my favourite sheepy cheese, some blue goaty), and wine and (for P) beer and cider. We picnicked briefly in the park for tea - but the weather didn't hold, and I had been too optimistic in not taking a jacket out with me.
I also came away with more veggie seeds than I will ever be able to plant. Yellow climbing beans; purple climbing beans; borlotti; custard squash; romanesco cauliflower. I need to do some serious garden work when I get home.
This morning I woke up knowing I hadn't had enough green. So while P slept I pottered up to the farmer's market in Walthamstow and loaded up on mustard greens, rocket, baby spinach, lettuce, red russian kale, purple sprouting and some radishes and shallots for good measure. I was the first customer to buy veggies at one particular stall; the second was G, Linda (Minicronnie)'s partner. We've only met the once so he didn't place me at first; when he did, I laughed that there were very few people who would be buying so much greenery at 10am on a Sunday morning. :-)
Now I am back at P's house and wondering what to do with the rest of the day. I kind of can't face any more foodie shopping, which is my default London activity when I spend weekends here. Later on he will go and visit J in hospital (who relapsed seriously last week but now, thankfully, is rallying again), but I won't because I have a slight cold and don't feel I can risk it. But we have the afternoon, so maybe we shall do something with that. We'll see.
Sunday, 27 April 2008
Saturday, 19 April 2008
Blank
I feel as though I need to (should?) update this blog, because I haven't just vanished; I'm here, still Sara-ing away - the usual, the usual; home-London, London-home; great CR, not so great CR; wine, whine. :-) But things are very... up in the air. P's father is still in hospital and now, for heaven's sake, has some kind of infection that has him back on oxygen. Our greatest fear now, obviously, is that having survived major heart surgery, and a fairly serious stroke, is that the hospital environment currently more detrimental to the speed of his recovery and to the state of his health in general - but what can we do? Private care is financially impossible - and there's no guarantee that conditions would be any better in a private hospital anyway. He's not well enough that he can just go home. This does, quite frankly, suck. And I am on the periphery of this limbo; it's taking far greater toll on P, his mother and his siblings. And poor J (P's father) must be in a terrible mental state.
Doesn't matter if CR helps with our future health and longevity (although that's no reason not to focus on it; I still do - I think, but then given my eating habits it's hard to tell what's CR and what's just Sara). We should just thank Whatever that we have (reasonable) health right here and right now. And I do, I do.
Even if I have caught P's cold. Which, ironically, might be what has laid J low again.
Tonight I foolishly agreed to make risotto. Risotto. *sigh* Hey ho. Lots of veggie side dishes, I guess. We have artichokes to steam. And some radicchio, which I am planning to make a salad from with some beetroot I have roasting in the oven right now and some shavings of sheep's cheese that needs using up. Plus tons and tons of salad leaves from market and farm shop.
The rain can sodding well stop right now as well, please.
Moan, moan, moan huh? :-) Hardly an update worth reading. Love to all and I hope all are well.
S.xxx
ETA, because lovely acts are always worth mentioning to the world. This morning I went to a Gardener's Market in my nearest town. Such fabulous plants and herbs and flowers (indoors, so nothing was shrinking back from the cold and the wet). One of the owners of my favourite plant nurseries was there - fantastic couple, work their butts off to raise such a variety of stunning beautiful things in a fairly isolated location but one that is fortuitously close to my home. They specialise in bulbs, and I took the opportunity to ask him what might have gone wrong this year that meant that my Queen of The Night tulips just failed to appear altogether, while the fabulous orange/red with the black hearts came up as reliably as ever. (Answer, likely rotted in the soil in the wet January). I thanked him, and continued wandering around, and when I next passed the stall he handed me a bag with a full pot of Queen of The Night in bud "as a replacement" because he "hated disappointment".
Bless him. I do seem to whinge and whine so much but really, I do know how fortunate I am. How very, very (touch wood) lucky.
Doesn't matter if CR helps with our future health and longevity (although that's no reason not to focus on it; I still do - I think, but then given my eating habits it's hard to tell what's CR and what's just Sara). We should just thank Whatever that we have (reasonable) health right here and right now. And I do, I do.
Even if I have caught P's cold. Which, ironically, might be what has laid J low again.
Tonight I foolishly agreed to make risotto. Risotto. *sigh* Hey ho. Lots of veggie side dishes, I guess. We have artichokes to steam. And some radicchio, which I am planning to make a salad from with some beetroot I have roasting in the oven right now and some shavings of sheep's cheese that needs using up. Plus tons and tons of salad leaves from market and farm shop.
The rain can sodding well stop right now as well, please.
Moan, moan, moan huh? :-) Hardly an update worth reading. Love to all and I hope all are well.
S.xxx
ETA, because lovely acts are always worth mentioning to the world. This morning I went to a Gardener's Market in my nearest town. Such fabulous plants and herbs and flowers (indoors, so nothing was shrinking back from the cold and the wet). One of the owners of my favourite plant nurseries was there - fantastic couple, work their butts off to raise such a variety of stunning beautiful things in a fairly isolated location but one that is fortuitously close to my home. They specialise in bulbs, and I took the opportunity to ask him what might have gone wrong this year that meant that my Queen of The Night tulips just failed to appear altogether, while the fabulous orange/red with the black hearts came up as reliably as ever. (Answer, likely rotted in the soil in the wet January). I thanked him, and continued wandering around, and when I next passed the stall he handed me a bag with a full pot of Queen of The Night in bud "as a replacement" because he "hated disappointment".
Bless him. I do seem to whinge and whine so much but really, I do know how fortunate I am. How very, very (touch wood) lucky.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Time
The clocks went forward this morning. Of course, being ditzy me, I failed to realise and thought my PC was playing me up when it told me it was 6am rather than 5am when I gave up on sleep and staggered downstairs for my morning internet fix, and so was rather surprised when the neighbours offered me morning coffee at what I thought was 8.30am but was actually rather later. P fared somewhat better and was actually on a train to visit his father by the time I gathered enough wits to phone him and make sure he had more nouse than I did.
We both visited P's father on Thursday evening. He is making progress but his condition is very distressing, and the hospital, frankly, sucks. I am sure that the nurses are doing their best for him, but of course they can't be everywhere at once nor give him the individual attention and more importantly mental stimulation that he requires. I felt horrible leaving at the end of the visit. But he continues to improve and so, no matter how slowly that improvement is, it's good.
I know this is supposed to be a CRON blog but this last week, I certainly haven't been CR-ing. Apologies for that (if anyone is expecting deep and meaningful CRON revelations, that is; I'm not apologising for not CR-ing!). P and I have had a lot of meals out; a neighbour injured her foot and was unable to stand, so I've been cooking for her and her partner, and those evenings have been somewhat convivial as well. I have, however, apparently completely revamped her concept of how vegetables can be served and cooked and she, like me, is now swooning over the simple pleasures of steamed purple sprouting broccoli and kale. Steamed carrots tossed in a teaspoon of grain mustard and a teaspoon of honey (warmed 10 secs in the microwave) have met with approval too, and last week I made a salad with cannelini beans, lots of flat-leaf parsley, rocket, tomato, cucumber, black olives, lemon juice, garlic and chilli that went down a storm. I do love to cook.
Today I went to an open day at a herb farm and came back with lots and lots of packets of seeds - far too much, really. With the extra daylight I have started to sweep out my courtyard and plan where to put pots of salad mix and other veggies and herbs that I want to keep close to the house. It's still a bit early to think about planting in the soil (and it's water-logged anyway) but I might set up some trays of veggie seedlings in the kitchen, to pick for micro-veg in salads.
I very much like this light evening thing. It's a little bit of positivity. I need to hang on to the idea of regeneration, and the cycle of life right now. Things get better, they get better. They must.
We both visited P's father on Thursday evening. He is making progress but his condition is very distressing, and the hospital, frankly, sucks. I am sure that the nurses are doing their best for him, but of course they can't be everywhere at once nor give him the individual attention and more importantly mental stimulation that he requires. I felt horrible leaving at the end of the visit. But he continues to improve and so, no matter how slowly that improvement is, it's good.
I know this is supposed to be a CRON blog but this last week, I certainly haven't been CR-ing. Apologies for that (if anyone is expecting deep and meaningful CRON revelations, that is; I'm not apologising for not CR-ing!). P and I have had a lot of meals out; a neighbour injured her foot and was unable to stand, so I've been cooking for her and her partner, and those evenings have been somewhat convivial as well. I have, however, apparently completely revamped her concept of how vegetables can be served and cooked and she, like me, is now swooning over the simple pleasures of steamed purple sprouting broccoli and kale. Steamed carrots tossed in a teaspoon of grain mustard and a teaspoon of honey (warmed 10 secs in the microwave) have met with approval too, and last week I made a salad with cannelini beans, lots of flat-leaf parsley, rocket, tomato, cucumber, black olives, lemon juice, garlic and chilli that went down a storm. I do love to cook.
Today I went to an open day at a herb farm and came back with lots and lots of packets of seeds - far too much, really. With the extra daylight I have started to sweep out my courtyard and plan where to put pots of salad mix and other veggies and herbs that I want to keep close to the house. It's still a bit early to think about planting in the soil (and it's water-logged anyway) but I might set up some trays of veggie seedlings in the kitchen, to pick for micro-veg in salads.
I very much like this light evening thing. It's a little bit of positivity. I need to hang on to the idea of regeneration, and the cycle of life right now. Things get better, they get better. They must.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Still here
A brief and boring update, just to keep myself in the blogosphere... :-)
Not much going on worthy of CRON note. To be honest, full CRON has been fairly far from my mind with the situation with P's father - which doesn't really get much better but at least isn't (and please GOD won't) getting worse. It's really, really horrible to even contemplate that someone can go from more or less decent health (give or take a dodgy aorta) to being unable to move or speak or see in one slice of a knife on an operating table. We are so, so fragile beings.
Life goes on though, busily busily. Have managed to get more of a routine back into my weeks - weekends and three full days at home (good nutrition; good CR!) and two days in London (not so good, but then never bad, nutrition; CR on the back-burner); that helps. Am planning what to grow in the garden this year and have a bunch of seeds already picked out: various lettuce varieties, kale, chard, spinach, courgettes, butternut squash, beetroot, green beans, peas... Last year, what with the wedding and growing all the flowers for that, the veggie garden was a bit neglected in the end - and it didn't help that all the weird and wonderful squash varieties we thought we were growing turned out to be ornamental gourds and inedible. But this year I am optimistic. It's lovely seeing the world wake up again; one can take heart from that, in a way.
I also think I am winning the battle against the Christmas weight, finally. Which is good. I'll feel much better when I am back down at an upper weight of 112lbs rather than the 114-5lbs I'm at now; even carrying a little extra feels more uncomfortable than I'd like... but anyway, that's not really the point; I do wish it didn't matter to me but it does... Although not as much as eating well. April says she feels the lack of good nutrition when she's not fully with CRON and I do too. Yesterday I was craving chocolate, for heaven's sake - ordinary, sugared, crappy chocolate. I just hadn't hadn't had enough green for lunch.
Enough inanity for now... Later!
Not much going on worthy of CRON note. To be honest, full CRON has been fairly far from my mind with the situation with P's father - which doesn't really get much better but at least isn't (and please GOD won't) getting worse. It's really, really horrible to even contemplate that someone can go from more or less decent health (give or take a dodgy aorta) to being unable to move or speak or see in one slice of a knife on an operating table. We are so, so fragile beings.
Life goes on though, busily busily. Have managed to get more of a routine back into my weeks - weekends and three full days at home (good nutrition; good CR!) and two days in London (not so good, but then never bad, nutrition; CR on the back-burner); that helps. Am planning what to grow in the garden this year and have a bunch of seeds already picked out: various lettuce varieties, kale, chard, spinach, courgettes, butternut squash, beetroot, green beans, peas... Last year, what with the wedding and growing all the flowers for that, the veggie garden was a bit neglected in the end - and it didn't help that all the weird and wonderful squash varieties we thought we were growing turned out to be ornamental gourds and inedible. But this year I am optimistic. It's lovely seeing the world wake up again; one can take heart from that, in a way.
I also think I am winning the battle against the Christmas weight, finally. Which is good. I'll feel much better when I am back down at an upper weight of 112lbs rather than the 114-5lbs I'm at now; even carrying a little extra feels more uncomfortable than I'd like... but anyway, that's not really the point; I do wish it didn't matter to me but it does... Although not as much as eating well. April says she feels the lack of good nutrition when she's not fully with CRON and I do too. Yesterday I was craving chocolate, for heaven's sake - ordinary, sugared, crappy chocolate. I just hadn't hadn't had enough green for lunch.
Enough inanity for now... Later!
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Insomnia
Someone on the CR list posted about the effects of CR on sleep. I don't know whether it's CR, or me aging, or me not needing as much sleep as I used to and still trying to get as much, or what, but in the last year I have had more episodes of bad insomnia than ever before. Like this one. 3am. Meh.
Still, I watched No Country For Old Men earlier in the evening. I suspect that has more than a little to do with it. What an unrelentingly cruel movie; fabulously done, but so so so bleak. I guess being awake is preferable to being in the half-daze of troublesome dreams it left me with.
Still, I watched No Country For Old Men earlier in the evening. I suspect that has more than a little to do with it. What an unrelentingly cruel movie; fabulously done, but so so so bleak. I guess being awake is preferable to being in the half-daze of troublesome dreams it left me with.
The Inspiration of the Long Distance Runner
101 year old man intends to run London Marathon.
And there was me feeling quite pleased with myself having managed to get to the gym 4 mornings in the last week so far and do my 30 minutes treadmill stagger each time!
And there was me feeling quite pleased with myself having managed to get to the gym 4 mornings in the last week so far and do my 30 minutes treadmill stagger each time!
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Cautiously Optimistic
Over the last few days, P's father seems to have been making gradual, positive progress towards a recovery. It appears that he had a stroke after his heart surgery. However, today he was able to open his mouth of his own volition to have his teeth cleaned, and he is sitting in a chair rather than lying in bed. As yet he can neither see nor speak, but we are hopeful that the system will continue to reboot and he will be back with us, fully compos mentis, very soon. Thank you for your good wishes.
INO, I found Robin's latest post today fascinating, setting as it does a hypothetical non-CRON day against a CRON one. It reminds me, not that I really need to reminding, that getting one's RDA's on a CRON diet without using software is really impossible. It's ironic that when I was using CRON-O-METER regularly, P would chastise for me disordered eating, but when I do not, and sit down with him and eat my way through a plateful of romaine quietly, he doesn't comment at all. Yet I know that that plateful of romaine really doesn't do it for me! Often I am in danger of eating unhealthily-healthily.
Today I have eaten (in order, as far as I can remember) fat-free yoghurt, LLBY, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, flax seeds (4am insomnia); a mug of hot soya milk some of which was poured on 10g of puffed spelt, almonds, and a brazil nut (2nd breakfast, like a hobbit); more yoghurt, LLBY and cinnamon (after gym); salad of romaine, cavalo nero and mustard greens with eggwhites (back to shelling my own); cooked beetroot, the kind that comes vacuum packed (because it needed eating up); some more gojis, a few more almonds, a couple of walnut halves and some more pumpkin seeds; and a baby cauliflower and a baby romanesco cauliflower with two chopped tomatoes and a little feta. I don't know the calorie count or the nutritional profile of any of that lot, because I can't get CRON-O-METER downloaded onto my new PC (something to do with the settings of IE, which I just cannot change; it keeps wanting an Active-X script running and it won't have it - any tips welcome). But as far as calories go, knowing there is no bread in there, I'd estimate it to be just under or just over 1000 cals and the nutrition to be around 80-85% vitamins and minerals. I imagine I'd be low on iron and E, and certainly on D because I've stopped taking my supplement after the latest scare. I might have some broccoli later to bump things up, but I'm about to head out to a friend's place for a movie so if she did insist on feeding me, I have room for it.
Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I would just like the reassurance that C-O-M gave me that my healthy diet was healthy, and not just pseudo-healthy, lacking in nutrients. It's not bothering me too much; I'll get C-O-M installed somehow, sometime... The other thing was that I try very hard to get P to eat healthy food when I am with him, but not my food. Quite often I make a large salad, cook greens, and we share those, but I will do meat for him - steak, or lamb, or something that looks as though it could look nice if I wasn't a rampant veggie. I'm a little distressed to find that what I thought was healthy - good steak, for instance - isn't! Still, the nutritional profile of all of the meals on R's posts could be bumped up by 200g of steamed spinach whacked on each plate, I would have thought. A small difference, but a crucial one... At least P is usually more than willing to eat his greens even if he does draw a line at a plate of kale. :-)
More off-the-cuff ramblings from me... Golden Compass now (a disappointing adaptation of a fabulous book if there ever was one).
INO, I found Robin's latest post today fascinating, setting as it does a hypothetical non-CRON day against a CRON one. It reminds me, not that I really need to reminding, that getting one's RDA's on a CRON diet without using software is really impossible. It's ironic that when I was using CRON-O-METER regularly, P would chastise for me disordered eating, but when I do not, and sit down with him and eat my way through a plateful of romaine quietly, he doesn't comment at all. Yet I know that that plateful of romaine really doesn't do it for me! Often I am in danger of eating unhealthily-healthily.
Today I have eaten (in order, as far as I can remember) fat-free yoghurt, LLBY, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, flax seeds (4am insomnia); a mug of hot soya milk some of which was poured on 10g of puffed spelt, almonds, and a brazil nut (2nd breakfast, like a hobbit); more yoghurt, LLBY and cinnamon (after gym); salad of romaine, cavalo nero and mustard greens with eggwhites (back to shelling my own); cooked beetroot, the kind that comes vacuum packed (because it needed eating up); some more gojis, a few more almonds, a couple of walnut halves and some more pumpkin seeds; and a baby cauliflower and a baby romanesco cauliflower with two chopped tomatoes and a little feta. I don't know the calorie count or the nutritional profile of any of that lot, because I can't get CRON-O-METER downloaded onto my new PC (something to do with the settings of IE, which I just cannot change; it keeps wanting an Active-X script running and it won't have it - any tips welcome). But as far as calories go, knowing there is no bread in there, I'd estimate it to be just under or just over 1000 cals and the nutrition to be around 80-85% vitamins and minerals. I imagine I'd be low on iron and E, and certainly on D because I've stopped taking my supplement after the latest scare. I might have some broccoli later to bump things up, but I'm about to head out to a friend's place for a movie so if she did insist on feeding me, I have room for it.
Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I would just like the reassurance that C-O-M gave me that my healthy diet was healthy, and not just pseudo-healthy, lacking in nutrients. It's not bothering me too much; I'll get C-O-M installed somehow, sometime... The other thing was that I try very hard to get P to eat healthy food when I am with him, but not my food. Quite often I make a large salad, cook greens, and we share those, but I will do meat for him - steak, or lamb, or something that looks as though it could look nice if I wasn't a rampant veggie. I'm a little distressed to find that what I thought was healthy - good steak, for instance - isn't! Still, the nutritional profile of all of the meals on R's posts could be bumped up by 200g of steamed spinach whacked on each plate, I would have thought. A small difference, but a crucial one... At least P is usually more than willing to eat his greens even if he does draw a line at a plate of kale. :-)
More off-the-cuff ramblings from me... Golden Compass now (a disappointing adaptation of a fabulous book if there ever was one).
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