Running in the rain and the best cookie recipe

My routine for last week was pretty much the same- yoga on Monday in the morning, early runs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (4 miles each time), a yoga class on Wednesday evening via Zoom, and then walks most evenings. As it’s so light in the mornings, the 5am wake up isn’t too bad and I really like the time when I get home and can have some tea and chill out, or do some jobs around the house. I don’t think I’ll continue it in the winter for several reasons- the main two being the streetlights aren’t on until 6am and I don’t have time to dry my hair so it stays damp all day (I dry it for around 10 mins) so in the warm that’s fine but I’d get so cold in the winter.

I also get to see some lovely sunrises.  If you don’t listen already, I would recommend Running is BS as such a good podcast- the presenters “love to hate running”, but really they call out all the nonsense surrounding running (eg all those stupid click-bait articles such as one they mentioned recently- will your headphones give you coronovirus…). Anyway, there is the legend of a guy who was mentioned by a listened before who is known as pin skin man, because he was seen at an ultra race with his number pinned to his bare chest. Well, they only went and tracked him down for an interview! Loved it!

On Tuesday evening we did the next stage of the lego Disney castle- we now have some posts and it’s looking a bit more 3D. We also have a mini Mickey as well as some little frogs (to kiss princesses I think).

After my morning run I have been heading into the garden for a few minutes to cool down- it’s very peaceful in the morning, with lots of birds flitting about. More and more flowers are blooming too. Top right is a bit of a rose bush- it was in a pot and would maybe have one or two flowers and always looked a bit sorry for itself. Last year we put it in the ground in an attempt to rescue it, and it’s suddenly taken off with hundreds of little flowers.

We got to eat our first home-grown courgettes of the year. First in a lovely tofu noodle dish (from the Happy Vegan cookbook) and then in a lentil bolognese (again from that book).  There are loads more forming, and the tomato plants have a few green tomatoes on them too- it’s all coming along nicely.

I was awake a lot in the night before Thursday morning- hearing all the heavy rain. Although it had eased off and wasn’t raining too hard there were huge puddles going across the road. At times I had to wait to make sure no cars were coming before running along, because I would have been totally soaked in dirty road water.

Pink tea and my cute hand santitiser holder that arrived from Enchanted Cosy Co (Etsy) this week.

On Friday after a walk and a cup of tea (Red Velvet) I did a lot of baking. I had prepped the sourdough the night before, and in the morning it needed shaping and leaving in the basket, to be baked in the afternoon. I made a batch of cinnamon and cardamom buns ready for not parkrun breakfast, and then later while Andy was watching the football I made some of the Pret almond butter and dark chocolate cookies. These are now my all time favourite cookie recipe. If I went into a Pret I would always be tempted to buy one if they had them, but that isn’t a regular occurrence as there isn’t a Pret where we live. Now they released the recipe I can make them whenever I like. It does have a long list of ingredients but it isn’t complicated at all and they are sooooooo good.

We had been watching the dramatisation of Waco which was very well done. So interesting, and I didn’t know much about it so was totally shocked and appalled by the final episode. Well worth watching but very tough in places.

On a lighter note we watched the next Queer Eye episode- it’s good to have something so cheerful and uplifting to watch.

Do you have any favourite recipes?  Do you mind running in the rain?