Hope everyone had a lovely weekend.
This is my routine at the moment (went to the docs last week- was signed off for 3 more weeks and told there would be no way I will be back at work until after the op, whenever that will be).
I still get up when Andy gets ready for work. Have breakfast and a big mug of mint tea (I have been feeling dehydrated in the mornings recently).
It turned out that life is too short to remove the stones from cherries, so I chopped them in half, put the stone-free half in my muesli and ate the other half right away.
Potter around at home- maybe put a wash on or something if I am feeling OK, listen to the radio (often a 5 live phone in until I get annoyed with it). Or watch Top Chef. I love Top Chef.
Go on a little walk with my mp3 player for company. I have been getting through the massive amount of marathon talks that I have missed since December as well as other podcasts. Today my choice was The Food Programme (very interesting, about the Olympics and the sponsorships and feeding the athletes, work a look (listen) here). I walk pretty slowly, but I enjoy the fresh air. Normally after 15 mins I am feeling good, and then wonder why on earth I just can’t go back to work, and decide I might add another loop on the end. Then after about 25 mins the pain gets worse and I realise why, and just wish I was a little closer to home! Sit down for a rest once I get home.
Make some lunch plus some nice tea. Check emails/ internet- this can easily waste 2 hours!
Listen to the radio (I quite like radio 5 from 2-4pm), do a suduko, tidy out a drawer, read a magazine…
Have a snack or another warm drink.
A delicious afternoon snack- a big smoothie with frozen banana, cherries, maca powder, coconut powder and almond milk, topped with some Graze frangipane mix.
A delicious hot chocolate- warm almond milk with some montezuma’s minted hot chocolate, which is basically flakes of dark chocolate with mint oil, all frothed up and then dusted with cocoa powder to see if I can get the star shape right.
I tried some Cococardio the other day, after getting a free sample in my last i-herb order. I am not a fan- it was too bitter for me. Ah well, if you don’t try, you never know.
Then watch Top Chef (if I didn’t watch it in the morning), and see Andy when he gets home.
Hooray, then I have some company!
I made some bread for dinner the other day- 1/2 white and 1/2 wholewheat flour with some munchy seeds and rosemary mixed in. Yum, I love seeds or nuts in bread.
We have dinner together, and at the moment are getting a bit addicted to The Killing (only the first series- we are behind the times with this one!). Exciting daily routine indeed!
I feel like getting outside and some fresh air is really helping with my sanity, and even a small change of scenery helps. I have my hospital appointment on Wednesday, and while I am glad that it has finally come around, I am also getting very nervous about what I am going to be told. It means that my operation will be closer too, which of course is good, but I am very very scared about having an operation, having general anaesthetic and so on, and so in a way this will be the start of the more scary stuff. I know it is not super serious or anything like that, but I know that I almost have to get worse before I can get properly better which is a bit strange.
Anyway, I promised a guest post. Andy actually said to me yesterday ” I suppose you don’t have much to blog about any more do you?” (thanks!) and so I asked him to tell me about his run.
“I went out the door, ran for a bit, had to stop to cross the road. Ran a bit more, didn’t really see anyone. Oh, I think the new Next will be opening pretty soon. Saw a few runners in Welwyn. Saw some people in a field doing some shooting.” I asked if he saw any rabbits: “Well, only if there were ones in that field with the shooters“. OK- maybe I should not have asked.
Any other Top Chef fans out there? At the moment I am re-watching the Vegas series (with chefs way ahead of any of the other series I think)- it is one of my fave reality TV shows I think. Or your favourite reality TV show? We have just discovered Storage Wars on netflix and that is rather addictive too!
Yup, the race pack. There is no way I am doing this (it is only 30 days away now), and when I came out of hospital and realised that, I had already missed the cut off for cancelling (where you don’t get a refund, but £10 off next years entry). After it came this morning I looked on the FAQ’s and it seems that you can transfer a number. So, if anyone fancies running it (it is Sunday 19th Feb), please let me know and I will happily send out the number to you. Seems a shame to let it go to waste, plus it is sort of annoying to see it there. Have a look on 
On Sunday afternoon the pond was still frozen solid, so it was clear it would be a heavy frost- I think everything looks so pretty when it is covered in white- even the cars!
Breakfast– muesli, apple, soya milk, peppermint tea.
Toasted sourdough with mixed nut butter and blackcurrant spread, grapes, and satsumas. That sourdough was sooooooo good- we had some at the weekend but I think it was even better toasted. If I lived in San Francisco I would visit 
A few chocolate pecans and a tea-pigs latte.
Can you see the heart shape? I will get better! Love the 
Not sure what it was! It was from the freezer and it was not labelled (I normally label everything)- it seemed to be giant cous cous, black eye beans, carrots, sweet potato, peppers, tomatoes… It was tasty anyway. With rocket and nutritional yeast.
A provamel caramel pot that tastes just like those little tubs of creme caramel you can get with all the yoghurts. Yum. 🙂
Using it was pretty easy- when I first turned it on (at home once I had charged it) it prompted me to select things like my age, weight, other stuff I can’t remember- for some reason I thought it was a twisty dial but it is just buttons on the side, so very easy.
Then it is not too hard- it plugs in to the USB port, and when you go to the connect site (and log in) you should in theory be able to click “upload” and it will upload new activities. This took about 3 goes and in the end I had to do it manually (clicking through “my computer” to find the file)- I un-plugged and re-plugged it in a few times as it did not seem to register. Anyway, hopefully it will get easier as I get used to it.
Now, I can’t do a fancy pants screen shot, but the photo came out OK. Anyway, this is what is exciting- there is a map, a line to show my walk and another one to show the elevation. How exciting. 🙂
First and most exciting news- I bought myself a 
I also got a couple of running magazines to read- again not sure if I am just taunting myself because I can’t do any of it yet. Ah well, I will be well prepared. (Sweatshop postcard in the background too).