Category: General ramblings

I love to visit the seaside. Brighton is one of my favourite places to visit, and I love pretty much anywhere along the south coast too. Where I live is pretty built up- not much green space between towns at all. It is great living so close to London, and within reach of several towns and cities, but I do love it when we get away for the weekend and get to see the sea.

A few years ago I had a trip to Devon with some of my friends. Luckily we didn’t actually see any sharks. We did have fun walking by the sea, playing mini golf and getting a “ferry” (turned out to be the size of a rowing boat) to another part of the coast.

Andy and I like our weekends away as well, and Dorset is one of our favourite places to visit.

A walk along the beach is just amazing for blowing away the cobwebs- relaxing and recharging at the same time. And who would not want to see a view like this?

Wherever we go (this country or abroad), Andy will always look in the estate agents windows to see what property costs there. Where we live prices are rather inflated as we are so close to London, so sometimes it is a bit annoying to see how little a 3 bedroom house would cost if we lived further away from London. But then we had a look at properties for sale in Devon and realised that perhaps living by the sea is a bit more expensive!

Would you like to live by the sea?

Do you like looking in estate agents windows? 

*I was sent a voucher in exchange for writing this post, all opinions are my own.

Now, when you are running it is really important to look after your feet. Luckily I don’t normally get blisters but sometimes I find a blister on my little toe (or I lose my little toenail- the last time I lost one was doing the Bath Half and since then I read that it can take toenails 2 years to properly regrow! Oops. I just cover it up with nail polish). I do have some foot lotion but only tend to use it when I remember (or when I have a bit more time)I was recently sent some foot goodies from the folks at Scholl so my feet are very happy at the moment!

They sent me some party feet heel cushions, some invisible gel cushions and some velvet smooth intense serum.

Now, I am not much of a party animal. I am more of an in-my-pajamas-by-9.30pm sort, and I don’t wear heels, but I do like wearing pumps which are not the best for your feet either.  So I decided to put the heel cushions into a pair of pumps to see how they would do.

I treated these as if they were some shoe insoles and was pleased with the result. I walked all around town for about an hour and a half (I was meeting some friends for afternoon tea, and two of us turned up 90 minutes early!)- and my feet felt fine. They slot into the heel area really easily, and did provide more cushioning than the soles of the pumps provide on their own. I have actually left them in my shoes for a few days now and they have been fine. It does say on the packet that both the heel and ball cushions are re-usable, and you can hand wash them, which is pretty good too. Having never used anything like this before I was quite impressed.

When looking at the lotion at first I was a bit worried, as it says on the box that it contains green caviar. Being a vegetarian I try to avoid any animal products but I don’t always remember to check the ingredients (I remember being shocked when I found a hand cream, Dove I think, that contained gelatin), but this was splashed on the front of the box. However some googling revealed that it is in fact some sort of seaweed, so perfectly vegetarian.

The serum is lovely- not greasy and it absorbed really quickly- I like to put my socks on soon so I hate having to wait for a lotion to sink in. I only needed a small blob (that is some specific lingo for you right there) so even though the bottle is small (30ml) it will last me a while.

Having something like this just reminds me to be careful of my feet in general. I think we can take them for granted, your feet carry you around all day, so spending a few minutes rubbing on some lotion is surely worthwhile.

Do you look after your feet? Do you wear heels? 

* I was sent these products in return for an honest review which included some links. All opinions are my own.

 

I love to have a snack in my bag “just in case”. I love fruit as a snack (or carrot sticks and hummus) but if I don’t have it the same day that sort of thing goes bad/ gets squashed very quickly, and of course some things have to be refrigerated. I was clearing out my school bag this week and found several clif bars, a pulsin’ bar and a mini packet of dried mango. But at least they can go back in my drawer and will be fine another day.

I was very happy when I was offered a box of Nakd bars to review on the blog. They make the perfect handbag snack. In case you have been living in a cloud, nakd bars are a blend of dried fruits, nuts and natural flavours “smooshed” together. The cocoa mint one (my favourite) contains dates, cashews, raisins, cocoa and natural flavour. 

I love nakd bars. My local Sainsbury’s used to stock the apple pie bars in boxes of 4, and that used to be my treat as I loved the apple/cinnamon flavour, and when they started doing the gluten free cocoa ones I was completely sold. I have used their website quite a bit (and sometimes the nakd pixie even includes a little extra sample)- delivery is free and they so sampler boxes so you can try all the flavours.

As I mentioned before, the cocoa mint one of my favourite, but a close second is the gingerbread (made with dates, almonds, pecans, ginger, cloves & cinnamon )- spicy! I like their smaller size, and I often have one in my bag as an after school snack- they are good with a cup of tea. When I was marathon training (all those years ago) nakd bars were one of the few foods I found I could eat whilst running too.

Because of the ingredients they are not super high in protein (around about 3g per bar) but they also sell Trek Protein Bars which are similar to the nakd bars but with added soya protein crispies. We always used to take some of the Peanut and Oat ones on holiday, as they made a great hiking snack.

They do come up with new flavours all the time- the latest once being their Protein Crunch bars (5.5g protein per little bar), so I thought I would give them some more ideas:

Cocoa gingerbread

Cocoa cherry

Sour cherry

Peanut butter

Chocolate peanut butter

Almond/ cocoa almond (I am imaging a delicious marzipan flavour here)

Spiced chai/ vanilla chai

Coconut

What flavour would you like them to make next?

* I was sent these for free and was asked to include a link to the site, all opinions are my own

A few weeks ago I was sent some Emily fruit crisps.

While Emily and her partner, Alex were travelling in the Far East, they found a way of making crisps in a vacuum that preserves all the good things in fruit while still being really crunchy.

And look how gorgeous the packaging is too.

They just contain fruit (either apple, pineapple or banana) and some non-hydrogenated vegetable oil (not sure of the percentage).

I have had apple crisps before, and liked them, so I tried the pineapple first.

They were hard to photograph, but you can see the sort of size. They were lovely- a nice crunch but not break-your-teeth crunchy, and the pineapple flavour was delicious.  I liked that they were a bit thicker too- some fruit crisps I have tried have been paper thin, but these were more chunky. The packet was 30g, and I saved some for later as that is a lot of crisps.

They are lovely on their own, but I think that for a treat the apple ones would be amazing dipped in some caramel sauce.

Are you a fan of fruit crisps? I tend to associate crispy things with savoury flavours, but these made a lovely snack.

And not even because of the heat! On Sunday afternoon I was sneezing a bit, but thought it was because of the sunshine, but by Sunday night it had turned into a proper cold, with a sore throat and neck (I could only turn my head to the left as my neck was swollen on one side).

So, no running for me.

Tuesday and Wednesday I still didn’t feel great, so we had a walk on Tuesday and went to the cinema on Wednesday. We saw Boyhood, which was really good, but long, and I had work to do once I got home so was not quite in the right mood for it.

Thursday I was home late, too late for pump really, and so opted for another walk and a bit of a relaxing evening- I was pretty shattered.

Then at about 3.30 in the morning we had the most crazy thunderstorm I have ever seen ( to rival one from Florida)- lightning every 10 seconds at times, and so close by. Luckily it woke me up as I had to rush around to close all the windows!

This was waiting for me when I got home on Friday! I am doing this run in October (I am doing the 15K, but there is a 10K or 5K option too)- I think I must have decided to buy the top when I signed up, but it arrived on its own- they must be sending out the race packs later.  We had sports day at work so I had been outside in the heat a lot, but wanted a run as the weather here for Saturday was meant to be more storms- after seeing them the other night I didn’t think that was sensible. So at about 6pm I headed out on a short run. I did an out and back route- the first half a mile was shaded, and the next mile was through the fields- no shade but a breeze so I didn’t feel too bad. But then I turned around and the breeze disappeared. It was horrendous. Almost like it was hard to breathe, and although I had suncream on I almost felt like I could feel my skin sizzling and burning. I didn’t really enjoy the mile back through the fields and ended up feeling a bit sick- I was very glad of the shade for the final part, and took it pretty slowly.

Then I was awake early on Saturday morning, and although it was raining a bit at first, by 8.30 the rain had stopped and it was still overcast- much better running weather- I should have waited! I did a lot of tidying and cleaning instead, and then made some pancakes.

These were made with 1 egg, some almond milk, some of that Pulsin’ soya protein powder, coconut flour, baking powder and almond extract.  Not sure of the amounts- tablespoon here, a drop there, but mixed until they made batter that looked OK. It shows how hot it has been as the jar of coconut oil in my cupboard had turned to liquid! I had two topped with that delicious almond butter, and one with nutella, plus 2 doughnut peaches. Mmm, hello weekend.

More tidying awaited (during a busy week nothing gets done at home- I just put things into “neat” piles as that makes me feel better), before lunch.

Sourdough with tomato pesto and avocado (yes, chopped the avocado on the plate as I had just cleaned and tidied the kitchen so didn’t want to make a chopping board dirty), plus some iced tea.  This was coconut pineapple black tea which I ordered here from ebay ages ago- I added half a cup of boiling water to the tea jug, left for a minute then topped with cold water and chilled overnight. It is delicious, probably my favourite home-made iced tea yet.

Also, was just emailed a discount code for the remaining Women’s Running 10K races (Bristol 2nd Augustl/ Glasgow 6th Sept/ Finsbury Park 27th Sept)- £20 if you enter LETMERUN – worth a try to see if the discount will work if you fancy one of them- that includes the technical t-shirt so pretty good value. I really enjoyed it and would keep my eyes out for them next year. 

Right, I am off to the allotment as I am hoping it will be a bit cooler out there now.

How have you been coping in the heat?