General ramblings - Maria Runs

Jingle Bell Jog and a Christmas hamper

Hey peeps- I survived!

The Jingle Bell Jog was rather hilarious! My friend picked me up and we headed into town to collect our Santa suits. The suits were, um, interesting! I could have worn the trousers as dungarees, and even though they were baggy with a big drawstring, if you moved at all you split them in the crotch! It was also boiling! There was no bag drop so I kept my capris and top on as it was freezing walking from the car, but I ended up being so hot. I attempted the beard on, but it was so fluffy and itchy so I left it around my neck.

After a “warm up” we were off- the most laid back run ever- no timer clock, no signs to say how far we had gone- the roads weren’t closed so at several points we had to wait at roads for the green man!

But we got a lot of beeps from cars driving past and we were wa ving our flags back at them. We took it gently (one of my friends had not run at all in preparation so she did really well)- we ran the first mile, then ran/ walked the last two- making sure we ran to the finish. No idea what my time was as I didn’t stop my Garmin until it beeped for 4 miles back in the car!

What a cool medal though! Santa has the right idea in a sleeveless top to run in!

I made sure I stretched when I got home, but my leg has felt fine again, so that is good news. If I feel OK then I will have another run on Tuesday.

Now I am trying to persuade Andy to get our decorations down- I have suggested watching Home Alone as a sweetener! I think we are now putting it back to this Tuesday though.

A few weeks ago I was sent a gorgeous Christmas hamper from Hampergifts. They have a lovely selection, including lots of vegetarian/ alchohol free hampers. The one I was sent was called The Noel, and it is chock full of goodies. It came beautifully wrapped in ribbon, and I have no idea how all the contents fit in the basket as once I had unwrapped it I could not fit them back in!

The contents as listed on the website:

Olives Et Al Chilli & Garlic Olives 150g
Dark Chocolate Coated Marzipan Loaf 100g (I got Lindor truffles instead)
Cottage Delight Spicy Mango and Ginger Chutney 340g
Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Co. Fresh Ground Breakfast Coffee 56g
Large Christmas Fruit Cake 500g
Milk Chocolate Coated Almonds 150g
Alice McPhersons Petticoat Tails Shortbread 150g
Olive & Sesame Savoury Breadsticks 100g
Triple Chocolate Gourmet Cookies 100g (mine were lovely lemon ones)
The Wooden Spoon Cranberry & Orange Sauce 113g
Walkers of London Milk Chocolate Fruit & Nut 240g
Buchanan’s Chocolate Russian Caramels 100g
English Breakfast Tea x 10 Envelopes

It had a lovely mix of savoury and sweet items, and I love that it included coffee and tea instead of wine (although of course there are hampers with wine too). The Russian Caramels were in lovely gold and red wrappers, and sprinkled about the basket, so they have all been eaten now. I am saving the Lindor for the Christmas holidays as I have seen a way to make little reindeer with them, and I am thinking the cranberry sauce will be perfect in sandwiches. My Mum and Dad have been enjoying the mango chutney, and Andy’s family have been loving the spicy olives.

The chocolate coated almonds are also slightly gold coloured.

They are also huge: brazil nut sized and very moreish!

I have made hampers for people before, and it is always hard to find something to put them in- I love the idea of using reusable things like a utensil holder or something. I also think the range on the website is really good so well worth a look, even just for ideas.

Have you ever made/ bought a hamper for someone? Have you ever run in fancy dress?

Thanks to Hampergifts for providing me with the hamper to review. All opinions are my own.

Gingerbread hot chocolate

Hey peeps- I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

I have been feeling really festive now- hooray! Earlier in the week we had a walk to John Lewis after dinner, and I bought myself a couple of Christmas treats.

Some gingerbread hot chocolate flakes, and some gorgeous coconut tea- I bought some of this in the summer but have not had any yet as it seemed too nice to use!

Look- the tea comes in little pyramids with a little leaf thing to hold!

I had another week of rest this week, but felt like I was climbing the walls a bit by the end of the week. I have felt totally fine, so on Friday after work I attempted a gentle 2 mile jog. I felt fine again, although I am now feeling like I can’t tell if I feel normal or not- or am I being paranoid! I stretched loads when I got home, and I felt alright, so fingers crossed. I wanted to see if I would be OK for the 5K tomorrow, and I think I will be fine so long as I take it nice and slow.

After spending lunch time at the school Christmas Fayre, I was off for afternoon tea with friends.

Photo from one of my friends as the picture I took was not as good.

We had such a lovely selection and they had even made some of the cakes look festive with little stars and holly leaves. The Christmas tree was up and it was so cosy in there- I think we spent about 3 hours just catching up and relaxing, it was wonderful.

This morning I made some dough for some stollen- after seeing so many last weekend in Cologne it has been on my mind! So when I got back I shaped the loaves and they are rising now.

Loads of cherries and marzipan in there, yum.

I have also booked my next physio appointment, although it is not for another week and a half. I think between now and then I will be sticking mainly to walking, with perhaps a couple of short runs- I shall see how I am after the jog tomorrow.

Also, I signed up for the marathon talk Jantastic challenge- team Run Blog Bake! is up on there, so please join in if you fancy it (it is just for fun!). 🙂

Perfect pasta and baths for the win

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

Since I visited the physio I have been trying to have regular baths. Now, I am not that good in the bath- I don’t like sitting around and I generally get too hot, plus it always takes longer than a shower. To make the time pass quicker I have sorted out a temporary measure- (and also because I am getting behind on my marathon talk listening as I usually listen on my long runs)- I have worked out that I can use my running headphones (they loop around my ears and won’t fall out) and tuck the mp3 player into my hair bun (mental blank- can I just call it a bun?) and then, success- I can listen to a podcast in the bath. Hooray.

I was kindly sent some bath salts (magnesium flakes) last week from Better You, what perfect timing. The instructions were to pour the whole packet (250g) under running water and then soak for 20-30 minutes. I didn’t take a photo of them in the bath, but they looked like coconut flakes- really huge chunky bits of salt, but they dissolved really well.

I also really liked the packaging- nice and bold and clear. They are available online and I think quite reasonably priced compared to the Epsom bath salts I have bought before. Something to add to my Christmas list as well, as I think I may need to carry on with the baths when I start running again.

We have also been enjoying plenty of pasta, thanks to this very generous package from Sainsbury’s.

My favourite has been the wholemeal spaghetti- we have enjoyed it with lovely Zest green pesto, courgettes and peppers. I had a lovely meal the other day with some Zest sundried tomato pasta, avocado and cherry tomatoes. It sounds like a strange combination, but seriously it is lovely.

Today I had mountains of work to do, and Andy was out, so I needed a quick and easy dinner (usually I am very lucky in that if I am working Andy will sort my dinner out for me)- I baked some herby tofu and some butternut squash, and then cooked up some of the chunky pasta tubes. Some red pesto stirred in to the cooked pasta and voila! A quick and delicious dinner. I was making some more honeycomb while it was cooking…

Bubbling away!

Anyway, of course it was ready just as the timer pinged for the pasta, but even though I left it for a little bit the pasta was still perfectly firm.

Just what I fancied.

I look forward to trying all the other pasta types- we don’t have enough cupboard space to have all the packets on the go at once, so it may take a while!

I am starting to feel very antsy indeed with no running for over a week now. At the moment I have zero pain, and although I feel I am moving cautiously, I have felt fine and am sure I could run if I wanted to. But I don’t want to start back too soon and make it worse. I have not booked another physio appointment yet- I keep getting home too late to call. I am going to give pump a miss tomorrow, as I think the squats and lunges are not a good idea, but I might try a gentle run on Friday. It is my local Parkrun’s 100th run on Saturday, but I am not going to that as I have the Jingle Bell Jog on Sunday which I want to be fine for, and I know I will be tempted to push too hard at Parkrun. The race is a 5K, and we have to wear Santa suits, so no pb chasing- I shall be running gently and possibly aiming for my slowest 5k time. But hopefully it will be fun and festive- I have never run a race in fancy dress before so I am looking forward to it.

Also, I got my first Christmas card today! To be fair it was from my cousin who has moved house, so partly it was so I had his new address, but I am still so impressed with their efficiency. I think that is another job for the weekend!

Teaple Tea!

So a while ago I was sent some lovely teas from the folks at Teaple. They are a relatively new business and according to their website you might find them selling at various markets or pop-up locations. Their teabags are made from 100% biodegradable materials, and the packaging is from renewable/ sustainable sources and is also recyclable.

Now, you all know how much I love tea, so I was very excited to try these, especially as they are wonderful loose leaf teabags- all the taste of loose leaf tea but no need to use a strainer or infuser.

I loved the quirky names too!

The “Lord Grey’s Tweed Trousers” (Earl Grey) was gorgeous- I didn’t brew it for too long but the bergamot flavour came through really well.

“A Soothing Romp” (whole chamomile flowers) was sweet and comforting. I always forget how much I love chamomile tea- perhaps it sounds like it won’t have much flavour but it is just so mellow and relaxing.

My absolute favourite was “The Fresh Prince” (Cut peppermint leaves)- seriously how great is the name? But it was not just a fab name, it really was the sweetest mintiest mint tea I have tried, and I have tried a lot of mint teas! I tend to stick with “normal” teabags for mint, as the fresh ones I have tried never seem to have as much flavour, but this was wonderful.

I also tried the “Brewbarb & Custard” (vanilla rooibos) which was also really lovely- I added a splash of almond milk as I think it went well with the vanilla. This sort of tea is great when you fancy something sweet (like a hot chocolate) but aren’t actually hungry as the vanilla flavour makes it feel like a sweet treat.

They are all available on their website- you can see the range of teas (and cool names) here. I have just seen they do a sample pack so you can try all the types and then find your own favourite (plus you then get 10% off your next order). I think mine would have to be the peppermint, but the vanilla rooibos would be a very close second. But to be honest I loved them all. You can check them out on facebook and twitter @teaple_co

Thanks Teaple!

*I was sent the teas in exchange for an honest review- all opinions are my own.

Physio update

Hey peeps, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Where did it go??

On Friday I had my first physio appointment- I had to rush there at lunch time so I was stressed about that too. The lady I saw was really lovely and mostly put me at ease. She asked me loads of questions about the problem/ pain, got me to do a few moves (squats, stretches and a few other things), and then had a go at massaging out the pain. I won’t go into too much detail but I have 2 problems, some inflammation around a part of my hip/pelvis, and slight muscle pull on the inside of my hip, but she said it was a bit chicken and egg, in that one probably caused the other but we would not know.

I also got rather told off as I am so inflexible- I know that anyway and do try to stretch, but she said next time she will give me some stretches to do- at the moment it will be no good doing them at the moment as I will do more damage. She gave me some exercises to do at home, and told me to ice certain bits and also no running (although I had stopped anyway- I mean no point running if I can’t walk). The soft tissue massage was so painful though- I now have some interesting bruises on my leg and it is still sore to touch even after a few days! At least by the end of the appointment I was feeling better, and we did some of the moves from the start again, and they were better, so I could see an improvement.

I tried to book another appointment but I couldn’t at that time (clashing with work), so that is one job for this week.

On Friday evening we were off to the Eurostar for a weekend away, hooray! I will do a proper post once Andy has sorted the photos, but it was a lovely weekend with lots of walking (I did fit in my physio exercises too), lots of delicious food, and lots of Christmas markets.

I bought quite a few chocolate souvenirs- including chocolate with macaroons in it! I was just taken with the novelty! Plus some chocolate covered orange slithers, and a little block of orange marzipan.

We got back on Sunday night, but although it was busy I also felt so refreshed- on the train on the way back I listened to the film podcast from radio 5, which has made me really want to see “Saving Mr Banks”! So although we were travelling it was pretty chilled out.

I have not put up any decorations yet- there are still 3 weeks of work left before Christmas so it seems a bit early, plus I would quite like a real tree (as we now have a sideboard where we used to put up our fake tree, we have no space for it now!) and we can’t have those too early in case the needles drop. Anyone started decorating yet? I do want to start decorating my Christmas cakes this week, exciting!