Spelt scones

Paul Clerehugh's spelt scones.

Wonderful with extra cheese inside and on top.

I'm so over it now.

It's just as well Amazon are having a Kindle sale at the moment, as my page-turning-button finger has been on overdrive. This neck business is really frustrating. I'm completely fed up with it now. This morning it does feel as though things are taking a turn for the better. I am moving easier - got out of bed without having to wake J to push me upright - and I'm holding off on the painkillers for a while.

Yeaterday morning I scared myself. I couldn't remember how many, if any, painkillers I'd taken during the night. J and j took them off me and had me on a very strictly controlled timetable all day, just in case I did a MJ.
I'm starting to see how easily overdose could happen, especially if the drugs you are taking make you confused and sleepy. Good job I've got the pill police on the case.

I want to get better quickly. I need to be able to use my arms and move around. On my Easter list is:

• knitting
• spinning
• helping J empty the deck/porch, replace its roof and build an extension to it
• strip the old varnish off the garden furniture and re-treat with teak oil
• planting my potatoes (traditionally done on Good Friday)

These are some pink fir apple potatoes, chitting in the sun on my kitchen windowsill. I love these, boiled in their skins with butter and a bit of parsley.

Home made Saturday Kitchen

I love the Autumn. Autumn half-term is probably my favourite of all the school holidays (except the long one, of course, although I think I'd rather have that in the Autumn).

I love the range of produce available at the moment. We've been getting organic veggie boxes delivered each week and I've been challenging myself to use all of the vegetables in our meals.

This is tonight's dinner - beef and root vegetables in a Rigwelter gravy sauce. It smells wonderful.

Veggie soup with haricot beans. For lunches.

I really need to find something to do with the ruby chard that is still in a bag at the bottom of the fridge. I shall consult River Cottage Veg Every Day later on.

Went to the knitting group at Nature's World this morning. Had a relaxing time working on this:

It's a top-down cardi/vest I'm making from the yarn I spun from the top I dyed back in the summer.

I'm pleased with how it's working out so far.

Browsed through a couple of charity shops in a reasonably affluent area near us this afternoon. Best buy has to be this dress. Still on the website for £97, but hanging, with tags still on, on a rack in Age for £9.99. Did think I was going to have to wrestle for it as another lady came up behind me as I picked it up.

"Are you having that?"

"Yes, I think so."

"It's just that I really like it."

"Yes, but so do I and it's in my hand."

A little moment of calm

Twinings Moment of Calm, chamomile and spiced apple, tea with home made cheesy oatcakes. The perfect thing for the person who can't have sugar, doesn't tolerate bread very well, but sometimes still feels like a little home-baking experience.

225 grams wholemeal organic porridge oats, blitzed a bit in the food processor
1 large heaped tablespoon butter
A quarter of a teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
A quarter of a teaspoon of salt
Handful of grated cheese
Teaspoon mixed dried herbs
150mls hot water

Mix all together
Panic because it all looks too wet and sloppy
Relax as it starts to firm up into a loose dough
Roll out thinnishly with some wholemeal flour to stop it sticking
Bake at 180 degrees C until firm and starting to crisp
Leave to cool or until you can't wait any longer.

***

Bit of a rough night last night last night and not much better this morning. Can't decide whether it's related to (what I'm worried is) a return of the old fibromyalgia or just to being a perimenopausal old bag. Both feel very similar sometimes.


Got up quite early and sewed the ribbon and buttons onto this:






Very happy with it - I spun the yarn! Bring on the winter! Oh, yes, it's still here isn't it?

Daily intake

Yesterday, someone asked me what I ate. It almost seemed an odd question, as I don't really think about it much any more. I'm 16 months post op and my weight doesn't change much at the moment.

This is an honest recount of what I ate yesterday.

Up early, enjoying the quiet:
Skinny latte

Breakfast:
Skinny latte
(small pause)
1 and a half small crustless cheese, tomato and spring onion crustless quiches
Handfull of blackberries

Lunch:
Hard bolied egg
Small serving of salad from Morrison's deli counter

Knitting group:
Large skinny latte

Dinner:
Small bowl of beef casserole with green vegetables

Snacks:
Small packet Kallo rice cakes
Four Foxes wholemeal crackers with a banana on top
Two half glasses of wine topped up with water (have to really pace myself these days as get drunk really quickly!)
Muller rice

Waste not

I'm worried about the amount of food we seem to throw away as a family. I also always seem to be at Tesco. We spend a fortune and it needs to stop - it's all so wasteful.

To this end:



Found-in-the-fridge-Mexican-Chicken

and:



Lurking-in-the-chiller-drawer-veggie-and-halloumi-tart.

Weekend stuff

I've had a busy day, given that I had put the day aside to do some work-stuff (most of that completed too!)

Finally managed to get a haircut today. It's still short as I'm still trying to deal with the aftermath of losing so much hair in the first year after my surgery. At least it's shiny and not red again now :)



I have reached now, I feel, a weight I'm happyish with. Actually, I'm 11lbs under my last revised target and at the lower end of the 'normal' BMI range. Full face shots like that make me feel that I'm maybe a little too thin now, which is ironic. J has asked me to stop losing weight. It's not something I'm doing wilfully any more; it's just what my body is doing. Advice has been to increase my carbs and add more things like bread, cereals, pasta and rice. Pasta and rice, I can tolerate in reasonable amounts. I like risotto a lot. Bread and cereals are trickier. I can no longer tolerate bread easilly and most cereals have far too much sugar in them for me to risk. So, I'm adding extra nuts and proteins and taking each day as it comes.

I love these crustless quiches:



There are lots of recipes around, but mine is:
4 eggs
1 tub cottage cheese
4 spring onions
a handfull of grated cheese
some chopped chives
a glug of milk
salt
black pepper

Mix together and throw into silicone muffin cases
bake in a medium oven until set.
Cool in the cases then turn out and store in the fridge.

Good for packed lunches and breakfasts.

Finally: my new baby:



She's an Ashford Traditional. Needed a bit of tlc, which is complete now. Works beautifully. Wish I could say the same about the quality of my spinning ;)







I'll get better with practice. That said, I'm so pleased with myself!

Rumours

I've been quite upfront about my WLS with most people I know, but today a colleague of mine had a phone call from the Head of another school, concerned about me.

I gave a presentation to the Special Needs Coordinators' Forum last week and there were a number of people there who I don't see that regularly. Apparently, after the meeting some of them were quite worried that I might have a serious illness (cancer?) that had caused my rapid weight loss.

My colleague reassured caller that I was very well indeed and had been working hard at this.

I'm wondering if I should take out an ad in the council newsletter or post something on the intranet.

Nevermind. It could be worse.

♥ ♥ ♥

Rock-hard (and indeed contains various rocks such as gravel), never goes stale, and is terribly sustaining, because a traveller will try anything rather than start eating the dwarf bread in his pack.


I've been experimenting with eating various forms of bread. This weekend I tried Food Doctor Multi Seed and Cereal Pitta Bread I'm usually safer with flat bread than other types and have more trouble with white than anything else.

Betty didn't like this much.

And, to be honest, it reminds me of Dwarf Bread.

Chilly weekend

The weather is still cold and windy. Makes me want to put the heating on and curl up at home.

Ventured out only as far as the supermarket and into town for a much needed haircut this morning - it's been over eight weeks since I had it cut and I have been putting off.
This is because: a)I hate going to any hairdresser (hate staring at myself in the mirror, can't speak the same language as them and have a history of not getting the cut I want) b)My last haircut was horrendous and I've been trying to grow it a bit longer before I get the damage repaired c)I'm having a bit of an image crisis at the moment - my shape is changing, my face is changing and my clothes have had to change too.

Well, I've been now and had the back shaped. I've decided to grow it back into a bob (ish) shape.

&hearts &hearts &hearts

I've beeln experimenting a bit with my diet now that I can eat solid foods. Betty (Betty-the-bypass-pouch) still doesn't like crispy, crunchy foods, but will tolerate a poached egg, toasted WW bread, chicken breast, vegetables, rice in small quantities and salad.

Today I have roasted a pan of veggies with garlic, chilli and olive oil. They smell delicious. I've also tried crustless quiche made from eggs and cottage cheese with a bit of crispy bacon. Might be a good thing for my lunch boxes in order to get some variety from wafer-thin wiltshire cured ham with cottage cheese or chicken breast slivers with green salad.

&hearts &hearts &hearts

I ventured out earlier this morning, when it was brighter, but still cool. The tulips are taking a bit of a battering:





&hearts &hearts &hearts

These are all over the garden. We have been picking them up since we were children:



We always called them Devils' Toenails, for obvious reasons, but they are actually fossilised Gryphaea oysters from the Jurassic period.
Amazing what we take for granted, isn't it?

Slightly off colour

Haven't been too well this week. Yesterday my colleague asked me if I was ok. I had to say 'Not, really.' She smiled and said, 'Thank $%*& for that - you look like death, but I didn't like to say!' That cheered me up.

There's a tendancy to blame every little ill on the surgery at this stage. I'm 5 weeks out so every gastro-intestinal thing must be surgery-related, right? I took today off, sick, and when I rang work to see if everything was ok, there are lots of us ill, all with similar symptoms. I've said it before, but it's a penalty of working in the bacteria soup that is a primary school.

So, taking it easy on the food and drinking more today.

I'm doing well, generally. Managing to tolerate a wider range of food and nearly died in ecstasy when I managed a poached egg on a slice of toasted Weight Watchers malted danish bread Took ages to eat, though...

Struggling with my clothes a bit now. I have shrunk below a lavel where I can wear any of my old suits, and I refuse to spend lots of money on what I think of as interim clothes. So, I'm going to work in wide-legged linen trousers and tops from Asda. I like it, but it's a bit of a departure for me for work. They'll get over it, I guess!

Bruisey!

Should probably have marked this post not safe for children or at work, but what the heck! Look away if you are easilly upset!
My abdomen now:


It’s unbelievably swollen. I look much bigger than I did before I went into hospital, although I weigh less.

I seem to have spent all day working on eating and drinking, which is weird as I used to spend much of my time avoiding food.

Made a list of things that might work with the new, pureed diet stage and headed out to Tesco. Managed to get everything except Dutch crispbakes and I should probably not really have them anyway. I’m just craving something crunchy and I read that they are pouch-safe as they go to dust/mush in the mouth anyway.

What I ate today:

½ Weetabix with milk
Small latte
Petite Filous fromage frais
250mls Covent Garden winter veg soup, blended
Tbspn Mash with swede and carrot
Pureed veg with cheese stirred in
Apple puree and Angel Delight

Didn’t drink enough water, will try harder tomorrow.