hop aboard

Yesterday we went fir a ride on the ilfracombe princess. It was 2hour roundtrip to see the local ccoastline, lighthouse and seal colony.


We were very excited and ciuldnt wait to go. It was an ok day weather wise, sunny spells light winds nothing too much on land....


It was very windy once out in the Bristol channel though! I felt a little quest, let alone how my poor travel sick princess felt! Whoops.

The ride back to the harbwasn't as bad with the wind behind is rather than coming at us. It was a nice trip, the staff couldn't have been more helpful. Perhaps we will try again on a very still day inland! Lol
asnt

exmoor pony centre

I  had booked asurprise for while we are away, a kickstart to our  holidays. we went horse riding,another item on ourbucket list in the end onlyStephanie and I rode Dylan had a funny turn while we weregrooming and so was unable to ride. Riding really US like learning to ride a bike. It has been around 17 years since I last rode, but it all came back to me quickly albeit with a few more nerves than I had as a teenager!

Excuse any errors I am posting from my phone while we are away and I can't see the post clearly.

g

Take 5 minutes out

Today has been a get ready for tomorrow kind of a day. We are going on holiday tomorrow, camping for a couple of weeks. Several destinations around the South of England. I will let you know where we are if I can get a signal as we go. My lovely sister is coming to housesit and to take care of our plants while we are away. So today has seen us taking Dylan to the orthodontist, filling the car, checking tyre pressure etc. ready for the long drives. And collecting a few last minute things which we should have already done, truth be told but its summer holidays we can be lazy if we want, right??! We had to pop out to get a map of the areas we are heading to, and the children have both outgrown their willies- why do they have to do this at the same time?
 So we found what we needed. While we were at the shops we found they were having a craft session. We do have a lot to do what with finishing packing etc. but we took 5 minutes out. Ok nearer 15 for Stephanie to join in :-)

It was a pirate theme craft, todays item was a parrot. I love how children immediately take something which has the potential to all be the same and make it their own. Every child started with the same basic picture, it was a print out of a parrot. They made them their own by dividing up into colours where the picture didn't 'dictate'. I love that. Hate when you see loads of children's pictures and you can't tell one from another. Stephanie loves her parrot- she named it Polly.

Here she is testing out Polly's tail feathers in the wind. Apparently they looked like they were dancing and that is just the look a pretty parrot needs!!

A little run

This morning Stephanie asked to go for a run when we got up. We had some toast first then we both pull on suitable clothes and trainers and head out. We set off at a jog which quickly becomes a walk :-)
We then decide to follow a footpath which we weren't entirely sure where it leads to, I did have a rough idea but to Stephanie we didn't know so that was exciting!

A quick pit stop every so often for sustenance

 

blackberries all over at the moment :-)

We didn't just run and walk though, we skipped, hopped, galloped, side stepped. you name the move we probably tried it! All the way around in the end we totalled up 3.6 miles together. Its was lots of fun and Stephanie enjoyed pausing on the bridges over the roads for breath. Well it would have been rude not to wave at the drivers heading off for work etc. as they passed. She was very pleased as she got 3 lorry drivers to sounds their horns and 5 car drivers to wave. Exciting stuff!

When we got home we made smoothies using frozen fruits. And then decided they would make nice ice lollies too. So we found a few things to use as moulds. The two tom and jerry ones are intended for this purpose, the others are a variety of Tupperware pots.

a splash of apple juice, a handful of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, banana and a dash of water.

Quick whizz in the blender then into the moulds.

 

Into the freezer they went while we popped to see family. Then once we got home and had eaten dinner Stephanie tried one. Apparently they are delicious.

 

 

 

 

what's a girl to do when an ex hurricane passes by??

Today it was very wet and windy soon after we got out of bed. We had been planning to go to a castle but upon looking out the window we decided a rainy and windy day means a craft day. We watched the thunder and lightning then Stephanie disappeared up to her bedroom and came back down with her rainy day book. I think we should do this and this and this and this as the list came out. Eventually she settled on some paper plate weaving, Whilst I dug out the paper plates Stephanie went and raided my yarn stash.

"I need all of these ones" she declared as she put them on the table. Then she got started;

I decided to sit alongside her and join in .

Once Stephanie declared weaving was complete for the day I supported her to make a hospital for her soft toys with an old shoe box

The only real casualty was my foot when Stephanie dropped the Stanley knife, nothing that couldn't be fixed with a plaster though.

Then we had a message inviting us round to see my aunt's new puppies born last night;

Such cute little bundles of fluff. Seven of them in total and Mummy dog is an absolute star with them all.

Running stats

 

I have been busy running this week, I haven't really done very much of anything else, a little shopping, visiting family and tidying. nothing significant. I am feeling vey proud of myself. The graph above is taken from my app I use on my phone to calculate how far I have been running. These are my totals for August, the first bar on the graph (5.4 mils is Friday 1st August. As you can see I took Tuesday as a rest day, I wasn't feeling great so I relaxed.

 Below are the stats my app is showing me for August.

 

 

 

distance

45.2

Miles

duration

06:16

Hours

Calories

3,373

burned

Workouts

8

 

Now I know that the next few weeks won't be as impressive- we are going away for a couple of weeks, just me and the two children. I am hoping to get out on a couple of smaller runs. I will let you know how I get on.

 

 

 

completed

reduing the sugar

I have a terrible sweet tooth. I am setting a challenge to reduce the sugar that I eat. I am trying very hard to say no to chocolate and other sugar induced products. I also want to cut down on processed foods etc. I am trying to move towards 'clean eating'. Where you only eat natural foods. It is going to be a challenge and not one I can change over night. But slowly I am going to try.

whatever food I am eating breakfast is a problem. Mostly because I enjoy going out for morning runs. Breakfast first is a nono- makes you sick. But no fuel in the belly means that energy runs low. Which for me is around the 7-9 miles mark depending on what I have eaten the day before. I really need to work out how to get past this to crack on with the marathon training. So I decided last night that  I was going to try a recipe for banana and nut cookies I found here on The kitchen shed. I confess to be dubious after all there is no sugar/ flour in the recipe how is it a cookie?

these are the ingredients;

mashed banana, cashew nuts (recipe says mixed this is all I had), rolled oats, ground cinnamon and vanilla extract- I forgot the picture of that!


mash the banana, chop the nuts and mix it all together, is the basic idea of the recipe. I wasn't going to stand and individually chop all the nuyts so I roughly crushed them in the pestle and mortar;

once all ingredients are thoroughly mixed you can separate into cookies. I decided I wanted to make mine into a cake bar so I pressed mine into a cake tin;

Cook at gas mark 6 for around 20 minutes.

Once cooked cool on a rack, this is where I cut mine into slices. Once cool refrigerate and eat within 3 days.

Simple and they taste surprisingly good. I haven't tried their benefits whilst running yet- it's a cross training day so I will be at a fitness session this evening instead of a morning run. I will let you know how I get on once I have tried them as running fuel.

 Have you tried clean eating/ similar foods. What are your favourites?