Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, calendar, charity, Help for Heroes, video
Brilliant! Just got an email from the BritMilFit crew, telling me about its charity calendar – on sale and featuring semi-naked instructors and a job lot of baby oil, by all accounts.
It’s all in a good cause, as 100% of the proceeds will go to Help For Heroes, a charity that helps rehabililtate wounded servicemen and women.
I’ve put in my order on the strength of the “sneak preview” video below…
Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: lime, Patak's Korma curry paste, prawn, prawn and lime pilau, recipe, rice
I resolved to up the recipe count on the blog not two weeks ago, and failed at the first hurdle last week when I was busy being self-absorbed. I shall correct the situation forthwith…
While I love to spend time making curries from scratch, without the aid of a pre-prepared paste, there isn’t always time after a long day at work. This recipe is a great mid-week meal, which is very quick to prepare – it took me less than half an hour to cook and eat! I found it in one of the Waitrose freebie magazines, and it’s also on the website.
Prawn and lime pilau
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp Patak’s Korma Curry Paste
250g basmati rice
500ml Cooks’ Ingredients Fish Stock
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lime
20g pack fresh coriander 200g Indonesian cooked, peeled prawns
[I halved everything on this list except the prawns, and that made enough for two as it's quite filling.]
- Gently fry the onion in the oil for 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and curry paste. Stir for a further minute, then add the rice and mix well.
- Pour in the stock, add the lime zest. Season, then cover the pan. Simmer gently until the stock is absorbed and the rice cooked.
- Stir in coriander, lime juice and prawns. Warm through and season.
Image from www.waitrose.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: decree absolute, divorce, family, friends, relationships
I’ve toyed with the idea of writing this post for some time, and not done so to date because it’s more private than most of the guff I jot down here. It has nothing to do with running or food.
Today I received a decree absolute, formal confirmation of the dissolution of my marriage. Some of my more recent visitors won’t even know that I was married for a little more than three years in total – separated for two of them. Those that do know have been kind enough not to ask questions if I haven’t volunteered to talk about it, politely ignoring the fact that I looked like shit after a sleepless night or cried in the loos at work for no apparent reason.
I married a wonderful person who I believed – at the time – I would spend the rest of my life with, someone who continues to inspire me even now. He has taught me a lot about dealing with trauma, coping with disability and living life in the present. But we just didn’t want the same things out of life, let alone our marriage. That wasn’t enough for me. Not enough for either of us.
Receiving the letter today, it’s hard to reconcile the various emotions. I feel sadness and a sense of loss for the happy times; a sense of failure, for not being able to make the partnership work; shame, for standing up in front of my entire family and friends in a big church saying those words that now sound hollow in my mind; guilt, for putting my parents, brother and close friends through the highs and lows of the past three years; and, finally, huge relief that I can enjoy and build on a new and wonderful relationship.
So, now I’m “divorced”. An ugly word, I always think. But in writing it down, saying it out loud, I can begin to accept that it is part of who I am now. I can move on with the love and support of those closest to me – who have been utterly brilliant over the past two years. They know who they are…big thanks.
Anyway, that’s the self-indulgent crap out of the way. Normal service will be resumed in due course.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, fartlek, ice-cream, prospect park, strawberry split, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Tilehurst
Prospect Park.
9 November.
Around 7.50pm.
It’s cold; maybe 5°C.
The only people in the park are the BritMilFit Reading crew (soaking wet, teeth chattering after Delta/Charlie fire team drills with Tom, and it looks like we might be about to do fartlek with Dan); and some hoodies letting off dodgy fireworks. Even the dog walkers have stayed at home.
All of a sudden, out of the darkness, comes a surprising sound: a tinny “Da da da da-da-da da da daaaa…” It’s the ice-cream van, blaring out “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” as he rambles around Tilehurst. Seriously. In November? I wonder if he’s sold so much as a strawberry split since August?
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, monsters, Oops Up Side Your Head
So, three British Military Fitness classes over the last few days: a rare Saturday session followed by Monday and Wednesday evenings. I seem to have brought an end to global warming with my last comment on the subject as last night was really quite chilly. The car read 9°C when I got back into it last night, but my hands felt colder. The middle finger of my left hand did that weird dying thing for about two hours afterwards, and remained completely white while the rest of my hands warmed up and turned pink again.
Still, at least the cold weather should kill off whatever little monsters bit or stung me on the back of the leg on Saturday, the after-effects of which are still driving me nuts five days later.
Other monstrous things included a repeat of Dan’s fartlek special on Monday, and all of the leopard crawling last night. Oh, and the multiple plank manoeuvres which have given me a tummy ache today. Reminds me of one morning after a wedding when all of the guests woke up with stomach pains. It wasn’t the food that affected us; it was some slightly over-enthusiastic moves to “Oops Up Side Your Head” – rather like this but with fewer props and more vigour.
Evidentally my appearance is fairly monstrous too. Instructor Harry remarked, during the water break on Saturday, that I appeared to be “leaking water.” The look on his face said: “Gosh, I thought ladies were supposed to merely glow…”
Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: BBC Good Food, breakfast, Dorset Cereals, food, granola, recipe
I’ve decided I don’t write about food enough on this blog. Food, as anyone who knows me will testify, is a subject very close to my heart. I am pretty much always thinking about my next meal, get exceptionally grumpy when I’m hungry, and just do not understand people who “forget” to eat lunch. I love cooking, especially for other people, and am happiest pottering about in my kitchen. If I didn’t work in PR, I’d run a tea shop supplying lots of Yorkshire tea, home-made cakes and other yummy snackage.
I am not, it has to be said, particularly creative in the kitchen though. I rarely make up my own recipes, but scour newspapers and magazines for ideas to steal, some of which I adapt as I go along.
So, I’m going to try to share at least one recipe per week, referenced accordingly and with my notes. This week: home-made granola, which comes courtesy from the BBC Good Food site. I discovered this recipe when I realised Dorset Cereals granola costs over £4 a pop and I can easily go down a whole box in a week. By myself.
Good-for-you granola
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 125ml maple syrup
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- I also add a couple of teaspoons of spice – e.g. cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice
- 300g rolled oats (I like the jumbo ones that come in big bags in Sainsburys or Waitrose)
- 50g sunflower seeds
- 4 tbsp sesame seeds (I halve this amount, as the end result can be a bit “bitty”)
- 50g pumpkin seeds
- 100g flaked almonds
- 100g dried berries (sultanas work fine)
- 50g coconuts flakes or desiccated coconut (I halve this amount as above)
- Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Mix the oil, maple syrup, honey and vanilla and spices in a large bowl. Tip in all the remaining ingredients, except the dried fruit and coconut, and mix well.
- Tip the granola onto two baking sheets and spread evenly. Bake for 15 mins, then mix in the coconut and dried fruit, and bake for 10-15 mins more. (I add the fruit right at the end, so as to avoid it drying out). Remove and scrape onto a flat tray to cool. Serve with cold milk or yogurt. The granola can be stored in an airtight container for up to a month (Ha!! like it’s going to last that long).
The end result is incredibly moreish. In fact, the boyfriend pronounced it “better than Dorset Cereals”. Praise indeed.
I did work out the cost, and it came out at around £4 to make 750g. Not that much cheaper than Dorset Cereals then, unless you have a good discount health food store nearby. Which I don’t, that I’m aware of. However, it is very filling – 750g equates to about ten portions (with milk) for breakfast, and staves off the hunger pangs until lunchtime which is nothing short of miraculous. It’s also rather marvellous with fresh fruit and yoghurt as a snack or pudding.
Filed under: running | Tags: hampstead heath, health, heart disease, Jerry Morris, running
Many thanks to Highway Kind over at Running Matters, who flagged this article on the late Jerry Morris last week – an absolutely fascinating account of the first person to make a link between sedentary lifestyles and heart disease in 1949. Jerry studied postal workers and transport workers; some of whom were active and others relatively inactive at work.
Jerry became certainly one of the first people to take up running as a means of reducing the risk of contracting heart disease:
“I was the first person to run on Hampstead Heath, in the 1960s. Every Sunday morning, if the weather was at all possible, I took off my coat, and my little boy carried my coat, I took off my jacket and my little girl carried my jacket, and I ran for 20 minutes. People thought I was bananas.”
It’s amazing to look at how far our knowledge has developed in the two generations since. Few people in the developed world, at least, can be ignorant of the importance of exercise in promoting good health and long life.
What a shame, then, that the National Obesity Forum has seen fit to declare this “National Obesity Week“. Apparently one in two people do not have an accurate picture of their weight, and are being encouraged to calculate their Body Mass Index (BMI). For the record, at 5′4″ and 9 stone 12, my BMI is 23.7 (just about within the healthy bracket – the result, in part, of a sedentary lifestyle at work and a deep-rooted love of food).
Phil and I ran in Jerry’s footsteps around a bit of Hampstead Heath yesterday morning in torrential rain. Despite being really quite displeased at the thought of going out in the soaking wet, I really enjoyed it once I was out.
4.5(ish) miles
46 minutes
4 very soggy feet
