Yesterday I was working 8-3 and 5-8 – long day!
While at work I decided it would be a good idea to make the most of the nice weather, and suggested to one of the men that I was supporting that he might like to go for a cycle ride (which is something he normally likes to do). Round the corner from where he lives is a lovely cycle/foot path, that provides a great chance for him to cycle along without too many obsticles. His spacial awareness isn’t too bad, but he can’t remember which side of the road to cycle on – so the quieter the path the better! Recently his gears have been adjusted, to a really low gear, which means that he can manage to get up hills without stopping, but he has to peddle so much on the flat, that it makes him a bit slower and wobbly, but does mean it gives me a better chance to keep up!
So, he cycled along the path ahead of me, I jogged along, happy in the knowledge that he knew the path and would come back when he got to the end. I went about 3/4 of the way, then waited for him to return, which he did – all going well. I told him that he needed to stop at the end of the path, and not cross the road. We cycled/jogged along together, then he walked up part of the hill. I reminded him again about stopping at the end, and then the path slopped downwards and I couldn’t keep up, so he went on ahead. Well surprise, surprise, he hadn’t listened to me. He got to the end of the path and carried on cycling, up through the car park and towards the road and crossed over. I tried to call after him and attempted my feable attempt at running after him! Twice he looked back, and I ushered him to come back, but he just turned around and carried cycling!
The reason I’d asked him to stop was because I wanted to go down to one of the shops with him, and possibly the bike shop too, to figure out the gears. I had to keep reminding myself, it doesn’t matter, he’s pretty good on getting across roads safely and we’ll just have to walk to the shops later! It certainly gave me some “good” exercise!
This is a recipe, which one of my lovely penpals from America sent me at least a year ago. I’m not really one to strictly follow recipes, I tend to just cook by feel/sight, but this recipe lives on my fridge, and it gets followed “exactly”. The recipe I was sent was in cups (which I will tell you), but I’ve worked out the weight equivalent, because us Brits tend to go by weight and also back when I was tracking all of my food (following the Weightwatchers plan), the measurements were in metric… not cups.
The best things about this recipe is that Andy likes it and it tastes nice reheated the following days. It takes a bit of time to make compared to standard porriage, but because you bake it, it ends up more like a pudding than porriage…I’ll try to add a picture, so that this makes a bit more sense!
Here goes (I’m copying it exactly from recipe sheet, just adding grams):
Baked Apple Oatmeal
100g 1 1/3 cups old fashioned oats
30g 1/4 cup raisins
400ml 2 cups milk
10g 1/6 cup packed brown sugar
10g 1 Tablespoon butter, melted [I use marg, and stick it in oven to melt, while gathering other ingredients]
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon [I often use more, or add mixed spice too]
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 medium apple, chopped
1. Heat oven to 350F [180c]. In 2-quart casserole, mix oats, raisins, milk, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, salt and apples.
2. Bake uncovered 40-45 minutes or until most liquid is absorbed. Serve with additional milk, if desired.
I eat a portion, and with the remainder, I let it cool down and then cover it and put it into the fridge. The following days I can then scoop out some more and microwave it – yummy, quick, healthy, tasty, warming breakfast! It’s so much less mess that porriage, because I measure everything in the casserole dish that it’ll cook in (except for the milk, which requires a jug), and just keep resetting my electric scales. I do like minimal mess when it comes to cooking, as it means less washing up, which I’m all in favour of!
If anyone has stumbled across this site and is following the Weightwatchers ProPoints plan, then if you use skimmed milk, and light margarine (e.g. light Clover/Flora), then it comes to 19 ProPoints for the whole recipe, so it you have a quarter, that’s roughly 5 points, and will fill you up!
“Not old, just older…”
Today my dear husband Andy joins me at the grand age of 30! My of our friends in our year have already had the 30th birthdays, because Andy was one of the youngest in our year.
Now onto presents… I’ve given him 30 presents to unwrap!!
A. age: 30
B. bed size: double, with kingsize duvet!
C. chore you hate: repairing toilet seat (ours often goes wonky)
D. dogs: no, we’d like one, but our flat is too small for a decent sized dog!
E. essential start to your day: breakfast (or take it with me)
F. favorite color: blue!
G. gold or silver: silver, although I went for a gold engagement & wedding ring.
H. height: 5’
I. instruments you play: none adequately, I started to learn violin at school, and can get a few tunes from a keyboard, but I can’t read music, so that makes it harder!
J. job title: support worker
K. kids: not yet!
L. live: Devon, England
M. maiden name: L*******
N. nicknames: Iccleanne, Annie (don’t like this)
O. overnight hospital stays: 2 nights in Jan 2005, for closure of an ASD (hole in heart).
P. pet peeve: people who are really inconsiderate, rude or nasty to others.
Q. quote: “to live in Christ, to die is gain” Philippians 1:21
R. righty or lefty: lefty
S. siblings: yes, one older brother called Keith
U. university attended: none, no courses I wanted to do.
V. vegetables you dislike: mushrooms
W. what makes you run late: getting distracted by doing things at the last minute, that I should have done before.
X. x-rays you’ve had: head & heart
Y. yummy food: pizza, lasagne, chocolate!
Z. zoo animal favorite: tiger – although not sure we should really keep them in zoos.
I’m sat in the dentists waiting room, waiting for a chap I support to have his dental treatment. It’s a private practice, and really is much nicer than my dentists!! Mine is however half NHS and half private. The waiting room of this private dentists has individual comfortable arm chairs and there is only a faint smell of dentistry (the mix of chemicals they use to treat & sterilise). Shame it costs so much to be treated here – at £50 for regular check up I think I’ll stick with my less thorough & personalised, but cheaper & quicker!
This time 6 years ago, I had spent the last night at my parents house. I’d woken up, had a shower. My bridesmaids, hair & make up people had arrived and wedding preparations had started!
My makeup was done first, then my hair. I remember asking the hairdresser to move the veil to below where they’d put my hair up, so it was on the back of my head rather than at the top of my head, because I was not going to put the veil over my face, and that was the way I’d worn it in the wedding dress shop, and it looked better that way!
Before putting the dress on, I got some toast cooking, to make sure there was some food in our stomaches. I put the radio on, because I really felt the need for some music, which is funny, because that’s more something that Andy would do. I remember standing in the kitchen and “Beautiful day” by U2, came on the radio, and it was like God had requested the perfect song to calm my nerves! I stood there singing to the song, and feeling a sense of peace. What I didn’t realise at the time was that Andy was also listening to that on the radio!!
I was not so nervous about marrying Andy, I loved him, he was (& still is) my best friend, spending time with him was so easy, there was no awkwardness between us. The nerves were first time nerves, of walking down the aisle and standing at the front trying to get my words right!
My Dad had gone to the venue to do the last few jobs. I remember him asking where we’d left the cake stand and saying he couldn’t blow up the helium balloons because there was a nozzle missing in the helium kit!!
The flowers arrived and so did the cars. My Dads friends at a local funeral directors had offered us free use of their Daimlers, plus drivers! I remember Dad faffing around before we left because his rose bud was too big. He ended up diving up the garden to try to find a smaller one! I ended up pulling off the leaf on the bought rose and attaching it to my Dads jacket, very aware that we needed to get moving!
We got to the church, had a few photos outside the church, then it was time to go in. I had a major case of the butterflies as we were driven to the church. I sent out a few “help” prayers. We were greeted at the church by Jonny (our vicar), and all our ushers where standing in the entrance way, getting a previous of how we all looked before I walked down the aisle.
I remember as we walked into the church entrance way, Dad went to take my arm (I’m not sure why), so I corrected him and took his arm! Dad and I stood just outside the church as the music started (thanks Chris), and we waited for the 1st bar to finish before we started walking. I remember that as I stood there in the doorway, about to step over the threshold, my stomach was all over the place, but as I stepped over that threshold, all of that nervous feeling just disappeared! It was such an answer to prayer.
I walked down the aisle, grinning from ear to ear, enjoying seeing all those happy faces smiling back at me as I walked past. I was having so much fun. I’m not someone who likes standing up in front of lots of people or really being in the spotlight, but I so loved it that day. It was our day, and everyone was there for us!
At the front, the fun continued, Andy & I were whispering to each other during Jonny’s talk! Andy was so keen to marry me, that he said “I will” three times, although that was because Jonny paused!
After the service, a few photos and the confetti throwing outside the church, we got in our Daimler and whizzed of to the reception venue. It seems that the car was going so fast that the photographer was struggling to keep up, although to us we didn’t feel like we were going that fast, because it was so smooth.
We got to the reception venue, had lots of photos with the cars and in the gardens with the bridesmaids. It was then time to greet the guests. I have never hugged & kissed so many people as I did that day. I’m not naturally a huggy kissy person, I’m more of an introvert, so take the lead from others. I had a fixed grin on my face all day, and because it was natural I didn’t have jaw-ache!
It’s been a busy week so far, as Andy and I were preparing for last nights end of term event at youth club, as well as helping at the younger youth club beforehand – by the time we got home last night we were shattered, mentally and physically! The end of term event for the older youth club we run was a pizza challenge – we ordered pizza from 3 companies, and got them to taste test them, and give them scores.
The younger youth club had a barbecue, but barbecue arrived 30mins later than expected, so I cooked all the food in the oven first… but the oven door is broken, so when you open it, you have to prop the door against something so it doesn’t fall off completely! Great health and safety, and this is in a primary school! I did see the headteacher at the end of the night, and checked she knew about the oven, which she did, but said it probably won’t be fixed for a few weeks, when it’s summer holiday.
Groan, I’m having to use annual leave to do First aid training through my relief job! This was expected, but I don’t appreciate it, because it means I’m taking “holiday” to do a course that my contracted job can gain from. It means they won’t have to pay out to put me on the same training course! Grumble, grumble, grumble!
The good side is that I don’t have to pay for the course myself and it will be helpful in both jobs, youth work and life! I’m due a refresher course, my last one was with my previous employer over 3 years ago! A lot of basic first aid is common sense, but sometimes in a panic, sense disappears!
I was just tidying up the bits of Lego from our table (from Star Wars kit Andy was in process of building-originally bought to have enough characters for Easter reenacted by Lego pieces), and it reminded me of the Lego I used to play with at my Grandparents. I start telling Andy about it. I describe how I used to pit together pieces so that I had a wheelchair, and I’d have to make the doorways big enough for the chair!! Oh my, was I as an under 12 year old, acting out my future in the health & social care field!?!? Wow! So funny!
Andy still retells and slightly drunken walk from Double Locks home, when we stopped off on route, in petrol station to pee, and I had to use the disabled loo. I came out and complained to the poor staff there that the alarm cord was useless for a disabled person because it was too high up! Oh my, drunk with a cause!!
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