Gym

I made it to the gym! I made it to the gym!! On Wednesday, I went to a Spinning class! It hurt :-( It was very hard... any disillusion I had that I was starting to re-gain some kind of fitness, was smashed and it hurt.

But it must have done me good?

I was 11 stone 8lb on 5th January 2009. I wasn't pregnant. On 21st July.. just before we married, I was 9 stone exactly, that's more like it! My goal was 8 stone 8lb. When we got back from France, I was 9 stone 8lb, which is where I still am currently.

I am now, once more, aiming for 8st 8lb.

So, Spinning and this week I am starting an Aerobics class too. I am trying to get back on top of my eating again, but I find this increasingly hard. I am hoping my exercise will allow me to lose again.... we are currently cooking 98% of our meals from scratch.. so virtually no processed foods. However - would I be more successful in weight-loss if I ate more Quorn????

I have made a number of things worth a mention this week. Two loaves.. one was Rustic French - A loaf made from white, brown and rye flour.... beetoot loaf - a loaf made from beetroot, scallions and white flour - makes an attractive pink loaf with a savoury flavour.

I also made a new version of my veggie shepherds pie..... one of those recipes that evolves as you are cooking. It ended up being a sauce based around sweet potato, carrot, red lentils and bulgar wheat, flavoured with chilli sauce and chopped tomatoes... topped with cheesy mash.

Tonight I adjusted the leftover sauce from that, by adding another tin of tomatoes and adding some Mexican spices (courtesy of Discovery), and stuffing it into Taco shells, and topping with cheese and low fat creme fraiche. Yum.

And happy wedding anniversary to my mum and dad!!

I have also downloaded the most recent Muse album.. I am really going digital now..no hardcopy-cd!!

T has completed his first week of full days at school and survived and L has 6 more new teeth (that's doubled the amount he had previously...)

All is well.

One of those change-of plans days

I had been looking forward to today for a while.... it is a school training day, meaning the school is closed, so I booked the day off work so I could look after Is and T. Io and L were at nursery as it was my working day, so I was looking forward to spending the day with the eldest two without the nappies, tantrums, buggies, carrying and breastfeeding that younger children bring along with them. I planned to take them to either Harewood House, Tropical World or Eureka.

T gets up and vomits all over the bathroom... and then continues to vomit every 30 minutes until 1pm. Gah. So day-out-plans slip away as by 1pm although he is better, he is weak and wobbly and only interested in drinking and eating (which he does continuously until tea time!)

So Is and I do some toy sorting, reading and cooking, which were all quite pleasant all the same. We were limited to what we made - Is wanted to make a cake for T for him to eat when he felt better. I had no eggs in the house and limited other ingredients, so I searched my bookmarked recipes for inspiration. I have a few vegan recipe sites bookmarked, and I found an easy recipe for vegan carrot cake... recipe as follows:

225g SR Flour
1tsp baking powder
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
110g golden caster sugar
75g grated carrot
75ml vegetable oil
200 ml soya milk (I used cow's milk as I am not vegan and cow's milk is cheaper!)


Bung all the ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Pour into a greased and lined 2 lb loaf tin and cook for half an hour at 200c.

What could be easier?!

We also decided to make a pizza for tea, and I decided to have a go making it using the pizza dough setting on my bread maker.

It wasn't particularly any quicker, but the dough seemed easier to spread out over the pizza disc, and it was probably the first round pizza I have made! We topped it with home-made red pizza topper (onion, garlic, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, tsp of sugar, splash of balsamic vinegar, seasoning and herbs... cook for 20 mins then whizz until smooth in a hand-held blender) then added mushroom, red pepper, sweetcorn, cheese and green pesto.

T was well enough to eat both pizza and carrot cake so all in all a good days work! I am now wondering what flavour bread to bung in to bake tonight for our sandwiches tomorrow...?

Cloth Nappies

I always had an idle curiosity about cloth nappies with my first two children. But having been to a cloth nappy demo, I thought they were pretty unappealing and I didn't fancy the extra washing.

Finding myself with four children, 3 in night nappies and 2 in full time nappies, made me have a rethink.. mostly as the cost is adding up of buying disposables and I also can't help thinking about the impact we have on the environment as a family of 6. This would be one of the changes I was to make to improve our green-ability as a family!

I have a friend who was a nappy rep, and she very kindly send me a load of different nappies to try.

Then I started to buy.. and by August 2008, I had both my littlies in full time cloth. It stopped being a green and practical thing to and started being a bit of a hobby (borderline obsession!), and I have bought/sold a fair few nappies, both second-hand and new over the last year.

Earlier this year Io started to have problems with her nappies leaking... I believe she was starting to get bladder control and she was flooding the nappy. She hates being bulked out with extra boosting (probably as she was used to disposables until we made the change) so we reluctantly went back to (eco) disposables for her, although she still wears cloth at night.


So now I have one in cloth nappies, I have streamlined my collection a little and have got rid of the fancier but less reliable ones. I now mostly use Bumgenius and Fuzzi Buns pocket nappies and Tots Bamboozles (bamboo) nappies plus WeeNotions wraps for L.

I still look for nice designs and occasionally will sneak another new nappy into the collection! I recently bought a Realeasy all-in-one cow print bamboo nappy which fit both Io and L really nicely!

We are currently experiencing a bin collection strike, so I have tentatively put Io back into cloth to try and cut down our waste as much as we can. So far, so good... although it's unlikely she will be wearing them for much longer.... as soon as T is settled into school and his new routine, Io will be wearing pants and using the potty - hopefully she will pick it up over a few days and having two in nappies will be a long distant memory.....

Stuff from the garden and DIY

Here are a few photos of things we have grown this summer. (We haven't grown a huge amount due to the obvious time constraints of having a very demanding/non-sleeping tot , plus his siblings and planning a wedding, our first trip abroad as a family of 6 etc.....)

Beetroot



Courgettes


Carrots


Rhubarb


Pumpkin


So - the first picture of the pumpkin, with my hand.... this is perhaps the only pumpkin we will harvest after the culled lots of them as we had out of control pumpkins... lots and lots of tiny ones which weren't growing. This one is, as of today (13th Sept) 21cm across. It has occurred to me that it looks more like a round courgette rather than a pumpkin at this point, and as I got the seeds from a friend, I wonder if this is the case.. time will tell!

We go on holiday over Halloween, so we hope to have at least one carving pumpkin/courgette for then!

Today i gained a bit of vital cooking space in the kitchen because Dylan mounted the microwave on the wall, above the breadmaker. All is now well in Rickerby country kitchen... here is his handy work


Finally, today's tea, which was lentil loaf with tomato sauce and cauliflower (rye bread on the side), recipe courtesy of Delia's veggie book!


Oh and the hedgehog is back! That's the third day in a row - I guess the cat might start to get skinny!

Cycling

I started cycling in the Spring to aid weight loss and improve my fitness. I really enjoy it and on a good week, I go out 4-5 evenings for about an hour at a time. I have a very basic mountain bike and we are lucky enough to live in/near some lovely countryside. I tend to cycle over a mixture of tarmac and cross-country/off-road.

I usually go out at the end of the day when Dylan is bathing (all four!) children... it's a nice time of day to escape by myself in the evening sun, and it's become more than just a way to keep fit; it's very much me-time and I find it quite therapeutic. I often see a great deal of wildlife, including wildfowl, rabbits, hares, deer and foxes. I have also watched the fields go through their farmed cycle, and I am currently watching many crops being harvested by the great big combine harvesters. I have also been watching the fields being stripped back by controlled fires and great big stinking piles of horse manure being dumped, ready for spreading (which hasn't occurred yet). There have often been occasions where I want to go and pull up a bit of the crop because I am curious about what vegetable is growing, but have so far resisted the urge!

I have also cycled past some kind of sub-station, where lots of electrical pylon trails start. If you stand at a particular point, you can see the start of a long line of pylons spread out across the countryside... and then if you turn slightly you can see another one start, and turn a bit more, another one etc. Perhaps a slightly odd thing to marvel at, but marvel at it I did, and wished I had a camera.

I have actually been inspired to take photos many times while out on my bike and I do aspire to own a digital SLR, so I can take decent photos and teach myself to capture what I see. I do own a camera at present but it's a 'point and click', intended to capture memories of family life. I hope by next summer, I will go out cycling with a camera slung around my neck... and I can then put photos into my cycling musings.....decent ones too.

I am wondering what to do when the nights draw in as I don't intend to cycle in the dark. I need a replacement form of exercise as I am still losing weight. I have never enjoyed going to the gym, although I am considering looking into classes such as Spinning. I do have my trusty exercise DVD's, but they are hardly the same as cycling..... it has become so much more than 'getting fit'. But I will be retiring the bike over winter.. I reckon I have about 6 weeks left before it's too dark.

Hedgehog

Second day in a row now we have been visited by a hedgehog. We feed Mia, the cat, in a greenhouse/lean-to with a cat flap to the outside. So today, the kids are in bed and I have peace and quiet..... I hear a bizarre munching sound. We have a stable door and the top part is open. I look over and there is the hedgehog. Bold as brass eating and drinking Mia's food and water. Oddly, there is Mia, a few metres away, miaowing for food, as if the hedgehog isn't even there.. not even a sniff. As if he is invisible.

Some say he will be good for slug-eating, I say, unlikely... there is cat food on offer.....

Wedding - 25th July 09

Photo credits (*cough*) to the two Gray men in my life, brother, Michael and dad, Tony.