Hello dear readers,
To borrow a phrase from another writer called Charlotte.
I’ve been away in Mallorca, cycling and walking, which explains my lack of writing. Sometimes I take the pen and paper with me. This time, I was set on cycling up a mountain, and finishing The Fault in our Stars which I had just recently found in my favourite book shop. Someone recommended it to me a few years ago; my youngest daughter, and she was right. It was a very good read. I did hear all the hype about it, as it was made into a film. But I had no idea that it was about cancer. Of course it is about many other things too; coming of age, and the meaning of life; relationships in general. At the end of the book there is a particularly poignant sentence, which sums everything up about life, love and forgiveness perfectly, not just for the dying but for the living. I thoroughly recommend it to you. The narrator voice is absolutely compelling.
In Mallorca the weather was quite hot, but kind as we had a couple of days of cloud, which made the work of exercising easier. My legs are definitely growing stronger, and I am pleased because when you reach fifty you have to add in some new things to your usual routine to put the decline at bay.
I have suffered from a couple of small ailments, as I have grown older, and have been forced to change my diet.
Today was the first day in four months when I had a serious craving for chocolate. I noticed that I was hungrier than usual, and took some small snacks to work this morning; red peppers, nuts and raisins, feta cheese and my favourite: celery. I have also found some lovely biscuits in Waitrose (I like to visit Bath to go to my favourite Dorothy House Bookshop on Broad Street), take a walk and visit the coffee shop. Starbucks has recently closed down, but the large Nero is still there, adjacent to the cathedral, and I enjoy the quiet ambience on the top floor (perfect for introverts). This time the coffee shop was busy so I took myself off to the other one which is enroute to East Meets West, our favourite Chinese resaurant (we haven’t been in there for months as we went back to Salisbury instead to visit our old favourite haunt in Fisherton Street, a pottery painting place behind Salisbury Playhouse, another old favourite haunt, anyway, my mind has wandered again, I was writing about the Nero with the loo right at the back of the shop. It is a deceiving coffee shop because it has a large back room, and even though you may have been there several times, as I have, you forget about the back room. Still, I have spent a few quiet hours in there and the other one which is a few hundred feet from the college as the crow flies, but off Milsom Street, and has a large and quiet room downstairs; another godsend for an introvert. I do enjoy a coffee, but again I digress; I was talking about Waitrose. I used to enjoy waitrose for the Ritter chocolates; the marzipan and dark chocolate; the one with the red wrapper. Since chocolate is a thing of the past, I have taken to hunting in there for healthy food instead and found some lovely biscuits in an orange packet with ginger inside. They are called, what was it? I’ll edit this later, as I have two jobs and have left a packet in each place, to stop me from buying popcorn which has become my go to snack since I gave up the British chocolate bar, snickers, bounty, flake, and, when feeling terribly indulgent, Frys Chocolate Cream; mmmmmm.
Abroad, in Mallorca, we didn’t buy any bananas, which is probably why I had a craving for them on returning. We were lucky enough to pass dozens of fig trees which had their branches hanging into the road and were full of ripe figs, so we did scrump a few of these, and there really is nothing like a ripe fig. Fig rolls have always been a favourite of mine in Britain; we were never short of biscuits growing up. I see, that rather like the wandering and cycling I have been doing, I have wandered off the path yet again, and changed the subject, bananas. Bananas are around 100 gramms each and have around 12g of sugar in them, so they beat popcorn and chocolate hands down in the low sugar stakes. most sugar content is measured per 100 gs so the size of this fruit is helpful. Bananas are also high in potassium; I read somewhere that you can eat six and still not go over the recommended intake amount of potassium, but I am not an expert on this and I think 3 in a row is my maximum.
I have not been put on the diabetes prevention programme the NHS were offering yet. I have no idea what the hold up is, as you know that they contacted me over a month ago to suggest that I might be included in the cohort with the app. Still we are both doing our best to get me back to good health. My partner has kindly stocked up on bananas and we are eating bananas and cream for our nightly treat, which is lovely, and was totally his idea. So I have only him to thank for this.
Isn’t life wonderful?
Eat well.
All my love,
Hermione
hermionelaake 