Trying to eat a little healthier.

Between moving and university, I have pretty much lived on junk food, caffeine and alcohol for the last month or so. My body finally crashed- 2 days of fever, one minute shivering while wearing my coat next to the heater, the next lying on my bed with a bunch of frozen peas spread on me. I had 2 days eating very little but two slices of bread and butter as it was the only thing that would sit, and the sight of food would nauseate me. Finally felt better yesterday so I got myself out the house, searched Glasgow for a blender (which is a bit like the search for the grail in this city, many shops didn't stock them but had about 10 different types of fat fryer if I decided I wanted death by chip-fat) and hit Holland and Barrett which I've always considered a bit of a toff place- but they have AMAZING veggie stock! I could have had mock duck from a can should I decide to lose trust in all 5 of my senses. Instead, I bought myself a bag of quinoa (I was keen to try), dry-packs of 'make your own' burgers and falafels aaaaaaaaand some vegan chorizo. Last night was fabulous. I did spend quite a bit of time trying to gage when quinoa is cooked and texting all my healthy-living friends to ask them.

But my dinner last night:
Cooked quinoa (boiled with veggie stock for about 10-15mins, it seems a lot like risotto- just keep adding as it absorbs)
Half an onion
One clove of garlic
2-3 handfuls of kale
Vegan chorizo (as much as you want)

all fried together for a bit- fanbloodytasty. I definitely want it again.

This morning I decided to try out my blender and this recipe:
http://www.picklesnhoney.com/2013/10/17/anti-inflammatory-blueberry-smoothie/

substituting honey with molasses.
It was rather tasty thought the blueberries seem to get a bit lost when you add kale to it. If I'm spending £2 on blueberries, I damned well want to taste them! So there's a future note, maybe need to find a milder green to chuck in there? Also, never in a million year was my smoothies gunna be that dark. AND I would definitely strain the walnuts.

Butterflies.

So the girl who had my room before me had superglued frames to the wall, which needless to say left quite the mess and me the problem of covering it up. I think I did well!

I now can't stop singing Colours of the Wind to myself. 

Things I'm Loving Right Now.

1. My new flat with a rooftop view.

2. My new flat mates, they're so nice and when one got locked out at 3am she bought me a gift to say thank you for letting her in. 

3. That I'm back in the land of veggie foods, crumpets and Dominos. 

4. I went to see Hairspray with my mother, it was brilliant fun. Sam and I now have plans to see a few more musicals. :) 

5. My new owl themed decor, from Primark, the lamp from Debenhams, and a wooden box from the market. 

6. Sewing. I bought an owl kit from Waterstones and a book called Posh Paws and Friends which is excellent for dinosaur fanatics. 

7. Indulging in my guilty pleasure- classics being mixed with sci-fi. Crass but so, so good. 

8. Hot chocolate.

9. My Jurassic Park app. Sad, but damn baby dinos are sooo cute.

10. The brilliant Glaswegian band, Chvrches.

Magic Moments.

So last night I found myself watching The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, with a cast such as Steve Carell, my  main man Steve Buscemi and Jim Carey I wondered why it hadn't received a lot of attention. Quite frankly it's because it's simply what I like to call a "time-filler", easy to watch but not remotely life-changing and if you choose to look at your phone for the majority of it, well you've not missed anything great. Quick plot summary: a magician fails to grasp the need to update his magic show due to his huge ego, loses his partner, gains a foe in a new-age magic street-performer, realises flaws, makes up with partner, they beat foe together with previously unseen magic act, it is just THAT predictable there was no need to write 'spoiler' for anyone.

The advert, for any of you who missed it.

I did find it somewhat thought provoking though, seeing the conflict between the old and new magic school. We are all to familiar with both, as everyone at some point has seen men in suits the Prince of Arabia wouldn't be caught dead in parading around smoky stages (and I'm not talking about a Kiss concert here), and thanks to David Blaine we've seen the new 'magic' which basically consists of one pushing their body past its limits in front of as many people as possible. I quite enjoyed seeing Carey take on the Blaine-esque role, forcing the audience to question why the hell do we see someone torturing themself as entertainment? I have to say 'shock magic' now does nothing for me, I don't want to see someone pulling a nail on a string out of their belly or walking bare-foot on broken glass. I've reached the point where I just want to be amused, not made to feel uncomfortable for what seems like an eternity. That's why I am currently enjoying ch4's Ben Earl: Trick Artist, I feel I'm maybe alone in that as many of the comments on videos are of how 'boring' it is as it's simply all illusions and pick-pocketing, but I am liking being slightly tickled. It's also somewhat refreshing to see a magician who's personable and approachable, I'm tired of these steely-eyed, distant men that stare and stare at a squirming audience member until dramatically whispering out their pin number. 

Ben Earl making people pee rainbows.

Anyhow, the film has made me hope that we may see a decline in the grotesque and a rise in artful deception. By all means, I'd rather you stole from me than have to sit and watch you stick a pin in your eye. 

Take my wallet, take my keys, 

just stop self-harming please!

Climbing Out The Window.

I've recently read The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, it's one of those books you will pick up while travelling, be it at a train station, airport or bus stop. I believe I picked my copy up at Marseilles' train station. It's easy, pleasant reading and the plot takes you on a long journey geographically and historically. The plot flips from past to present continuously, at present the main character, Alan Karlsson, is fleeing a group of criminals and the police whilst travelling with a group of friends, a dog and an elephant. Meanwhile, there are flashbacks of the century Alan has lived and influenced greatly. He dines with the likes of Stalin, President Truman and Charles de Gaulle to name a few, his flippant view towards politics lands him in many amusing situations such as fighting wars for both sides.

I loved it, I enjoy seeing history somewhat mocked and adapted. Quite frankly, sometimes fiction can improve upon fact. Anyway, I digress. The thing that really, really stood out for me was the title. The whole novel begins and ends with Alan climbing out of the window of an old folks' home and heading for freedom.

As a child, I was often fond of climbing out of the window when grounded (it's one of my childhood friends' most prominent memories of me). Why was I grounded? Painting the car, painting the shed, scribbling on walls, electrocuting my mother, pushing grandad's dog off a boat (not proud of that one, but don't boast to a child that your dog's 'the best swimmer' or it shall be tested as they know nothing about currents. The dog was saved, not to worry you all.) to name but a few bad things I've done. This was mostly before I started school. I was very good at climbing back in that window as well, there were few occasions where my parents noticed that I'd actually slipped off (and boyyy did I get it then). Point being, even at a young age I never saw the point of being somewhere you were miserable because you 'HAVE' to when there's fun to be had elsewhere.

Stories are full of princesses gazing forlornly out of windows and waiting for adventure to come to them. Even Tangled's Rapunzel waited till someone barged into her tower.

Princess and Rose Bushes from crumpetcottage.com

From an early age we are taught to wait till something happens. It's no wonder so many people end up getting stuck in a rut later in life, whether it's a course/job/relationship/place/situation we don't like. There's a number of times later in life where I 'climbed out the window', memorably when I was 18 I decided to go live in Holland as I was fed up of home (not my family or friends, just the place), people look for island escapes and I looked to escape from an island. I had a fantastic 2 months there but I got scared and it was nice to crawl back into the window (one fantastic thing about home is that they never shut you out). My second bid for freedom was uni, my 3rd going to France and now I'm about to climb out again to a new flat. My visits home are becoming fewer and further between and I think I'm ok with that. 

My tower is an island. But I can escape when I want to. :)

As for people who are happy with their tower but not the contents. Defenestration: the act of throwing something or someone out of the window. Do it! 

Down About Down.

This video may have been released a few years ago, but very little has changed. I know some people love their feather pillows and duvets, coats padded with down, but most of them don't have a clue where this comes from. There are farms in Europe and Asia where the birds are plucked while alive- this is similar to me just pulling your hair out, it's painful and can leave huge bleeding nasty injuries that can get infected. What's more, it's completely unnecessary considering the rather large meat industry which readily provides corpses for plucking (thus avoiding a great deal of pain). Of course, people want it cheaper so plucking the same bird 6 times a year can produce more for less, just think of the crap life that bird has for your cheap pillow.

You can buy cruelty-free down, but it can still be questionable. There's a number of big brands (such as, shall we call them 'Hadidas') that have been said to use these farms for their puffer jackets and whatnot, There are of course e-petitions against this, but I do believe it's just simpler to stay away from the stuff and buy synthetic. I've never seen the fuss for feathers anyhow, they're just extremely allergenic and make a mess when they get holes in them.





This post was just an FYI, as many people don't seem to have a clue about it whatsoever.

Health and Fitness.

Well, now I'm home and have far less interesting things to say, but I thought I'd keep up blogging anyway. I thought it best to keep it separate from my French one, consider the Channel between the two.


Anyway, on my mind is health and fitness. I'm back in Britain, and what do I find? The Lords, against all public opinion, voted to transfer our tax money from patients to their own private companies (talk about filling their own pockets) and damning our NHS. Now, living in France certainly made me proud of our NHS- you take it absolutely for granted until you don't have it. Having to buy health insurance was completely and utterly stressful and the thought of those creepyass doctors sitting behind a row of card machines and till still haunt me. You instantly got the impression that your money was more important than you, and that may well be the future for Britain. Our health and what's in our best interest may come second as to how much it's going to cost, which is depressing to say the least.
This week it really hit me how much I appreciate the NHS, my grandad had a seizure, gave us all a fright and had to be carted off to a hospital in Aberdeen. He is perfectly fine now, but he had to undergo a number of tests which now, due to France and this stupidity epidemic, I can see as rather costly (before I'd simply never thought of health treatment in pounds and pence). Know what a couple of bandages cost me? Over 50 euros! That's a bloody fortune for something so minor, and god forbid if you don't have the money upfront, or no money at all...
All I can say is, the future's bleak if we lose our NHS. There's just no way some people can afford to go to private clinics, and those rich gits at top don't care at all. Our politicians don't care for us, and soon our doctors won't either.

Danny Boyle's ode to the NHS, naturally...

And on a 'lighter' (I use this word with reservation) note, ever since I've been home I've been going on the parents' treadmill. Since living in France I have gained an entire stone of weight, this is absolutely no surprise given that the French diet consists of a lot of dairy and cream.
According to Uberfacts on Twitter: "The French eat four times as much butter, 60% more cheese and nearly three times as much pork than the rest of the world." 
How they're not all fat bastards, I don't know. It is extremely rare to see an obese person in France by the way. Anyway, I am naming my French fat Rosetta and I'm damned determined to be rid of her. I'm quite annoyed at her lingering over the last few weeks despite my effort. What's more I have developed 'runners knee', I have to laugh as this may be the first sporting 'injury' I've had since Athlete's Foot. I can only put it down to the fact that I've injured my knee before by drunkenly throwing myself down a ramp in Tours. Though according to some running blog it's very common in women due to our hips (since mine are huge, it's a fair question). Anyway, I can only hope my knee heals a damned piece faster. I'm quite enjoying running. Who knew?

Pretty sure this shrimp could outrun me....