Everyone should listen to this poem. It is my favorite poem, the one which I will listen to many times on repeat. It is a poem written for everyone. I first heard it online through a charity that I support [and should probably blog about at some point] called TWLOHA, as he read this poem at one of their events. It is such a beautiful poem that it must be listened to, or read out loud to be appreciated, not just read in silence.
It is a beautiful poem.
A month (ish) ago, I decided to join a gym. I have always quite liked doing exercise things/gym things/strength things, but because I *really* dislike lots of people, it often puts me off going to gyms and classes.
So I decided to join a members only gym. It is great! I went one Sunday and it was just me and another random man working out in the cardio bit of the gym. It ROCKED! I had a great workout session, longer and harder than I usually do, and to top it off, Wallace and Gromit was on, score!
The gym I go to is in the middle of Newbury town centre, and as it also has a members only car park- it means I always have a place to park on busy days. (This was great last Sunday when we had a parade for St Georges day- it was tipping it down and this meant I didn’t have to walk so far to meet up with everyone.) It is actually a beautiful place to work out in, being a 20′s art deco cinema building. I always have a much better time when I am in a beautiful environment, and this one also contains memories from when I was a very young kid going to see films.
*Insert cool old photo of parkway cinema*
Notice the tree in the bricked in window up top? Yeah, 5 years on that's still there
As hard as I tried I can’t find an online photo of the building as it was, though to be honest, the exterior hasn’t changed much at all. Here is a photo of it in ’07 when it was between owners (it is on its 3rd gym company now).
If I were a better blogger, I would scan in a photo I have from a book of the old cinema. Or at least have taken an up to date one, but not me 
As well as being in the cardio theatre and sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the massive muscle men in the strength training area, I also do some of the exercise classes. It is pretty decent in that the membership package includes all classes for free. I think that just encourages you more to do them. The two classes that I do are yoga and kai bo. I am going to talk about kai bo, as I am sure you guys know what yoga is already. Kai bo is kind of like martial arts to music, and I have been told by a reliable source that it is similar to body combat. There is generally about 10 of us, all girls, and we always go at the back. This means that you can watch what everyone is doing and copy. This is also why I like that there is mirrors everywhere so you can see what to do.
The only problem with exercise classes is that I have hearing problems, so that if there is much background noise I find it hard to hear people. This is why I stopped going to Tai kwon do (which I am still trying to find a smaller -quieter- class for) because I couldn’t ever hear what I was supposed to do in such a large hall with so many people mumbling. I wouldn’t be able to do Kai bo if it wasn’t for my position in the class and the mirrors. I generally start each sequence a bit later than everyone else because of this as well. But it is fun. You don’t get laughed at or yelled at for getting it wrong, or falling over. There is always at least one other person finding it as hard as you.
Though there are about three ladies who are on the running machine before and after Kai bo. I do not even have words for this.
I have run out of concentration right now.
Here is a photo of a puppy, and here is to wishing I would get over whatever bug i have so I can get back to the gym!
I. Want. This. Puppy
I wish gyms opened at night, I love running at night.
Charlotte
This has to be one of the best ideas to get kids doing more fun things outdoors. You can see the full list of things here. It makes the list into an online challenge. You post pictures and a description of what you do on each step, and for each one you get an online ‘badge’. If you manage to get a lot of them done (it doesn’t say how many) you can unlock games, and if you get all 50 done, you get a mystery prize and an actual National trust badge. Pretty cool I think.
The list is full of things that I did when I was a kid, and definitely my parents did as kids. All of the ‘adults’ (40+) that I have asked have done all, or all but a few of these. I must admit though, I have never managed to skim a stone more than once- though not for lack of trying- and I was 15 before I slept out in the wild. I have still to this day never gone geocaching (a GPS worldwide hide and seek type game) though I expect I will at some point. I have also never kept a caterpillar until it became a butterfly as I never kept my creatures long enough.
I did have a love for snails when I was younger though. Especially when me and my friend Grace (another very outdoorsy type) got together; as well as herding the sheep in the field next door to her house, building things out of wood, foraging, climbing the hay bales, playing with candles, catching wasps (butterflies are for pansies), excavating old plates and rusty metal from the ground and making many many many (etc) bonfires we would catch snails. As well as having snail races, we would build complex houses for the snails out of flower pots and bits of rubbish we found in the woods. Something I am slightly ashamed of doing, now I am a little older, is ‘personalizing’ the snails. When we got to a certain age, nail varnishing numbers/ patterns on the snails was not quite interesting enough. Grace had a mini set of drill type things (they weren’t exactly drills, more like grinders but I can’t think of the right name). We would get on hand the drills, TCP (a antiseptic used on wounds), little plastic gemstones, and the chosen snails. We would select a drill bit the same size as the chosen gemstone, soak the gemstone and the drill bit in TCP, disinfect the snails shell, drill a hole through the shell (being very careful not to catch the actual snail and then placing the gemstone in the hole. It was really interesting to see as the days passed, the shell healing up around the gemstone, leaving the stone truly part of the snail. This usually only took about a day to heal and it made us identify the snails easily. I lost count of the snails we did this to, but only 3 died ‘post op’. Good old TCP.
One of the things that I loved most about my childhood is where we lived (moving when I was about 7). Not so much the house itself, but that it needed loads of work doing so it was a building site most of the time, and that it is cradled by woods. Me and my brother got to operate a digger, build brick towers, build many and build a toboggan run out of bricks and decking waiting to be used. The toboggan run was the best. We did it in winter, balancing planks between bricks stacked two high. We put the ‘rails’ just far apart enough to fit our crappy plastic sledge between (you know the ones with the rim around the edge- perfect runners for the rails). We put the course on the side lawn which slopes slightly, and put a bit of a jump at the end- not that it worked very well. Each night we would fill buckets with water, and sploosh it about the planks and the section of grass in the middle. Then the next day we would suit up and run outside to pull each other along the course in the toboggan. It is a shame I no longer have a DVD ripper on my PC as the video of it is great!
The crux of the argument is that it is great to have free access to building equipment as a kid. With the help of my dad, we build a proper large treehouse slightly into the woods. Then after that, when my parents weren’t watching we climbed up a tall tree at the front of our house, used a pulley system to get our tools up, and built a tree platform at second story height. It’s still there, and it is a great place to just sit and think, up in the tree, where you can’t really be seen. Family friends Sarah and David came over a lot when we were kids. As we spent so much time in the woods, we split it into a boys half and a girls half. We each had our own base camp with swings and a shelter. Littered throughout the woods are trees with nails hammered into the trunks enabling us and children to climb up to where there are branches to climb onto. Something that me and Sarah did most often, was something that I am very sad that I am too heavy to do anymore. We would each take a really long bit of rope and tie a strong stick to one end and a heavy bit of wood to the other. We would then go out in search of trees with really high up branches and fling the end with the weight over. Then you would sit on the stick, and hoick yourself up but pulling on the other end of the rope. That way you could get up really high, and swing in lots of different places.
When I was out exploring a new walk with my friend Em the other day in Johnathan’s hill (incidentally, a place that may be good for boarding), on the spur of the moment, we decided to relive our childhood and build a den. Slightly strange passtime for a 19 and 20 year old, but it was a beautiful day and, well, I need no more excuse.
Here is our result:
Surely even doing ‘children’ things out in the woods is still ok for adults to do. . . . don’t you think?
Charlotte
Anyone who regularly talks to me knows I have a cat called Cape. And knows how high maintenance she is. But how much I love her. Compared to other cats, she is certainly hard work, but she really makes it up with how cute, funny and loving she is. When she wants cuddles, she will follow you throughout the house (not fun when you have a bath and she cries to be let in).
I adopted Cape from Cats protection last February. I love just visiting cp, as the place is filled with mini three tier cat apartments; each of which you can go into and have a play with the cats in there. Also, there are some ‘free range’ cats- ones which live at Cats protection and so can freely roam about, these cats generally have too high needs to adopt out, or do not get on too well with people.
When I persuaded my parents to let a new cat into our home it was a few months after our old cat from CP had passed away. I knew that I wanted to source our new family member from a shelter, as there are more than enough cats needing homes without paying to have more bread. When me and my mum went along to have a look around, there were several cats who caught our eyes. One was a cat called princess, who likes climbing onto our shoulders to have a cuddle but was very dribbly- not a good thing in a house with two asthmatics. The other cat was a little Burmese cross called Precious with a funny coloured eye because she was the carrier of cat flu. When she eventually let us come near her for a stroke, she rolled all about so we could get to every angle. Precious was found as a stray in Reading, and had spent a long time looking for a home- presumably because she was so scared and had a medical problem ticked on her name sheet.
A week later ‘Precious’ was recovered from her anti-baby operation, renamed and boxed up in her carrier to take home. It took about twenty minutes and three people to wrestle her into her cage- something that is still true everytime she needs to go to the vets!
In her crisp box bed
Cape confirmed her name was the correct choice about a month into her getting home. She had got spooked when perusing her land, hid under next doors trailer and got really stressed when being rescued. The nature of cat flu, is that it arises when the cat gets overly stressed, and when the cat gets flu you need to keep them in in case the other cats in the neighborhood are not immunized and so catch it. She really was not happy about this decision and cried to be let out a lot! That week, my Uncle and Aunt were over and were staying in the room directly above the one I was sitting in. I was sitting watching television, when from the corner of my eye I saw something rather strange. A cat flying from an opened upstairs bedroom window, landing expertly on the patio and then trotting off happily in pursuit of garden insects. Clearly, she is not one to be held inside! Cape, obviously, is an excellent flyer. Though the upstairs windows are now permanently closed.
Five things about Cape:
Bowie!
She also can act very much like a puppy; following you around, carrying toys in her mouth, wanting her tummy tickled- rolling around looking cute to achieve this. Unlike puppies though, she is very very fussy with food (she will only have one type of Whiskers chicken pouches) and likes being up high. She went through a phase of climbing atop the extractor hood over the hob and leaping from there to on top of the cupboards when she wanted to hide. I am very glad she no longer does this as when she vehemently hung on to the cabinets to avoid going to the vets, she would loose bits of nails in the doors!
Though Cape is super playful, she is also very clumsy. Imagine her jumping for the back of the sofa, but going right over; chasing a toy and sliding into a door; rolling off beds etc. She isn’t really a prime example of a killer cat, though she likes chase games, she is very skitty and so frequently runs away from fast approaching butterflies in the garden. We play along with her case games, letting her win to maintain her ‘killer cat’ image however.
I will leave you with a photo of Cape in her new bed. Last night was the first night since she has been banished from bedrooms at night that she has slept through. YAY.
Night Cape.
Charlotte.
I said a cooking post on every day of the week? Me? No. I think it was really one every year (:
My lovely rings in action!
I really do love the little introductions to each recipe this book has
Anyway, it was all fairly straightforward to make, with minimal rising time (45 mins) and no kneading as you get crumpet batter not dough (hallelujah).
I made them around making some ‘squares’ type crispy cakes, and so I barely noticed the batter coming nearer and nearer to cooking time. And when we were at the pan, 5 minutes one side, 1 minute the other and they were done! Only problem I had was me forgetting that metal rings in a pan on a hob will get hot and so you really should peel the crumpets out of the rings using a cloth! -note for next time’
Here are my lovely crumpets, I think I will be eating them for weeks!
Just over half are now residing in my freezer- I figured to just get them out when I fancy them.
YUM
Charlotte
Ok, so I haven’t really been posting on here as much as I would like to.
So I have decided to copy my blogging chums at Running-Jump.com and give myself a challenge (yes this does sound very lame, but I I need to give myself a kick up the backside and haven’t gotten around to asking people for challenges yet).
So my challenge this week is blog about cooking. Everyday, a new recipe. Though I must admit I have cooked three things today and may use them as backup blog material if I don’t get around to cooking something new everyday (the leftovers need eating you know!).
Maybe not disembodied head bread. . .but similarly awesome sculpted bread would be good
Anyway, I think this should be quite fun, and will give me the motivation to do some more experimental cooking. I have decided I want to throw a dinner party- I love hosting them but haven’t for a long time- but by the time that comes around I would like to perfect a wheat free, vegan loaf with no egg substitues. I’m sure I will get around to making some of that this week. . . .
So look forward to recipes . . and perhaps a mishap or two. .
I grated the skin off my thumb today whilst peeling a lime.
Speak soon!
Charlotte
<3
I really hate throwing things in the bin, and our compost heap really cannot be one to attract rats (it is behind the wooden shed which already has rat holes) so this find is great!
I have put off writing this review until I have some use out of it and can fully say how I find it. And really, it is wonderful. It says on the website, that the composter holds two weeks worth of kitchen waste- I have had this for two months now and it is not yet filled up! Though my family is three/four adults. I think it would be different with young children.
Before I got this I just had a box in the kitchen to fill up with raw waste and dig into the compost heap. But I didn’t get around to emptying it everyday and so it smelt. The wonder with this is- provided the lid is on- it doesn’t smell! We have it in the kitchen and (given that the kitchen bin is no longer accepting food waste) everything is actually smelling better. Even Cape’s leftover cat food goes in.
ok. . . today's drain off looks like pee.. .
Yes there are two whole peppers in there. .. my bad
I will update you all when this composter is full up and has ‘hibernated’ for its alloted two weeks to see how it has turned out.
Either way, I am loving this box!
Oh, and check it out properly here. And ban ban dan daaaa. . . .it’s on sale!! eee !:D:D:D
Charlotte
