life with booyaa

so today is monday. but i'm not at work. isn't that cool! ok, so not so much. it's easter weekend. so we've had two saturdays and two sundays. and i still have a to-do list as long as the tiber. on a plus note we have slept and slept and slept and made up for two weeks of not nearly enough rest. so should be fully recharged and ready for the next uphill streak. in the pipeline we have a weekend away at my folks (sapphire wedding anniversary party) which should be quite chilled apart from the whole meeting relatives you haven't seen since you were twelve thing, which always freaks me out. the amount of times i'm going to have to tell them that i'm me and not my sister... i can feel the need for a drink coming on. maybe i should wear a badge "world's greatest auntie" or something? otherwise should be fun. we intend to spend the rest of the time playing with charlie. and then two weekends of packing before a long weekend (both taken time off work) to move house. again. more on that later.

[strawberryfrog] has a new job. in thames ditton!

i dreamt about catherine's new boots (she doesn't have new boots, but she does have new platform trainers)

christine said yes to the noder march fundraiser so that's on the go. i will call the Race for Life helpline and find out about small groups. so far only [bipolarbear] has said yes if it doesn't clash with her exams. but she runs marathons so perhaps that will make things more difficult than i'd planned ;) hope more people join in. am disappointed at response so far.

things i'm going to miss about our flat when we move next month. the colour of the living room walls. the alcove in the bedroom with the chest of drawers in it - the light is so lovely there and it's great sitting up in bed and looking at the flowers in their vase. the roof garden and space to hang out washing. waving at each other through the kitchen window.

things i'm looking forward to in the new flat. space! space in the kitchen cupboards and room to move when more than 2 people are in the kitchen! being able to have a dozen people crash on the living room floor if necessary.

as part of my whole lose weight-feel better regime, i've joined a gym. so has boo, but this bit is about me. apart from going to workout on the bikes/weights etc which we plan to do together, i'm joining various classes. on tuesday i went to yoga. it's supposedly 'for all levels' and i was completely unaware that it's a series of courses and they were part way through a course when i barged in uninvited. turns out that's ok, the teacher doesn't mind. but the class was extending their understanding of breathing and several positions by joining them all together in one flowing movement. as i knew nothing about any of the parts that make up this (rather beautiful, actually) movement, it proved rather tricky to follow. but, amazingly enough, i didn't feel like an ungainly fat elephant. and though i may have looked like one i'm betting that everyone else was too busy trying to stand on one leg to notice me.

so london finally got the long-threatened bombs. i feel oddly detached, like it didn't really happen in the same world i exist in. we all knew it would happen eventually but at the same time didn't think about it, for fear we couldn't deal with the murky thoughts that must accompany such events.

me and boo were nowhere near when it happened. boo would have gone through moorgate around that time of day but luckily was off work last week. i don't want to even entertain the ifs and buts of that one. friends, family and noders are accounted for.

the only thing i know with any confidence is that compared to the states and madrid we got off lightly.

go on over to see uncle ralphy's eloquent response to the bombings

i noticed the tiny glass stone had fallen out of one of my toerings so i thought that was rather auspicious and obviously time to put away the sandals, buy some boots and dig out the opaque tights.

update: saturday. so i checked out some websites and went to buy some boots today. i was very disappointed to find that the green suede low-wedge boots i'd set my heart on have, in real life, embroidery all over them :( so i'm still wearing sandals for a week or so then. best get the fake tan out!

the 'perch household have finally started on the christmas cake that mum made and sent to them in november. i think they were very good waiting to open it until christmas. wertie said he bought some chess-hire cheese (no wensleydale to be had in davis, ca.) to go with it and they are both enjoying it immensely. go granny pam!

photo nicked off wertie's gallery - which is worth checking out; grundy made some rather superb stripy socks and wertie models one with great panache :)

i got my boots from duo. boy was i excited. i'd had them sent to work (they require a signature on receipt, so it seemed like the best idea) and there they were, in a big pink box, sitting on my desk where everyone could see them - and the tagline of "specialists in calf-fitting boots" - they might have just said "for fat birds"... but i digress. luckily no one asked about them and at lunchtime i sneaked a try on.

i very nearly cried.

i know, i know. but they were to be my saviour. and then they failed to deliver/live up to promises/meet my expectations etc. i could zip them straight up without blinking - good thing. they came right up to within an inch of my knee - another good thing. but from the ankle to all-bar-the-top-three-inches they were hugely wide.

the procedure for ordering them is based on measuring your calf at its widest point and choosing from the 13 (if memory serves) width fittings. so i went for 42 (not cos i couldn't resist it, but because it was the nearest to my actual measurement of 41. that's centimetres.) there is a great big elasticated vent, much bigger than i've seen on any other boot and had i known about it i would have definitely chosen the size down, rather than the size up.

however, the issue remained that the boots were nora batty baggy round my ankles and far too wide everywhere but the very top of the boot.

so i've posted them back and i'm going to buy some trousers.

today is exciting for two reasons

The first reason is because i'm writing this on the train using my new palm pilot - woo yeah! - and reason two is that i've actually got something to blog about!

so some weeks back shinyshiny held a competition to win tickets for the smart home expo in birmingham. both boo and i are determined to have a smart home when we finally get a home of our own. stuff like touch screens in the kitchen to create shopping lists as you use up stuff. some kind of remote access software to turn on the heating or warm up the oven etc. total wireless everything including music in every room... you get the picture. so obviously this smart home expo suits us down to the ground. (there's a weird expression but that's for another time)

long story short, i entered the competition and found out yesterday that i won. heh.

so now to organise getting to birmingham and a possible overnight stay. you watch, it'll cost too much for us to go or boo will have to work...

next bit of excitement for today. mr mc glashan came to talk to me this afternoon to ask me to be a demo dolly next week. verio, the guys who host our servers, are coming over to meet us. the idea is that if they understand who we are and what we do then they might 'engage' with us more. so john is getting a few of us to present from different aspects of the business. olly will show them the webstats software we use, focker will be showing something too, not sure what, and i get to demo tridion. fab. well, it may actually be fab, as i will be showing more people that i'm good at presentations. john got the idea to ask me from adam, so that's a good reference to be getting, too.

and now for the bit you've all been waiting for... news on the palmblogging. my lovely sis alison has, not for the first time, given me her cast-off palm. she offered it some time ago but i couldn't imagine i'd use it. then it occurred to me that it'd be a great way to keep my blog up to date. so last night i finally installed the desktop software, charged it up and put it in my work bag.

so far so good. i will tell of my wrassling with the software in another post, but this morning and now, on my way home, i've managed to write all this. all the worse for those poor souls who read this, but fab for me. i'm also amazed and delighted that i can remember grafitti. not nearly as fast as typing and html formatting will have to be done post upload but even so, it means i can blog again, without feeling guilty for doing it at work and in reasonably good time- i often have ideas but never get around to doing anything about them until the weekend and then there's too much and i end up culling half my fledgling entries.

maybe also when i've discovered how to do mark up on here i'll be able to node kewl

update i can do angle brackets. there's no stopping me now

i told you a couple of days back that i'd won tickets for said show thanks to shinyshiny. i was hoping we could go for the whole weekend, or maybe even take the friday off and travel up then, so we could fit in some sightseeing too. yes, i know, birmingham is not exactly the world's most attractive city but between photos of spaghetti junction for boo's flickr account and a trip to the new selfridges building (drool) i figured we could make a decent weekend of it.

but this was not to be. boo had late friday and early saturday work to do (and there's something to whine about; this weekend work is taking its toll) so at best we'd have to dash over saturday afternoon and come back sunday. but then, aha! i was stricken with bronchitis. all bets were off.

so, i'm currently at home, spending most of the day in bed with just the occasional sojourn to the living room to check email and absorb some quality daytime tv.

we'll just have to try again in later this year when the same show comes to londinium. it will be much harder to miss next time around.

booyaa and i have been talking, in a lazy and not-getting-around-to-it way, about taking some much needed holiday. we both need a break from work and some qt. a bit of sunshine wouldn't go amiss either. however, we're also trying to save up for another house move in about 6 months' time, so the original plan of taking a cheap 5 night holiday to malta/greece/canaries for sun and chilling is not really an option. i mean, you can still buy a reasonable holiday for under £200 each but that would come in handy for our house move, so we're rethinking our plans.

on top of that, boo has lots of holiday left over and needs to use some of it up. he's been rubbish at taking time off and has finally been pushed into action by my being unwell. he's planning to take some time off to look after me and be househusband and squeeze in some project time to work on his website and pursue hobbies in between.

to use up other holiday days, we're going to take one or two days off at a time and have a point to the day of some sort. i don't want us to just end up sleeping in, lazing about, watching telly, surfing etc. and not actually feeling like we've done anything with the day. so one of these theme days i suggested would involve getting up really early to go and take some photos of empty streets (one of booyaa's ongoing photography goals) and going to the cinema in the daytime and a museum later on. a fulll day of culture, no less!

and, would you believe it, lifehacker have linked to a blog with some more ideas to add to our arsenal. i particularly like his ides of march day, where you speak in shakespearean english all day. heh.

see original article over at scott berkun's blog

i've got bronchitis.

i had a cold, felt a bit fluey and went back to work a bit sharpish perhaps, as i didn't really feel so good. stuck it out for a week then started coughing a lot. annoying but quite serious skeleton rattling type coughs. it got to embarrassing stage at work where people would look up from their work and stare at me.

i went to the doctor after a few days of this and she gave me some oral steroids and said to increase my asthma inhalers and take it easy.

three days later i could hardly get out of bed, i couldn't speak as i'd lost my voice from all the coughing and, just to rub salt in the wounds, i was coughing that bad that i was being sick.

went back to the doctor. was put on a course of antibiotics and told to take to my bed.

i'm now on my second course of antibiotics. boo has taken four days off work to look after me as i can hardly get out of bed to make a cup of tea, never mind prepare food and keep the house tidy.

ugh.

update: one month later and i'm finally getting better. i tried to go back to work, well, to work from home, after the second lot of antibiotics but it wore me out and made me worse. i ended up on my third course of the dreaded antibiotics and as if that weren't enough i'm taking something to stop me being sick, too. so i have resigned myself to a long slow recovery process. i'm not taking any more risks!

at last spring is here! how do i know? because our balcony is aglow with the tiny yellow heads of our tête à têtes. if you don't know what i'm talking about then i'll tell you they are miniature narcissi or daffodils with, usually, 2 flowers per stalk. hence the tete a tete name - the two little heads bobbing along as they compare notes. if that's not enough, here's a photo courtesy of booyaa. fingers included to give idea of scale. see? they really are tiny. but cute as cute gets.

we've been playing hosts to matt, ex-flatmate from uni, for the best part of ten days. he's been here partly to catch up with friends but also to get us to help out on his new project. it's very much super sekrit at the moment, but he's asked both of us to join in once the concept becomes reality. more on that as and when.

it's been quite tough. for a start i'm supposed to be taking it easy still (doctor's orders) and playing hostess had to be tamed down. then it has to be said that ten days (with a short break when he went to stay with other friends) with a house guest is hard work. top that off with the immense energy he has and he's particularly excited about this project, let's call it project x, and well it's tiring just being in the same room!

but it was great to catch up and sit around bouncing ideas off each other for project x. it was really stimulating and the feel-good factor of realising i finally know what i'm talking about was great! so you can guess that bit. i would be involved in the usability aspects of project x. he asked my advice on a range of things and it surprised me that i could give sound advice and explain it with examples. yay!

we didn't do much other than sit around chatting and eating. we managed a day out in the big town with some of his friends. really nice people with a groovy flat in one of the old warehouses in shad thames. it was good to meet them, especially maría, from madrid. we talked in spanish for hours and i had some of her mouth-watering tortilla. it was also a nice change to wander about along the thames - though it was heaving as it was the day of the oxford-cambridge boat race. all in all a lovely day out.

he's gone up to york to see heather and mahlete then he's flying back to NY next week. we're probably going over to visit once he's moved back to minnesota in a few months. we're watching fargo and practising our oh yah!s :D

the background

a long time ago there was a young student - let's say she was called lou and was studying french at the polytechnic of north london - who got all stressed out and suffered from something which at the time was a relatively new phenomenon and unmonikered but we now know as IBS and CFS or ME, but that was the yuppie flu way back then, so nobody used the term anyway.

right, so the heroine of our tale was distraught and distressed by the illnesses that threatened her final exams and had completely obliterated her life as she knew it. she barely ate as food never stayed inside for long and whichever way it came out was painful. she couldn't remember her phone number or her address. she left the house on rare occasion to go to the unhelpful GP for a sick note. and the rest of the time was spent in bed and attempting to study between headaches. she was miserable, to say the least.

right, are you with me so far?

enter doctor latto, naturopath

a helpful young man suggested a visit to a doctor who had miraculously cured a friend of the family from similar complaints. this doctor was a naturopath who worked from his house in a rather nice area of reading (yes! there are nice areas of reading) and by all accounts a bit odd. so our fair heroine was plonked in a car and driven off to visit doctor latto.

yes, yes, i'm getting to the point.

doctor latto prescribed a revolting herbal drink to be taken each morning on an empty stomach plus strict adherence to a raw food diet, as set out in leslie kenton's raw energy book. neither of these things were easy but she did as she was told and within 3 weeks was back on her feet and going in to lectures and remembering things she'd been studying. truly amazing. around about this time she also, thanks to her mum's sponsorship, started learning autogenic therapy to keep the stress levels down. another few weeks passed and she was almost back to normal. stick thin, it must be said, but very nearly mended.

skip to the end...

so... after 5 weeks of being unwell with bronchitis i've decided to return to what i know. i've given up on the doctor's persistent response of "it'll take time. your immune system is very low" and taken my health into my own hands.

we splurged on the best food processor we could find, shopped around for the best small juicer (some of these things are mammoth and we just don't have the space) and stocked up on kilos of apples, carrots, pears, kiwis, mangos, herbs, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, ginger etc. started growing alfalfa sprouts and chick pea sprouts, too.

i started off gently. i did a 36 hour juice fast and felt unwell, headachey tired etc. this is normal on any type of fast. but having felt so ill for so long i wasn't really up to the full-on cleansing extravaganza. this should have its own post, but briefly and simplistically. when you do a fast your body starts eliminating toxins. this leads to a phase of headaches, tiredness and, on prolonged fasts, spots, bad breath and many other unpleasant side effects. then, once the "cleansing crisis" is over, you feel truly fabulous in body and mind. but, as i say, that's a bit much for me to deal with right now

so what i am doing is attempting to eat at least 75% raw, with the other 25% being live yogurt and the odd nibble of cheese or cereal. days like today, it'll be something like 90% raw as i have the time and ingredients to make nice food that i enjoy that just happens to be raw. i've bought a juice recipe book and a raw gourmet food book to guide me. more on each of those later.

i've started doing my autogenics again too. i think back to when this was all just a part of life, i took it for granted. it's sad that i gave it all up. i let things slide until i was no longer doing any of it. but it is hard to keep up in these days of not having much time, where much of our social life revolves around drinking and eating. where a sandwich for lunch is standard procedure. it's hard to go against the grain, swim against the tide, contra-corriente. working from home means i can do this easily and as we hardly ever go out the whole eating out thing won't be an issue. but when i start working from the office again it is going to make things really difficult. if only there were a juice bar i could drop into...

i was going to make this into a daily diary post of what i'd juiced and what i'd eaten. but that's unrealistic. i'll post good recipes and give you all a run down on the juicer and recipe books for if you're interested in having a go yourself.

several weeks down the road. how are we doing?

the juicer

i chose a L'equip compact juicer from a specialist online shop, as i needed to know it would deal with several kilos of carrots a week. lots of juicers struggle with hard vegetables. i'm happy with it, it looks quite cute (it's black and the top looks like darth vader's helmet) and juices very well. it's a bit of a pain to clean - as are all juicers i've come across so far - and on days when you're making three or four glasses of juice it seems like you've spent half the day washing the juicer. i've heard very good stories of the "champion" juicer which, apparently, will last forever and is a dream to clean. the reason i didn't choose that this time round was the price. a champion will set you back £250 while we paid £99.

the juices

i've tried a few recipes from super juice by michael van straten. he certainly knows how to sell you the good-for-you but slightly out there flavours. and he does make some great tasting drinks. they aren't always quite as awful as they might seem. plus, you really get used to some of the odder flavours. my favourite has got to be orange, lemon, carrot, apple and ginger. fab stuff. but i'm trying hard to have more vegetable juices. so, as i type, i'm sipping a beetroot, lettuce, cucumber and apple juice. the earthy flavour of the beetroot is calmed considerably by the watery cucumber and the apple juice helps make it more palatable. tonight i'm going to have one with tomato, radish, red pepper and greens. if i add some garlic it'll be just like gazpacho.

so why have juice if you're not that keen on it. and how weird is that? drinking beetroot juice?! well, it's good for you! i'm choosing fruit and veg with specific quallities to help me get over a prolonged bout of bronchitis and ensuing post-infection fatigue. i'm not just drinking juice, i'm eating 90% raw, too. between the two of them i reckon it'll boost my chances of recovery faster than anything the GP can suggest.

90% raw

why 90%? well, cos i pinch a forkful of saute potatoes off boo's plate or have a biscuit with my tea, or add some cheese to the not-pasta and pesto we're having, toast some sunflower seeds and so on. i find it's easier to aim to be completely raw and then allow some treats, than to go for the 75% raw which seems to be what most raw food advocates, er, advocate. i did try it, but it's like going on a diet where they allow a tiny amount of treats - it sometimes works. but it can have the opposite effect, in other words, it tempts you more. one biscuit is never enough. the taste reminds you what it's like so you sit down and eat the whole packet...it's sometimes just easier not to have any at all. that's how it seems to work for me, so that's why i'm doing this the same way.

treats for the raw fooder in london

woo hoo! number 1: there's a raw food cafe in primrose hill (doh! of course. where else?). the little earth cafe is in the triyoga centre and has a juice bar and small selection of raw snacks. already have it on my 'wants' list to go and visit. check it out

woo hoo! number 2: i'm loathe to share this really... but there's something called the raw food dinners which i'm excited about. but as it's fairly restricted numbers i don't want too many people to find out or i'll never get a ticket for the next one! it's only just started, the first one happend last month. they have a theme for each. last month was italian and the next one is mexican. we won't be able to go to that as it's next weekend and we have things arranged. but i'm trying to get sorted for the following one - which is indian. yum! read all about it

feel the benefit

so far i'm all about getting better. i noticed after only two consecutive days on this almost 100% raw regime that i was feeling considerably better. i have more energy and i don't need as much sleep. these are two things i've particularly been struggling with during my convalescence. a month ago i was struggling just getting through the morning routine (get up, make tea, shower and hairwash, breakfast, tidy up, dry hair, get dressed, do makeup, get packed lunch ready - actually that's sounding like quite a lot) and i'd have to have a rest at least once in that process. now, though, i can get through a day - though only just. it's still a vast improvement. i've also lost weight. i don't know exactly how much as my scales are at best unreliable and at worst useless, but i think it's about half a stone since i started three weeks ago. that's a very positive side-effect.

when we got the juicer we also bought a magimix food processor and a few bits and pieces to make food prep easier. it's all very well having gorgeous risotto pans but for raw food you need extra salad bowls (tip: small salad serving bowls are just the right size for one person to eat dinner out of!) and big chopping boards, jars for mixing dressings, lettuce spinner, spiraliser, sprouting trays, mesh bags...

i already had a couple of books from last time, both by Leslie Kenton (try this one) but I wanted more ideas. it's hard not to get bored when you're using nothing more than raw veg. with juices, it's easy to go for the obvious carrot and apple mix. well, with raw food there's even more of a case. if you don't want to feel like you're eating salad every day then you need some inspiration from somewhere.

so i read the amazon reviews and chose the raw food gourmet. unluckily the majority of the recipes rely on a dehydrator so it's not much use. besides not having the equipment i don't have all day to make dinner either. impractical to say the least. however, we have managed to find a couple of interesting recipes. getting completely away from the reworked salad recipe is the not-spaghetti and sauce. quite groovy. you make the spaghetti using courgette and a nifty machine called a spiraliser (or a veg peeler if you want tagliatelle) then you make a raw tomato sauce. lots of basil and garlic. we used some real parmesan, too. just didn't seem right otherwise.

since then i've bought a bunch more books (more about them in a later post) and added not-meatballs to the spaghetti spectacular. i also tried using butternut squash instead of courgette for a change. and to replace the parmesan we have the not nearly so tasty, but not a bad rip-off, nutrional yeast flakes. see photo courtesy of booyaa

one of my favourite recipes so far is the romaine wraps. easy peasy. take some avocado, apple, mango, peppers, spring onions, fresh corn, alfalfa sprouts and chop everything finely. add some fresh herbs (my fave is basil) and make a creamy dressing with natural yogurt (not strictly raw vegan, ahem. but it provides good bacteria and B12, which is notoriously difficult for vegans to get in their diet) garlic, soy sauce, spices, mustard... whatever you fancy really. then you mix it all up and spoon onto romaine leaves, then roll. stick a cocktail stick in the middle to hold together. really yummy!

another really easy one is based on an old warm salad recipe that anna introduced me too aeons ago. break a cauliflower into tiny florets, chop red pepper, chunky grate or julienne carrots, finely chop green beans (i use 'helda' beans, which i knew as vainas in spain) and some spring onions. make a dressing (this is the good bit!) with a dessertpoon each of oil (try walnut and sesame) honey and soy sauce plus crushed garlic and ginger (the more ginger the better, as far as i'm concerned) and shake all that up. you can add a bit of finely chopped chilli or a drop of hot sauce, too, for more zing. toss the salad and leave it to marinate for a while. sprinkle with flaked almonds or sunflower seeds and eat.

there's loads of information out there on teh intarweb, some of which one should probably not trust... so i'm checking stuff out carefully. here's a summary of what juice fasting is all about.

the human body is not set up to digest much of what we eat these days. our physiological make up and lack of appropriate enzymes make for a tough time of it when a load of pasta, meat and dairy hit your gut. bad food combinations also add to the mess, where only one set of enzymes can work on digesting food at any one time but different types of food require different enzymes. and there's the depleted enzyme situation to remember. so, over time, we end up with badly digested food sitting in the, um, lower end of the digestive tract. these denatured foods are treated by the body as toxins and the story goes that these toxins remain in the body, trapped in cells. especially in the liver. to make it easier to understand think about cellulite. what you're seeing there are the visible effects of cells full of toxins, trapped under the skin. massage and lymphatic drainage can help shift the toxins, but you do have to make sure they all get out or the toxins will end up floating around in your blood again and make you very ill indeed.

obviously that's a very simplistic version of things but basically we eat the wrong stuff to be healthy. the only stuff our body is equipped to digest are raw fruits and veggies and living foods (sprouted or fremented seeds, grains and pulses) and that diet will maintain optimum health. however, having followed a crappy diet for years you have all this fat and toxins and what leslie kenton refers to as meso-health: 'just gettting by' health. so you need to rid the body of all the built up toxins, clean out your colon and start afresh on a raw vegan diet.

still with me? so, to get rid of all that stuff you drink only fresh raw fruit and veg juices. the idea here is that you are getting tons of vitamins and minerals so you have all the nutrients you need (and loads more than your average diet would provide) but you get no solid food so your digestive system can shut down. the nutrients from the juices go straight into your bloodstream and your stomach has no solids to contend with. so now your digestive system has some downtime and all the energy it usually saps from you can go into cell repair. and that's it really.

you need to juice fast for a minimum of five days for your body to start the repair work and you'll get quite unwell from time to time as toxins are released from the cells they've been trapped in and flood back into your bloodstream. headaches are the most common ailment but as you go on for 8 days or 2 weeks you'll get weirder things happen. for a start you'll start to expel the stuff that's been stuck in your colon. nice. you won't be hungry, amazingly, after ten days. but old injuries will come back and hurt and your skin will be dry with such a lack of fat in your diet. you'll get spots or boils, go dizzy when you stand up too quickly and more. then, at the two to three week stage you'll have bags of energy and not need to sleep as much as you're used to.

to come off a juice fast, which is normally recommended as a 30 day programme, you need to be careful too. no good going down pizza express and scoffing everything in sight, plus a bottle of their finest pinot grigio. you need to eat very lightly for the first two or three days. lots of people recommend eating an avocado or a mango, with nothing else for your first meal. then maybe an apple or some tomatoes. after that start shredding some lettuce and go for a light salad. then build up. if you plan to return to your regular diet then take it very slowly with no cooked food/dairy for a week and even then have a tiny amount of cooked/dairy compared to the raw fruit and veg.

so that's what i've been doing. i didn't want to post this until i'd finished the fast, so family didn't get worried. i know it's not considered normal to most of the world. i've read up on it and i'm convinced, it makes a lot of sense. next few posts are little updates of my journey.

so, having tried a four day juice fast and coped considerably better than i'd expected, and, even, with very few side effects, i did some more research and found that to really get the benefits you should juice fast for 30 days. *gulp*

it seems that 30 days is pretty much the standard. further reading proved that two weeks is fairly doable and most people get considerable health benefits from it, and the minimum fasting period to achieve tangible results is 8 days. so, i'm going to aim initially for 8 days but then try to get to 14. then we'll see how things look and consider another week. once i'm at 21 days i'll make the decision whether to go for 30 days. step by step.

what follows are the notes i made on my palm pilot every day for the first ten days of the fast. *warning* some gory personal details will be shared

day 1 slight headache started midday but was bad enough to send me to bed at 6pm

day 2 headache was very faint and didn't bother me much. was fairly hungry but not so much that i worried i might cave in

day 3 woke up feeling hungry and had a headache. felt a bit sick after juice. all symptoms disappeared soon afterwards

day 4 supposedly today is the day my digestive system shuts down and hunger pangs stop

day 5 woke up starving! so much for day 4 being the end of hunger pangs

day 6 bit snotty. getting fed up of washing the juicer two or three times a day

day 7 ewww. stuff coming out. loads of energy compared to other days

day 8 still hungry headache on and off all day and tongue furry. period started. don't want to get weighed until that's finished for more accuracy

day 9 ...

day 10 had a bit of a headache in the afternoon, but it never got to the stage where i couldn't cope with it. used a bit of temple balm and had some chamomile infusion, massaged my neck and got on with work. it's amazing how dependent you get on painkillers. now that i can't take any (they're counterproductive to detoxing) i just find a way around using them. i'm quite impressed. so maybe i've broken my reliance on ibuprofen to get me through the week...

also had a long chat with boo about what i'm doing. now that i've passed my first mini-goal, and can't really tell whether i'm feeling better than a few weeks ago because time is passing and i'm recovering or because this is really helping me, well, i need to know if i'm doing the right thing. back to my fasting resource, curezone, and i found there was a blogger there with a very similar situation. until she got past the three week stage she was not really convinced it was doing her any good. and at around day 32 she finally hit the high.

posts are every two or three days from now on. there wasn't really that much to say.

day 11 got weighed. still a bit bloated from period so not sure how accurate it is, but lost another 3 pounds. that's a total of 8 pounds so far, which is a little disappointing, it has to be said

day 14 tiredness mostly gone, back to normal weekday tired. no extra energy as yet. occasional hunger pangs but mostly craving for egg mayo and salad on granary! got weighed today but only lost 1lb since saturday. very disappointed

day 15 got oxypowder in the post but will wait till friday to use it so am near the loo! tongue icky again plus have some big spots on back of neck - luckily they're above the hairline. have noticed in general my skin is feeling smoother. face is still quite dry

day 20 ent appt meant i spent most of the day at the hospital, which rather messed up my schedule so when i got home had a mug of bouillon. it's comforting and tasty, really quick and no juicer to clean afterwards, plus i get some oil for my poor dry face

day 21 headachey all day, was worried i'd get a migraine but it cleared in the evening. various aches and pains, little bit tired. trying hard not to wimp out and have bouillon for dinner. had veg juice for dinner. weight loss now 1 stone and that's over 2 stone total since i went raw - only another 2.5 stone to go...

day 23 well, i'm still waiting to feel the energy & find god (jk) but i have got one breakthrough to report - i finally got the whites of my eyes being whiter and the blue bluer. it's not so much that they're bluer rather that they're clearer. if you check out shazzie's before and after snaps (scroll down to august 2001) i'm sure you'll agree that the eye colour in the after pic looks like someone's been playing with photoshop. nevertheless, clearer eyes and smoother skin are big plusses in my book

day 27 lost 2 pounds in 2 days just by increasing my greens - as revolting as they are, i'm going to have to go green these last few days. although i was hoping to get the 'high' i don't think i want to keep going much longer. i'm bored of juices, bored of washing the juicer and it's time to get to the gym and exercise my flabby belly into submission but i really don't have the stamina at the moment

i do think i've achieved a great deal so far but there's still a long way to go and i think exercise is a big part of that - to lose more weight and get more healthy.

life's been a bit busy.

work is spectacularly dull one minute and frantic the next. i've been involved in a few new business leads and new projects as usability/acccessibility consultant, CMS know-it-all and information architect, which is fabulous. i like meetings and seem to have completely overcome my nerves. probably because i know i have back up and i generally work alongside Lindsey who is utterly fabulous and makes me feel confident.

we went on holiday - at last! and had two fabulous weeks in sunny andalucia, spent swimming (we had swimming races between us) and sitting in the sun, reading, doing spanish class (as boo was missing his work spanish class) and cooking tortilla, eating tortilla, drinking san miguel with gaseosa... oh it was fab!

it was my dad's 70th birthday last week so we went up for the weekend. it was nice to see everyone. especially charlie, of course. but lots of family came over for dinner, which was really lovely.

been on and off raw, between the holidays and family get-togethers. put on some weight while we were in spain but lost it all again. started my SalsaBounce™ again two or three times a week and went running this morning, but need to get these more entrenched in the schedule.

the move to wimbledon has been postponed. mostly because we haven't seen anywhere we like and can afford. so i need to secure my payrise and by the time that's all sorted i expect it'll be getting too near to xmas and i don't want the upheaval of moving to clash with my birthday, xmas or new year, so we'll keep looking around but will probably end up moving in february, at this rate.

i discovered a whole bunch of little snippets, mostly interesting links i saved on del.icio.us, so there'll be a spate of backdated posts this week!

i've been on a juice fast for the past week.

this time around i'm not suffering so much. i do get headaches. they're quite frequent but not debilitating and they fade fairly fast. so far i haven't noticed excessively dry skin, which was my major criticism last time, and that started two weeks in. but i feel good in general, with plenty of energy. i've lost some weight, too, we'll see what the scales say in the morning when it will be a full week's worth.

update 25.11.06: i've lost 9 pounds. very, very happy!
update 26.11.06: i think the scales are wrong. they say boo lost 11 pounds in two weeks which is highly unlikely, and i just got weighed again today, for a reality check, and they now say i lost four, not nine, pounds. disappointed after yesterday's euphoria, but that's much more realistic.

one thing i've noticed is that my teeth are a bit sensitive. i've read about this, when you have too much fruit. i'm adding two leaves of 'greens' or a handful of spinach to every juice so i'm quite proud of myself for that. it's not problematic at all this way. if i try to add four or five big green leaves then it tastes horrid and i can't drink it. but last time i barely used greens until nearing the end, so this is a step in the right direction for me.

i wondered if i was feeling better this time round because i don't have as many toxins in my system to get rid of. since my last juice fast - five months ago - i've been off and on raw. although some weeks were almost all cooked and i've had wine, beer, pizza... i've been more raw than not. also i did have a big 100% build up to this one and the previous fast was straight out of my six week illness and its associated medication, so there was a lot more to clean up back then.

it struck me today just how much we overeat. considering how much i've had to 'eat' today, and yes it's mid afternoon and i'm peckish, but i would be even if i'd had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a mid-morning snack and then a big bowl of pasta for lunch at 1 o'clock. i can survive perfectly well on the 2 litres of juice and litre of water that i've had so far today. i'm really no more hungry than a day full of stodgy cooked food. or raw, for that matter, though i generally burn off raw food more slowly than cooked. i worked out how many calories i take in on an average juice fast day and it works out at 700. the UK's dept of health recommend around 1940 calories a day for women. i bet i exceed all other good RDAs and fall below the bad ones. certainly no added salt, sugar or fat has also got to be off the scale in comparison to even my usual daily intake, never mind the rest of the country.

i think this one will be a two-week fast. i had originally wanted to go for three weeks but i'm not convinced i'll cope for that long. nothing to do with finally getting a dehydrator and dying to use it! no, though man am i looking forward to that! it's really a combination of things. i'm bored of thinking about buying veg or prepping veg or washing the juicer already. last time i spent the first two weeks at home, which it much easier. and then there's the work's christmas do. i can't imagine there being anything suitable for a juice faster and it's way too posh for me to turn up with my flask. well, we'll see. perhaps sparkling water in a champagne flute will fool enough people for me to get away with it ;)

why am i on yet another juice fast? well, partly because my good intentions for sticking to my raw regime after the last fast went all a bit wobbly. no, i'm not beating myself up over it, i'm just being honest. i feel really good when i'm 100% raw and i'd like to try to stick to that. that's partly why we've just ordered the dehydrator, so i can have heavier food, a wider range of food and even *shock* slightly warmed food, now that winter makes a salad in the evening possibly the least appealing dinner ever.

blimey, so much to tell and it's only 11.45!

long gone, the days when we didn't get out of bed (other than to make tea and turn the radio on) until well past midday.

and here endeth the fast lesson
so i've decided to break my fast today. i'd said two weeks or maybe three but i'm bored and fed up of juices now. i have very few detox syptoms now so i think i must have got rid of most of it or it's just not the right time to be doing it. i do have "detox tongue" but my fleeting headaches have mostly flit. i have to say i decided last night and i've now got a tiny headache and three spots so that's a sign i am still detoxing, but my mind is made up anyway.

in total i've lost 9 pounds (that's in two weeks) so i've done really well. and now i'm going to try to be very low fat raw for the next two weeks and then i'll be a bit more lax over the xmas period.

boo's first bushy park time trial
there's a bunch of nutters who voluntarily get up early on saturday morning, come rain or shine, and set out a 5km course through bushy park. they time everyone with some fancy gear and put the results on a website - and all for free!

then there's the nutters who do the running. through mud and fallen leaves, with deer wandering about the place. and boo decided it would be his first public race. there was a fabulous vibe and people were really friendly. complete strangers wishing him well on his first race and then asking how it went afterwards. will post his time later, once the results are published. in the meantime, this is the website to look at: Bushy Park Time Trial

we went for our usual sunday morning run along the riverside, over the bridge and back down the other side, along the trail-like path. it had stopped raining quite early on and as i'd demanded a lie-in we didn't go out for a run until about 10.30, so it wasn't too cold.

we've been doing reps of two minutes running, two minutes walking, repeat 5 times for the past, um, however long since i started. say two months. but today i was able, on the second running rep, to keep going for 3 minutes. and i took a go off my inhaler before starting the third rep but didn't feel i particularly needed it, it was just to be on the safe side. i usually find i need it. so that was good, too. then boo proclaimed i'd run faster than usual, too. recovery rate once we'd stopped running was much faster, too, so all in all a marked, tangible improvement. yay!

though of course the nike+ kit decided it didn't want to record the run so i have no stats :( you'll just have to take my word for it.

i've been all over the place for the past year and a bit. i've done juice fasts, eaten near-as-dammit 100% raw for months and in between gone on complete benders of very rich, cooked food and lots of wine. over the past few months i've been pretty rubbish. not just not raw, but not even up to my usual 'fairly healthy' standard. and it certainly shows. i am struggling to recover from the stomach bug i had at the end of last week. though my skin is not as bad as it was 18 months ago it has also been better. my energy levels are low. i get tired and have sugar crashes. i've put on most of the weight i'd lost, too. all in all, i just don't feel great. and when i'm raw i really do feel fabulous. and i miss that feeling. so i've decided to keep the bar fairly low, so i can't really miss it, basically. if i aim too high i'll disappoint myself, but if i have an achievable goal then it should keep me motivated. so here's what's going on.

boo has said he'll join me for a couple of weeks, as moral support, which is very groovy of him. makes the temptation to say 'let's have a take away' much hazier.

also, i've circumvented my usual biggest failure. i tend to think 'i'll start after [insert big social event here] cos otherwise i'll undo the good work and it's not worth it..." but we're going away this weekend and i won't be eating raw for three days, then there's the summer party where i will undoubtedly drink far too much veuve clicquot and madeira... but i've started anyway. i just decided after lunch today and here i am, committing to it in public.

today's tally
home-dried fruit with muesli and rice milk, coffee (this is my usual not-raw breakfast)
big green salad, mustard dressing, nuts and seeds, shredded cabbage, pepper, various veggies
apple, banana, two dates
white tea (lots)
biccy at work
green smoothie (banana, chocolate, romaine, spinach, misc flavourings)

so other than breakfast, that's pretty good going.

ah, the joy of prep in advance. well, it's also the scourge of variety in your food. it means you eat the same two days running. i've tried to change the dressings, chop things slightly differently and add the odd thing to make it feel like it's a different dish.

there's also the wimp out on the green smoothies. i add maple syrup (neither vegan nor raw) and vanilla, coconut butter and sometimes nut butter (raw) to make it more palatable. haven't quite got to the victoria boutenko stage of loving pretty much neat kale purée.

good thing today was that i wasn't as hungry as usual. if i have my standard non-raw breakfast i'm frequently starving by 10.30 but today i just didn't get that mid-morning hunger attack. i had a pumpkin seed bar around 11.30 so i wasn't hungry enough for lunch until after 2. i didn't even eat all my dates and macadamias which is a first! this is good news for me, i'd like to eat less and feel fuller for longer. i like getting enough nutrients to keep me going but staying spare on calories. (note to self: dig out link about low calorie intake being super good for you)

so today i've eaten way over 50% raw. yippee!

thursday's tally
pineapple, mango, bramble smoothie (as yesterday)
small cup coffee with dash milk. yes, yes, i know.
big green salad (different leaves from yesterday) avocado, carrot, sweetcorn, spring onion, red pepper, seeds with mustard and mayo dressing
non-raw pumpkin seed bar
apple, few grapes, 1 date
green smoothie with romaine, spinach, mango, blueberries and dollop of cashew butter

so that's four days eating over 50% raw.

but how do you calculate x% raw? lots of people go the 80-20 route. how do you know? is it by weight, volume, what? i had some mozzarella with my lunch salad today and by weight it was about 50% of my salad, by volume less than a third, so i don't know if that means my lunch was 50% raw or nearer 70%. and surely you need to consider nutrional density. i mean, if you ate carefully selected, raw vegan food, really healthy, optimal nutrition choices, for 4 days then ate at pizza hut/mc donald's/kfc on the fifth day... surely that's worse than adding a little cheese or yoghurt or a jacket potato to your daily food. but it would still be 80-20. there. one to ponder.

there's definitely, for me, a downside to eating raw. you end up having to eat the same thing for three or four days because it lasts so long. one head of romaine lettuce and a bag of spinach have lasted me all week. it'd be great to have more variation but eating raw for one (boo joins in occasionally, but not enough to make that much difference) means i get bored. for all the wonderful recipes out there, and i have a big pile of fabulous raw recipe books (my first ever, from 1990, Leslie Kenton's Raw Energy, and since then: Karen Knowler's ebooks, Shazzie's Detox Your World, Sarma Melngailis and Matthew Kenney's Raw Food, Real World, Gabrielle Chavez's The Raw Food Gourmet, Jordan Maerin's Raw Foods for Busy People....) as well as the wealth of info out there on the www (Freshtopia, WLIR, multitude of blogs) you know, you're only able to make recipes with ingredients you have to hand. I just can't have something different every day without having to throw away unused produce at the end of the week. i do try to dehydrate leftovers, or fruit that's going to go soft before i get round to eating it but that's not always feasible. dehydrated carrots anyone?

then there's the time it takes to make everything. making nut milk, which i love to drink, is a painful process. it takes a lot of cleaning up afterwards, but the milk disappears in seconds. sprouts require lots of attentionm so it's more worthwhile sprouting in batches, from a time point of view. but they need eating in the space of two days, and i find there's always too much.

so a solution is definitely needed. and i can't work out what it might be.

i've got three days of eating out coming up, but then i'll spend a few weeks trying to answer my own questions. getting that mix of variety and speedy meals.

today's tally
pineapple, blueberry, mango and spinach smoothie
coffee with milk
grapes, apple, mandarin, date, few macadamias
big green salad with radish, sweetcorn, turkish green pepper, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and balsamic vinegar dressing
green smoothie (mango, spinach, bit of chocolate)

well that's the end of raw for a few days, just a quick round up.

did i lose any weight over the four days that i was mostly raw?
yes, i lost a kilo (two pounds)

do i feel better now after four days mostly raw?
i think it's too short a timeframe to really get the benefits. i feel better than when i first started and have a bit more energy but there hasn't been a phenomenal difference. i haven't cut out coffee which i would need to do to stabilise my mental energy and my ability to focus. i haven't increased my exercise levels which i need to do, too. still, four days of healthy food can't be bad.

what did i learn?
i can eat a lot less without being hungry. i get bored easily, but a little willpower goes a long way.

will i do it again?
hell yeah. next week, after the party by the park (work's do) there will be more green smoothies for dinners and raw lunches going around. i'm so into getting fit, slim and healthy.

so, having pin-pointed some issues which are the likely causes of me yo-yoing over the past year and a bit, it's time to face up to them and decide which way to go.

i've done some thinking about what karen said in our one-to-one session at the retreat and talked through it with boo. i explained that him feeling sorry for me and thinking that take away food and a glass of wine will help, because i'm tired and don't want to cook, is all very nice but... in fact it's just undermining my efforts and allowing me to slip back into the old ways. i'm not blaming him, i should have the willpower in those situations.

i've also learned enough about how my body works to know that it's an all-or-nothing situation for me. trying out 50% raw worked for a week, but i don't think it's sustainable in the long run. i'm going for 100% now.

boo said if what it takes for me to stay raw is for us both to eat raw at home then he'll happily do that. he can still eat what he wants for breakfast, cos that's easy, it's just cereals, and for lunch while he's out at work, and he says he's happy with that arrangement. he didn't falter, he came straight out with it. i didn't ask him to, he offered. he only said if i asked him to go completely raw with me then he'd have to think about it - but i would never ask him to do that anyway. so that's a pretty good gig, i reckon.

so that's very good news, if not entirely resolved. we still need to work out how to approach the lack of dining out options and social events.

so my plans are to aim for 100% raw and allow myself some small treats, which will always be less than 10% of my daily food. that means i still can't go out for pizza... but i can have yoghurt in my coleslaw dressing and i might even be able to have a salad and doughballs at pizza express, so all might not be lost.

i aim to reduce my fat intake by using less oily dressings and restrict my nut intake.

aim for the 'clean burn' by eating when i'm hungry, to make sure everything gets fully digested before the next lot goes in.

have more green in my green smoothies and have green juices a couple of times a week.

try two new recipes a week. one simple during the week and one more complex at the weekend.

do more exercise. so that involves sorting out the second bedroom so i can use my rebounder and gym ball at home.

do more yoga. boo is currently only running twice a week, so i'm going to try to do my yoga when he does his runs.

to help out, for the next couple of weeks i'm going to keep a food diary, to track my progress and help me remember my goals.

i haven't had any coffee since friday afternoon. i've had a headache for three days now. i'm getting through as best i can with a headache roll-on, lavender oil and in extreme cases i'm getting the nurofen out. i can't align raw food and caffeine intake. it just doesn't make sense. much as i love coffee i know it's bad and wrong in lots of ways. and then there's the sugar and milk i have with it. so i'm going to get the monkey off my back this week. oh yes.

other than that i am taking on karen's advice and thinking more consciously about what i eat. i'm going to add in a couple of things each week to be more conscious of and see if i can't train myself into better habits. so, drum roll, please...

my two aims this week:
1. don't eat if you're not hungry
2. reduce fat intake

i'm writing down everything i've prepared or think i'm going to eat in the morning and the plan is to try to not eat all of it! that doesn't mean starve, it means i won't graze all morning, as i usually do, and to choose not to eat the things i'm trying to cut down on, like nuts, and choose better options if i really do need to eat.

i also read a short article recently on life changes which says that by changing 75% of your lifestyle you achieve what you aspire to but don't completely change your life. i think that's a good goal. realistic, achievable and pragmatic.

food diary

quarter pineapple, few blueberries
white tea throughout day
apple
big salad (spinach, peppers, romaine, onion, tomato, sprinkle of seeds, oil-based dressing but less oil than usual)
1 date, 1 pecan and 1 macadamia
banana
carrot & almond pate, zucchini hummus with flax crackers, green salad with oil-based dressing
white nectarine pudding (made this up, yet to be officially christened. 2 nectarines, 2 dates, few macadamias, few cashews, vanilla. blended as smooth as we could get. next time needs chilling)

not bad, fairly balanced, less oil than usual but then you get to dinner and see all those nuts. the pate and pudding made for a fairly heavy combo, too, we found about an hour later, as we were going to bed. must learn to think about that more carefully. particularly good, though, is that there is no coffee on that list and i was 100% raw! (tea doesn't count, it's sundried, not fermented, the water's hot but, look, i just don't care.)

my headache has receded, it's still floating about but is very much in the background and isn't stopping me from concentrating, so hopefully that's caffeine cold turkey phase over. i was hungry again today, despite the heavy nut dinner we'd had. but still trying not to graze. if i can do breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, with gaps in between, then i'll start cutting out completely or reducing the amount i eat for my snacks. sounds easy.

food diary
mango
apple, dates, few nuts
little bit of the pate, hummus & flax crackers from yesterday, spinach & romaine salad with tomatoes, fresh corn, lemon and oil dressing (less oil than usual) no seeds
cucumber soup and almond & carrot scones (i made the pate into little rounds and dehydrated for just over 8 hours - truly yummy)
one square raw chocolate

i often read other raw blogs and think 'why would anyone want to read everything some total stranger ate on a day-by-day basis?' but then i think back to when i first started out, way before the blog was born, and i think it would have been useful to see the immense variety of food intake, recipes etc that raw foodies eat. so for those of you who find this boring: skip it, it's easy. it's for me to keep track and those n00b raw foodies out there who might find it useful.

work today was great until just gone 11 when it all went to the dogs for a while and got me extremely riled. but i regrounded myself eventually after venting with a friend, and the rest of the day passed by so smoothly. a colleague said at the end of the day - she gave me a lift home - that my weekend retreat must have really worked because despite the midday chaos i was an oasis of calm. heh. not how i would ever describe myself! but i thought about it. by this afternoon i was feeling so good about everything that i had my first glimmer of hope that i might regain my raw food bliss soon. i'm sure it'll ebb and flow for a while before it settles in for good, but i'm enjoying these golden moments.

the cucumber and avocado soup is even better for lunch today. it was easy peasy to make, from jordan maerin's raw food for busy people. you blitz cucumber, avocado, fresh herbs, lemon juice and seasonings in the food processor or blender and you're done (for exact quantities you'll have to buy the book!) last night we had it with a few of the 'scones' that i'd made by dehydrating pate and today i had the same for lunch. the soup's flavours have come through a bit more and the scones are completely addictive.

food diary
green juice (apples, oranges, carrots, kale, mint, spinach, ginger)
two apples
soup and scones
1 square chocolate
sesame vanilla shake

i had intended to make romaine wraps tonight, but our blender arrived (more on that tomorrow, when i review and rave about it) so we had to try it out. the sesame shake recipe caught my eye in karen knowler's 'how to get started with raw foods' ebook, so we had a go of that. personally, i found the sesame a little bitter, so i'll put some nuts in to soak and try pecan or almond milk tomorrow.

today was a good food day. i enjoyed everything and felt full of beans! or full of greens, more likely :)

weird thing happened yesterday evening. i'd been feeling really good, getting on with things at work and generally sensing that all was right with the world, when suddenly my energy bottomed out and i was tired and listless and not great. by the time i got home i knew i had a high temperature. it rocketed really quickly, i took paracetamol to take the edge off, cos i don't know about you, but i just can't stand the shakes, and that feeling of ants under your skin. i went from freezing cold, shivering and shaking at 10pm, to sweating like a pig (i bet pigs don't even sweat... moments later: according to wikipedia, pigs don't have functional sweat glands. they cite their source too, so even my cynical-regarding-all-things-wikipedian brain is tempted to accept that. so what's the deal with that expression?) and thrashing about at 5am. horrendous. so i stayed at home today and mostly slept, trying to let me body deal with whatever it is dealing with. i've no idea what that might be. i have a sore throat, but nothing bad enough to warrant a temperature of 38.5.

this evening boo is out running the jpmorgan chase corporate challenge, so i'm alone. listening to devendra banhart, who's a very hairy, evidently unhinged - in that genius meets madness kind of way - individual who makes beautiful music with unsettling lyrics, which i first heard thanks to stuart maconie's freak zone, our sunday dinner cooking music. his hallucinogenic lyrics are quite apt today. i've eaten a punnet of cherries and am now debating whether to have a smoothie or a salad for dinner. do i fancy washing up? no. i'll just have a bath instead.

of course it will!

the latest addition to our household is *not* a blendtec. man i was so disappointed to find the will it blend? stuff on you tube is viral marketing and not just some nutter in the style of the coke and mentos dudes. and if you don't know what i'm talking about, check it out here.

but back to our lovely new toy. it's a breville professional grade blender. not a vita-mix, i decided they're too damn ugly to pay that much money for (two speed version is £450) but our baby has 1000 watts of pulverising power, looks pretty and cost considerably less at £125. more details here.

we've tried it out on a couple of recipes and two things we've learnt are: one, it sounds like an aeroplane is about to crash through the roof. no wonder tanja wears ear protectors. and two, we're scared of really going for it and wimp out with little prods at the pulse button. but i'm sure we'll get a feel for it and learn to use it with confidence.

best thing so far was recreating karen's wonderful raspberry sorbet from last weekend. we had seconds and all. what a dream.

i took some notes during the weekend and i've just tidied them up a little to put down here. i don't want to give away any of karen's work, as this is how she makes her living, after all, nor do i want to go into any detail of my personal issues which came up, and i