life with booyaa

you know how people are always telling you not to eat at your desk because the bacteria then thrive and it becomes less hygienic than a toilet... well along come thinkgeek, who are generally brilliant, and they make you eat the world's messiest food at your desk!

go on. you know you want to

this link may break tomorrow...

saw this on a gatepost on the way to tesco. fab :)

irl it's quite small, just a couple of inches across.

ordered an iBook :)

what? you want to know more? isn't that enough adrenalin for one day?!

having a bath is one of life's true pleasures. i particularly recommend the multitude of scented candles, hot milky water, piles of bubbles with super chilled music in the background variety of bath. and then this came along to make it all better. it's on the wishlist.

i know some of you will get this. i am now the proud mother of a small shiny white thing. and very very happy.

uberlink of the teh day. again for those who know me best this will make perfect sense. cuddle your squirrel

well, it can't be a coincidence. tonight, in kensington gardens, there's an outdoor showing of donnie darko (possibly one of the best movies of this century). also, on bbc2 this evening they are showing, yes, you guessed it, donnie darko. and all this on the anniversary of hiroshima. that just screams out that something BAD is going to happen today. i just hope to gods it's nothing to do with my sister's laser eyesight correction appointment this afternoon. that's just not funny. jeez, scary.

so, ce soir, boo and i are going over to [TenMinJoe]'s place to watch dd on his 32" surround sound telly. i had invited him over here but it has to be said that three of us huddled round our 15" ancient tv would not be much fun. well, it'd be fun. but not as high tech enjoyable. we must get our act together and buy a new telly. right, this needs a new paragraph. just to finish the whole dd thing by answering your burning question: why am i not going to watch dd in the park? it goes something like this: saw the posters, failed to get my act together and it was sold out by the time i went to book. doh!

new telly
any suggestions? we have seen a lovely telly in "one of those shops where you know vastly more than the assistants" and have since tried to find it online but can't track it down. nearest i found was this one but we are hoping to get a 23" (quite a rare size we are finding) as 17" is just a little too small. i won't buy a regular - non-lcd - telly because it takes up too much space and i'm not one for having the tv centrestage. but playing videogames and watching great movies would certainly benefit from a bit wider screen. but even in lcd the "standard" 27" widescreen tellys are huge and take over the living room. recommendations welcome. watch this space. or come visit in a month or so and see for yourself!

we've got one, at last :) i will take, upload and post photos this weekend. and that's a promise! ;)

in the meantime, here it is on a website instead of in my living room.

pablo, for those who don't know, has been curating modern art shows for the past couple of years. he's been invited to edit and preface a book on modern installations and the book is to launch imminently. and there's a launch party on sunday, and we're invited. woo hoo! it's in hoxton, just for the cherry on the cake. updates later.

later

well, still not quite recovered from gastric flu or whatever evilness has made both us ill for the past ten days, we didn't make it to pablo's book launch. in honour of the occasion though, once i'd got out of my restorative bath, we watched the episode from spaced called art. fabulous stuff.

oh my god. walk around with a permanent smile, you'll be snapped at any moment!

... or, possibly, boots for fat lasses ;) at duoboots.com

thanks to the wife of one of boo's work colleagues i now have in my possession a catalogue of gorgeous, sexy boots which are made in twenty-one!!! different calf widths. *does happy dance*

so i'm gonna get me at least one pair of knee-high boots that actually fit. i'm so fed up of seeing my kind of boots on the high street but when i go to try them on i find that i can't fasten them up or they fit round my calf but are nora batty round my ankle. ugh. so far this winter i've been wearing some mid-calf boots. but it's just not the same. so, i will be sending off for a pair of day-to-day boots very soon, and if they work out then i'll also be getting some dressy boots. so expect drooling praise and photos in a few weeks :)

anyone who's listenend to radio 4's i'm sorry i haven't a clue will be delighted to learn that a thorough investigation of the origins and rules of mornington crescent is now available to listen to on the bbc radio player (which, unfortunately needs the evil real player to work). andrew marr (yes, really!) interviews lots of players, historians and commentators and gets to the bottom of this wonderful british institution.

go get it, boy

we'd had big breakfast and late lunch. so nine o'clock was time for a snack in the boolou household. we decided on the cheese and crackers we'd bought whilst in lewis & cooper in northallerton. so boo wanders off to the kitchen singing. yes, singing "stinky cheese, stinky cheese", to the tune of the classic spiderman cartoon, apparently

life's more fun with a booyaa around :D

update: it really was stinky. had to put the rind and wrapper in three bags and then outside. yeuch!

john dvorak says css sucks. it's hard work and doesn't give good results. so the standardistas retorted with this css challenge.

go take a look!

i probably got here via molly's site, so thank you to her. now check out the full post. what a great idea and fabulous response. for all you designers out there who are convinced that css is where it's at, but struggling to get your voice heard, take heart.

also, what a fabulous name for a blog. dog or higher. heh.

those were the days, eh? when comparing copies of blue monday was the height of friday night conversation...

for those of you who want to revel in a little nostalgia, hop on over and check out the blue monday owners club. and recoil in horror, like i did, at those who are obviously too young to remember it the first time round ;)

at some point i'll find my lost records and join in the fun.

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 got the results for boo's time trial. he came in 157th of 227 runners at 25.18 minutes (for 5km) which we're both very proud of :)

want proof? watch the birdy! he wasn't smiling quite so much as he came into the finishing line.

and how mad is this? happy families plus one man and his dog.

and my first food for two weeks was an utterly divine tomato salad, with finely chopped spring onion and basil, drizzle of cold-pressed olive oil that kevin brought over from california, sprinkling maldon salt and tiniest drop of balsamic vinegar. it was like manna from heaven. i hunted down the best so-ripe-they-were-fit-to-burst organic tomatoes i could find. it was worth it.

right, so booyaa has been joining in on raw dinners all week. today he had green juice for breakfast, too, and he's bouncing around like a mad thing. he has officially re-certified himself as being 150% more booyaa!

it's amazing, the difference, it really is noticeable. no sluggishness, no lazing around after dinner with no desire to do anything other than watch tv. he's up and about, washing up and cleaning the mess i've made in the kitchen, really, well, 'bouncy' is definitely the word. in the mornings he's been up before i've taken tea in, which usually is a two step process to get him out of bed, and he's done household chores he doesn't ever think to do, i always have to ask him to help, before he's left for work in the morning. bizzarro!

best of all, he's really enjoying the food, it's not a chore or a sacrifice. he's loved everything we've eaten this week and he snarfed extra large seconds of the raspberry sorbet and chocolate sauce tonight and even likes the green juices.

so raw is doing him lots of favours, it would seem. and the transformation is so fast! it's only one meal a day for five days and he's thriving on it. i remember a long time ago reading the question 'ok, you were ill and got healthy on raw foods. so what happens when a healthy person tries it?' here's your answer. they become little dynamos of energy and packed full of feel-good factor :)

food diary
green juice (kale, apples, oranges, mint, carrots)
banana
lambs lettuce & tomato salad with 'scones' from couple of days ago, 2 squares chocolate
romaine roll-ups (chopped peppers, spring onion, sweetcorn, apple with creamy mustard dressing piled onto romaine leaves, vaguely rolled up. then the filling splurges out as you eat it)
raspberry sorbet and chocolate sauce a la karen knowler

for booyaa's food diary replace lunchtime salad with a chicken sandwich and scotch eggs (yeah, i already rolled my eyes so hard they squeaked)

a couple of months ago, boo and i realised we'd left it too late - yet again - to plant seeds to grow our own tomatoes. i'd already raked through heirloom seed catalogues looking for something to grow in pots on a not-always-sunny windowsill. i must have spent hours, and all for nothing. but i decided not to be defeated and persevered. and it was worth it. i managed, miraculously, to find a uk company who supply organic plant plugs. they're small plants, just two-three months old, raised organically and ready to pot on. hurray!

when they arrived we were just about to go away for the weekend and only had enough compost for one of the large pots, so boo potted out the two strongest looking plants before we left and a week later he sorted out the rest of them. and now, three weeks on, we have two fabulously fat plants overtaking the whole windowsill from the first lot he planted, while in the other bedroom the other four plants are looking about two weeks' behind. the ways of nature, eh?

so, here's a pic of the pretty papery yellow star flowers...

and here's a close up of the first tomato. isn't that sweet! i'm so looking forward to eating it :)

food diary

strawberries
salad, same as yesterday, and mashed avocado with herby flax cracker (reinvented pizza base)
italian praline chocolate (couldn't resist. it was yummy!)
big fat mango, pear, watercress, parsley and hemp smoothie

i don't use twitter and don't plan to get a twitter plug-in, but i do feel the need to twitter right now. so i'm doing it anyway.

munching the yummiest snacks in the whole world evah!

got my delivery of one lucky duck orange candy pecans (soooo sweet and crunchy!), spicy cashews (mmm, spicy, light curry flavour), buckwheat crispies, grawnola and cherry almond bars (had all of these before, so i know they're delish) and i'm very happy!

if you're in the UK you can get hold of these yumminesses via the fresh network.

ok, so not quite 'for your life' but rather 'for your health'.

i've started running again, at last. boo and i had a good routine going before we moved house, where we'd both do our own thing during the week - so i'd use my rebounder for 10-15 minutes most days of the week, and he'd take long runs before or after work - then at the weekend we'd run together. being asthmatic makes it really quite hard for me to run but once i got in the swing of things i started to really enjoy it and felt my energy levels increasing. plus there's the whole getting out in the sunshine, enjoying the river on one side and parkland on the other, nodding to other runners, cyclists, dogs and so on.

then boo did his marathon and stopped running for a while afterwards, tending to his ITB and we moved house and everything changed. my rebounder was stuck behind the sofabed in the spare room, out of the way of everyday things. and, of all bizarre things, i lost my running kit. i kept my trainers, running bra, running tights, base layer and asthma inhaler in a small backpack so it was easy to get hold of, all in one place. but we've searched high and low and the backpack is nowhere to be seen.

now i'm not kidding myself that the whole thing wasn't some kind of sub-conscious gesture on my part to get out of doing exercise. but it was still annoying. this weekend, though, that all changed. we've swapped roles and boo has become my coach. he found an absolute beginners training programme and we started it today. more here: the couch to 5k training programme

i needed new trainers anyway, so we went out yesterday and had me professionally tested out and i now have a pair of butt ugly running shoes, which are truly fabulous to run in. i wore my yoga kit to run today, which doesn't really work. the pants slip down all the time and the bra doesn't strap me down quite as well as i'd like. we'll have to turn the house upside down one last time before i go off to sweaty betty and spend a hundred quid on new kit. *sigh*

i'll be using boo's nike+ run log images until i get my own kit (which is to be a pressie from boo) and i'll chart my progress here.

shiny new sneakers images and run log after the jump

click... click.. click...

having been away for a week and eating restaurant food, i came home to a strong desire for soft green salad leaves (i suppose because the heat there creates transit issues, the salads were all tough leaves, like frisee and radicchio), spring onion, tomatoes and sunflower seeds. and bananas. no bananas for a whole week was just too weird.

i've really enjoyed sleeping in my own bed with my darling booyaa beside me to snuggle into as i sleep (and how i've slept!) and wake up to...

it's the weekend so i get to decide what to do with my time, which is a huge difference, the evenings weren't really my own last week, but even more so things like the temperature of the house, watching heroes, wearing slippers when the floor gets cold. having my kitchen back and making piles of food, eating when and what i wanted. all sorts of things i didn't realise were part of how i live are suddenly sources of great comfort.

yeah, home is good.

dubai was interesting. it was hot but good hot. i liked the heat, i just didn't get much chance to enjoy it. the interiors are ice cold with uber ac everywhere. madness. i had to buy a cardigan while i was there, as i was too cold indoors *rolls eyes*

work was ok. it was challenging, but doable. the people were nice. staff, everywhere i went, were extremely kind and helpful. whatever else i think about the monstrosity that is this utterly artificial construct, was softened by lovely people who support the crazy concept of making the biggest tourist destination in the world by turning the desert and the ocean into habitable land masses. the money and energy being sunk into the place is scary, breathtaking and utterly criminal. it's offensive, at best, to think of the good that could be wrought in the world with the kind of financial backing given to creating this city from sand. it wasn't the desert heat making my blood boil, i can tell you.

i took lots of snaps on a city tour on my crappy little camera phone but so far my bluetooth pics upload won't bend to my will. if i get the things off my phone ever i will post a link here.

perhaps more appropriately a belle and a beau...

the day dawned early for me, as i woke up at 5.30am. i snuggled up to a fast-asleep booyaa for a while then got up and played with tinker, who'd just come in with mum from an early walk. she's a crazy dog but playing and being silly with her is very calming. distracting, i suppose.

i had a shower, made tea and woke mark up. dad stirred soon and the full complement was now busy getting ready for the first job of the day. i went to the hairdresser with mum. dad and mark went to collect the flowers. i was cooed over and congratulated before i left, with a head full of golden curls and a trio of crimson ranunculus in my hair. mum seemed pleased with her blowdry, too.

next, breakfast en famille. though i wasn't hungry it was reassuring and grounding to warm croissants and make toast for the others.

booyaa and i have acquired an allotment. we put our names down aeons ago and were told to expect a two year waiting list, but, less than a year later and we got a phone call from a gentle soul, apologising for things outside of her control, and inviting us to visit and choose an allotment.

we went down after work (it's a five minute bus ride from where we live) and she pointed out the available plots. we'd requested a half plot, figuring that we wouldn't know what to do with a whole plot. we are now, of course, wondering if we shouldn't have gone the whole hog. there would have been space for a patio, barbecue (not for me, i hate barbecues. where's the fun in eating half raw/half charred food with ash on it? beats me.) and, we have learned, more space between plants for ease of watering and weeding. anyhow.

our allotment was a jungle of evil weeds when we took it over. luckily joe swift is a few weeks ahead of us on gardener's world, so we're learning the tricks from him ;) we also chose a plot which is surrounded by ubergardeners. we have lionel on three sides. he works for the council services who look after the allotments and has been gardening for over 20 years. then along and down one there's malcolm, who used to show (hushed reverence) and between them they are keeping us right. and giving us spare plants left right and centre!

i'd hate to say raw food is becoming mainstream because the word conjures up thoughts of things becoming diluted and losing the pioneering optimism when they hit the 'almost normal' point on a weirdometer. you know what i mean. the music i used to listen to that came on a flexidisc you got with a handmade fanzine. it was special then. inspired by a burning fire in the artist's gut. once the band became more popular the quality of the music somehow diminished. for me, the studio production erased the beauty of the earlier stuff, which was so rough around the edges, with off-key singing and no backing vocals. three tracks at most. that was the beauty of it.

so now i'm torn. first, there's somewhere like vitaorganic, the flexidisc of raw food restaurants. it's quaint but the service is slow, the surroundings could do with some tlc and you have to wait forever for a table at lunchtime. oh yes, and the really great raw stuff only comes out in the evenings. and the website's pants. so along comes SAF and elevates raw food eating out to a whole 'nother level. smart designer interiors, groovy cocktails, and the food is definitely cuisine - refined, elegantly presented and more than just a little bit clever.

then, apparently, there's to be a raw food range in waitrose later this year thanks to one of the guys behind london's raw food cookery school. i'm sorry, i'll say that again: RAW FOOD RANGE IN WAITROSE!!!

i am so excited i can hardly contain myself. there's chris and zoe at purely raw and anya's raw faeries doing raw menu home deliveries and now this. can it be true?

i can buy raw cacao goodies at my local health food store. shazzie has a chunk of whole foods' shelving all to herself. it's growing. people have heard of raw. juice bars everywhere you look. so, can there possibly be any reason to fear the loss of integrity as raw food moves through the 'totally off the scale' to 'a bit dodgy' on the nation's weirdometer?

independent article on the inexorable march of raw (though note the rubbish broken link to the cookery school, which i'm sure you can work out how to fix yourself.)

heh.

disclaimer: this has been sitting on my hard drive for aeons. i kept forgetting to upload it for your viewing pleasure.

currentconfig.com have pulled out all the stops here. this is one of those things you know, dammit, are right, but it always felt like gut instinct. now you have reasons. valid, robust, scientific ones at that.

why [over+toilet paper=good] and [under+toilet paper=bad].

here's the skinny. go get some learning.

awesome.

by anthony burrill, via one plus infinity via booyaa's news reader.

booyaa and i have been talking a lot, of late, around the notion of the slow revolution. as a lapsed marxist i am aware that there's no such thing. a revolution is, by its very nature, abrupt and usually violent. what we're referring to is more of a movement. it's slow, steady, underground but not furtive. good-natured and well-meaning. and it's all about standing back and taking a good, long look at life and then trying to make it better in any way you can.

we're all so busy turning a profit, consuming, being entertained by a media machine that doesn't want us to think for ourselves that we don't have time to truly consider whether what we're doing, where we're going (as individuals and as a race) and how we achieve those goals, are, in fact, what we really want.