The weekend

Posted on September 17, 2012 by nicdempsey

Last week seemed like a hard week, I was so glad that the week was done with and ready to have a relaxing weekend.

Dev came round on Friday with wine. Selected because it was on special offer and he liked the label!

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I generally don’t use the living room in the week, I tend to get home, camp in the kitchen and then it’s bedtime (this is one of the joys of having a kitchen big enough to have a table it it!) Friday night is usually the night I remember there’s another room in the flat. It wasn’t that cold but it was dark and for the first time this season, I drew the curtains and lit the candles…

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Saturday I was up early and out of the house to trek to Jane’s for a much needed hair cut and catch up at least the sun was shining..

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Lunch with Ma and a very dodgy photo

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Home on the dreaded 65 bus.  I can’t escape the need to use this bus and it was hot and seemed to take ages but the view was quite nice!

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Time to change the nail varnish, blue this week.
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Jen and Jonny have been married 25 years, they had a party to celebrate. I didn’t get many photos but this one is of their very talented boys, Harry and Joel, who gave a speech (Joel) and a poem (Harry). Both were funny and just very lovely.
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Sunday was a very quiet day catching up on stuff. When I was a kid I was convinced that being a grown up would be about staying up late and eating ice cream whenever I wanted! As a ‘grown up’ and I use the term loosely, I realise it’s more about housework, laundry and getting to bed early so I’m fit for work! On that note, this weekend I gave into the change of seasons and set the wake-up lamp. I hate having to do that, winter is not a fun happy time for me and I have to work to be positive about this.
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That was the weekend and now it’s back to work.  This week is quiet and with the exception of dinner (and champagne!) at Sarah’s on Thursday, it’s all about work, exercise* having a gym buddy at work is really motivating and a little bit of prep for my holiday which is now only 2 weeks away!

Happy Monday people!

*this week’s plan is:

Monday – Dynamic Yoga

Tuesday – Body Pump

Wednesday – Treadmill and Pyramids

Thursday – Body Balance

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Sunday Music

Posted on September 16, 2012 by nicdempsey

Ta Douleur – Camille

I walked into Pret this week for porridge and this was playing and all of a sudden it was 6-ish years ago. Strange how music does that.

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September Goals Update 2

Posted on September 14, 2012 by nicdempsey

So Week 2 – feels like progress

1) One new vegetarian meal a week

That would be the Courgette Fritters.

2) Monitor the booze intake.

I’ve had a glass of fizz and a glass of wine wine I over the weekend. Then on Thursday 2 glasses of champagne for a work thing, on Friday, a G&T and a large glass of red wine. Apart from the Thursday lunchtime drinking, it’s been ok!

3) Four 10k walks in the month

I haven’t got one walk longer than 5 k in this month. Must try harder.

4) Some other form of exercise twice a week

This is going really well, I’ve done 30 minutes hard cardio followed by sit ups, a Zumba class and a Body Balance Class. I part of lunch time exercise club at work, which is very motivating.

5) Clean the floors and hoover once a week

That’s been done!

6) Set a bedtime and stick to it

Better progress this week, and it’s starting to pay off.

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Friday Night Cocktail

Posted on September 14, 2012 by nicdempsey

The Gold Rush

This is so simple, it’s basically a whiskey sour with honey instead of sugar syrup. As soon as I saw it here, I knew I was trying it, it’s perfect for the transition into autumn…and I was not going to feature this until the Olympics and Paralympics were done with…

It’s really good and because the recipe is for 2 drinks, make sure that there’s another person with you or you’re probably having two! But the joy of it is that it’s easy to scale the recipe up for more people…

What

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons boiling water

4 oz (1/2 cup) bourbon

1 1/2 lemons, juiced, about 4 tablespoons

How

1) Put honey into a jar or cocktail shaker.

2) Add the boiling water and mix until you have thin syrup.

3) Add the bourbon and lemon juice. Mix together. (You can if you wish put this in a fridge for later!)

4) Add ice and shake.

5) Pour into rocks glass over ice.

6) Drink!

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Things I have learnt this week..

Posted on September 13, 2012 by nicdempsey

1) It’s time to start using the wake up lamp. I naturally wake up when the sun comes up and at the moment that’s not 6am.

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2) Zumba and me. Not a match made in heaven. However, having a gym buddy at work is really good for me, there are lots of gym visits in my future.

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3) They may have found the body of Richard III. Which reminds me in two weeks time, I’ll be in Middleham.

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4) I really need a haircut!

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5) In Our Time is back. I know that opinions on this are divided but I love it and I learn something I didn’t know every week and I like Melvyn Bragg.

 

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Courgette Fritters

Posted on September 12, 2012 by nicdempsey

This week’s new vegetarian recipe.

It came from The Faerietale Foodie and is the perfect dinner for nights I don’t have too much of a brain (yeah I know you could argue that’s most nights!) nights where I’m tempted to eat rubbish rather than make something better. It has courgette, egg, some parmesan, lemon juice and a bit of flour. So things I usually  have in my kitchen. I ate this with roasted vegetables (red onion, tomatoes, aubergine, peppers and capers) it took about 30 minutes to make dinner and was quick to tidy up after. Perfect midweek dinner. Although in fairness, I did use my magimix to grate the courgettes, if you have to do this by hand you may not love the fritters simplicity as much as I do..

What

3 small courgettes

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 egg

juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons parmesan, grated

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 tablespoons of olive oil

How

1) Grate the courgettes and wrap in a teatowel, squeeze to get as much liquid out of them as possible

2) In a largish bowl, beat the egg with the flour, cheese, lemon juice and salt and pepper

3) Add the courgette to bowl and mix together

4) Heat the oil in a frying pan, add a heaped tablespoon of courgette mixture scoop and flatten in the pan

5) Fry for about three minutes on each side until cooked through

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RSC’s Julius Caesar

Posted on September 11, 2012 by nicdempsey

Theatre this summer seems to have mostly been Shakespeare.

We didn’t plan it like that, but we saw Henry V at the Globe, Timon of Athens at the National and last Friday, the RSC production of Julius Caesar.

All of them were good.

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This one was fantastic.

Seriously, if you can, get tickets and see this.

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Posted in Culture, How I Live, London, Things I Like | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Goal progress

Posted on September 8, 2012 by nicdempsey

Right I’m going to measure the week from Saturday to Friday and catch up on how I’m doing with my September Goals on Saturday mornings. Less chance of me not doing what I’ve committed to if I have to write about it!

1) One new vegetarian meal a week

Done and I’ll write about it next week.

2) Monitor the booze intake.

Sticking to this one.

3) Four 10k walks in the month

Hasn’t been done yet so fail. On the other hand I only set the goal in the middle of last week!

4) Some other form of exercise twice a week

Last Saturday Jem kicked my arse last Saturday and I got a 5k walk in this week. So all good.

5) Clean the floors and hoover once a week

That’s been done!

6) Set a bedtime and stick to it

Been rubbish at this. So rubbish. Need to work harder on this one!

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Re-Engage

Posted on September 6, 2012 by nicdempsey

This Saturday marks the start of Grace’s new season. For one reason and another, I wasn’t very involved in Grace very much last year. Bex, is curating this one and asked me to assist, so the theme seemed very apt.

As with all Grace services, there’s still an element of ‘throw it in the air and see if it works’.

I’m looking forward to it, if you think it might be your thing, come along.  There will be wine and cake at some point in the evening!

 

re-engage flyer

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September Goals

Posted on September 5, 2012 by nicdempsey

Goal setting for this month is a bit late, mostly due to my chronic disorganisation also known as August was just too much fun.

So let’s do this.

Food and diet

1) One new vegetarian meal a month

In August the only thing I really managed was the two vegetarian days a week.  That is becoming more of a habit, in fact while menu planning this month I noticed that dinner is the only thing that included meat or fish but I am over-reliant on the same things and a change is as good as a rest!

2) Monitor the booze intake.

That means no ‘school night’ drinking (Monday to Thursday) and no more than two drinks in an evening. August did see an increase in my drinking, what with the birthday, the weddings and general August fun. I’m enough like my father to see that drinking everyday could be a dangerous habit to get into and I could do without the extra calories, so time to get out of everyday drinking.

Exercise

3) Four 10k walks in the month

Exercise took a back seat to everything else in August and with Autumn just around the corner, I need to start preparing for the onset of the darker nights and with it my darker moods. Walking does help and I need to get the longer walks done in the daylight.

4) Some other form of exercise twice a week

It could be a cheeky 5k walk after work, it could be a ‘run’, it could be a gym class, it could be letting Jem boss me about at ‘fitness camp’ but it needs to be something.

Home and General

5) Clean the floors and hoover once a week

Of all things housework-y, I loathe everything to do with the floors. Always have, this is not helped by my flat having wooden floors and not nice, properly laid, easy to clean hardwood floors but ‘someone pulled up the carpets and varnished the floorboards badly’ wooden floors and carpeted stairs. This means that no matter how much I sweep and scrub the floors they never look clean, so I put off doing them and I really shouldn’t. So I’m going to start a habit..

6) Set a bedtime and stick to it.

One of the worse things about Autumn is the darker mornings and nights apart from making me miserable, it’s really difficult for me to work out a reasonable time to go to bed and get up. I know it’s odd but ideally I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning until the sun is up (in December that’s about 9am) and getting up in the dark is almost impossible if I haven’t at least attempted 8 hours sleep. So by 10pm on schoolnights and 12pm on the weekends I will be in bed and I will be out of bed by 6.30am on workdays and 8.30am on the weekends.

That’s plenty to be going on with.  What are you doing for September?

 

 

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