Losing weight

I have battled with my weight since forever, losing pounds then putting them back on and more to boot – yo-yo dieting they call it, and I know all about it.  Eventually a few years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, but even that didn’t phase me as it would a lot of other folk.  For long enough I ignored it, still eating all the wrong things, and the weight still crept on.  Then I had a bit of a breakthrough, giving up sweets, desserts, biscuits, cakes and scones, and through playing too much with my laptop, forgetting to eat (not good) I actually lost about a stone (14lbs) over a longish period of time, without really noticing it.

I have often thought I might have an intolerance to gluten, as pasta and pastry always made me feel bloated, and unwell,  and in looking that up on the internet I discovered Paleo!  Paleolithic, I thought to myself, and I was actually right!  This method of eating is very much based on the sort of foods cavemen (hunter gatherers) would have eaten!  You can have meat – red meat too -  fish, eggs, nuts and seeds, veggies and fruit, but no grains, no dairy, no legumes and definitely no sugar or anything processed.  Hmm!  This looked interesting. Real food!  I read some more about it, watched videos, looked up websites and browsed recipes.  Mmm!  Very interesting!  Interesting enough for me to say I want some of that!  Wouldn’t you, if you saw all the delicious looking recipes.  Eating loads of real food and losing weight too!  Yes please!

In January, Morag and I decided to weigh ourselves every Sunday – before tea – she doing her choice of diet and me mine.  I loved the Paleo way of eating and discovered ways of substituting flour and dairy into delicious recipes.  I actually began to cook again (a slow cooker/crockpot is a boon here too), something some of you will remember I used to hate with a passion. 

I love to try out some of the sweet recipes as occasional treats - using almond flour ( finely ground almonds ), coconut and almond milk, honey or even maple syrup for sweetening, nuts – almonds, cashews, macadamias, brazils, etc. – and nut butters, everything unprocessed, without all the rubbish ingredients.  Going totally organic is often difficult but I go to the market or our local High Street butcher for meat, and our new greengrocer in town for fruit and veggies and eggs.  A trip to Galashiels is sometimes called for so I can peruse the shelves of Holland and Barrett, as it’s there I can pick up some of the more unusual ingredients, like cold pressed coconut oil to cook in – (yes, among the allowed oils) it gives fried eggs and omelettes a delicious subtle flavour.  

I cook  bacon and eggs with fried tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast some mornings , but usually a couple of eggs in an omelette or scrambled does me, and often I will whizz up a smoothie with veggies and fruit, coconut or almond milk.  Yummy.  I don’t miss dairy produce (except maybe cheese) or cereals, as I can make Paleo bread if I really want some.  Believe it or not grated cauliflower is a great substitute for rice – do it in a food processor rather than by hand with the cheese grater – and you can even make a substitute pastry or pizza base with it too.  Noodles can be made with veggies such as carrots, courgettes, squashes etc. and basically just blanched in boiling water to heat up!  I use my old mincer, but a spiraliser looks like fun!

Anyway you can look up websites for yourself for recipes, and info on the diet (way of life), but here’s my good news….. After a week I had shed 6lbs, followed by losses of 2lbs each week for a bit.  Some weeks I have stayed the same or maybe lost just one pound but since we started on 6 January I have lost 21lbs – a stone and a half – and I am thrilled!  I feel better, no more bloating or stomach cramps, and have more energy.  My achy knees and hips are much better too.  It’s marvellous.  So you can guess I am going to continue with this eating pattern!

Here are some of the websites I have looked at, though it was http://paleoaholic.com/ that got me started, with its meal plans, short articles and recipes.   http://fatburningman.com/ is another site I follow regularly, along with http://www.youngandraw.com/  They do the raw thing but it all sounds lovely – says she who hated salads!  They have an iPad app for a 14 day juice challenge, but with loads of juicer recipes.  Enjoying that!

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/10/04/the-beginners-guide-to-the-paleo-diet

http://www.fitbomb.com/p/why-i-eat-paleo.html

There are tons of websites you could investigate.  I hope I am not obsessing over this way of eating!  I do cheat from time to time but try to stick as close to it as possible when I go out, though it’s quite hard when everything includes potatoes (not allowed really, though sweet potatoes are!), focacchia, ciabatta and crusty bread, or the entire menu is paninis, sandwiches, toasted or not, baked potatoes, etc.  I would probably opt for a potato but then what to fill it with?  Not cheese, sadly!  I love Coronation chicken, and perhaps would opt for that.  I think it’s reasonably ok!  Chicken, mayo, spices…..?  Anyway the odd cheat is understandable, and what I like is that I find it dead easy to get back to Paleo afterwards!

The downside of losing weight?  Having to keep buying new clothes – I go to the charity shops – and having to get rid of old favourites.  I have this favourite pair of trousers that is now way too big, but I can’t pass them on to the charity shop!  I just can’t!  I think I’ll just have to do some alterations.  They’re pretty straightforward, so perhaps I could adjust the seams!  Maybe I’ll find a seamstress who would do it properly though!  I am also fitting into some tops that I bought “hopefully, without trying them on” last year, but found were too tight, so that’s another upside! The best upside of all though, is that I feel so much better – and thinner!

Talk again soon.

Read Scotland 2014

Now then, what have I read for Peggy’s challenge since I last wrote about it?  To be honest I haven’t read anything very much at all for a while, however I have made a start on Tom Steel’s Life and Death of St Kilda, and am enjoying it very much, learning more about the islanders way of life over the centuries.

 

 

Before that I read a book I picked up at a Peebles book sale last year.  It is called Noost and was written by Frank Renwick, about the mythical Shetland isle of the title.  There isn’t really a story, though characters from one chapter  appear in others, yet there is a bit of a story or two running through the book.  It was very amusing – a bit silly - though I almost put it aside without reading it at first, as the pages seemed not to have paragraphs, and a whole page with no indentations struck me as very off-putting!!

I’ve also started reading Stuart Kelly’s book about Walter Scott, the novelist accused of inventing Scotland!  Tell you more anon!

So does that make 8 books read?  I’ve lost count!  I dare say if you wanted to take part in the challenge you could still visit Peggy Ann’s Post and sign yourself up.  You have a choice of how many books you aim to read.

Talk again soon.

Signs of spring

Although it hasn’t been a snowy winter it was pretty wet, cold and windy.  However, January and February flew by, and now it’s March and Spring is springing.  In my garden the snowdrops flowered and now the daffies are opening.  I brought a bunch of them indoors today so am now enjoying the beautiful scent that’s wafting around the living room.   Aren’t they beautiful!

A week or so ago, Morag, Mike and I paid a visit to Kailzie Gardens to see the snowdrops – drifts of them through the woodlands, and by the

 

river.

 

 

 

 

They were growing around the tree roots, and just everywhere really. and this is all thanks to Lady Angela, owner of the gardens, who plants more and more snowdrops, filling spaces where the bulbs haven’t naturalised and spread by themselves.  We came across one little area where plugs of earth had been removed in readiness for a few more snowdrops to be planted.  No doubt after the rain had stopped Lady Angela  would be back with some new plants to fill the holes.

I wonder if this rogue crocus was in a pot of snowdrops recently planted.  It was the only one in the whole garden! 

Along the Major’s Walk another of the early flowers was blooming in profusion – the aconite – their yellow heads  closed up against the raindrops. 

 

 

This is the Major’s Walk and the summer house where I imagine the Major came to read his newspaper on a warm summer morning, his two labrador dogs sitting patiently by his feet.  Not that I knew the Major of course.  The “big house” was demolished getting on for 60 years ago now as you may have read in previous posts I have written, and the Major is long gone.

  Just in front of the summer house is a small rhododendron bush, surprisingly boasting some blooms already – in March?  I would expect to see these in flower about May or June!  Nice to see them all the same.

So the snowdrops gave way to the daffodils, as I discovered today on a visit to the Petanque piste for a practice.

They are not all out in bloom yet, but it won’t be long.

and they too will be a beautiful sight in due course.  So, the wind getting cooler, and rain again threatening, it seemed time to go home. We finished our game, and

 

set off back to the carpark, passing the ornamental cherry tree in bloom alongside the burn.

Even back at home, in the neighbours’ gardens there were more signs of Spring – the pussy willows in Duart and Carol’s garden – and buds well

 

swollen and ready to burst open in Heather’s.

It’s a lovely time of year when all the new growth starts, oh and on the way to Lanark on Sunday I saw some of the first lambs of the season, and these lovely catkins in the garden centre near Lanark.

Another week or two and things will be different again – probably white with snow!  Who knows!  but once the leaves start to open on the lime trees outside my windows I will feel Spring has really sprung!

Talk again soon.

Disaster averted, so More Scottish literature!

I had to get someone in India to help sort out my computer problems and apparently there were 16000 errors many of them critical, so sooner or later my laptop would have crashed!  So I sat here and watched it being fixed remotely, the cursor flashing about the screen, bringing up this page or that, clicking this line or that, hitting the buttons and obviously doing his job thoroughly!  Anyway it all seems to be working well again, and the icing on the cake was that when I clicked on the LiveWriter icon on my start page, up it popped with my previously written account of those three books I was thinking I would have to rewrite!  It cost me a fair bit to get the repairs done, but I can phone every month, or whenever I like, for another clean up and tune up.  It’s great!  Now I need to get something done about my TV!  Anyway, here’s that account of the books…..

I’ve read another three books for the Read Scotland 2014 challenge set by Peggy of Peggy Ann’s Post, bringing my score so far to seven, I think.

The first was by Cecilia Peartree who lives in Edinburgh and who set her story, Crime in the Community, in a quiet unremarkable Fife village, where a group of friends enjoy a weekly social drink in the local pub, under the auspices of being a group intent on improving the facilities of the village, namely the village hall.  Of course nothing is actually discussed or even thought about, until the arrival of Amaryllis, a retired spy, no less, who seems intent on actually doing something to improve the rundown hall.  Why, will be revealed later in the book, but it makes no sense to the rest of the group.  To be eligible for grants the group must become official, much to the chagrin of the “members” who have quite enjoyed their unofficial meetings up till now. 

Suddenly the group is plunged into a chain of events they certainly weren’t expecting, and Amaryllis comes out of retirement to aid the group whose members – one in particular – it seems she has become rather fond of.  I won’t say any more, just that to begin with I thought this was going to be a cosy little read in the style of MC Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth or Agatha Raisin books, till the story took a more sinister turn.  I quite enjoyed the story and will probably read more of Ms Peartree’s books.  Although she has written other books, this is the first in a series of mysteries.  The second one is available, but it doesn’t seem to be a sequal, but a new mystery.  I have still to read it.

The next book I read was The History of St Kilda, written by Kenneth MacAuley who spent some time on the main island of Hirta in 1763.  As did Donald John Gillies a century later, he describes the island group, its inhabitants, their homes, occupations, character, and religion, the animals and bird life, etc. and speculates on the origins of the native population of whom there are at that time only 88.   May I say that none of the photos were taken by me, never having been out there yet, but my thanks goes to the various photographers who have, and took these photos.

Nothing much had changed by the time Donald John wrote his book in the next century.  Humans and animals shared the houses built of stone and thatch; cleanliness was relatively unimportant then as you can understand, so to an outsider the smell was pretty terrible.  The way of life was tough, but accepted as normal by the inhabitants whose happy and honest demeanour impressed the author.  He writes about the history of the island, wondering why there should have been a fortified castle built on an island that was incredibly difficult to reach, far less land on.  There is speculation too about the name of the island group there being no specific saint by the name of Kilda, but MacAuley gives his thoughts on the matter.  (I read somewhere years ago that the words were derived from the Old Norse – sinta kelda – meaning fresh water and that the island was used as a watering hole by Scandinavian explorers in early centuries.  As there are indeed several fresh water wells on the island that would make sense to me, but our Kenneth writes his own theories at great length).

A very interesting book if you, like me, find islands, particularly this one, fascinating.  I have for years now had a visit to St Kilda on my bucket list, something I fear will never happen now, it not being the easiest destination to reach, and I not as able or agile enough to get ashore.  There are opportunities to get there, but if weather conditions are bad, which they often are, it is not always possible to get ashore, and I’m not sure I would be content with just seeing from afar. I’d want to land, and walk the village street,

 

 

 

imagine the inhabitants, at work or play, see and explore the cleits or little stone store houses built scattered around the hillside.by long gone St Kildians, as they were known, but who we now call St Kildans.  Take a look at this website for pictures and a short video of St Kilda.  The houses you see today are of a more recent age than Kenneth would have known, though probably not Donald John.  I think the houses of Kenneth’s day would have been more like the storehouse cleits, only bigger.  Here’s a link to another website worth exploring.

Kenneth mentioned, from time to time, a writer of St Kildian history from the previous century, a medical man by the name of Martin Martin. He implied that Mr Martin’s writings were interesting but that his book was difficult to find, so I resigned myself to not being able to read it, and resolved to read again a book I read years ago – The Life and Death of St Kilda, by Tom Steel, a more recent history of the island group, bringing the story up to date.  The library didn’t have a copy but there was one in Kelso which they could have sent up to Peebles.  However I opted to buy a kindle copy, and in looking it up on Amazon, what else should I see but Martin Martin’s A voyage to St Kilda, republished in 2011.  So not only did I buy Tom Steel’s book but this one too.  A Voyage to St Kilda has only eight chapters so is quickly read, and I found his style of writing to be much more entertaining than that of  the two more learned gentlemen previously read. Martin’s book was written in 1697, and takes us back further into the mists of time, and more into the psyche of the people.

Martin, himself from one of the western isles of Scotland, begins his story with the disclosure that he has been careful to relate only what he himself experienced or that he was told by the St Kildans.  He knows he can trust them with the truth as they were particularly unaware of lies and deceit.  The Voyage to St Kilda begins with just that – the journey across the Atlantic Ocean from Harris in an open boat, through a storm, being blown off course, and finally following flocks of birds they reckoned were bound for St Kilda themselves.  Then there was the difficulty of landing due to the heavy sea and the problem of there being so many gannets – solan geese – flying above them.  It took two days before the crew managed to row the boat into the bay.

From the start Martin found the St Kildians very friendly and hospitable.  He observes their poor dwellings made of stone with a rough thatch having to be anchored by rope and stone weights to prevent the winds blowing the thatch away.  He describes extremely well the village’s location and orientation, its weather, a little of its geology, and some history going back a further 100 years.  Every subject that can be associated with the islands and its inhabitants has been well observed by Martin, and he writes clearly about his observations.  To say that there was not much difference in the St Kildian way of life over two hundred years may not be surprising, but that is fact.  The only unusual event was an earthquake in 1686 which shook the island for a few minutes, amazing and probably terrifying the population.

I enjoyed reading this book more than the other two mostly because it is simple and includes some humour.  Martin is probably not a particularly learned fellow but is a keen and curious observer.  His writing style is easier, and very descriptive.

So my next read will bring the St Kilda story up to the 20th century.  The Life and Death of St Kilda.  Sad stuff ahead, but modern day living caught up with the island eventually.

Talk again soon.