Teeth, Snakes and Moles

Its looking abit like a graveyard outside our front gate, there is a mole that Beth (our dog) dug out and killed and a snake that Robert got the other day. I've left the mole as my friend Florence has never seen a mole and she is coming to run today. The snake is an ordinary grass snake and quite tiny, not like the ones we saw lots of a few years ago. They were green and yellow grass snakes and quite vicious, they sufocate their victims like a constrictor does. One day I was weeding in the green house and one suddenly shot off, it had been suffocating a large toad. Another day Florence was in her cot, she must have been 2 and she called me asking 'Whats that? I went up and in the corner of the room was a sort of buzzing sound in the plastic bags of clothes that were stored in the corner. I thought there must be a bee or something similar trapped so I started pulling the bags out the way, there in the corner ready to pounch on a entering hand was a large green and yellow grasssnake. I grabbed Flo and took her down stairs and called Griff. We didn't manage to catch the snake and it went back out via a hole in the stone walls. They are thick old walls and must be full of passages used by all sorts of vermin. The plastic bags that were near the snake had tooth marks in them, rather the bags than me. The next day I was sitting on loo when I heard a hissing there it was up in the rafters above my head, hissing at me for disturbing it. Later on though Beth found it in the greenhouse and we managed to deal with it. I don't mind the snakes out in the surrounding countryside but I really don't appreciate them in my house with the small children.
Gwils has grown both bottom teeth at once and slept little in the process so am feeling knackered.

Odd Socks

As I hung the washing out I thought that just for once I was going to have washed all pairs of socks but there in the bottom of the basket was one solitary one, the pair of one that got put in the odd sock box yesterday. Where do the other socks go?
Its apple picking day today. Our Bramelys look fab, they go a lovely bright red here, I also need to dig up the last of the potatoes. The juicer has been working hard this morning with a mix of carrot, apple and beetroot juice. We are supposed to be doing a raw challenge week but had left overs from yesterdays rib of beef which had to be eaten. We even ate all the fat as it was very expensive fat. We had friends round with their 3 children. Its amazing how the numbers grow now, you think lovely, Laurence and Stephan are coming for lunch then you realise you are cooking for 10!
Gwills has nearly got is first tooth and is suffering with it, he has a cold with it and a sore bum, we had to resort to calpol, which seemed to help immediatly and he is now asleep. Eben is knackered and trying very hard to avoid having an afternoon sleep, he has just got in trouble with his Dad which is a shame as he wanted to take him to cut Lucs lawn on the tractor mower.

Nuts

It's nut season. We have been gathering walnuts and chestnuts. In fact Griff and the kids collected most. I went for what was supposed to be a vigorous walk yesterday and the hunter gatherer in me just couldn't resist all those chestnuts all over the path.
I'm going to try eating a chestnut raw to see what its like, I think roasted will probably be the best option though.

Slimming Magic Knickers

I can't believe that one of the google ads on my sight is for slimming magic knickers! Can the ad bots see mine?
What ads are there now?

Harry Potter Stove

We now have a stove just like the one in the Gryffydor dorm in our house. It looks great and is warming the house nicely. I just hope our wood delivery comes soon. The neighbours got theirs this morning. Good job its not sold by weight as it rained so much yesterday that it must be drenched.
Griff and the kids have gone chestnuting. The rain and wind should have knocked loads down. Flo had chestnuts for breakfast, yummy. We have a big creamy salad for lunch with cheese. I am trying to up our raw protein intake to help the neurotransmitters!
I've also still got loads of grapejuice so will whizz up some nettles in it later.
I ran this morning, I did a circuit that took 33 mins on Sat with Florence, it took me 38 mins today, and we thought we where running badly on Saturday! Florence didn't come over today as she was too tired and she has to work tomorrow. Maybe I'll get Griff to run with me and get Vero to look after Gwils for an hour.

Grape Picking and Nettle Juice

Each year the picking of our grapes messes me up. I get torn between the fact that I really shouldn't be drinking and the fact that I will anyway so I ought to help pick. I didn't go on Wednesday to pick the white but went with the kids on Friday evening to pick the rest. There isn't a great deal so we are going to make rosé rather than red. We are also going to do the unheard of and save some as grape juice. I'm going to freeze some rather than heat treat it to keep the enzymes intact.

The pic is of Griff pressing the white grapes! We got the kids in to do the rest. They loved jumping up and down with the juice ooozzing between their toes.

I also need to get back on the other juices, I have been adding nettles to my carrot juice or apple juice. They should be a good purifier. I've just got to get my head round the fact that its okay for me to feel good and have energy. Where did my self esteem go, did I have any?

Drinking, Allergy and Depression

Last week seemed to go by in a blur. I binged on Sunday and the depression hit me like a brick on Monday. I felt like I'd been run over by a bus. I was looking at the book 'Seven weeks to Sobriety' and relooked at the bit about types of drinkers. I had come out as an allergic addicted type which I had thought of as odd, she talks about cravings being triggered by chemicals and perfumes that are related to alcohol and I thought thats not me then I looked at the symptoms of binging then crashing with depression and I remembered that I'd had my hair analysed last year and that mentioned chemical overload causing me problems and ding on went the little light. I had never really followed the program as I had always hoped I could just cut down, but if I'm allergic to alcohol then thats not likely to go away.
So many people seem to want to stop for a while and then get back to social drinking. I'm begining to wonder if that can ever be possible and why if you can stop go back to consuming a poison, for the shere hell of it!
We are so conditioned to think that drinking is an essential part of life, there must be a way to stop that. I need to look at the hypnosis programs and see if there is something there that would help.
I'm also back on the tea and not doing well with raw food either. Why am I programed to feel sh*t as much as possible. That said I had a fantastic run on Thursday. We did a route that took us 43 mins before in under 40 which is fab. We were so pleased with ourselves that we ran again yesterday, unfortuanatly we were tired from Thursday and ran for a very difficult 33 mins. We are both amazed by how much we have progressed even running once a week. We have got used to having complete rest for a week and running again 2 days later was hard but we'll get there.

Another week over

Yet an other week of school finished, time flys. Eben is learning not to be a thug. His teacher says he likes to fight and has hit the little ones. The youngest kids are only 2 1/2 he is 3 1/2. He also puts sand on their heads in the sand pit. The last two days he claims to have been good.
Flo is doing well, I managed to help her with her homework and get it wrong this week. My excuse is that French isn't my first language, but I shouldn't be making simple grammatical mistakes like that.
Gwils is busier and busier. Hes crawling on hands and feet, no knees and standing up at every opportunity.

Becoming Vile

As I get fitter through exercise, eating better and drinking less I find that my tolerance for alcohol has gone down. Last night I had a pint of beer, I turned down a second as we had Veros kids here and I knew we'd drink some white wine when she came to collect them. We shared a bottle of wine between the 3 of us. I then reheated supper and Griff went to get some red wine. He got it from our barrel in the cellar. Its nearly empty (was 200 litres) and had started to turn vinegary. I really didn't need or want any but was going to have some anyway but it was too horrid. I then became vile, the wine was foul, it had ruined my dinner etc. Griff bravely offered to get me something else but fortuanatly I knew I didn't need or want any so said no.
How often does alcohol have that effect on us, to make us behave horribly or make us ill and yet we still say we don't want to give it up, its such fun, to be vile and puke?!

Fancy Dress

Why is it some people always look elegant and others always look like they are wearing sacks, sacks in clashing colours of course! This morning Flo was looking smart in an orange tee shirt, khaki skirt, orange socks and orange trainers, but would she wear an orangy coloured cardi, no it had to be the pink one, not bad considering only a few weeks back she said she didn't like pink.
Eben is obsessed with his clothing and if we send him to school wearing clothes he doesn't like he'll change as soon as he gets in. People keep giving us clothes for him and must wonder why he doesn't wear them all. Its partly that he has special clothes that he'll wear and also our kids wear their clothes for 2 days in a row for school. They just don't need clean clothes everyday!
When I was a teenager I was always smartly dressed, but that has drifted to seriously scruffy in the years I've been living in France. I noticed it today when out running with Florence T. this morning. We ran for an hour which is our best so far. She was looking very elegant and seems to keep the same rythm all the time. I was wearing shorts and teeshirt and looked baggy, I also got left behind on all the hills and got back bright red and bedraggled. Will I ever manage to get my dress sense sorted again?

Catch up and Raw Challenge update.

Time seems to have flown by. Griff got home on Friday, knackered as usual after working hard then driving the 8 hours home. At the end of my weeks raw challenge I felt fantastic. I had dropped down from 58kg to 55kg. The last time I weighed that was when I stopped breastfeeding Flo, six years ago. Since then it has been creeping on. I weighed 62kg at the begining of last year and was 72kg by the time Gwils was born, so to be down to 55 is great. Several people have commented about the weight loss and my clothes are baggy. I've been running twice since last Thursday. I did the same route on Sunday and it took me 45 minutes. Last night I did it in the other direction with Flo on her bike and Griff on his with Eben in the front seat and Gwils in the back pack. That took us 43 minutes. 12 or so years ago I did it in 31.5 minutes! A long way to go yet. I was wondering how I had ever done that but at the end I sped up and the speed is still there, my pulse went up to 177 wereas it had been about 152 most of the way round.
We met Suzan and Robert at the top of the hill and were invited in for a glass of rosé. For some silly reason (ie I still can't say no) I said yes and went in and rehydrated on wine. I can feel it this morning. I'd been drinking at the weekend too. Not very much but once started I start drinking everyday again. I managed 6 days again. I need to start the hypnosis again. I have another called staying stopped so need to listen more often. Its daft because I felt so much better, as if I was rejuvenating. But as I said to Griff I think what I find hard is feeling better, I'm not used to feeling well and having drive and energy so I scupper my efforts each time to get back to normality, which is tired all the time and dragging myself through the day on tea and wine and then the consequences on mind and body of both of those. I just have to keep doing this untill feeling well becomes normal.

Getting ready to walk

Gwilym is crawling really well now and pulling himself to standing when ever he can. He also totters along when you hold his hand. Griff is going to find such a difference in him when he gets back today. The kids will be delighted to see him. I hope they continue to be fairly well behaved when he gets here. We all have to get readjusted to each other when he has been away working.
Florence is still delighted with the ducks and has named them Florence, Eben, Jack and Lily. I reminds me of when we used to have poultry and bought our first pair of geese. We called them Hissing Sid and Toad and very quickly realised we were never going to kill them for Christmas. We bought another a month later and called him Roasty. Now he did make a good Christmas lunch. Sid and Toad stayed until Sid was caught by a fox, he must have put up a good fight and defended Toad but didn't make it himself and she just pinned away without him. So what will become of our ducks?

Raw and Running

Nearly 5 days into my raw food challenge and only one slip up. I actually felt quite sparky this morning which is quite amazing for me. I'm normally dragging myself from one end of the day to the other.
I ran with my friend Florence yesterday. Its great having a weekly rendez-vous as it gets us both out even when we don't feel like it. Despite the fact that neither of us had run for a week we both felt we were running better. We ran for 42 minutes round a block that last time I ran it alone in June took 46 mins. Admitidly 10 years ago I used to take un 35 and managed a record of 31 and a 1/2 once. We were both very pleased with it. After that though I felt hungry all day and didn't seem to have anything I fancied. I'd run out of carrots to juice and just caved in at dinner time and had carbonara pasta with the kids. Never mind. I'm back on track today and feeling good about it. I may have lost a couple of kilos but our scales are a bit dodgy and by tomorrow I may well have put them back on! I had a glass of wine with Robert at lunchtime and really didn't feel very good after it. I then kept thinking I should have tea to make myself feel better or that I should have more wine in the evening to do the same thing. How daft is that? Take the thing thats making you feel sh*t and have some more. Sounds daft doesn't it, but how many of us do this with alcohol, cigarettes, some foods and other drugs?

A Ducks life

The ducklings couldn't have been a better hit if I'd tried. Florence is delighted she says she never had such a good present. When Eben got up at 7am this morning he wanted to know where Florence was. I thought she was in bed, I certainly was and would have liked to have stayed longer but thought it best to get up and find my daughter. She was sat outside in her dressing gown looking at the ducklings. She has spent most of the day so far looking at them and stroking them. I could work well as she can't suck her thumb incase she gets bird flu. I'm sure there is no risk, but she doesn't know that! Will I be able to get her in to do her homework?

Burgundy Family

I have been blogging about my family on

www.burgundyfamily.blogspot.com

I will now be blogging about everything on this one blog.

Raw Food Previous posts

Before starting this blog I was blogging about my raw food interest on
www.rawroad.blogspot.com

I'm not adding any new posts there but you can read the old ones.

Caffeine Withdrawal

Has anyone in here got any advice for caffeine withdrawal. I have found in the past that when I manage to cut down my tea intake that its easier not to drink alcohol. I have been at the stage a number of times that I drink nothing but tea and wine and the tea gets me going in the morning and the wine keeps me going in the evening (or at lunchtime) it seems a vicious cycle. I've now managed 4 days in a row without the booze, making 13 alcohol days in 21/2 weeks. That's great, but I'm trying to stop the tea. On sat and sun I just had 2 cups a day and was fine, yesterday none and was fine too but today its gone down hill. I started to get a headache this afternoon which got worse and worse. After I got back with the kids I was feel sick and weak and achy. I felt vile absolutely vile. I read somewhere the fact that aspirin doesn't work and that aspirin with caffeine in is best. I didn't have that so made a cup of tea, I wanted to go to bed but needed to feed the kids etc. the older ones are fine but the baby is crawling and pulling himself up on things and my partner is away this week. In short I couldn't cope and had to get it to stop. I also took some paracetamol, some homeopathic Nux Vomica and some bicarb. Half an hour after that lot and I feel much better. The kids are in bed and I'm off too, at 8.20pm!!I can't believe how sh*t it made me feel. I intend to get through this but don't like the fact that it may happen again tomorrow, I read somewhere that caffeine wd symptoms can last 9 days, arggh! I may have to wait till G gets back so I can go to bed if I need too.Has this happened to any of you?

I wrote that last night on a forum. This is how its going this morning.

Guess what happens when you drink tea just before going to bed? You don't sleep well and have to keep getting up to wee. All that water I'd been getting on board just seemed to flood out of me. Hopefully taking some toxins with it.This morning I feel tired, grumpy, tearfull and am having trouble coping with the kids who don't have school on Wednesdays. The baby is pretty grumpy too. I hope hes not withdrawing from the caffeine too. I think he might be. I have a mild headache and feel pretty sicky. I'm drinking loads of raw juices and eating fruit to try and flush the rubbish out. I just want my body back but its not easy. Even though I think my hypnosis downloads are helping last night I didn't listen as I just wanted to be alone.

Christmas Dinner

Always best to plan in advance don't you think? Flo has wanted a duckling or a chick for ages. We had talked about hatching our own but haven't got round to it. About a year ago she pinched an egg from a neighbours house and bought it home. I found it once it had dried out crushed under her pillow. There are less sellers of poultry at the monthly market than there used to be and its years since I bought anything, but this morning I went and bought 4 ducklings, 2 barbary ducks and 2 mallards. They cheeped all around the town and in one shop they thought it was one of Gwilyms toys as they were in the basket under the pushchair. They are now in a rabbit hutch awaiting resettlement. I need to get it done before they get a personality disorder and start hopping. Flo was delighted when I told her, once shes been pecked and pooed on it might be a different story. If they are fed well they could be ready for Christmas, it also might help on the number of afterlifes I'm up for (see previous post) as I can feed the slugs and things to the ducks. I think they are to small to eat the ones in the bottle on my table yet but they'll get there!

Food Diary Sept 10th -

Monday Sept 10th
Plums, Half an avocado, Rejuvelac, Banana, Salad (lentil sprouts, avocado, onion and olive oil) Peach juice, Plum juice, Salad (lentil sprouts, courgette, tomato, garlic, soy sauce and olive oil) water, sunflower seeds.

Tuesday Sept 11th
Carrot juice, rejuvelac, plums, banana, salad (lentil sprouts, avocado, onion, tomato, courgette, sesame oil, olive oil, five spice, balasamic vinegar), water, carrot and beet juice.

Wednesday Sept 12th
Carrot juice, banana, Sprouted wheat bread, goats cheese, Salad (spinach, avocado, beetroot, carrot, sunflower seeds) Juice (pear, spinach, carrot and beet tops (may sound awfull and looked it but very nice))

Thursday Sept 13th
Banana, Sprouted wheat bread, Salad (left from yesterday), avocado, (Pasta (not raw), water, orange juice. One glass white wine.

Friday Sept 14th
Apples, Salad (broccoli, cucumber, courgette, garlic, olive oil, black pepper and a little cream), water,

Raw Food Challenge

I receive a daily email from The Garden Diet, its a raw food inspiration one. They gave a challenge for people to do a week raw, starting yesterday. Since I've been trying to go raw for ages I thought I'd give it a go. I had also read that in one study people on a raw food diet gave up alcohol without any problem. I think all the raw I've been eating this summer has been helping me to feel better but not enough to make me spontaneously give up the booze. I had hoped it would happen all by itself without me noticing but no so here I am, I've started a raw food diet and given up alcohol and caffeine all at once. I've got a headache which I've had all day I guess that the caffeine withdrawal has this is the second full day without a cup of tea. Yesterday I felt horrid. Something was missing but it wasn't really the things I'd given up but I very nearly had one of them just to see if it would help. I felt so shitty that I didn't blog at all yesterday, in the morning the kids had said some funny things but by the evening I just didn't have the right frame of mind. In the end I waited till the children were in bed then listened to my hypnosis downloads. I love the alcohol withdrawal one as its about relaxing and healing and seems to help loads. I'm going to contact them to see if they can do a raw food one.
Since giving up tea and alcohol my salt craving has gone, I used to put loads of celtic sea salt on everything!