Hello everyone! My partner landed safely in Manchester on Saturday morning. In the last 48 hrs, he has been to two of his favorite pubs, watched his beloved Preston North End beat Leeds, and is currently in the Midlands at a big kit car show. We were overjoyed to find out his mobile works across the pond! We've been staying in touch with short phone calls and lots of texting. I'm going to hate to see our mobile phone bill next month!

Alan (my partner) met up with some mates who told him they are going to see Little Britain in Blackpool this coming weekend! Lucky people!!

The house is full of the smell of baking bread - I must be a masochist! In the past week I seem to have turned into some sort of earth mother - I've been baking bread, making homemade oat raisin cookies and almond chocolate biscotti, cooking lovely veggie meals from scratch, and I've even started growing my own tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers and bell peppers - they've grown like the clappers from tiny seeds potted last Sunday into seedlings that were big enough to repot into 3" pots this afternoon and transfer to the mini-greenhouse I bought. Ah, the wonder of creation!

I've made this latest loaf for Kim to have with dinner, and I'm planning to have a healthy medley of veggies in cheese sauce and NO BREAD. Lets see how much willpower I've got when the warm loaf comes out of the oven and Kim starts slathering on the butter.

I decided life was too short to work 14 hour days and then to come home and do bugger all with my evenings except exercise and watch TV -- I want to grow things and create things and cook things and make something worthwhile...and this is the beginning of that process.

So far so good, but it could spell the death-knell for my healthy eating plan...

PS well done on the race time YP - that was an awesome time you achieved!

Janey

I'm baking bread at the moment too. Could you poss post your oatmeal cookie recipe please?

This was the simplest oatmeal raisin cookie recipe I've ever come across...though it is an American recipe so you have to adapt...

I nicked it from here

Beat until stiff:

2 egg whites
1/2 tsp. salt

Gradually fold in:

2 c. granulated sugar (but see my comment below first!!!!)

Then fold in:

2 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. raisins
1 tsp. vanilla

Moisten with:

2 tbsp. skim milk

Drop from teaspoon onto Pam sprayed or foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Yield 4 dozen.

I have some 'cups' that I bought from Lakeland, so I didn't bother actually weighing. The sugar quantity seemed way wrong to me so I more than halved it, and yet these were still a bit too sweet for my taste (but then I'm not a sugar lover at the best of times). Certainly 2 cups of sugar to 2 cups of oats seems really heavy on the sugar to me! I really recommend you halve it...

If you don't want to risk this recipe because of the sugar, there are about a dozen other recipes on the same site. Good luck!

Janey

Those are the kinds of things I do - I love cooking is my biggest hobby and I find it very therapeutic. I also love growing things - theres nothing like cooking a meal using the veggies you've grown yourself. I've always said I'm not the creative kind but perhaps cooking and growing ARE creative in their own way.

I've managed to adjust my cooking so that I now only cook low fat/high protein and/or low GI meals, its been a challenge but its been worthwhile - we've had some spectacular mistakes but most of it has been great.

i'm not a sugar lover either but what i think i'd do is add some more dried fruit and get rid of most of the sugar.

If they had less sugar they'd actually be quite healthy. I'm wanting to make something thats quite cereal bar like I wonder whether you could substitute honey.

I'm making spinach and cheese filo pies at the moment. Not the most diet friendly thing I've ever cooked, but at this stage I don't care. I made the mistake of buying some really fresh and gorgeous multi-seed bread this morning and have been nibbling on it all afternoon. I'm hoping it will go stale soon to remove the temptation! I go through phases with bread, but this loaf was particularly good.

I'm planning to have chargrilled veg and some green beans with the parcels, and some raspberries and yoghurt later. I really don't know what I'm going to do next week when I have to eat in places where you don't even get one portion of fruit and veg with your meal - at the moment most meals I cook for myself end up having at least three or four!

The kids in the house behind mine are really annoying me this afternoon, constantly kicking their football into my garden and coming round to collect it. At one point the other week there were 4 balls in my garden. Still, it's exercise getting up off the sofa every time they ring the doorbell. I've also inflated my exercise ball and think I'll try a workout routine I found in a magazine on that later this evening as I haven't done any proper exercise today.

We had chicken in a pasta sauce with aubergine (it's eggplant to me but tra la la when in UK fat chicks, do as the fat chicks do ), red pepper and a smidge of parmesan. Gorgeous.

And I lost my virginity this afternoon - my Ebay virginity that is!!! I bought a leather Monsoon skirt for a fiver!

I'm tired now. I painted this afternoon as well, so our stairwell looks lovely.

Hi people, 1st May thought I would pop my head back in the door and say hello!

@ Helen, well done on reaching 100lbs lost... that's really good!

@ Kakaree well done on finding eBay! I am a self confessed eBayholic... both as a seller and buyer... although I have a list to sell it's longer for what I want to buy....

I am watching my Dad shrink.... yup he went on a diet and is down around 10lbs in three weeks... and to my totally surprise he is actually suceeded and keeps telling me he won't fail... good on him, now seeing as I have everything else of his can someone please give me his willpower!

Now been around much, been a little hectic for me but I am getting there!

Hello all!

We went out for dinner-ish last night! We went out to Camden and I was starving, so we settled in a cafe for a baguette, then we got cakes from a little portuguese place. THEN we went for dinner at the pub! I didn't eat too much though. Well ok, not as much as I could've done!

Mummy's coming tonight! I'm V excited! Dad's coming too since he jacked his job in. LOSER! I'm packing him off to the science museum while mum and I hit the bride shops! Then it's Race for Life tomorrow night in Battersea, I'm practicing my positive mental attitude already - I was dreadming of coming first last night!

I have strawberries today but I'm in 2 back to back meetings all morning, so I might die of starvation before I make it to the gym at lunch!

I really ache! I decided to have a change around of my workouts so that I don't do so many boring reps with lighter weights - so instead of doing two exercises targeting a muscle I now do three different exercises with one of them starting at my level 7 working up to level 10 and the other two being only at my level 10. It made the whole LB workout much more interesting - but I had to cut short my walk with the dogs because my glutes couldn't cope....

I just got my Tesco order. I think I'm going to give up with the home deliveries.... this time I got 5 bags of black grapes and 3 of them were loose grapes with the bare stalks in the bags - which means they'll go off faster.

What has everyone done with the clothes they've shrunk out of? Sell them on eBay, give them away or to a charity shop or just throw them away? I've decided that this time I'm not going to pack away all my big clothes which I've always done in the past. I had a big turn out yesterday and I went through all the sacks of stuff in the loft from way back when as well as all the stuff I took out of my wardrobe recently. I think I'm going to sell the good stuff on eBay.

I actually found my first wedding dress and just had a lovely bonfire with it. I can't think why I still had it - I divorced him 26 years ago!

I send mine all to the charity shop to make room for all the new clothes

It looks like Mr Frus and I are going to have to move. Our contract is up for renewal in June, and we said we'd stay as long as the rent doesn't go up. The lettings BC says, "Oh I don't know about that!" and she's trying to get hold of our landlord/managing agent to agree the new contract. But if we want to move out we have to give them notice, and I think if he puts the rent up he has to give us notice too. But if it's the end of the contract then no-body needs give anyone any notice do they? So we are stressed bunnies and looking to move, but no-where is as posh and spanking new as our trendy flat we have now

ebay charity shops and car boots if how I've got rid of mine.

Frus, I think you still have to give notice. Keep phoning the lettings agent to get in touch with your Landlord - in fact it might be a good idea to put it in writing, that way she can't ignore it - and have a good read of your lease (or find a solicitor for advice) to find out how much notice either party has to give.

The dogs just trashed the kitchen. I was putting stuff away and the dogs were fighting, came hurtling in to the kitchen and caught the larder door when it was open, slammed it back against its hinges which, being ancient, fell apart under the pressure and the door fell off on to my head and bounced off the (new) fridge. dogs. I've got a lump on my head the size of a hen's egg, the fridge has got a big dent and the larder door is leaning up against the wall.

Ouch! poor you and I hope you shouted a lot!

We have had a letter, 2 months before the end of the contract that asked us whether we would like to stay.We had to sign it, but we signed it with "subject to contract" written above it and attached a letter outlining our concerns. So then we were called by B*tchface at the lettings office on the same day we got this letter, and we explained the thing to her. She has "tried" to get in touch with the landlord, but doesn't seem to be able to get hold of him however she seems to think that he will put the rent up and has told DF today that we should start looking for somewhere else to live I have looked at the Citizen's Advice Bureau webby, and I think we should make an appointment with them to see where we stand. I'm not sure what happens exactly at the end of the contract.