My Prize.. Finally

So it's Thursday and that means that it's Llangollen for lunch at the Cotton Mill with B and then on to Llandudno and I cannot help but think of you.

B parks up and we walk the pier, as is tradition.  I love that you can walk the length of the pier and hear so many accents and dialects. It begins to rain even before we set foot on the wooden planks so when we finally reach the end, we go into the bar to have our traditional drink, inside the bar. 

After the drink, we head off in the direction that Freddie, my cousin, told us to head for in the hope of finding the holy grail of fish and chip shops.  We wander and look and rationalise and deduce, but we cannot find.  We reach the end of the road and head back, downhill, in the opposite direction and towards the fish and chip shop that we usually frequent, we both feel like we have walked miles.

We are only in Llandudmo for 2 - 3 hours but it's traditional and it's fresh and it's just lovely.

B and I head out for home around 6.30 with Ronan Keating singing to us via a really old CD, another tradition.  I'm home well before 8pm and I'm shattered.  Must be the walking and the sea air that takes it out of you.

I plead with B to let me do some housework and gardening on Friday and technically, "have the day off," and then lounge around for the afternoon, my current idea of bliss.

When I returned home at night, there was  a post office card to say," tried to deliver but parcel too big to leave, please call into the sorting office."  Or words to that effect.  Decided to head there after the morning rush.  I park up, (on double yellows and hope and pray...)  head into the sorting office and present my card.  The post man takes my card, walks away and says; "How are you?  Still at the bank?"  I duck under the window where the light isn't reflecting so that I can see, and look at the postie, he's a customer of old and explain that I haven't been there for 6 years. 

We chat, I bring him up to date, it's nice, I have no idea who the parcel is from.  Turns out... parcel is my prize from Grazia Magazine... finally, from months ago.  My parcel is chock full of John Masters Organics goodies.  My parcel consists of; Calendula hydrating & toning mask, rose & apricot antioxident day creme, blood orange & vanilla body wash, (it's okay, if I concentrate, I can block out the hint of vanilla,) blood orange and vanilla body milk, (yep. this one, I will have to give away.)  Rose foaming face wash, sea salt spray with lavender (for hair, to give you that, "beachy feel,") lavender rosemary shampoo.  Aren't I lucky?  They all smell divine... apart from the vanilla.  I haven't tried everything yet but I love the shampoo and foaming cleanser so far.

Three Degrees of Separation

It's Friday, and it's taken me until today to feel remotely normal.  Think it was just a busy weekend, hormones, and I haven't slept great since I got home, despite being tired every night.

Work wasn't terrible, I intended to finish early on Thursday, but then got conned into attending a meeting in place of an absent manager.  It wasn't too late a finish though.

Did I tell you that something weird happened to my body with regard to bell peppers?  I've always been able to eat most things ... except peppers, they just never agreed with me.  After my last visit to Wagamama's, it dawned on me that the tiny amount of peppers in my favourite Yaki Soba dish, did not in fact... persecute me, as I should have expected them to.

And so, I decided to buy a few bell peppers, red, green and yellow, and I gave my own stir fry a whirl to see if I was okay after eating.  Lo and behold, I was absolutely fine.  Can you imagine how excited I was?  Peppers are just so good for you, I couldn't believe that I could eat them without repercussion.  Needless to say, since I did my test run, I've had stir fry most nights and I feel oh so virtuous and healthy, even after a huge plate full.  I've been having; fresh ginger, (lots of it... love it,) onion, red, green, yellow peppers, spring onion, beansprouts, straight to wok noodles, an egg, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce... just delicious.  I'm getting really good at it, I've discovered the trick is to throw the ginger and onion in first, after a minute pretty much throw everything else in together, but make sure the noodles are hot before you add the egg, then you're golden, otherwise, you're slightly gooey.

I did sleep okay last night, think I'm slowly getting back to normal.  I'm going to have lunch with Sheila today.  I can't wait, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen her since December, we only live 10 minutes apart, hence the shame.  This year has just flown by.

The weather continues to be terrible, the rain is torrential.  B was going to help me with the garden tomorrow but looks like we'll be rained off.  J & G have arrived home from two weeks in a cottage in Cornwall, had a lovely time but again, weather not good.

Did I tell you that I sent in a response to an article in Grazia magazine regarding "Miss Good Enough?"  I got letter of the week again, I was incensed by the article, I can't tell you how mad I was.  Anyway, it got me a prize worth more than £150.00, when I read the details of the prize I'd won, I'd actually never heard of the brand but when I clicked on the "testimonial" button on the website, names like "Bette Midler, Rachel McAdams, Jake Gyllenhaal..."  popped up.  You know, in the six degrees of separation game, I reckon I'm now only three degrees from the delectable Ryan Gosling!  Could I really ask for any more?  Two out of three letters I've submitted have won "letter of the week." This could become a bit of a game for me ;)

http://www.johnmasters.co.uk/testimonials.html