Word Smoothie

Home – a seemingly simple 4 letter word

by // Leave a Comment

 

Ever since the clocks went back an hour, and many of us are now facing the daily commute homewards in total darkness, I’ve begun spinning out my own semi-hibernation rituals with which many of us Northern Europeans will be all too familiar ….Oh, if only we could actually hibernate, like a grizzly bear, in a snuggly blanket with a self-filling mug of hot chocolate and a toasty fire to snooze beside.….I digress. The rituals for me include the dredging of jumpers from the back of the clothes drawer, the finding (and inevitably polishing thereof) winter boots, dusting down of the woolly hat and scarf collection, and the finding of one solitary glove…like socks, these blighters seem to want to be permanent singletons! Aside from the extra layers of clothing which signify impending Winter, I do love a good old pyro-maniacal (I don’t think that’s actually a word…) stoking of the wood-burner and setting light to all the old newspapers usually reserved for lining the Guinea Pig cage.

‘Fall’ back into winter 

So, all of this change in mind-set and prep for the march of Autumn into Winter led me to thinking more about my home, and then what ‘Home’ means to me.

Home for me, is and always has been hugely important to me right from a young age. I suppose I would describe myself as very much a ‘home-body’, never wanting to be too far away from my creature comforts and my family, and to be honest, not a lot has really changed. I’d still rather be at home on more evenings of the week than out gallivanting. And like many people, admit to feeling a teeny tiny bit of ‘Yay!’ when plans are cancelled and I can legitimately avoid having to go out and socialise after all…Weird for someone who is to all intents and purposes a ‘Sunny Yellow’ extroverted type!

My favourite home words

So what words come to mind when I think of ‘Home’, and what words strike a chord with you?  Here’s a little compilation of some of my favourites: Nest, Cosy, Sanctuary, Warmth, Privacy, Family, Rest… all pretty positive sounding right? Though on some days you could equally add: Chores, DIY, Noise, Stress, Chaos and Disharmony,  depending on how the day has panned out for the various inhabitants of the Household.

Hygge is everywhere!

Top of the list of current ‘It’ words that could be linked with ‘Home’ is the ubiquitous Danish term ‘Hygge’. It’s everywhere,  and seems to have been interpreted as many different things depending on which particular part of the retail marketing machinery is aiming to have you part with your hard-earned cash….Hygge slippers (for an eye-watering £60!), Hygge Food, Books, blankets and miscellaneous soft-furnishings…the list is endless. Even the word when pronounced correctly (like hoooogga) sounds snuggly and homely, and a little bit like a hug. The word itself seems pretty untranslatable, even for Danes who have grown up with the term woven closely into the very fabric of their society. It could mean many different things to many different people.

Perhaps that’s the point…like the word ‘Home’…which for some is a place, and yet for others an abstract, not linked to bricks and mortar or specific geography. It could equally be people, our friends, family, loved ones. Regardless of your definition, I know exactly where I want to be for the coming winter months…hunkered down with my family and a stock-pile of food and enough wood to keep the fire going strong all evening. Ahhhhhhh

X

 

Originally posted 2016-11-27 19:57:44.

WS Notebook entry #1: This week I have been…..

by // Leave a Comment

I’m writing this new Notebook entry on April 1st – April Fools’ Day –  having survived the onslaught of clever, and not-so-clever tricks by the offspring and the media.

It’s a beautifully sunny, breezy day. Perfect for drying the MOUNTAINS of washing which have accumulated this week due largely to 2 events:

  1. The arrival home for the (long) holidays of the eldest child from University (they really should encourage students to be clean by providing free access to washing machines – £5 a pop is painful)
  2. The smallest, most annoying dog of the house taking to weeing on family members’ beds. Yes, you read that correctly. She will soon be looking for a new home to wee in.

April 1st is many things. April Fools’ Day, the start of National Pet Month (yes really), and the heralding of a sequence of public events which always say ‘spring is here’ for me: The Boat Race, The London Marathon and the controversial Grand National.

Also, and completely unrelatedly,  a new weekly roundup post by WordSmoothie.

So here goes with the very first instalment of This week I have been….

1. Reading

3 million emails, 2 million tweets, a zillion Facebook posts, and somehow finding time to start a great new book called ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep‘ by Joanna Cannon. Set in 1976, the infamous summer of blazing heat and standpipes in the street, it is so far both funny and a scarily accurate depiction of life on a suburban housing estate. I am loving it. Reminds me both of my childhood and of the similarly themed book I loved called ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ by Maggie O’Farrell.

2. Eating

Apart from the usual, way too much chocolate and bad stuff for a 40-something woman rapidly gaining a spare tyre and having put on a WHOLE GODDAMN STONE over the winter, as a family we have been working our way back through the Joe Wicks ‘Lean in 15’  recipes – these are not the most amazingly culinary of eats, but they are quick, easy, family-friendly and use a good assortment of similar ingredients so the shopping bill isn’t too scary.

My youngest daughter and I have been making new things from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook – specifically the amazing Chocolate Cheesecake. It’s really easy to do and the results are amazing. The results, however, did not last very long at all with a family of 5 on the prowl. I was sorely disappointed on Day 2 after a particularly shitty day in the office to find that the whole lot had been scoffed when I got home, having spent the hour’s commute mentally drooling over the prospect of another slice.

3. Listening to

Mostly The Stereo MCs ‘Two Horse Town’ on loop. 1990 is alive and well again. And my love of funky hip/hop tunes is also still very much up there. Although some would say, perhaps an unusual musical choice for a 46 year old mum of 3? Anyway, I love it and it’s kept me entertained on the long drive to work each day.

I’ve also been listening to an audio book by Joanna Penn – ‘The Successful Author Mindset’, one of her many great and easy to follow books on writing. Particularly of interest to me because Joanna used to work in a very different arena –  IT consultancy, having followed a traditionally academic path through school and university, and into the high-flying graduate corporate world. I can massively relate, and am inspired by her words of wisdom.

I’ve also been listening to some of her podcasts. You can follow her at The Creative Penn. Call me a fan-girl.

4. Learning

How to download and install a new theme on WordPress. It has been painful. I am not an IT guru, though I do consider myself fairly capable. It’s amazing how many precious hours can be wasted watching a progress bar on your screen, or getting the equivalent of road rage when the whole darn thing just crashed for no apparent reason. I am by no means where I want to be with it, so call it a ‘work-in-progress’ for now. You will have to forgive any clunky or missing links until I can find either the patience to sort it out, or the cash to pay someone who knows what they’re doing to sort it.

5. Trying new

Ways to keep calm and not let stupid, silly, inconsequential things wind me up. Which reminds me, I really should pick up the Headspace app thing again. I downloaded it, and did one measly 10- minute session whilst on a train to Wales, then have managed to not find the time (it’s only 10 sodding minutes!) to do any more of it. I definitely need to sort this out. I can find 10 minutes to stare blankly into the fridge, looking for inspiration, so I’m reasonably sure I could find the time to dedicate to my mental wellbeing.

6. Watching

Possibly the most rubbish film I’ve seen in a very long time. Just because it starred Scarlett Johansson and the husband has a ‘thing’ for SJ.  I refer to ‘The Ghost in the Shell‘, so you can do yourself and your purse a favour and avoid it.

At one point, it had a small amount of potential, but although the SFX were pretty good, on the whole there was zero meaningful dialogue and you never got to feel anything for the characters. I came out feeling like I needed to watch ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on loop by way of an antidote. I don’t even like P&P but ‘The Ghost in the Shell’ made me feel all jangly and nervy. This may not have been helped by the Baskin’ Robbins chocolate Sundae I scoffed before the opening credits, but that is beside the point.

The upside was that me and the husband made it out of the house – together –  in public. He even held my hand on the short walk from the car to the cinema. These things matter when you have kids. Big thanks to the eldest for babysitting her younger siblings and for making chocolate brownies to come home to.

So that’s my week in a nutshell. Hope you had a great week and are having a lovely weekend whatever you’re up to.

X

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted 2017-04-01 14:25:55.

On being a health-obsessive

by // Leave a Comment

As a Virgo I have a natural bent towards, or perhaps even a (slight) obsession with all things health and well-being, if the Astrology folks are to be believed. I personally can’t argue with received wisdom around Virgo-an traits from a relative fact point of view, much as my logical and methodical brain would like to add a pinch of scepticism to the whole thing.

The trouble with deciding on a blog post with a seemingly innocuous one word title, short and sweet, is that when you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, it is definitely very far from short and simple. For niche topics to pick, this is not one of them. For a start, there’s physical and mental health. Then we bring it down to the physical health sub headings such as illness, fitness, medicine, nutrition, and under mental health again medicine, spirituality, wellbeing, soul…. it all becomes very quickly interlinked the more you think about it.

Physical health

Since this is a blog post, and not a weighty tome of some 1,000+ pages, I’ll keep it light and just go for a few thoughts on physical health.

Firstly, despite a very keen interest in, and a not insignificant encyclopaedic knowledge of various ailments and illnesses and their symptoms (people’s eyes have been known to glaze over whilst being on the receiving end of one of my unsolicited diagnoses by the way), I have never had a desire to be a nurse, doctor, or any kind of healthcare related practitioner. For starters, I didn’t even do Biology O Level, and also I don’t deal well with the physical manifestations of ill health, which probably isn’t a great place to start!

Encyclopaedic knowledge 

My interest lies purely in the gathering of information, the absorbing of facts and figures, much like a bath sponge. You only have to tell me some health related fact once, and I’ll remember it forever. This is a great skill to have, used in the right way (and proved to be absolutely invaluable in the recent diagnosis of my eldest with Type 1 Diabetes. Marching into the doctor’s surgery having already determined the condition, proved to be one of the most critically life-changing paths that instinct and a little knowledge could have led to).

If you care to rifle through my bathroom cabinet, you’ll find it well stocked with a plethora of pills, lotions and potions to treat anything from verrucas to a bad case of piles (ok, so maybe not piles just yet….we’ll leave that for the retirement years maybe..). I’m probably more well stocked than your local pharmacy, so just ask and I’ll probably be able to pull something out of the cabinet, or my handbag which serves as a portable, slightly scaled-down version of the home treasure trove. Somehow I never seem to carry basics like tissues though, rather annoyingly as these are probably (along with baby wipes), the most universally useful item serving a variety of purposes, not all of them related to the wiping of snotty noses (stop it! no smut here).

I’ve already written a little bit about another aspect of physical health, which is the fitness side of life under the title http://word-smoothie.com/uncategorized/word-smoothie-on-on-sport-or-not-sitting-around/ but this just scratches the surface of the spaghetti-like mess that is my mind when thinking about health and well-being. I’m definitely one of those faddy people who’ll dive headlong into the latest diet or fitness craze for approximately, oooh let’s see, maybe 2 whole weeks… all gung-ho and fired up until the willpower runs out / work / life / literally anything else comes along to distract my butterfly mind and I’ve forgotten what it was that I was so keen on in the first place.

sucking up the knowledge like a ninja

Ring any bells? If there’s something health-related which grabs my attention in the media I’ll delve right down into the subject like a ninja, buying books and reading articles until I feel I’m a kind of semi-expert in the matter. And that’s exactly the point, dear friends, family and colleagues, where you should all retreat to a safe distance and do your very best to avoid all contact with me (reference the glazed eyes comment in paragraph 4 above).

Recently I have become invested in the whole HIIT vs extended cardio debate a la Joe Wicks et al. I very much like the idea that I can (in theory!) throw out a quick 20 minute turn of high impact cardio and reap the same benefits as an hour of running. Time is, after all, precious and in short supply. However, I do wish someone would just come out with the definitive answer to the holy grail of optimal fitness / weight loss, and be done with it. This would save me inordinate amounts of time wrangling with the facts and figures, but would not contribute so much to the GDP of the UK in craze-related Kindle downloads, new fitness kit, and associated nutrition (avocados and quinoa have never been in such high demand!).

leave it to the experts?

The flip side of course to all this random and indeterminate health information gathering is that sometimes too much can be a bad thing. On the subject of illness and ailments, we’ve all been guilty of self-diagnosing via the power of Google, myself included, and that can lead us down the path of hypochondria and worry. GP surgeries, usually  our first port of call,  must sometimes hate us patients turning up, symptom list in hand, with a pre-determined fate before we’ve even got our coat off and sat down in the surgery chair.

Sometimes, dear reader, information overload can be a bad thing and we should perhaps just leave the proper diagnosis to the medical experts, at least when it comes to our physical health.

Take it easy

X

Originally posted 2016-11-27 19:36:14.

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

    Archives