Up the Apples and Pears - 10 / 10 club - all welcome

[FrannyandZooey]

FAB TITLE BY FMF (AND BBB)

For anyone who wants a boost to their general health. The suggested goals are:

EAT 10 PORTIONS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERY DAY - if you don't usually eat much fruit and veg I would build up gradually or you could upset your digestion.

DO (AT LEAST) 10 MINUTES OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY - can be yoga, stretching or something more energetic. The plan is that the idea of doing 10 minutes is not too daunting, and having started you may well find you want to do more.

There are no restrictions on what you eat so long as you get your 10 fruit and veg as well. The focus is not on weight loss but on improving our energy levels and hopefully our general mood and well-being. Sign up below and post here to tell us how you're getting on and how you are feeling.

Basic guidance on what constitutes a portion of fruit and veg here and you can download more detailed information by following the link at the very bottom of the page

[TooTicky]

Well, they are still pea family - there are a lot of plants in the pea family. Do you know, I'm not sure I have actually sniffed them. My sense of smell is sadly not what it used to be (I blame dp's lingering cigarette smoke ) - will go and sniff when the rain stops. Don't think they are v. strongly scented. But they are darned attractive

[TooTicky]

Oh Possum, I hope you feel better soon. Do eat! I think eating healthily is actually cheaper if you avoid processed/readymade stuff, which tends to be either expensive or crap. Or both.
Growing veg is very satisfying - and educational. I thoroughly recommend it.

[MrsCarrot]

Oh, and have fun BBBee

I am no further in resolving my rather dull Edinburgh saga, my pilot friend would rather not let his daughter fly if avoidable as he sees lots of babies struggle to rebalance their ears and it's a bit germy. I reckon I could just feed him on a short flight and puff tea tree about on my way in but now dh can't get friday off and grrrr, all flights on Saturday are booked, so we could fly to glasgow but then one way home from edinburgh is twice as much so we might drive friday night, but it's ssooo far, sorry for rant.

Possum - can you have a banana or a cereal bar so you don't feel dizzy/get low blood sugar etc? It can be expensive eating more haelthily but it depends how you do it. I, unfortunatey spend a small fortune but it can be done with bulk wholefoods and some veg delivery schemes are reasonable. The supermarkets are very pricey and often from god knows where but local shops are often better.

[MrsCarrot]

Your peas sound lovely, Toot. A spider has left her egg sac on the top of my oak leaf lettuce. I knocked it yesterday when I picked some and she ran out waving legs angrily. This morning she has resealed it with a double strength cage-like structure and I wondered whether to move the whole thing, and her, but this would be stressful for her, yes? I hated moving house when I was pregnant. Sigh. I could leave it but it's also next to my beetroots and tomatoes that need watering. I have one red tomato. Yay!

[TooTicky]

My dcs were delighted by a nest of spiders last year - great fun to watch. I'd leave it and water carefully.

[3andnomore]

oh lol Toot...you made me giggle....and I am sure if I was ever to be succesfully grow anything of the vegetable kind, I would also be unable to stop talking about it, especially when it looks pretty aswell

[zippitippitoes]

love the spiders nest but 40.00 on fruit and veg..good heavens is that possiblke

I have had an apple a banana and half a tinf peaches with ricotta and linseed oil on a slice of bread in preparation for gpoing to the gym/swim which i am feeling rather lazy about

i usually walk there becaue i don't use the car int he day because it's impossible to park when i gt back..but they have built some traffic lights and a road narrows set of barriers round my car yesterday and i suppose they are wanting to dig undenetah it at some point so will have to be moved eventually

[ahundredtimes]

lol MrsC - Boco could do a live web-feed to MN. "Oh my god, look at her bathroom', like that.

She's going to have to move fast though as dh is getting cold feet. He thinks it's a mad plan. 'Oh no' I said, 'she's fine I think. There was this birthday table you see, and she's a sharer and she has house guest problems. Her dh likes to dig holes' like that, and so now he's just glaring at me.

Is going to be an uphill, so if she's desperate I'll do the battle but if she isn't I'm just going to have dangled my Bovis home in front of her and then pulled it away at the last minute.

[Boco]

100x, that's a very very kind and exciting offer - but you're going on Sunday aren't you? So it'd be next week? I can only go anywhere in the last week of August as dp can't get the time off work.

Mrs C lol at the idea of live linkup to 100s home.

My dd is doing messy painting too - she's made a clay picture frame with entwined vines and is now painting it very very slowly and beautifully, and dd2 has just spilt one of the tiny pots of paint and rubbed it into the table cloth. She also coloured in the wooden floor today. Rainy days can really drag.

100x i don't have the CAT facility. Allergic rhinitis. You could cat me though? Just for fun, even though i can't come and stay.

[Boco]

Thank you for offering to do battle, - i'd have had to prove i'm not insane somehow really. That's a toughy.

[MrsCarrot]

I feel slightly guilty at all your craft activities with dcs. I have packed mine off to Barracudas this week for intensive swimming, quadbiking, circus skills, drama and so on. They love it though, I think Have I got on with 50,000 thiings that need doing? No, instead I sort a drawer, observe and identify with resident arachnids and spend too much on f and v.

Actually I am stopping at our local gallery on the way to collect tiles and a mug we painted last week. They have been in the kiln and hopefully look wonderful and bright now, hard to believe when they are being painted in dull colours. I put F's feet on a tile and did dots and stars around it. Not very original. I must organise home crafts. DD has pens, and she takes paper oout of the printer. That's not great is it, ds1 has fimo?

Very disappointed at the termination of propsed webcam idea. I know, why don't do set one up anyway while you're gone, 100x, then we can, um, check for burglars.

[MrsCarrot]

"why don't do set one up anyway"

YOU, I don't have a cold

[TooTicky]

Dd1 had some fimo once. It was disappointingly hard and crumbly. Keep meaning to get some of that nice coloured beeswax for modelling.

[ahundredtimes]

lol. Yes, though I suspect DH's diagnostic tools might be a little off. 'Her children might go in my study and read my scripts' - 'No, DH, her children are about 5 and 3 they have NO INTEREST in your blardy scripts.'

See?

But yes, next week. Blast. I was quite excited. I was going to leave misleading clues about the place.

MrsC - oh dear, why can't you go on Friday and him fly up later? You must go. The plane thing will be fine, just feed on take-off and landing, no?

Purple vegetables - most pleasing Toot. Your offer of mooncup chat is, of course, utterly overwhelming.

[TooTicky]

I have purple kohl rabi seeds too but haven't planted them - may be too late for this year. Oh, did I mention I am growing blue corn and rainbow carrots?

[ahundredtimes]

We like fimo, you just have to Work It. Hard.

[MrsCarrot]

No no, Toot, we have that beeswax and THAT is too hard and crimbly, we have beeswax candles too thought they are easier to mould. Ds's fimo stays lovely and soft.

Goodness me I do seem to have crafts after all, I think I make it up as I go along

Fly up on my own? hmm, a possibility I guess, though initially that seems a lot harder work for ME.

[ahundredtimes]

Do you think? I think it'll be okay, but I go away quite a lot on my own. When I do ds1 rather steps up to the plate - map reads and rings people on my mobile phone, carries suitcases etc. USE your ds1, it's what they're there for I think.

[MrsCarrot]

How is the corn made blue, Toot, can it be natural? I imagine a seed injecting machine like the simpple advert.

[TooTicky]

But fimo smells weird and chemically, although not as bad as the fluorescently coloured floam type stuff that ds1 was given once. Never quite sussed what it was for, but when he told me he sniffed it each night before sleeping it made its way rapidly to the charity shop.

[MrsCarrot]

I have added that on to my list of possibilities, 100x, ds is quite a help. How exciting that your husband is a scripwriter, are they top secret then? Does he tell you? Do you help him, act them out etc?

[TooTicky]

The corn just is blue. Blue, black and white corn are all natural.
Orange carrots are unnatural. They used to be purple or white but the Dutch bred orange ones in honour of William of Orange.

My ds1 has navigated for me a couple of times recently. There is something enormously comforting about a cheerful presence in the passenger seat who can quote road numbers at me with confidence.

[MrsCarrot]

at Toot's ds sniffing fimo before bed, I haven't noticed mine doing that.

[TooTicky]

Not the fimo, MrsC, the evil foamy putty with balls in.

[ahundredtimes]

DS1 and I had a bit of an altercation though TooT, just yesterday, on the way to the lady with fancy pastries for lunch.

'Turn right' says he.

I turn left.

'Turn RIGHT.'

'I DID.'

'You turned LEFT.'

'Oh, yes, sorry' pause, plaintive 'you KNOW I get them muddled up sometimes.'

DS1: Sigh, long pause. 'Come on then, let's turn the car around shall we?'

Oh dear.