It is true to say that everyone that I bump into who used to work with me in a school environment cannot pass without comment about how well I look and how relaxed I appear. Now I must have looked shocking for all the years when turning up to school at 7.30am given the huge improvement being remarked upon since we changed our lives.
We have gained a sense of calm in our lives, we allow ourselves to have days off when the mood takes us or when the weather and events are most inviting. It's odd to describe but I can feel the inside of my head is less crammed with things to remember, things that are vital to be done by yesterday and things that just rumble around in there driving my senses mad at 4am when I would wake in the dark with a good idea or irritated by some ridiculous comment or suggestion from someone who tells everyone they know what they are talking about but in reality hasn't a clue.
We still work hard, very hard, in fact when the outcomes are for the benefit of your very own business it is incredibly rewarding to work hard and reap the rewards in whatever the aim. Whether it is physical labour in making planters and weeding beds or the frustrations of tying down market organisers to secure a stall for trading purposes, it is all equally rewarding when you are achieving goals that we have set for our business. Not in the selfish way that this sounds, because often the pleasure is in seeing the people you have arranged party catering for are overwhelmed at the quality and beauty of the platters you deliver or just seeing the smiles of appreciation on mates' faces when you drop in some home grown produce or better still swap ours for theirs as we are these days.
In this my evaluation of the first few months it would also be fair to include a huge increase in healthier foods being eaten. We have always grown our own, but in the past not always been as inventive or experimental as we might in using them to create truly scrummy dinners. Now we have the time to read about the successes of other growers and avid foodies and experiment for ourselves, so yes we make all our own breads, crackers and biscuits as well as making home made tarts, pies, wraps and the like to use our beautiful harvest rewards. However all this tasty scrummy food has not been good for the waistlines and without an increased exercise program will not bode well for the future. This give the final fair assessment of our physical health as could do much better.
I think this means our report card looks a bit like this:
Emotional and Mental Health A*
Physical Health D-
Overall progress towards long and happy life C+
Now I have delivered units in BTEC courses which included huge projects on improving a client's health and wellbeing. I have graded students work down when they write huge plans insisting the client will eat half a grapefruit for breakfast, have cottage cheese on Ryvita biscuits every day for lunch, and boiled chicken salad for tea 6 days out of 7 and a pizza on day 7 as reward for being so good. One time I had so many of these poor diet plans presented that I went to Asdas bought all these hideous foods they were suggesting and made them try them. Plain cottage cheese on celery stick was least favourite and soon removed from all their diet sheets. They also lost lots of marks for arranging their client's weekly exercise classes every evening and most of the weekend which barely left time for a bedtime story with the client's children or the watching of a single TV programme. Now I am not a keen telly viewer myself but the point was the exercise needed to fit into the daily life of the client, not encompass every waking moment and of course cost the earth given gym class prices. I suppose the clients may have lost weight due to lack of disposable income to spend on food once they had signed up to spin, bum and tum, jog, swim, moon walk and gym ball their way around the floor of every polished wooden floor in south east london.
So no excuses I am perfectly placed to sort this problem out and include more exercise in our daily lives. In fact we began just that a few weeks ago and now have 2 beautiful pieces of modern art that live side by side on the drive and used to be called cars. One of these we occasionally take out when collecting Freegle loads too big for the bikes or going to trade at markets and we can carry the bikes on the back of it so it does facilitate our plans to take part in longer coastal cycle adventures. But this process will work best if we use our bikes wherever possible to go to the shops, pop to the post office and visit friends as well of course as walking to places. It is beginning to work and I am feeling stronger and a bit fitter already. Alongside this comes the use of our own tasty fruit and veg in fresh healthy meals which we are working on too and further into the future I have a crazy plan for a mobile selling bike...but that needs some more thought and design ideas...shame I have stopped waking up at 4am with brilliant inspirations, will just have to try sitting in the sun dep in thought and hope the answers come that way.Happy Sunday one and all...off on the bikes now to plan some party catering and swap more fruit and veg, have fun.
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