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So March is nearly over and done. This month has been full of highs and lows as I continue my journey into motherhood. I have, however, made some time to explore the beautiful winter garden at my local National Trust property with baby T, and for once taking my ‘big camera’ rather than just my phone.
Sometimes I think I should just put away the cameras and enjoy just ‘being’ in a place, and I definitely want to make sure I do this as T gets bigger and older. But on this walk, I discovered that I really noticed so many signs of spring that I might have ordinarily strolled past.
I never give up anything for Lent because I’m no good at giving things up. Mind you, I say that and yet I remember that I spent about 6 months ‘giving up’ certain foods when I tried to get my health better.
One of those things I gave up for a good long while was sugar. I got to a wonderful place where I reintroduced it and only ate tiny amounts and felt satisfied with only a quarter of a slice of cake or brownie.
The problem is it’s so easy to slip and life gets a bit much and that quarter of brownie becomes a half and then the whole thing, and then you need the whole thing the whole time.
So we (poor Mr Rigg has been dragged into this too) are going to attempt to give up sugar for Lent. Hopefully by the end of it we won’t be wanting so much and so often.
I say ‘attempt’ because I’m realistic. Not because I can’t give it up 100% – I have before, as mentioned above. But realistic that we’re approaching a time of change in our lives (more on that at a later date), and that I am a breastfeeding mummy to a 6 month old whilst juggling my own business, one dog, three rabbits, and who likes to cook ‘from scratch’ almost every day of the week.
Oh and did I mention in the middle of this ‘give up sugar’ experiment is baby T’s Christening complete with cake fuelled ‘after party’…
I have been dying to tell you this friends for so many weeks now, but finally it has felt like the right time. Our little menagerie is growing – this time to include a tiny person rather than a furry animal friend. I am 21 weeks pregnant!
As you can see from the picture above taken on the weekend, I only have a tiny bump so I’ve placed my hands in that typical pregnancy photo way so you can actually see there’s something there – honestly, I’m not just fat from eating too much clotted cream and butter 🙂
I am just so pleased that I can openly mention being pregnant here and also share some of my experiences (yes friends who read regularly I am drinking raw milk and pregnant, please don’t be alarmed I’ve read all the pro’s and con’s and made an educated decision that’s right for me).
It is such an exciting time and for the past couple of week’s I’ve been feeling it move around and I receive daily reminders it’s there and growing in the form of punches/kicks. It would be lovely to hear from anyone else expecting their first baby.
This is our first baby and so quite an experience and journey for both myself and Mr Rigg (who know’s what Buddy and the bunnies will make of this small new creature once it arrives!), and I’m looking forward to sharing little tidbits of this next adventure with you all.
Happy and much healthier after 6 months fighting my Candida
Please note, this post is a little deeper than my normal ones about eating dinner at the allotment or what DIY we’ve been up to, but it’s about time that I shared it for a number of reasons.
I’m also not one for sharing too many personal photos of myself or my Mr, but for the sake of illustrating different times last year as I began to feel better I am including a couple of photos of myself. I’m especially not one for sharing pictures of myself where I don’t think I look nice…argh!
Pressing ‘Publish’ on this post has been a challenge…
I’m not really one for sharing my inner most secrets online, I’d rather share the mainly happy cheerful bits. After all, who really wants to admit to half these things on a forum as big as the internet?
About a year ago I discovered that many ‘ailments’ that I’d been suffering from for about 8 years were in fact something called Candida Albicans. I want to share a little of my journey to discovering what was wrong with me and how I healed myself (with a little help from some kind, understanding and knowledgeable people) through food alone.
It is important to me to share some of my journey because once I had been told this is what I was suffering from, I was straight away online trying to find out everything about it. Having felt so alone for so many years, it was such a lovely feeling to discover that other people had been through similar experiences and come out the other side happier and healthier.
It’s because of those people who so openly and candidly shared their experiences that have encouraged me to share a little of mine – if someone like me a year ago, comes across this post and feels better because I talked about it, then that’s why I’ve decided to bare a little more than usual.
It has been so long since I posted here, over a month in fact. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to, I am just so exhausted with all the house renovation work we are doing, it is utter chaos in our house and I haven’t had the energy to write here as well as everything else. Since this post on our demolition so much has changed with the back of our little house, so I really want to show you where we’ve got up to soon.
Early evening today I went for a lovely, frosty walk at my favourite place – Dunham Massey. Not around the National Trust park this time, but just around the fields and lanes of this pretty little village (I like to pretend I don’t have to get in the car and drive home and in fact live in some cute and cosy cottage here).
I am struggling. Earlier this year we did a meat-free month (which I know, I don’t think I ever finished blogging about), which was a choice we made to stop over-indulging on meat and remember what we love about vegetables. We chose to do that.
Due to some health issues, I have recently been told I have a sensitivity to dairy (among a long list of other items). So, for a month I am cutting dairy out completely – or almost completely. It has been a week, and I am struggling. I love to torment myself by watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with all the gooey cheese that goes with most things.
By some miracle I resisted a pot of burrata in the mozzarella section at Waitrose yesterday – AND it was discounted! That is a sign that I am truly unwell, or more positively committed to spending a month dairy free to see if I feel better at the end of it. I’ve had a good moan at my husband, so I thought I’d moan to all you lovely lot of grace my blog.
It really is terribly challenging – no milk, no yoghurt, no cheese, no chocolate (although I have found a delicious alternative that has no dairy called raw chocolate and the brand I’ve found is scrummy – but I’ve temporarily run out). I utterly love all things dairy and I try to buy the best quality of all these items – organic milk (or even occasionally organic unpasturised from the farmer’s market), organic yoghurt, artisan cheeses, organic chocolate.
Has anyone come across this before – a roasted and salted corn snack? They look like popping corn, before its popped, but don’t break your teeth.
They are brittle and salty and pretty tasty – I’ve never heard or seen of them before but came across them in a deli in the Cotswolds.
Do you ever see a photo of something and just desperately want to eat it then and there? I’ve been trawling through old pictures of food we’ve made and came across this one of a fish finger butty filled with homemade tartar sauce…
Oh how I want to scoff the lot right now. Maybe with a cheeky slice of plastic cheese that’s started to melt from the heat of the fish fingers. Hmmm…
I so desperately want to have the time to write here again – I have a camera full of photos and lots I would love to share, I just don’t have the time. I think I might pop!
We have, however, managed to plant some seeds last weekend – carrots, salad leaves, beetroot, radish, parsley, and peas…and today we spotted the first green pea shoots poking through! So exciting!
I want to apologise for the silence on the blog over the past months. I am now in the count down to my wedding, and with planning it, my day job, a voluntary job, and running my website there just hasn’t been any hours left to blog here.
I am really looking forward to ‘life after the wedding’ when I can get back to blogging about food, cooking, eating, and finding delicious places to share with you all.
Eat the Earth 
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