glorious spring weather

May 16: Gardening all day!

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Rene, our neighbour and owner of the whole property, called us this morning and asked if we could help him clean the ride-on lawnmower today. No problem!

From midday, we prepared the mower to be in tip-top working condition. We both got a bit sunburnt! Oops. Here’s Leo cleaning out all the caked-on grass.

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Scraping off the hard grass

I cleaned another part and Rene sharpened the blades and then we put it all back together again. After nearly two hours it was ready to go, and Rene was ready for bed!

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Rene decided to have a little pause here

The grass was still a bit too wet to mow after yesterday’s all-day rainfest, so Leo and I put up the umbrella at our house and rebuilt the hammock holder. We also made a quick trip to the local shop for some new plants and soil.

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The terrace looking all summery with the soon to be planted flowers on the table

When we came home, I jumped straight on the mower and did just the back of the house and half of the front. Rene wants to see if the grass in the furthest part of the front lawn can thicken up a bit if we cut it less. So the grass looks a bit half and half. We had lots of problems with the wet grass clogging up the mower again. Afterwards, I decided to weed around the little house Liliane calls the pergola, where they have dinner parties and so on. It’s like a small shack with two tables and an indoor fireplace. Lovely in winter and great for barbecues in summer. Didn’t take a photo of that, I’m afraid.

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Looking good

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Can you see the line where I stopped mowing?

Leo made dinner then we sat outside with Liliane and Rene admiring our handiwork and watching all the birds. We finished the night with the James Bond movie Thunderball. I’m feeling exhausted! Right butt cheek muscle is feeling better today, so that’s another win!

Looking forward to planting all the new flowers tomorrow.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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My little garden will get a spruce up tomorrow

April 13: 4km run, 40 minute walk and day one of the 5:2 Diet

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Sunshine, garden lights and purple blooms

What a glorious day! Best day of spring so far. A light, warm breeze, 20 degrees Celsius and plenty of sunshine – perfect conditions for a run.

Because I’ve been eating like a queen the past week, I decided to do the 4km circuit rather than the new 5km track, to ease myself back into the running swing. It all felt good – I was powering through the course and did the second kilometre in under 6 minutes which is a first for me. I actually felt like I was running today, rather than shuffling.

Then at 2.5km, I saw a friend of Liliane and Rene’s in her garden with her grandchildren, so stopped for a decent chat.

Then at the 3km mark, the cows from my favourite farmhouse were being taken from the sheds into the little field across the road, so I watched and waited as they made their way into the sunshine.

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Achtung! Cows crossing

Thinking I was home and hosed for a good sprint to the finish, I ran into the neighbour from the big farmhouse who has two small children. She was pushing them in a pram, so I walked the final 500m with them.

Even though it was a stop-start run, it was still great to be outside and I’m happy with the way I was feeling. Maybe another day this week I’ll try the circuit again and see what time I can manage. Today, I would have been on track for my best time, I think.

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How’s that for a view? Taken on the run home

Once home, I put on a wider brimmed hat and walked down to the local supermarket to buy some dinner things. That round trip is 40 minutes. I waved to a friendly farmer and felt my toodles (wobbly fat on the upper arm) swing in the breeze, but I’m pretty confident there’s less than the beginning of the year!

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This friendly farmer gave a wave, so I gave him a doubly enthusiastic one back, toodles and all!

Today is the first day of the 5:2 Diet. I’ve been planning it in my head for a little while. So far so good.

  • Breakfast – a medium grapefruit – 80 calories
  • Lunch – a boiled egg, 50g – 78 calories
  • Two cups of peppermint tea – 0 calories
  • After-run snack – vanilla protein powder in a 200ml glass of milk – 71 calories and 136 calories respectively (the milk needed to be used. Normally I don’t drink cows milk but didn’t want to waste it!)

That totals 365 calories. Dinner is going to be a mixed salad:

  • 100g lettuce leaves – 7 calories
  • Two medium tomatoes – 44 calories
  • Half a cucumber – 32 calories
  • A spring onion – 12 calories
  • Two small carrots – 41 calories

That totals 136 calories (no dressing – a teaspoon of olive oil has 40 calories!), for a grand total of 501 calories. So that’s that! If you can see anything wrong with my calculations, please let me know – being a novice calorie counter means I’m bound to make some mistakes. But hopefully not.

I was dreading the whole calorie counting rubbish but found an excellent service on Google. We have a small set of kitchen scales which made the measurements very easy. In Google search, I typed in “how many calories in a tomato” etc and this came up – how convenient! You can put in any food and it will tell you. My friend Bec also sent me a list of veggies and calories she compiled when she did the 5:2 Diet a while ago, which is a great help.

So there you go. Hopefully I can make it through another few episodes of “The Killing” tonight without getting the munchies, because there’s nothing left for today (that milk was a doozy!). How many calories are in 100g of oil-popped popcorn? The whole day’s allowance! Damn. Maybe tomorrow 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful day.