Reflexology in Wales

What an amazing weekend in Wales. Left on Thursday afternoon, thankfully borrowing a friend's sat nav so found my way quite easily after 4 hours, to The Old Mill Holistic Therapy Centre near Swansea.
Visit their website here: http://www.oldmillfoundation.co.uk/

What an amazing place.

I stayed with the course leader's in-laws nearby, and made three lovely new friends who were also staying there. Thank you Claire, Rosemarie and Maggie for many enjoyable hours of chatting around the kitchen table.

The course was run over three days, the first concentrating on how to help cancer patients holistically and showed me a whole new way of thinking about food. The Raw Food Diet! It was like a light suddenly coming on from behind a brick wall!!



The second day dealt with cancer and massage and I missed this day as massage is not one of my therapies. Instead I spent the day with Claire exploring the local countryside and visiting Dinefwr House and Castle. It was a beautiful day.

The scenery is fantastic in that area.

The third day dealt with Reflexology and Cancer and was a really rewarding and revealing day. New techniques learnt and many questions answered. So much more confidence to deal with different conditions and types of cancer and so many stupid myths dispelled. I highly recommend this course to any therapist who wants to explore this area and to put behind them some of the outdated and confining contra-indications that we were taught.

Now a new passion!! Raw Food - this is going to be the way forward for me... how do I tell the family? How can I introduce things without them noticing? I am thinking that starting with deserts will be the way to their hearts on this one!!

Midlife Crisis and The Cat Empire

Midlife Crisis and The Cat Empire

Last night the years melted away and left me in my 20’s dancing (with all joints creaking and aching) to a young band in The O₂ Academy in Bournemouth. The Cat Empire are an Australian band that have been around for 10 years. They don’t look painfully young so I am guessing they are in their 30s. Their music is a self described mix of Reggae, Hip Hop, Latin, Jazz Fusion and they were truly an amazing experience to see live.

http://www.thecatempire.com/

Apart from the fact that I took my 13 year old daughter and my husband, it reminded me of my own teenage years. The audience were mostly in their late teens and twenties with a few ‘oldies’ thrown in. Us older supporters managed to sidle our way upstairs to the balcony which left the crush and mayhem of the dance floor to those whose bodies were better able to handle it.

Now here is the thing about my mid-life crisis – it isn’t a full blown crisis yet for one thing – I am seeing it more as a mid-life transition. I genuinely didn’t care what people thought of seeing a large middle aged woman with her grey roots showing through, bopping (aka wobbling) to the music. When I was younger I would have done the same but back then I had to make a supreme effort not to care what other people thought!!

At the end of the gig I did for a moment want to leave my ‘day’ job as a wife and mother and follow The Cat Empire around the world as a groupie. I fell totally in love with them, their music obviously, the way they look, their lyrics, their attitude, everything and in my besotted state for a while I wished I could live my life again so that I would be in a position without responsibilities to do something mad like following a group around the world. Of course what suddenly appeals in my midlife…. transition is the thought of losing all the responsibilities for a chance of being free again to do whatever appeals for that day.

And yet....here I am, sitting outside my son’s English tutor's house, being responsible… the tea in ready in the oven and only needs to be switched on when I get home, my treatment room is ready for work and I will be working from 5 until 915 tonight. Yet I am looking out across the Dorset hills with (believe it or not) a rainbow across the blue sky, and wondering how (or why?) I turned out so normal? I didn’t do anything normal until I was 30 and got married and had children, up to then it was all completely crazy and some part of me maybe hasn’t quite had enough of that yet…….

 

Midlife crisis tip No.1: Don’t give up your life to become a groupie for a young band and follow them around the world. It would only end in tears.

Hey…. back to the cooking….

All photos on this page from :-
www.charlieraven.com www.facebook.com/charliera​venphotography

NEWSFLASH!! - Fallen Tree Disaster...

I did think it was a little blowy last night... had to even close the window in the night as the wind was howling straight off the fields and into the bedroom. Still, surprised this morning when we discovered that we had slept through the chickens having a major disaster over in their field!

Missed the chicken house by a couple of feet but completely smashed the food storage shed. Oh dear!

Underneath that main bit of trunk is where the storage shed was.....

The trunk snapped off about 8ft from the ground.... looks a little precarious! The tree has been dead for a long time.

Lucky escape for the hens... and the electric fence,  which has been restored to service against Mr Fox tonight...

Has anyone got a small shed they don't need???? We could swap it for some firewood..

Made-up Chutney (Tomato, Apple & Onion) Recipe - success!!

Made-Up Chutney Recipe

I’m not very good at following recipes. I think it’s because I am not very good at being told what to do. I had never made chutney before but it seemed like a good idea with the polytunnel so full of tomatoes and the tree so full of cooking apples.

I got some ideas from other recipes and then tried this combo:

2kg cooking apples, 2kg tomatoes, a couple of small green peppers and a couple of rose chillies from the polytunnel, a couple of large onions that have been drying out in the greenhouse, approx 300g Demerara sugar, a pint of vinegar (mine was mostly cider vinegar but with some malt as well when the cider vinegar ran out) some sultanas, 2 cloves of garlic, a couple of desert spoons of salt, a couple of curry powder, a teaspoon of cayenne pepper…. Think that was it… oh no…. about a pint of water too.

All looked lovely together……

Peeling and chopping took a while. Couldn’t decide what to do about tomato skins but in the end I took them off….

Looked a lovely marmalady colour whilst cooking but did stink out the house a bit and made my eyes water…….

End result……. After some 3 hours of bubbling away gently…… put into 8 sterilised jars.
The colour looks a lovely red/brown and it tastes delicious! Wow what a lucky success.

Next experiment..... can you make a chilli and garlic chutney? I'm thinking of my brother's Christmas pressie here! Any ideas or recipe suggestions?

Welcome post!

The Diverse Blogger

Welcome to my new blog. My name is April and this is a blog about the different aspects of my life, without too much of the personal stuff thrown in. (You can always watch soaps if you need that) Why a blog? Who knows what starts these things off in your mind? I wanted a cosy winter hobby for when the evenings draw in that will still enable me to talk about all the things I like to do in the longer warmer days. Why diverse? Well, that’s easy to answer. This blog is about:-

Beginning attempts at learning to grow fruit and vegetables and progressing to a more sustainable lifestyle.

It is about, cooking with the newly grown ingredients.

 Midlife crisis…… definitely about that!

I almost forgot….

Losing half my body weight …. For the second time in my life…. Yes… it’s about that alright….. and growing and making the food to learn to keep that weight off!

And…. Holistic treatments and therapies; TCM – Traditional Chinese Medicine;

What about…. My rabbits and guinea pigs…. My other animals….(dogs, cats, chickens)

Learning the banjo……

Expanding and experimenting with my business, reflexology, reiki, life coaching, teaching reiki, EFT, Diet and Nutrition advice, animal healing.

It is also about bringing up teenagers and the amazing challenges involved in that!

There may also be a bit of polymer clay creations on the side, children’s drama (on the stage that is!), some cake creations, and the odd ridiculous life challenge thrown in.

I didn’t know what to call my blog…. It’s too diverse for any other name.

P.S. If this mix is too eclectic… confusing…. Bizarre….. then this isn’t the blog for you.