My goodness, where to start. The last few weeks I've had so much energy and enthusiasm to fit in as much as I can. It's not easy when there are only 24 hours in a day and you have a demanding job on top of several hobbies (daily gym, Mauy Thai, makeovers, running), but you do feel a sense of achievement. Although I have to say I was a right old grumpy grouch when I had to get up at 8am to do some chores!
Last weekend we spent most of Saturday at Tulley's Farm near Crawley. I've driven past it many times to get on the motorway, but never thought to go there. I really wish I'd ventured there before - what a wonderful place! It's huge, they have lots of activities for families (giant maze, crazy golf) and a wonderful farm shop sourcing food from all over Sussex. We went there to pick raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries and tayberries to make our own jam. It was great to have a little helper in the kitchen! ;-) Tim made the blackcurrant jam which was simply delicious and I made the raspberry, strawberry and tayberry jams. Having sampled all of them, I don't think I'll bother making strawberry jam again (little bit more time consuming and not as tasty as raspberry), but the raspberry and blackcurrant jams were so successful I shall be going to pick some more during my week off (end of July). Hopefully the plums will be ready by then so that I can add plum jam to my repertoire. :-) I've found it so much fun and now every time we have a visitor they go away with a jar of our finest "L*** ****** Cottage" jam.
Raspberry jam on the right, Tayberry jam on the left. Look at the wonderful colours of the fresh fruit! 
A small sample of our homemade jam, the rest has been given away or is stashed away in the fridge. This trolley was a horrible old brown wood thing that I paid £1.50 for in the junk shop, with a lick of leftover paint and some very cheap plastic spot cloth from ebay (about £2.50/metre) I think it looks quite fun and nostalgic now. We also went to a larger village up the road to the antiques shop and Tim spotted this sweet little egg cupboard (£11). It's clearly designed for bantam eggs as large eggs would never fit in the holes. Well it's perfect to keep our little bantam eggs in so we're not complaining.
Nice and tidy front path - it was so untidy before it looked terrible!
The exercise is going well. I think I've lost more off my waist this week - not that I'm weighing or measuring, but the size 12-14 dresses are getting more baggy! I'm just about to finish week one of 'Couch to 5K', not quite sure how I'm going to complete week 2 though as I'll be in Vienna. I'm just hoping the hotel has a treadmill!. I got my own boxing gloves this week for Muay Thai - shame I wasn't on top form after having a meagre Pret soup for lunch (note to self: soup is not a proper lunch before Muay Thai!).
More jam/cake making and preparation for a BBQ/party for a very special lady planned for next weekend. I hope you've all had a good one! :-)
Sian x
