Month: January 2020

Enough Said…

The whole pre – agrarian diet got me thinking about sausage and bacon! We have enjoyed several fry-ups in recent times. And I am very much enjoying them I must say. However, I am also a man who loves a good terrine. So why not layer up your sausages and bacon with a little home made stuffing (mushrooms and onions) and bake for around an hour on 170 centigrade! A definite winner served with a homemade tomato and basil sauce and braised Savoy cabbage.

Due to our babysitter coming tonight, carbs are very much on the menu today. Nothing booked as yet. I think that we are just going to get in the car and head to one of the many village Gastro Pubs that are within the local area! I enjoyed a plate of chips for my lunch and I believe John ordered in Pizza for his entire office this lunchtime. It is just one day off from the diet. And yes, I will definitely be ordering a dessert.

My sister in-law will be missed very much! My heart goes out to her three children.

I was very happy to receive a text from another nephew tonight, Joe.

Within family and extended family loss, people do connect / reconnect.

That is the nature of family isn’t it?

And being non religious by choice, for me, nature is the giver and the taker as far as I can see.

I remember the conversation with Tara and Ritzy after Granny Hazel died…

We are all made of stars!

What we are given is rescinded. That is the nature of things.

But we leave memories a plenty. And it is those memories that weigh forever more.

Thank you for reading…

Mother to my 2 nieces Zoe and Hannah and nephew Daniel. You will be sorely missed Louisa Laurie who passed away suddenly on Monday 27th January 2020. I will always remember you with love. Rest in peace dear heart…

Well, last of tonight’s ‘Bay Pics’ to show. Caleb snuggling up with our biggest baby Remus (and Gracie). He was such a happy baby, so easy going, so chilled. I can see why big sister Tara kind of adopted him. Wow – they are really so close. Some proper writing and updates tomorrow I promise. But I hope you enjoyed today’s little bout of nostalgia…

And we come to our Aaliyah! Well known for sucking her fingers! Though she has done well over the last months – sadly a few weeks ago she has taken up her old habits once again. She had stopped for maybe 3 months. Looking back she has her fingers in her mouth in almost all of her pics! Now, if Tara can stop sucking her thumb at nighttime, I am sure that there is hope for Aaliyah.

She would be around 12 months at this point as this was the summer of 2016. Again, like her brother Thor, a very committed contender for getting crawling under her belt! Well done!

Baby Thor at just 6 months old. Not quite ready to crawl, but I remember that it was funny to see him attempting to push his bum in the air trying to propel himself forward. A very determined little fellow. But he was quite the screamiest baby of all time.

Perhaps I will finish the trip down memory lane in a few hours time with Aaliyah and Caleb and a few of their baby moments at home, here in ‘The Shires’.

Remember that I did not get home with all of the children, being born abroad for some time! Eighteen Moons in fact. Perhaps I will post a few pics of my time in India (Eight months), Thailand (5 months) and finally Nepal (5 months) in a couple of days. The story is of course available via the Amazon platform, simply by searching ‘Eighteen Moons’. An extraordinary and hopefully inspiring story! Thank you for reading.

Almost the same moment as Amritsar’s picture was taken, but as you can see, Tara was a little more grumpy on this specific day.

Tuesday morning now and all about to leave for school. Maybe a few baby pics of of little Thor later!

No Carb Sunday roastie – no problem! Roast Chicken (of course), steamed asparagus, garlic butter green beans, braised Savoy cabbage and chicken cracklings. Who needs the roast potatoes!

We all laughed and laughed and laughed. I played this 10 times and actually had tears!

What do you think of our afternoon in front of a green screen? A few more videos to follow! Aaliyah took a back seat, though she did dress as a ballet dancer…

I thought the carb free pizza was a big success, though john enjoyed it (he doesn’t like omelettes), he only referred to it as an omelette that tasted a bit like pizza. I would definitely eat it again, but I doubt that John would given his comments. Why don’t you make your own mind up? Oh, P.S. Mine had the 3 anchovies on it – yum yum.

Thor, Just sent to bed early, He had given Caleb a mighty right hook, just missing Caleb’s jaw. Caleb already crying as Thor had pushed him from the sofa. I sit here now, alone with Aaliyah. She has spent the last 35 minutes consuming her peanut butter and Dadda’s homemade rasmelonberry jam sandwich. She is sat there just looking at it. Now finishing the last of her orange squash, she has given up on the sandwich and any hope of dessert.

John is picking up the girls who have been at a friends birthday party these last 2 hours and I am now sat with Aaliyah and Caleb in front of the TV. Both are concentrating, no screaming or being silly. I think that Thor is the catalyst to a lot of the trouble with the little ones play and games!

The dogs have just gone mental as Tara has rung the doorbell on their return. Just made the girls a sandwich as there was no food, just a snack at their owl themed party!

Okay – worst mood of the day award has to go to Amritsar for this mornings 1hr+ unimaginable rantings. When she decides to have a barney (screamy session), damn, she can do it for England. She is actually worse than all three of our ‘little ones’ put together when her grief reigns its fire.

I’m planning on making pizza tonight! What! Pizza, but how if I am not eating flour. A triple egg omelette as a base, with homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni and anchovies! A no carb delight for sure. Maybe try it yourself some night!

Just one year ago – our boy Remus 😂

Well, I am back after a couple of days in London where I slept lots and enjoyed the relative silence of it all. I came back on the train this afternoon and realised that yes, the children are a little on the rowdy side in my general week, but the main stresses of living my life at this point are our two Dalmatians Remus and Gracie, namely Remus. He’s just there in my face 24 / 7. I do love him dearly and now that the children have gone up to bed, he is settled with Gracie on the sofa. But when I start to prepare the grownup meal for tonight, he will spring into action once more!

Some dramas with the children in my absence, but I won’t bore you with that now. A bit more on our big family life being lived here in ‘The Shires’ at the weekend.

Thank you once again for reading!

A third frosty start to the day, here in ‘The Shires’. Not quite the frozen tundra, but chilly enough! The rainwater in the wheelbarrow has frozen solid.

Well, regarding the diet, what can I say? Though not entirely ‘Pre – Agrarian’, we have made one or two compromises. We even ate a 70% cocoa mass Lindt chocolate bar last night (Woohoo)! That was right after a dinner of Salad Nicoise on a bed of crisp spinach leaves. Omitting the boiled potato was key to ‘de-carbing’ this amazing French classic. Didn’t miss the spuds at all! All combined with a homemade salad dressing, what’s there not to like? I de-skinned 4 tomatoes, thinly sliced a red onion, blanched some very fine green beans and boiled 5 eggs (shelled and halved). Now don’t bother with tuna in brine or oil. Spend the bit extra and buy the tinned, pre- drained tuna steaks! So much better. Bejewelled with black olives and anchovies aplenty.

Another red prawn Thermidor tonight served up with butter braised Savoy cabbage!

For me, a day of fasting tomorrow, just water for hydration.

Feeling a lot firmer, though this diet isn’t really about the weight loss as I want to replace any internal fat loss with muscle mass! This I am achieving with relatively light exercise. I don’t really do anything that would lead to a sweat. I’m not a big fan of aerobic exercise as I have had some joint pains in recent times. Sadly, the truth is that the diet isn’t really helping my elbow pain. I guess that there is not enough seal blubber in my diet (hahaha)! I have started back on the cod liver oil and glucosamine sulphate supplement tabs! Like life, you have to make a few compromises in order to make things work don’t you?

Thanks for readying.

2 pirates, 2 ballerina’s and Caleb have finally settled down to watch Disney’s Moana. A morning spent mostly in their room, pretending to tidy up! Daddy lying down for a rest and Caleb now sat at feet playing with a stethoscope! Oops, he has just broken it! Oh dear – his capacity for destruction really is unparalleled.

Lunch was a success. The children love fried eggs and French fries. Thor’s egg has to be with a broken yolk! I remember that I used to insist on that also at his age. Daddy had 2 eggs and 3 sausages and I had a 3 egg cheese omelette and sausage. Feeling full and contented! Stir fried pork strips with onion, peppers, sugar snap peas and bean sprouts with lashings of soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil on the grownup menu tonight. I think cheese and ham sandwiches for them!

Life really does revolve around food, doesn’t it? I think that it is the least we can do to eat well, whatever the budget or type of diet one may be on!

Although being well behaved on the whole today, I did not venture up the top floor! However, I constantly asked them if they had made a mess and if their room was tidy throughout the day and ‘Yes Dadda’ was the consistent reply from them all.

Since daddy’s return 45 minutes ago from Dublin, their behaviour has escalated to deafening decibels. Daddy has just lead them upstairs to shock, horror and disbelief of the extremely messy pig sty that was once their bedroom. All I can hear are Aaliyah and Thor’s screams and daddy raising his voice to them all ‘come on tidy up, tidy up’.

There were probably several minor flash points over the last 24 hours that I could have reported on tonight – but the here and now seems to be the reality of today’s summing up – five very messy little people with very little remorse.

The carbs were very much enjoyed on John’s Birthday, though I did not gorge! Okay, there were two almond croissants for breakfast, a slice of toast with marmite at lunchtime and a dessert at the restaurant in the evening and finally a packet of crisps, though I wasn’t hungry, just before midnight. Oh, there was also that tub of Haagen Das the previous night at 12.01an…

The little people, now upstairs, our nanny Sindy off for the weekend and John in Dublin tonight. There is rather a lot of shouting coming from the top floor. No doubt it will settle in an hour or two.

I did a 36 hour fast yesterday and finished that with sausages and cheese omelette a little earlier today. A bit of light exercise, you know the score!

I’m not sure if I have lost any weight as of yet, but that’s not the main objective to my pre – agrarian diet. General health is the target and there seems to be another 30 days plus until my birthday and the end to the project. Though I do expect that I will make some serious lifestyle changes because of this experience.

Nikki our babysitter said that she would see us in 2 weeks on a Friday, meaning that I will have to factor in another ‘day off the diet’ but I imagine that I will go a low carb route and just enjoy a restaurant meal without triple fried chips! Damn, they sound good atm.

Remus and Grace are snuggled up on the sofa and I am binge watching a Netflix series called Travelers. My sneaky bit of Sci-Fi in Johns absence.

I’ve enjoyed my reassertions at anchor.fm and created 2 podcasts today, starting at the very beginning of my diary! It is so weird listening to oneself isn’t it? Now available on Spotify, just search for Andi Webb I guess! Or you could just friend me on FB! Andi Webb London should find me. And NO! I don’t have that many friends – lol, poor old me…

Thank you for reading.