We had a visitor for breakfast today – good morning Lucas 🙂  Lucas had his first sleepover with us last night and it was a great success as they both had lots of fun and amazingly lots of sleep.

While the boys chomped their way through cheese or eggs on muffins, Lara and I opted for a smoothie.

Mango, strawberries, soya milk and cashew nut butter made a thick, creamy and very moreish smoothie.  6 WW points.

Harvey and Lucas had a swimming lesson in the school pool with the lovely Andrea.  This is the third lesson in 3 days for Harvey and I was so amazed by how much he had improved.  And very proud of him because he listened very carefully and tried so hard.  It was great to see how pleased he was with his progress too.  Thank you Andrea.  We will be back.

On the way home we drove passed these beautiful cosmos.  They look like a giant bunch of flowers.  I might try that next year.

I was alone at home from 11 am until 7pm today.  Usually I have a long list of things to do and I charge around all day doing them  Some are fun and my hobbies,  I fit in lots of socialising plus there are chores to do.  I rarely just sit and relax.  I was tired today so decided to slow down a bit and catch up on reading.  It was good.

Lunch time and I wanted a big crunchy salad.  There was a piece of pesto chicken in the fridge,  left over from the other night so that made the protein component.  I headed off in to the garden to forage.  I love homegrown tomatoes.  They are so sweet and full of flavour.  I grew some in large flower pots in a warm sunny spot and they really thrived so next year I will do more in this part of the garden.

Why is one red but the others are still green?

I also wanted lots of salad leaves.  Not a problem as the garden has gone mad recently and I can’t eat them quickly enough.

I had a large pile of mixed salad leaves, tomatoes, radishes and pesto chicken.  And I fancied Salad Cream with it.  I wanted a vinagery kick rather than an oily or creamy dressing.  8 WW points.

It was crunchy and sweet and zingy and tasty.  Hit the spot.

This afternoon I took things easy.  Slowed down.  Appreciated and enjoyed the sunshine and warmth.  Had a snooze.  Sat in a chair in the garden and enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of a late summer garden.

I have lots of WW points left and supper was also quite light.  So it meant I could add some treats.  We started with some sweet, juicy, tender sweetcorn.  Frozen and canned corn is tough and tasteless compared to the fresh just picked and eaten off the cob variety.  Not from my garden sadly but near by.   I boiled them for 5 minutes and we ate them with butter and pepper.  Divine.

And then in to the same buttery, sweet corny bowls, I served the soup I made.  Using another litre of the chicken stock I made yesterday,  with chunks of chicken meat in it, I added 2 sweet potatoes and a leek.  I served it looking like a broth and we mashed the sweet potato in to it as we ate.  A simple and satisfying supper and only 9 WW points.

And I had enough points left to finish the last piece of Linda’s blackcurrant cheesecake – 6 WW points.

I still have 5 points left.  It’s a Friday night so I am going to use them up on a glass of red wine.

I am learning to slow down.  And loving the opportunity.