Today was an outside kind of a day.  It would have been a waste to have spent today inside so sympathy to everyone who had to be inside.

Several cups of tea in my gardening mug were enjoyed in the early morning sunshine while I measured and designed and planned.  Grand Designs indeed.  There is the small matter of financing such plans and persuading my vegetable disliking husband to give up a large part of the garden to vegetable production but a girl can dream.  And plan.  And scheme.Then time to actually get on with some work.  I planted out the leeks

and cauliflower plants – thank you Annette and David for sharing them with me. Lots of lettuces.   Breakfast time.  Deja vue – spinach, beetroot leaves and bulb. Plus a blood orange and 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds I soaked in water for a couple of hours. Popped in the blender with a mango and coconut water. This was not as good as yesterday’s Sunshine Smoothie.  I think the Alphonso mango I had yesterday was better and the Tahini worked better then the pumpkin seeds.  But I still enjoyed it. I should have eaten these parsnips a while ago as they have gone a bit woody but they are still edible.  Does anyone know if the leaves are edible?  They are such a lovely bright green colour I want to eat them but for some reason am reluctant to – does any one know? I roasted these and was going to make a soup but forgot about them and when I remembered they were a bit charcoal like – oops. So I had a salad instead. I made a guacamole with avocado, lime juice, salt and coriander and served it with mixed lettuce leaves, celery, tomatoes, spring onion and some purple olives.  Which we ate………. outside, of course! After lunch we headed over the road to take the dogs for a walk. Harvey’s friend Lucas was visiting and the three of us enjoyed being outside in the woods.  It was beautiful over there today. Harvey came and helped me with some gardening – so much more enjoyable with a little helper.  Harvey put the snow peas in the tray which have been soaking all day and I hope to be eating pea shoots in my salad soon. I had a night off from cooking as James cooked a whole turbot which he served with asparagus and samphire.  The samphire was a lovely flavour but too salty for me so I didn’t have any with my meal.

So lots of exercise today as I spent about 6 hours gardening plus walked for an hour.  My meals were all very healthy but I did have a huge bowl of granola and yogurt in the afternoon as I felt really hungry so that was annoying.  Hopefully calories expended equalled or were less then calories consumed.