Dear Amy, Spring Blooms and Food as Medicine – #LittleLoves

Hello and welcome back to another Little Loves round up! I had a week off blogging last week and we enjoyed a home-and-away style half term with a trip to see friends in Aberdeenshire followed by a few days chez us while Daddy went off back to work. We spent a lot of time at the swimming pool, out walking and enjoying some glorious Spring-like weather (apparently just in time for the snow to return 😉 ) before rounding off the weekend with a lovely trip ‘up west’ enjoying some of the best beaches the north of Scotland has. Oh, and on top of all the adventuring we still managed to fit in a few new Little Loves. So sit back, grab a cuppa and let me tell you all about my latest list of little joys 🙂

READ

This week I’ve been reading Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan. It’s a page-turner of a thriller about an agony aunt who starts receiving letters from a girl who went missing many years ago. The mystery deepens as links appear between the letters and another girl who has just disappeared. And to top it all off the agony aunt herself seems to have a few skeletons buried in the closet – no, readers, this is one book that is certainly not short on twists and turns! 🙂

WATCHED

Over the half term myself and the kids went to see a kids club showing of Paddington 2 at the local cinema. Ok, only about three months behind everyone else but if you still haven’t managed to catch the adventures of the nation’s favourite marmalade-loving bear – it’s fab! 🙂

WORE

Yet again I fail miserably on this one. Does it count if I tell you I’ve been accessorizing with Spring blooms? 🙂

HEARD

Before half term I caught up on one of my favourites, Dr Rangan Chatterjee and his Feel Better, Live More podcast. I have a particular interest in all things health-related having had a few health issues of my own over the last year. I found the episode on gut health with Dr Megan Rossi (the gut health doctor) incredibly interesting. Their discussion around pre and probiotics and their effect on gut health is really worth listening to if you suffer from chronic illness of any kind.

MADE

In a  similar vein, I’ve been making a few yummy dishes from The Doctor’s Kitchen cookbook. I’d been keen to get my hands on this book after hearing Dr Rupy Aujla being interviewed on this same podcast series just a few weeks ago. This is a really interesting book with a large section devoted to explaining the health properties of different foods, backed up with scientific evidence. So many of the things I’ve read and listened to over the last few months (including this) lean towards the benefits of a mainly plant-based diet. I can confirm that Dr Rupy’s recipes are yummy as well as healthy – that’s got to be a foodie win-win right there for sure! 🙂

AND LASTLY

I’ve been really enjoying getting into a better routine with my yoga recently. I wrote on here a couple of weeks ago about some of the routine changes I’ve made for health and creativity and making more of a priority of doing yoga in the mornings is something I think I’m really benefitting from. I’ve recently started using Nadia Narain’s Flow Yoga: Strength & Stability DVD (I’ve been using her Everyday Yoga for Stress Release one now for a while). The Flow yoga is much more focused on strength and it’s made me realise that where balance (of the not-falling-over kind) is concerned, I have a lot of work to do! If you’re looking to get started with yoga I can definitely recommend trying out some of Nadia’s material. And with all those downward dogs in mind, I think it’s time for me to head off and take my furbabe for a walk! 🙂

Gx

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