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I will always be the first to let you know that cooking and I are not the closest of friends; au contraire, we are mere nodding acquaintances at best. The Fake Food Blogger™ in me does like to give things a go now and again, just to see whether my doing (there is no try, according to Yoda) has actually improved not just the finished product, but the actual creative process, too, practice making perfect, and all that.

That being said, my cooking and baking ‘research' to date hasn't really given me much in the way of empirical evidence pointing to any significant improvement, unless you count and compare my very first attempt at GF baking (an unmitigated disaster That Which Must Not Be Named) to my last effort - Lemon Meltaway Cookies (a triumph in the face of icing sugar adversity) - but I think it's fair to say that although my learning curve may still be a tad on the horizontal side, I will endeavour to keep trying doing. 

For science.

Triple Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies from Nigella.com (And the Simply Nigella series)

The first thing I noticed about the recipe was that it was written in a charmingly vernacular style. Well, in the charming vernacular style of Nigella Lawson. You'll know by now that badly written anything grinds my gears, as Peter Griffin is wont to say, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it sounding in my head just as if Nigella herself was giving me her instructions. That in itself may be due to the script writer for her programme perhaps also being the person in charge of writing the prose for her website and books, a PR dream-come-true in respects to product management, or it might just be that Nigella is really like her on-screen persona and it's her dictation that becomes everything we hear and read. I'd quite like to think that if we were to partake of a glass of wine in her kitchen while she puttered about making something yummy, it would sound exactly like what we see on screen, be it TV or monitor. Then again, I might just be falling for yet another marketing ploy, but I'm happy to take a tumble in this instance!

So, you need:

150g dark chocolate chips

125g dark chocolate

125g buckwheat flour

25g cocoa (sieved)

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

60g unsalted butter

125g soft dark brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste (or extract)

2 large eggs (fridge cold)

Your first instruction is to ‘clatter' the chocolate chips on a dish and place them in the fridge (on the assumption that the colder they are when finally added to the mixture, the more the chance they'll retain their semblance of chocolate chip-ness once baked.) Fair enough. I'm already sufficiently charmed by the language that I'd probably do anything she asked further down the recipe, whether it was cookie-related or not...

And because it wasn't the first thing she asked us to do, I was happy to pre-heat my wee oven to 180 degrees and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper. You can see how far under Nigella's spell I've already fallen... Or you can see how contrary I can be... Take your pick.

You're then asked to break up the chocolate bar into chunks and melt it either in the microwave, or in a bain-marie. I chose the former, and easier option.

Well, I say easier option, but it's not idiot-proof. A wee word of advice: don't presume that just because the first minute hasn't been sufficient to melt the chocolate, that a second won't set the whole thing on fire. That I'm speaking here from experience will only confirm my relationship with the cooking Gods. I pray I won't reduce my kitchen to ashes; they ignore my pleas. I'm beginning to suspect that they don't accept burnt offerings.

Once you've managed to fan most of the smoke out of the kitchen window, you can add the buckwheat flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt to a bowl, and give them a good mix, then in another bowl cream the sugar, butter, and vanilla extract together until it's ‘a caramel colour, and fluffy' whatever that means. Mine was not in any way whatsoever fluffy. It was creamed, but I suspect more in the sense of having been beaten up by a bully, than in any way baking related...

You then mix in the slightly cooled-down chocolate to the creamed sugar and butter, (or however much runny stuff you've managed to salvage from the fiery ball of chocolate hell) and then add the eggs one-by-one. Once everything is nicely combined, you can add the dry ingredients, finishing off by folding in the chilled chocolate chips.

You're then asked to ‘dollop' tablespoons of the dough onto the lined baking sheets (ah, she's talking my particular type of cooking language) although I made smaller cookies using heaped teaspoonfuls of the dough, because no matter how I try I can't just have one cookie, and making them smaller means that a) I'm not eating the same calories by partaking of a couple of mouthfuls of cookie bliss than I am if I were to pig-out out on two dinner-plate cookies, and b) technically they'll last longer because I get on average around thirty or so cookies per recipe. (I say technically, but I really mean in theory. What can I say, sometimes a girl needs a little cookie therapy.)

Once dolloped, bake them in the oven for nine to ten minutes, bringing them out when they are just getting set at the edges but still soft to the touch and looking undercooked elsewhere. (I reckon if you're wanting a more flat biscuit cookie than the soft squishy version of this recipe, you can add a minute or two to the baking time.)

Once they're out, you leave them on the baking sheet for another ten minutes before transferring them to a rack to finish cooling completely.

Then NOM, because these babies are squishy chocolatey heaven!

Nice one, Nigella! Your Simply series may have been panned, but you still inspire the naughty cookie baker in all of us. Or at least me. Mmm, cookies...

Cliff Notes

It was altogether a different kind of day when last I took a walk along St Andrews pier. I took a photo on the occasion before this from the end of the pier looking into town that I think may be one of my all-time favourites, but alas, alack, it's on the hard-drive of my now defunct tower PC to which access is now... limited...  (Ah, the classic use of understatement that you'll only find with the British use of English!) Don't get me wrong, though; I did, of course, splash a version of it all over the book of face (and, come to think of it, there's a post further back here somewhere that has it, too), but I'm loathed to download that version because the quality won't anywhere near the original, and I think I may be a pedant about such things. (If this comes as a shock, then you're obviously new to the blog. Welcome!)

It was a different day indeed - the sun was shining, and although it was still rather on the chilly side being April in Scotland and all, the view was still breathtaking! 

Of course, my contrary self appears to find the rugged, storm-shrouded views taken from the same place to be more aesthetically pleasing, but it's good to remind the world-at-large (all four of you) that Scotland does indeed enjoy blue skies. Occasionally.

Yes, yes, those clouds in the background are rain clouds beginning to roll in from the west, but what can I say? All sun and no rain makes Scotland a dull... wait, this needs more thought...

The similarity between this walk and the one in November (not including the obvious pier stop-off) is that I gained another first, for from the pier we (my sister and I) followed the East Sands and started on the Kinkell Braes coastal walk, one on which I'd never set foot before. (Or, in the spirit of honesty, one I'd never set foot on before because it starts off with a steep climb from the shoreline up onto the cliff tops, and well... big girl, steep climbs, cliff-top pathways with rocky outcrops below felt somehow oxymoronic.)

Kinkell is marked on the map by a static caravan park, which, fair play to them, has been there for decades, but the walk itself runs for miles down the coast, and was originally part of the massive Kinkell estate to the west of St Andrews, where, even until the 19th century, you could find some remains of the chapel, hospital, castle and dovecote that were recorded to exist on the estate in the Middle Ages.

The views were stupendous, and the view of the town, East Sands, and pier, photogenic even at the worst of times (and I'd post that photo of the stormy pier here if I could get my hands on it...) changed, and didn't change with every step. This is the point where you can thank your lucky stars that my camera isn't equipped with any decent kind of zoom-lens, because I'd have happily taken the photo equivalent of a flip-book of the journey along the cliff-top, and splurged them all over this post had it been at all feasible!

Still, I'll give you one fuzzy effort, to help you realise just how lucky you truly are...:

A mile or two along the cliff, you start to notice an enormous monument-like stone jutting out from the shoreline, and careful walking down some ancient stone steps from the top of the cliff to the shoreline reveals the Maiden Rock staring out to sea in all her weathered glory.

Further on down the coast at the natural inlet called Kinkell Harbour stands the Rock and Spindle, part of an eroded volcanic plug, but we never got that far because the path that became a little too muddy and a little too close to the edge of the cliff for our Sunday afternoon walking attire. But despair ye not (because I tell you are indeed despairing), as it's on the To Be Discovered list, next time I'm home!

Muscle Amnesia

“Nic continues to mistakenly believe that, just because she studied ballet for 10 years before a knee condition stripped her of athletic ability at 13, any cardio-ballet workout will be a doddle, somehow forgetting that thirty years have passed with nary a plié nor arabesque to be seen.

#iHurt #KneesStillDontWork #UglyDucklingPuddle"

Yes, in a way it's just like riding a bicycle - once you know how to do it, you don't really forget. Muscle memory is a powerful tool in many respects, but muscle memory is not, repeat: is NOT the same as constantly putting those muscles to use over a long period of time. Anyone who's just ridden a bike for the first time in twenty years will tell you they're a bit wobbly at first, but then their subconscious and sense of balance will kick in, and they'll be pretending they're on their old BMX/Raleigh Racer in next-to-no time. Then they'll tell you the next day that they can't walk because their thigh muscles will have decided to shorten to half their original length, and that they're being haunted by the ghoulish pressure of a too-small, too-hard saddle between their cheeks, and can't actually sit down.

Yes, remembering the mechanics of how to do something you used to do a long time ago is so very much not the same as actually having done it continually over the years...

First position? Pff, please you don't have to remind me what that is!! Wait, I can't get my heels to touch because my calves are getting in the way... Hang on, let me really push them... Um, I don't remember my Achilles tendon twanging so much before, that can't be normal.

Second position grande plié. Ah, that should be fine. It's like a sumo squat without the pain. I SAID WITHOUT THE PAIN! Ah yes, my knees still don't work, but I'm sure that using my knee-supporting muscles, whichever ones they are, it'll be fine. Knees are supposed to grind and pop nowadays, aren't they? Add a port-de-bras first to fifth (holding a cardio ball) while you're dipping, and back again? Ok, but I'm not sure my core appreciates that its day off has been cancelled. There's a lot of internal moaning going on... More than usual, anyway.

Split-squats opening out into a low arabesque... I.. Oof. I seem to be too over-encumbered with booty to raise my leg more than a foot off the ground behind me.

I cracked open an old book of Haydn sonatas the other week, not having looked at it for years. Possibly even fifteen years. It lives sandwiched between my vocal scores, with some other piano music from That Time Before Singing, but I spotted the blue ABRSM cover and was overcome by a fit of nostalgia, opened it at an old favourite and sat down to play. Needless to say my actual piano technique has been shot to hell after being neglected for so long, but even though I stumbled a bit, my fingers, on the whole, remembered where to go. After a decade and a half! Then I felt my tendons in my lower arms twitch, and after half an hour of pretending to be Maria João Pires I had to close the book, and gingerly wrap my wrists in the elastic supports I have to use after a particularly long session typing up my thoughts on to my computer.

So yes, that cerebral muscle memory can be a double-edged sword, but practise, as they say, makes perfect less pain. Then again, practise also gives you the ability to do something you couldn't do before, too...

I visited Sorghvliet park last week to pay homage to Spring and her ability to carpet the place in bluebells for a month every year, and actually managed to crouch to take a close-up photo; a basic human ability robbed from me in my teens. But not only did I manage a crouch without too much creaking and complaining, I also managed to get up without my knees demanding that I get on all fours before attempting that tricky Standing Upright manoeuvre as they've done in the past. 

Those afore-mentioned knee-supporting muscles with whom I'm only now becoming acquainted might come in useful, after all...

Jessica Smith, I hate you, but I love you, too.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I have a few hazy memories (supported by photographic evidence with my parents at home) of visits in the 70's to a lovely local green spot near St Andrews, called Craigtoun Park. Those early visits entailed sprawling on very typical 60's/70's folding sunbeds that could, at the least provocation, snap in half encasing your tiny self in the middle of a canvas and metal cocoon until someone with enough strength to fight the unforgiving rusty springs would come and release you from the musty dark-blue prison (we had two old loungers, but I can't for the life of me remember the colour of the other one); playing cricket with proper wooden bats, stumps and bails, and using tennis balls that, when struck well, would fly for miles; giggling with glee whilst clinging to the handles of large plastic animal kiddy rides that were basically fibreglass blobs sat atop a large and sproingy metal coil; and, if we were lucky, riding the miniature choo-choo train that chugged back and forth through the park over maybe a half mile of track.

My sister and I went back for a walk there a couple of weeks ago, and really enjoyed discovering the park again, after, oof, too many years to count. We've both been back since we were tiny, but for me one of the last times was when I was maybe ten years old or so, when my best friend's Mum worked in the office there and would get us in for free. It was during that time I discovered the boating pond and the Splash Cat pedal-boats, the Dutch Village, and Wall's Cornetto Ice Creams.

There has been a lot of change since last I visited, but, reassuringly, some things are just the same. The place where we'd set up our wooden and metal death-traps of a sunny afternoon years past is now part of the Duke's Golf Course, as is a fair part of the old park, but the train still runs around its length of track, although now sheathed in places by a health-and-safety view-blighting fence, and the Dutch Village set picturesquely on the boating pond looks just the same, even though you can no longer walk over the bridge and wander about inside.

The park, itself part of an old estate dating back to the 17th century established by the Melvilles of Strathkinness, was a part of their burgeoning family estates that included much of the surrounding area, and there's a mention of landscaping and tree-planting from late 18th century Melville family accounts that speak of their investment in beautifying the grounds. The estate changed hands in the early 20th century, and the new owner commissioned and improved much of the park as we see it today - including the mansion, the Dutch village set on an island in two connected lakes, the Italian garden, an impressive Cypress avenue, and the Mound that was originally topped by a small stone temple.

Today the Mound is temple-less, and the mansion, which after it and the grounds were sold to Fife Council in the 40's was turned first into a maternity hospital (where myself and my little sister were born) and then an old-people's home, is now derelict, but still exudes an air of grandeur past. Although I'm told that I broke the mould when I was born (which may be true in a rather disparaging manner) I refuse to accept any responsibility for its closure. I didn't break the house. Honest. And I don't suppose I can claim anything on it retaining its air of grandeur, either...

I am lucky to come from such a beautiful part of the world (eh, I'm allowed to be biased) but I have to say that I'd have visited Craigtoun Park myself long before my sister offered to drive us there for a good old hike around the grounds, had the area around my village not have turned into such an impenetrable pedestrian-free zone. 

Craigtoun Country Park is about two and a half miles away, and St Andrews itself is three miles away by different roads, and they would make excellent long walks there and back but, alas, nowadays the grass verges alongside the roads that could once be used as walking thoroughfares are pretty much non-existent no matter what route you attempt out of the village. Add to that that you just can't depend on drivers to heed the speed limit as they career around the bendy B-roads that criss-cross the countryside to give you enough time to jump out of their way before they thunder past, blasting their horn at your very impertinence in attempting to walk roads that are no longer safe for wayfarers anyway.

One of the things I love about tramping everywhere on foot in The Hague is that I get to see so much more of the place by moving at less than fifty miles per hour, and I lament that there is so much of the beautiful countryside in which my village nestles that I doubt I'll get to see properly unless I get a car (and, yannow, actually own a driver's licence...) so I can park close enough to enjoy them without running the gauntlet of avoiding road-side ditches and oncoming vehicles by just trying to get there on foot.

But until a time of enriched wanderer care I shall continue (now that I've had my little rant) to enjoy walking through the areas of beauty to which I already have access, and be content, because let's face it - I'm not really hard done-by with what's already around me!

Fifty Shades Of Lemon

Whenever I take photos with the camera on my phone that include white surfaces or white objects, I'm reminded of a scene from ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring' where Vermeer asks Griet what colours she sees in the clouds outside. If he were to ask me what colours I saw in my photo of a white tea-towel, or the bright white enamelled cover of my table-top hob, I'd be hard pressed just to give Griet's first and simple answer. For I see pink, and purple, and green in my white, but not because I have an artists' eye, but because, really, I do see pink, and purple, and green. My lens appears to have such a hatred for white that it consistently replaces them with the palest of blush pinks in the middle, and an apple white to the edges over which the Dulux paint company circa 1985 would have cried with joy.

I say this not with any real purpose but to apologise for the lack of photographic consistency in my fake food-blogger posts. My tea-towels really are crisp and white, well, apart from the inevitable blue patterning (I'm a sucker for blue and white household goods - I'd be up to my eyeballs in Delftware if I could afford it) and my cooker top is scrubbed white on a daily... quite often. But until I'm in command of proper photographic equipment, I shall have to put up with pastel back-drops. And, unfortunately, dear reader, so shall you!

But to get back on message (apologies - I've been watching some re-runs of The West Wing) today, in our continuing adventures in Fake Food Blogging™, we are venturing away from the comfortable shores of chocolate bay and setting sail for climes of a more tart nature.

Yeah, okay, we're making lemon cookies. But not any lemon cookies. No. Today we are nicking a recipe from Gluten Free On A Shoestring and shall attempt to replicate their Gluten Free Lemon Meltaway Cookies without incurring the wrath from, or being slapped with a lawsuit by, the original recipe developer.

You need:

For the cookies:

210g or 1½ cups all purpose gluten free flour
77g or ⅔ cup icing (confectioner's) sugar
48g or ⅓ cup cornstarch
¾ tsp xanthan gum
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
168g or 12 tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg white, at room temperature
2 tsps freshly-squeezed lemon juice (plus more as necessary)
granulated sugar for dipping

For the glaze:

115g or 1 cup icing (confectioner's) sugar
2 to 4 tsps freshly-squeezed lemon juice

Shockingly, I followed the first suggestion to pre-heat my oven to 175c (or 350f), because looking down the instructions, I saw no mention of a particular bugbear of mine: being instructed to pre-heat the oven only to leave it on, pre-heating, for three hours, or overnight, while the dough rises, the shortbread log sets, or the melted butter cookies cool down in the fridge so they have a fighting chance of keeping a cookie shape whilst baking. Seriously, whose oven takes more than five minutes to warm up nowadays?

Anyhoo, this soap box seems to be developing a groove through over-use...

Find yourself a large bowl and add the flour, icing sugar, cornstarch, xantham gum, baking powder and salt, and, as suggested by the recipe, whisk to combine well. I'm guessing the whisk adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the combination process, the subtleties of which I am woefully under-qualified to comprehend. Leaving sarcasm aside, you're then instructed to add the lemon zest and to give it a jolly good mix to make sure any clumps of lemony goodness have been broken up. I took a photo of this stage, expecting to see a bowl of white (pink, green, and purple) flour decorated with little specs of yellow, but of course the zest, in the jolly good mixing, just gets coated with flour and loses its colour-defining properties.

Yes, the little shreds of zesty goodness are in there, because yes, the lemon has actually been relieved of its zest although looks appear to be deceiving, and yes, I used a wooden spoon and not a whisk. If my cookies lack a little I don't know what, then I'll know who what to blame.

After making a well in the centre of the mix, you're invited to add the butter, egg white, and two teaspoons of lemon juice to the mix, but remembering that you need to mix to combine after each separate addition. I'm such a picky language... picker (yeah, obviously it's not a super-power) that I get a little bothered by being told to add a list of ingredients, and only after you've dumped the butter, egg-whites and lemon juice in the flour well you read that, by the way, they should be added individually. Yes, the author is presuming you read through the instructions before flying head-long into the complicated world of cookie-making, but sometimes a little heads-up before the list would be helpful, because I get the impression that if a whisk is preferred to a spoon for the mixing-up of the dry ingredients, then making sure all the other ingredients aren't dumped in together at the same time might probably be important, too. Just sayin'...

My thighs are getting a really good workout from all this stepping on and off soapboxes today.

After everything has been added, and mixed in the right order, the dough should appear thick and smooth. You'll probably need to give it a good knead to get it there, and you can add more lemon juice by the teaspoon if it's not holding together properly.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper onto which place balls of dough you've rolled into a round between the palms of your hand, making sure to leave enough space between the balls to you can press them flatter without turning your tray into one huge lemon cookie. (Not, I have to say, that that sounds like a horrendous consequence of too-close cookie spacing...)

I'm not going to go into the really clumsy instructions given about how to wet the tines of a fork, dip them in sugar, and press them into the dough to make a flattened cookie with a pretty, sugary pattern on top, and just show you a photo instead.

Place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake them until their edges are lightly golden brown and are firm to the touch. 12 minutes is suggested, but I kept them in for 14 as they were still a little pale. I left them to cool on the sheet, as instructed, then transferred them to a wire rack in preparation for icing.

Never underestimate the amount of icing sugar, or over-estimate the amount of lemon juice you will need. Never. Icing sugar looks so strong and powerful in powder form, but shrivels up into a tiny proportion of its former self when faced with its arch-enemy, liquid. Do not, repeat: do NOT scoff at the ratio of powder to liquid. Never presume that when the recipe says 2 to 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to 115 grams of icing sugar, that it's playing around, and really means, ach, just use the rest of the juice left in the lemon, because it would be such a waste to throw it out when there's at least another half-lemon's worth in there...

Don't do it. Don't fall for the icing sugar scam. Especially when what is called for is a thick (but pourable) paste, and not a thin transparent glaze. You will end up emptying an only-recently opened box of icing sugar, and your kitchen will be covered with a thin, sweet powder that gets everywhere because you're getting more irritated each time you have to add another metric sh*t-ton of powder to a mixture that's stubbornly staying closer in consistency to lemon juice than to anything even approaching a drizzle-worthy state.

I'm beginning to feel like I should be adding PSA to the beginning of all my Fake Food-Blogger™ posts...

But fret not, for in the end a workable consistency will eventually manifest itself and you'll be able to artfully drizzle delicate icing zig-zags over the cookies, just like you see them do on television. Don't worry if they end up looking like a toddler was having a tantrum and decided that flinging spoonfuls of icing around the kitchen was the make-a-mess mode du jour, because these gorgeous mouthfuls of lemony delight don't taste any the less scrumptious for having been decorated by a ham-fisted spoon-and-icing noob. Seriously. My amateur drizzling skills do not detract from the gorgeousness that are Lemon Meltaway Cookies! They're light, and yummy, and do indeed melt-away on the tongue!

I may be in the mood to take apart some dreadful instruction prose, but the author sure knows how to name a cookie!

More Than Just A Number

I haven't, up until now, copied and pasted anything here that I've found interesting from the ‘net about weight-loss, but having struggled with the numbers of my scale sticking around the same place for the last goodness-knows how long, an article on myfitnesspals' blog Hello Healthy made me think a bit more positively about where I am right now.

Nah, I'm not really going to copy and paste the entire article, although the link is just above, if you want to cut out the middle man. 

Struggling with being stuck on a Table Mountain of a plateau even though I'm consistently eating well and working out has led to a lot of negative feelings in regards to how I see myself; my shape, my commitment, my goals, and not only that, but it makes me worry that my friends have similar worries about my journey. I'm aware that I'm walking this path for myself, whether it goes up or downhill, but yes I do fret about how I'm seen through others' eyes, too, those that know I'm on this voyage of discovery, and have witnessed the huge difference I've made in my life so far. It's quite traumatic for this person who spends a lot of time worrying about other people, and not wanting to let them down or to think that they might be saying, aw, what a shame - she was doing so well - after not noticing any recent tangible weight-loss.

(I doubt there's really anyone out there, except for myself, who actually spends that much time thinking about me at all in this respect, because hey, I'm proud of myself, but I've not fallen in a narcissistic hole of presuming everyone actually cares *that* much about what I'm doing. That I care about what people might or might not think probably comes from having such a positive reaction from friends and relatives about my new appearance and health after a lifetime of being judged and found aesthetically wanting. But this is a subject on which I've been writing about for a few months now in another post, and I'm still working on it, so I won't mire myself too far into this emotional mindf*ck here just now!)

So indeed, what made me stop and think enough to want to discuss the article I read online was the way I was still being controlled by my scales, and how those numbers have been the be-all, end-all of how I've been measuring my losing weight. Yes, I've posted about how pleased I am to be getting into smaller jeans, and how I'm still having to alter my clothes even though I'm stuck, weight-wise, but I've not really managed to truly convince myself that it's all good, and that I'm still on track.

The title of the piece is ‘12 Amazing Exercise Benefits That Aren't About Weight Loss', which is a little bit click-baity, but as touched on a nerve I had to have a look. I'm glad I did.

Out of the 12 Benefits which are listed as:

1. Relieves stress and anxiety
2. Improves learning and memory
3. Improves self-esteem and body image
4. Strengthens the heart
5. Builds stronger bones
6. Promotes quality ZZZs
7. Provides a bonding experience with loved ones
8. Improves mood
9. Increases metabolism
10. Improves digestion
11. Reduces disease risk
12. Decreases appetite

I can certainly relate to a few. Numbers 1. and 8. seem to be linked for me, certainly when I'm taking my long power-walks through the woods and parks, a time when my thoughts are concentrating more on my surroundings than the myriad little problems we all face every day. And it's certainly true to say that when I'm sweating and swearing my way through video workouts, there's little space left in my brain to accommodate anything other than counting reps and being an internal cheerleader to push a body that would prefer to sit and eat cake into a body that works better with sit-ups and, well, still eating cake. (Cake 4 Life, y'all!) And although I've yet to reach the fabled heights of an exercise rush, I've never finished a walk or a workout feeling worse than when I started. At least mentally!

I have no idea about number 2. Are my memory and learning abilities improved? Who knows. I still occasionally forget why I come into a room, and continually misplace my tv's remote control, so the jury is out on that one, and I'm swithering about number 3. Is my self-esteem improved? Has my body image finally dragged itself out of the gutter? Here it gets more complicated, partly due to my work as a singer, and it's a career that sometimes feels like it's regulated by self-esteem and the approval or otherwise of others. It's a very personal instrument, obviously, and I can't think of one fellow singer that hasn't been affected by critiques at least one time in their lives.

Body image is something else (even though nowadays you have to look like a Hollywood starlet to get decent work, and frequently how you look is considered more important than how you sing...) and it's a little easier to analyse. Yes, I look at myself now and feel a thousand times less horrified than I did up to four years ago, when I spent as much time avoiding my reflection as possible. I'm proud that I can now sit in a theatre chair without having to edge in sideways. I'm ecstatic that I no longer need to ask the air hostess for a seat-belt extender in front of sneering and judgemental ‘fellow' passengers. That I can walk and talk at the same time, instead of merely forming gasped and monosyllable conversations continues to be a delight. But in true Twenty-First Century, media-controlled, body-not-mind-obsessed fashion, I look at myself and rarely see the stronger frame that has had its body-fat content dramatically reduced, that enjoys healthier curves and fits in smaller, cuter clothes. I mostly still see a fat girl who continues to be shunned and ridiculed by your average person on the street, whose stomach will never be flat, arms will never stop jiggling, and whose jawline will never be taut.

Yeah, 3. needs a little more time, methinks. 4. and 5. on the other hand. Well, I'm pretty sure my heart has to be a lot stronger than it used to be. My lungs, too. It's simple to tell just from recovery period if nothing else. My beats-per-minute come down from a well-sustained aerobic rate to normal again so much faster, SO MUCH faster than when I started this little health-improving sojourn. Yes, I still get puffed-out during exercise, but it's not how knackered you get that indicated fitness, because no matter how fit you are, you still want to push yourself as far as you can go (without incident or accident), it's how quickly your heart returns to its resting rate. And my bones? Well, I ache a lot more than I did before I started this exercise regime, but I'm happy to accept that my bones must be stronger, without empirical proof.

Quality sleep, number 6... Well, it's hard to tell, as I can sometimes sleep like a log after a day of doing nothing but type on a keyboard, and I can suffer insomnia after a day full of moving about, and a killer workout. Next! Ah, 7. Yeah, Exercise bonding. I workout on my own, and although I share my ups and downs quite liberally on social media, I'm loathed to let anyone near me when I'm trying to curl up in a crunch, or attempting to make sure I don't suffer a concussion from an overly-flung kettle-bell. I bond over cake.

8. is up-post, and 9. 10. and 12. are their own little hells. Metabolism increase, digestion improvement, and appetite depression. Hmm. Well, my metabolism was never slow to begin with (although that may also have been controlled by my previously un-diagnosed gluten intolerance, because that does... *things* to the speed of digestion that can be, frankly, a little surprising...) and I can safely say that the combination of curbing my calorie intake and upping my exercise time have done little to stave off the need to bury my face ear-deep in a well-frosted carrot and walnut cake more times than I'd care to admit.

I will cut and paste part of 11. though. Because... well: “11. Reduces disease risk. Exercise can actually help prevent diseases like type 2 diabetes, stroke, metabolic syndrome [the name for a group of risk factors that raises the risk of heart disease and other health problems], and even some forms of cancer."

Yeah, 11. When sh*t gets real!

So, I must learn not to lament when those scales show me no change, because even the most high-tech weighing apparatus (or at least one that I could afford) won't be able to show me how much stronger, fitter, and healthier my body is, nor by how much lighter my mind can occasionally be lifted.

Bridges And Bunkers And Birds, Oh My!

It's miserable outside again today, so instead of moaning that I can't get out for a walk, I'll play catch-up with one of my city tramps to the Clingendael Estate that I took a couple of weeks ago, and pretend I'm out there enjoying the sun, instead of stuck indoors watching the rain snake down my window-panes.

It's a really good walk to get the the estate, around fifty minutes, give-or-take, and my first photo was on the way, at Plein 1813, where there are thirty-six commemorative horse chestnut trees (according to the plaques), the oldest of which were planted in 1925. They're a sight to behold in every season, although you do have to watch your head when passing underneath in Autumn!

The first sight that greets you when you enter the park is a wonderful old thatched house, privately owned, but probably one of the most photographed private houses in the city! I love the clarity of Winter that allows it to be seen without the shadows of Summer, but you already know how much I love the look of stark woodland and bright skies...

Instead of heading up to the main house on the estate and wandering around the Old Dutch Garden as is my wont, I headed east into part of Oosterbeek Park, and Duinbos, criss-crossed with waterways.

Scenes of such serenity seemed hardly the place to stumble upon an old Nazi bunker, but there it was, ramshakle and slowly being overpowered by nature, a concrete reminder of a terrible past.

I ended up circling back through the forest (mmm - trees and sky) to the Hollandse Tuin, to find the Heron Lady hand-feeding her faithful followers. I've seen her a lot around this time of day, and the herons are always glad to see her and her bag of bread.

After both the bread and herons were gone, I wandered over the bridge in the direction of the Clingendael Institute building, and found another heron sulking on a fallen tree,

stopped to admire some more forest reflections, and enjoyed the sight of a just-beginning-to-bud magnolia tree, before heading home and checking my pedometer... Over fifteen-thousand steps must surely equal a brownie...?