I had some news today that has made me very very sad 🙁

News that I must share with the blogging world.

On 20th July after a short and Unexpected illness our great blogging / Twitter friend

Devonshire Dumpling of “No Clue” passed away.

Her best friend of 20 years was with her at the end and she did not suffer.

Von’s funeral was held on 8th August at a woodland burial site near to Exeter.

Although I have never met Von personally we had a great friendship, I loved her humour and we shared a private joke…I was sending her postcards from all my travels, so she could “wall paper her mud hut”

I am so grateful to her Best friend,Sue, for going to all the trouble of tracking me down and feel devastated that I will never get to meet “Von”  🙁

Yvonne-Hadley-Jones will be dearly missed by many  x x

Its not often we go to London but when ever we do its always a fun packed day.

First we met up with Geoff’s nephew and his wife for Lunch

We went to the most fantastic vegetarian restaurant,in Covent Garden called Food for Thought .

The food was fantastic and I just may have to get there recipe book.

Afterwards we spent some time perusing all the outdoor shops in Covent Garden including the Paramo shop.

Not every ones idea of fun but with a new adventure to look forward to soon, it was fun for us 🙂

Then we made our way over to the Globe Theatre where we had tickets to see Anne Boleyn

Before we went into the theatre, we had more lovely food at The Real Greek restaurant over looking the River Thames, where the food is for sharing 🙂

As for Anne Boleyn well it was fantastic, our first trip to the Globe and one I hope we do again.

All In all a fantastic day out in London but certainly not a slimming world day !

With all the plums I have been given I thought I would try a new recipe.

Plum Flapjack 🙂

The recipe can be found here

I was given 2 tips…   use an extra 100g of oats and bake in a larger tin so not so thick.

It turned out perfect and I managed to hide half away in the freezer for Geoff.

A shame he wont have it for his visitors tomorrow.

Now I just have to find time to make the Plum Jam 🙂

Due to moving house, then starting a second job and having more massage clients, all good things I might add :-)…. BUT…..

All these good things messed up my routines, and for some reason routine is so important to me.

So its been months since I had a regular running routine, and as running is my happy pill I have felt my mood slowly darken day by day !

For some reason I have been dwelling on the fact that I am almost 50.

Have nothing organized for my holiday and will not achieve my goal of running a half marathon before I turn 50.

Then to make matters worse I got a cold… something I have not suffered from for years.

Geoff suggested I made a running date in my diary so that’s what I did and although I left it as late as I possibly could I have been for a 2 mile run tonight 🙂

My mood already seems to be lifting and maybe my new goal should be to run a half marathon during my 50th year.

There seems to be an abundance of Plums this year.

So I am being given loads

We started with a Plum crumble

Now my freezer is full of Plums ready for Jam making, not that I really need any as I have a cupboard full from previous years, but I do so love making jam 🙂

This year I would also like to make some Plum Flapjack.

Tonight I have been busy baking Muffins, Cheese onion and Chilli along with Double chocolate.

As tomorrow after I finish work Geoff and I will be making our way to Whitby.

Where we shall be joining the Cambridge Rambling Club for a long weekend of coastal walking.

We shall be staying at the Whitby Backpackers Hostel where the Club has booked all 24 rooms 🙂

Some exercise is just what I need as I have been unable to get back into a routine since returning from my Holiday at the beginning of July and my mind and body so need regular exercise.

Enjoy your weekend … I know we will enjoy ours 🙂

As most of you will know I have had a really rough time with BT and there so called internet service.

First they sold me BT vision, a service that is never going to work here as it relies on a min speed of 2mb, my best speed is around 1mb 🙁

Too slow for even iPlayer to work 🙁

I also had 2 missed engineer appointments annoying to say the least.

The out come has been BT vision cancelled and all money refunded, I also should have £20 credited to my account for missed appointments.

We wait for the next bill to see if all this has been carried out correctly.

I was so so upset with the poor internet speed on offer from BT that I wrote to my local MP Henry Bellingham. He was happy that I had made him aware of this problem and will be looking into it. His first step of action was to write to BT … we await there answer.

In the mean time I am still left with a slooow internet connection which at times drives me insane.

I would like to move away from BT but I have very conflicting opinions.

Some people say it wont matter who my provider is,the service will always be bad due to the poor BT cables.

Others say different providers want my custom and behind the scenes invest more money into the lines to provide a better service than BT.

Now I just don’t know what to do … 

I don’t want mega fast internet all I want is iplayer to work 🙁

Its a tradition that on Geoff’s birthday we go with family and friends to one of the outdoor Shakespeare plays held in Cambridge.

In the past few years we have seen Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet and Taming of the Shrew

This year we all enjoyed Anthony and Cleopatra held at Robinson college.

Previous years the weather has not been at its best but this year it was perfect weather for an outdoor play.

The day was made even more special too as for once Geoff had ALL his family with him, including his grandchild to be 🙂

This was just a warm up for us, as later in the month we are off to The Globe in London to see Anne Boleyn