Quote Me Happy

Alan Bennett: [dictating a telegram into the telephone] I want to end it if I may, "NORWICH".

[pause]

Alan Bennett: "NORWICH", yes. Well, it's an idiomatic way of saying, "Knickers Off Ready When I Come Home". You see, it's the initial letters of each word.

[pause]

Alan Bennett: Yes, I know "knickers" is spelt with a "K". I was at Oxford, it was one of the first things they taught us.

Forever Learning

Being this great takes hard work y'know.

5 Days Searching..

I've found my glasses!

They were the first place I looked. Maybe if I had them on then I would have been able to SEE THEM!

Panic over.

Filters that reduce ‘brain clutter’ identified

Filters that reduce ‘brain clutter’ identified

I need more of these filters - clearly.

Healthy Summer Grub

Summer is only a stone's throw away, so it's about time I unleash some fantastic summer recipes for you to sink your teeth into.
I stress, there's more to healthy summer recipes than just salad. If I see another iceberg lettuce, I will throw at the first person I can find. I'll throw an entire salad aisle if that person happens to be Gillian Mckeith.

Summer food has to be light, fresh, satisfying and pleasing on the eye. Say goodbye to to those stodgy winter stews, summer is coming!

I have always stood by the fact that food shouldn't be about denying yourself the things you like. I like things that are bad for me, so I like to keep the elements of the meal in and take the bad out.

If you can't cook then you're screwed learn! Or just get me to cook for you, for an extortionate reasonable fee.

Chargrilled Steak with Sweet Potatoes & Salsa

Serves - 2

381 calories, 32.7g protein, 36.9g carb, 12.4g fat, 3.2g sat fat.

Prep time - 5 mins
Cook time - 25 mins

 Oh yes. Quick and simple. Slightly higher on the fats compared to the recipes below, but we're making a meal with steak in half an hour. What more do you want?

Ingredients
2 small sirloin steaks, trimmed of fat.
2 tsp paprika (sweet or smoked)
1 large sweet potato cut into wedges
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5oz/150g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red onion, chopped
 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Small bunch of coriander chopped (or parsley if you hate coriander)

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Rub the steak with 1 tsp of the paprika and season well. Toss the potato with half the oil and season, then roast for 25 minutes until browned and crisp.
2. While they're cooking, mix the tomatoes, onion, coriander/parsley, vinegar, remaining oil and paprika in a small bowl and toss. Season.
3. Griddle the steak for 2-3 minutes on each side and serve with the potatoes and the salsa.

Miso Brown Rice & Chicken Salad

Serves - 2

419 calories, 39g protein, 53g carb, 7g fat, 1g sat fat.

Prep time - 15 mins

Cook time - 30 mins

Brown rice is my secret weapon against hunger. As well as being an excellent source of fibre, it's full of magnesium and zinc.
Magnesium can regulate blood pressure, prevent cardiovascular disease, treat depression, insomnia and migraines. Zinc is vital for the immune system and can prevent hair loss. Zinc also plays an important role in overall skin health and can boost sexual health.

 Ingredients

 5oz/150g brown basmati rice (or regular brown rice)

2 skinless chicken breasts

4.5oz/140g sprouting broccoli (or regular broccoli)

4 spring onions, cut into diagonal slices

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Dressing

2 tsp miso paste

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp mirin

1 tsp grated ginger

Method

1. Cook the rice, then drain and keep warm. While it's cooking, place the chicken breasts into a pan of boiling water so they are completely covered. Boil for 1 min, then turn off the heat, place a lid on and let sit for 15 mins. When cooked through, cut into slices.
2. Boil the broccoli until tender. Drain, rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process and drain again.
3. For the dressing, mix the miso, rice vinegar, mirin and ginger together.
4. Divide the rice between two plates and scatter over the spring onions and sesame seeds. Place the broccoli and chicken slices on top. To finish, drizzle over the dressing. 

 

Oven Baked Fish & Chips

Serves - 4

366 calories, 32g protein, 43g carb, 4g fat, 1g sat fat.

Prep time - 15 mins

Cook time - 40 mins

I'm not the biggest fish fan in the world, especially where bones are concerned. I either buy "boneless" (bones may still remain) or ask your fishmonger to remove them for you (more reliable deboning, and usually a more of a reliable sourced produce than supermarkets)

Ingredients

Nearly 2lbs/880g floury potato (maris piper or king edward) scrubbed and cut into chips

2 tbsp olive oil

50g fresh breadcrumbs

Zest of 1 lemon

2 tbsp chopped flat leaved parsley

 4 x 5oz/140g thick white fish fillets

7oz/200g cherry tomatoes.

Method

1. Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Pat chips dry on kitchen paper, then lay in a single layer on a large baking tray. Drizzle with half the olive oil and season with salt. Cook for 40 mins, turning after 20 mins, so they cook evenly.
2. Mix the breadcrumbs with the lemon zest and parsley, then season well. Top the fish evenly with the breadcrumb mixture, then drizzle with the remaining oil. Put in a roasting tin with the cherry tomatoes, then bake in the oven for the final 10 mins of the chips' cooking time. 

Easy Chicken Kebabs

Serves - 8

165 calories, 17g protein, 5.9g fat, 1.2g sat fat.

Prep time - 15 mins & 2 hours marinade

Cook time - 30 mins

 These kebabs are a must when looking for a sugar fix. The marinade combined with the natural sweetness that comes from caramelising the vegetables certainly satisfies the craving. (Soak the skewers in water while the chicken is marinading to prevent burning)

 Ingredients

23oz/650g chicken breast fillets

2 courgettes

1 red pepper

1 red onion

For the marinade

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 tbsp of five spice

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp clear honey

Method

1. Cut chicken into chunks and place in a bowl with marinade ingredients. Chill for 2 hours.
2. Thread chicken and veg pieces onto 8 kebab sticks. Cook on a BBQ or in a preheated oven 200C/190C fan/Gas 6 for 25-30 mins.
   

Anxiety & Depression - The Nice Part

Little did I know that moving back to Enstone was going to be the beginning of my new life.
Throughout my teenage years, I had an obsessive, repetitive, compulsive, almost pathological fear of turning into my Mum.
Moving back home gave me the sudden realisation that I was indeed going down the same route as my mother. A cold sweat covered me from top to toe, and I started shaking. After the shaking came an uncontrollable feeling of anger. After the anger and the demolition of my bedroom came tears. After the tears, I got straight on the bus to Oxford (45 mins duration) and went to the Jobcentre. I didn't die, I didn't throw up, I didn't even have a panic attack.
I can remember getting off the bus with an overwhelming sense of achievement. The buzz was unreal. The first thing I had to do when I walked in the door was to tell my mum. She didn't look as proud as I had imagined she would. If anything, she looked a bit pissed off. I mentally told her to piss the fuck off go away, and marched back to my bedroom, where I remained until mum called me for dinner.

The years went by, my independence grew, I was taking more risks, and I was in control of my depression. I'm not saying that I never had a panic attack during those years, I did. It was how I dealt with them that changed. I had to retrain my brain not to fear the panic attack, because that would be enough to trigger one. Once I could go about my day without fearing the fear, I had to learn to deal with my panic attacks in a controlled way.

• Breathing Techniques - I took up yoga to help me learn the correct way to breathe. That sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I also looked ridiculous, but most of the time we all had our eyes closed, so we couldn't see each other.
• Mental Ear-bashing - When I felt like I was going to have a wobble, I'd give myself a good telling off. I'd say things like, "Come on, you're like everybody else." or "You're not going to die, have a sit down and rummage through your bag or something."

I had discovered comedy, although I had probably discovered it at school. For someone with an anxiety disorder, I was very confident at standing up in front of everybody and playing the clown. Comedy made me happy, and I was good at it. The world was mine.

I was travelling to all sorts of places with work related things. After buses came trains, then I got a car!

I can't expect to live the rest of my life without feeling anxiety, but I know that if I do, then I have all the ammo and experience to deal with it.

That's it.

I'm 25, and a completely normal person in society *twitch*.

Thank you for reading.

Anxiety & Depression

Near enough everybody, at somepoint in their life, will experience some sort of depression and/or anxiety. It may impact their life quite profusely, whereas some people might just see it as a temporary inconvenience.

My first memories of depression and anxiety started when I was 10, and I got a diagnosis at 14. At such a young age, symptoms can easily be mistaken for "terrible teens".

I grew up with my Mum, a single mother who suffered from terrible depression and awful anxiety herself. Agoraphobia had crippled her life from a young age, and I grew up thinking that staying away from social situations/public transport/outdoors was normal behaviour. It was only when I started Secondary school, I knew that this behaviour was not normal.

I was shy, really shy, just like my mum. I would only speak when spoken to, and would keep myself to myself at all costs. I was relatively "normal" to a few close friends that I had, but I knew that I was very different to them in some way.

Age 11-12 I grew as a person. I had become more outgoing, my sense of humour flourished, and I enjoyed school. I look back on these years with a warm feeling in my heart.

At 13, things started breaking down at home. My Mum had drinking "issues" and couldn't take me to the dentist, or the doctor. The thought of going to these places on my own had filled me with so much fear. The resentment directed towards my Mum started here. I wanted to know why she couldn't do these things with me. I tried talking to her, but I would get snapped at, and the conversation would grind to a halt.
I was so angry as to why I was "turning into my Mum". I tried fighting it, but the more I fought, the more fear would overcome me. There were times where I would wake up on a school morning in a cold sweat and a headache, and leaving the house was just NOT going to happen.

I started missing school days here and there, and I was a wreck. I slept during the day, and was wide awake during the night. At that point in time, I didn't care what people thought of me, I hated the world, I hated myself, and I took it out everything that I hated.

I find it very difficult to put into words the reasons why I self harmed. I was in control of the pain that I was giving myself, and it was the control I lacked so much in my life. I enjoyed the routine of cutting myself, cleaning myself up, and bandaging all the wounds. It was comforting.

People started noticing the scars on my body at school, and I would get teased. I was lucky that I never got "bullied" in the sense that people weren't nasty to me. I suspect this was mainly because I was called "Psycho" at school. I don't blame them for calling my Psycho - I used to go out of my way to freak the boys out by stabbing myself with a compas. Quite funny looking back at it now..  no it's not funny. It is.

By GCSE time, I was rarely at school. I had a home tutor, who I told to fuck off most of the time.  My subjects were cut to English Literature, English Language, Maths and double award Science. It broke my heart. I was a good student, and my projected grades were great before everything fell apart.

I saw a child psychologist, who was as much use as a condom in a nunnery. I could talk for England about my problems, I just wanted the answers. I was given all sorts of antidepressants over the months, a lot of them gave me horrible side effects like hallucinations. I remember one hallucination in particular, everytime I moved my eyeballs, I saw spiders in the corner of my eye!
It turned out I had to find the answers myself. So I did. So I thought I did.

At 16 I decided to leave my cosy village in Oxfordshire, to move in with my 25 year old boyfriend in Tottenham, and to stop my meds! At the time, it was the best idea I ever had. I thought throwing myself into the deep end was the answer. I spent 3 months there, only leaving the house twice on my own, and that was a minute walk to the shop where I would be overcome with panic attacks.

I didn't revise for English Literature, and got a C. I did half the coursework for English Language and got a D. I did half the Maths exam and got a D, and I went through the Science exam in 5 minutes and got a C C. I got my results while I was in Tottenham. I cried for a solid hour. After an hour, I realised how well I had done, for doing so little. That was a comfort.
Getting a D for English Language.. HA, I'm a writer. I don't put that on my CV btw.

I had reached 17, and the fun was about to begin!

                                                   Part 2 to come.. How I fixed myself.