Health Diary Week 84: Food, Exercise and a Positive Mind

A Marvellous Weekend

Hello weekend. Image: messersrach, Pixabay

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Hi, welcome to another weekly instalment of what’s on my plate: health updates, meal creations and smile-provoking experiences.

My Back is Better

I had to cancel my week’s work shifts, because of the ongoing back pain and related sleep deprivation – I was forced into attempting to sleep in a somewhat seated position, rather than my usual on my side preference. Thankfully, by Thursday the pain was almost gone – I reckon the heat wrap and hot water bottle helped ease things up. When I spoke to the Physio, we decided I need to be more mindful of my posture at work and move about when possible.

Shoulder Physiotherapy (2nd appointment)

On Thursday, I had my second shoulder physio appointment. I was a bit worried, because I hadn’t done my exercises for a week. But my Physio confirmed I’d made good progress, with increased strength and range of movement. I was given a couple of new exercises and encouraged to think about re-introducing swimming when I feel more Covid-safe.

Me after my individual 5 km charity swim (Swimathon, 2012)

Histamine update

On Friday, I had a phone appointment with my doctor. I updated I’d received my Allergy Clinic referral and had booked the first available appointment, but it’s not until the end of August. I explained I’m often taking the Loratadine antihistamine twice a day (instead of once) to minimise symptoms. So, since my mast cell stabiliser prescription is unavailable, we decided to try a combo of two antihistamines with different active ingredients – Loratadine in the morning and Cetirizine before bed.

Ben Cooks Plants (incredibly well)

I decided there wasn’t any point in writing about my homemade meals this week, because there wasn’t anything new and they were completely overshadowed by the massive food treat I had on Sunday. I’d headed over to Tina and Ben’s garden for the afternoon and was invited to stay for dinner. Now there’s absolutely no way I could decline Ben’s cooking – it’s my favourite! How fortunate I am to have a friend who is not only a vegan chef (fence replacer too – Week 82), but also up for the challenge of producing a low histamine meal. I have to say it was as excellent as my memory remembered his meals to be – so yeah, superb! You can check Ben’s food out on Instagram at Ben Cooks Plants:

Ben’s food. Check out this spread! I could eat the four dishes to the left, because Ben made them low histamine for me – thank you!
Ben’s food, closer. Clockwise: The dishes I could eat. Pulpo a la Gallega (palm hearts replace octopus). Courgette and cucumber salad. Serrano ‘ham’ with cucumber and mint. (There were also fried peppers with garlic shown, in first photo). Sooo delicious!

Positive Thinking: What Made Watson Smile

The amazing food above definitely made me happy and here are a few more things that made me smile…

Al fresco dining with friends:

I really do love socialising and dining outside when the weather is good. I had a lovely Saturday in Tina’s and Ben’s garden. I was only planning on visiting for a couple of hours, but we were having such a good time and the weather was gorgeous and another friend (Mark) arrived in the evening, so I ended up staying until 10.30pm (I’d arrived at 2pm!):

Social in Tina and Ben’s garden (the evenings are still pretty cold!). Left: I was giggling away at how funny Tina and I looked while trying to take a photo of us. Right: A less blurry picture of us

Upcycling old stuff:

There’s something incredibly satisfying about livening up an old item to make it something better than it was originally. In this case, a couple of our outside seat pads had faded to a horrible grey colour in the sun (unfortunately, Mum didn’t take a photo of them before she started her magic). So, instead of just throwing them away, Mum found a design she liked and used her acrylic paints to liven them up. They look great, don’t they?:

Mum’s upcycled seat cushions. Top: The finished product. Bottom: In progress

More kitten cuteness:

On Sunday, I visited Bevy’s and Harry’s garden to get to know their kitten, Loki, better as I’m due to be cat sitting for them. Well, Loki is just adorable, I could watch him for ages – serious kitten cuteness overload! And of course it was wonderful to sit in the sunny garden with Bevy and catch up on each other’s news:

Gorgeous Maine Coon kitten, Loki

I hope you enjoyed this week’s ‘What’s on Watson’s Plate’. Please feel free to follow my bite-sized updates on Instagram or Facebook. See you next week for another catch up.

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Health Diary Week 81: Food, Exercise and a Positive Mind

Stormy Spring

Stormy Spring clouds on my walk back from physio

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Hi, welcome to another weekly instalment of what’s on my plate: health updates, meal creations and smile-provoking experiences.

NHS Covid Administrator – Week 2

I successfully completed my second week as a Covid Administrator. I’m enjoying the social interaction and having a variety of tasks: Check-in, directing people into assessment or vaccine bays and working in the vaccine bays. The vaccine bays were particularly interesting – I checked and updated patient records and distracted nervous people. Also, I had the opportunity to observe syringes being prepared and vaccines being given – I can’t believe that I can handle this now – a few years ago there’s no way I could. And, during down-times I chatted to some inspiring vaccinators from a variety of backgrounds.

Physiotherapy

I received a phone call on Tuesday, offering me an in-person physiotherapy appointment the next day. I really liked my physiotherapist, Arienne, who asked lots of questions and made me feel listened to. Arienne tested me for nerve damage (all seems fine) and assessed my range of movement and strength – I can’t believe how much strength I’ve lost in my damaged shoulder/arm. I found out there’s no such thing as a locked rotator cuff – I’m sure that’s what A&E told me I had (I’d wondered why I couldn’t find anything about it online). It was decided the exercises I’d been trying to do were too advanced for my current situation, so some new ones were assigned. I’m back for another session in a couple of weeks. I now feel a lot more confident that my shoulder will eventually heal.

New physio exercises to improve the range of movement in my shoulder and arm

Easy, Convenient Dinners

I haven’t had much energy for cooking since I started work, so thank goodness for simple options and frozen batch-cooked food. My go-to post-work light dinner is a simple filled pitta of Violife ‘cheese’ slices, Quorn ‘ham’ slices and salad – simple yet tasty (but admittedly a histamine risk). One evening, I added frozen cooked veg and notomato sauce to noodles and topped them with spring onion. Noodles are really convenient; so, another time I accompanied them with a simple macadamia sauce (macadamia butter, oat milk, garlic granules, mixed herbs and sweet paprika) and served them with a side of coated cauliflower wings from the freezer. I also made a cheesy vegetable pasta using frozen cauliflower and broccoli cheese, carrots and sweetcorn – convenient and delicious:

My easy dinners: Clockwise: ‘Cheese’, ‘ham’ and salad pitta. Vegetable noodles in notomato sauce. Macadamia noodles with cauliflower wings. Cheesy vegetable fusilli pasta

Positive Thinking: What Made Watson Smile

As always, I’m happy to share a few things that made me smile this week…

Kind freebies:

I ordered some supplies from the Vegan Kind Supermarket. They added some free vanilla custard and chickpea fusilli to my delivery – how kind:

Vegan Kind Supermarket freebies: Vanilla custard and chickpea fusilli

Helpful friends:

I received a message from my tenants to say that my garden fence had fallen down in the storm. I must say this was not a smile provoker, but what did make me smile was that one of my friends replied to my Facebook shout-out and confirmed he could help rectify the problem:

Fence down: My poor garden fence finally came down in the most recent storm

Catch-ups:

The stormy weather meant that I couldn’t meet up with Bevy in person. This is another situation that could have been seen as a negative. But, meeting online meant that we got to chat with Charlotte too – and we had such a great much-needed catch up. And, at the end of the week, I had an online chat with Dawn, a like-minded new(ish) friend:

Great friends: Charlotte, me and Bevy (my Mexican-themed party, 2011)

I hope you enjoyed this week’s ‘What’s on Watson’s Plate’. Please feel free to follow my bite-sized updates on Instagram or Facebook. See you next week for another catch up.

>>>Week 82
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