Mid-week rambles

• I'm writing this bleary eyed at 5.30am in the morning. Have been up for a few hours. I couldn't sleep, I still can't sleep, and I have a breakfast meeting and three proposals to write today. How am I going to keep my eyes open today?
  
  
• Gorgonzola, broccoli and pasta tonight for dinner - I'm already dreaming of it.
  
  
• All week, our tummies have been filled with juicy peaches, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, pineapples and watermelon.
  
  
• Be still, and know that I am God. Still my favourite mantra in the middle of a hectic day, even though I don't care for the rest of the psalm.
  
  
• It's my birthday on Friday!
  
  
• A post I read recently made me think about manifesting for a good relationship. I never had the patience to do this when I was sans M and single, but a friend of mine years ago, who had been single for several years, found a picture of her ideal relationship and meditated regularly on the image. She also made a list of all the qualities she wanted in a partner and meditated on that too. After a short time, that image of her ideal relationship materialised for her in the shape of the man who is now her now husband.
  
  
• I usually try and make the effort to take a packed lunch into work each day, but this and last week I've been enjoying some lovely lunches from Crussh - summer porridge with berry compote, pomegranate chicken and spiced brown rice salad with a yoghurt and mint dressing, sweet pepper and Moroccan chicken salad with sun-dried tomatoes and basil, hemp and sunflower seed organic yoghurt... Today I may try one of their super-healthy-sounding health pots - perhaps beetroot, chickpeas and fresh coriander, or perhaps organic grated carrot, pumpkin seeds, sultanas and cranberries in a flaxseed oil and mustard dressing.
  
  
• My presentation to clients yesterday went extremely well. They work in the luxury end of the food industry and eat in Michelin-starred restaurants virtually every day, and yet they said that when they go out for pleasure it is to small, independent, ethnic restaurants such as Indian or Thai. One of the guys said he likes nothing better than eating tinned Heinz spaghetti hoops for dinner after a day of eating fancy food! Luckily, they seemed to enjoy my choice of dinner venue - Sardinian restaurant Sardo. For starters, I ate carpaccio di manzo - finely sliced fillets of beef marinated in extra virgin olive oil, lemon and fresh herbs, served with rocket leaves and pecorino shavings. For mains, I ate tonno alla griglia - grilled fresh tuna steak served with rucola and tomatoes. And my dessert was an amaretto sponge cake with nougat ice cream.
  
  It was wonderful meeting people as crazy about food as I me. They too plan their holidays around what they like - or would like - to eat!
  
  
• I finally got my parents' cine 8 reels of childhood home movie footage converted to DVD. The transfer cost a whopping £200 for just 1 hour and 25 minutes but it's for their 40th wedding anniversary on the 15th of August, so it's completely worth it. M has been having fun watching his wife as a 1 year old and it's been wonderful for me to see how glamourous my parents and their Indian friends looked all those years ago - having dinner parties and going on day trips to the seaside or to the country. It strikes me that footage of middle class Indian life in 60s and 70s Britain must be so rare.