Odds and healthy sods

I don't know if it's the weather or advancing age, but my joints have felt recently like they need oiling. I can no longer leap out of a chair and dash to answer the phone, I get up and creak my way over. Bizarre. I'm hoping it's the weather.

Just in case, I went to a herborist last weekend with a recipe for remineralising ye olde bones that I got from a magazine I subscribe to called Plantes & Bien-Etre. If you have joint pain, tiredness, breaking nails, hair loss, these could all be due to a lack of minerals which is due to an excess of acidity in the body rather than poor nutrition. The stresses of modern life block the elimination of acid so a helping hand is needed.

The shop, located in the old part of Montpellier, in a beautiful stone building, was fascinating. There wasn't much room to move about because it was filled with goodies. The walls were lined with jars of herbs of every description. My recipe posed no problem to the experienced herborist. She suggested she make three times the amount which would give me a cure of about one month. The bag cost me about €15 which I thought was very reasonable seeing all the good it was going to do me.

La Quintessence, Montpellier

The recipe is designed to stimulate the hepatorenal function and remineralise the body.
Mix 15gr of the following:
Nettle leaves
Horsetail
Birch leaves
Chicory roots
Strawberry leaves
Boil a bowl of water with one tablespoon of the mixture. Turn off the heat and cover for ten minutes. Filter and drink one to two bowls per day for six weeks, once or twice a year. Or you can drink it one week per month over several months.

The article in the magazine says that you should act in three ways only one of which is drinking the tisane. The others are removing the sources of acidose: stress, milk products, animal proteins (bugger!) and industrial food (no probs, I don't touch the stuff); and increase vegetal sources of minerals - nuts, leafy veg.

Tonight we're having roast chicken... with some leafy salad.

But, on Friday I made a tasty nearly veggie meal for which I'll share the recipe. I had a potimarron (small pumpkin) so made a stuffed dish:
2 potimarrons (I had one)
30cl crème fraiche
200g lardons
100g chestnuts (from a jar/sous-vide)
Cut the top off the potimarron(s), and empty out the seeds. Pepper the inside. Fry up the lardons. In a bowl, mix together the cream, cooked lardons and chestnuts, and add salt. Cook at 180°C for an hour and a half.
What I did: I used less cream and lardons, added turmeric and garlic to the mix. It was very tasty.

Served with roasted Brussel sprouts and chestnuts in Balsamic vinegar which were delicious:
Some sprouts
Olive oil
Balsamic syrup (boil up cheaper Balsamic vinegar until you get 1 tbs of syrup).
The recipe calls for lardons but I left those out.
Toss the sprouts in the oil and salt & pepper. Roast the sprouts in the same oven until cooked. Add the chestnuts for the last ten minutes or so. Take out of the oven and dribble over the vinegar. Toss. Check the seasoning and serve.

I've also been doing yoga nearly every day during the holidays as my yoga teacher has been absent. Just ten or fifteen minutes, based on exercises she sent so I don't have to start all over again after a two-week break. If I didn't work, I'd do more, especially when I look at this impressive video of a guy who started from a really desperate situation:

Post by Collective Evolution Lifestyle.

Who knows, I may even end up standing on my head again. I haven't done that since I was about eight. Or not.

Chestnutted

I've found my MP3 charger. Problem is I've now lost the damn player! Bugger bugger bugger. I've also a nasty feeling it's been nicked out of my unlocked car. Strong Language Warning: F U C K

On the good side, cute guy is not the wayward straying evil bugger I thought he was, so that's all right...

Last night I was at a Fête de la Châtaigne at my youngest's school. They were roasting chestnuts and had provided wine, soft drinks and nibbles just to get everyone together. I think it was the parents' association that organised it.

I went along and grappled with some burnt or undercooked chestnuts while my son rushed about playing with his friends. Then I took my plastic cup of red plonkino and retired to a nearby fence to observe the goings on. I felt like some sort of scientist observing the social interaction of an obscure tribe. I didn't know anyone and just felt I didn't particularly want to either. Except one. An ex-neighbour who is ng's physiotherapist, who told his wife I'm looking fabulous at the moment and she hasn't spoken to me since. hehe... There's French women for you!

I must have been in one of my bizarre moods - out of it, stand-offish, unfriendly. Then one lady did come over - the grandmother of a friend of my youngest, who I know. She must have been desperate for company... anyway, we exchanged pleasantries and then I searched around for something to say. She is elegant and kind, but just with enormous communication barriers. Which of course makes any conversation a mere banality and a way of filling the time before you can decently go home.

Eventually I was able to take my leave and rushed off to embrace the human warmth of my two darlings at home. Relief!