Books and Sweet Beetroot

This may be a rant!  Rant warning ahead!  I have been reading Dr Rangan Chatterjee "The 4 pillar plan" - how to relax, eat, move, sleep"  I saw this book advertised while flat out on the sofa at New Year feeling extremely poorly.  The book was the bit of my parental christmas money that hasn't gone on my "new boiler fund"  I'm really enjoying reading it.  He packs a lot of facts about nutrition and health into a very glossy book with lovely photos.  A very good January read that has me wanting to minimise sugar intake, walk 10,000 steps (when I am well!) and sleep better than I was doing last year. It probably needs to be taken with a fair pinch of salt but liking the approach so far.

This isn't the rant.  That ire is reserved for Tesco beetroot.  I absolutely adore beetroot and putting a bit of colour along with the jacket potatoes seems a great idea.  It wasn't until I was idly reading the pack to see if I could recycle it that I discovered that malt vinegar was an ingredient - of course! AND SUGAR. WHY?? Beetroot is a beautiful, naturally sweet veg.  It's started me reading food labels.  Ham chunks from Tesco?  Honey - well ok, maybe, but SUGAR again!  I'm a pretty passionate cook and usually buy ingredients, not ready made meals and one of the two resolutions this year is to cook something different each month.  (The other is to blog regularly) I must admit I rarely read labels, but Dr Chatterjee and trying to kick the weight that being on steroids and antidepressants will add makes me a bit more wary.  I am aware the white evil stuff is everywhere and cutting down is going to be a bit challenging - I like my chocolate too!

The other downside of having been on steroids and still being on an increased asthma med dose which presumably contains a steroid, is it's tilted my bodyclock.  I am awake blackbird early - except in this season, blackbirds doze later than me.  I crept into town for a Saturday coffee at 7.30am because costa was warm - unlike my house at the moment, which is waiting a new boiler (any excuse will do for a Saturday coffee) and then walked around the cathedral.

I loved this art installation.  In fact it made me cry: it's called Open Heaven.  It does indicate the cross, the reconciliation Jesus achieved, but actually on the step down Jesus makes, in love, to rescue us so we can talk to God, anytime, anywhere and be welcomed.  For me it bypassed a lot of over thinking and a tendency to worry that I "don't get it" properly.  That's what art does, I think, speak to us in ways we hear clearly.  Especially for someone who grew up reading cereal packets, newspapers, sweet wrappers absolutely anything anywhere!