If you go down to the woods today...

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Beethoven
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: 121 (weights and cardio)

Yesterday, I wanted to go and find a bluebell carpet. DH was difficult about it, saying that we’d been to Foxley and Blickling plenty of times before. But eventually he decided we’d go to a patch of ancient woodland, i.e. Ashwellthorpe Lower Wood.

Cue a wander through woodlands to the sound of birdsong and no traffic. Just gorgeous.

And we found bluebells :o)

Plus a dramatic tree.

We also found a carpet of white flowers we didn’t recognise. I thought they were a form of allium (we’ve grown alliums before, but blue ones because I like blue flowers and I’m in charge of bulbs), plus we could smell garlic in the air. The noticeboard back at the car park said that they were either ransom or wood anemones. A little bit of net research told me that they were ransom – aka allium ursinum. Why the link with bears (ursa)? Apparently brown bears liked eating them and digging them up. These flowers are apparently associated with patches of bluebells, and in such situations they are an indicator of ancient woodland. So there you go. Nerdy facts for the day :o)

Sunshine - and elsewhere today

Elsewhere today - over at the Chocolate Box with a very heartfelt thank you http://www.chocolateboxwriters.com/thank-you-by-kate-hardy/ and at the Pink Heart Society with recipes for rye bread and green summer soup http://www.pinkheartsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kates-kitchen-rye-bread-and-green.html.

Yesterday was a glorious bank holiday - lovely to see the sun, so we went to the coast and had a paddle at Cromer.

One of the things I love about the East Anglian coastline is that often you can't see where the sea ends and the sky begins. Plus we were amused by these gulls lining up on the groyne:

Have a nice day!

and ANOTHER cover reveal

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Queen
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Weights

Fabulous session at the gym today - learned to do deadlifts. (Have I mentioned how much I love weights? LOL. Am going to be verrrry boring about this.) And this 'eat more to lose weight' idea might just have something, because I lost 1/2 lb this week. OK, not a huge amount, but I was expecting a gain with the increase in calories and the fact I've tweaked my training to include a bit more weights. But hey. I'm functioning well on this way of eating, so that's fine.

And I have another cover to reveal. I’m in a 3-in-1 special release with one of my very favourite people – Liz Fielding. How cool is that? It’s a reprint of my Sheikh book, ‘Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh’ – I loved writing that book so much.

We have a nice holiday weekend lined up - picking out the Pandora bead for book 56 tomorrow, a barbecue with DH's best friend, and possibly a walk on the beach. Will be nice to have a bank holiday with some sunshine, for once! Hope your weekend is good, too :o)

new cover reveal!

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Michael Buble and Fleetwood Mac
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Weights (all on my own as I was feeling brave), a HIIT circuit and pyramid training on the cross-trainer

Lovely to see blossom starting to unfurl on the tree in our front garden. And it’s warm and sunny today; makes a nice change to be able to put the laundry on the line instead of in the dryer.

Also lovely to see the cover for my July book, A Date with the Ice Princess – very pleased to be in a duo with my friend Jennifer Taylor.

sold!!

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Muse, George Harrison and Rihanna (yes, really – ‘California King Bed’ is gorgeous AND it has proper guitars, so kudos to littlest for spotting that this would work for me as a black moment song)
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Cardio (yesterday was a kick-ass weights workout - very pleased that I bench-pressed a 25kg barbell. Obviously can do more than that on a Smith machine, but free weights are better because it involves using your core for balance)

I am SO thrilled. My ed likes the work I did on Book 56 – so I’m delighted to announce that she’s bought it and ‘Her Real Family Christmas’ will be out in November 2013 in UK, US and Aus. Littlest and I will be going to choose the Pandora bead to celebrate it on Saturday (and we’re going to DH’s best friend’s for a barbecue, so methinks a decent bottle of wine is in order as well). Colour me happy!

spring is sprung?

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57)
Listening to: Chopin
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Cardio

It’s been a nice week. Well, until today, when it’s raining. But it’s been lovely having warm, sunny days. And seeing the new leaves come out. (This is in our back garden.)

What have I been up to this week? At the gym, I was brave on Wednesday and did some HIIT intervals on my own. Yesterday was a 1-2-1 focusing on upper body (can feel it in my shoulders today). And today was pyramid on the cross-trainer (as in start on a high level, drop one level each minute, then go back up again – I tend to do a double pyramid to fit a 20-minute session), intervals on the stepper, and run/walk intervals on the treadmill. Didn't do as well as I planned on the treadmill because I’m really tired today.

The diet? Well… it was nice to stuff my face with fresh pineapple and peaches earlier in the week, and I’ve also had a new-to-me food – rye bread. It’s not the pumpernickel type; it’s more like a dense wholemeal bread, and I’m quite tempted to try making my own. (Will also have to make normal bread, or there will be complaints from the other three members of the household. Dog doesn’t care, but he does like walking round with a bit of bread. He doesn’t eat it – just carries it. Daft spaniel.) Drinking all the water has been quite hard. And not having any hot drinks all week has been a bit of a killer for me – I did crack this morning, and that one cup of coffee was SO nice. I only have one cup of proper coffee a day anyway, so although I don’t think I’m addicted to caffeine, I do seem to function better with it. And I think I should allow myself a cup of tea in the afternoon, too.

The book – seems to be going OK, touch wood.

So how are things with you? (Or, if I can do a Joey Tribbiani… ‘How you doin’?’)

Mixing it up a bit

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57)
Listening to: Beethoven
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Cardio intervals and kettlebells (I am going to feel it tomorrow)

Mixing the diet up a bit after my pal Michelle Styles told me about Haylie Pomroy's diet in the Times at the weekend; very interesting reading. Right now, I'm in a place where I can experiment, and I was intrigued by the idea - to me it looks like interval eating/carb cycling, so I’ll give it a week’s trial and see how it goes (i.e. I want 1lb off and for it to be sustainable - if I'm hungry, grumpy or can't think straight on any of the phases, then it's back to eating sensibly and counting calories).

One of her edicts is that you have to drink 1oz of water for every 2lb of body weight (and I did check she meant UK fluid ounces and not US – they’re slightly different). Yikes. And no coffee. No wheat, no caffeine and no soy I can live with; no dairy might be harder. There are points in the day when I really want a proper cup of tea. And as I like mine very weak and milky… yeah. Rice milk is not going to work for me, there!

So, the meal plan for today: breakfast = oats, blueberries and raspberries; morning snack = peach; lunch = lentil soup, prawns, salad and quinoa; afternoon snack = fresh pineapple; dinner = chicken with apple, with lots of veg and some basmati rice, followed by a mix of pomegranate, peach and fresh pineapple. Yum. Much higher in carbs than I would normally eat (and OMG, sugar...), lower in protein, but the cals work out pretty much the same. Phase two is a bit tougher (basically protein and green veg); and phase three looks very like my normal eating plan, i.e. lots of oily fish and lean protein, veggies, low-GI carbs and a little bit of fruit (I normally go for low-sugar, high-anthocyanin fruits). Plus I have new recipes to play with, so I'm good to go :)

FINALLY finished the revisions, so it’s back to work on my dog-trainer and actor book. The sun is shining, my washing’s on the line, the birds are singing madly, the dog is snoring next to me, and all’s right with the world…