Three weeks ago I was feeling a little bit… January.  I might just have plucked the name of that condition from nowhere, but the symptoms are decidedly recognisable: sluggishness, lack of energy, dull skin and a near-constant desire to huddle under the nearest duvet and watch Judy Garland films in the middle of the day.

Unfortunately, my current schedule does not permit daytime sofa nesting (more’s the pity, right?).  So in a bid to combat my start of year lack of lustre, I began to do two other things instead: the first was to start swallowing a multi-vitamin tablet everyday, and the second was to take up drinking pro-biotic yoghurt.

Now let me be clear on this.  I don’t generally buy into health fads.  Besides the weighty streak of good old-fashioned Scottish scepticism that pulses through my veins, I read Bad Science a couple of years ago and drew my own conclusions about the “healthy living” industry, many of which were firmly rooted in cynicism.  I’m also wary of buying anything health-related that’s advertised on a “purchase and feel amazing” basis.  The packaging is always a dead give away with these things.  If it features a lithe, tanned model with disturbingly white teeth doing some kind of fist-pumping “I FEEL AWESOME” victory dance, I’m usually walking away.  Let’s not even think about the perma-tanned, disturbingly white-toothed family, where the kids look creepily similar in age to the parents and they’re all facing the camera with glued-on smiles and glassy eyes.

Having said that, I’m not against giving things a go.  Someone told me recently that the Finnish Government actually recommends that its citizens take Vitamin D supplements in Winter to combat the adverse effects of there being so little sun around.  And I also recently read somewhere that taking pro-biotics can help to strengthen your intestinal wall, meaning that toxins and other bad stuff finds it harder to get into your blood stream where it can wreak havoc with your skin.  Worth trying, at least.

Furthermore, and this is actually something I do happen to believe in, there’s the placebo effect.  I may be a cynic when it comes to some things, but if an act as simple and as ostensibly harmless as popping a multi-vitamin every morning helps me to believe I’m feeling better, then what does it matter if in actual fact it’s having no effect on my physical health whatsoever?  Multivitamins cost a fraction of a pence each, they don’t taste offensive and as far as I’ve read there are no adverse effects to result from taking them.  Ditto pro-biotics, which admittedly are a lot more expensive (but which taste delicious!).  So my question is this: if it’s not actively bad for me, who the hell cares that the benefits might only exist in my head?

It goes without saying that it’s nigh on impossible to tell what the real effects of pro-biotics or vitamin supplements are.  And a simple Google search for ‘Vitamin D’ quickly reveals that the internet is no place to find a straightforward solution.  Everyone and his best mate seems to be on his soap box on some health forum somewhere, and the number of people singing the praises seems pretty well balanced against the number of people scaremongering about conspiracies, corruption and corporate greed.

I suppose in the end it all comes down to how you or I as individuals feel about these things.  I have felt better since I started popping pills and drinking bacteria.  I feel less bloated after meals, which could be because the yoghurts are helping out with the business of digestion.  My skin is smoother and brighter, which could be because all that vitamin D is taking its toll.  Or it could just be that I’m feeling good because it’s finally not January any more.  The flipping of a page on the calendar perhaps has a greater effect on me than I’m aware of.

The bottom line is, I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone does.  As long as I feel OK, however, I’m not really sure that it matters.

What’s your take on vitamin supplements?  Pro-biotic drinks?  Pro?  Anti?  Indifferent?

Image above from here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0L_y9soInQ

Found this video via A Cup of Jo earlier on.  My favourite is “a Liz Lemon party is MANDATORY”.  Amazing.

So it’s February!  And, as is usually the case at this time of year, it would seem that approximately half of the blogging world is involved in some kind of project, whether it’s outfit posting, writing about the little things in life, or simply taking a photo every day and sharing it.

In line with my abstention from making New Year’s resolutions, I have decided not to hop onto any monthly challenge bandwagons in 2012 (I am, however, reading everyone’s updates!).  Instead, I will attempt to proceed just as normal: read more books, have more adventures, live as fully as I can (the latter is meant both in a big picture – travel, career, love, philosophy – and small picture – “OMG just bloody well IRON your favourite pencil skirt so you might actually be able to wear it!” – kind of way).  I will make pancakes on the 21st though, that much I can guarantee you…

I’m also attempting this year (and every year since I came across Eckhart Tolle for that matter) to focus on what’s happening now and what I can do about it, rather than on what might happen in the future and what I might or might not be able to do about it then.  And on that note, while I will wholeheartedly embrace Spring when it arrives, I’m not going to wish my February away, or hide from the fact that it’s still Winter, still cold outside and still dark far more than it really needs to be.  Imperfect as it may be, the reality is that life is happening now.  In February.  In the cold, in the wind, and in the dark.  This month I’m going to put an extra base layer on, get out there and do stuff.

Image above from here.

Have I ever told you guys about the two weeks I worked as a Beetroot Inspector?  Strictly speaking, the job title was “Process Operator”, but Beetroot Inspector sounded much more fun, and it was also far more accurate a description of what I actually did.  Yup, I inspected beetroot.  For eight hours a day, I stood at a conveyor belt wearing rubber gloves and a white coat, armed with a vegetable peeler and the grimmest of expressions.  My task was to weed through thousands upon thousands of steamed beets as they trundled past me, their destination pickling, then packaging, then distribution to all of the UK’s major supermarket chains.  It was serious stuff.

My beetroot days came fresh out of uni: I was poor, living with my parents and desperately in need of something to tide me over financially while I waited to start my graduate research post in the Autumn.  And despite the obvious downsides – the 5am starts, the factory politics and the fact that I could almost physically feel my woefully underused brain rotting itself into oblivion – I actually had a really great time.  One of my best friends worked on the line next to me and we’d laugh constantly at each other’s factory attire, or we’d carve smiley faces out of individual beets as they passed us by.  Then, as soon as the clock struck 2pm, we would cast off our hair nets and drive home, the air in my tiny second-hand car thick with the putrid stench of industrially-steamed root vegetable.

A charming picture, right?

Anyway, I’m digressing.  Prior to my employment as a Beetroot Inspector, I absolutely loved eating beetroot.  Couldn’t get enough, in fact.  Post-employment, however, and as much as it was fun while it lasted, I couldn’t even look at the stuff without feeling physically sick and attempting to leave the room.  It wasn’t until I started having a fortnightly farm box delivered  a couple of years ago that beetroot began to appear in my life once again.  Every box in a while there would be three or four of them, freshly pulled from the ground, covered in dirt and sniggering at me from the bottom of the crate.  It was only then, when my inbuilt aversions a) to being mocked by vegetables and b) to throwing away perfectly edible food kicked in that I realised it was just about time beetroot and I fell back in love.

And we have.  As it turns out our relationship is even stronger than it was before my inspecting days.  Back then, I had a blinkered view of what beetroot had to offer me: I only had eyes for the pickled kind that comes in jars and tastes great in salads or as a quick post-work snack.  A mistake, friends.  Beetroot is massively flexible in its uses: transformed into fritters, baked into chocolate cakes, stirred into dips – the possibilities seem endless.  I made this rather neon dip effort tonight (grated beetroot, chopped coriander, sea salt and natural yoghurt) and ate it stuffed into wholegrain pitta breads with falafel, cucumber and avocado.  I’ve since been popping back to the kitchen every half hour to scoff some of the leftovers straight from the bowl.  Totally delicious, and so amazingly good for you it hurts.

So.  If there is a moral to this long-winded tale, I suppose it would have to be this:

Good things really can come from working as a Beetroot Inspector.

Worth knowing, right?

What are your favourite beetroot recipes/embarrassing-yet-hilarious jobs?

Absolutely love this, mainly because it captures my Monday morning state of mind so perfectly (the dog on the right, not the left, that is).  Happy start of the week everyone – let yours be blessed with caffeine and full of other good stuff too.

Image above from here.

It somewhat surprises me that, for all I like to think of myself as a culturally astute young lady, until yesterday I’d never once been to see a ballet.  I used to go to ballet classes when I was young but, as my ever-encouraging teacher was so fond of telling us, we were “about as graceful as a herd of elephants” (in case anyone ever needs to know, this is exactly the right way to make a bunch of five year-olds despise ballet dancing, if not develop group eating disorders).

But childhood scarring aside, I think the main reason I’ve never been to the ballet is that I have a bit of a thing about story lines.  I like to follow them near-obsessively, somewhat like a devoted sniffer dog at a baggage carousel.  If I become even temporarily lost or confused by a book or a film I’m liable to crossing my arms and huffing.  I’m definitely not the best at sitting back and letting something wash over me.

But ever since I saw The Artist a couple of weeks ago I’ve become slightly more open to the idea that you really don’t need to have dialogue, or a narrator, to follow something.  That actions really can speak louder than words, if you’ll mind the cliché.  The Artist was incredibly easy to follow as it turned out – the music, the facial expressions and the movement all played their part in ensuring the audience wasn’t left in the dark.

And the same, by and large, goes for the ballet.  Although there were a couple of moments yesterday where I found myself thinking, “but wasn’t she…?” or “but why is he…?”, on the whole, I got it.  And small pockets of minor incomprehension were not even remotely capable of spoiling the fun I was having overall.  Because therein lies the other thing about ballet: it’s just so pretty to look at that it doesn’t really matter if you’re just a wee bit lost, some of the time.  In fact, the storyline almost becomes irrelevant, so profoundly enjoyable is it to sit in front of a live orchestra and to watch colourful tutus, lithe limbs and pointed toes as they leap and float around a stage.

I was amazed by how much I loved it.  Ballet?  A. Good. Thing.

What new stuff have you tried recently?

Image above from here.

I was pondering updating my What I’m Reading page earlier, and in doing so got to reminiscing about all the many books that have come into and gone out of my life over the past year or so.  I love to keep a note of the books I’ve read, mainly because I seem to use them as a means of mapping out my life.  Last year, for example, I remember finishing New Europe by Michael Palin on one of the windiest days we had, when going outside wasn’t even an option.  I also vividly remember reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert on the grass in front of the leaning tower of Pisa in May, when the sun was so hot I couldn’t possibly have walked anywhere other than the nearest gelato kiosk.  Books are to me what I guess diaries are to people who use them properly: a record of one’s life, and a reminder of the little things that have happened that we might otherwise simply forget in our haste to keep moving forward.

With all the free time I had last Summer and all the many bus journeys I seem to have taken since starting my new job, I seem to have managed to read an impressive pile of books over the course of the past 12 months.  So in case you find yourself looking for a little literary inspiration this January, here are some recommendations based on what I’ve read and enjoyed recently.

If you want to read a classic but you dislike ‘the classics’, read Jane Eyre.  The writing is digestible, the characters aren’t annoying and although it’s a love story at heart it’s not sickly sweet and schmaltzy.  I read this during the first couple of weeks at my new job last September.  It was welcome respite at the end of busy days full of new faces and things.

If you want to laugh really hard until you think you might pee a little, read either Bossypants by Tina Fey, or Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby.  Either one will produce the desired effect.

If you want to be gripped, read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I blame this book (and its two sequels) for many a groggy-headed morning in October and November.  I literally couldn’t put it down.  Not even for sleep, or to finish making a cup of tea.

If you want to learn things you’ll remember and that will make you sound knowledgeable, read A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich.  This is definitely in my top 3 reads from last year.  It’s full of interesting stuff, but it’s also written in such a way that reading it doesn’t feel like learning.  In fact, reading it feels like drinking hot chocolate in front of a roaring log fire while it snows outside.  It’s perfect.

If you want to escape, read His Dark Materials trilogy.  There are enough ideas in these three books to keep you thinking for months, and enough magic to rival the whole Harry Potter back-catalogue.

If you want to cry (sometimes I genuinely do want this from a book), read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.  This quickly became one of my favourite books of all time, and I read the whole thing in one evening.  It’s brilliant, and heart-breaking, and all kinds of life-affirming all at once.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

If you just want to be entertained, read Boiling a Frog by Christopher Brookmyre.  This didn’t change the way I see the world, and it didn’t cause me profound, deep thoughts or the loss of any sleep.  But it was funny, it was intriguing and it really did entertain me.  And sometimes, when it comes to a book, that’s really all you need, isn’t it?

What have you read recently that’s worth recommending?

Image above from here.

This weekend I’m visiting friends, so I expect to be working on more tea, more laughter, more dreaming and more fun.  Not so much on the more sleep, but there’s always next week!  Happy Fridays everyone.

Image above from here.

I find I get the most out of writing Things I Love Thursday posts when it feels like my Thursday hasn’t really been all that brilliant.  Like today, for example.  A couple of awkward moments at work were followed by a couple of near-misses with buses and taxis on the way home, a shouting match with a pedestrian who was clearly unaware of the green cross code and (to my shame) a bit of post-confrontational sobbing.  Hmm.

But behold!  It’s none other than the re-emergence, through the emotionally cleansing practice of positive blogging, of all the good stuff in my life on this one day that I would quite possibly have completely ignored had I not paused to write about.  Praise be to TilTing, blogging and generally being so very thankful.  Here’s what’s ace about today:

The fact that I even have a job to feel awkward about sometimes.  And a job that 98% of the time I feel positive about at that.

The financial freedom to be able to buy whatever food I think will put a smile back on my face when my day has been less than perfect.  Tonight that tonic was falafel wraps with guacamole, coriander, yoghurt and cucumber.

These headphones, which I bought a couple of weeks ago and have hardly had off of my noggin since.  Benefits: they are comfortable, they keep my ears warm and I am spared the rather unnatural and fairly gross process of jamming something hard and plastic into my ear every time I want to listen to Arcade Fire.  I’m in love.

Crap from the street.  I found an abandoned book case sitting out in the rain this evening as I arrived home after the cycle from hell.  I’ve been pining for a place to display my books for months now and this was too perfect an opportunity to pass up (it was also proof that good, and sometimes free, things come to those who wait because they are stingy).  I’m going to spend some time this weekend making it look pretty and arranging my books by all sorts of order like the nerd I am, but I’ll share a photo or two afterwards.

New people!  My flatmate is in Antarctica at the moment (I KNOW), so I’m getting new living space company for the next couple of months.  I can’t wait to have someone to offer my banal, uninteresting post-work chat to again – the past few weeks I’ve had to resort to talking to myself, which is but the first step on a very slippery slope, I think.  And finally…

My Bed.  It’s warm, it’s comfortable and no matter how bad any day becomes it will never be too long before I can pile it high with blankets and burrow in until the storm blows over.

Now you!  What’s making you smile this Thursday?

Image above from here.

…and granny blankets.  As the temperature drops the race to finish this quilt intensifies, but I’m pleased to report that the cheery colours are helping to keep my January bright.  So far, 42 squares are done, which leaves 22 to go.  Can we all just quietly ignore for now the reality that I’m going to have to sew the whole thing together before it can keep me cosy at night?

What are you making this Winter?