On the weekend I went to see the Cat Empire play at Brixton Academy. Such a lovely sounding group!! And then on Sunday I went to the inSpiral restaurant, in Camden (London). Woweee! The best raw food I've tasted. Not that I've tasted much, but I went to VitaOrganics before in London and I wasn't impressed. Tiny portion sizes, weird flavours. No thanks. And I really like Rainforest Creations Raw Food - but I find it very oily and bit too spicy for me. This was the perfect grub. I had a massive sized Sunfood Burger and three delicious salads. I was full for about 6 hours afterwards! Usually I'm hungry on cue every three hours. Then on the way home in the car, (6 hours later having almost digested the food) we couldn't resist trying the cakes we'd bought for pudding but had to have them to-go. We had Raw Key Lime Pie and a slice of Peanut Butter and Chocolate cheescake - oh and some fudge that was like a solid brick of cocoa but still awesome. Anyways, the cakes were to die for. It's the first time I've really had a proper raw cake. And although I felt they were very bad for me (all those nuts and oils!!) it was still the naughtiest and nicest thing I've eaten (in the unhealthy category) for a long time.




They do cooked vegan and veg food as well.














This was the Sunfood burger I had.



















They do amazing raw chocolates - but pricey. £1.25 for one single choc!

















The peanut butter cake we had.









So off topic... Here's a picture of the dog bite two days ago.
Today it's much darker. Hope to goodness it isn't infected! But it's been a week now, so hopefully things are going ok. I'm putting lots of lavender oil on it because it's antimicrobial and like a disinfectant of sorts.




















And apparently it is WORLD VEGAN MONTH in November, and today I was filmed for a Welsh Magazine programme called WEDI 3 about my vegan diet. It wasn't a very concise interview, just all smiles and niceties - I didn't even really talk about what exactly it was I ate. But hopefully people might think - oh she's very nice and smiley, therefor, vegans must be lovely. LOL! :))

Yup I reopened my own account again instead of the one I was using for the transition town - and it's much nicer being 'myself' again = so much so that I'm pretty much back on facebook lol! It was annoying having the TT one because I wouldn't allow myself to look at any one else's albums, but now I can and I can upload my own albums too - what a turn around! :)

I got bitten by a dog tonight!!

There's this man who breeds horses along our lane, in a field and he keeps an Alsatian there to guard the horses... but this dog can come out anytime. Thing is the man doesn't live there, and I never ever see him to ask him to put a fence up to keep the big dog in!
But tonight, first time in AAAGES he was actually in the field, cleaning out the stables.. so I went to ask him.. and as I asked him, two terriers came growling at me and one of them bit me! I was so frustrated and ANGRY! His gate was wide open, and he TOLD me, "Yeah these dogs bite!"

Well I carried on going running with my friend, by the time we'd finished our jog my leg was all bloody. And the bruise really came out.



Here's a pic of it. Two nice little puncture wounds and a small one. It's been leaking blood and lymph all night and kinda hurts!


So I called the police! It's the THIRD time I've been bitten by a dog along our lane.
Hopefully I'll get a visit from a police person tomorrow.

Thing is I'm a dog person mostly - but rescue dogs are mostly friendly, it's when the dog has been taught its OK to bite, that's when you get trouble. These dogs were nervous as anything - just like the owner. Come on people! Train your dogs!

Rant over :))

But on the lighter side - or heavier - check out my heavyweight Summer Squash from the polytunnel, awesome or what?
And my cucumber plants are still CHUCKING OUT THE CUKES! love it.. means I can have my daily shot of wheatgrass and cuke juice everyday.

I've recently bought sunflowers in their husks to grow sunflower sprouts.
Also I had a new jar of Kika Green Powder - it's got every green plant ever in it, love it. Non heat treated, dried freezed kelp, chlorella, blue green algae, amaranth, spirulina, barleygrass - the works.

I always feel raw inspired in the Autumn! Don't ask why :) I guess to me Autumn is time of creativity and magic - LOVE IT! BRING IT ON!! WHOOHOO!

I have no idea why, but facebook is addictive!
Actually I have got an idea or two.

You get to see your friend's photographs and talk to friends and present a face for all to see.
Funny thing is, I haven't got a facebook page - I have a Transition Towns page for my local area and I'm the admin. But I made a booboo by not making it a business account but a personal account! Luckily I have ridiculously high moral standards (urm..) so I restrict myself from looking at my 'friend's' photographs. I think that would be wrong as they arent' MY friends but Transition Cwm Gwendraeth's friends. But of course the temptation is still there.
I used to have my own facebook page - but I deleted it - only I haven't deleted it, because with facebook, you can reactivate your page anytime you want just by logging in - it's just too simple! But that's the point - it keeps people on facebook. I hate that, I wish they could just make you go through a huge rigmarole everytime you want to re register, you know think of a new password and fill in a form. But the temptation is there all the time just to login again! Unless of course you make a really hard password to remember and don't write it down and don't let your pc remember it for you...

..anyways!! Long story short (Too late!) - I have now got rid of the Transition Towns Facebook, and hope I find a way of making a group page without me having to log on.
It's weird tho, I just want to click on it all the time to see what people are doing. Why do I care that someone I've never met is driving on the motorway, or going to eat pizza tonight! I don't care! (although I obviously do, hmph!!)

InnerTalk CD's - or other 'mind programming CD's'... You know the type, they repeat positive affirmations like "I enjoy not holding a cigarette", "I can enjoy feeling hungry" - sort of thing.
In a way, it makes sense that if your subconcious believes something you'll have difficulty doing otherwise... but is listening to affirmations really the way to change your subconcious?
I'm not so sure.
I think you can change by making small changes and facing your desire for whatever head on, until new connections are made in your brain.
I don't seem to have found (not that I've looked) any proof that mind programming things work!

Any opinions?

Just to let you know there are two Free Get Fresh magazines available from the Get Fresh Website. Autumn 2007 Issue is Free as is Summer 2006. I'm not sure if you have to buy something to get them free, I got these two as I added them to my basket because I bought the recent issues

Chicken in the house... Father was away, so the chickens come in to play (shh, don't tell).

















Ferrets having a cuddle the other day.













I finished my plate today. I worked on it ages ago... but haven't got around to finishing it... but I did today. It isn't hard to do a plate - but it is very physical and tough. Contradiction?
It's noisy, and you gotta bang down the mallet hard on the chisel and my arms were aching... so it feels good to have the plate done. Well, I still have to sand it. It's a very chunky plate! And heavy :) But my plate making teacher - my bf - kept saying 'It's supposed to look like that - rustic'. So there we go!

I've watched this film twice today! haha! But omg the love! The love! After watching this film you feel love and spirit of all these women and babies is just filling you up and eminating out of you in a starlight glow.

I've always loved babies... up to one year old - I love them. So frickin' adorable. After that age, it becomes harder - although lots of fun too. So this film is perfect to revel in the babyness of babies.

It's definitley a feel good film - there are no 'bad times' shown at all. None of the reality of what it's like for the parents in the Himba tribe, with no doctors around, but yet again, it's the babies perspective - what to babies know of doctors? It just shows THEIR world, NOT their parents' or families thoughts/world.
It makes me happy to see how resilient the babies are. They are very very very clever, and tough, and have such intuitiveness, it's unbelievable. They KNOW - everything, it seems. How can they? It's amazing. One day they can't even see very far, then a few hundred days pass and they are crawling and communicating, then another hundred days and they are dancing!
It makes me feel that children, in a way, CAN look after themselves. Also in another way, I almost ALMOST envy the freedom that comes with the Himba tribe in Africa... The mothers are the best of friends, laughing and touching eachother and feeding eachothers babies. They seem to have the most TRUST that everything is going to be okay. And maybe it IS... Our busy, road and car filled world is, strangely more dangerous... We are far more tense here. But how can we re create such ease of the Himba tribe within our own culture? I guess it is to trust in your baby.
Bayar, the Mongolian little baby boy seems to be always on his own - almost getting trampled by cows at times...I just wonder what the mother's mindset is... Does she care? Does she trust? Where was she when a cockerel was walking on his bed and could have scratched out his eyes. Does she trust the animals? Or does she feel that she can 'deal' with whatever happens? These people are very tough and perhaps she just expects that her baby needs to be as tough as she is.

Just wondering :)

I must be mad! But today I went there again with my boyfriend. It was a lovely cycle there - mostly down hill. And we went another way home, a way I didn't want to go because it invloved crossing over the dual carriageway = but we did and it was a much quiker route.
Mind, I cycled quite fast today coz bf is a fast cycler, and after friday's 19 miles my legs were almost giving up the will to peddle!
Bf wasn't too keen on Many Tears - well, he isn't a dog lover, so I'm really proud/glad that he came.

I only walked two lots of dogs today. Bf took a chocolate lab called Morocco who was lovely, but apparently extremely nervous when he arrived there first. I'd never have known just by looking at him. His head was massive.
And I took a lab cross, black, called Pollen who was bounding along on the lead and I had to lean backwards because he was pulling me so hard! Apparently he didn't get on well with other dogs so I had to be careful. They also had kennel cough.
Then bf had enough and I took out another two dogs. A collie called Gordon who was lovely and didn't pull on the lead, and a Cairn terrier called Keltic. I was actually quite nervous that this small dog would bite me because she was really nervous and didn't want to walk on the lead at all. But she finally came around and even jogged along side me a little. But when I took off her lead I thought I was going to get bitten!
But there we go, half or more of the dogs in there have got behavioural probelms - because some of them were almost drowned as puppies and just caught in the nick of time. The little one I took today was a breeding bitch. Imagine giving birth to litter after litter in a dark barn or shed never seeing people and just being sore and lonely. No wonder they're nervous.

...but luckily, Many Tears is a Dog Rescue Centre!

My bf gave me the idea today. I usually like to go for a bike ride once a week, but I also wanted to find a way to go the Dog Rescue to walk some dogs. Thing is, Many Tears is miles away and I didn't even think it possible to get there any other way by car. But my bf suggested I cylce there.
I went home and had a look at how to get there - I found a route, 8 miles long! Not so far! I've done 8 miles before. But it's tough and I usually end up after a 16 mile round trip with jelly legs. So I didn't think I could make it. I phoned my sister who lavished me in moral support and said I could do it. So I went for it!

I got rather lost in the back roads - but the views were stunning and the weather clear and cool. I was really enjoying myself - well, until I got lost. Then clouds started coming over and it echoed my mood. But I finally found a person along the lanes and he directed me as to where to go. And I finally found it!

I had such a GREAT day! I feel chuffed that I managed to find the place and cycle back all in one piece. And not only that I did some good. I took many dogs for a walk and it must have made them very happy.

The rescue centre is a very busy place. They have so many dogs. The owner, Sylvia goes to Ireland to collect dogs from a pound that has a kill policy. Most of the dogs she rescues from there are literally walking death row, minutes from the injection. They obediently walk next to the human and wag their tails, not knowing in a few minutes they'll never breathe, walk, wag or run ever again. Why? Because horrible humans decided to throw them out, like rubbish.

The dogs probably don't know how lucky there are to be given a second chance at life.

In Many Tears they get walks and love and there's a website that people from all over Britain check daily to see which dogs are in the Centre. Most of them find their forever home - and one day soon we'd like to offer another dog a forever home with us here.

Today I took a Great Dane pup for a walk, a collie, a labrador, and a lurcher cross. I also put a dog and her few days old puppies into a crate in a car - they will go off to a foster home until the puppies are big enough to be adopted.

I really admire the work the people at the Rescue centre do, and for Bill and Sylivia's determination and love for animals.

Sylvia is a vegan and she loves and rescues horses and cats too.

I'm really glad I could spend time there today :)))









Magico the great dane pup - extremely strong!












Can;t remember this one's name, but very sweet natured.















Forgot his name too.









Roxie's puppies













Madame the black lurcher












Osca the collie