Hi everyone, hope you are all well and have had a great weekend! I am currently sat on the sofa feeling like I’ve been ran over by a truck, but it has all been worth it for what has been a brilliant weekend at Kendal Calling!

His n hers muddy wellies!

We set out early on Friday morning to arrive at the festival site before it got too busy. We still had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get in, but once we got settled and the tent set up we were good to go. Luckily we were blessed with reasonable weather all weekend – bright sunshine with a few showers, in fact it was so sunny on Friday I ended up getting a bit burned!

Feathers in my hair, tent breakfast of muesli and coffee, trumi bars to keep me going, Chai Wallah stage, graffiti art

Over the whole weekend we saw some fantastic live music, ate some lovely food and enjoyed a few tipples as well! In fact I haven’t let my hair down like that in a very very long time, especially around food. We could have save money and brought more of our own stuff but I really like treating myself to the different foods available as part of the whole festival experience.

Wholemeal pitta stuffed with falafel, hummus, tahini sauce and salad, organic tofu burger, drinking Sailor Jerry’s rum and ginger beer, aubergine, red pepper and cashew curry with coconut cream, pleasant green fields, south indian coconut and vegetable curry

We also enjoyed red wine with chocolate biscuits and crisps back at the tent as well as lots of other pretty unhealthy stuff – I ate a ton of pick n mix sweets, wham bars and now that I’m more relaxed with eating dairy, ice cream. But I also had some yummy smoothies to! Life is all about balance and I enjoyed every bite, however I am well and truly paying the price for it now with a horrendous sugar hangover!

Amazing salted caramel peanut butter ice cream, mango smoothies, flavours of ice cream, more smoothies and a chai tea

James loved it as he is such a big music fan, if you want to know more on the bands we saw check out his music blog! We even got a hug from one guitarist when they came down off the stage to play right in front of us.

The tiny and out of the way Woodland stage, watching the New York Brass Band outside the Riot Jazz stage at 1am, Thomas J Speight playing for us, me being daft, James and Iron Man

One of the things I enjoyed about the festival last year was the Vintage fair which was back again this year. This time I decided to take some spare cash with me!

Vintage floral dress, ‘Coffee is good for your brain’ bag and ‘L’ charm bracelet

My legs are aching from walking around in wellies all weekend, the shower I had last night when we got home at 1.30 was the best I’ve ever had and I’m exhausted, but a happy exhausted :-) It was just a really great weekend and we had such a fantastic time together enjoying ourselves, once again we can’t wait to go back again next year!

Have you ever been to a festival? What’s your favourite part of the festival experience?

Hello everyone! As you are reading this I should be getting settled in at Kendal Calling! I’ve been spending the week getting ready for the festival experience. As I write this the weather forecast doesn’t look that great but we won’t be letting that dampen our spirits! Luckily the cold / flu type thing I’ve had is much much better, I do think that smoothie had a lot to do with it!

You can see what we got up to last year here!

This weeks workouts:

• Saturday – REST
• Sunday – Kettle bell class (plus 30 minutes relaxed cardio on the cross trainer and bike waiting for class to start)
• Monday – 60 minute level 1/2 Vinyasa Flow from Yogaglo
• Tuesday – Body Pump 
• Wednesday – 60 minute level 2 Vinyasa Flow from Yogaglo 
• Thursday – Gym – this strength and HIIT workout with increased weights on some exercises plus an extra 5 minutes on the rowing machine tagged on the end to cool down
• Friday – REST – unless you count setting up a tent and carrying stuff from the car to the campsite as a workout – FYI I DO!

As I said on Wednesday working out actually made me feel much better, however I did make sure that I did some lower intensity yoga too – I found that the focus on breathing helped immensely!

The good weather meant that I could bust out the maxi:

Fave Outfit of the Week: stripy vest top with cowl neck: Monsoon, via a very thoughtful gift from a new found friend :-), tan leather belt: Topshop, black maxi skirt: Primark, tan leather sandals: New Look

So this week has been a bit of an odd one with feeling poorly, although I have to say I haven’t been ill in months and well, these things happen to the best of us! Alongside plenty of magical smoothies my eats have been fairly typical:

Overnight oats with chia seeds, kara coconut milk, goji berries and pistachios with a green smoothie made from spinach, apricots and vanilla sun warrior

Sweet potato with home made cashew sunflower seed butter and a chopped apple

Coffee blended with cacao butter – still loving this combo, more on it soon!

Inspired by Liz’s trail mix salad, a salad with romaine, cucumber, red onion, spring onions, beetroot and some home mixed trail mix including brazil nuts, dried blueberries and mulberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and roasted edamame.

Snack of raw cashews and a beautiful peach

Buddha bowl of quinoa, edamame, tahini miso dressing and parsley on steamed greens

Random ‘use it up’ snack plate lunch of home made raw crackers, cucumber, green pepper, sauerkraut, olives, sesame peanut butter for dipping

Something not so typical for me was more eggs in the form of an omelette with red onion and vegan cheese:

I’m not gonna lie, this was goood!

On the Love List this week…

I would have loved this song from Bat for Lashes anyway, but the fact that it is called Laura makes me love it even more! Hauntingly beautiful and Natasha is so pretty in the video :-) Also…

This article and comments about the paleo diet and ancestry diets in general – the argument of meat centric diets versus plant based diets rages on it seems – an interesting read if you’re a nutrition geek like me! // organic ginger tea sweetened with manuka honey // stocking up on unsweetened almond milk in the 3 for £3 deal at Tesco // enjoying the sun while we’ve had it!

In case you missed it:

• I shared my thoughts on being almost 30
• I gave you a recipe for fat and refined sugar free Courgette, date and pecan bread, plus a vlog on alternatives to refined sugar
• I blogged about my magical cold busting smoothie!

So I am going to be MIA from the blog world for a few days, but I will still be reading your comments :-) Catch me on Twitter and Instagram if you like!

How has your week been? What’s on your Love List this week? Are you looking forward to the Olympic opening ceremony? I’m hoping that somewhere at the festival they will show it. Have a great weekend!

Hi everyone, hope you are all well this fine Wednesday! Today I’m sharing my eats and general goings on from Monday which was a pretty busy and random day, enjoy!

I started my day with the usual hot water and a squeeze of lemon before tucking into my breakfast of Dorset Cereals Simply Muesli, blueberries, blackberries and Alpro hazelnut milk:

I also made myself a frothy hazelnut milk latte:

That hazelnut milk is so good! I got a few cartons from the chilled section as it was 3 for £3 and it is far better than the room temperature hazelnut milk. This one is far creamier and more nutty!

For work I decided to wear my new funky necklace from Topshop paired with a simple white tee and black trousers:

I ate breakfast at 6.30am so I was feeling peckish for my snack by 10.30. I had a sliced pink lady apple with crunchy peanut butter for dipping:

I’d realised that it had been far too long since I’d had some proper peanut butter as recently I’ve tended to reach for the almond butter instead. Love me some PB!

For lunch I had a big salad with romaine, spinach, red onion, red pepper, olives and delicious basil tofu:

Mid afternoon I had another snack of my black bean hummus (check out that colour!) rice cakes and a sliced courgette:

The fridge had been looking pretty bear as far as veggies go, but luckily I quite like courgette dipped in hummus.

I left work and headed over to Newcastle so I could try out a Hot Pilates class at Yogalilies. I had actually forgot that England had a football match on until I realised that people were gathering around this big screen at the Monument:

I was early for my class so I stood and watched the first 20 minutes. There was also a market on around the monument and from where I was standing all I could smell was a mix of incense from the hippy clothing stand and barbeque from the German Bratwurst stand! I was glad to head over to Yogalilies to escape the weird smell and the crowds:

It’s a bit of an oasis of calm in the centre of town! I really enjoyed the class and shall be blogging more about it very soon!

After the class I decided to go and treat myself to a Starbucks:

I had meant to ask for decaf but I forgot! This was an iced grande soy latte and a very ripe banana I’d brought with me to snack on photographed while I swooned over the skin care in the window of Space NK.

Then it was back through to Durham via the petrol station, my parents house where I couldn’t resist taking a picture of their beautiful roses…

Roses are my favourite flower, these smelled beautiful. Then I called in to my Grandmas to say hi, then to pick up James from work and finally home!

At that time of night I always go for my failsafe ‘dinner’ of a green smoothie and boy was this a good one!

I blended spinach, 6 fresh apricots, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ice, water and a little bit of vanilla stevia then topped it with Kashi Almond Flax Crunch and some raisins. It turned out the most vibrant green!

I had a mug of herbal tea before bed while I checked out the new Maximo Park album that had just been delivered:

I got a signed copy! Love this band, they are local and there’s just something about their sound and Paul Smith’s lyrics that remind me of home. They are even doing a bunch of mini gigs at Independent Music Stores around the North East on Saturday. I’m tempted to try and get to one but I know that they will be crazy busy, especially as the Olympic Torch Relay is going through Newcastle and Durham at the same time. I’ll be seeing them at Kendal Calling in July anyway :-)

So I was quite a busy little bee on Monday and having a few snacks sorted kept me going, apple and nut butter and hummus and rice cakes are definitely two of my favourites. As the title of the post suggests I felt like I was all over the place but I quite like having a lot of variety in my day like that. I could seriously get into the habit of popping to Yogalilies for a class and then treating myself to a Starbucks but I don’t think my bank balance would thank me!

On another note, anyone that fussed on the football this year? I used to really like watching England matches in the World Cup or Euros and this is the first year I really don’t care. I still hope they do well though!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Hello everyone, hope your having a great week! I’ve just about recovered from my weekend at the wonderful Kendal Calling Festival. We had such an awesome time, the weather was perfect and I actually really enjoyed the whole camping experience!

  OOTD: orange sun glasses: New Look, strapless sun dress: Accessorize, pink scarf: gift, beaded necklaces: various, black leggings: H&M, tan cross body bag: Mango, wellies: Boules

Although the weather was good the grass was a bit damp so I stuck with the wellies, plus it meant that I didn’t get yucky stuff on my feet in the toilets!

The whole festival was just brilliant, we enjoyed drifting around the fields popping into the various tents and stages to enjoy some amazing music:

The Main stage where we enjoyed Chase and Status, Vintage Trouble (such a great band!), Young Knives, Beardyman and The Charlatans.

Riot Jazz stage:

We just enjoyed the complete randomness of the whole place! Loved the big sofas for seating and the beautiful fairy lights!

Kaylied Stage where we discovered two great bands, Molotov Jukebox (the lead singer is ‘Tonks’ from Harry Potter movies!) and The Worm:

We also loved wondering around the other little stands and stalls including the Vintage fair tent:

 

I almost bought a top and a bag but had ran out of cash!

Sailor Jerry’s bar:

I had a few Sailor Jerry’s with ginger ale and lime – my new fave tipple!

Of course we also spend a bit of time at the Alpro stand!

I ate a lot of yoghurt:

I think I tried every flavour, the cherry and blueberry were certainly my favourite. I also loved the vanilla and chocolate dessert pots. Both myself and James really loved the vanilla yoghurt with granola too, although the portion sizes were tiny…

So I kept going back for seconds… and thirds :-)

I also enjoyed a lovely back massage and we got our photo taken in the giant alpro bowl:

We had to shout ‘plant goodness’ hence the dodgy expressions on our face!

Speaking of food, I ate a lot over the weekend, especially as a vegan I was so well catered for!

Chickpea and spinach curry from a Nepalese cafe:

The most gorgeous peanut curry with veggies, tofu and rice from an Indonesian stand:

Lovely falafel with salsa, hummus, tahini and salad in a whole grain pitta:

Last but not least a huge Thali from a vegetarian Indian stand called Ghandi’s Flip Flop:

This included 3 different vegan curries, 3 pickles, rice and an unpictured poppadom, delish!

I did try and get some fruit and veggies in via fresh juice:

I loved this ‘multi vit’ combination of carrot, apple, cucumber and orange. My jars of overnight oats worked perfectly as breakfasts too! 

We just can’t wait to go back next year! Of course I have to say a big thank you to the guys at Alpro, all the staff on the stand were such good fun and how they managed to stay so chirpy at 8am I do not know!

Here’s to 2012 Kendal Calling!

What / who would be included in your perfect festival? I loved Kendal Calling but my dream festival would include a gypsy style caravan to camp in, all vegan food stands, yoga workshops, raw food cooking classes, photography classes, a vintage clothing fair stand with a personal shopper service, a poetry or literary tent, a sci fi costume theme and to really mix it up on the music front I would have the Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and Jamie Cullum headlining!

Hope your having a great week!