Space lady illustration

A little illustration for you lovely blog followers. All 5 of you!

milking human kindness :)

I have to say a big thank you to the girls at work, I was asked to go and see The Black Swan at the Odeon in Exeter on Orange Wednesday and for a meal beforehand. Obviously I said yes, I love ballet, Natalie Portman and Swans but within minutes I'd realised I actually cannot go, the Odeon being a massive corporation.


Resigning myself to the fate of waiting for the film to come out in two years time at the Tivoli cinema,  Tiverton, Sandra Everett came in to tell me that instead of going to the Odeon we'll go the Picture House, Exeter, an independent cinema (funded with assistance from the National Lottery through the Arts Council). Bloody Marvelous! 


I love the fact they considered my resolution and also that we'll all be supporting a great local cinema plus it's much nicer in the Picture House than any other big name cinema, they're always so cold!


Thank you ladies, you've shown me great kindness.


http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Exeter_Picturehouse/

not so gastro

So I went to Magdelen Road in Exeter which holds some lovely local shops, including Bon Gout (deli), fishmongers, baker, butchers, grocers, hairdressers, 4 x cafes a Spar (grr) Bran Tub (health food shop) and some boutiques selling overpriced beautiful handcrafted products!

I am very excited as the above fruit and vegetables (picture) cost only 65p whereas in sainsburys it would have cost me £1.37. The price difference is huge! So I can see where I am going to be buying all my fruit and veg from here-on after. 

Bon Gout was also superb and I managed to get myself some marmalade roasted ham, homemade pesto and goats chevre cheese for £5.00, not too bad considering it will keep me in food the rest of the week! 

I promise I will not post a picture of food for a little while so here is my last food pic! Goats cheese, pesto and beef vine tomatoe toasted sandwich mmmmm.

Saturday Night Tesco Fever

Unfortunately on a night out in Exeter, Natasha wanted some drinks so she went to Tesco's. I had to stand outside and wait for her, doesn't it look warm and happy inside? NO, no it does not, it looks like a hell hole, this was on a saturday night and there were streams of people going inside to give away their hard earned cash to the big corporation.

Of course I don't mind that my friend wanted to shop there, it's convenient, it's not far from her house and it's cheap. It's just sad that people would spend their valuable weekends there. I understand if they need to go on a saturday if they work hard through the week but there were hundreds of people going in. Tesco and other supermarkets should be given a time limit they can stay open for every day, 20 minutes should do it.

Finally Something Fun! although dangerous, but fun!

Okay so I got very bored of buying food and so I went to the Body Shop to treat myself. I needed some new foundation and quite fancied a bronzer in these dark cold times.

After leaving the shop with a fleeting feeling of warmth that only consumerism can bring, I discovered in the ingredients list the words parabens. hmm. Not just one type, 4 types in the foundation and 3 in the bronzer. Not good, especially after you read this article from the New Scientist about Parabens and breast cancer


"Preservative chemicals found in samples of breast tumours probably came from underarm deodorants, UK scientists have claimed.

Their analysis of 20 breast tumours found high concentrations of para-hydroxybenzoic acids (parabens) in 18 samples. Parabens can mimic the hormone estrogen, which is known to play a role in the development of breast cancers. The preservatives are used in many cosmetics and some foods to increase their shelf-life..."  http://tiny.cc/x2vyl.


So the next time I  buy something cosmetic I am going to take much greater care to buy paraben free. Aveda looks good and advice from the paraben free princess blogspot is very useful although based on products in America http://parabenfreeprincess.blogspot.com/.

If you have any information please don't hesitate to contact me, it's an issue that people don't generally know about so awareness is always good.

mmm. more food.

Why do i keep buying so much food? Because I cannot go shopping for anything else! So here it is a lovely piece of pasta (tasted strangely of fish when it was vegetarian, no i'm not a  hippie I just didn't want lasagne again) from the lovely Sweetlands ladies.

Please let me buy something fun soon!

wholesome sandwich possibly knitted by hippies

So today I wanted to try a different place so I went to a vegetarian cafe on Cathedral Green in Exeter, the above was a much anticipated, beetroot and goats cheese sandwich with mango chutney. As the sandwich was a day old it didn't live up to expectations but all in all a fair feed.

The Plant Deli Cafe is a lovely little cafe perfect for all and sundry, cue feeling slightly embarrassed about  not actually being a hippy and some yoghurt weaving staff. The best thing about it was the poster on the wall denoting where all the local produce was sourced. Fantastic. That's what I like to see. Maybe next time I'll get something else, the sandwich range is lacking. Try it though, it's different and you get a new view of the cathedral from the warm and cosy cafe. Lush.