What I did this summer

I think I should write what’s been going on around me this summer. (I know, the British summer ended at the end of August, but it’s still like summer here, so…)

Well, I made kitchen curtains. All hand stitched!! (No sewing machine in this house, it just means.) Found a lovely piece of printed cotton curtain fabric online and cut & stitched by hand. It’s a kind of café curtains with metal ring clips. It was a tedious job, but I actually enjoyed this little challenge. Now my kitchen looks 1000 times prettier! (Still cluttered, though…)

My girls and I went to Belfast to watch a Bollywood film “Cocktail”. This was our very first big-screen Bollywood experience. It was during weekdays, so there were only eight people in the cinema, including us. Actually it was one of the best cinema experiences I have ever had! Everyone should watch a Bollywood film at cinema at least once before they die! It’s entertainment, entertainment, entertainment!

We also went to Ulster Museum for special dinosaur exhibition and Leonard Da Vinci exhibition. It was nice to see and feel real (and fake) fossils, and there were quite many little boys who were scared to see the moving growling dinosaur models! Da Vinci’s drawing was very very very interesting. I am glad that I had a chance to see them with my own eyes! Everyone knows this, but the man is a real genius, indeed.

My biggest change for this summer was my eating habit. I started intermittent fasting after watching BBC2’s Horizon programme (the title was… “Eat, Fast and Live Longer”, probably). All the explanations in the programme were quite reasonable, so I decided to try it myself just to see how healthy I could become. So, I have been doing 2 day fasting (= acutally 500cal per day) and 5 day normal eating each week. Mondays and Thursdays are my fasting day because it suits my life style and the Qu’ran mentions it, too. (No, I don’t do any religions. It’s just a lovely coincidence.) Eating only 500cal a day is not actually difficult. Of course I don’t do anything strenuous on my fasting days, but I feel mentally sharper and disciplined. I don’t know what’s going on with inside my body, but I have lost about 2kg without struggling or feeling deprived. Now I don’t crave sweet stuff too much, which I am happy about. I found a new routine that I really liked. So, I will continue this as long as I am healthy.

During this summer, I suddenly came up with an idea for a fiction. No, I won’t tell you anything about it, but I’d like to develop the idea when I am not too busy this autumn and winter. It’ll be nice if I can write some kind of decent fiction before I die. Can’t imagine myself earning anything from this, though.

Now it’s September, but the weather has become like proper summer at last! It means I have to tidy the gardens while it is dry and sunny. If anyone wants to join me for gardening, you are welcome as long as you do what I tell you without any moaning!