A week at home in the countryside 🌲🪵 gardening, baking, horse riding

Morning my loves. We have just had the most beautiful walk along the river this morning. The weather lately is finally starting to cool down, in the mornings at least. I woke up the other morning and it was only 16 degrees and it was the most perfectly crisp, clear blue skies and a nice chill to the air and it just got me so excited for autumn and winter here in Australia. This is my favourite time of the year. The days at the moment are still really quite hot, like we're still getting some 31 degree days which as you guys know I've mentioned so many times before, I just find that I'm not the biggest fan of summer anymore. If it was tops of 24 degrees I think it's really beautiful, it's nice and you can enjoy that kind of warm weather but 31, I just find it a little bit too uncomfortable. So I'm very excited for autumn and winter which hopefully isn't too far away. But yeah we had a really, really lovely walk along the river and you know every time I go down there I always kind of think to myself how much I enjoy it and how much I really should get down there more often. I don't know why I don't because I really do like it down there. It's really, really pretty. It's like a really lovely walk and there's cafes and everything so it's quite pretty. But I thought I would bring you along with me for a little bit of a random week because I didn't get the chance to film a proper day on the weekend because we were in the Gold Coast for Jessie's racing event which was a lot of fun but also just like a kind of whirlwind of things to do and we both got home absolutely knackered. We got home last night around 5 o'clock. It's a three hour drive and it's a very early start in the morning for the event. So yeah it was a massive, massive weekend and we're both a little bit tired. Today Jessie needs to recover from the event and I've got to go horse riding so I thought I'd take you guys along with me and then I thought I would film a couple of other things that I get up to during the week because we are going down to Brisbane again this weekend and I thought I'd bring you guys along with me for that. So a little weekend escape into the city. It could be fun. But that will be in the following week, next week's vlog. So this week is just going to be a little walk and what I get up to because I do have a couple of nice things that I want to do and get around to and talk to you guys about. But this morning I thought I would take you with me horse riding because I haven't actually talked too much about how I've been going since our last horse riding video a few weeks ago. So I've only done three lessons with this new place and I'm absolutely loving it. I try to do a lesson every week but at the moment with just the amount of rain that we've had, we've had to call off some lessons because the arena's just too wet and it's just been torrential downpours. So yeah I've only managed to do three proper lessons, today being my fourth and so far I've been on these beautiful, pleasant, easy going little school horses that you probably need to give them a little bit of encouragement to get them going. Which is fine but the horse that I'm on today, I'm sort of leveling up I guess. I'm going on a new horse and she's probably got a little bit more go than, you know, so it's going to be more of an effort to hold her back rather than to get her going. And because I'm still learning to canter, I do have to hold the saddle when we're going around the corners because I get a little worried I'm going to lose my balance and fall off. So I do need to gain a lot more confidence in my cantering. So hopefully I can get some nice footage today and show you guys how I'm going because I really am loving it. It's so much fun and every time, you know, every time I finish my lesson I'm just really excited for my next lesson and I can't wait for Mondays to come around so I can go horse riding again. It's my favourite time of the week. I'm really excited to show you guys, a little bit nervous so hopefully I can get some good videos because Jesse's actually going to come and watch me this morning, he has the day off. You guys might remember that Jesse was learning to ride with me in England as well. I've been trying really hard to get him to come horse riding with me but he just has too much on with his Ironman stuff so he's going to come watch and see how I'm going because we were both at a pretty, I guess, sort of similar level when we were in England. So anyway, let's get on the road, it takes about an hour to get there and we'll do some horse riding. I picked up this little terracotta pot from the markets this morning for $6. I couldn't believe it because I thought, you know what, this is the perfect size for one of my Everlasting Daisy seed bombs. So I'm going to pop one of these in this pot to see how it goes and hopefully I'll scatter a couple around the lawn and stuff to make sort of like a little daisy field. Let's pop this down. I thought today would be the perfect day to head over to like a plant nursery and pick up some potting mix and also some seed trays and some seeds so that we can start, you know, sowing some seeds and letting them germinate because we still have around, say, just over two weeks before we move into our new place. And that will hopefully be the perfect amount of time for those seeds to grow just enough before we can sort of transfer them either into the veggie garden beds that are there or into some other garden beds. I cannot tell you how excited I am for this little era of my life, like entering into my gardening era. It's something I've wanted to do for such a long time. I will also preface that I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm definitely learning as I go. I do have a few people that I can talk to about gardening, like my mum and Jesse's dad, and there's a really lovely community around me. So I definitely have the resources, but I'm very, very excited to do this and just to see how it goes. I really want to grow flowers and some vegetables and things that I can eat and use. And yeah, I'm really excited. So anyway, let's get to the plant nurseries and then let's spend the afternoon gardening. So with the everlasting daisies, they actually come in these clay balls. And so what I'm going to do is just pop it gently on top and then water it in. And then it will just sort of erupt into this really impressive wildflower display. So let's water this in. So next up, we are going to do some vegetables. I picked up some lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli. So we're going to do the lettuce in these little biodegradable pots. So these are zero waste and zero plastic. And the idea is that we can just sort of transplant these straight into the ground. Once the seeds have germinated enough and they've grown enough, we can pop them into a larger pot or directly into the ground. Same here for these larger pots, we're going to use these for the broccoli and the cauliflower. We've also got our seed mix, our seed potting mix and some labels so we don't forget what we're growing. I think I need to get myself some gardening tools and gardening gloves. They'll be next I think I also need to add a much smaller watering can to my list of things to buy, but we're just starting out and we're making do with what we've got. So now that these are all watered in, let's go pop them somewhere warm and we'll check back in a couple of weeks just to see how they're doing. Before we get stuck into making some cookies, I really wanted to hop on and talk about something that I find both really interesting, but it's also something that I've actually been struggling with for I guess quite a few months now. I've been working with a naturopath about hormonal issues that I've been having and it's been really eye-opening but also really nice to feel that what I'm experiencing, I guess like I'm not the only one experiencing it and to feel a little bit more understood. So I went to go see this naturopath about some symptoms I was having with my period, so kind of like PMS but for three weeks of the month. So PMS but I really exacerbated honestly for around three weeks of the whole month. My boobs would be sore and swollen, I would be bleeding really irregularly, my mood was absolutely, it's all over the place, I would cry at absolutely anything but also just really feeling I guess symptoms of like depression and anxiety. My sleep is absolutely terrible, like it's not abnormal for me to just not sleep through the night and just wake many times, sometimes for hours on end just in the middle of the night and as you can imagine, none of this is very good. I'm crying at everything, you know, but then also feeling really irritated and angry and anxious and just massive emotional blowouts. It just, yeah, it's kind of like feeling like you're losing control a little bit of yourself, which is not pleasant, it's not nice and then you're kind of sitting there and you know that what you're doing is irrational but you just can't really seem to do anything about it and then you're going, what's wrong with me? Like why am I being like this? This isn't me and you have no idea why. So yeah, it's been a lot and I've been really, really fortunate actually for most of my life. I've actually never really had mental health concerns. I've always, you know, I've definitely felt like everybody, I've felt anxiety and low moods and all of those sorts of things, like I've definitely felt them for periods of my life but I've always been able to sort of recognise it and pull myself out and know that this is just a period that I'm going through, this is just a phase or knowing what I need to do to pick myself up, like what is going to make me feel better. This has been different, with this it's kind of like just feeling a little bit hopeless I guess and not really knowing how to get myself out of it and can't get out of it and yeah and it's, it got I guess essentially considerably worse when we got back to Australia. I think after doing that stint in the UK where I was working very, very early hours, I was getting out of bed at three to start work at 3.30 and obviously that irregular sleep cycle does so much to your body and I think after three months of doing that and then the lack of sleep on the big flight home, it just threw me out and then yeah I think it just considerably got worse when we got back to Australia so, but I have been working with this naturopath for a month and it has been wonderful, it has been so good and I feel more like myself now than I have in a long time which is a positive thing. So when I went to go and see this naturopath she told me about this thing called PMDD, can't remember what it stands for but essentially my understanding of it is it's like PMS but on steroids, like considerably worse, whereas PMS you might feel those symptoms for a couple of days leading into your period, PMDD is for weeks on end and everything feels really heightened, it's like your body's response to those hormonal fluctuations throughout your period is really sensitive and really heightened and so while I am taking some herbal supplements to sort of help regulate everything out, she did really talk about the importance of diet and nutrition and how can we we can use foods to support hormonal production and regulation which I found absolutely fascinating because my degree that I did at uni was food and nutrition and I just have a really deep appreciation for how important our food is and how food is medicine and how we need our food to give our body what we need to support those functions and the hormone, healthy hormone production which I guess was a really eye-opening part for me because I got a bit complacent with my diet. So something that I have been trying to prioritise over the last month is just getting in enough protein and enough healthy fats and she introduced me to this creator called Soph's Plant Kitchen who some of you might have heard of already but I had not heard of her and I am just blown away by how amazing some of her recipes are. I love them so much I actually went and got the web app as well which I think is only something like five pounds so 10 Australian dollars for me a month and you just get access to these amazing plant-based recipes that are just really full of all the good stuff and they're really focused on getting in your protein but she also has a lot of healthy fats in there and a lot of nuts and seeds which is what I really appreciate because that's what I'm trying to focus on including is lots of yeah protein and nuts and seeds essentially but also what I love is she actually has this planner so you can go in and you can plan out your recipes and it'll tell you how much protein you're having and then there's all this whole nutritional breakdown of you know all the other stuff carbohydrates and fats and stuff which I've just been really really loving at the moment and I have not had a single recipe from her that I have not enjoyed so far so I know that a lot of you guys who follow me are vegan or vegetarian or even just maybe interested in vegetarian food I would go and check her out she actually has even on her Instagram she has a lot of recipes just on the Instagram you don't need to get the web app but yeah I've just been absolutely loving it so it's actually one of her recipes that we are making today she does these I'll see if I can get it up on my phone here so she does these chocolate banana cookies and they just look incredible and you know what she said and it says here grab one of these on your way to the gym as a pre-workout snack the potassium in the banana is great fuel for those good quality reps I mean for me I'm just going to be having it as a snack anyway but I mean a pre-workout snack sounds pretty yummy to me too but essentially it's really simple it's just oats banana hazelnuts salt cacao powder chia seeds chocolate chips dates and soy milk and I just thought what a yummy little recipe and I haven't made them before so I thought we could make them together so I just wanted to pop this in here because talking to someone about it really really helped me because I felt like I was losing my mind I had no idea what was going on and just not feeling like myself and that actually was kind of scary I think not being not being yourself not knowing why it has been really really helpful for me and I just think how important looking after ourselves is and if we can make little just but small choices to make things better so for me it's obviously prioritizing my diet and I really need to prioritize getting a better sleep but it's going to take a while I think to get everything settled down so one thing at a time but also actually another thing that my naturopath talked about was looking after ourselves when we've got our period and so one of the things that she does is she just meal preps things prior so one of the things she'll meal prep is something yummy like a nice little yummy snack like these cookies but she'll also meal prep things in the freezer so when she is not feeling very energetic or very good on her period she just has something to grab and go which I think I would actually really really benefit from because yeah my period week is a very challenging week for me and I think anything that would make it easier would really really help but anyway enough chit chat I think it's time that we make some cookies okay so here we have everything my bananas I've just realized are probably not ripe enough for this but I actually hate ripe bananas I don't know if anybody else can relate to that but as soon as they start going ripe or get little brown dots on them and they get a little bit banana-y and mushy I just I will not eat them I absolutely despise ripe bananas so hopefully these are okay to use in this recipe we want them soft enough that they're going to mash up with the back of a fork and I probably could have left these a day longer you know what I think that will do so in here I've just got some blended dates which is just dates and soy milk really I hope mine have blended okay I was using dried medjool dates because I didn't have any fresh ones and so they haven't really blended quite as well as I think fresh dates would blend even though I soaked them but you know what I think these sort of chunky little bits of dates that haven't fully blended I think they'll make a sort of little like chewy little surprise when you're eating the cookies all right and now we're just going to essentially add in all of the other ingredients we've got a little pinch of salt some chia seeds, cacao powder, our oats, walnuts and dark chocolate I'm using 85% dark chocolate that I've just chopped up into like little bits but you could also use just chocolate chips whatever the more the better let's give this a nice mix I think I'm going to add in a little extra splash of soy milk that's better so this is supposed to make eight balls but I always have a hard time I guess eyeballing how much to do in the mixture so that it's even so all of my cookies will always turn out to be irregular sizes which is fine I think because sometimes you feel like a big cookie and sometimes you just feel like something small and I absolutely should have taken my rings off for this I can't believe how quickly these have come together and you know what such simple healthy ingredients naturally sweetened with the dates and the banana I guess if you're like me as well and you don't mind um like I love dark chocolate and I know a lot of people find it quite bitter but I really like dark chocolate and you know why another reason these will be so good to have either in the lead up to your period or during your period for women is because a lot of the times our cravings that we get during that part of our cycle is because we need our bodies wanting magnesium and dark chocolate naturally contains magnesium I think I'm for sure going to get way more than eight balls here so maybe I should be making them bigger I think this is a pretty good size wow look at the state of my hands this would be a really good time for me to be wearing that apron that I bought especially considering when I got the cacao powder out of the cupboard we had a little mini explosion and it went all over my top wow I mean I feel like these are really big cookies and if these are only meant to make eight I probably I think I'm going to get at least 10 of this size you know what I think I'm going to actually do this in two batches let's space these out a little setting the timer for eight minutes I think we should make a cup of tea to help with that cookie would you like some too okay just don't tell anybody is that yummy hey you're so cute you're so cute I'm just editing this vlog to get it ready for tomorrow and I realized I hadn't actually even signed this vlog off properly so I thought I'd quickly come on and say good night I'm gonna finish editing this video and have a shower and hop into bed and read my book and drink my chamomile latte I've been really loving this Shatomi book series at the moment it's so good I haven't been this obsessed with the book series since I read the Akita series which I still love Akita a lot more but the Shatomi series is definitely up there it is really really good I think I've only got two book series two books and in the series left and then I have honestly I have so many books to read I don't have enough time to read them all but I my hairdresser was really telling me to get onto the fourth reading series so I think I might start reading that next although Jesse really wants me to keep reading all of Sarah J Maas's other books because he just flew through all of her book series he read Akita he read Throne of Glass series and the Crescent City I think it's called yeah he just read all of them he was just got absolutely hooked and could not put them down so yeah I've got plenty of options too many books to read and just not enough time so so I will say good night here thank you so much for hanging out with me today and I will see you guys next week