My Last 2 Weeks in Leicester

Following on from my last post, I attempted to make the most of my last 2 weeks in Leicester. I made a list of things I wanted to have done before I left and now, having moved home about a week ago, I am going to report on how they went.

I didn't manage to complete all 8 of the ideas on my list. In fact, I only managed 5 of them. Part of this was because I went home for the first weekend and the other part was because of the amount of 'celebrating' I was doing, I had to write off a couple of days for recovery. Although 5 of 8 isn't too bad, at least I've left myself some things to do when I visit at some point in the future.

First up was the international supermarket. I decided to walk there in flip flops rather than drive on a very hot Thursday.. not my best decision. By the time I got there I was really thirsty and just wanted to sit down. But, it was definitely worth it. It's not as big inside as you would expect but there is so much stuff in there it's amazing. It felt a bit odd wandering around a supermarket like it's a museum but it really was quite interesting to walk around. I ended up taking so many pictures that I used up all of my phone battery.

They had lots of vegetables I had never heard of, giant fish loose in lots of freezers, a meat counter selling all different types of meat, including goat! They had massive bags of powdered mashed potato, aisles and aisles of rice (which all looked the same to me) and a whole aisle dedicated to pasta! My favourite part was a cake counter they had near the back which housed about 30 different, large cakes with bright icing. They looked so good I could hardly tell if they were real or not. 

After wandering around for about an hour, I bought some of the food colourings and flavourings I needed for making sweets (also on my list); some spices I needed, some pasta and multi-coloured vermicelli. Although I took £20 to spend I ended up only spending £6 (partly because I didn't want to carry too much home). I had planned to go back on another day with my car but I ran out of time. I'd recommend everyone have a look there though, I was very impressed.

Next, in the order I completed them in, was making sweets. This took me longer than expected, not because making the sweets was all that hard but finding all the ingredients, especially for the cola cubes, was difficult. Other than heating the sugar to the right temperature, which is much easier to gauge with a sugar thermometer (luckily I already had one of these), making them was quite easy. The wine gums were really easy to make and tasted pretty good. The cola cubes were harder but mainly because the mixture cooled down really quickly so a lot got left behind in my saucepan and jug. I think the next sweets I'm going to make are rhubarb and custards which look even harder.. I'll let you know how they go.

I then wasted a couple of days doing nothing much which meant I had even less time and I ended up having to do a couple of things from my list on the same day. On the last Thursday, a friend who left university the year before came back to visit for a couple of days. So I decided she could join in helping me accomplish the ideas on my list too.
As she's a vegetarian it made the next thing on my list a bit easier to do. I wanted to try to make a meal with food only bought in the market and although there is a new meat and fish section in the Leicester markets, it is primarily a fruit and vegetable market. Cooking for two, I decided I would make a three course meal instead of one course, adding to the challenge. Although I bought almost every ingredient in the market, there were a few things I already had or couldn't get there, but I did my best. We cooked all of the food together and it was really easy to do. (If you want recipes let me know.) It's fair to say we were a little full after all of this, especially before a night out but definitely better than my normal tomato pasta.

The menu went as follows:

Starter: Spinach and leek pancakes with grated parmesan.

Main: Soy mince chilli with rice

Dessert: Low fat chocolate and banana brownies with vanilla ice cream.

Somehow between all the food shopping and cooking, we managed to fit in going to The Pheonix to see Grace of Monaco. After seeing that Rotten Tomatoes had given it 1 star I was highly apprehensive about watching this film. But I didn't want to see any of the others and the trailer looked good so I went for it anyway. (Before the film they advertised a new movie called Downhill which looked really funny, like a middle aged version of The Inbetweeners, which I now really want to watch too.)
All in all, I thought Grace of Monaco was pretty good. I'd give it 3 stars. The costumes, something I always notice, were really amazing, especially Nicole Kidman's dresses; the acting and scriptwriting were good and the historical content was informative and engaging. One criticism I would make was that the camera angles and the tendency to zoom-in and linger on Nicole Kidman's face was quite off putting, and detracted from the scene. Overall, though, I was very happy we managed to squeeze this in and I think I'll be looking out for more alternative cinemas in the future.

The final thing I managed to complete on my list was a big picnic with all my friends in Victoria Park. When I say big I mean BIG. Postponing this from Friday to Saturday was the best decision we made. I had forgotten that this was the day Kasabian were performing in Victoria Park. Although some of my friends had tickets, quite a lot didn't so we sat just outside the walls listening with our ginormous picnic, which had everything you could possibly want (mountains of sandwiches, houmous, crisps, amazing pasta salad, 3 packets of party rings and loads more). You could hear the music really clearly and the atmosphere was so chilled that we ended up sitting here from 2pm 'til 10:30pm. This, combined with the university's Summer Festiball the next day, felt like the perfect end to a great three years at Leicester.

I didn't manage to see Richard III (but I sort of knew this was going to happen anyway), go to Sophbeck/Basement or have a day out with my camera. But I did manage to really enjoy my last 2 weeks in Leicester. After some research I saw that they are opening a new Richard III centre in Leicester in the middle of July so this is going to be a great excuse to come back and visit all my friends next year. Other than that, I'll be back on the 18th July for graduation. My next mission is finding something to wear for it.

What Not To Do When You're Feeling Ill!

Most people give you advice of what to do when you're ill, like eating Heinz tomato soup, having lots of rest or keeping warm. But no one ever tells you what not to do. I don't often get colds or bugs or fevers (although I do have a cold this week which is my inspiration for this post), there are lots of different types of illness, and I think for someone to say they're never ill is a lie. Everyone gets ill every now and then, whether it's physically sick, perhaps from drinking too much or mentally ill for whatever reason you have. All types of illnesses are not fun to deal with, and although people telling you what to do is all great and helpful, its not the same as knowing what not to do. Hopefully some of these ideas might help people reading this whenever they're next ill.

Firstly, drinking orange juice. Once you're ill (with a bug or virus), there's not much it can really do to help and if you're not taking in the right vitamins and minerals your body can't even absorb all that vitamin C. Certainly buying a large carton and drinking it all in one day will not make you better, in fact it will probably make you feel worse because it's so acidic. Believe me, I tried it myself yesterday, it does not help.

Also, definitely don't sit in all day watching sad movies. Anything like Titanic, The Notebook, Lion King, steer clear of. Today I made the mistake of watching Revolutionary Road. It's a great movie, I'm not saying it's not, but watching their lives crumble right before my eyes did not make me feel better. I'm quite emotional movie watcher, I cry at pretty much anything. Sad movies make you stressed which then brings on a headache, which then makes you even more stressed and ill. Surely you decided on watching movies to relax? So make sure you pick something relaxing.. like a comedy or what I should have watched, a Disney princess movie . Also I'd stay way from thrillers like The Bourne Trilogy, The Matrix Trilogy, or anything that has the potential to get you worked up.

Similarly, don't listen to depressing music because that's definitely not going to help! If you're feeling upset after a break-up, for example, listening to the Twilight soundtracks are definitely going to make you feel worse. Again, Disney is an awesome pick-me-up (Frozen soundtrack is pretty catchy) but artists like Jack Johnson are also really good at making you feel a lot calmer, and if you're using the music to help you sleep then he's definitely worth giving a try.



Sleeping all day sounds like a great idea right? You're ill, you can't be bothered to do anything yeah? Well unless you've got a serious illness that is highly energy zapping like glandular fever then it's probably not a good idea. If you need a nap then have one. I absolutely love naps, I probably average about 5 a week. But trust me sleeping all day doesn't help as much as you'd think. It's better to power on through, make yourself earn that sleep and then by the time you actually need it, you'll be straight off. A deeper sleep is a better quality of sleep and gives your body more of a chance at recovering.

This is also linked with being lazy. If you're too lazy to go and fill your water bottle up or get more tissues then you're not really helping yourself get better. Water definitely helps. It stops headaches, replaces any fluids you may be losing through fever, sickness or the other ways.. And if you don't replace them how is you body going to beat that virus?

Finally, don't wallow in your own self pity. It sounds pretty harsh but well all do it and I think this probably applies to almost all types of illness, unless you have something deadly and highly contagious. Then you're pretty much on your own. Unless you can provide those anti-germ suits. If you're feeling upset, hungover or even just bored of being ill, seeing you're friends, talking to them on the phone will make you feel better. Having a night in with them (or out if you're feeling up to it?!) will take your mind off being ill (as long as you don't talk about being ill the whole time) and not thinking about it will help you feel better. I mean procrastination makes you feel like you have less work so perhaps pretending you're not ill, or forgetting you are, will help too!