See-Saw

Well, last week was a kinda failure, but also a kind of success as well. I managed to get that horrible sore-throat-and-lack-of-voice thing that's going around (though literally, no voice, and unlike most people who seem to get over it in a couple of days, a week and a half later i still sound like i smoke 50 a day [and i've never smoked in my life]). Thankfuly it was reading week, so no *major* dilemma, other than not getting all the work done that i should have, but anyway, back to the point! Now, I'm willing to sacrifice take-out starbucks and bubblewrap for the environment, but when i'm in pain, i bloody well want medication! Off to boots i popped, and realised that nearly all the branded cough/throat syrups have plastic doo-dahs around the edge. ooh dear, i wasn't sure whether that was good or bad, so i looked further and saw a simple, boots-branded linctus, with a metal cap, which was also Waaaaay cheaper than the other stuff. Win. Fail with the ibruprofen though- some weird plastic-paper-foil hybrid held them in place in a plastic tomb. Unless i were to get really OCD about organising coffee beans, i doubt they'd be useful. nor recyclable, as it didn't tell me what kind of plastic it was, oh well.
One of the good (and delicious) things to come out of this illness was an amazing soup which i made, and lasted me a good 5 or 6 meals, which i consider an acheivement =) it was also the simplest thing ever, what you do is
Take a pumpkin/squash, de-seed and cut it into chunks
Put it on a tray, drizzle oil and garlic over it
Roast that in a 200 degree C oven for about an hour
Scoop the flesh away from the skin, putting the flesh into a pan
Add a little bit of vegetable stock (i did this a bit at a time so as not to make it too runny)
Also what i did here was add a lettuce which was looking sorry for itself- gave it wonderful green flecks, but next time i might add green lentils (protein) and spinach (for iron)
I
It was seriously tasty =) and just what i fancied with a sore throat, and meant that i wasn't adding to the mountain of cans in the recycling box =)