Holidays, humour, and heartache in your Heyday Friday newsletter
The joy of short breaks, the genius of a comedy legend, the heartbreak facing a singing superstar and a summer salad to relish in this week's newsletter
Hello!
Thank you so much for your lovely, supportive and hilarious, comments and messages on my disaster of a day last week. I’m delighted and relieved that the schedule for this newsletter and blog has been considerably more smooth (let’s face it, it would be hard for it to have gone much worse), with the latter completed and the former (this) under way actually slightly earlier than usual. I’ll hold any celebrating until it’s finished though. With my record, there’s no telling what could happen between now and then!
Whilst I’m harking back to previous newsletters (or lack of them in last week’s case), you may recall I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a lovely few days I spent visiting an old friend in Portugal and how the trip gave me ideas for several different blogs. (The post with the title ‘Your friends and foes Heyday Friday newsletter’ is the one I’m referring to should you be inclined to refresh your memory).
The first of those blogs is now up on the Heydays website and it’s the one about why I’m such a fan of the restorative, spirit-boosting benefits of short breaks, and why, whilst clearly I’d never say no to a longer trip (thank you), given the choice I’d probably rather have two or three short ones dotted through a year.
To discover my reasons, and the destinations of just some of the many very different mini-breaks I’ve taken over the years, CLICK HERE
You’ll also find out why short getaways are so especially important to me and the fabulous woman I’m with in this picture (as well as where we are when it was taken).
Are you a short break fan? Where have you been for just a few days that you’ve loved? I’m always on the look out for new places to go and things to do.
Of course, one of the things that is especially restorative about any holiday is the chance to rest. Which why this
FRIDAY FUNNY
felt too apt not to share
With the arrival of summer - finally! - here in London, it’s the perfect time to try out new salads, and this one from my Mindful Chef box last week is a cracker. Better still, it’s vegan if you use a pesto paste/sauce with no cheese in it, so purely plant eaters can enjoy as much as the rest of us. And I even remembered to take a pic of it before I wolfed it down. Result!
RED PESTO BUTTERBEAN AND AVOCADO SALAD
This will take about 20 minutes to prepare and serve two people
Roughly chop 20g sun dried tomatoes. Drain and rinse 1 tin (230g) butterbeans, then put the butterbeans, tomatoes, and 2tsp red pesto paste or sauce and 1tbsp water into a mixig bown and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Thinly slice 1 courgette into half moons. Trim 160g green beans and then cook in a frying pan with 1tsp oil on a high heat for 3-4 mins. Add a splash of water then cook for another 30 seconds and remove from the heat.
Thinly slice one avocado and wash enough mixed salad leaves to serve a generous handful on each plate. Top the salad with the veg mix, the pesto butterbeans and the avocado. Add 1tsp balsamic vinegar to the empty mixing bowl and stir it to pick up any leftover pesto, then drizzle it over the salad and sprinkle with a few pumpkin seeds. Yum!
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN……WATCHING
I’m not (whisper it) a particular fan of Celine Dion (though I fully acknowledge what a remarkable, technically brilliant, voice she has and what a consummate entertainer she is). After watching this searingly powerful new documentary about her though, I very firmly count myself amongst her millions of admirers.
In 2021 the Canadian superstar announced that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare and devastating neurological condition that causes extreme muscle spasms, rigidity, breathing problems and agonising pain. Filmed over a year in late 2021 and 2022, so at the tail end of the pandemic, the 54 year old reveals with agonising honesty the impact her terrible condition has had on her and her ability to do the one thing that has been the driving force and all-consuming passion of her life - sing. “My voice was the conductor of my life,” she says in one of many frank and emotional interviews. “Music … I miss it a lot.”
We see her at home in her luxurious Las Vegas mansion with her then-11-year-old twin sons, where we watch her gruelling daily regime of medication and physical therapy, touring the 12,000 square foot warehouse where she keeps all her couture costumes and memorabilia - both of her performing career and her family life - and in the studio trying to record a new song.
It’s here that we fully appreciate the devastation SPS has wrought on her. Not only does it make singing heart-wrenchingly difficult, but during the recording session she suffers an attack and the camera records her body convulsing into spasming rictus, freezing her limbs and twisting her hands whilst tears stream from her eyes as she groans in pain and her team desperately administer the emergency medication she needs to counter the attack. It’s an astonishingly brave thing to allow us to witness.
She says she wanted to make the film to explain to her legions of fans why she had to stop recording and cancel shows when it was the very last thing she wanted to do. Once you have watched I Am Celine Dion, the very last thing you would do is feel anything other than the deepest sympathy and respect for her.
You can see I AM CELINE DION on Amazon Prime
And see the trailer HERE
WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK
I tumbled down an Instagram rabbit hole this week when I discovered the account called funnybloopers. I’m obviously not prepared to reveal how long I spent scrolling through all the hilarious clips on it, but this one of gaffes by the late, great Betty White stood out amongst them. Hope it makes you laugh as much as it did me.
Betty wasn’t only a brilliant actress and comedienne, she was also fabulously wise and sharp. So it’s over to her for these closing
WORDS OF WISDOM
That’s it for this week - whoop, whoop I’ve made it to the end with all my dominos still upright.
Hope you do the same until we’re together again next time. See you then.