Jane Alexander's Blog, page 3

Detox Diary Day Three

Day three of my juice fast at Moinhos Velhos.  'It's perfectly normal to feel totally pants today,' says Janni, one of the owners and, comfortingly, an ex-nurse.
I don't feel too grim although a vague headache floats around for most of the day.
So, as I've said (if I recall - one's brain goes a bit mushy doing this stuff), we get three juices a day, plus a clear vegetable broth in the evening.  As far as I'm concerned, this is riches indeed - my early fasts were water-only.

In betwee...

Detox Diary Day Two

So, I slept for ten hours straight (hugely unusual) and woke up feeling...absolutely deathly.  My head was hammering as if I'd downed an entire bottle of Tequila.  I got out of bed - gingerly - and crashed back down again.  Dizzy, weak, totally pathetic.
Detox headache?  It's common when you come off coffee but I rarely drink coffee.  Then I had a pee and realised what had gone wrong.  Now then, we're not going to be squeamish, are we?  Because the thing you...

Yoga isn't just for skinny bunnies. Yoga isn't a style thing. Yoga is for every body.

Fab, aren't they?  No, that's not me - or Sharon.  It started with a pair of yoga leggings.  I was on Sugar Detox with the Body Retreat back in January and I noticed the fabulous Sharon Walker wearing this pair of slinky leggings with a cool buffalo skull motif on the hip.  I asked her where she got them from and she said, ‘Teeki. They're made from recycled plastic bottles.’ Cool.  So, I went on their site, spent several hours dithering (cos, really, I loved nearly al...

Detox Diary Day One

So, it struck me as I lay in bed this morning, feeling like death warmed up, that a lot of you probably haven't ever experienced a detox.  You might wonder what it's all about.  You might wonder how you feel.  As I said, I'm at Moinhos Vehlhos doing a ten day juice fast (reporting for Queen of Retreats).  I figured that, while I'm here, I'll try to write up a daily diary telling you what's actually goes on on detox. Who knows, it might persuade you to try it - or it might...

Fasting for a liv(er)ing - plus what I pack for retreat

So, by the time you read this, I will most likely either be whizzing above the clouds in a metal tube or in Portugal.  Or, who knows, somewhere else entirely (because, after all, who knows anything?)
I'm off to test out a ten-day detox (this one is a juice-only cleanse, with added yoga). Nice.
I know it only seems like two minutes since I was in Austria, testing out the new VIVAMAYR clinic, undergoing the 'Cure' but, hey, this is what I do - I fast for a living. Can't be bad, huh?
This tim...

Make your own natural beauty products

'Do you have any recipes for natural cosmetics in your books?' asked Frankie Sachs on Twitter.
The short answer is yes.  The longer answer is, yes but not really enough to merit buying them purely on the basis of unguent recipes.
So I said I'd post a few here.

Why make your own stuff?  Well, some people like that artisanal approach.  When I was in my early twenties I used to spend hours buying raw ingredients from Neal's Yard (back when it was just a tiny little shop off the sid...

Bear Grylls The Island (plus Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead and Geordie Shore) - yes, I've been watching telly

James has been studying hard for his GCSEs. I've been keeping my nose pressed to the screen of my PC trying to work. So, come evening, we like to veg out in front of something on the box. Okay, so we should probably be doing something more meaningful, like creating mosaics or meditating but hey...

I'm not mad on zombies but he lured me into watching The Walking Dead and we spent many happy evenings huddled under the snuggly throw.  Little rituals... shouting 'Away with you!' over the open...

Web-savvy help needed for hapless numpty

So, there's the thing.  Meeting Sasha Wilkins (see previous post) really made me feel like a right numpty.  It opened my eyes to what I should have been doing for the longest of times, gave me a kick up the arse and, yes (let's be honest), made me madly envious.  It's not that I want to race around doing everything Sasha does (I'm way too lazy) or (don't laugh) be a digital media guru but I'd like to be a bit...tidier.
My website is so ancient, it would probably merit a place i...

On kindness, L'Ombre Dans L'Eau, care parcels and the sublime LibertyLondonGirl

Kindness.  I like kindness.  Simple kindnesses smack me in the heart, bowl me over, make me cry.
I came back home from a funeral at the weekend.  I'd crashed face first into my past and it had brought me up short.  I also crashed, quite literally, into the closing doors of a tube train and consequently now have two bruises running the lengths of both arms and a freshly re-torn rotator cuff.  I hurt.

'There's a parcel on your desk,' Adrian said.  And so there was....

Wandering around Wigry - travels in Poland with my teenage son

So, my piece on Poland finally appeared in the Mail, nine months after I wrote it.  A good gestation, eh?  Take a look here.

These things always tend to get cut and spliced, squashed and squished into the available space - much like most things really. So, in case you're interested, here's a longer version.

'Evening diving in the ancient glacial waters of Wigry lake.  It's the third biggest lake in Poland, but it has the longest and most winding shoreline.  Actually, 'wigry'...