half baked

It isn’t one of this year’s challenges but I did say I would keep going with the baking. I’ve been keeping myself quite busy on this as I wanted to start making more of my own bread and I also wanted to make my own musli bars (I spend far too much on these) - you can see what I’ve been making below.

For the bread I’ve just been making basic bread mixes – white buns and wholemeal buns – these are just white or brown bread flour with a bit of yeast, salt, oil and honey. The white buns went very well but I had some problems activating the yeast on the wholemeal ones – I knew thing hadn’t gone so well when the bread didn’t rise whilst proving but decided to bake them anyway just to see what the result was – as you can see in the photo it resulted in some very small buns with the density of iron!

For the muesli bars I went with two different recipes, one from weight watchers and one from Nigella Lawson. They both mainly consist of seeds, nuts, dried fruit and porridge oats. The main difference between the two was where the weight watchers recipe uses butter and honey to bind the ingredients together the Nigella one uses condensed milk. Both sets of bars taste very nice (even if I do say so myself) – but the Nigella recipe tastes nicer to me. The other plus on this is that the ingredients cost less than 7 pounds for 32 bars – quite a lot cheaper than the ones I’ve been buying at sainsbury’s.

I’ll keep going with the bread and post further progress here in the weeks/months to come

 

 

raw white rolls.......

 

 

 

a little odd shaped - but risen well

 

 

 

brown bread cannon balls

 

 

 

missing muesli bars

 

 

 

the Nigella version

 

 

 

the weight watchers version (with one piece missing for quality control purposes)

 

a crafty blog post

We’re into February and am conscious that I don’t want to get to the end of this year without completing the (now extended) 12 labours. I’ve been making a start on the learn a craft challenge – it was agreed at New Year that as part of this making a friendship bracelet for each of the friends present should be part of completing this.

I was aware of friendship bracelets when I was a kid (and I may even have made one before though my memory is pretty hazy) but I’d be lying if I really understood what they are all about so I’ve done a little reading on the subject. To summarise what I’ve found out……….

·         The origin of friendship bracelets is believed to be from the indigenous populations of central and southern America though there are also examples from Qin dynasty china.

·         They became popular in the US from the 1970s when they were worn at demonstrations, their popularity then spread around the world.

·         There are lots of designs though the basic form is two threads in a series of double knots.

·         If you are given one, once you have put it on you are not allowed to take it off until it wears out (then you’re supposed to make a wish or something – I hope the judging panel realise what this means! You have to wear the brightly coloured teenage girly bands that I make for you until they drop off!! I promise to find the most hardwearing thread I can!!

 

These are some of the designs that can be done - I might have

 to work up to this level of complexity

Ann sent me a link to a webpage on how to make basic bracelets soon after NYE and Laura took me shopping for the bits and pieces I needed (on Oxford Street – on January 2^nd – it was a bit busy to say the least). It took me a few weeks to start giving it a go but you can see my first goes in the photos below – one of the bracelets I’ve made so far is more of a friendship bookmark but I’m not too disappointed with my efforts so far.

 

assembly - bit tricky not just making a gigantic knot

 

 

One friendship bracelet and one friendship bookmark - 6 more to go!

To be continued

This post was intended to be a review of how everything went in 2013 – I hope to do this in a future post - but a number of attempts at writing that post have ended in a bit of a mess so better just to give an update on basic success/failure and where I go from here…… so here goes………..

Well, I didn’t finish the twelve original challenges in 2013 – and I have a further confession to make, I have not spent a day in public wearing a Sunderland FC football shirt (the forfeit that the adjudicating panel demanded on NYE 2012). I think I therefore have some explaining to do!

First things first, I have to explain my lack of success with the twelve labours. Well, the best I can come up with was that it was a busy year (mostly in a very good way). Looking back I can honestly say that given everything else that was going on it was always going to be hard to do everything in the spirit I had intended. I didn’t want to get into a habit of just ticking the challenges off without them being genuine experiences. Of the 6 I did complete I only think I took the soft option on the religion challenge – and I wasn’t/am not ready for a religious conversion!! On the positive side, I completed 6 new years resolutions and there’s not many people who can claim that. More importantly, those challenges did take me out of the comfort zone and inspired other activities that made it a great year.

Now there is the small matter of the forfeit – why haven’t I done it? Well, the truth is I just point blank refused when pressed by the panel. In my view the idea of the challenges was to get out of the comfort zone which I had done – the forfeit was just an exercise in humiliation. Much better just to keep going and finish the job off! To this end I explained the challenges I believe I had completed to the panel in Cask, Pimlico, London on NYE (now joined by Charlotte Smith – welcome to the jury Charlotte!) and it was agreed that I had only 6 of the original tasks left to do. These are…….

• Learn a craft (it was agreed that making one friendship bracelet per committee member would be sufficient).
• Participate in a team sport
• Get a poem published in the evening chronicle
• Join and participate in an amateur dramatics society
• Ride a horse
• Learn to play the ukulele (properly!)

To compensate for needing an additional 12 months to finish these off, two additional challenges will be set. These are…………..

X. Dye hair unusual colour

And

Y. An additional challenge voted for by blog readers, suggestions have been – run a half marathon dressed as a woman, get my legs waxed, busking with ukulele on Northumberland street, serenade a couple I have married (in my role as ordained minister) with ukulele. Any more suggestions are welcome and I’ll set up a vote in an upcoming blog – one thing I would  like you to consider as that the purpose behind the challenges is getting out of the comfort zone, not just humiliating me ;-).

 

I’ll continue the blog with updates on my progress throughout the year J

Let there be light!

Another week and another of the challenges crossed off. As of this evening I am now officially a minister of the universal life church. I have received confirmation of this from the ordaining officer of said church…………

“Let it be known on this date that in accordance with the laws of the Universal Life Church Monastery, as ordaining officer, I, Brother Martin, do ordain you into our ministry. From this day forward, you are entitled to all of the rights of an ordained minister. You have the authority to perform marriages, baptisms, and all other ceremonies of the church. You are an independent minister of this church. This is a position that carries with it a burden of responsibility; please respect others and comply with the laws of the land.”

a hard copy (without the watermark) is on the way

If you want to find out a bit more about the church I have joined then you can check it out at http://www.themonastery.org/ . Other ministers of the church include 3 Beatles, Richard Branson and Joey from friends.

Becoming a minister was rather easy to do (just fill in an online form). But I have to admit that when it came to sorting it out I was a little uncomfortable about signing up as a minister as I am an atheist. Thankfully, the Universal Life Church is quite ok about this and is happy to allow me to be a Humanist minister and stick to the rules of the church which are essentially be nice to people and let them believe what they want.

It’s a little early to start performing wedding ceremonies (though I will be happy to perform these in future). So I celebrated my new calling by bringing a little light into the world – well, not the light of the lord, and not to the world in general but the light of nPower to my living room – by replacing the light switch.

4 down and 8 to go!

The last couple of months have been pretty busy so the challenges (and the blog) have had to take a bit of a back seat for a while. However, I now have just over a month to try and finish as many of them off as I can and it’s time to crack on. Looking at my overall progress for the year right now things are not looking great for getting a full set by new years eve – but I guess I just have to crack on and see what can be done.

Over the year I have been building up my baking skills (I would have like to have written “honing my baking skills” there but that may be overegging things a touch). This weekend it was time to complete challenge No 10 - Host a tea party where I have booked all the food. Thankfully we’re going with the conventional understanding of the term tea party “a formal, ritualised gathering for the small meal of afternoon tea” – rather than hosting the militant wing of the Grand Old Party.

 There's no way she's ever getting an invite to come round for a cuppa......

 

I'd rather have this lot!

The first snag was the venue – lack of space, chairs (and at the moment heating – my boiler is broken) ruled out my flat for the location. Thankfully Rosie and Mark kindly agreed to let me “host” the event at their house (they have a proper tea pot and table cloths too!!). The next was the timing – a tea party should be for afternoon tea but the only suitable time was 10:30am – so for the duration of the tea party Rosie and mark’s living room became the sovereign territory of Bhutan and the start time therefore technically 4:30pm – perfectly inside the afternoon tea zone.

 

Next thing to sort was what to bake – a little reading around suggested that cake, scones, biscuits and small sandwiches are all acceptable afternoon tea fare so foolishly I decided to make all of them. I started the baking on Friday evening by making a couple of Ciabatta loaves, cheese scones and shortbread. All went fine until I melted part of the cooker hood – but am sure I will be able to find a replacement part for that. Then on Saturday I made a Victoria sponge cake (my first proper sandwich cake) and returned to an old favourite in lemon drizzle cake, slightly modified to include apples from my parent’s and Penny’s gardens. Spreading the butter icing on the sponge cake was trickier than I expected but by 9:30 on Saturday evening all was prepared (and my kitchen looked like a bomb site).

 Ciabatta

Shortbread fingers

The tea party itself went very well, attended as it was by Rosie, Mark, Astrid, Oscar, Penny, Luke and Archie- thanks for all turning out guys :-). Mark and Rosie let me use some of their v nice china crockery and helped set everything out wonderfully (sorry the photo doesn’t do the set up justice – the light wasn’t great for photos), Mark was even about to get the iron out for the table cloth at one point. The baking went down well and everyone was very complimentary about what I’d made – looks like I’ve managed to pick up baking reasonably well. More important than how the food went down it was really great to have a get together and a natter, not something we get to do very often.

 Rosie and Penny and the afternoon tea spread

Astrid tucking in to some Victoria sponge - Oscar wasn't quite so interested :-)

 

So that’s another challenge off the list. 4 down (well 5 if you include this blog) still a way to go but we’ll see how I get on. Just because the challenge is done doesn’t mean I’m going to stop baking now – I’ve had great fun learning and it’s something I’ll keep on doing – though maybe not trying to bake so many things simultaneously!

Ukulele

After the rather depressing blog about the Lakeland 50 its time to get back to the properly agreed challenges. A few people have pointed out that I’m a little behind on things and need to get my arse in gear. So, inspired by Jenny and Carli, I have begun trying to learn a musical instrument (challenge 7) – in this case a Ukulele.

My record for musical ability is not great. Apart from the compulsory recorder lessons while I was at middle school I have attempted to learn the trumpet (mostly as my dad can play one), this lasted a couple of years and I didn’t even get to grade one. I also spent a couple of years learning to play the piano, I had a bit more success with that but still struggled and eventually gave up. Plus anyone who has seen my music collection (or more precisely my lack of one) will attest to the fact that I don’t have much of a sophisticated musical taste.

A quick bit of internet based research helped me select a Kala Uke as a nice cheap option (but with a good sound quality according to the reviews). I went on amazon and purchased a Kala MK-SN Soprano (their entry level Uke) and a bag to carry it for £35. The reviews online explained that the strings it came with were not so great and that to get a decent quality sound new ones (Aquila) would be a good purchase so off I trooped to Windows (music shop in Newcastle) to buy some. I have to say I enjoyed going to a music shop and buying bits for my new instrument – staff were great and were impressed with my choice – found the right strings for me and then sold me a starter pack with some beginners books and a few other bits and pieces apparently essential for a new Uke owner.

 

 

My Uke! and my absolute beginners book on how to play it - (i did check if they had one called Ukuele for ten thumbed tallentless absolute beginners in the shop but alas not)

 

Everything went fine until I got everything home and tried to change the strings – getting the old ones off was easy but attaching the new ones somewhat harder. 45 minutes of struggling a light swearing later and I had one string attached but so lose no note could be coaxed from it! I needed help – my first thought was my downstairs neighbours but then I remembered that a lad I work with play base and might be able to help.

So the Uke got taken back into work and handed over to Ross while I was in a meeting. He was supposed to leave one string until I came back to show me how it was done. Alas, my PhD student found him later and since she has 4 Ukes insisted on completing the job and seeing how it sounded. So stringing the thing is still a mystery – but I have been offered cheap lessons and even had an invitation to join a band.

Now the strings are all on I’ve had a chance to start trying to play – just learning the basics of strumming at the moment and 6 of the easiest chords. Have got onto the first tune the book suggests – for the time being my rendition is not recognisable but I am having fun trying – so thank you to whoever suggested this one!

Lakeland 50: To DNS or DNF?*

*For non-runners DNF = did not finish, DNS = did not start

I initially wrote this post in the bar of the Sun Hotel, Coniston 27/7/13 on a note pad purchased in a local souvenir shop to be typed up at a later date (with some additional bits added that I’ve recalled since then and some of the more embarrassing typos removed).

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I’ve just had to pull out of the Lakeland 50 after approximately 4 miles and the term gutted doesn’t quite cover it. In order to prevent myself from wallowing in self-pity for the afternoon I thought I’d take the unexpected free time to write something for the blog. For pretty good reasons “pull out of an ultra-marathon after only 4 miles” did not make it on the list of challenges but as this is the first time I’ve ever DNF’d in any sort of a race, let alone an ultra-marathon, it qualifies as being out of my comfort zone!

What was different this time? Well I tried to run carrying an injury. Two weeks ago I pulled up in a training run due to cramp (it was a hot day and I wasn’t hydrated so it was my own fault). The cramp caused a few small muscle tears. “Something minor” I thought; “just see the physio then rest for a few days and it’ll be fine”. Six days later I went out for another run – just a light 2 miler – and it locked up again. There were now just seven days for it to clear up. A couple more trips to the physio followed and though he told me that “in an ideal situation you shouldn’t be running” he also said “it’ll be ok to give it a try so long as you don’t push too hard and you stop immediately if you feel the muscle start to go again”. This was all the encouragement I needed, especially as I said I would do the race with Sumanth, so I decided to go for it.

The fact is that, given the above and the nature of the race, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen – my leg would not last the distance – and deep down I already knew this.

One of the thoughts running through my head is should I have even started? Be a DNS rather than a DNF? DNS means no risk of additional injury and everyone understands that you had to withdraw. But withdrawing from a race beforehand is hard – especially one you’ve been training for ages, with a lot of sweat and pain invested as “this was the year you were going to rip the nuts off it!”. And deeper down none of us wants to give in before really knowing we couldn’t do it. Ultimately it's about risk versus ego – and ego usually wins.

After pulling out I was driven back to race HQ in a minibus with half a dozen 100 mile runners who had had to drop out through either injury or exhaustion (some could no longer walk) and some marshals one of whom (I’d met him briefly before at the Hardmoors 55 earlier in the year) decided that I needed reminding of the ultra-marathon facts of life…….

“You youngsters think you’re indestructible! You can’t expect never to be a DNF, these races are designed to be tough – that’s the whole point! Even the guys at the front have to pull out sometimes. The important part is to review what went wrong and get it right next time”.

…… I had the rest of the journey to reflect on this (and sulk a bit more if I’m honest)….. I knew he was right but it was still hard to take.

It’ll take about 2 weeks for the muscle tears to clear up properly, which will Ieave me plenty of time to train for next year. I’ll take Ultra Marathon Yoda’s advice in future, train smarter and not start races when injured. Though I reserve the right to throw another sulk if I have to DNF again!

 

It’s now nearly a month after I wrote that down – I’ve rested the leg and done my stretches. However, the first time I went back to running my calf went again. So I’ve been back to the Physio and am in the process of building a proper recovery programme (have also been told I was doing my stretching wrong!). Time to buy a bike – but I will be back doing ultras next year!