Wha' happened?

Regular readers will have noticed that there was no blog yesterday, which, for a daily blog, is problematic. Indeed, I have had complaints, via the telephone, about the absence of the blog.

The truth is that yesterday I was just so busy I never had the time to write it.

There were two events which caused me to be so busy. Buying a house, and cooking for guests.

Yesterday morning I started with a Beef Stew with dumplings, variations I've shared on the blog before. The difference this time was the meat. When we were in Costco the other week, we picked up a big pack of Aberdeen Angus stewing steak. Great big lumps of meat.

This was really, really nice in the stew. I made some creamy mashed potato, and Gel made her signature roasted veg.

Here's a poorly lit pic of the plate.

While the stew was cooking, I mixed up and baked a fruit cake which shall henceforth be known as Jebbe's Fruit Cake. Jebbe brought two of these beauties to the Lake District weekend recently. She kindly shared the recipe, and, as it happens, for the Lemon Posset which we had for pud last night.

Here is a pic of that wonderful cake.

B and M seemed to enjoy their tea and, to slightly different degrees, the kittens. M is allergic to felines so isn't quite as smitten.

---

In between cooking and consuming the food, we also had a trip out to view a property than Caitlin and Andy are interested in. It's close to Sale town centre, but is another 'project'. Structurally it seems sound, but internally needs completely stripping out and starting again. This is attractive, in that for a (relatively) bargain purchase price they can have the home that they want, knowing that the key things (wiring, central heating etc) are sound, and that all (!) they need to do is decorate (I exaggerate for emphasis - there's more to it than this).

--

On the 'Car' front, I am still driving the dealers demo-Yeti as the paperwork on our car still hasn't been sorted. I'm quite happy putting miles on someone else's car.

--

This morning was a very autumnal ride. Windy and a bit wet, but a time at the quicker end of the scale.

M62 Car Park

Today Gel and I had a day out in the Yorkshire town of Harrogate. Before we went the kittens were being playful, so I took the opportunity to get a few shots.

--

We then headed east into darkest Yorkshire. Harrogate is a pleasant town with a mixture of all the usual chain shops with a few quirky, independent ones to balance it up. The weather was a bit pants, but I'm not going to condemn the place for that.  :0)

Betty's Tea Room

Native hut with thatched roof

Fag break

A thoroughly nice day out, only marred by sitting in traffic at several places on the way home, including the M62 doing a passable impression of a car park.

Cheesy Scones

That's scones that taste of cheese rather than ones that aren't fashionable.

Yesterday I whipped up a Leek and Potato Soup for last night's tea, and for lunch with my buddy Phil.

I decided to fancy it up by baking some cheesy scones to have with the soup, and some brownies for pud. The cheesy scones turned out lovely

but I made a right balls of the brownies by not adding enough sweet things. The recipe was in US quantities, and had sweetener that wasn't sugar - erythitol? It had cocoa, chocolate, cream, so I ignored the final ingredient of more sweetener. So we now have a bowl full of savoury brownies. Not sure what to do with it.....

--

Had a ride this morning, 1 hour 22 mins. Warm and dry, but a headwind as I headed out of Knutsford.

--

This afternoon, feeling a little tired, decided to watch The Watchmen (for about the 4th time). Dontcha just love BluRay?

--

Last night I went out for a curry with some of my work buddies. If you're reading this guys, thanks for a splendid evening. Thanks for all your warm words too. Much appreciated.

Recommendations of note

Yesterday evening was the final part of my birthday celebrations, which involved going to see Shaun Usher promoting his new book "Lists of Note" in Waterstones on Deansgate in Manchester.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to the potential chaos of a United home game, not enough people signed up and the event was cancelled. So we had a slight change of plan and this leads me to be able to recommend three things in today's blog. I should point out that I have received no financial inducement to recommend them.

The first is where Gel, Caitlin, Andy and I ate last night. The Jitrada in Sale (http://www.jitradarestaurant.co.uk/). The food was scrumptious, the ambience in the restaurant serene, the staff attentive (but not overly so), and the bill for four of us - including a bottle of wine - was £66.

My second two recommendations are both books given to me for my birthday.

The first was given to me by Caitlin and Andy and is "Lists of Note" by Shaun Usher. I've followed Shaun on Twitter for ages now when I became aware of his first publication "Letters of Note".  It's a simple idea, but really cool. The letters and lists aren't dry and dull, but exciting, moving, funny, intriguing.

The second book was a present from Gel and is called “A Lifetime of Looking”. It is a collection of photographs by Jane Bown. Jane was a staff photographer for 50 years at the Observer newspaper. She worked predominantly in black and white, and engineered a move away from the colour magazine when she was “promoted”, so she could get back to her mono work. She almost exclusively used “available light” with her camera set to 1/60th of a second, f2.8, judging the light by looking at the way it fell on the back of her hand.

She used to work around her subject with a view that you find photographs rather than take them.

She was a small, quiet, calm and determined woman and that calmness comes through in her images. Many of the images are great because of the subjects, but nearly all of them are great because of the image.  As someone who has embraced black and white photography more and more, I take a great deal of pleasure and inspiration from her images. The trick is to learn from them and not simply ape them.

--

A challenge awaits this afternoon as we have to herd the kittens to take them to visit the vet for the first time. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.

The Gruffalo

This morning was scheduled to be a bike ride morning, so I was very pleased when my good mate Jeff asked if I fancied a change of scene, and a change of surface, with a ride around Delamere Forest.

Here are our majestic steeds as we prepared for the ride.

Mine on the left, and Jeff's on the right.

And off we went. On the first section we had a chat about the wisdom of taking selfies while under steam. We decided it was risky, so decided to have a go.

No bikers were injured in the making of this image.

My usual surface while cycling is tarmac, and this was my first real go at riding off road (Jeff may scoff at the description) and it was quite exciting. I managed not to fall off and we enjoyed some beautiful autumnal colours.

Our route took us from our start in Sandiway, along the Whitegate Way (a former goods railway line), and into Delamere Forest. A mixture of tarmac, gravelly road, and boggy tree root strewn single track.

At the 2/3rds point we stopped for a well earned cuppa and flapjack.....yes, flapjacks make a welcome return to the blog. Well I had a chocolate chip shortbread to not precisely a return to flapjacks, but a nod in the right direction. Before we had our elevenses we said hello to the Gruffalo.

Jeffalo and Gruffalo

Griffalo and Gruffalo

We headed back to the car and I took a couple shots as we headed back down the Whitegate Way.

Back at the car I checked my app and found it was 16 miles, so a little shorter than my usual distance, but I felt I'd worked harder. There were more hills and it is harder ploughing through the boggy conditions that on the pristine blacktop provided by Cheshire East.

I thoroughly enjoyed the technical nature of the ride, the beautiful area we rode around, and the company. Thanks Jeff, I really enjoyed myself, and appreciate you being patient as I guess this was a touch slower than you're used to.  :0)

The fog of war

Just in case you missed the news, it was foggy again this morning. And this afternoon, and it appears to be foggy this evening too.

I had been contacted by a friend of mine from 'down sarf' saying he had some time off at the moment and would I like to spend some time with him in Manchester.

Simon is a very nice man so it was a no-brainer. We agreed to meet in town so I drove over to Stretford, but before getting on the tram decided to see if there any pictures to be had in the cemetery at the end of Lime Road. The fog had lifted a bit so there wasn't much to be had, but I tried a couple.

Arriving in Manchester I got off the tram at Deansgate and had a quick shufti down at Castlefield to see if there were any pics to be had there too. I had been around that area earlier in the year when the sunlight was quite strong, so I was keen to see what it was like with a more diffuse light source.

From there I made my way up to Deansgate where I found the top of the Beetham Tower had disappeared.

I need to edit out that lamp post on the left, don't I?

I then wandered up Peter Street past the Albert Hall (no, not that Albert Hall) where the trucks were unloading gear for Richard Hawley to perform tonight.

At the top of Peter Street is St Peter's Square where I took another of those pictures that everyone takes (including me) simply because it is a lovely shot. It's the walkway outside the Town Hall extension.

Then after an exchange of texts I bumped into Simon and we started our wander around the city. Simon spent four years (Uni and a year of work) in Manchester and it was nice visiting a few old haunts, including a porno bookshop on Shudehill.

:0)

We then stopped for a spot of lunch in the Northern Quarter where I took a few publicity shots for Simon's forthcoming album.

We then went to the National Football museum to see if they had any Spurs stuff on display. We did find a 1961 FA Cup Final shirt, but I forget who wore it. They had a Brazil shirt which was worn by Pele on his debut in 1958. It was tiny. Simon and I decided his mam must have boiled it by mistake.

We finished off with coffee and cake in the Teacup Kitchen on Thomas Street. I bade farewell to Simon and made my way home reflecting on what a lovely day I'd had just wandering about chatting. Thanks Si, I really enjoyed myself.

Who's got the key of the door?

Last night was Halloween and Pheebs took the chance to show off her make-up skills.

--

This morning, the morning of my 54th birthday (yes, really, no I don't look that old do I?) so what to do? Go for a ride, that's what.

It was a foggy morning so I had to make sure my lights were on. They were although the front one gave out after about 5 miles. I felt a little exposed in the fog, but there was very little traffic. I stopped a couple of times to take pics of the fog. The fog deadens sound which makes it that bit eerier.

If you remember last time out I was a bit "leggy", well I felt much stronger this morning, although only 3 minutes faster. Good start to the day.

--

After my ride, we had some brekkie, opened my presents, and then this afternoon went to The Sanam in Rusholme for a curry with Pheebs, Caitlin and Andy.

This is a restaurant that Gel and I have both been to off and on over the last 35 years. Now I'm feeling full and happy. I am a lucky man.