For Today...

Joining in again with the Simple Woman's Daybook - I like this, it makes me think, and consider the small stuff. Sometimes we should all try to do that perhaps.

Outside my window...It's Wet, Wet WET! No, not that pop band from the 1980's - but the result of the endless soggy, miserable rainy weather that has been afflicting the UK since before Christmas.

I am thinking...about a planned a couple of days away, photographing RAF jet aircraft with my exciting new Camera lens!

I am thankful...that our home is on high enough ground that we're not affected by the flooding, and that friends and family are in a similar position, thank goodness.

In the kitchen... We've been baking! Flapjacks & muffins get made regularly for weekday breakfasts, and the bread machine has been whirring away making dough for a loaf to eat with soup for an easy tea tomorrow night.

I am wearing...my gorgeous cosy new teal-coloured fleece top. It's gently fitted so as not to give that "square" appearance that you sometimes get with those, and I just fell in love with the colour!

I am creating...online photo albums, mostly! I need to get the last set of Thames path walk photos up - I'm viewing that as a photographic, as well as a walking, project.

I am going...to Lincolnshire for two days, as mentioned above - well, weather permitting, anyway! Two days at RAF bases photographing (hopefully) Typhoons.

I am wondering...What the cause of the extreme weather REALLY is - there are people blaming "Climate Change" and others "Global Warming" but actually, I'm wondering whether in fact it's as simple as something called "Nature". The UK always has gone through changes in its climate - long before we started pumping all manner of chemicals into the air, or burning fossil fuels to the state of their near-extinction, just you ask the dinosaurs, so maybe in fact this is all a little less self-inflicted than we're being made to think?

I am reading...this... Wonky Horizons Blog and similar info on night photography...

I am hoping...that reading that (above) will mean some decent pics...!

I am looking forward to...Meeting a Twitter friend on Tuesday. She's another Aviation Photography fanatic - we seem to have masses in common so it will be lovely to actually come face to face at last!

I am learning...how to use my whizzy new 100-400mm lens. It is the very first "pro standard" lens I have ever bought brand new for myself and I'm extremely pleased with it already - it will simplify life this summer for aviation photography, saving me carrying 2 lenses and camera bodies to airshows.

Around the house...MrEH is engrossed in his Newspaper. There is music on, rather than the TV, as we're both doing other things. There is a pile of paperwork awaiting our attention but we're both studiously pretending that's not there.

I am pondering...what on EARTH one is meant to write here.

A favorite quote for today...I'll give you a song lyric, instead -

"Why is this world so full of hate
People dying everywhere
And we destroy what we create
People fighting for their human rights
 But we just go on saying ce'est la vie"

(There must be more to life than this - Freddie Mercury)

One of my favorite things...Currently it's the lens. You'd already guessed that, huh?! 

A few plans for the rest of the week: Work and photography, mainly! 

A peek into my day...

Long Tailed Tit at Amwell, Herts. 

Robyn

You can find all the other Simple Woman's Daybook entires over at http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/ - why not join in and give us a peek into your day, too?

Frugal Friday...

Last week was our "Supermarket free" week for this month, and I elected to shop at the Farm Shop, which meant my spend was entirely in cash. When I shop there I tend to go without anything more than the most basic of lists, and see what looks good, what is in season, fresh and cheap. It does sometimes mean modifying the meal plan but this week that wasn't really an issue as everything fitted in quite nicely! MrEH saved us some money too by never actually bothering to overcome his dilemma regarding his milk - he went without! My bottle lasted right through the week too I'm pleased to say - the very last of it went in my first thing cup of tea this morning!

I spent a total of £11.26 but came away with lots for my money as always - a couple of kilos of potatoes (including some large enough to be used for jackets - hurrah!) a savoy cabbage, kale, leeks, apples, citrus fruit and a pack of the on-site butchers dry cured bacon offcuts.  I also bought some frozen spinach - a bit of a gamble as I had the 12 mile drive home to face but it arrived back at EH Towers still perfectly frozen and is now nestled in the freezer awaiting use. The apples, citrus, cabbage and kale have all been eaten already, and I may turn some of the leeks and potatoes into soup - or possibly into pasty filings with the bacon and some more of the cheese mountain, I haven't decided yet! 

I used a wet friday afternoon last week to do some baking - chocolate & caramel muffins using the last of a jar of salted caramel sauce (lovely, thick, gloopy stuff it was!) that we bought reduced and using a voucher in the co-op before Christmas (cost to us 22p - who could have resisted such a bargain?) several were eaten over the weekend but the remainder have gone into the freezer for treats. Also a tray of flapjacky things for breakfasts. I wasn't the only one baking those this week either as Debbie tried them out for the first time and pronounced them a success! The muffins were made using the method for "Jam Doughnut muffins" where you half fill the cases with batter, spoon in a dollop of the jam (or in this case, caramel) then top up with batter, and they worked brilliantly! I also used up the last of a container of cocoa when making them too. Also in the spirit of "using things up" the last of a pack of paella rice got thrown into a risotto, and the final box of Spelt with red pepper and chilli from a long ago AF order also got eaten! 

"Earnings" this week are £3 in luncheon vouchers for doing a survey. As things stand we now have:
£15 Morrisons vouchers
£10 M&S voucher - I don't think this will be used during the challenge
£7.50 Luncheon Vouchers
£7.50 in spendable Nectar points (I assume this is points from British Gas which has increased this)

I intend to shop in Morrisons this week - as I'm working today I'll go after work, while waiting to collect MrEH from the station. I'll top up his car with fuel while I'm there too which will save us needing to make a special trip for another fortnight. When we can combine trips like this, we do - quite apart from anything else it's excellent training for future hoped-for Island living! MrEH and I both need milk this week, we'll probably buy that from Tesco as it's worth making a one off trip there if the saving is significant. 

The meal plan for this week looks like this:

Sat:    Lunch: I’ll eat something that needs using up. Tea: Crumpets & cheese 

Sun:  something portable if we're walking – couscous salad?  Tea: Cheese & crackers

Mon: Soup & Bread

Tue: Pork, tomato & onion stew

Wed:  Chicken & Mushroom Canelloni in tomato sauce

Thur:  Pasta with mushrooms and feta

Fri:   chickpea curry

(In case you were wondering, the chickpea curry is still on there as a Summit meeting earlier in the week ruled that tonight was going to be our monthly treat takeaway night - and no, that will NOT be coming under the heading of "groceries!") There may be a degree of re-jigging required there yet - we'll see.

Current state of play for the month:
Total spend on groceries: £22.32
Of which cash: £11.50

That was my week 2....how was yours?

Robyn

UK Floods 2014.

This is not a full post as such, but it's only right to say a quick word about the floods that are currently impacting so much of the UK, I think. Areas of the West Country have been over a foot deep in water for around 8 weeks now. The main railway line to the South West - a line I have posted about several times on this blog and that I and many others absolutely delight in travelling on - has fallen into the sea at Dawlish.  Just this week the Thames Valley has - unsurprisingly perhaps given its name, and the current state of rivers everywhere, also become seriously affected. The biggest surprise to me is that in fact areas of London across to the West were also flooded several weeks ago - we saw as much when we walked the first stretch of the Thames path - yet those residents of Twickenham and the areas around it seemed to have slipped through the net of media coverage altogether. Perhaps they chose that, bearing in mind the chaos that seems to be being added to in some places by news crews, VIP visits, and those who actually, just want to go and gawk with a sort of ghoulish glee that it's not them affected. If you can help - offer something concrete in the way of support or assistance, then by all means go, do your thing, but if not, I simply don't get the whole ethos of "just going to see". (I expect they are the people who slow down to 20mph past the scene of accidents, too!). This also, by the way, applies to politicians in my opinion. If you have any actual power to do anything to help the situation, by all means visit - otherwise for goodness sake content yourself with BBC News. (And never fear lovely reader, that is as close as I'm going to come to Political comment on this blog or indeed any other social media platform!)

We can only hope that the next wave of "weather" which seems destined to hit our islands is the last of it for the time being, and the people affected can begin to rebuild their lives and their homes.

The Stunning coast-hugging Great Western Line.

Minor flooding affecting the Thames path - the homes on the far side had already flooded.

Thames Path - Section 2

Last Sunday dawned gloriously sunny so we set off to walk the next section of the London Thames Path. You might remember that our first days walking a few weeks ago took us from Hampton Court (the start of the London Section) through to Richmond Bridge, so naturally enough it was to Richmond Bridge that we headed to start this section! It's a far easier journey than Hampton Court as the whole trip can be done using the London underground, mind you, the District Line all the way down there still takes an age! We arrived at Richmond at just before midday though, giving us plenty of time for the stretch we wanted to walk.

The first thing that struck us about Richmond was how old fashioned it felt - with lots of old fashioned proper boathouses still working on "real" wooden boats (and submarines, apparently!). The second thing that struck us was that the path along the first stretch was clearly where the trendies go on a Sunday - it was full of yummy mummies and designer babies! After a short while though they mostly thinned out and the walking got easier as we weren't constantly dodging joggers and being ambushed by cyclists. (By the way, Cyclists - you know that funny shiny thing on your handlebars? it's a BELL - feckin' well ring it!)

For the first couple of miles of this section we were walking past first Richmond park, then the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was lovely seeing all the gorgeous green spaces, and also things like the meridian obelisks - placed there to allow for the setting up of instruments from the Kew Observatory. Just near to Twickenham Bridge MrEH spotted this odd little building...

...we've been entirely unable to find out anything about it, and there was nothing nearby to shed any light.

One notable thing about this section was the fact that we were right under the Heathrow main approach, and right through the day we had planes coming directly overhead, dropping their landing gear just as they passed us...

...at one point we finally thought we'd passed the flight path, then clearly conditions changed as everything started heading across in front of us again!

We were soon right into the heart of Boat Race country, and the number of crews out training on the river was quite surprising - I had no idea it was such a popular hobby! we were also passing underneath more and more bridges - 7 in total on this section I think, although more if you include where there are adjacent railway and road bridges. The most impressive of the bunch is probably Hammersmith bridge...

...here it is looking majestic in the late afternoon sunshine. Here you see the problem with me choosing my 50mm lens to document this walk with - it proved impossible to get a decent picture of the whole bridge! I had to settle for some nice textural detail instead...

We'd originally thought that we might only get as far as Hammersmith, depending how long this first 6 and a half miles had taken us, and how the daylight was looking. As you can see though we'd made good time and there was still bright sunshine, so we made the decision to continue to Putney. It was at about that stage that I noticed that the sole was starting to peel away from my right walking boot...not ideal this, particularly considering they were under a year old! (Subsequently to this I contacted the excellent Customer Service team at Mountain Warehouse and they told me to return the boots for a replacement or refund, the store I returned to also confirmed to me that they had not seen this problem on these boots before). Full credit to the boots for tenacity though - not only did the sole hang on until we'd finished walking, it stayed put right the way home, too! Good thing too as there was still more to see. This amazing building...

...now posh flats, and the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust's London Wetlands Centre, which we realised we were passing when we saw these chaps on the fence...

On the other side of the river meanwhile, as we stopped for the final cuppa from the flask, was Fulham FC's football ground "Craven Cottage". This used to be shortened to simply "The Cottage" but in the light of the "alternative" current use for that term the supporters now tend to prefer to use the name in full, as I understand it. ;-) (Supporters are still apparently known as "The Cottagers" however - although whether more by opposing fans than themselves, I have no idea!)

From there there was just another mile or so up to Putney, where we wasted no time in finding a pub (The Bricklayers Arms, as it happens, one of our favourites) for our traditional well-deserved beer, before heading home. Eventual walk length from bridge to bridge was 8.5 miles, and my pedometer recorded over 27,000 steps in the day! the next stretch will be walked at some stage in March.

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

Well, week 1 of the food challenge went quite well, I think. I did remember on the way to the shop, that we needed baking fat, and that wasn't on the list, and as I use half "Stork" and half butter in our Breakfast flapjacky things, that's a bit of an essential, so I added that on "on the hoof" as it were. It's one of the few branded items I buy, largely because it's usually the cheapest option on the shelf if you buy the large (1kg) pack, as I do. Other than that we resisted all temptations, however. Once I'd accounted for vouchers - a "Price Promise" one for 32p, and some of the luncheon vouchers, there was just 24p left to pay in actual money. That wasn't quite the end of it though as, about to leave the checkout, I was handed a further "Price Promise" voucher - this time for 62p off next shop!

In spite of LOTS of temptations in the market at Leeds I resisted spending on meat, fish or game, and instead just bought some bready-bits ("Oven cakes", fruited teacakes and the best Eccles cake I've had in a long while) but they were treats from my spending money so aren't counting as groceries. I did come back with a serious case of market envy though - especially over the Butchers shops...

"Butchers Row" - Leeds Kirkgate market

A couple of changes had to be made to the meal plan - MrEH's rugby match got cancelled on Saturday, meaning that the half-carton of soup which was just intended to feed me had to feed two of us instead. I "stretched" it using some finely sliced and sauteed onions, and a carton of chopped tomato, and it was delicious! I also decided that the sauce for the sausage pasta which we were due to eat on Wednesday night would benefit from sitting overnight to allow the flavours to develop. As neither of us fancied regular omlettes on wednesday instead, I made a variation on a "Buddha Bowl" (with thanks to an online chum for inspiration here) with bulgar wheat, lentils, mixed veg and a single-egg thin omlette on the top. I added a piece of lightly cooked salmon to each as an entirely veggie dish of that type might be stretching MrEH's tolerances a little too far - as it was his response was his usual "it was a bit heavy on the lentils!" but then he thinks any lentils at all are too many! The sauce for this was made from smoked rapeseed oil, crushed garlic, honey, balsamic vinegar and a splash of mirin, and I sprinkled toasted sesame seeds over the top. There was even enough left over of the bulgar & veggies to make my lunch today. This online "sharing of ideas" and the seeking of inspiration is one of the absolute best things about the internet age, I think.

When MrEH's car was fuelled up in the middle of the week, as expected that took us over the threshold for another Morrisons £5 voucher so we have £15 in those now. Current thinking is that I will use those in week 3 - we may well  need bread flour by then, too.

This week I intend to do my shopping at the Farm Shop - this will mean we achieve our "Supermarket free" week for this month, but of course it also means that everything I spend will be in cold hard cash. This means paring the list down to exactly what we need, and buying as seasonally as possible too - a bit of a challenge at this time of year! The meal plan for next week may well be subject to change depending on what I buy - it's currently looking like this:

Sat:  OUT Tea: OUT
Sun: Lunch: Roast Lamb with Moroccan couscous & HFW's Merguez chickpeas Tea: Crumpets & cheese

Mon:  Eggs on toast 

Tue:    Stew of some description. Using some of Sundays lamb? 

Wed:  Salmon, potato scones, veg.

Thur:   Chicken Risotto *use up last of the peas*

Fri:     Remaining chickpea curry from last week

As you can see we're still looking to "use things up!"  I am slightly concerned that all those chick peas might have an "adverse effect" though! The Merguez chickpeas have been doing in varying different forms by Mr F W in several of his books - the recipe can be found here if you fancy trying it. They're wonderful either as part of a tapas type meal, or just as a side-dish along with something else.

MrEH is currently facing a moral dilemma. He resents having to buy *anything* that "should" traditionally be sold in pints, in litres. Milk is where this causes the biggest problem, and especially on weeks I use the farm shop, not the supermarket, as they only sell 1l or 2l bottles! I'm happy to buy him a 2l bottle - at £1.49 this is substantially more expensive that our regular supermarket 4-pinters, but that's as maybe. So - I have told him that his maximum budget for the milk he wants for the week is £1.49, and he is now tasked with finding his milk himself, within that price, and without using a supermarket! *grin* - it will be interesting to see if he succeeds!

Current state of play for the month:
Total spend on groceries: £11.06
Of which cash: £0.24

If you're joining in Frugal February this year, how did your first week go?

Robyn

Manchester...

Last month we headed back to Manchester - yes it's been a whole year since our last trip there when we went up for the National Winter Ales Festival. That has now relocated, and this year's festival was simply called the "Manchester Beer festival". Once again we went to our favourite rather fabby cafe for breakfast...

..and this time we got stripey mugs! As last year we had a bit of spare time before we needed to head off to the festival, so we had a bit of a wander around drinking in some of the wonderful architecture. Down a side street, the old Fish Market...

Just the facade now - with newer buildings built in the space behind - but how wonderful that it's been preserved! The gates and the panels above are particularly stunning - look -

A bit further on and another imposing old building, although this one still appears to be in use by its original incumbents...

...as one of the modern day arms of the Co-operative Society seem to be making good use of this and any number of other buildings immediately nearby too. Saving the best for last from the morning though - we found it - Manchester Victoria Station. (Manchester, your penchant for "borrowing" station names from London has been noted) What an absolute gem - and so pleasing to see that it's current refurbishment appears to be making most of the existing early Victorian splendour. The ticket office alone is worth seeing...

There would be an extra little thrill to buying a ticket from there surely, although I'd feel as though I needed to ask for a standard class ticket for my Lady's Maid, also...!  The War Memorial is also rather special, sitting below the tiled route map showing where services would once have left Victoria to travel to.

I'm gaining a new interest in War memorials of late thanks to a rather lovely friend of mine who is involved in researching the Memorials in her area, and i always try to seek out station ones as they're often rather wonderful.

Reluctantly we peeled ourselves away from the station to head to the Beer festival - as the weather was fine we decided to save the Tram fare and walk there along the Ashton Canal - we were glad we did too, what a lovely walk!

Locks galore (including one of the deepest that I have ever seen), old factory buildings, and as we got close to the Festival venue a rather good view of a large Football stadium, although I confess I had to ask which club it was home to...! The festival venue itself was seriously impressive...

...yep, that's the National Cycling Centre, and when we first arrived there were indeed cyclists whizzing around it! Full credit to the organisers for this festival - they were far, far busier than expected during their first few days open, so they dropped admission prices for Saturday due to depleted beer supplies. This meant that as CAMRA members we got in free, and for a dark beer fan like me there was still an excellent range to choose from. Throw in lots of good pals and some cheerful chat and all in all we had a brilliant day!

Robyn

More London Walking...

Having an afternoon to spare in London, I decided to tackle a section of the Jubilee Walkway - this is a series of "walks within a walk" - 5 circular individual ambles around Central London - in fact, the Walk London website describes it as "Essential London".

I decided to walk section 4 this time- so far as I could see there was no benefit to doing them in order, and this one was absolutely in the right area for where I needed to be later. The walk starts right in the heart of "Legal London" - chancery Lane. The first stretch is lined with Barristers chambers and law firms, all within spitting distance of the Royal Courts of Justice.

In theory this is a waymarked walk - with the route indicated by these inset plates in the pavement, you might have seen them when you've been walking around London...

...I say "in theory" because I didn't find these to be tremendously reliable. I'd taken the precaution of downloading both map and directions onto my iPhone - in spite of assuming I'd not need them - and was glad I had. At about 50% of the junctions the plates were missing altogether and in other spots the overlapping nature of the various sections of the walk caused confusion. Thanks to the directions though finding the right route was easy enough - although that may in part have also been due to having a pretty good working knowledge of London!

I realised as I walked that I was going to be revisiting a lot of familiar spots - Thanet Street, where MrEH's Best Man Nick lived when I first knew him, and the Lamb pub at Lambs Conduit street, where Nick & his now wife had their engagement party. Bidborough street - home of the London Drinker Beer Festival, and numerous places when I did site visits in my old job. Blue plaques were plentiful too, Sir John Barbirolli, Mary Shelley, but probably best of all, this one...

If I had to come up with one word to summarise this walk it would be "Contrast" - startling to go from immaculate and opulent looking legal practises to streets full of pretty little Pied A Terres, via scruffy backstreet Bed & Breakfasts of the sort usually filled with only those desperate enough to have nowhere else to go, and run down council estates...every now and then though I came face to face with something like this...

...a real attempt to brighten up the environment going on in that little section of street.

Fabulous architecture is another feature of this area - from the stunning St Pancras Station...

...very possible the most impressive building in London in my view, to this entirely unexpected little building not far from Kings Cross...

Then on past Euston Station (no impressive architecture there!)  where we would be returning later that night to catch a train to Manchester - more about that trip in another post - pasing by the two small buildings which used to flank the spectacular Doric Arch which marked the entrance to the station. These now house pubs, the Euston tap (a craft beer fans mecca) to the left, and opposite, the Cider Tap.  Next came some of London's smartest squares - Gordon Square, Russell Square, Bloomsbury Square - surprising areas of green-ness in this very built-up area.

Next, a first for me, my first ever foray inside the British Museum! If I had a pound for every time I've been told that I "really ought to go" then saving for retirement would not be an issue! The problem is, the more I'm told I "ought" to do a thing, the less inclined I am to actually want to do it! Anyway, it is a fantastic building, no question, and yes I did have a little look around as I wandered through it. I might even go back for a proper look one day!

From the Museum you emerge into the heart of Bloomsbury before returning via High Holborn, Kingsway and Lincolns Inn Fields to the starting point. This walk would make a fantastic pub crawl - I passed lots of decent pubs, and there's any number more just a stones throw away from the walk route. Of the Jubilee Walkway routes this was one of the longer ones at just about 4 miles, and being all on pavements means it's quite unforgiving walking. With plenty to look at and investigate though it feels easy enough, and there are certainly enough places to stop along the way!

Robyn