Fenland

I don’t think we’ve had a bad winter so far. We’ve had a bit of snow at home, but it came and it went. The car has rarely registered anything lower than -1°c and the roads have all been well gritted.

We drove through a completely different world on Saturday!

We are staying in a cottage fairly close to Thetford on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders. The reason for being here is very sad, but suffice to say that we are staying close to Sharon’s sister Joanne and Mike’s place. There are no motorways in East Anglia, unless you include the M11, which skirts around the edge of the region, so our choice of route could include busy ‘normal’ roads, heavily used by all kinds of traffic, or the skirt-around route using the A1 and M11 and Newmarket.

However, we took an in-between route that skirted the north of Peterborough before delving into Fenland, via Wisbech and Downham Market. It was a fabulous fairyland of a journey.

The A47 can be fairly busy but on Saturday, just like the M62 and A1 at the beginning of our journey, it was delightfully quiet. As we got closer to Stamford, the temperature began to drop; -2°c, -3°c and occasionally -4°c, by the time we reached Peterborough and the A47, it was a steady -5°c and not wavering. At this stage we entered a winter wonderland.

The road to Wisbech is fairly scenic at the best of times, but this time the countryside was covered in a beautiful, pristine white.

East Anglia had had a good shuttering of snow last week and it was till there. What’s more, it was exceptionally cold too, reaching a low of -9°c around the centre of Fenland. This meant that everything above ground was covered in hoar frost.

It was a real pleasure to drive along this exceptionally gorgeous display put on for us by nature.

Sadly, there was nowhere to pull over and photograph, so much of what we saw has to be committed to memory, but the picture here gives something of the flavour.

The air-frost itself had begin to disappear by Downham Market, but the fields and surrounding countryside were still a pleasure to behold.

Thank you Mr and Mrs Nature.

Hoar Frost image details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Hoar_Frost_2008-02-07.jpg by http://www.flickr.com/people/7365168@N03

Red Bull

It’s not been a great start to 2012.

Over the next eight days, I will be attending two funerals. The previous one I attended was back in November 2007 (http://www.village-e-learning.co.uk/2007_4.htm) and although I loved Carole to bits, both of these are much closer to home.

The first on Monday, is Jimmy Scott’s.

Jim died last week just short of a year after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma and losing half his thumb. He had deteriorated very quickly since Christmas as the melanoma cells spread throughout his body and caused multiple organ failure.

Jim is a massive loss to me, the first of my still close school friends to die.

We met at junior school and maintained contact throughout our lives. What’s more, his second wife Sue and I, have been friends since our teenage years; she was my daughter Emma’s Godmother. My walking partner John has put together a 20 minutes long collection of ‘Jim’ photos to be shown at the funeral and I have already seen it (I’m showing it after the funeral on my kit). It brought me to tears. Hey ho.

Far more worrying and more widely upsetting was the death last month of Sharon’s nephew Shane,  who would have become nineteen this month. Shane collapsed on the dance-floor of a club in Lincoln where he was attending university. I’m told that he’d had a few vodka and Red Bulls but not so many that he was ‘pissed’ in the teenage sense of the word.

We know (don’t we?) that Red Bull has mega quantities of caffeine and that this qualifies it as an energy drink. However, did you know that Red Bull contains so many other things as to have been banned at one time or another in France and Denmark?

Red Bull Energy Drink is a functional beverage. Thanks to a unique combination of high quality ingredients Red Bull Energy Drink vitalizes body and mind. From: http://win.gs/z9mQkv

It contains:

• Caffeine -
• Taurine – http://purebulk.com/taurine
• Glucuronolactone – http://www.snopes.com/medical/potables/redbull.asp
• Sucrose -
• Glucose -

Each is a stimulate of some kind and several of those ingredients have individual scare stories attached to them – see the Snopes link above, which although it is rebuffing some claims actually confirms others. There are stories all over the internet about Red Bull worries, yet these are not shouted out loud enough to warn (mainly) young adults about the dangers that could be encountered.

For example, Wikipedia suggests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull)

… ingestion of one, 250mL can of sugar-free Red Bull, in a sample of 30 healthy young adults, had an immediate detrimental effect on both endothelial function, and normal blood coagulation. This temporarily raised the cardiovascular risk in these individuals to a level comparable to that of an individual with established coronary artery disease.

And that is Red Bull alone! With vodka it can be a ticking time bomb. Some commentators suggest that mixing alcohol with energy drinks creates a ‘very dangerous cocktail’ which is like ‘mixing cocaine with heroin’. Don Seratt.

You might also think that the caffeine in these drinks is what is to blame for the reduction in judgment, but turns out it’s the mix of other awakening ingredients in the beverages that may be contributing to the enhanced alcohol high. From: http://bit.ly/A3t2DM

Please be careful with drinks like this. Just because it (the energy drink) is not alcohol, does not mean it is safe to drink. In Shane’s case it seems to be that there was a delay in receiving CPR after his heart stopped pumping and that it is that which caused the terminal problem. However, why would a fit and healthy lad of eighteen’s heart stop in the first place? Remember the quote above? – “This temporarily raised the cardiovascular risk in these individuals to a level comparable to that of an individual with established coronary artery disease” -

http://www.drugsandpoisons.com/2007/11/this-just-in-red-bull-and-vodka-is-bad.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka_Red_Bull

http://recoveringaddict.hubpages.com/hub/dangers-of-vodka-red-bull-

 

Chorleywood bread (sic) process

I’ve recently been suffering from man-flu. But please don’t worry, I’m getting better now (if only very slowly)

Whilst in the throes of suffering, I managed to add a comment to a blog, which on reflection, might have left the blog owner scratching her head. Sorry Liz.

Nevertheless, the subject is one close to my heart.

I’d written: “...when manufacturers say that bread is wholesome they are being disingenuous, as is not entirely true. The mass manufacture of bread has changed so much in my lifetime that it now contains twice the amount of fat that it used to – or needs.“

To clarify – around 80% of all bread bought in Britain today is made using the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP). Compared to the more traditional bulk fermentation process CBP allows manufacturers to use cheaper wheat, bake the bread in half the time and reduce costs overall. The result is a much softer product. To work, CBP needs more yeast, more fat (solid fat, which until recently was hydrogenated vegetable fat) and chemical ‘improvers’. Don’t try to replicate this at home!

“The research bakers at Chorleywood discovered that by adding hard fats, extra yeast and a number of chemicals and then mixing at high speed you got a dough that was ready to bake in a fraction of the time it normally took.” BBC

So what’s the problem? Cheaper bread with a softer texture is always readily available and it lasts for over week!

Well, one thing is that the high speed steel milling of the wheat enables the resulting flour to take on more water, but it also removes much of the nutritive value. It is suggested that around half of a modern loaf is water. More worrying is the fact that hard fats are used to support the structure of the dough that would normally be supported by developed gluten strands in the traditional bulk fermentation process (do try this at home). Chemically, these are the same hard fats that are proven to cause heart disease.

The extra yeast is also thought to cause problems with the human body: thrush, irritable bowel syndrome and various yeast intolerances are cited.

Furthermore, I would concur with this opinion:

“In fact, in my not-so-humble opinion, it more closely resembles expanded polystyrene than bread” by John Maidment

If the bread you eat forms a sticky ‘cack’ in the roof of your mouth – no matter how old the loaf is (it could be anything other than a loaf too) – you’re eating a Chorleywood product and it could be the reason you feel less well than you should.

Of course, there are counter arguments, which I acknowledge but pay little credence to.

If you like bread, bake your own or find a traditional baker. It makes taste sense and it make health sense. The local ‘traditional’ baker might seem more expensive, but a) you’ll need to eat less of it and b) what price do you put on your health?

Sites used:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process
• http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/bread-making/chorleywood-bread-process.php
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13670278 
• http://bit.ly/wzSNn0 (opens .pdf file)
• http://blogjam.name/?p=119
• http://www.wegrowourown.co.uk/blog/tag/chorleywood-process/

Lazy Bastards

I’d initially thought that I’d call this short post ‘dirty bastards’ but I’m not sure that would have been exactly right. Lazy is a truer description of the dog owners who scoop up their dog poo into tiny plastic bags (so far so good – not too dirty then?) and then throw the plastic bags into the undergrowth.

Lazy, thoughtless bastards!!!!

This is something that has taxed me for a while. I go for a walk with John Rousell every Saturday I can (hence the blog title) and at other times, I walk whenever and as often as I can. I like walking and it helps to keep me fit. However, more and more, I see these tiny plastic parcels along my route.

My routes vary. Over the year, John and I will cover most of Kirklees and some of the surrounding areas; we have apple tree walks, canal walks, reminiscences walks (around areas we used to live) – pretty much all kinds of walk across a variety of terrains. And as we walk we see more and more of those little plastic bags of dog shit.

Surely it would be better to just let the dog crap and walk away? At least the canine faecal matter will degrade at some time – the plastic won’t!  Not that that’s the answer – I actually applaud those dog owners who have the care and commitment to carry shit collecting equipment with them and to take the dog poo away with them for proper disposal.

But those dog owners who just chuck the shitbags away are lazy, thoughtless, ignorant bastards.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crustyscumbrothersontour/2065702929/ Thanks for using creative commons.

 

Caveat emptor

Ever since summer I’ve been looking for a way to make our conservatory more usable throughout the colder months.

We looked at wood-burners first (well, multi-fuel stoves) but the flue system would have been both hideously expensive and hideous to look at! So we then looked at balanced flue gas fires. It turned out that our conservatory walls are not high enough for one of those either.

Next, we found that there were a few LPG fires with a ‘living flame’ look about them – but all online; we couldn’t find any on display in any of the local ‘fire’ shops. So, we bought one online from a company in Leicester.

I wish we hadn’t bothered.

The fire, a Flavel Thurcroft Stove, was delivered during the week following the first agreed Saturday date, because the Leicester company cancelled at last minute, due to it not being convenient for them any more. The day after the fire arrived I went out and bought the necessary 7Kg bottle of gas (harder than you think – they are all 12K around here) and we were set-up ready to go.

What can I say? The fire was very noisy. That’s about it really – the fire was far too noisy to provide the warmth, appearance and atmosphere of a traditional stove alluded to on the adverts. And there were only two heat settings: (1) High and (2) Higher still.

Now, I’ve used LPG fires for over forty years and I’ve never had one that creates this much noise – apart from one that was designed to work outdoors, a ‘site heater’. I’d imagined something that looked a little like a wood burner (and it did) that had a real flame (and it did) but that didn’t intrude on the ambient background noise usually experienced in the conservatory (but it did – very much so)!

So, it had to go. The company in Leicester were happy to exchange it but then started to involve the manufacturers. To be fair, it is the manufacturer’s lack of real interest in my problem that made me reject the delivery of a replacement fire. At various times they told me “all gas fires are noisy” and “this model only has two settings” – all very product-protective and not very customer focused.

Anyway – the long and short of it is I’m £50 down and I still don’t have a fire.

The company I bought the stove from were happy enough to refund my money, less a £49.95 collection fee (as stated in their terms and conditions) – under distance selling regulations. The alternative (free collection) would have been based on the manufacturer’s opinion of whether the stove was faulty or not. Despite my argument that my contract was with them and not with the manufacturer, and that I wasn’t returning the stove due to ‘dislike’, but due to ‘online misrepresentation’ (it didn’t provide the warmth, appearance and atmosphere of a traditional stove ) – I wasn’t prepared to let the issue go on and risk even more expense.

It must be remembered that at this time, the supplier had me over a barrel – they still held both my payment AND the stove. I decided to lose the £50 and walk away.

I write this blog post purely as a caveat emptor.

I set myself on fire!

I often use a blowtorch in the kitchen: For lots of culinary reasons.

However, since changing the gas canister recently, I’ve not been able to get a steady flame. I replaced the canister once more but the same thing continued to occur – so I suspect that my ‘flame-unit’ is faulty.

Hey ho.

Knowing this, Sharon bought me a Colourworks KitchenCraft blowtorch, for Christmas. It’s a really cool blue, bijou design that doesn’t need a canister. Instead, it refills like a cigarette lighter, from a valve in the base.

Cool – so far.

Because I don’t always read instructions and often dive straight in, I waited until Boxing Day to open the new tool and to play with it. For once I DID READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, as I didn’t want any mishaps with it; well I wouldn’t, would I? What’s more, and this has nothing to do with the story, I also read the instructions for my new DAB radio too (despite needing Sharon to reinterpret them for me) – perhaps I’ve turned over a new leaf.

On the handle of the blowtorch, there’s a gas trigger that doubles as a spark creator and neither the trigger nor the spark can operate unless the user pulls down the gas release tap beneath the flame barrel – a two handed operation. Before use, you have to fill the handle with gas via the valve mentioned above and off you go. So, I did all that (as per instructions) – the blowtorch lit, and when I released the trigger the flame went out. Annoying, but understandable. So, then I tired again and got nothing. No sound of gas – nothing. I re-read the instructions and found I was doing everything correctly and had to assume that I hadn’t put enough gas in. So I filled it again.

This time when I pulled the trigger, the gas ignited and like before, went out when I released the trigger. All OK so far. Except, it wouldn’t light again – just like before. I therefore decided to wait half an hour before trying again, in case there was some sort of safety cut-off.

After half an hour it still wouldn’t light. Suspecting user incompetence, I tried refilling the handle again and this time the gas certainly did overflow (a sign that it was indeed full), so much so that it went all over the work surface and onto my shirt.

What happened next is a mystery, inasmuch as I don’t know what it was that ignited the overblown gas but within seconds the work surface was ablaze – as was I!

I’ve never been so frightened in my life. My shirt was on fire and I couldn’t put out the flames. I tried removing the shirt over my head but the top button was tightly fastened and by now I had begun to panic. Sharon had appeared in response to my alarmed shout and tried, also in vain, to get the shirt over my head. Luckily, my first attempt had extinguished the flames about my person but I could see the work surface burning behind us as Sharon shouted to make me get in the shower. The work surface went out (luckily again, only the over spilled gas had burned – everything else was fine) as I started to realise that my hands hurt and that my chest hairs were now much shorter and curlier! SHIT!!!

In the end I only had minor burns on four of my fingers and small areas on the back of my hands. They hurt today but haven’t blistered. I feel very lucky.

But what caused the flame and why the blowtorch wouldn’t light despite doing everything correctly? I’ve no idea.

The torch is obviously faulty, or it would have lit a second time (remember that on two occasions it lit once and then wouldn’t light again) and I wouldn’t have needed to try and refill.

I will now continue my search for a canister blowtorch – they seem (ARE!) much safer.

Any recommendations?

The Queens

To celebrate my birthday this week, Sharon booked us into one of the venerable old ladies of British Transport Hotels¹ (BTH) – The Queens² in Leeds.

Built in 1937 for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company³ (LMS), it stands proudly outside Leeds railway station as a testament to art deco⁴ architecture. I’ve been aware of this hotel for more than half of its life – and not all of that awareness has had the respect I can now give it.

As a child, my parents took me to Leeds by train once or twice each year, to visit the big shops in Leeds (C&A, Lewis’s etc.) for new clothes. Passing the Queens, I could see it was quite posh and that it knocked Huddersfield’s own Queen’s Hotel into a cocked hat. (The Huddersfield Queens is long gone). As I grew older and entered the catering industry I begun to realise how tired it really was. I worked in several old West Yorkshire BTH hotels in the late 60’s/early 70′s and they had all begun to fade badly by then.

As a catering teacher years later, I used to take students along to the Queens Hotel as well as other city centre establishments and when asked to compare, they invariably said that the old lady was quite tired, old fashioned and not certainly not a patch on the more modern hotels.

What a difference £10m⁺ has made since QHotels⁵ took over in 2003.

Without losing any of the grandeur, a tasteful revamp has made it a warm and welcoming place to visit. The staff are superb and unlike many other city centre hotels, they are not surly, forgetful or in any way superior. During our visit they were helpful and informative, they couldn’t do enough to help us. And it’s no longer draughty, because despite still having the original steel frame windows, the secondary glazing means that is retained. The décor and furnishings complement the hotel’s age and architecture.

Well done QHotels.

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Transport_Hotels

²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queens_Hotel_%28Leeds%29

³http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Midland_and_Scottish_Railway#Hotels

⁴http://www.decodevotion.co.uk/art-deco-information.htm

⁵http://www.qhotels.co.uk/hotels/the-queens-leeds-yorkshire.aspx

http://www.queenshotel.org.uk/

Mimolette

In the early years of the 17th Century, much of northern Europe was at war and vast areas of Europe were not ruled or laid out as we now know them. Northern France for example, was under the rule of Spain – as part of the Spanish Netherlands. It wasn’t until the reign of Louis XIV that this began to change. [e.g. http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-14.htm]. By 1680, France’s northern border began to resemble that of today.

With war on many fronts, the Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert, was forced to encourage domestic industry and to heavily tax or ban imports. It stands to reason therefore that Dutch produce (produce from the Spanish Netherlands, which included Holland and Belgium) was banned or at the very least – hard to get.Dutch Cheese, as you might imagine, was part of this trade embargo. Yet, the king enjoyed Edam Cheese so much that he encouraged Colbert to find a French alternative. This he did, in the form of Boule de Lille – produced at that time in Flanders. It had to be coloured orange to distinguish it from the Dutch version and Mimolette was born. See Monday’s #sugsnip – http://bit.ly/vQrhnR.

Mimolette is a cheese that until this week, has passed me by. And that’s a shame because it is delicious. Simply delicious! All the websites that discuss this gorgeous cheese suggest it looks like Cantaloupe Melon – and it does. When I opened my recent purchase and showed it to Sharon she said “Mmm, melon”. But the colour changes with age I understand, as does the taste.

It is a hard cheese and like parmesan, has a rich nutty flavour. What I didn’t tell Sharon was how some of the flavour is introduced:

Maturing the cheeses involves storing them in damp cellars and turning them every week. At the same time the surface of the cheese is brushed to remove cheese mites which feast on its surface. As the cheese ages, evidence of mites can be seen in the pitted and moon like surface which appears on the cheese. http://bit.ly/u4LNLb

Hey ho, what you don’t know can’t harm you – and – it sure tastes good

Photo Credit – 1 = http://www.flickr.com/photos/vialbost/5001160831/
Video Credit – 1 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVg2CWhLnF4

Je pense

I’ve just seen this subject discussed on Huffington Post (same link below)

Brits Abroad Can’t Speak A Single Word Of Local Language

And it’s true isn’t it? I often feel guilty that no matter how many times I go to France (I can’t remember any year in the last twenty that I haven’t been – even if only for a couple of days), I can’t retain enough of the language to hold down a sensible conversation.

I’m not as bad as Delboy by a long chalk and can ‘read’ most French menus because A) they are almost always the same no matter where you eat and B) I taught catering for so long and have a good grasp of ‘kitchen French’, but linking words and phrases I know seems to escape me. Unlike the 20% who don’t understand ‘bonjour’ and the 16-24 year olds who can’t even order beer in anything other than their mother tongue – I’ve always understood those basic requirements (in French, German and Spanish – I could always order beer!), I’ve even been able to book rooms and order food in French and German. I’m better at slinging things together in French these days but don’t stay there long enough to pick up more of the language, which I’m sure I could given the time.

Next year however, I will be making a determined effort to learn and retain more. Sharon has booked us a week of intense training at a language school in Sancerre as my main birthday present. Hopefully it will be conversational (we think that’s what we’ve asked for – but you know what doing stuff on the Internet is like ) as I just don’t ‘get’ grammar. Well, I do when it’s practised but not in abstract – I’ve done enough French language classes here in the UK to know that they (or at least the style of delivery) don’t work for me.

So it will be a week of hard listening and even harder remembering for me. Roll on Easter.

Me souhaiter bonne chance?

 

Sixty (three)

I always said that I would try not to be a grumpy old man (not that I’m old).

However, not being grumpy isn’t easy these days. As I said in http://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/sixty/ and continued in http://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/sixty-two/, I am currently getting one or two things off my chest because I feel I should. The first item discussed (un) employment and the second pensions. I’m sure that there are many others who feel the same way as me and who feel just as frustrated. I was encouraged after reading this Huffington Post article today!

I was wandering around town the other day (I’d arranged to meet the glorious Lisa Featherstone and had arrived early) and I noticed the tourist exchange rates in Travel Agent windows. They haven’t change much in two years have they?

You’d think that if the Euro (€) was faring so badly, the exchange rate ( £ v €) would be better for us in the UK – but apart from the odd €c, there’s hardly any change. It’s the same with the US dollar ($) too. If America has such a huge debt – bigger than that of the whole of Europe (as yesterday’s papers lead me to believe) – why is it still so expensive to buy dollars?

And, while I’m at it (I’ll finish with this) – fuel costs! Are we being taken for a ride (again)?

First of all, if Libya is now getting back online and oil is beginning to flow freely – why is the pump cost still creeping up? It’s almost impossible to buy Diesel for less than £1.40 per litre now. £6.39 per Gallon. Six Pounds Thirty nine!

I know the old arguments about China’s thirst for oil etc. – but they also needed oil back in January/February when the Libyan thing kicked off. What changed as the oil started to flow again?

Just asking.