no time, too many things to do

I have no time to write this. I've to do an 8 and a 3 mile this week and as all my evenings are full and because on Saturday I am running with Laura, which has to be the 3 mile - or she will collpase and because I am then doing an aikido course and then friends are visiting and Sunday is polytunnel day at the allotment the only timeslot for the 8 mile run is....tomorrow morning.....before work. I have google mapped a route and set my alarm for ten to six.
I may sleep in my trainers
I may oversleep
more soon
(It is remarkable how much hoummus one tin of chick peas makes)
(It is also good that I like it so much)
Question: if gram flour is made from a type of chick pea (chana dahl) can I use that instead of chick peas in hoummus or will that simply be disgusting?

Yesterday's run was seven miles, down through the woods by the river, under the M60 and back up through Chorlton park. It was grey and overcast but mild and despite the mud I enjoyed it. i didn't feel as if I was making very good time but didn't take any longer than the six mile the week before. Some kids were playing on the monkey bars in the park so I didn't do my crunches. Later on Caz and Em came over and we took our spokes bikes down to the park - first time out on them this year. Forgotton how much fun it is to be razzing along in a gang on little bikes. We dared each other to try the skateboard ramps - much screaming from Em - and had a play on the monkey bars - I can do ten crunches now! (although the last three involve a lot of grimacing and a sort of straining sound as if I'm trying to poo a pineapple)
Wheelies weren't happening - not for me and Em at any rate. Caz and the BMX fared better but I don't think it's something we'll be introducing into the routine anytime soon.
On Saturday night I attended the 'Reclaim the night' march - not really my cup of tea but wanted to see mates and show support as the Manchester group have been 'excommunicated' from the national 'Reclaim the night' group for allowing penis weilding oppressors, sorry men to join the march. One of the things I really like about protests is the consensual decision making that goes into them and the fact that each person and group (generally) actively encourages each other to define their protest according to what matters to them. This does mean that sometime there's a lack of focus on one main theme but it means that everyone owns the protest and for a bunch of southerners to tell my mates that they're wrong to do what feels right to them - well it just got to me a bit is all. It was all fairly fun and I got to hold a big burny torch thing so that's alright. Em had set up an 'I bike MCR' stall including some cupcakes decorated with spokes slogans and wheels which she was selling for donations. I had been saving my other 'eat out' of the week for something grand, or at least something involving an entire meal but seeing her (completely justified) pride in her creations I had to have one. The post march party was cancelled as the student union refused to keep the bar open until it was due to kick off and the organisers felt that everyone would probably drift off which of course following that announcement they did. Fuelled only by a cupcake and some guiness it was probably as well so I went home and had some pasta with a sauce made from a jar of doritos dip, the end of a tin of tuna with the oil it came in and the last few olives out of the jar.
Today I had venison sausages and mushy peas for lunch, pain au Chocolat for breakfast, courtesy of the team briefing meeting and started looking forward to CIBSE sandwiches on Wednesday night at a talk on thermal storage using phase change material.

More Radical than I Thought

I may be getting a new friend! When I was doing the garden last weekend the landlord was showing a lady called Victoria around one of the flats and brought her over to make introductions. She’d been planning to do a container garden so I explained my plans, including the ‘community fire area’ under the trees and said I would love to collaborate. I told her about the Lost Plot community allotment and she sounded really interested. Then she said she was going to Hulme Community Garden Centre potato day next Sunday. ‘Great!’ I said, getting my mobile phone out, ‘Give me your number and I’ll text you nearer the time’. She started to back away at this point and muttered something about dropping it in when she moves in so I said,’ Oh OK yes fine, lovely, oh OK then’ like a lonely loon with no friends who’s just scared off another potential buddy. A friend (because I do have some) suggested that she may have thought I was hitting on her but I explained that I had my new drastically short, sexuality stereotypyingly confusing haircut hidden under a hat........although I was wearing dungerees, ah well.

This morning I bumped into the guitar guy who lives with Lindsay in flat 4 coming out of their flat and he asked about the garden and what I was doing. He sounded really interested.

It’s nearly a week since I ‘just nipped into’ a shop on the off-chance of picking up a bargain and bought a load of random stuff I don’t really need and I’m still eating well – venison sausage and organic cider mustard ciabatta for lunch, fish and mushy peas for dinner – no chips as no potatoes but hey who would’ve thought that mushy peas were just overcooked peas!

A three mile run tonight seemed remarkably easy. Some kids were hanging out in the park and one humorously decided to join me. ‘You’re up for the whole ten miles are you?’ I asked and he said he was but dropped off after about 100 yards – thank god as otherwise I’d have had to run ten miles rather than being revealed as a liar. I sprint finished from the end of the shops and as I came back through the door guitar guy and Lindsay emerged with a load of bags – they’re moving out as well! So that just leaves me and Busha in Flat 6.

Over my mushy peas I started reading my first copy of New Internationalist. It had a pull out section of action groups across the UK including an events diary. ‘Huh,’ I thought, ‘Typical – all in bloody London’ and then realised that was because I was reading the London section so I turned to the Manchester pages and there was me! In print – in a photo doing a rather neat counter balance with the Spokes Bicycle Dancers – yes! How radical am I? Well radical - that’s how radical.

bad nachos and no cakes

Hmmm...haggis sandwiches are all very well - quite flavoursome and quite filling although I suppose that's only to be expected of what is essentially porridge in bread. The mayo didn't work - in future I'd opt for something more robust like a chilli chutney.
Blew the first of my two eating outs on some mexican nachos at Remedy comedy club - just as well the comedy was better than the food. They were welded together with melted chesse that looked as if it had had a few passes through a microwave.
No cakes at work

First day without food shopping - haggis sandwiches

Well I was all smug at not going into any shops today, until I got home and realised that I have NO onions, none. The nearest I’ve got is one bulb of garlic. Also I only have, sorry had, one potato. I ate it tonight. I thought it would be a lot longer before I started noticing things I haven’t got to be honest. No onions! How is it possible to cook without onions? Everything has onions in, except for things which ought to.
Been looking at what I’ve got and soaked some beans as I don’t want to end up eating just beans at the end of this challenge. The other fear is sushi – I seem to have two packets of nori seaweed and two packs of sushi rice which, if you’ve ever made sushi, you’ll know goes a long, long way. So I need to start eating that regularly.
I did think it would be a week or so before I was stretching my imagination but tomorrow I have haggis, mayonnaise and beansprout sandwiches to take to work.
We got pastries AND cake AND fruit at work today.

the third challenge

Ingrid’s challenge....
How long can you go without needing to buy anything?
Ok. Well this is a good one for me. Ingrid did suggest it could be food or food and other things but I’m going to stick to food and see how it goes. On the one hand I deplore consumerism but on the other I do buy stuff a lot. I kind of justify my eating habits on the basis that I usually check out the yellow sticker section first and let that tell me what I’m eating, but then I frequently end up buying various other ingredients to go with said yellow sticker purchase. Also I use the ‘oh I’ll just check the yellow stickers out’ excuse to go into shops and then end up buying stuff because it looks nice, or I fancy it, or because it’ll come in handy.
Having only moved here within the last few months I haven’t built up a huge hoard but even so my freezer is pretty much full, I’d be hard pushed to name everything that’s in there.
So this is the challenge – not to buy any more food until I have eaten what is in my cupboards AND to make it last as long as I can – I had to add the last bit in or I’d just have a monster pig out and clear the lot in a few days.
But how long can I make it last? What do you think? In the same way that I wouldn’t ask anyone to guess how many gobstoppers were in a massive jar of gobstoppers without showing them the jar I don’t expect you to make an uninformed guess. Here’s what I’ve got:
A fridge freezer of the big freezer, tiny fridge variety, freezer ¾ full, quite a bit of meat and fish and bread in there, fridge mostly jars of stuff, and some deep-cold muscle rub (which will not be getting eaten). One standard kitchen cupboard full of food and I mean full – bags of dried stuff and tins and rice and such like. Two more cupboards with not much in them – spices, herbs, teabags, oil and what have you.
I generally get fed about twice a week at work with various free food at seminars, also we get free fruit (which I sit right next to!) which lasts until about Wednesday, and pastries on a Monday morning, and cake when someone has a birthday. Honestly – it’s like my bosses have worked out what motivates me or something.
Because I’m not a complete masochist I’m NOT including alcohol bought outside the house, or cleaning stuff – not that I buy much of that anyway but I’ve tried home-made clothes washing stuff before and it never smelt that great or got things actually clean – not an issue when you’re on a mountain with goats for company but I would actually like to keep my job and my friends. Also I will let myself eat out, but no more than twice a week.
What’s the oldest food you’ve got in your cupboards?

Community and running updates

I trekked up to Chorley to go running yesterday as a comment that I was thinking about it was picked up on at work by Andy (who has challenged me to do the half marathon) and my boss Frank who both said they’d meet up for a run. Laura was less than enthusiastic – indeed I was after a night on Leffe beer which had ended up with me snoozing in the pub. Then the trains turned out to be on rail replacement buses from Bolton so I had to leave my bike locked on the station there and wait in the cold, still hungover for a bus which was 20 minutes late, and then wasn’t allowed to set off as they decided to transfer us onto another bus, the driver of which didn’t even know where Chorley was and we had to direct him! I sent various texts explaining the state of play, dropped my panniers at Laura’s house – she wouldn’t come out, and belted down to the park. No sign of Andy or Frank so I assumed they’d set off and decided just to get going. Despite the cold and the hangover it wasn’t so bad. The snowdrops are out and although the course is difficult it’s very pretty. Some kids had broken down the harris fencing surrounding a new rustic-style climbing frame play park area and were triumphantly sitting on the top of it looking down on the ‘building site – no entry’ sign in the mud. Various dog walkers were out including a splendid chap with a huge walrus moustache with two basset hounds. The course is 3 miles including two laps through the woods and I was planning on doing it twice as this was my six mile run. Andy reckons the second lap is the hardest but I can now say that actually the third is harder. I was only half way round the third and struggling when I saw Andy and Frank running towards me. They’d hung around waiting for me and then decided to run the opposite way to catch me. So I turned round and followed them back up the hill I’d just run down. Frank (who celebrated his 60th birthday last year) led us off round the other side of the park, along the edge of the muddy football pitches, always ahead and looking as if he were hardly trying at all, telling stories as he ran. I managed to keep jogging but at a pace which wasn’t much faster than a walk. They waited for me a couple of times and we did another lap round the woods. It was great running with other people because it made me try a bit harder, and they didn’t seem to mind that I was slow – the first time I ran that course was with Andy and Paul I’d had to miss out the 2nd lap whilst I got my breath back so at least he knew how much I’d improved.
Today I’m out for a 3 mile as I failed completely to get a run in during the week. I am starting to enjoy it a bit but I think I need to start pushing times. An hour and twenty minutes of running yesterday took me ten km – which I’ve put myself down for doing between 50 minutes and an hour for the Manchester 10k (which is after Blackpool – by which time I should be super fit or knackered).
Singing is off for half-term next week. We were fewer last Tuesday and the usual crowd in the ‘high’ singing spots was missing so I went and sat with them – and then Simon didn’t split us into highs and lows but leads and back-ups, and then moved us all around until I ended up with the lows again. The lady who had her finger in her ear next to me the other week was opposite me so I could see she was still doing it – maybe it wasn’t me after all – she also seems to constantly be pulling a face as if she’s either confused or pissed off. We did a song which had an instrumental break – and we were the instruments which was very fun, lots of silly noises that when they were all put together actually sounded really good.
I made it down to the lost plot again last Sunday for a few hours digging before the snow came. I took a barrow load of rubbish which had been gathered in little piles and odd broken buckets around the plot up to the central skip and had a chat with a woman who was planting out some espalier apple trees which she said she’d moved twice in the last year – they looked healthy enough but they were quite mature and it was so cold – I hope they survive. I have bought myself a fork and am going to get out in the back yard this afternoon and clear the little raised bed that is there. I’m also clearing the area under the trees at the end with a view to it being a community space for the flats that I live in. I have been planning to invite them all round for cake and tea and tell them about it but they mostley seem to have moved out. Flat one downstairs is empty and the landlord was round yesterday working on the flat below me and a load of rubbish had appeared outside – cleared out of the flat I think. I had a rummage in it and found some rugs which will do nicely to suppress the weeds on my little plot until it’s warm enough to plant up, also a proper old canvas tent – the sort that you really need a car to move around but that lasts forever.
I think community and fitness are the sort of challenges that only come slowly, and with time and effort. So – I’m going to keep plugging away at them but it’s time for another challenge - after the 3 mile run – difficult dragging myself out of a warm cosy flat into what looks pretty cold and nasty but I’m sure that once I’m out it’ll seem better.

Shoddy update

I am a bad blogger – barely a couple of weeks in and already I am neglecting this. My excuses are numerous. It’s my sister’s fault – she visited this weekend, thereby distracting me and I had a drink in the sand bar which turned into several and work has been extremely busy and so on........
The lost plot has lost out on my assistance the last two Sundays – the first for Chinese New Year which turned out to be on this weekend, so I had to miss it again. Just as well as it was freezing cold – big fat snowflakes fell all over the dancing dragon – which the Chinese compere called a lion, before being corrected by the girl next to him. Then they had a lion and unicorn dancer which he carefully explained was a traditional dance at the Chinese New Year and symbolised, ummm...good luck – with a cheery chat show host grin. It all went very well with street food and generally cheerful crowds although I did regret my choice of long Chinese dress and fishnets – tights with hundreds of holes in them – what is that about?
Running – I did manage to fit in a three mile and a two mile last weekend, the first round Chorley park with Laura who is training for the Manchester 10k and involved more walking than running to be honest – although Laura made a better showing than I did the first time I did that course when I had to miss out the middle lap to stand wheezing and gasping like an asthmatic fish out of water for ten minutes. Then I did a four mile on Wednesday night – I quite like running in the dark so long as it’s not raining and don’t buy into the general nonsense view that rapists and muggers are waiting around every bush and alleyway for suitable victims. It was great and I thought I’d got the whole running thing nailed - until this morning and a two mile stumble which was agony and even stretching afterwards did nothing to stop my legs seizing up and making me walk in a lurching, stiff-jointed marionette kind of way with a twitching grimace of pain at every step for the rest of the day. Repeated applications of deep heat seem to have helped.
Next week – five miles and three miles.