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Yes, we’ve been particularly bad at getting around to writing anything in the last while. Megan and Michael have been so good at putting stuff up lately that it’s been making me guilty. Though I have to say they have had a couple of slack years really! But that’s no excuse for us.

We’d had some visitors staying with us again – Dad and Dawn – and so we got to again see London through a newcomers eyes. It’s always good to be reminded that what we either walk or travel past often is actually pretty interesting. And the good thing about London is that you can tick off quite a few sights during a reasonable length walk. Pity the weather wasn’t the best for us on some of the walks, but hey ho. Some of the walking we did was not so much sights, but around where we used to live etc too.

We made Google Earth paths of most of the walks we did together around some of the sites. If you’ve got Google Earth and want to have a look, the paths are all here, London Walks.

I’d tell you all the sights we say etc, but it was a while ago now, and I’d no doubt forget as many as I remembered, and it’s sunny outside so I’m going to go read my book in the sun. Sorry!
They did a bit more on their own as well, of course.

Looking back at the last few entries I’d made, I noticed that just over a month ago we’d just had snow here. Outside at the moment it’s about 25C! Go figure.

But I’m not complaining!

Though I might if it just keeps getting hotter through to the real summer. The tubes are bad enough during even mild summer heat.
Mind you, this being England, this week might just be all the summer we get this year. Better enjoy it while it lasts!

It was that time again when far too many thousand of people feel the need to cause themselves a great deal of pain and run (walk, waddle, whatever) for 26 and a bit miles.  FOOLS!

But at least it gave us a chance to go revisit the neighbourhood we moved from last year, as we knew a great spot to watch from there. And a great pub nearby to retire to for a burger lunch when the skies decided to open just to compound the misery of all those running. (The Ship and Whale.  Great place, with great staff and great burgers.  Did I mention the burgers are good?! Sorry Pete and Wends to go there without you guys.  You’ll just have to come back to visit so we can go there again…)

We even managed to get ourselves on TV again (we were on TV in the same spot a couple of years ago too)!  If you know where to look, and what clothes to look for, of course.

A bit backdated, as we seem to have been either busy or tired, so not got around to putting this up, but we finally got some snow! Some real snow that settled, even! YIPPEE!

Pity that it happened in April, when it’s meant to be getting a bit warmer, but I’ll take it! Just not too much more of it, thanks!

For those of you that don’t know, I (Bec) fought my fear on Thursday night and walked on fire – twice! You might be asking why would you do something so crazy?! It was through work and was for charity and 11 of us managed to join in. All in all there were 90 people taking the plunge.

Firstly before you can walk you have to attend a two hour training session called ‘Learn or Burn’. Basically you learn that being able to fire-walk is based on physics – like the hot potato effect. You also learn to manage or take away your fear. About 1/2 an hour before the start of the walk you are taken out to watch the fire being lit – which I must say after being trained was not as scary as it would’ve been without training – but you still think F***! Then back inside for the last part of the training to practice. You walk on the carpet. (I know you’re all thinking this isn’t quite the same thing!)

The walk itself – it was bloody fantastic. You can feel the texture of what you are walking on and I guess to try and describe it it feels like warm underfloor heating. And Mike tells me I was taking big confident strides storming along. Everyone in the group is so hyped up – imagine a bunch of Americans at a political rally. The first time was so great that me and a few workmates managed to do it again.

Its a great adrenalin rush and a real buzz (on Friday I was so drained). If you ever get the opportunity to do it, I’d say take it! The next stage is apparently to walk on the shards of 1,000 broken wine bottles – not sure about that one as there ain’t no physics in that!

This time we’re not going to eat them!

You can tell we’re getting really, really boring, as opposed to the slightly boring we were before! But in our defence, it’s still pretty dark, cold and blech outside lately, and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a challenge completed. And with the amount of blue bits that all looked vaguely the same in this one, it was a little bit of a challenge.

We did break from tradition though and didn’t do the edge bits first. It was much easier to do the middle, then the rest. A tip, in case you end up here in winter and it gets pulled out again.

Now we just have to decide if we’re boring enough to do another one soon!

Well thanks to Rach we received an extra big bird to have for Christmas dinner…… yep, for just the 2 of us she was a big one, weighing in at 7.9kg (well probably 7kg by the time you take the giblets etc out)! We wondered if she was going to fit on our oven trays – but thankfully we found one that she managed to full up! (by the way I can’t believe I am sitting here writing about a bloody turkey).

Thankfully Jamie Oliver was on tv the night before, so we picked up a few good cooking tips, for not only stuffing but learning different ways to test to see if the bird is cooked right through. Now onto the prep, a bit of sage and lemon zest butter under the skin and some stuffing (our best yet), into the neck and a little inside the bird (enough so it can still breathe apparently – even though it’s dead…). Now into the pipping hot oven for about 3 hours.

And here she is………… all crispy! And let it stand while the vege roasts away. We also managed to make some of our best gravy yet too.

And here she is the completed meal for just the 2 of us….. (a lot of food there and yes there is a lot left over). We were ashamed of how much of Mrs bird had to be thrown away – even after we’d filled up the fridge with bits of it – there was just no way we could’ve used all of it! We’ll already be eating turkey sandwiches for breakie, lunch and tea for the next week……

All in all the best Christmas meal we have cooked together…. now we just have to try and repeat it sometime and share it with others.

That’s right, it’s that time of year again. The BBC wine and food festival hit town.  So off we went.

Forgot the camera, and my phone was out of battery, so here’s last year’s photo.  To be honest if we took one this year it would look pretty much exactly the same anyway!

There didn’t seem to be quite the same number of people there this year.  Which was a very good thing.  It was much more pleasant wandering around this time. And not quite so hot and yucky.

We came away with a few chilli sauces, a couple of bottles of wine, a reasonable amount of pickled herring, some cheese, and the bowl queen got some more bowls to add to the collection. Like we need any more! Oh, and a few bonus free pasta sauces, chocolate and an apple.

Well, Gym anyway. Today I went for a trip to the gym. Yes, that’s ME talking this time, not Bec! Though she was the one that dragged me there. We’ve got a little cardio gym as part of our complex that we pay for as part of our rent, so may as well use it, and it’ not like it’s very far away.

Just a little workout to see if I’d keel over or not, but surprisingly I came through unscathed. So far. I’ll see how the legs are tomorrow…

Sorry to bore you with such a pic, but it’s so unusual here this summer that I just had to make sure there was a record of it somewhere! It’s been a stunning day here. It’s been probably the hottest day that we can remember this year. Lovely jubbly! We’ve had a nice day trying to find all the sunny spots around where we live. Originally we were going to go for a 10k walk, but we soon decided that that was possibly pushing ourselves a bit further than was necessary!

But spare a thought for the poor buggers doing the triathlon that is going on past our place today. An full Olympic triathlon in this heat must be killer! Good on them!