Mmm, food
Good day faithful reader. Yes, I've returned from my week long holiday and I'm pleased to report that the trip went extremely well and I've come back with many a story to regale you with!
The first 4 days of my trip were spent staying in the Osborne House cottage (see link on the right hand side of this page), which is located about an hour and a half SW of Toulouse. The last 3 days were spent staying with some friends in Madrid. I think that if were asked to describe the theme of this particular holiday in one work then it would have to be eating. In both France and Spain I enjoyed some very good meals!
While I was in France my general practice was to tour around the little villages and when it got close to lunch time I would stop somewhere that had a menu du jour which I thought looked tasty. The next hour or two would then be spent gorging myself, leaving the rest of the afternoon to do more touring. This worked out well, because it would mean that I could just have a light dinner back at the house at the end of the day and not be forced to buy too many ingredients.
This was particularly the case on my first day in the country where for starters they basically brought me an entire cauldron of soup and as much bread as I could eat. I thought it best to stop eating half way through the cauldron so that I could fit the rest of my meal in, so I was rather distressed (no only because I thought that my translation had gone sadly astray) when the next plate that was put in front of me contained a lettuce leaf and few slices of salami! Of course then I was equally distressed when they then brought me what I was expecting and the quantities were even more voluminous than the soup! I managed to get through it all, but in doing so left no room for dessert... and for those that know me, you'll know that there is 'always' room for dessert!
My first culinary experience in Madrid should have given me great cause for concern, given it was literally a stick, bought from the basket of a guy standing in the Puerta del Sol! Despite the fact that it wasn't exactly unpleasant, I did feel like something of a spectacle wandering around the streets of a major city with half a tree hanging out of my mouth (I'm still not convinced that my friend wasn't taking advantage of my unfamiliarity with Spanish cuisine), so I was pleased when all following meals were in restaurants, where the chef didn't use pruning shears to prepare my meal!
The restaurants that we went to were mostly in the Cheuca region and were very good! When I was in France there was an element of luck to how good the place was, but I think that the odds were increased somewhat by the fact that my friends seem to be avid readers of the restaurant reviews in the local papers. This is really something that I should start doing here in London so that I'm not forced to take visitors to Cafe Nero, or worse still, the world famous Blue Anchor Pub!
Of course, being a chocolate connoisseur it would have been remiss of me to leave Spain without having indulged in one of their famous hot chocolates. For those not aware of this, the Spanish do not do hot chocolate like the rest of the world, oh no. Theirs is much better... it's really more like chocolate sauce than chocolate milk, and you dip fried dough sticks in it. Sadly it's not really something that you can have on a regular basis without giving yourself a heart attack!
Competitive spirit
Good day faithful readers. I must first apologise for not keep up my end of the deal in this relationship. That is, providing you with something entertaining to read on a regular basis. The reason for this is that for one reason or another I seem to have had no time to do anything over the last week. I have to start work in an hour, but I thought that I would take the chance to jot down a few words.
Last night I went for my third run with the Serpentine Running Club and did the 3-Parks run. I've decided that there is no way around it, my run with the club is going to have to be my fast run of the week. Last week I was feeling a bit tired, so I thought that I would do an easy run, and as such I put myself in the 8:00/mile (5:00/km) group, which is a pace that I can maintain very easily. The problem was that I found that I had to run nearly flat out just to keep up. By the end of the 7.25 miles I had averaged 4:38/km.
The problem I think is that sports people by their very nature are competitive people, so when you run with a group of people that you don't really know, there is a tendancy for a steady jog to turn into a race. If you're running with someone that you know then you know where you stand comparatively and won't bother pushing if you know your running partner can easily beat you. When you're running with someone that you don't know though you find that you're constantly testing the person/people that you're running with looking for a little sign of weakness that you might be able to exploit. More often than not it just results in everyone running much faster than they had intended.
This-morning I went for the longest run of my training program so far, 28km. Generally speaking you're supposed to take it relatively easy prior to a long run, so running with the club yesterday probably wasn't the best preparation. Unfortunately it was forced on me by a change in roster. Nevertheless, I did the required number of kilometers, but I was starting to feel a little tired at the end.
Next week I shall be off to France and Spain, so I'm pretty excited about that. Hopefully I'll have some good stories and nice photos to show you all when I get back. I'm not exactly sure what my internet access will be like during this time, so if you don't hear from me for a little bit then I apologise in advance. Until next time.
The running of the serpents
Good day faithful readers. I've never been one to rest on my laurels when it comes to getting out there and meeting new people... well no, that's actually a total lie. Generally speaking, the fewer new people that I am forced to come in contact with the better. However, in order to expand my group of friends beyond the unemployed, alcoholic set (ie. the clientele of the world famous Blue Anchor Pub) I decided that I needed to move beyond my comfort zone, and as such I joined myself up with the Serpentine Running Club, where I though that there might be a somewhat greater chance of coming in contact with people who share my interests/values etc.
Of course meeting new people was not my only motive for joining the club, oh no! There are three other good reasons. Firstly, you see training for a marathon is not an easy task. It requires you to go out training very regularly, sometimes when the weather is horrible (which is more often than not during the UK winter), sometimes when you're tired and sometimes when you damn well just don't feel like it! Being part of a club and knowing that other people will know if you don't turn up adds just that little bit if extra motivation which is sometimes all that is required to get you out the door. Secondly, being a member of this particlar club at least allows me to get 10% off all running gear at various running shops, so given that the membership fee was only 20pound and I'll need to buy at least one new pair of shoes I really had nothing to lose. Finally... well I guess this is really a side bar to meeting people really, but female runners have fantastic legs!
Anyways, Wednesday night was my first run with the Serpentine Running Club and it was great. Before I arrived I expected there to be maybe 10-20 runners, but I was way off, because there were well over 100! On Wednesday nights there is a choice of two runs that you can do, 2-Parks (which goes around Hyde Park) and 3-Parks (which goes around Hyde and Regent Parks - I assume I'm either missing a park somewhere or they have very peculiar naming conventions), which are 4.3 and 7.4miles respectively. They further split the groups up based on what pace you want to run at. Since I'd already run 34km over the previous 2 days I decided to put myself in the 2-Parks, 7:30/mile group, which was just myself and a couple of other guys (Ian and Oliver). We ended up running a bit faster than the intended pace, but it was a really good run and it was good to be pushed a little bit.
Afterward everyone generally goes out to one of the pubs in the surrounding area for a quick drink and a chat about all things running before heading off. I discovered that Ian had managed to get himself a place in the London Marathon (2 weeks after Paris), so he is training for that at the moment. Apparently he also works for the Ministry of Defence! My first run with the club and I've already met at least one person who is nearly exactly like me!
Enter the webmaster
Good day faithful reader. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I am part owner of the business that is Osborne House European Cottages (see Links for website), with the other members of my family holding the remainder of the shares. In order to make this a successful business each of us has various jobs assigned to them. As the most technically competent person in my family, which isn't saying a great deal, one of the jobs that been assigned to me is to learn how develop websites so that we can alter the company's website without having to rush off to a developer every five seconds.
With this in mind I went out and bought myself a book for beginners to website development. I've only read a few chapters thus far but I've already come a long way. For instance, I now know that HTML (the common language that is used to write websites) is in the process of being replaced by XHTML, which is almost idenitical. I also know that when you search for a website on Google or Yahoo! that how often your website comes up is largely dependant upon what keywords (words that people are likely to search for) you have in your meta tags. This second one is particularly important, because after a quick look it seems that the Osborne House website does not have any at all, meaning that it will only come up if someone types in something that actually appears in the text of the page! Must have a word to the developer about that!
Of course you can only be so creative with your websites when you are restricted to changing everything via code, which is why it is helpful to have web development tools. After a quick scan through a website magazine in a newsagent I discovered that the two most popular tools are Dreamweaver (used to actually build the site) and Paint Shop Pro (used to make all your cool graphics). Later that day I managed to "acquire" myself a copy of both pieces of software. I've had a bit of a play with both programs, but I'm planning on finishing reading my book so that I can get a good background on what I'm doing before I start delving too deeply.
Anyways, I may have to put HTML learning on hold for the remainder of this month so that I can focus on my French learning before I actually go over there. I think that I've progress remarkably since I was last in the country, however last time I was in the country I wasn't meeting a French mademoiselle, and I would be absolutely mortified if we spent the entire time speaking in English because my French sucked so badly. She's read my French writing numerous times, so she knows that I'm no Balzac, but I don't think that there is any need to go out of my way to further lower her impression of me!
Night time in London
Good day faithful readers and a happy new year to each and every one of you. If today is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to progress, then I'm going to spend the next 12 months falling asleep! The reason that I'm so tired is that I had to work yet again at the world famous Blue Anchor Pub. Although it may sound bad, it was actually one of the better new years eves that I've had. When I first started work the pub was sparsely populated compared to what I had expected, however it soon started to fill up, particularly when the DJ fired up his music. Despite warnings the previous day from the manager about how new years celebrations often turn violent in the UK, from what I saw the crowd was very well behaved and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Apparently the new years celebrations in central London were quite good, so I would have liked to have gone in there if I had not had to work. Because of the difficulty of catching trains (as well as general coldness after the sun goes down), I haven't spent that may nights in London since I moved to Byfleet, but generally I do like wandering around cities when it gets dark. It makes for some good photos. Just prior to Christmas I was in there and had the chance to take some photos with all the Christmas lights up. The top photo is the lights along Regent St, while the second photo is of the famous Norfolk Pine that they light up every year in Trafalga Square. Of course, there are also the non-Christmas things which look quite spectacular when they're lit up at night too. One of the most difficult things about taking photos at night is keeping the camera still while you take the shot. Normally a tri-pod solves this problem, but I took the photo of the Millenium Eye and the houses of parliament from one of the bridges that crosses the Thames and the problem was made a little more difficult by the fact that the bridge kept moving when trains went by.
Prior to Christmas the streets of the city were absolutely packed with people (even more than normal) doing their last minute shopping. During my wanders I stumbled across Hamley's, which is a very popular toy shop. I tried to go in and have a look, but a got a few meters inside the door and discovered that I could barely move, so I decided to move on.
One of the other places that went wandering was along Oxford St, famous for all its clothing stores. I can tell you that it was quite difficult to tear myself out of some of the stores without purchasing something. Thankfully the fact that
some of the clothes would have consumed my entire weekly wage in one hit, and also that my storage space is already somewhat limited helped drag me out of the stores. As much as I would like it, it's not as if I need a new wardrobe at the moment anyway. For five days a week all I dress in is black shirt and pants purchased from Tesco (cheap supermarket) for 4 pounds a piece.
The restaurants that we went to were mostly in the Cheuca region and were very good! When I was in France there was an element of luck to how good the place was, but I think that the odds were increased somewhat by the fact that my friends seem to be avid readers of the restaurant reviews in the local papers. This is really something that I should start doing here in London so that I'm not forced to take visitors to Cafe Nero, or worse still, the world famous Blue Anchor Pub!
