Category: General ramblings

Packing and emptying

Packing my suitcase, and emptying my fridge that is!

Well the last few days I have been trying to use up everything (no photos again because for some reason I can’t get it to upload). Yesterdays breakfast was lovely- Alpro plain yoghurt, doughnut peach, and some pumpkin tea bread with pb. (I made the pumpkin teabread with 1 cup dried chopped figs, 1 cup raisins, soaked in 300ml tea, plus one cup of pumpkin puree, 2 cups flour, 2 eggs..)- delicious.

Last night was a Sweatshop run- we did a route that was about 3.2miles, and I kept the front of the group in sight- made it back in 31.35! Pretty fast, especially as it was hot!

Finishing that I had a lovely dinner of balsamic tofu (I pressed the tofu and then soaked it in balsamic and dried basil before baking) with a salad of beetroot and avocado- things that needed using up!

I have been sorting out things at the allotment a bit- some weeding, planting a few more plants, picking mountains of raspberries (and now eating them as they needed using up!).

Today I was packing (and waiting in for a parcel) and went out for a slow 4 mile run (in the baking heat this afternoon)- soon I shall be running along the beaches, or something like that.

I am taking my running shoes on holiday with me- I have never done this before, and usually take the opportunity to have a rest from running on holiday, as I think a rest makes you come back with more enthusiasm. Plus we always walk a lot on holiday- we are not ones for lounging about- we do a lot of sightseeing, so I never want to be tired from a run during a long walk or something. But this year I had a rather long enforced rest, and I am concious that when I get back I have 2 weeks before the GNR- not long to get up to that distance (13.1 miles- eek).  Andy is taking his too, so we are hoping to have a couple of runs together each week- not much, and not extending anything, but hopefully it will minimise the fitness loss. That is the plan anyway.

Our holiday is a rather special one- at Christmas we were meant to be going to New York, Washington and Philadephia for Christmas (and then to the beach in Florida) but as I was in hospital we had to cancel. Andy promised me that if we had to cancel it, we would go to Hawaii, and that is where we are headed! We have a stop in Vancouver, so are off to Whistler tomorrow, and then after that to a few of the Hawaiian islands- I cannot wait- might even get to visit the Dole pineapple plantation and see a volcano! Eek! Better finish my packing 🙂

Do you have any trips planned this summer?

Anywhere you can recommend?

Sweetie Tea!

Hey peeps

I hope everyone is still loving the Olympics- I sure am!

I got an email from Twinings this week, telling me all about their new range of teas, and I must say, they sound right up my street! They sent me a couple of them to try (Jasmine Pearls and Honeycomb Camomile) although I love the sound of the whole range.

They seem to be based on old fashioned sweet shop sweets- ones in jars that you used to buy a quarter of (makes me sound old, although I never knew what the quarter meant!).

Click on the links if you want to see photos, as my net-book is refusing to upload photos for some reason.

Honeycomb camomile tea (sounds nice- I really liked camomile tea when I tried it before, but have not bought any for ages): This is lovely- really mild and fresh tasting, with a hint of honey- sweet but not too sweet. The teabags are those fancy silk “temples” and they look so pretty with the yellow buds. The tea went a very bright yellow colour too.

Gingersnap Peach tea (sounds like it would be my favourite- on holiday last summer I became rather a fan of ginger peach tea). I will be on the look out for this as it just sounds amazing, and I bet it would make a nice iced tea too.

Mint Humbug tea (also sounds lovely- I do love a nice cup of mint tea)

Liquorice Allsorts Earl Grey Tea (This must come a close second in ones that I want to try- I am having an Earl Grey phase at the moment)

Jasmine Pearls Green Tea (athough I am not a massive green tea fan, it still looks pretty. Not sure what sweet they are aiming for though, any ideas?). This tea was very mild tasting, which I liked, as I often find green teas too strong, even if you only brew them for a minute or two (this recommended 2 mins). Again the tea “pearls” looked very pretty in the silk pyramids, and it turned the tea a very strong green colour. It was not as perfumed as other jasmine green teas that I have tried, but I preferred this one I think as it was overall milder in taste.

Which tea do you like the sound of the most? I am torn between the Gingersnap peach and the Earl Grey, although I like the sound of the mint and camomile too, those first two are a little more unusual.

What sweet would you love to see made into a tea?

Olympic day out

Warning- this post contains loads of photos!

Well the day finally arrived! We had tickets for athletics in the morning, and hockey in the evening. Lunch, raincoat, camera and water bottle packed, we headed to the underground (and even got the javelin train- what a fab idea).

The security was excellent- we walked right through in no time (no queues at all).

All the staff were so friendly (it was very “Disney”- they were all going ” we are so glad you are here, have a lovely day, let’s have a shout out to the New Zealand fans” etc) and it was signposted clearly.

This thing is so ugly though, especially the big concrete ribbon.

Woo-hoo: at our seats! By the way, the vast majority of these photos are by Andy as his camera has a good zoom etc.

Yes I was very excited to be there!

The stadium had a commentator (announcer?)- they explained what was happening, if they were heats who would go through, who the athletes were, what their records were (or if they had WR, OR’s etc) and so on. There was lots going on.

Those minis were for the javelins- once they had measured the throw they would put them on a mini and it would drive back to the start- as the athletes can choose from the pool of javelins- they don’t have their own.

Love the flame.

So, we got to see:

Women’s javelin (qualifiers)

Action shot! We did have a GB girl doing javelin but she didn’t qualify.

Men’s 110m hurdles- qualifiers. That was exciting- some of them knocked loads over though! We had a British guy (Andrew Turner?) qualify in his heat- exciting!

I love the dip they do as they get to the finish line.

The big screen would show things like their times, the WR and OR, the qualifying times, or the list of people who had qualified. I felt I knew what was going on. It was strange though because the athletes could obviously hear the announcer, so when they said things like “that’s not how she wanted to end her Olympics career” I felt a bit sorry for them to have to hear it about themselves!

Men’s triple jump– Phillips Idowu making an appearance after all that speculation.

More action shots!

Women’s 5000m qualifiers. I was very excited that I saw Jo Pavey, and also we had another Brit who qualified- Julia Bleasdale (although that confused me as they just said the surname so I was thinking it was Holly Bleasdale until I saw her!).

Men’s 200m qualifiers

There is so much macho strutting and stuff- they all have their little action to do to the cameras! Of course, the crowd went a bit crazy for Bolt- he lapped it up!

He was so fast, and really slowed down right at the end- he is amazing. His feet seem to grab the floor in front of him (no heel striking there!).

Blake was in another trial (and Bolt after the 100m said that he trains much harder)- he finished with a faster time in the end (than Bolt I mean) but they were all leaving some in the tank for the real race I think- again he really eased up when he got close to the finish line.

After the athletes finished, they had to go through rows of media interviews before they could leave the stadium. In one of the hurdles one of the men hurt himself, and hobbled off to a different exit, only to be told to go out the media exit. In the end a couple of other hurdlers (including the GB guy) went to help him walk as he was limping really badly.

I loved all the flags that went around the roof of the stadium.

Then we had a wander around the park- it is massive! I really didn’t appreciate how big it would be- it did say in our info it might take 30 mins to get to the venue after security, but I took that to mean it would take that long to go through security. Nope, it is just massive.

Think that is the boat from the Queen’s Jubilee? I really wanted to see the boat that Beckham drove (do you drive a boat?) in the opening ceremony!

There was a queue all the way up that hill of people having their photos taken, but we just did it from the side instead!

We sat in the park, had our picnic and watched the big screen for a bit.

Then we went to the shops- there is a massive Westfield. Oh my word it was so busy, but we were so excited to see a Pinkberry! Mainly because of it being on Curb your Enthusiasm! We shared one with mango and coconut- yum.

Then it was back for the hockey in the evening- this time at the Riverbank stadium. Very very pink!

GB were playing Spain- GB could draw to qualify, whereas Spain had to win.

A few action shots! In the end it finished 1-1. I don’t know much about hockey (trying to remember the rules from when I played it at school) and again the stadium announcers were very good as they would explain things like the penalty, time out, cards etc.

It rained quite a lot then, so we were glad of our rain coats.

After the games finished we had another wander around the park to see it lit up at night.

And then it was home 🙂

It was an amazing day, I felt so lucky to be there, and am so glad we persevered with the tickets (anyone who applied knows what a nightmare the system was). But it was just fantastic.

Phew.

And well done to you if you got to the bottom of this post!

Olympic highlight so far?

Mine still has to be Mo Farah I think, that was such an exciting race.

So excited!!

Guess what!!!

Tomorrow I am going to the Olympics!!!  Athletics in the morning and hockey in the evening 🙂

We missed out on the first ballot, but got up super early for the second chance, and although it took about an hour, and the website kept crashing, we finally got some tickets confirmed. I was excited at the time, but I am even more excited now!

Today I managed to tire myself out completely- I did a 4 mile run, then headed into work, as I had to put all the furniture back in my classroom. Let me tell you, there is a lot of furniture in a classroom! When I finally got home, midafternoon, I treated myself to watching the women’s marathon on i-player! It was exciting to see all the landmarks on the TV- I am sure it persuades some people to come to London.

Catch you later!

🙂

Tough run, and then a fun day out in London

Hey- I hope everyone loved Super Saturday and am not getting fed up of me raving about the Olympics yet!

Where did I last leave you? Friday I was at a wedding all day- it was lovely, there was no rain, I spend the whole day with some fab friends- wonderful stuff…

Saturday the plan was a 12 mile run. Recently I have been going out before breakfast, so I decided to do that. It did not go so well. I will not ramble on (really?) but it was hard. The weather was muggy which didn’t help, but I felt like I had no energy- I walked several times which is very unlike me, and I even had to stop for the toilets at one point. Andy caught me up again and ran with me for a bit which was nice, but I just wasn’t feeling it. It started raining lightly after about 5 miles, then eased off, but then when I was about 1-2 miles from home it poured down- torrential rain. First the rain washed all the salt off my face and into my eyes, then the rain filled my eyes (had to take my glasses off) and at points I could not see because my eyes just could not get the water out. In the end I cut it a bit short and did just under 11 miles, but it was a struggle. I was quite fed up when I got home, but in reality I know that I had not slept enough, and had not eaten normally the day before (wedding meal in the afternoon, slice of cake in the evening), and probably had not drunk enough either. Anyway, as I keep saying, I just want to enjoy the GNR, and so what if I have to walk a bit??

Breakfast could not come soon enough! Nectarine, raspberries, muesli, maple cereal, chia seeds, almond milk, topped with soya yoghurt and pb.

I spent the rest of the day chilling- watching some sports on TV, popping to town to pick up my new glasses, then spent the evening at Andy’s parents- I was so excited during Mo’s race! I really didn’t think he would do it- I thought he would do better in the 5000m so it was even better!!!

This morning we headed into London- we made pretty good time- leaving home at 9am and getting to Tower Bridge at about 10.

When we came out of the tube station it was very exciting to see the logo on the bridge.

(Andy’s camera for most of these as the battery ran out of mine after 3 pictures!)

You can almost see the colours here!

We walked over the bridge to by the Tower of London, and then it started raining very hard!

See those black clouds- they were on their way to us!

We waited in the shop for a bit, and then when it eased off we walked up to the course. Then it started raining hard again, and we still had a while before it started (and we were near the end of the loop bit) so we headed down to a Starbucks for a warm drink and a sit down. Just in time, as it poured even harder.

At about half 11 the rain had nearly stopped, so we went back up to the course. I was so jammy- the crowds were about 2 or 3 people deep, but the man I stood behind moved as soon as the runners went past on their first lap, and then a child moved away, so I got right up by the barriers! Plus we could see them on the way past in both directions, as they ran up the road, turned and ran back down the other side.

Seeing the runners was so amazing- they are just so fast! Plus I hear about them all the time on marathon talk- I felt pleased that I actually knew some of them! All the crowd were cheering every single runner past, but there were big roars for the GB girls. I saw Freya Murray go through, and a little later Claire Hallisey, but never saw Mara (and only later I saw the news story that she pulled out after 5K- such a shame)- extra big cheers for them. The sun came out, and it ended up getting quite hot. After they went by the third time we started to wander to the river.

We saw a band playing very lively music, and walked passed one of the water stations too.

We walked over to St Paul’s, and I was so excited when we came across an Earl of Sandwich! We have been to these in America before, but never seen one in the UK! That was lunch sorted!

Just look at that blue sky- hard to believe it is the same day!

We then walked along the river (lovely views of the Eye and Big Ben etc) and then up to Trafalgar Square. Nelson was wearing a Union Jack on his hat!

A lot of it was still pedestrianised (as they had closed lots of roads I suppose) which made it lovely- much better as there were quite big crowds.

We also stumbled across a free exhibition of different Olympic torches- belonging to the Prince of Monaco. It was very interesting as they gave us a leaflet about all the torch designs- but we only took a picture of the London 2012 one.

Exciting stuff!

Finally we headed to the big Wholefoods- what a lovely shop. And yes, I managed to spend quite a bit!

Drinks- vanilla chai (love this and had just run out), plus mango and tropical coconut water.

Snacks- popcorn (for Andy), chocolate pretzels, yummy zest pesto.

Chocolate and things- pb, marzipan bars, coconut bounce bar, raspberry and coconut chocolate, earl grey tea chocolate, lucuma powder.

Plus some doughnut peaches- I have only ever had these in the US before and they are so good- had to have one as soon as I got home.

Then we headed home on the train, and collapsed in front of the TV for some more sporting action!

Phew!

I am hoping to have a run tomorrow morning before I go into work, but I looked just now and my trainers are still soaked from yesterday. I have put them in the airing cupboard with some newspaper, but might have to wear my old ones I suppose if they are not dry.

Did you watch any of the women’s marathon today? What did you get up to this weekend?