Well, the Olympic Torch Relay set off today from Lands End, Cornwall.
Now for some shameless self promotion – I am carrying it in Barking & Dagenham in July.
I’m a bit nervous. It’s only a 300m stretch and obviously, I’ve run a marathon and so lots of people have seen me running before. But this is with the torch and I’m scared I’ll drop it in the Thames in front of lots of people.
Now that would be embarrassing.
On Friday, I planned to go for a run. Then I planned to go for afternoon tea with Jog Blog. The run didn’t happen. Afternoon tea did. So did beer. Yum.
Anyway, I’d never been for afternoon tea before and so this was a new experience and I was probably a bit over-excited about it. Jog Blog found a deal on Living Social and said “oh look, what a wonderfully generous offer, shall we quench our thirst over tea and cakes with a delightful glass of champagne?” and I said in plummy terms “why yes old bean, that’s a simply outstanding idea.”
It’s probably more accurate that she said “hey, do you want afternoon tea?” and I said “yes, cool, can there be beer?” to which the response was probably “of course!”
Pointless dialogue aside, our voucher took us to the St Pancras Grand Champagne Bar where we sat alongside a Eurostar train and I wanted to go to Paris.
Upon arrival, we weren’t made to feel like lesser beings due to our voucher which was a plus point. I like nice things, I just don’t like paying for them and I can confirm that our afternoon tea was indeed a nice thing. There was a minor hiccup in the beginning when it arrived and all of our sandwiches appeared to be meat or fish. We later discovered that actually, one of the sandwiches was carrot disguised as smoked salmon, but a single vegetarian sandwich was not sufficient, especially as the website said we’d receive a selection of salmon, chicken, egg and cheese & tomato. Jog Blog asked for them to bring some vegetarian sandwiches and we were presented with a plate of carrot sandwiches.
Yes, a plate full of exclusively carrot sandwiches which we both stared at slightly incredulously in a “this is a bit insulting” type way. I then explained that we’d only asked for some vegetarian and I wasn’t and could I have some of the others back please? He interpreted this incorrectly as us asking for fish sandwiches and came back with a plate of trout and crayfish sandwiches. By this point, we decided not to bother explaining anymore and just ate what we had and at least we had extra sandwiches. The trout and crayfish were delicious but the unexpected delight was the carrot sandwiches.
I’m not sure why they were so tasty. They just were. And yes, we did eat them all.
Would I recommend afternoon tea at St Pancras? I’d say yes, although the distinct lack of cakes was a bit disappointing. That said, we were provided with six mini desserts to eat which even I couldn’t manage and the scones were the best I’ve ever had. I’m not sure that I’d want to pay full price, but despite the sandwich confusion, it was very much worth the £25 paid between us. And we had champagne.
Then we went to the pub. Funny that.
Afternoon tea with carrot sandwiches
Most of my readers will know that last year, I completed the Brighton Marathon. Despite the 26 degree heat, despite the sunburn, despite getting suncream, energy drinks and Vaseline in my hair, I enjoyed every single minute of it, despite arriving home slightly outside target.
In April, I dragged myself out in a slightly hungover state to cheer my friend Dan around the London Marathon. And I got marathon envy. Real marathon envy. I wanted to jump over and join in and I wanted a medal.
I am also someone who needs to have a challenge to stay motivated. If I’m not in a race, I don’t feel motivated. And my 10k training efforts are very half arsed as I figure it’s a short enough distance to just wing it. Which of course, I can’t. So the time has come for a new challenge and to re-motivate myself. And that challenge is The Luton Marathon.
Why? Several reasons. It’s at the end of November and those of you who know me are well aware that I’m very good at bringing unseasonably hot weather with me to a race. However, I am very confident that a race at the end of November will be cold. I also overheat and actually prefer running in cool temperatures with a drizzle. It’s also not too far on the train so getting home shouldn’t be too much of a problem, it’s cheap and if I can’t convince my boyfriend to run it with me, then he can bloody well come and cheer instead.
The only slight issue is that it has a strict 5 hour limit. However, I’m sure I can beat this, with the required work and effort. I wanted to run inside 5 for Brighton and ran 5.08 which isn’t far out. This was also my first marathon and it was incredibly hot and I ended up with sunburn. I have until November to train. Shaving off those extra 8 minutes isn’t unrealistic, is it?
On another note, the lovely people at eGlove are offering you Moonwalkers out there a special discount on their pink gloves. The code MOON will get you 25% off and if you pay full price, they’ll donate 20% of the sale price to your Moonwalk Justgiving page if you leave your details. How’s that for a nice company, eh?
Although I love to cook and bake, until very recently, I had never made bread. I created this yummy delight the other day to accompany pasta. It was surprisingly easy to do so and was still delicious a couple of days after making it. I used this recipe on the BBC Good Food website as inspiration and changed the recipe to suit my store cupboard ingredients and quantity of people. I estimate that this would serve 4-6 people as a side dish.
Next time, I'll make more effort to shape it properly.
Ingredients
Method
Tips
- Crushing fresh garlic cloves into the butter will give it a more garlicky tang.
- Try caramelising onions and sprinkling on top.
It’s been a long time since I have blogged and if any of my loyal readers remain, they will notice that the blog has a new look.
Don’t worry, I am intending to spruce it up a bit and make it look a little less “thrown together.”
Since Janathon and my dismal failure to complete it, a lot has been happening in my life. My contract at my part time job finally came to an end after several renewals and left me jobless at the end of January. This was a good incentive to try to move my business up another notch but unfortunately the death of my grandmother, moving flat, dealing with the fall out of losing my deposit from my last flat and a finger injury put that on the back burner. It also took me longer than anticipated to find another part time job and renewing my web hosting just wasn’t priority at that point.
However, I am now back! I have unfortunately lost all the posts and everything else for this website. This means a fresh start and I suppose that this is most apt when you consider that I have a new flat and a new job; I may as well add a new website into the mix. I’m not just going to be focusing on running this time around as it’s time to bring in my love of food and all things sparkly and pretty. It’s unfortunate that I have lost everything as this means the loss of the previously written product reviews and race reports, but no doubt that I can build up a new collection.
Do give me a shout if I’ve left you off the blogroll and you want to be added back!
