Buying a castle!

Not really, but this would be a amazing - owning a piece of history, albeit a derelict crumbling piece of history that would require a lottery rollover win to be able to fund the restoration.

Ruperra restoration

http://ruperracastle.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

New app

I've invested in a new app: Blogpress. The latest version had patchy reviews but it was priced below £2, meaning that if it's no good, I've not wasted too many iTunes vouchers on it.

I thought it would be appt devoting today's post to my favourite apps so far. There are so many out there and many different categories (including, in my case, apps DH has loaded on here) so I will focus on "productivity" apps. These are largely the ones you use to justify owning an iPad, because you will able to work and plan things.

So, in no particular order, my favourites are:

Popplet
DocsToGo
Readdle

Docstogo does what it says. You can generate docs, on the go. I have only used it to generate word docs but there are PowerPoint and excel options too.

It's quite basic, no fancy formatting for example, but it works.

Readdle is a document reader. I can use it to open a PDF and then add bookmarks and annotations. This is actually v useful. Bear in mind that I spend a lot of my waking hours looking at lengthy documents, cases, legislation and regulatory guidance. Having a PDF reader that enables annotation and bookmarking means that I don't have to print and carry reams of paper everywhere, one of the points to having the iPad.

Finally, Popplet, for people who like spider diagrams and mind maps. I think this is my favourite. Great for brainstorming and planning. My latest popplet sets down various ideas for blog topics.

The site I've linked to looks like it might be quite useful in app hunting. I'll let you know what I find.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Guest Post

Courtesy of Boo. She spent a very industrious hour typing the following story. A variation on the traditional story of the Gingerbread Man. I've opted not to correct her spelling or punctuation. It's part of the charm.

Onec upon a time there was a little old woman and little old man. The little old woman
decided to make a gingerbreadboy. She made its buttons out of smarties two different colours red and green.
Its coat is made of icing sugar. The littl old laday said lets put him in the ovun so the little old laday put the gingerbreadboy in the ovun.A few minits later the ovun went beeeeeep beeeeeeeep the little old laday rushed to the ovun she oponed the ovuntheand out popted the gingerbreadboy.As fast as a fox eting him of cours not what will happun he ran away so the poor little old laday said what can we eat now said the little old man whiye dont you make 2 gingerbredpeople or 4 lets make 4 or 6 said the little old laday so they did and when the ovun went beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep they both rushed over to the ovun and oponed it up and there was a nice flat pile of gingerbreadmen.

It's a funny old game

This is the cake I made yesterday. As it was for DH's birthday, albeit a week early, I decided that getting some football players and a football to go on the top would be a great idea. DH supports Spurs so I decided that it would be a really good idea to get the football players in Spurs' colours. On presenting the cake to DH he asked: "do you know why Spurs are call the Lilywhites?". I paused, thought for a moment and remembered that they play in a white strip....

Earlier in the day, while heading into North London, I spotted a billboard with the new season's spurs strip being advertised. This was after I'd bought the cake decorations but I didn't really notice the colour of the strip as I looked at the poster. Anyway, the poster has three chaps in a "come on you Spurs" pose - huddled together, fists clenched. I commented on this to DH and suggested they should have got man at C&A to model the strip. DH pointed out that the models were in fact, Jermaine Defoe, Luka Modric and another...

This early on in the season, I'm sure there will be more demonstrations of footballing ignorance to come....

Baking Frenzy

The photo below is from yesterday's baking frenzy. On arriving back from the morning gymastics visit (Pip's first class and a great success), i realised that I need to get to work baking if I was going to have a cake ready to take to Barnet. DH's birthday is a week away but we'd arranged with T that we'd go up this weekend as she was hosting a gathering.

The secret to all good birthday cakes is to keep the cake simple. I opted for a basic sponge recipe from the Bamix recipe book. This was very quick and easy to do, especially with the trusty hand held blender for the mixing. Onto the next cake. This Friday sees a cake sale at school for the Macmillan event: the world's greatest coffee morning. Rather than outsourcing my cake making to L to do on Thursday morning, inspiration struck, I would make the sticky gingerbread recipe. It's still waiting to bake as I need to mix in the missing two ingredients.

While the birthday cake was baking, I decided to get the buttercream icing ready. In my hunt for a list of the correct proportion of butter to icing sugar, I stumbled on a flapjack recipe. It seemed a shame not to give it a whirl.

I'll post a picture of the cake with my second post for the weekend. In the meantime, here is a picture of the kitchen in action. I'm a big fan of kitchen gadgets and firmly believe that it's worth paying for a good quality item over a cheaper counterpart.

Sweeeeet

Mmmmm, honey. I harbour an ambition to keep bees. Partially inspired by Pushing Daisies. We have some flat roofs on our house which would lend themselves perfectly to an apiary. I came one step closer to my ambition last weekend when we went to the local beekeeping association open day.

They run an introduction to bee keeping course. I'm tempted to try and fit it during the first part of 2011. We will see.

It's a long term ambition.

I have just one question. Bees aren't native to the US. Where else in the world are they not native? Wheremare they native to? Why is it that they never waggle danced their way across to the US?

Hmmm. Honey.

Happy Birthday Agatha

(Thanks to google for today's image)

I first read Agatha Christie around the age of 10 or 11. At that age I had a voracious appetite for books, I would wolf down several a week but I'm not sure how fully they were digested. At school we had to write a book, this was in year 4 (now called year 6) and I wrote an attempt at a murder mystery. I no longer have a copy but it was a poor imitation (although bear in mind I was 11 at the time) of an amalgam of Miss Marples, complete with house in the country, a glamorous actress with a vendetta to pursue and probably a secret passage or two behind the wood panelling.

Back in 1997, a university friend compiled a list of his top ten Christie's:

Crooked house
Towards Zero
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Endless Night
Death on the Nile
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Cards on the Table
Peril at End House
The Hollow

When discussing this last year, a further two were added:

Then There Were None
Murder on the Orient Express.

Thirteen years' later, I have yet to work through the list. Once I do, that's 12 posts for here...

Found! Mr Thorne

Now, everyone receives those "viral" emails (please bear with me while I get with the Web2.0 lingo). Now, a couple of years ago, there was one doing the rounds involving a drawing of a spider

As these things go, it was quite amusing and very memorable. I was recently sent Mr Thorne's artwork for a missing kitty. If ever one of the cats go missing, I will be asking Mr Thorne to help produce the posters.

Now, we have a friend who's name is very similar to Mr Thorne's. Around Christmas time a couple of years ago, I was trying to organise a gift for a friend who was a going skiing for a while. We decided that some hollow ski poles would do just the job (it probably needs no explanation that she was off to spend a ski season in the mountains). Hollow, so that they could be filled with a tipple of choice, or indeed different one in each pole. I only hope she didn't try using them to mix martinis, but that's another story.

So, in sending an email to solicit donations from mutual friends of my travelling, drinking, skier, I managed to email Mr Thorne. Here is a copy of the email exchange (edited so as not to splatter names and email addresses all over the place:

My Original Email:
>
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 7:32 PM, S S wrote:
>>
>> I am thinking about a gift for Clare for her skiing adventure - my sister in law finds the following indispensible:
>> http://www.liquorsnob.com/archives/2005/10/coldpole_liquor_reservoir_ski_poles.php
>> These are US based - I need to find out where Tina got them from but here's my idea (above)
>> Anyway, what do you think - anyone want to come in on this with me?
>> S

Mr Thorne's reply:

Hey guys,

I'd love to go in on the ski poles but unfortunantley I don't have much money at the moment. I have attached a picture of a spider that I value at around $250. I hope that this will cover my share of the present.



Say hi to everyone for me.

Love David xoxoxoxo

My Reply:

S to show details 11/24/08

https://www.theski-shop.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=395&category_id=47&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1

£90 so will order and split cost among those who have contributed.

Dave - the spider only as 7 legs so I can't accept him as payment. Please offer other legal tender.

N - I will invoice your Dad!

S

Mr Thorne's Reply:

David Thorne to me
show details 11/25/08

You're so hard to please, Suzie. :)

I've reattached the spider with eight legs. Can't believe I stuffed it up.

- Dave.

Observations from the namesake and others:

Hmmm there appears to be an usurper in our midst with an additional "e".

I wonder if this is the same guy who made enquiries about a Chevy truck a few months ago that caused a series of ever more desperate emails from a dealership thinking they were about to make their first sale of the month in a credit crunch...
-

Reply N G

show details 11/25/08

Sod the Chevy truck, what he really wants is a villa in St Lucia! And boy have I got a deal for him ;-) Not many 7 legged spiders, though, cockroaches and geckos are more the thing out here!

Reply Reply to all Forward


Reply D T
show details 11/25/08

Hang on, this guy is an internet phenomena:

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4031496
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=667093

My final observations although we concluded that it was the real Mr Thorne.
S S
show details 11/26/08

Are you sure he's not just impersonating an internet phenomenon? Al
posted that spide story on facebook. He probably kidnapped the spider
for his own financial gain. Mr Thorne that is not al.

Just goes to show that getting the correct email address is a thorny problem.

Post race musing

This year's splits:

10k Run1 00:57:58 - ave 5.8 min per km
20kBike 01:00:26 - ave 3 min per km
5k Run2 00:32:49 - ave 6.6 min per km

Total 02:35:32.

Last year's splits:

9k Run1 00:49:07 - ave 5.4 min per km
20k Bike 01:20:08 - ave 4 min per km
5k Run2 00:31:37 - ave 6.3 min per km

Total 02:45:20.

Thoughts on the above:

ten minutes faster than last year with an extra km on the first run
in both years I have power walked round the second run. Improving my speed here would be an easy win in terms of getting my time under 2 and a half hours
slower pace in the first run this year. I suspect this is partially down to the extra km, I took a slower pace
VERY pleased to see I've shaved a whole minute off my ave time per km on the bike ride.

So, did I learn from last year's experiences, which can be found here: http://suzesblither.blogspot.com/2009/09/duathlon-success.html ?

Looking back on last year's post race analysis, yes I did, particularly on the cycle stretch.. I was less of a big girls blouse on the downhill stretch and I had treated myself to a new bike which also helped.

What have I learned from this year?

I think the slower run partially reflects that I didn't maintain my running training in the last two weeks before the race. This is partly because I had swapped my run for spinning classes and partly inertia.
I need some longer or at least more intense training runs and a 10K at the start of the summer as a pace setter. I had completed a 10k in April at a time of about an hour (check)
Start my cycling training sooner. I did more than last year but it was all in the last month
Invest in cycle shoes or at least some of those toe straps

A link to the photographer's website to follow....

Two in one day

I'm not using this as a loophole, i don't get to build up post-credit simply by posting an addendum. Text arrived this morning:

"Well done for completing the London Duathlon. Run1 00:57:58, Bike 01:00:26, Run2 00:32:49, Total 02:35:32. Congratulations"

I am however going to save my post race analysis for another day....

Remember me?

Annual posts about duathlons? Well, it's that time of year again so here goes...

Actually, I haven't got my results yet so the duathlon post will come later.

A few of my friends are engaging in the following project: 365 days - capturing life Once their albums are more established, I'll see if they're happy to share their albums on my blog, I suspect that it's good netiquette to ask...

I thought about setting up my own 365 album, but decided that it would be opportune to engage in my own project 365: a post a day. Starting with today. I've always found the blog a curious creature and I'm often surprised by how much people share on their blogs. I suppose some people are more open than others. So that's my first challenge in a post a day: given I am not inclined to reveal the innee workings of my life, neither personal nor professional, how do I make this engaging?

I'm tempted to answer, "I don't". The challenge here is for me to post once a day, i'm not overly interested in the feedback or comments I get. I may add a blog ticker again as it's always interesting to see where my hits are from. One thing I am going to do is true and refresh the design.

I'll be back tomorrow with my duathlon times.

What's new?

Tapping away on my new toy - that's new. iPad arrived on Friday and so far so good. In the last forty eight hours I have used it for:

Reading the paper (guardian.co.uk and independent.co.uk)

Reading the following books: Winnie the Pooh, Treasure Island and Alice in Wonderland. The latter via the "app" - which effectively renders the classic as an e-pop-up. Boo and I had great fun reading the first couple of chapters and engaging the original illustrations (I wonder what the original illustrator and Lewis Carroll would make of it)

Facebooking and emailing (of course)

Perusing Marvel Comics

Playing Harbourmaster and Trivial Pursuit

Watching Alan Partridge Christmas Special.

All that in a neatly little slimline and portable device. Of course being able to do all those things and the novelty factor threatens my concentration span as I start up one app and then decide to move onto another.

I have yet to use tithes for work related matters but i have some slides to work on for a couple of presentations so I will see how they go. Now, off to the app store to see what I can find. Perhaps via Facebook....

Photos

interesting statistic: the first elite runner over the finish line made it round the entire course in 50 minutes. I had completed the first run and was collecting my bike by 50mins!

Duathlon success

Well done Suzanne for completing the Chelsea & Westminster Health Charity London Duathlon

9k Run1 00:49:07,
20k Bike 01:20:08,
5k Run2 00:31:37,
Total 02:45:20.

On the whole pleased with this result. Training plan comprised running to the office two to three times a week. This is around ten miles a week. No training schedule and somehow moving house and never quite working out an ideal bike training plan meant that I was dependent on the conclusion that if I could cycle over the downs for a day with two ish stone of toddler I could complete 20k of cycling.

Lessons learned for next time:

do more cycle training
service bike properly. Liberally spraying the chain with muc off lube does not equate to a bike service. At least I didn't get a blow out in the rear tyre. At least I assume that's why I heard an almighty pop and some guy swearing
don't be afraid of the downhill stretch. It's your friend not your enemy
do more cycle training

Secrets of my success this time round:

carb load: pasta n veggy mince the night before, porridge for breakfast, 1-2 bananas pre race
energy drink for the cycle ride
use different running techniques for the climbs n descents
power walk part of the last run
know that there's people waiting at the finish to cheer me over the line!
Yoga as part of pre race warm up. Stretches muscles, focusses mind and steadies breathing
smile for the cameras

So any suggestions for my next race gratefully received...

Ways to communicate

There are so many ways to communicate with the world at large. But who has any more to say? Empty vessels sound the loudest...

Five months for the first post

and five days until the next? Not quite. Interesting reading back on last year's highlights. Easy option for another post is to list this years' pluses and minuses:

Minuses:

spending a month at risk of redundancy while firm went through collective consultation process.
Missing out on dream house that we'd been eyeing up for the past six months

Plusses

No longer being at risk of redundancy and still employed
Mr S going back to work having had a lovely time off with the girls
Selling our house and finding THE house of our dreams

Fingers crossed on last one anyway!

New phone

So now I have a new phone and can browse and post on the move, will this increase my post rate? We will see. I'm not one for broadcasting every last detail about my life to the world at large. How do you reconcile a right to privacy with the right/ ability/ need to publicise every waking move with the world at large?

First post of 2009?

So how long will that take me?

One Last Post

So Highlights of the second half of 2008:

• Returning to work after a year on maternity leave
• Ipple turning one, growing teeth (5 so far) and walking
• Guitar Hero World Tour on the Wii
• A certain other half taking voluntary redundancy
• Trip to Disneyland and San Diego

No Icecream please

Today was the Ben and Jerry's icecream fest. On a hot and humid day at Clapham Common, an unlimited supply of icecream was just what we needed.

Babies asleep when we arrived so we queued up for the coffee flavour, mint flavour and cheesecakey flavour. Figured that while they were asleep we may as well queue up for another flavour while we ate 3 scoops between the 2 of us. Three cones of Cherry Garcia later and we were on our way to meet our friends.

After some expert steering of the Phil and Ted's we'd arrived at their spot by the tree, marked our territory with a picnic blanket and sat down to finish our icecream before it finished us. Daddy and IB went off for a wonder (and a sneaky icecream) while Mummy and PL enjoyed some frozen yoghurt (chocolate flavour). PL particularly enjoyed the bottom of the cone containing slightly melted icecream. Not only was it tasty, it made a good mess when shaken.

After giving the babies something other than icecream to eat, it was time to wander again. Various sights taken in included the merchandise stall, childrens' play area and more ice cream - phish food. Clearly we had to have a go at the magnetic fishing as well!

Oh and there was music there too! We left during the Charlatans as the idea of battling to Clapham Junction with the world and his wife really didn't appeal.

Now, what's for dinner?