Monthly update - oops!

I really need to get better at updating this here blog! Not too much gardening at the moment as I'm committing as much time as is reasonable to cycling, now that the Coast to Coast trip is booked and paid for, and rapidly approaching! Today I completed my second ride to Arbroath, and this time without the help of a fish and chip lunch to keep me going. Instead I had a home made energy bite at Carnoustie on the way out (recipe here) and  made it as far as the Van Diner before stopping for a not exactly healthy Lorne roll and slice of carrot cake. Well, I had to wait for he rain to go off.....
For a chalet on a caravan park it's a pretty decent little cafe, and it's a really handy spot too. 
Broughty Ferry was pretty busy today as it's the start of gala week and there was a fete on in the park. Lots of people out and about at the yacht club and sailing club too so slightly tricky cycling along the shared use path. As long as you keep smiling and go really slow people are friendly enough, but not always very good at getting out of the way! 
Lots of birds and butterflies about, and some stretches of the route were looking particularly colourful with all the flowers out. I didn't take any flower pics but did get a snap of this heron in Arbroath.
  

Long time no blog!

It really is easy to get out of the blogging habit isn't it? I've just had 2 weeks off work though, so plenty of pottering news! I'm still at least a month behind at the allotment but that's an improvement on where I was 2.weeks ago. I now have peas coming up, courgettes planted out and my leeks aren't far off being ready to plant out. Hopefully the netting will protect my peas from whatever's eating the decoy petunias! In knitting news, I've knitted a pair of socks on double pointed needles

It's a bit fiddly, but not as difficult as I thought, although I need to find another pattern as the heel is a bit odd! I bought the wool from one of the new wool shops that's opened in Dundee recently - it's called Fluph and stocks some pretty funky yarns, including the sock yarn I used for these socks. It's by a German brand called Schoppel wolle and is dyed in such a way that you get an identically patterned pair of socks once you've done some unwinding (instructions are on the 'flying saucer it comes on!).
I didn't get as much cycling in as I'd hoped, as I really had to prioritise the allotment. I cycled out to Carnoustie yesterday, and hit some pretty string wind on the way back. It was tough going but you just have to keep the gearing low and keep going really. I did stop at the Van Diner for a hot chocolate to break up the slog though. I've also now cycled all of the green circular, though admittedly not in one go! Templeton woods and Camperdown park are interesting when you have no suspension, but I did see a deer and heron on that run, without even leaving Dundee. You do see your city in a different light on two wheels!

It was my birthday, and our wedding anniversary, this week so we went out for dinner at the new fine dining restaurant in town, Castlehill. I think it's a good sign for Dundee that someone would even consider opening somewhere of this calibre here, rather than edinburgh or Glasgow. Not sure if it's the V&A effect or not, but whatever it is, there's definitely a bit of a buzz about the place just now!

Keeping at it

Week one of maintaining my weight and I've actually lost a wee bit, so I think a bit of tinkering may be in order! I promised myself a bit of a reward for reaching target and here it is...

Pretty isn't it? And it's got so many pockets I can't imagine what I'm going to use them all for. I've never used a hydration pack before so that going to be an experience - I'll report back on that one!
I've not managed any cycling this week with the weather being stuck in a cold, grey rut. It's been milder today so I'm hoping for a better week this week. Whether the weather picks up or not I'm going to have to get back in the saddle and get some hill climbs in.
I'll be off to the allotment tomorrow to sow some of the big stash of seeds that arrived in the post this week. Off the top of my head that includes peas, tomatoes, Beetroot, courgette, kohl rabi, salad, herbs, kale, leeks. Enough to keep me busy for a while! Oh, and I have my cocktail garden that I got for Christmas to sow too.
Dinner tonight was interesting - a work buddy gave me a cockerel of all things, so that spent the afternoon in the slow cooker with a bottle of red wine and some veggies for a genuine coq au vin, which went down well with mashed potatoes and a pile of cabbage. I really don't use the slow cooker as often as I should. It really does do wonders with what would otherwise be tough chewy meat!

Did it!

So I weighed in yesterday, and surprise surprise, I've hit my target weight a week earlier than expected! To celebrate, I had a wardrobe clear out today, and discovered several pairs of trousers I bought in sales a while ago finally fit. I'll be wearing the flowery jeggings for tomorrow's dress down day at work. As far as the hairy bikers diet club goes, I'll be keeping up my membership for a while yet - it's a handy way to meal/ exercise plan whilst I train for the Coast to Coast, and the forums will keep me on track too I reckon - I'm not just keeping the lbs off for me!
On the allotment front, the weathers been pretty rubbish of late so nothing planted yet, but I did order a load of seeds online last night. Hopefully the weather will pick up soon, but I can always sow some bits and bobs in the green house in the mean time.
Knitting wise I've made a decent start on the baby blanket so I should have a good stash of knitted things ready for beans' arrival in June. Once I've finished this ill move on to the debbie bliss bunny booties - I've already made a pair for a friend at work, so I know they'll be tricky but worth the effort I think

Cycling wise, I braved the wind yesterday to cycle to to Broughty Ferry. Not the most enjoyable ride, but at least I had the wind behind me coming home, and the fudge doughnuts in my basket helped! I've been sticking to the low gear, high cadence approach to hill climbs and this did get me up a hill I've never managed before - more molehill than mountain, and I was nearly sick at the top, but you have to start somewhere! A good power to weight ratio is important for hill climbs, so now that I've reduced the weight I need to build up my strength, which I think will mostly mean more cycling uphill to be honest! Bring on the hills.........

Ta dah!

I did threaten a knitting post so here goes - I finally finished the cardigan I started before Christmas, bar the buttons which need a trip to the wool shop! This picture actually makes it look brighter than it looks 'in the flesh'. I think it's what usually gets called aubergine. This was some wool a girl at work was giving away so basically a free cardigan and I'm pretty pleased with the result. It's quite boxy which I think looks good - no idea if that fashionable or not! I wouldn't rush to knit with such dark yarn again though as it was really hard on the eyes sewing it up!

I've also knitted a pair of wrist warmer for Mother's Day but no pic as they went in the post this morning! I now have a really fluffy blanket on the needles for the niece or nephew who's due to arrive in June.

This is what the finished product should look like, and because the yarn is really chunky it won't take long.

Been a while!

Not sure where the last couple of weeks have gone! I managed a week of cycling to work for 3 out of 5 days but last week was really pretty windy so I opted for walking/bussing it instead. This week looks cold and windy again but I think I'm just going to have to 'man up' and cycle anyway. I planned on cycling by default by the end of March to make sure I was on track for the Coast to Coast so I need to crack on really. The poor old allotment is suffering neglect so far this year, but I did clear out some rubbish for the tip today. I just need to figure out how to put up new shelves in the greenhouse to replace the rotten ones I pulled out.
I went out for tea on Friday with friends from work, for Italian at Visocchis in Broughty Ferry.  I've only ever had ice cream or cake there so it was good to get to try their pasta. I had spaghetti vongole, which is probably a reasonably healthy choice if you don't follow it up with tartuffo limoncello! Saturday's weigh in showed a 200g gain, but after someone pointed out how bloating pasta is I weighed in again this morning and actually had managed a 500g loss across the week so I'm still on target to lose 5kg over my 12 week plan. Also worth remembering to avoid big plates of pasta if you're planning on wearing tight fitting clothes the next day!

The big yurt adventure

I've been meaning to post all week about last weekend's trip away, so it being Sunday I thought I'd best get started!
The weekend started with a coffee break at the Krispy Kreme cafe in Edinburgh. The very calorific doughnut was okay but I still can't believe people were queuing for an hour round the bypass when it opened. A victory of marketing over common sense I think!
We met Ben and Lauren (my youngest brother and his girlfriend) in Bellingham where we had a tasty late lunch in what I think was a community centre cafe. After the doughnut I thought I'd be good and have soup, which was a good plan as it was a very tasty homemade onion soup with loads of pepper, just how I like it! We then hit a slight hitch - no mobile phone reception and we hadn't put the address for the yurts in the satnav. Ben had a rough idea of where we were going so off we set in convoy. I wasn't convinced we were on the right road as road gave way to farm track, and going through a farm gate didn't really reassure me! We did make it safely to our destination, but it was definitely the cross country short cut - we didn't use that route again.

We were met by Rob, the owner, gave us a tour of the facilities. He was particularly proud of the underfloor heated shower block! He then showed us to Esk Yurt, our home for the weekend, accessed via a field of sheep - this may be luxury camping but it's definitely rural!

First task - light the stove!

It was a bit of a chilly weekend with overnight frost, so it's a good thing the stove kept the yurt toasty warm once it got going. There's definitely something rewarding about keeping a good fire burning!
Friday night started with a trip to the local village pub for dinner.  We then headed off to Tarset village hall for a concert - Richard Digance (from Pebble Mill and Countdown fame!) ably supported by a ladies' a capella singing group from Hexham called the Hex Pistols. Bearing in mind all we really knew about Richard Digance was that he's currently touring with Jim Davidson whilst between cruise ship contracts I think we were all pleasantly surprised with how the evening turned out!
Saturday started with breakfast in the kitchen, as there was no way we were going to try and cook on the stove. Rob had left us some eggs from the chickens that wander around the site so it was scrambled egg for breakfast, along with some banana pancakes (Hairy Dieters recipe) I'd brought along with me. We found some leaflets in the Yurt featuring local walks so we picked a short-ish one setting off from the site, going through Greenhaugh village and back over the fields. Some lovely landscape to admire but boy was it muddy once we were off the main road - thank goodness for decent walking boots!

We then headed off to the Boe Rigg coffee shed, a few miles down the road for a very tasty lunch.   worth checking out if you're in the area.
We'd arranged to meet my parents in the local pub for dinner in the evening, so just pottered about at the yurt for the afternoon. It's a good job we did as they decided to surprise us by turning up at the yurt - and they'd sensibly brought a map so actually used the right road! It was back to The Hollybush Inn for another tasty dinner, then back to the yurt for a beer and another good night's sleep.
The forecast wasn't great for Sunday but we headed off to Kielder reservoir for the day, equipped with anoraks and walking boots, which were put to good use! We had a nice lunch in Kielder castle cafe then headed off for a walk through the woods - quite atmospheric in the rain really! We didn't see any red squirrels but did see loads of chaffinches and other small birds.

We then drove further down the reservoir for another walk, including a curved suspension bridge which is apparently unusual:

We then headed back to Bellingham to kill a bit of time before the pub we liked the look of opened for dinner. We nearly ended up just eating in Bellingham but waiting for The Pheasant Inn to open turned out to be one of our better ideas.  Really tasty Sunday roasts all round, and a vegetarian option that wasn't curry! 

After a day of rain it was a pretty muddy walk across the field back to the yurt so I was glad of my wellies. 

All in all it was a pretty chilled out weekend and I would definitely recommend 'glamping' to anyone who wants to get away from it all without having to go totally back to basics! And I know I'm probably biased, having grown up in the North East, but it really is a stunning part of the country - beautiful countryside, great beaches, loads of castles and Newcastle if you need a bit of city life!