Sun's out, legs out!

Yes folks, the day has arrived - my first ride of the year in shorts! Here's the proof in case you need it (you really don't, but this is the closest I'm likely to get to a selfie....)

You might need to turn down the contrast on that one 😎
Other commitments meant I missed the DPC NC500 club ride today, and I'm conscious I haven't done a hilly ride yet this year so I decided to take myself off to the Corn Kist cafe at Milton Haugh for lunch.  It's a great cafe, and comes after you've passed the 'summit' of the ride so you feel you've earned your lunch, which in this case was the house special, Stornoway and onion marmalade toastie. I've had it before and I'll no doubt have it again as it really is delicious - the only thing that would stop me ordering it would be if they have macaroni cheese on, but they didn't today.  The lemon and lime bitters is always welcome, and I've not seen it anywhere else so it's what I usually order.

From there it's only a few miles down to Arbroath. I have a bit of an obsession with millenium mileposts and I don't think I've ever taken a picture of this one next to the Signal Tower museum so thought I'd best add it to my collection.

 The play park by the leisure centre was really busy despite the wind, and the kiosk was doing a roaring trade in ice creams, but the beach itself was pretty quiet.

Not the worst view in the world! I had a stronger than expected head wind all the way home, so just dropped the gears and enjoyed the view and the wildlife.  Sadly I'm no wildlife photographer, plus I didn't really want to stop once I'd got going, so you'll have to take my word for it but today's bird spots include a lapwing between Monikie and Crombie, several curlews between East and Westhaven and I'm guessing this is a kestrel that was hunting by the track out of Arbroath. It's a terrible picture but the best I could manage!

Not much to report on the beer front this week, other than a bit of a cautionary tale about returning to a beer you liked a long time ago.  I first had a ruby Leffe in Lille in 2010 and was disappointed not to be able to buy it in the UK.  Fastforward to Friday and I'm delighted to see Asda now stock it so treat myself to a 750ml bottle. I say treat myself, I've had a lot of fruit beers since then and I'm going to say every single one was nicer than this. Imagine a combination of cherry cola and strawberry laces and you're about there - which isn't to say that's not actually quite a nice combination if that's your bag, but not really what I'm looking for in a beer! Ah well, you live and learn.

Now for something slightly different - not a review, but a podcast recommendation. Anyone who knows me is pretty well aware of my obsession with the band Lux Lisbon (yup, I'm listening to them as I type).  Tom from the band, as well as being a talented multi instrumentalist and producer, is a song writer, and this year has set himself a challenge to write and record a song a week. If that sounds crazy, it probably is, but I've been enjoying listening to the podcasts and hearing the new songs here.  If you've ever had even a passing interest in the song writing/recording process it's well worth a listen.  It's also given me a bit of a push to crack on with this blog so no excuses in future!

Riding with the girls

So today is Mothering Sunday, the clocks have gone forward, and it's a glorious spring day. What better way to spend it than out cycling with Belles on Bikes Tayside? Five of us met at Grassy Beach at 9.15am at which point it was still definitely on the chilly side - ear warmers would have been handy, but the sun was shining and there wasn't much wind (unlike last Sunday's ride!) so we knew we had some pleasant cycling ahead.  Just look at the smily faces!

Ready for adventure

We picked up another rider in Monifieth - even numbers are nice as you can buddy up on the wider stretches and get a bit of a chat.  Too much chat as it turns out as I hadn't noticed my Garmin wasn't actually recording the ride until we got to Arbroath.  Not sure how that happened as it definitely was when I set off - don't you just love technology? I'm ignoring the 'if it's not on Strava it didn't happen' rule though...





Belles on Bikes is a lovely sociable way to ride - lady cyclists are a pretty friendly bunch! That's not the only selling point though - there's always a decent coffee and cake stop on a Belles ride, and today's was no exception! I've cycled to Arbroath a few times now but this was my first visit to the Old Boatyard restaurant, as much as anything because I didn't realise they had a daytime cafe menu.  The location next to the harbour is great, and we were all impressed with our choice of cakes.  Sadly I couldn't have a Chai latte as they were out, but the cinammon latte I had instead was very nice - my second coffee of the day which may well have helped with the pace on the way back!

Taking advantage of the comfy sofas

This was a faster paced ride than usual for the Belles as two of the girls are training for night ride London, but was still manageable!

Three beers to review this week. Friday night was porter night - Dave found me a can of Viking DNA by Brew York in Asda of all places. Smoked beers can be a bit overpowering but the smoke in this was a gentle background note with the main flavour being chocolate malts - never a bad thing.  My second beer of the night was the last of the beers I got from my amazing colleagues for my 40th last year.  I'd been vaguely saving it for a special occasion, but what's beer for if not for drinking, so drink it I did.  At 14% it's no surprise it didn't really taste like beer and was definitely one to take my time over.  The only way I could describe it would be like a very boozy Christmas cake - sweet and raisiny with a big alcohol hit. Not for everyone, but right up my street for a treat beer!  It's a To Ol collab with an Estonian brewery called Pohjala - I've never yet been disappointed by To Ol, especially when I'm looking for something a bit different. Sadly out of stock, but this

is it!









Got this one in Aldi, purely for the label to be honest, but it was a refreshing change after Friday night's heavy beers!

#Ihaveembraced

I'm kicking off with a film review today, hence the title! I'd heard of the film Embrace the movie a while ago, when Taryn Brumfitt appeared on BBC Breakfast promoting the film and the Body Image Movement behind it but didn't expect I'd get to see it. As it turns out a group of local women had arranged a showing at a cinema 10 minutes walk from my front door for International Women's Day, so I got myself a ticket and headed on down - I actually ended up sitting next to a work colleague, so although I'm not averse to solo cinema trips I was pleased to have someone to discuss it with afterwards. It's the only time I've been handed a tissue and herbal teabags on the way into a cinema!

The tissue was definitely needed - for a documentary, it's a bit of an emotional roller coaster, and eye opening too. Not all of it was new to me - I'd looked into the relationship between media portrayal of women and body image in young women as my honours project back in the 90's (anyone remember the era of heroin chic? Horrid) but alarming to realise if anything, things are a lot worse now that we're well and truly in the age of social media. It's a bit of a shame that a lot of women (and men) who could hugely benefit from seeing the film never will, but I'll continue to recommend it to anyone who'll listen!

One of the film and movement's slogans is 'My body is not an ornament, it is the vehicle to my dreams'. Now I'm not really into the language of self help/self care but I'm going to take the vehicle thing more literally than I think it was intended and say there is no better feeling than when you've got somewhere special on your bike, and you can stop and think 'I did that!', so I guess I'm already on team embrace!
It was really windy yesterday so I probably wouldn't have got the bike out at all had David not pointed out it was the first weekend of Spring/Summer opening hours at one of our fave cafes, Alibob Cafe.  It's 16miles away so is usually a pleasant 3 hour round trip for me. Thanks to the wind it was still 3 hours - it was close to 2 hours there and 1 hour back. Definitely felt like we'd earned lunch! Whilst a lot of my rides involve cake, almost as many involve a toastie when I think about it - yesterday's was haggis and smoked cheddar on onion bread, with home made potato salad, and was as tasty as that sounds!

On the way back I got some more pictures of the V&A. Here's one from a year ago, with some from yesterday - quite a difference!

Finally, I had a decent selection of beers this weekend. On Friday night I had a can of Full Fathom 5, a coffee, coconut porter from North Brewing Co in Leeds. Some people might say that's too many flavours for one beer - they'd be wrong though...

Jumping on the can photo bandwagon 😉

As I'm heading into photo essay territory here, if you like to hear about my other beer discoveries on Saturday evening I've reviewed them all on Untappd, where you'll find me and my porter habit as Cathybabes - don't ask!

Spring is in the air

Since I last posted here I've joined the new cycling club set up by some of my colleagues who'll be tackling the North Coast 500 later this year. They've been on some serious training rides but have also decided to organise some more leisurely rides to try and encourage other people to take up cycling. Today was the first of these - a gentle 14 mile ride around North Fife. The starting point was the Tay bridge car park, so as that's only 4.5 miles away we opted to ride from home. Cycling south across the bridge can be a bit of a drag if it's windy but luckily it was pretty still today - the river was like plate glass actually. I'd given myself plenty of time to get there so I had time to stop and take a picture of the V&A museum, which is finally starting to look like a building, though it's still a long way from being finished.

We had a decent sized group , and Ian did a great job of keeping us together. I've cycled the first part of the route before, but the stretch from Wormit to Tayport was new to me, though I may well ride it again as it's a nice flat route, with only one slightly scary right turn at St Michaels. As you can see, a decent day for a ride, considering we're only just into March.

Hopefully we'll get some more rides like this as the year goes on, and maybe even persuade some more people to join us!

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

Strange things going on in the world since my last post - cake and beer reviews seem a bit flippant in the face of Donald Trump and Brexit, so this blog may end up being more political than intended!
So on that note I'd best get the politics out of the way first....
Last weekend on Twitter Owen Jones put out a bit of a call to arms for people to protest against Trump's travel ban that's enough of a Muslim ban to placate people who voted for him on the basis he'd ban Muslim immigrants, but leaving out almost enought Muslim majority counties to claim otherwise - yeah right. Now I don't think I've been on a demo/march/protest since I was at uni protesting about the introduction of tuition fees but there's only so many petitions you can sign and articles you can share on facebook before you think, this isn't really cutting it, so on Monday night I found myself in front of the Caird Hall with 300+ other people of all ages and backgrounds letting it be known we're not happy with our government cosying up with what's starting to look suspiciously like a fascist regime. In the grand scheme of things it may not make the blindest bit of difference but sometimes it feels like doing something is better than doing nothing.
Which leads me onto the first 'gig' review of the year.  Last night we sent to see Mark Thomas recounting tales of his experiences with Wakefield Labour Club, known as the Red Shed.  It would have felt odd going to see a show about political activism and not joined the protest on Monday to be honest.  The show requires 6 members of the audience to sit on stage and from time to time hold up masks of various characters in the 'story' whilst Mark Thomas plays back voice recordings.  (You can probably guess where this is going).  As we were in the bar before the show, waiting for our friends to arrive I'd clocked him coming out of the theatre into the bar and chatting to people, so when he came over to myself and Dave we engaged in small talk about Dundee and ended up agreeing to be in the show.  I suspect I was more willing than Dave initially, but we both thoroughly enjoyed the experience and also had a good old chinwag with Mark after the show, rather predicatably about the Trump situation. We've seen a few of his shows now and I would definitely recommend going to see him if you get the chance - he's a great story teller, helped by the fact he's clearly passionate about his subjects.  I think we're both keen to go for a pint in the Red Shed now too! Oh, and Wakefield's in the rhubarb triangle in case you were wondering!
Much cake and beer has been consumed since my last post, but my food review is actually going to centre on soup today. Last weekend we visited The Scottish Antique and Arts Centre,
in theory to look at living room furniture but really it was just an excuse to visit the cafe which had been recommended to us by several people.  When a menu item is prefixed with 'our famous...' you really have to go with it, so I duly ordered the Haddock Chowder. Look at it, in all it's creamy, saffrony loveliness!

 You can't tell from the picture, but it was full of big chunks of haddock and potato, sweetcorn and peppers.  Also - full marks for providing a pot of hot water with the pot of tea. I realise this makes me sound about 90, but it's definitely the sign of a 'proper' cafe! Fortunately I ordered the small portion as that left room for mojito sponge....

 We bought some of the local beer whilst we there too - not bad at all!

Hooray for Hollywood

No cycling to report so far, so this week's installment will cover beer, bakes and erm breakfast.

First beer of the weekend was an imperial stout that didn't quite live up to expectations to be honest.

It's not the best picture, but the beer is Black Chocolate Stout by Brooklyn Brewery. It was okay but a bit thin for a 10% impreial stout and just didn't quite deliver on the promised chocolate flavour.






Saturday was more of an English Ales kind of night.  We were at a retirement do in a village hall with no bar so a bring your own kind of affair - I took a bottle of Old Speckled Hen (reliable) and a Sticky Toffee Pudding Ale I'd picked up in Morrisons. It's brewed by Charles Wells who are a pretty old brewery but this is definitely one of their newer beers.  It was actually pretty good with plenty of caramel flavour.  Too sweet to drink more than one, but then I've never managed a second helping of Sticky Toffee Pudding either!
After a night out on Saturday, what better way to start your Sunday than with a bacon roll and a film?  Clearly we weren't the only ones to think that, as the 11am Cine Sunday showing of La La Land at DCA was sold out, with staff struggling to serve all those bacon or egg rolls and coffee before the opening credits rolled. I don't go to the pictures much anymore so I'm always a little concerned it's going to be a disappointing experience (yes Deadpool - I'm looking at you...) but I needn't have worried. La La Land is an old fashioned romance, but it's really a love story about Hollywood and the glory days of  musicals as much as it is about the two leads.  The opening song and dance number is a pretty good way of letting the audience know what they're in for for the next two hours, so at least if it's not your thing you are given due warning!  I'm pleased to report I loved it 😁
We left the cinema ready for lunch, and fancied trying somewhere different so headed to
Coffee and Co for soup followed by a scone- slightly overbaked, but the spicy carrot soup was good.  Another decent little cafe for Dundee is always a good thing, so hopefully they'll do well.

La La Land wine - why not?!?

We decided to walk home from town via Majestic Wines - this one insisted on coming home with me....
 








About a year ago hubby dearest won a voucher for a meal at The Fisherman's Tavern  - we decided a Sunday night in January was the perfect time to use it.  We had delicous steaks and couldn't say no to the dessert menu - especially when one of the choices was sticky toffee pudding.  A proper old fashioned pudding in a proper old fashioned pub!

 

So, a weekend of much eating and drinking, but we did walk more than 20 miles over the course of the two days so I guess that makes up for it!

Hello old friend

Hmm, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog, but as it's still here I might as well take a duster to the old place and give it a new name rather than starting a whole new one! As per title it'll mainly be about the unholy trinity of beer, cake and cycling. Well, not just cake - any cafe visit will qualify, but let's face it, that will usually involve at the very least a scone!
I haven't been out on the bike since we got back from York on Monday, but I did have the last (probably) of the Christmas themed beers on Friday night, Northern Monk's Festive Star, a seasonal version of their Northern Star Mocha porter with the addition of cinnamon and nutmeg. This was my first beer on our Leeds festive beer crawl and it was so nice I had to buy a can to bring home. If you're  in Leeds I'd recommend crossing the river to the Holbeck Urban Village. Northern Monk are based in the Old Flax Store - just one of several old industrial buildings that have been converted in what seems a pretty extensive regeneration project.

Look at that glorious sky - I was lucky to get that photo as the fog rolled in not too much later!