Breaking radio silence - resolution update

I know, it is disgraceful, I haven't posted a blog in weeks. My running has gone to pot as well. I am blaming it on a very busy work schedule and a short stint in hospital which even though it was planned threw me off my game. Work is still busy but I am going to try to be more organised with my time.

So first things first, how am I doing on my resolutions? Well my ambition to visit places beginning with every letter of the alphabet during the course of the year is not going so well. As you will see on the right, I have only managed four letters (and I even I don't buy the Velodrome in Manchester as a V) and May is practically upon us. I am resisting counting neighbourhoods in London but come September I may have to recalibrate. 

My baking resolutions have fared marginally better. I have mastered the cheesecake - a great bottom and a top which sticks to the roof of your mouth. Do have to admit that I haven't made any choux pastry, mainly because I want to make crab puffs and have had trouble getting fresh crab locally. However, and it is a big however, I have made bread. Yes, it is incredible. I have never been successful with yeast-based goods. Hitherto all the bread I have made would have been more at home on a bricklayer's hod than a bread bin. But inspired by the glorious Paul Hollywood, I tried making a simple white loaf a few weeks ago and am completely converted. I have been making it every weekend and have been taking orders from friends and family. I am going to try a few other variations over the next couple of weeks and will keep you posted. 

As mentioned above, very little running has been done over the last few week and this plus my new found bread making skills have not helped my resolution to lose 3kgs. I remain committed to achieving this one. 

So much has happened since I lasted wrote. I will resist the temptation to cover it all or indeed any of it. Except perhaps Mrs T. I know hundreds of thousands of column inches have been written about her and there is very little I can add. But for the record. I took no pleasure in her death. The passing of an old woman had not impact on me or indeed anyone who wasn't a member of her family or a friend of hers. No, she made her impact when she was in power and her influence continues to be felt today. We can, I am sure, debate for hours on the scale of her influence and whether it is good or bad. But of one thing I am certain, her position on apartheid South Africa was unforgivable. She dismissed Nelson Mandela and people like my parents as terrorists and not only refused to do anything to stop the racist government in South Africa but also actively supported it. Shameful. 

I will be back soon with more musings and abusings . . .

We'll always have Paris

I am in Casablanca. As previously reported I had no plans to be here today but circumstances are such that I find myself in the Royal Air Maroc lounge waiting for a flight to Liberia which has been delayed so I am unlikely to make it to Monrovia before 0600.

When I decided that visiting the letters of the alphabet would be one of my resolutions for 2013, my rules for myself were that it had to be a proper visit, I couldn't claim any places I was just passing through - so Crewe wouldn't count if I was just changing trains there. I still think it is a good rule but I think I can make the case for Casablanca. I will be here for at least 5 hours, will eat a meal, drink a Coke and might even have a shower (believe me I would like to have a shower, the only doubt I have stems from the fact there seems to be little evidence of the required facilities). I think that constituents a visit. And people, we are already half way through January and I haven't bagged any places yet, so for the time being at least Casablanca is on the list.

If the airport is anything to go by it may not be a place to which I will want to return. I know this is a very poor criterion, on this basis one could hardly recommend London - yes Heathrow is getting better but Luton? The lounge I am in is over-lit, playing rather exhuberant marching music and has very uncomfortable chairs. Rick and Ilsa would not recognise it and I am sure Captain Renault would have something to say about the state of the loos.

Wait in lounge

I am being tested, severely tested. As well as my many New Year's resolutions, I also decided that I would give up alcohol for January. My poor liver was pleading with me to give it a break and who am I to deny one of my vital organs? It really hasn't been too bad and I have been using the time I would normally spend in a bar, running.  There has been lots of running. But today I find myself in an airline lounge with hours to kill and booze on tap. Thus far I have resisted but for how long I am not sure.

It was going to be easy to stay on the wagon, I had two relatively short flights  and was scheduled to land in Liberia in good time to meet colleagues and have a sober dinner. Alas this was not to be. Instead of being in the skies above southern Spain right now I am sitting in Heathrow where I have been since 5.30 this morning. I did leave briefly on a plane meant to take me to Brussels but there was a "bird strike" and we returned.

The whole experience has confirmed my view that I am not a good traveller. By that I mean that while I love to be in other places, to see discover new horizons and return to favourite spots, I am not good at the getting there, especially by plane. I find the experience of being a commercial airline passenger unbelievably tedious and irritating. Plus I have never been one of those people who manages to look stylish when she travels, you know the sort, comes through the arrivals gate looking super fresh, well coiffured and perfectly made up. I always arrive clothes crumpled, skin desiccated, hair a mess, make-up smudged. I never start out like that, it just seems to happen almost as soon as I walk into a terminal building.

Inevitably by the time I get on the plane, I am grumpy because I have had to get up hideously early to get to the airport hours before the departure time in order to get through security where I have been almost always the subject of a rather too intimate body search and the picking through of my hastily packed bag. This has then been followed by a ridiculously long time waiting in lounges with varying degrees of comfort.

Once aboard, I use all my Jedi powers to stop the person sitting beside me from catching my eye in a way that can only mean s/he wants to strike up a conversation - I can't do chit chat with strangers on a plane (of course if I am travelling with someone I don't stint witty repartee). Then I have a moment when I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter that I don't really understand how a plane stays in the air (yes, I know it is all about lift and thrust but I still don't get it) because thanks to the laws of physics  its being able to stay in the air is not dependent on what is in my brain. And then I laugh to myself for being an idiot before plugging in my iPod, closing my eyes and falling asleep until a member of the cabin crew tries to feed me.

And this morning, we were on track. I woke up at 0415 (some three hours after I had gone to bed - so wise), got angry with the cab company for collecting me late (I could have had those 10 minutes in bed), made my way to Heathrow and two hours after I woke up boarded a flight to Brussels. As I was going through the "it doesn't matter if you don't understand" routine, it occurred to me that the plane (an Airbus 319 I believe) was making a noise much like my on-its-last-legs washing machine on its spin cycle. It was very noisy and all a bit shaky. I was closing my eyes with the intent of catching 40 winks when the captain said something in Flemish which didn't sound good. To be honest very little sounds good in Flemish but whatever he said got the cabin crew going. Anyway, five minutes later we were informed that as a result of said "bird strike" we were now flying on just the one engine and so were returning to Heathrow. As if to underline the seriousness of it all when we landed, we were met on the runway by half a dozen fire engines. But I have had a lot of dodgy flights - lightning strikes, mega turbulence, no lights and a chanting hippie to name a few - so a few fire appliances were not going to upset me.    

What has upset me is having to repeat the security, searching, waiting all over again. This time with bells on because I have missed my connection so am waiting for a 1740 flight to Casablanca - too late for it be bearable but too soon for it to make sense for me to go home and come back later. Once in Casablanca, I will have a four-hour wait before catching a flight to Monrovia which will get me in at about the time I got up this morning - perfect. I have had to queue much more than I would have expected, pay for the privilege of printing out my boarding card at the airport and been searched for the second time in a morning.

But it hasn't been all bad - I have soothed myself in the traditional manner, purchases from LK Bennett will be delivered next week, and even better the lovely people Clarins have given me a complimentary facial. I just need to steer clear of the complimentary bar. 

Cheesecake update 1

So this weekend I made my first cheesecake of 2013 - here it is as it came out of the oven.

I took it into the office to test on my colleagues and sadly their concurred with mine. While the top layer, the cheesy bit, was pretty good, I am dismayed to report that what should have been the easy bit - the biscuit base - was a veritable disaster. I am afraid I had what the great Paul Hollywood would describe as a soggy bottom. A first for me. I still reeling from it. But demon baker Ellie has given me some very constructive advice and I am hoping this kind of rookie error can be avoided in the future. I am determined to get it right and will keep working on it until it is.

Brace yourselves for a lot more cheesecake.  

Happy 2013 - its not a prime number

Happy 2013 - it hardly rolls off the tongue does it? There is no obvious poetry or rhythm to the sound of the date. It would be different if it were a prime number - then there would be some magic and mystery about it. It isn't. It does, however, have the redeeming feature of having having three prime factors (3, 11 and 61) which does give it a glimmer of mathematical allure. Who'd have thought it? I am writing about maths. But one of my resolutions for 2013 is to extend (is that the right verb?) my hinterland, so expect more references to numbers, physics and potentially even chemistry over the coming year. Did I mention that I have also decided to blog again? I am starting this year exceptionally resolute. I have written a list, a long one, of things I intend to achieve in 2013. It includes in no particular order:

·      To make the perfect cheesecake – it has been on the list before and I am almost there. I have been adapting an original recipe from the marvellous Bill Pentler but I still think there is room for improvement. I am looking for the New York-style, sticks-to-the-roof-of your-mouth experience. I am pretty confident I can get there by Easter assuming I can find enough people to be tasters for me (see the next resolution but one).

·      To make choux pastry – again, we have been here before but I have so far failed to get around to this one completely. I want to make crab profiteroles with hollandaise sauce by the spring – and yes, I will be looking for tasting volunteers.

·       To lose another three kilos – another rollover, but for the first time possibly ever I am starting this year lighter than I started the last one, considerably lighter. I would still like to shed a few more kgs but more than anything I want to be fitter. I started running last year but remain a reluctant runner. I still haven’t had the supposed euphoria that exercise is meant to bring but I have, in recent weeks, found myself a little grumpy when I miss a run. Now, I promise I am not intending to run a marathon or anything crazy like that, but I would like to run a bit further, a bit faster, a bit more frequently. In my wildest dreams, I would like a flat stomach but I know this is reaching for the stars beyond my universe.

·      To do something new or scary at least once a month – I think this is a must for everyone. It doesn’t have to mean taking up skydiving, rather doing regular things that are intimidating or daunting and new things that might be fun and/or scary.

·      To visit the alphabet – that is to say, to visit places which begin with each letter of the alphabet, although not in alphabetical order. It sounds easier than I believe it will be – I think X and Z will be a challenge.

I have a couple of others which I do not intend to declare  but just be sure I am as committed to fulfilling these as the others. I shall provide regular progress reports as well as musings and abusings about other matters of major and minor consequence.

Best wishes for 2013