My last hurrah

Last weekend I went on my last golf trip for possibly many years. There is four of us who have done three such trips over the past year, all have been great successes.

This last one was relatively local at the Donnington Valley Golf Club.

We arrived in good time, checked in to our hotel and got the hotel cart to take us to the golf club for our first round. We arrived at the pro shop with heaps of time, unfortunately it was absolutely pouring down so we loitered in the pro shop, one of the group managed to spend £100 on a new golf club and wet weather jacket. The rest of us took the time to put our wet weather gear on.

The rain eased enough to allow us to have a few practice puts and by the time we were due to tee off the rain had stopped so umbrellas could be put away.

Things started very poorly for me, first shot out of bounds. Third shot into the trees, fourth shot further into the trees and I was still a long way from the hole. Rather than increase my frustrations I picked up and didn't finish the hole not a good way to start the round. Second hole wasn't much better although I did at least finish this hole. Third hole, big drive to a good spot and finished with a  par. I think maybe I got a par on the fourth as well (can't remember and don't have the card for that day). So I kind of had my round back on track.

The next few holes went as per usual, some good shots, some not so good.

The ninth hole is probably one of the shortest par threes on a full golf course I've played. 100 yards, the pin placement was very friendly, just slightly towards front of centre.

If you're reading this blog on a computer, have a look at the keyboard, if the enter key was the left edge of the hole, my ball landed at about the J and finished at about the A. Unfortunately there was no one at the clubhouse watching but I was pretty chuffed all the same. Closest I've been to a hole in one I'd say. Tapped in for a birdie to finish the front nine in a much better fashion than I started.

I can't recall too many highlights from the back nine, I did take a very unusual and challenging route to the par 5 15th but got there in the end. I think it was on the 17th that I won the Yellow Shirt competition, which might be the topic of another blog post some day. Needless to say I was pleased to be able to give Marshall back the yellow aussie shirt which is a horrible shame to have to posses.

Meanwhile the weather had cleared and it was a great finish to the round, quick pint at the clubhouse, back to the hotel for a sauna, spa and swim before heading to dinner - lamb shanks for all but one of us.

Next day started with spa and swim to refresh legs. Big breakfast from the buffet, including taking a couple of takeaways for lunch. At the club house in time for putting practice - why does that never help?

I started slightly better than the previous day with a cautious 6 iron in the middle of the first fairway, I couldn't see the green for my second shot though as it was over a slight hill, without thinking I hit my second shot straight as a die, out of bounds. Having not finished the hole the previous day I didn't realise it broke to the right a bit. Anyway I did finish the hole this time. Par on the 3rd again and finished the front nine with two pars, no repeat of my day 1 heroics on the 9th.

At some stage there was a bit of an altercation on the course, I hit the ball into some trees, the ball actually bounced off a trunk into the middle of the fairway. Thommo then got accosted by the people playing in front of us who felt I should have shouted fore. Either way the guy got agro at Thommo, which in turn wound Thommo up which wasn't on especially as I think it made Thommo play better which wasn't ideal as me and Marsh were already struggling.

Back nine wasn't so flash although I had beaten Marshall by the 15th hole which gave us the chance to focus on winning the team competition (me and Marsh play against Lobby and Thommo). Unfortunately with close to 20 shots between us on the 17th it was game over and the final skin and pride to play for on the last.

I shot 99 on both days, always pleased to shoot under 100 so pleased with that.

Another great weekend, thanks to Marshall for organising, Lobby for driving and Thommo for scoring. I didn't really contribute much other than my company, which is probably worth it.

Anyway a few photos, all these were taken on the Sunday:

The clubhouse

My £60 set of clubs, the price included the bag. Admittedly the driver cracked on first use but it still kind of works

Thommo, our resident pro and score keeper, shot 78 on day 2!

Marshall, my playing partner but also adversary in the Yellow Shirt competition.

Lobby, our driver and much improved golfer since we first played last year

The 9th hole

Thommo teeing off into the 9th.

Marshall playing in to the green on the 18th - where's your new rain jacket Marsh? ;)

Discussing the day

Eating out

Quick post to tell you about a lovely day off Jackie and I had last Thursday. 

We woke up and went for a short walk and had breakfast at a Georgian cafe in Clapham South which we've often walked past, it looks really nice but never looks very busy, we're always keen to support new independent places so we thought we'd give them a go. Having looked at the menu in the window a while ago we both planned to have pancakes and they had two options for Georgian pancakes. Unfortunately the option I went for wasn't available so I ended up going for muesli and a croissant. The food wasn't much to write about to be honest, the pancakes probably were authentic Georgian pancakes, in which case if you ever have the opportunity to have Georgian pancakes I wouldn't recommend it if there are other options.

That said the Georgian cafe does seem to have some decent reviews (http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/venue/2%3A27988/georgian) and some of their lunch/dinner meals might be worth a try some time, as well as their cakes which looked good.

The Georgian Cafe, photo from Time Out

Here are a couple of photos we took at the Georgian...

After our breakfast we headed back home to get ready for the main event of the day which was lunch as the Glasshouse in Kew Gardens (suburb, not actually in the gardens). We had a voucher for this restaurant from when we went to Chez Bruce for Jackie's birthday (as described in a previous blog post). We were booked for 1 and would have been on time if I hadn't taken us to Kew Bridge station instead of Kew Gardens station. A brisk walk had us there about 15 minutes late. The decor and atmosphere of the Glasshouse is very different to Chez Bruce and in our view not as good. But the food and service was great and we had a really nice time. Our voucher gave us lunch for £13 per person. My 1 glass of wine cost £14!

Jackie ready for our lunch date

What we ate:

Entree:

Jackie: San Daniele prosciutto with bocconcini, cantaloupe melon, watercress and balsamic
Simon: Foie gras and chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche (The toasted brioche was yum and the waiter saw me wolfing mine down so offered me another, which I duly accepted and smothered in the plentiful pate)

Main:
Jackie:Gnocchi and gorgonzola dolce gratin with endive compote, spinach, walnuts and girolles
Simon: Crisp pollock with sauce bourride, baby courgettes, razor clams, mussels and aioli

Dessert:
Jackie: Strawberry and custard pie with Italian meringue and strawberry sorbet
Simon: Valrhona chocolate, peanut and praline terrine with chocolate sorbet

I had a large glass of Riesling QbA Trocken, von der Fels, Keller, Rheinhessen, Germany. Jackie had a freshly squeezed orange juice.

It was all delicious and as we sat inside the torrential rain lashed the large windows for dramatic effect.

We then went home and watched a movie (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest) and finished off our decadent day of dining with curry from our new favourite curry takeway, see previous blog post for why they're our favourite.

Jackie tucking in to dinner

Du Cane Court Crawl

The apartment block we live in, Du Cane Court, has in the region of 670+ apartments. It just so happens that two of those apartments are occupied by friends of ours. This is great because we can go to a friends apartment without having to go outside.

Last year we decided that we should take advantage of our proximity and have a flat crawl which involved a course of food in each apartment to make a 3 course meal. The first time around Thommo and Bev had entrée (Spannish tapas), we had main course (Moroccan chicken) and Andy and Michelle had dessert (mini meringues).

It had been a while since we'd done the first DCCC (Du Cane Court Crawl) and the other couples were both considering moving out so we arranged a second DCCC.

This time Andy and Michelle had entrée, Thommo and Bev main and Jackie and I dessert.

This is how it turned out...

First stop A23 for entrée. In the past year Andy has taken to baking his own bread and he is very good at it too. There has been the odd occasion when we've benefited from a bread delivery - another benefit of living in the same building as your friends. There was quite a bit of anticipation that Andy would turn to his bread making skills for the entrée and we weren't disappointed:

We weren't allowed to touch the bread at this stage, nothing was said but we knew.  The bread sticks were also made by Andy and the best bread sticks I've ever had, not dry and crusty but like proper bread.

The finished product. Thommo counted how many times I went up for more, it got up to seven. In my defence it as really good. 

Michelle is English and had gone overboard for the Royal Wedding including Union Jack serviettes

And Union Jack cushions. 

On to apartment K15, for the main meal at Thommo and Bev's. Thommo has proven a dab hand at making delicious healthy meals to supplement his uber athlete life (today he ran an 80km race!!). However this meal might not be as healthy as it looks at first glance.

Caribbean chicken and mango skewers with coconut rice, which is essentially rice cooked in coconut milk, which isn't the most healthy way of cooking rice, I'd never had coconut rice before, wow it was yum.

Finally to K67 for dessert, which was all Jackie. We had spent a lot of time discussing what we would do and eventually Jackie decided to do ambrosia. I didn't really know what this was so offered to help by doing what I was told. That pretty much meant whipping the cream with an inadequate hand powered tool, it took ages but we got there in the end and it was worth it. We made heaps and had a trial the night before.

After the ambrosia we had home made (by Jackie) chocolate chip cookies and tea. A very civilised way to end a very civilised evening.

It's a riot

I imagine you are all aware that the past week in the UK has seen a lot of 'public disturbances' or looting.

It was sparked initially by a peaceful protest last Friday at a police station in North London over a member of the public being shot and killed by a police officer. This peaceful protest turned into a more violent protest resulting in riots in North London.

The violence continued to the Sunday becoming more widespread across the city including Brixton, the feature of one of our earlier blogs.

On Monday Jackie left early to go to the Isle of Wight for a work away day. I went off to work at the normal time. Neither of us had really paid much attention to the riots at this stage.

However by Monday afternoon, as Jackie had just started her journey back to London it became apparent that the violence had spread and was close enough to home to give us cause for concern.

I ran home from work that day so wasn't aware of any problems with the trains but when I got home Jackie called asking whether Clapham Junction station was open, she'd heard maybe it wasn't. I checked online and while the station was open the riots had reached Clapham Junction and it didn't look like a safe place to be and the likelihood of the station remaining open looked slim.

Jackie and I kept in touch as she got closer to London, in this time I'd managed to find out that there had been a small amount of damage in Balham with a couple of phone shops broken in to and a small fire lit in a rubbish bin. Also the Sainsbury's supermarket had locked and barricaded its doors with customers inside to stop looters getting in.

Jackie's plan was to take the train all the way in to London Waterloo and then catch the underground with a particularly burly delivery driver workmate to Balham, I would meet her at the station.

So at the designated time I went down to Balham, keeping my wits about me in case there was any danger. Balham seemed unusually quiet, I couldn't see any obvious signs of looting although while I waited outside the Tube station some youths with balaclavas did walk past but to be honest they didn't seem particularly threatening, but it was enough to make me pleased that I'd gone to meet Jackie at the station.

Shortly Jackie arrived and we went back to the flat, safe and sound we caught up on the news and were particularly shocked to see some of the scenes from Clapham Junction. The video below was taken on the Monday evening, it shows looting around Clapham Junction and included scenes of the Wimpy Burger Takeaway, my cousin Nick lived in the flat above this.

Here is another video from the same guy, Northcoate Rd gets a mention, a feature of another of our blogs

So on the Tuesday there was a more tension with lots of rumours about further riots and looting planned, Balham was including as a potential target suburb. Jackie had to take the decision to close her showroom early to make sure her staff got home safely. Many shops boarded up entirely, the pictures below (not ours) show shops on Bedford Hill (where we used to live) being boarded up. The shop on the corner is Lavish Habit, a cafe that we had average service in as reported in a recent blog.

 As it turned out there was no rioting or looting in Balham on Tuesday night, and since then despite a bit of tension remaining there have been no troubles in these parts, probably helped in part by the very visible police presence.

While this has been a pretty bad news story for London there have been some positives, 2 things in particular worth a mention from our neck of the woods are the huge contingent of people who turned out to help clean up after the riots, particularly in Clahpam Junction, the story has been one of the real positive things to have been reported, contrasting the gloomy 'broken society' type reporting. The image below has been quite an iconic image of the spirit of Londoners.

Along similar lines, but even more local was a contingent on Balham people who against the backdrop of potential riots on Tuesday evening arranged impromptu neighbourhood social gatherings at the pubs that remained open, particularly the Balham Bowls Club and the Bedford. These gathering were arranged through Twitter and Facebook groups and spread by word of mouth, much in the same way that the riots were arranged. We didn't go but the feedback on various social networks were that they were tremendously positive affairs with lots of local people meeting others in a convivial atmosphere where for once it was not peculiar to spark up a conversation with a stranger in London.

So that's our riot experience, we never felt hugely under threat but it was still closer to riots that we would have wanted to be. It's not an especially exciting story but hopefully the only time we'll be caught up in rioting and looting so we thought we should document it all the same.

Shoe Two

As promised here is an update to my last shoe post. If you need to catch up on the last one you can find it by clicking here

Recently I've been suffering from a sore knee when running. I took two weeks off running as it seemed to be a bit of an overuse injury but I also thought it was probably an indication that I needed new shoes.

I keep a log of all my runs (geek, I know) so was able to go back and have a look at how many km's I've done since I purchased my last pair of shoes. It was well over 1000km's which definitely means it was time to get a new pair.

I wanted to get the same pair as last time as I've still not had any problem with my shoes, plus it would have made for another fascinating comparative analysis for the blog. Unfortunately the Mizuno Wave Creation 11's have been superseded by the 12's and I couldn't find the 11's in my size. So I bought the 12's, they were more expensive than what I've paid for the 11's and some reviews I read said they weren't as good but I figure that they can't be too different and it's less risky than trying a completely new shoe.

So I ordered a pair online and a couple of days later they turned up (the day of the free curry).

I have just weighed the new shoe, it is 393 grams. Interestingly according to the Mizuno website the shoe weighs 370 grams, according to Runners World it weighs 385 grams.

For interest I also weighed my latest Wave 11's, which weigh 391 grams, I can't recall what they weighed when  bought them and inexplicably didn't record it in my last shoe blog.

Anyway, introducing my new Mizuno Wave Creation 12's and the whole Wave Creation Family...

Guess which ones are the new ones. The oldest (Wave Creation 10's) I've been using for tennis recently so are a bit worse for wear. At the moment I'm still wearing my second 11's (the read pair second from right) for training. 

The full line up

The middle two have the same tread (Both 11's) the 12 on the right has changed more dramatically. The 10's, on the left have suffered from tennis, the tread has come away from the sole

Shoe Sun

Comparing the latest two shoes there are a couple of interesting differences, starting with a different sole at the back, it is much flatter in the new shoe and has longer gaps between the sole and shoe.

Quite a different tread in the new shoe

Just different

I think this one highlights the differences the best, the new shoe has a very flat heel, I'm not sure if that is going to have much of an impact. 

Ohhhh, shoe kiss. 

An Athletic Weekend

Months ago I booked tickets to the Aviva Athletics Grand Prix to be held at Crystal Palace, it's an international athletics meet and generally has some world class athletes competing.

So on Friday night we headed down to Crystal Palace which is just a 15 minute train ride from Balham. It was suitably busy with the atmosphere of an international athletics event.

We were blessed with nice weather, clear but not too hot. We were settled in our seats having only missed the first couple of events. There was lots going on with several field events going on throughout the evening including triple jump, long jump, javelin and pole vault. Along with all that there was a good selection of track events.

It was all good entertainment. Some of my highlights were:

men's 3000m steeplechase was a good race and it's always interesting seeing a running race mixed up with some hurdles and water


women's javelin was good because it was close to where we were sitting and it was interesting to see the athletes going through their different routines.

One of the ladies in action in the javelin - no one got speared with a javelin

the men's 110m hurdles were good fun, there was one guy who knocked over all but one hurdle, he was shorter than everyone but really, some more jumping practice required.

I'm pretty sure this is the race where the guy on the inside lane only got over 1 of  his hurdles, needless to say he didn't make the final

men's 100m heats and final were good, it was a shame that Usafa Powell pulled out of the competition at the last minute but it was still a strong field. The winner broke 10s which was good to see. Our seats were looking straight down the 100m from the finish line so the runners were racing straight towards us, it made it difficult to get a perspective on the speed but we had a good view of the race.

This is the end of one of the 100m heats, they took it relatively easy towards the end so all of the times were above 10s.

The final of the 100m, there was no easing up towards the end and the winner broke 10s

Men's 5000m was good, Craig Mottram of Australia won comfortably in the end but it was a good race. It was interesting to see how long it took them to run 5km, just over 13 minutes. I don't think I've ever run 5km under 20min! Another highlight of this race was a little guy who could have been a jockey, he looked very much like he didn't belong, a decent club runner at best however he did pretty well and didn't come last so good on him, he was still a laugh though.

Men's 5000m, Craig Mottram is third at this stage, the second person in green. The jockey is the short person in red, just in front of the person in orange.

The women's 4x100m relay was a real treat thanks to Team Slovenia, reason being the athlete running their final leg was Merlene Ottey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlene_Ottey), she first competed at Crystal Palace in 1980 aged 20, then she was representing Jamaica, now aged 51 she races for Slovenia. She's an athletics legend and it was great to see her race. In her post race interview she seemed like a good person too, and she half joked about being back in London for the Olympics next year, I think the interviewer was a bit taken aback by this.

Merlene Ottey, finishing in the inside lane, the last person to finish on this occasion,  although the two British teams failed to finish as they dropped the baton

Merlene Ottey (in white) after the finish, very fit for a 51 year old although her body seems literally out of shape, like she has a saw back, I wonder if it is from so many years of competitive racing. Either way she can still move, it would be great if she qualified for the Olypmics

The final race of the night was the biggest highlight though. It was the men's 3000m and all eyes were on British Athlete Mo' Farrah. He's a bit of a legend himself and there are great hopes/expectations that he will win gold for Britain next year. The race was reasonably ordinary to start, Mo was nestled in the front bunch of three and it looked like it was going to be a tight finish. However coming down the back straight Mo put the foot down and had a 20m lead in no time, he powered all the way over the finish line with a substantial lead. A brilliant race and an amazing athlete.

Mo is third at this stage, the pacer is leading (which wasn't always the case , I think some of the pacers weren't quite up to the grade). Mo is much shorter than most of is competition but he flew at the end, no amount of long stride was going to catch Mo.

It was a good precursor to next year's Olympics, there were many genuine Olympic chances competing so it was great to see them at much lower cost (£16pp) and without having to go into a ballot to get the tickets.

To top off the athletics, on the Saturday I went to watch a friend race in a triathlon at Hyde Park, it was a huge event and included athletes of all levels, starting with the elite women (the elite men were racing on Sunday), then the races for non-elite athletes started with starts throughout the day. Again lots of impressive athletes but also lots of people having a go who weren't so well trained. The route that the elite athletes did is the same as will be used for the Olympics, it was a great place for watching the event so I'm hoping we might be able to go down and watch the Olympic triathlon next year for free.

Penguins and Moonboots (London Vintage Fair)

Another photo heavy blog this one. Last weekend we went to South Bank to a vintage fair. It was great, lots of people dressed up (I looked quite out of place in my running shoes), there was loads of things to see and eat and the weather was great.

So without further adieu, a pictorial blog of the London Vintage Fair...

There were lots of great vintage vehicles selling various types of food. We visited this one later in the day.

A working mobile cinema

I asked Jackie to go an stand near these people so I could get a photo of them as they had made a good effort of dressing up

This bus was filled with lots of random stuff, you could go in but we didn't, it was hot and I don't think they had aircon

Kids of all ages took to this fountain to cool down. We also took the opportunity to do some pram spotting.

These were competitors in the 'Chap Olympics' which is basically a bunch of people dressed up like English 'chaps' doing silly sports. 

The ice creams were knitted

Next to the vintage fair was a separate exhibition of table tennis tables decorated in different ways.

This one was rigged so that whenever the ball bounced on the table it made a noise linked to speakers, I think it would have been better if the people playing on this one were not so hopeless that they missed the table lots. 

You can't really see it very well but right next to the river they have set up a sandy beach that kids were playing in

Again this is from a different exhibition but continues the fox theme from previous post, it's a massive fox made out of hay, I imagine it's a terrible fire risk but guess they've thought of that. 

Looking beautiful next to a garden at the end of the 'beach'

A band that was playing as were were leaving (via the ice cream van). They're called We Were Evergreen, they're quite good...http://www.wewereevergreen.com

As I like to include a video from time to time, I've found this one from We Were Evergreen which is appropriately called Vintage Car, it's not my favourite of their songs but the title fits so there you go...

Jackie has decided we need to include the video below, it's the We Were Evergreen song that we saw them play and we both like, the video is well done too, hope you enjoy...

So that was the Vintage fair, there was lots of looking at vintage stalls but no purchases. The only shame was that it was so hot.

Lots of things to report on the blog so check back often over the next week and we'll try and catch up, but don't expect anything too exciting.