Curry Night - Hairy Dieters style

Well tonight we had friends round for a curry night. Usually this involves phoning the local curry house and ordering in about £80 worth of assorted 'stuff'. This time we cooked ourselves, using the Hairy Dieters cookbook to do a scrumptious Korma and a superb Jalfrezi.

What amazed me was that the cost of everything came to about £80 but the amount of food that was left over was more than half, and not because it was rubbish, but because it was quality food. Everyone was totally stuffed, and probably had eaten less calories than a normal night.

I had a quick count up of my intake for the evening and it came to a tidy 620 calories, of course I didn't partake in the Bombay Potatoes, and only had a third of a Nann, but the curry filled me up.

Another bonus was the Jalfrezi, we are all not 'hardened' curry eaters, and the Jalfrezi from the shop is too hot for us, but because I was cooking this myself, I could reduce the amount of chillies and thus make the dish edible by everyone (in fact the Jafrezi did better than the Korma).

I would thoroughly recommend the Hairy Dieters cook book, it has a lot of good stuff in it - well done lads.

 

 

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My 1st Attempt at a Shavette

After having a 'close' shave at the Goodwood Revival this year, I thought I would have a go myself, after all the Mach3 blades I use are quite expensive, using a Shavette would be a lot cheaper, and with my bald head, I go through a fair number of blades every year...

So I did a bit of research, and purchased a BlueBeard Shavette, soap and a brush. How hard could it be?

 

 

Just watch the clip to see :-(

 

I only got as far as the first few strokes before the blood was running, therefore defaulted back to my trust Mach3....

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Hairless Biker loosing the gut

Ok I coming clean, I'm on a mission to loose some weight, and that's the understatement of the year.

It all kicked off when I went to the Goodwood Revival a couple of weeks ago, if you do not know what the Revival is about, check out my blog from last year, basically it is a car racing event, held over three days, around the theme of 40s, 50s and 60s, the biggest fancy dress party ever. Anyway, this year was a great event, but I always have problems finding outfits for my bulk, I also watched a video playback of me Jiving with my good friend Tracy, she is so slim, it made me think of a ballerina trying to dance with a grizzly bear - I was not impressed with myself.

Then on the Monday we caught up with a couple of episodes of the Hairy Bikers Diet show, this really inspired me, if those guys could shed the pounds, in the job that they do, surely I could do the same without so much temptation constantly around me.

So Tuesday morning was the start of my mission! I downloaded the App for MyFitnessPal to my iPad and started counting my calories, I also went down to the gym at my office (yes I'm a lucky boy), weighed myself and the nice gym instructor measured my fat ratio, he has all the gizmos. So I am coming clean, I weighed in at a mega 132.1 kilos, that's over 20 stone in real money, and my body fat was 33%, I have never been so heavy - time to get serious.

The FitnessPal is a great App, I can see how many calories I am allowed each day, and has made me aware of what is good and what is bad. It keeps me on track, and in the first week, I lost 1.9 kilos, that gave me a lot of confidence.

The next thing I have done was buy the Hairy Dieters cookbook, there were some great ideas in the shows, and some great recipes in the book, for a bloke like me, I am not going to do the rabbit food route, I am not into slim fast, I like my food, and like the guys, I am not going to give up the things I like, I just am going to eat in a different way.

An example of the eating change, started with me thinking I need to give up my bacon sarnie in the mornings for a bowl of fruit and yoghurt, when I actually put the ingredients into the FitnessPal, I realised that the fruit was almost the same calorific value as the bacon sarnie, so I decided to give up the latte and keep the sarnie.

Tonight we tried out our first recipe from the Hairy Dieters cookbook, their take on lasagne, using leaks instead of pasta sheets, it was superb, we had our friend Vicky over and she loved it too, the only downside was that it took Lynne about 2 hours to prepare it, when she can normally 'knock up' her lasagne in about 30 minutes, perhaps we will use this recipe for the weekend in the future. It is well worth trying it though. It makes enough for 6 and as you can see by the picture we only had three portions, which means we can freeze it for another night - cool beans!

I will keep a regular blog going to let you know how I am getting on, I really need to get some photos for a before and after, I will do this soon. I will be happy for all the encouragement you can give, but keep the chocolate hob nobs!

 

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Llawnroc - September 2012

We had a beautiful weeks vacation, staying at Llawnroc, in Widemouth Bay.

The bay is stunning, with sandy beaches, cliffs and rock pools, a child's heaven. The surfing is good too, with a surf school at each end of the beach, although this late in the season, the one our end was shut.

There is a cafe next door to the complex, providing hot and cold drinks, sandwiches and ice cream, this is open every day until the half term holidays, then only weekends; you can even buy a bucket and spade.

We have a Jack Russell, and she loved the beach, so many things to sniff, lots of other dogs to play with, it is defiantly a dog friendly beach, plus there are coastal walks in both directions, by the end of the day the mutt should be knackered.

If you are a fisherman, again you have the sport here, straight on the beach, I found the best time was low tide, using mackerel. You can also go to the breakwater in Bude where there is also good fishing, although I was quite happy just to grab my rod and a bucket, then meander down to the beach for a couple of hours every day.

Now for the house, it is simply stunning, two double bedrooms, one twin and a bunk bed room that sleeps four, the house sleeps a total of ten, each room has it's own en suite shower/toilet and there is an extra loo under the stairs. Three of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, with the bunk bed room, kitchen/diner and lounge area upstairs where the views are best. Everything has been well thought out about the house, the showers were massive, not poky little things stuffed in as an afterthought, there were two iPod docks, one on the amp and one on the wall, speakers were set into the ceiling, it was all very 'modern'. The only drawback, was the access to the rear garden was via one of the bedrooms, but I could live with that. If you want more information about the house visit Elite West Holidays.

It was great having my family around me, it is not often that we all come together and I really cherish these moments. The thing that kept us sane was the WiFi (phone coverage was rubbish), the Sky (in most of the bedrooms as well as the lounge) and the XBox, gone are the days when you sit round the table and play board games, interactive is the way to go.

I was also impressed by the management company, we had a really bad storm one day and that knocked out the Sky, I made a call, left a message on the answer phone, and it was repaired the next day.

Lynne loved the kitchen, the only thing missing was a whisk, easily resolved with our first trip to Morrisons in Bude, so we didn't eat out at all, preferring to site down as a family and chat, James and Serena cooked a Superb Korma, Simon and Faye a great (I mean that in both ways) pasta bake with meatballs; it was really refreshing to be waited on by my kids.

This is our last night, we are off up to the Bay View Inn for us tea, we don't want to cook on the last night, no tidying up needed...

The Bay View Inn is packed, we managed to get the last table, would recommend reserving a table next time. Food was good, service a tad slow, probably because it was packed to the gunnels...

 

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Fishing at Widemouth Bay

So my son, James, has taken up the sea fishing habit, living in Brixham it is the perfect place to take up this sport, and like any supporting father, I have had to have a go.

A week's holiday in Widemouth Bay, together with James, gave me the perfect opportunity to try out sea fishing (instead of the normal course fishing that I enjoy).

There seems to be a lot of science in this sport, you need to know the habits of the fish, understand tide tables, where the best place to cast is, what bait to use etc., local knowledge is a must, which is why it was quite fortunate that I got chatting with the attendant of the beach car park, he had a wealth of knowledge about fishing on this beach.

So, from the word of the 'expert', at high tide, this time of year (late September), there should be Bass about, and at low tide, the Skate make an appearance.

Suffice to say, that I have now fished this beach at high tide, low tide, with the tide coming in, with the tide going out; I have used ragworm (not recommended by said parking attendant), mackerel and sand eel; all to no avail, not even a bite although a couple of 'knocks' as they say in the trade.

My only assumption is, that there are no fish in Widemouth Bay at the end of September - fours days fishing and nothing to show for it apart from water logged wellies!

 

 

Addendum

There seems to be at least one fish in the bay, this bass, about 1.5lb, was caught at low tide after about an hour and a half in the cold wind. Five days, one fish; Lynne says "I am a crap hunter gatherer".

 

 

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Freelander Tailgate Window Repair

Got a MK1 or MK2 Freelander?  Eventually the tailgate window mechanism will stop working and you are going to have to replace it.  The reason for the failure is that it is a cabled system connected to a motor, the cables are steel, the holder clamps for the window glass are cast aluminium, over the years the aluminium oxidises, reacts with the steel cables and they rust through.

So this is how I repaired my Freelander.

The first job is to remove the trim from the tailgate, under the pocket section you will find 4-5 screws to remove and then you need to pull the trim away from the door, start at the bottom and work you way upwards, the trim then unclips from the top hooks.
You are then faced with the foam cover, unless you are buying a replacement, this needs to be carefully peeled away using a sharp blade, cutting through the mastic - the warmer the day the easier it is.
Now you will be able to see the 'gubins'.
You will see the two runners either side of the door, and where the glass clips in, there is a clamp bolt on each of the cast aluminium clams that needs to be loosened, there is also to electrical connections to the window that need to e disconnected.  You should now be able to lift the glass free of the car.
Each runner is held using two nuts at the top and a nut at the bottom, just undo and you should be able to 'jiggle' the runner out of the door.  The motor is held in with three bolts, just loosen them and twist the motor free of the door.
Once everything is out it should look like this.

Taking the cover of the motor will probably show what a state the cabling can get into...

I purchased a kit on eBay for the replacement cables, you can see by the video below (from the supplier) how easy they are to replace, don't believe the video!  I had real problems getting the cables wound onto the reel, they were either too tight or too loose, I actually had to change the run slightly to get the tension correct.

The last job to do was to refit everything, but hold off sticking the foam back.  With different cables in the system, the window will need adjustment using the clamps, this takes a bit of trial and error but after a few adjustments you should be level :)
Have fun.

Most Girls Steal Ashtrays

Caught one of the girls trying to steal an ice bucket full of sweets yesterday, the things you girls can get into a handbag....She was from Croydon....