Eat Your Carrots

Eat Your Carrots Is Moving...

Over to Blogger.com. The new address is http://eatyourcarots.blogspot.com/. 

Notice the single "r" in "carots", for some reason it wouldn't give me the blog name with 2 r's in it, claiming it was unavailable, though there doesn't actually appear to be a blog with that name.

The reason for the move is simply one of economics - I'm tired of paying for a service that I could get for free. Typepad is a little slicker than Blogger, but Blogger now offers everything that I actually want (it didn't way back, it was much too crude and limited) so I've decided to make the change.

I'm moving some of my favourite and most popular posts across and all new stuff will appear there.

Saltburn

We went to Saltburn today, once again ignoring the BBC's best attempts to keep us indoors with their flaky weather forecasts. Saltburn (or Saltburn-By-The-Sea, to give it its full title) is on the coast of Cleveland, and is the home of the North East's only surviving pier. In fact, it was recently (yesterday, as it happens) voted Pier Of The Year! 

Saltburn is a quite attractive little town, clinging to vestiges of its Victorian past which are still evident in many of its buildings in the streets behind the railway station. The beach lies at the bottom of the cliff, down to which winds a steep and torturous road, some steps or, for the unfit or those who just want to experience it, an old fashioned cliff-lift. The pier is right at the bottom of the lift. The beach is lovely, easily the best in the area, and the stretch beside the pier is patrolled by lifeguards in season. Surfing is popular and it's probably a good place to learn, the breakers not being too big for the most part. The area at the back of the beach has surf shops that hire out equipment. 

We had a stroll around the town, taking a look at some of the picturesque Victorian streets before walking down to the beach and out along the pier. This was followed by a walk along the beach and up the Cleveland Way onto Hunt Cliff, a site of Iron Stone mining back in Victorian times and part of what helped to fuel the growth of Middlesbrough. The views from up here were gorgeous and we had to resist the temptation to follow the cliff path for too far - lunch was calling! 

One Mocha & Cakes later at the excellent Camfield's just behind the beach and we were off for a walk up the Valley Gardens. These start (or end, depending on your perspective) at the beach and head up the valley of Skelton Beck. In the lower reaches it's just trees and grassland set in an attractive wooded valley, but further up formal gardens are planted up the hillside and stretch right up to the road up above.

For such a little town Saltburn has a lot to offer - great beach, pier, cliffs, woodland and countryside walks, surfing, cafes and some nice, quaint backstreets. We've been coming here for 25 years, but we're still growing to appreciate it more and more.

Compare The Meerkats - Thorp Perrow Arboretum

Today we ignored the BBC's best attempts to keep us at home with a misleading and inaccurate weather forecast (I have a real gripe about the BBC online forecasts - have they been told to err on the pessemistic side or what?) and decided to have a day out. What a full day it was too.

We decided to go to Thorp Perrow Arboretum, a choice in part influenced by the fact we knew they had Meerkats there. Who doesn't love Meerkats these days?  They were so cute, especially the baby ones and also when a light plane flew overhead. Obviously thinking it was some kind of bird of prey they all went on guard and watched it keenly until it passed form view (that's what they're doing in the photo). As well as the Meerkats they have Ferrets, Pine Martins, Rheas, Wallabies, assorted fowl and a huge collection of birds of prey.

Despite having some rather more illustrious bretheren around it, my favourite bird was the humble Kestrel, absolutely gorgeous and suprisingly gentle looking for a killer!

After seeing all the animals, the bird flying displays and the parkland (which we had to hurry, it's too big to see it all at a liesurely pace) we headed a mile or so down the road to Snape. This is a lovely old village, guarded by a castle and with a stream meandering through the middle of it. The castle was one of the family seats of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's final wife. It's a private residence now (or several, by the look of it) but its chapel is open to the public and seems to serve as one of the village churches. Within the chapel is an information board about Catherine and her life.

Finally, if we hadn't had enough fun, we went to Pizza Express in Northallerton to spend our Half Price Dining Voucher, which actually cost us less than half price (these vouchers are great value, we've had a couple now for different places). We were ready for our food as we'd had nothing to eat since breakfast!

A great day out, and blue skies all the way, despite the BBC's insistence on light rain all day.

Fifty Things

1. Have you ever licked the back of a CD to try to get it to work?
   Why lick the back? Isn't that the bit that's printed on, with the CD title & track list? I'd lick the front, if anything.
2. What's the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated?
   2 years.
3. Ever been in a car wreck?
   Yes. I was stopped by a policeman who was directing traffic. Somehow the car behind didn't see any of this and ran into me at 40mph. Luckily the back of the car took all the impact and being a Volvo it was plenty strong. His car was worse than mine, by some good way.
4. Were you popular in high school?
   I wasn't unpopular!
5. Have you ever been on a blind date?
   No.
6. Are looks important?
   Hate to say it, but yes. I'm so shallow.
7. Do you have any friends that you've known for 10 years or more?
   Yeah, loads. Most of them.
8. By what age would you like to be married?
   I married at 23.
9. Does the number of people a person's slept with affect your view of them?
   Yes.
10. Have you ever made a mistake?
    Who hasn't?
11. Are you a good tipper?
    See question 10. I once left more in tip than I'd spent on the meal, but not because I meant to!
12. What's the most you have spent for a haircut?
    £30ish, but that was a long time ago. It's £7 now, every couple of months.
13. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?
    Oh, loads! Mrs Horn, Mrs Knapton, Miss Langworth, Miss Greenhowe and more.
14. Have you ever peed in public?
    Every week. Where else can you pee when out in the middle of the moors/dales?
15. What song do you want played at your funeral?
    That's Life by Frank Sinatra.
16. Would you tell your parents if you were gay?
    Yes.
17. What would your last meal be before getting executed?
    An "Eat until you can eat no more" unlimited courses mezze from Seven St. Georges in Geriskipou, Cyprus.
18. If you had to pick one person on earth to die, who?
    Only one? Got a pen and paper, I'll make you a list.
19. Are you going to send a Valentines this year?
    I didn't.
20. Beer, wine or hard liquor?
    Beer every time, unless all that's available is mass-market rubbishy lager like Fosters, Carling, Heineken and the like.
21. Do you have any phobias?
    Used to have a phobia about flying, or rather a phobia about crashing. Glad I got over that one!
22. What are your plans for the future?
    To live a long, happy and healthy life. I just hope the current economic climate doesn't F%^k up the plans!
23. Do you walk around the house naked?
    Occasionally, usually if the cat cries to be let in in the dead of night.
24. If you were an animal what would you be?
    A Gannet.
25. Hair colour you like on someone you're dating?
    Red. Red hair & freckles do it for me. Annie Wersching (agent Walker from 24) and Amanda Mealing (Connie from Holby City) make my pulse race!
    
26. Would you rather be blind or deaf?
    Who would rather be blind??
    
27. Do you have any special talents?
    Not really.
28. What do you do as soon as you walk in the house?
    Look for the cat.
29. Do you like horror or comedy?
    Both, but more often than not watch comedy as wife's not a horror fan.
30. Are you missing anyone?
    No, not really. I always feel pangs soon after someone leaves us (for whatever reason) but it soon goes.
31. If you weren't straight, what person of the same sex would you do?
    I've always had a crush on Justin Timberlake. Kenwyne Jones is pretty hot too!
32. Where do you want to live when you are old?
    Gozo.
33. Who is the person you can count on the most?
    My wife.
34. What did you dream last night?
    I don't recall dreaming last night.
35. What is your favourite sport to watch?
    Football (soccer)
36. What is your favourite alcoholic drink?
    Any one of a number of fine Porters that are available in good real-ale pubs these days. Current favourite is the one by The Highland Brewing Company.
37. Non alcoholic drink?
    Kinnie, a drink unique to Malta.
38. Have you ever been in love?
    Only once.
39. Do you sing in the shower?
    No, but I whistle.
40. Have you ever been arrested?
    No, but I have been stopped and cautioned.
41. What is your favourite Holiday?
    The last one. Or maybe the next one.
42. Would you ever get plastic surgery?
    If I thoiught it necessary. At the moment I don't.
43. Have you ever caught a fish?
    No.
44. Do you love your ex?
    No.
45. What did you last cry over?
    Dunno, some stupid rom-com maybe.
46. Who do you love and talk to the most?
    Wife, followed by cat.
47. Who last slept in your bed?
    Cat.
48. What are you doing right now?
    This, isn't that obvious? And waiting for my lunch to arrive.
49. Lust or Love?
    Lust can be fun. Love for long-term.
50. Anything else you want to add?
    No, we're done.

Make Your Own Album Cover

1. Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
   or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
   The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
   
2. Go to "Random quotations"
   or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
   The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
   
3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
   or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
   Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
   
4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
   
5. Post it with these instructions

It's great fun, you can play for hours even if you don't actually make the things into covers. It's amazing how many come up looking quite genuine - maybe this is how artists come up with album names & covers.

Incidentally the first time I tried it Wiki came up with "The Clash" as my band name and "London's Burning" as the title. Half of that sentence is a lie.

Personal Needs

Type your first name into Google followed by the word needs (so "steven needs") and write down the top 10 things that google says you need.

1. Steven needs you!
2. Steven needs a permanent home of his own (he currently lives in a hostel)
3. Steven needs a chart, ASAP
4. Steven needs a laptop
5. Steven needs a band (elastic or musical?)
6. Steven needs your help (he certainly needs help - see later!)
7. Steven needs someone to love (it could be you!)
8. Steven needs a toy (especially if he can't get someone to love!)
9. Steven needs help (this is so true)
10. Steven needs to quit his job (if only he could afford to)

Google Translate

Google Translate - what a wonderful tool that could be. If only it could be trusted...

According to Google Translate the English equivalent of

"Qu'est que c'est avec tout cela français?"

Is

"What is with all this English?"

So which word in that sentence is the word for English? français perhaps? I thought that must surely mean "French".

It doesn't just cock that up in French translation either. I tried Dutch and hey presto:

"Ik dacht dat ze zou willen spreken nederlands?"

becomes

"I thought she would like to speak English?"

How bizarre. There is a button on the translate page that lets you "suggest a better translation". Needless to say I've posted my suggestions.

I wonder how that all works? Rather than actually translating text does it look up what people consider to be the best translation of something? That could be interesting if enough people suggest that a better translation of a pretty common phrase be something totally totally meaningless or amusing.

Suggestions on a postcard.

Happy Anniversary

It was our 23rd anniversary today. That's half my life now, but it doesn't seem like it. In many ways it seems like only yesterday, and that must be an indication of just how happy we've been. Happy events (great holidays, good movies, any time off work for any reason) just seem to fly by and that's what's happened here. And besides, I don't actually feel old enough to have been married that long!

We went to The Golden Lion in Osmotherley for lunch. It was fabulous. A proper country pub, with low ceilings, uneven floors and a real fire, in a village that still has hens wandering around it (above)!
It's a well known food pub, and the vegetarian choices are very good. I started with a goat's cheese and Mediterranean vegetable terrine, which was delicious, chalky-dry but flavoursome and tangy, followed by a vegetable risotto that was so rich and creamy I could feel my arteries thickening with each mouthful! Wife had Tomato Soup followed by Vegetable Shepherd's Pie topped with Goat's Cheese Mash (below).

This was to exactly the recipe that she makes her own to (one of Delia's, FYI) and this one was every bit as tasty as her own. It seemed strange to not be having it two days running (the one wife makes is so huge it does us two meals!).
We topped the day off with a walk around the village, tea (cup of) in the tea shop there and then home to watch Iron Man on DVD with the cat curled up on our laps.
A lovely day!

So Who Died?

What a pathetic load of twaddle all of the furore about the Strictly Come Dancing "voting fiasco" is. For instance The Daily Mail says "Strictly outraged: All three couples make the final after scoring bungle leaves Tom in certain dance-off". Scoring bungle? Where was the bungle? It was just scoring, and how it worked out can hardly be declared "a bungle". Couples have tied for position before, and the points system adopted in the case of tied positions is pretty standard. Bad luck that this left Tom adrift and facing a certain dance off, but the dance off is where he deserved to be anyway.
I can't believe that people actually bothered emailing in with comments such as "I'll never watch the show again". Why? What actually happened to make you feel that way? The worst dancer came bottom of the leader board? For Gods sake grow up. Perhaps we could have done away with however many weeks of dancing and just had the public vote once for "who's your favourite celebrity" and let that be that. John Sargent wins and Tom comes second. Yawn.
I watch the show for what it is - a dancing competition, and if the best dancer doesn't win then that's a complete travesty. Whoever votes for just "their favourite", irrespective of how good they are, are somewhat missing the point. Lisa was hopeless to start with, but now she's superb. Rachel has set more record scores in this show than anyone ever has. Tom is good, but he's the worst of the three. Simple fact. But let's all email and phone and complain when it looks like he might go out. Oh, and then when he's reprieved, lets all complain about that too.
Come on. No one died; no kittens were harmed; it's all just entertainment.

Smoked Tofu Chowder

 

This is our favourite "Winter Warmer" soup - though it's more of a meal in a bowl than a soup.

It's carrots, leek, mushrooms, smoked tofu, peas and sweetcorn - lots of sweetcorn, the majority of which is liquidised. Adapted from a recipe for Smoked Cod Chowder the Smoked Tofu works beautifully well in it.

The Big Bang

Poor Charley Cat just won't go out of the house at the moment. He seems to have been scared out of his wits by all the fireworks of recent days, even though there seem to have been less of them than usual this year. He seems to have gotten into his own mind when it's safe and when it's not safe to go out. He'll pop out during daylight hours, though during our working week that's not an option for him, but he won't go out at night until after 1am. I've even tried taking him out and standing with him, to show that it's safe, but he just makes a dash back to the door and up to bed. Or rather under it. During daylight he sleeps on our bed, at night he goes under it, like he's hiding from the bangs and the flashes.
I'm sure he'll be back to normal after a few more days without bangs and flashes, though there are always some idiots who continue setting off fireworks well after Guy Fawkes night.

Flatbread

We went to Flatbread today. Basically Flatbread is a cafe in Newcastle that is themed around, you guessed it, flatbread! The dishes that you order come in bowls with no knife or fork (just a serving spoon) and the idea is that you just eat them with your fingers and/or the bread.

 

The dishes themselves come from around the world but are all dishes that are suited to the theme of being eaten with flatbread. Familiar favourites such as Hummus are there, along with other dips (both hot and cold) and curry-style dishes too - they even do soups though I'm not sure how you eat those! Dishes are in sections of £3, £5 and £7 and you can pick as many from each section as you want. Those in the £3 section are all cold dips.

We had

• Hummus
• A dip made of smoked aubergine, garlic and tomato
• Another dip made of chopped red cabbage, beetroot and blue cheese
• A curry of chestnut, pumpkin and sweet potato

We washed it all down with a freshly pressed juice of Apple, Celery, Cucumber, Orange Juice & Spirulina (yes, blue/green algae, though I'm not certain it's the same stuff that makes lakes unsafe to swim in!). It's the green glass at the back of the picture above and whilst unusual it was not as disgusting as it may sound, thanks mainly to the other ingredients!

 

Desert (below) was a tasty treat. Forget cheeseboard, here they do chocolate board! A bit of a misnomer since it comes in a bowl and not on a board, but I forgive them. Hight quality hand-made chocolate comes in shards, along with some white chocolate coated fruit slices and a bowl of creme fraiche and fruit puree to dip it in. It was totally delicious to me, a chocoholic, and totally delicious but very sickly to wife, who doesn't quite have my chocability. Oh, we also had spiced banana and rum cake too, so perhaps that helps explain the feeling of sickness!

Desert was washed down by a lovely cup of coffee, served in a cup with no handles that you have to lift to your mouth (using the very clever insulated section) with two hands. It all feels very "nomadic".

Service was brisk, efficient and friendly and wait times were minimal. Because of the menu and the dining style it's the kind of place where you can just decide to add another dish as you are eating, if you feel up to it, until such point as you have eaten your fill. Four dishes, two breads and two deserts between us was more than enough for us.

They also do lunch time specials which looked good value at £5 for a wrap and a soup, and a "Bedou Feast" which is a £7, a £5 and a £3 dish, along with a bread, for £15. This really just saves you the price of the bread (£1.75).

Flatbread is on High Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne, which is the first right turning off Northumberland Street (the main shopping street) as you walk past the fire station towards the Tyne Bridge. You can't miss it.

Flatbread 10/10, a superb dining experience.

Halloween

AJ had his first Halloween party today - a case of been there, done that, got the T-Shirt Bib.

He hasn't half grown since the last time I posted some pictures of him, some 5 months ago. It really is true that they grow up quickly, so quickly in fact that we daren't go more than a few days without seeing him for fear that he'll have got married and moved abroad since last we saw him!

Naturally all the usual suspects were at the party...

... and naturally there were scary cakes to eat. It was all too exciting for AJ and he was fast asleep before the night was very old.

Fishless Fingers

I had a life changing experience the other night - Vegetarian "Fish Fingers". I've tried vegetarian fish products before and they were terrible, but these were lovely. As far as my memory serves me, they tasted as good as the real thing. So now those long lost childhood favourite treats, Fish Finger Sandwiches, are back on the menu.

I bought mine from ASDA but they don't have any more in now, so I bought some more direct from the manufacturer via their online shop. Delivered within 48 hours they came in an insulated box with a couple of ice packs to keep them cool.

The manufacturer, Redwood Foods, do a whole host of "cheating" products including Pepperami! I'll have to try a few more things from their range.

This Hallow'een...

Keep the pumpkins away from the beer!

We Had Visitors

We had visitors this weekend - our friends Helga & Walter from Belgium. I first met them seven years ago in York and then a little while later in Belgium, having first made contact vis the travel site VirtualTourist. They're a lovely couple and we all get along very well. I couldn't believe that it had been 6 years since we last saw them - it just shows how time flies.

They've just been over to The Lakes for a week of touring on their motorbike, though unfortunately the weather was unkind to them. A couple of weeks earlier they'd been to Santorini, and as we had also just returned from Greece it seemed only natural to go to Kaminaki, my favourite Greek restaurant that's outside of Greece!
The restaurant lived up to its usual high standards and all of the food was first rate. It was a little inconvenient that they brought everything at once rather than in the starters/mains way that we'd asked for it, but I'll forgive them this as everything else was so good. It was quite fun trying to balance little plates here and there and make a bit more room for the other dish that just arrived...
We had:

• Tzatziki
• Hummous
• Htipiti - spicy feta cheese dip
• Giant Beans - my favorite!
• Spanokopitta
• Papoutsakia - stuffed aubergines
• Fava - Santorini's split-pea puree
• Greek Salad
• Bottle of Santorini white wine
• Galaktoboureko - good, but not as good as on Tinos!
• Greek Yogurt, honey & walnuts

It was a pity that Walter was feeling a bit unwell, the result perhaps of some "pie" that he had eaten a day or so earlier, so he wasn't able to enjoy the meal to its fullest. They insisted on paying too, for which we thank them once again.

The next day they set off for home, via the Yorkshire coast. I wonder when and where we'll meet again - who knows, it may be in Greece one year.

New Favourite Website

OK, OK, I know I haven't written a thing about my recent (amazing) trip to the Cyclades, but as a post-script to that visit I've got a new favourite website. It's a bit geeky perhaps, and not of general interest to many, but it is an amazing piece of work and shows just what can be done with the Google Maps API.

The site is MarineTraffic.com and it uses Google Maps to show the locations of ships. Primarily at the moment it's limited to Europe, more particularly the Med and more particularly the Aegean. But that's perfect for me! It does cover areas beyond the Aegean to an extent, and even shows ships on the Rhine at Dusseldorf, Duisberg etc.
It's pretty extensive and you can click on a ship to find out more information about it (destination, ETA, vessel specs & photos, trace of where it's been) and you can upload your own photos if you have some (and I have some!).
I could play on it all day, watching to see where our favourite ferries - Blue Star Superferry II, Naxos, Paros and Ithaki; Hellenic Seaways High Speed 3; ANES Simi II and Aegli; King Saron and a host of others we've come to know and love.
It's a bit processor intensive mind, especially when zoomed out just due to the number of ships it has to draw!
Have a look, at least once.

Passport Tickets Money

Usually when you go away on holiday the mantra of the three things you have to remember is "passport, tickets, money". Not for us this year. Thanks to those uselessly inefficient wallies at Kosmar we don't have to worry about tickets this year, as they've forgotten to send us any. Instead we have to join yet another queue at the airport to pick up our tickets there, before joining the queue to check in. Bleary-eyed at 3am, joining more queues than I really ought to is not something I relish.

8 Weeks Later

Good grief, where did the time go. It's almost two months since I last posted here which means that baby Alexander is eight weeks old now.

As you can see from the photo he's quite relaxed in his uncle Steven's arms and I'm so relaxed with him that I can hold him and watch TV both at the same time!





He's got his "duckling costume" on in this one. It could be the first and only time he wears it as he's growing so fast he's almost too big for it already!












Here he is in his Jungle Gym, he already likes trying to bash the little animals (he'll have to stop that before he meets Charley!).





We go on holiday at the end of this week for two whole weeks. That's a fifth of Alexander's life! It's like someone going away on holiday for nine years of my life! I wonder how much he'll have changed when we get back.

Ten Tiny Fingers...

SIL & BILG took delivery of their new baby boy today. Weighing in at 5lb 5oz he turned up a couple of weeks early, and yet still managed to have us all waiting. SIL went into hospital on Wednesday and not much happened at all until this morning and then suddenly it was all over. A beautiful baby boy, Alexander John.
Congratulations to them both from all of us.