Have Yourself a Diabetic Christmas Part 4
The last Christmas recipe I have to share with you all uses Carbquik. I did not make this cake for Christmas, but I made it for New Year’s Day when Tim and I ate our Christmas dinner (since we had dinner on Christmas Day with his parents). I found this recipe for Low-Carb Pound Cake on the Low Carb Friends website, where it says this contains 1g of carbs per serving. I don’t like the taste of Carbquik by itself, so I replaced part of the Carbquik. If you wanted to make this with just Carbquik, you would need 3 and a half cups of it. The way I made it has a few more carbs than that per serving, but I don’t know exact amounts.
Low Carb Pound Cake
You will need:
1 1/2 Cup Carbquik
1 Cup Wholegrain Flour
1/2 Cup Ground Almonds (or Almond Meal/Almond Flour)
1/2 Cup Coconut Flour
3/4 Cup Splenda for Baking
3/4 Cup Butter (softened)
200g Cream Cheese (one pack/8 oz)
6 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
Pinch of Salt
-Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
-Butter the sides of a Bundt pan (I’m sure other cake pans work just as well!)
-Combine Carbquik, Flour, Ground Almonds, Coconut Flour, and salt in a small bowl
-In a larger bowl cream together Splenda for Baking, butter, and cream cheese.
-Add eggs one at a time to liquid mixture. Add vanilla.
-Slowly add dry mix to the wet until it is well blended.
-Pour the mix into the cake pan and bake for 45-60 minute or until a toothpick comes out clean.
We had this for Strawberry Shortcake with some fresh berries and cream. It’s so tasty and low-carb that you don’t feel guilty sneaking a piece for breakfast the next morning!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
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Have Yourself a Diabetic Christmas Part 3
Another big part of Christmas dinner is of course, the dessert. I had already made the Christmas Pudding full of sugar and booze, so I wanted to try to make something with less sugar. I really wanted to make a cheesecake, so I searched for several sugar free versions to create mine. Unfortunately, the topping is NOT sugar free as I could not find any sugar free pie filling, but I DO have a recipe for making your own sugar free cherry topping I will try out some other time. I can justify the sugar in the topping only because you really don’t eat that much topping anyway.
For the Crust —
2 Cups Ground Almonds (sometimes called almond flour or almond meal)
4 TBS Butter, melted
2 TBS Splenda for Baking
For the Filling —
600g Cream Cheese (3 packages) – room temperature
3 Eggs
1/2 TBS Vanilla
1/2 TBS lemon juice
1 Cup Splenda for Baking
For the Topping —
1 Can pie filling, any flavour. Sugar Free if you can find it
-Preheat the oven to 200C.
-Combine the ingredients for the crust and press into bottoms and side of your pie dish.
-Bake crust for 12-15 minutes until it is firm and golden.
-Remove from oven and set crust to one side.
-Cream together cream cheese and Splenda for baking.
-Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.
-Add lemon juice and vanilla.
-Pour filling into cooked crust and place in the oven (still at 200C)
-As soon as you shut the oven door, immediately reduce temperature to 125C. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN WHILE BAKING THIS. Alternatively, you can use a water bath.
-Bake for 60-90 minutes. If your oven has a glass door, check by sight. The cheesecake should form a mound and look firm. You can open the door after an hour to check on the cake. A cake tester inserted should come out fairly clean, with bits of firm cheesecake clinging to it. If the cheesecake is still runny, leave it in the oven for additional time.
-Let the cheesecake cool completely before adding the topping.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
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Have Yourself a Diabetic Christmas Part 2
When my family bakes Christmas cookies, we always made more than one kind, so of course I wanted some variety. I am a big fan of the Scottish Shortbread you can get in the tins from Marks and Spencers, so I decided that would be my second type of cookie. I scoured the web, and I found a recipe posted by someone who calls themselves “mrsnorris”. Now, whether they intended to be a Harry Potter reference or their name really *is* Mrs Norris, the fact that it could be HP related instantly caught my attention to base my recipe off of.
You will need:
160g Butter, softened (I used Stork)
4 TBS Splenda for Baking (the original recipe calls for regular Splenda, but I find the Splenda for Baking doesn’t leave an after taste the way regular Splenda does, but feel free to use the sweetener of your choice)
100g White flour
100g Wholegrain flour (my wholegrain was also self-raising, but I don’t think this matters)
1/8 tsp Salt
-Preheat the oven to 180C and line your baking trays with parchment paper.
-Cream together butter and Splenda for Baking until fluffy.
-Slowly add flour and salt.
-Work dough into a ball.
-Flour your worktop and gently press (or roll) the dough out until it is about a half inch thick.
-Use a biscuit cutter (or shapes) to cut out the biscuits, re-rolling in between. You should be able to fit a dozen per cookie sheet. If you don’t have any cutters you could use a glass dipped in flour or just cut them into fingers with a knife. You will need to re-flour your worktop each time you re-roll the dough.
-Optional: you could brush the tops of each cookie with some egg and sprinkle a tiny bit of dyed* Splenda for Baking to imitate sprinkles, but they are just as good plain.
-Refrigerate each baking tray for 15 minutes before baking (I did this by putting the first sheet in and setting the timer. When the timer went off, they went into the oven and the next tray went into the fridge)
-Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Keep an eye on them as if they overbake they get very crumbly (as we discovered!)
Once again, these were a big hit and no one could tell they were sugar free! Just makes sure you tell people ahead of time as some people are intolerant to artificial sweeteners.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
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Have Yourself a Diabetic Christmas Part 1
My first Christmas dealing with my diabetes, and I think I did okay. I had some mince pies ( but never more than one in a single day), I had a few glasses of wine (again, never more than one), Ate a few small pieces of chocolate (Tim bought me an advent calendar, but I only ate the chocolate on a few days), and I indulged in a small piece of the Christmas Pudding I had made (just to taste it as I had never even had it!). But I also only drank sugar free fizzy drinks or slim tonic water, ate low-carb, and avoided the starchy foods – no potatoes, parsnips, carrots, etc. So overall, I did pretty good.
Making Christmas Cookies are a HUGE deal to me as it’s been a family tradition since forever. Fortunately, my mom sent me some Splenda Blend for Baking and some Splenda Brown. Both these products I have been unable to locate in the UK, but you can order them through importers on eBay (though it will be pricey, it’s worth it!)
The first thing I needed to do was bake some chocolate chip cookies as those are my favourite cookie of all-time and Mom also got me some sugar free chocolate chips! However, don’t go crazy looking for them. I compared the bag of SF chips to a bag of Toll House, a container of dark chocolate chunks from Waitrose, and to some plain chocolate chips from Asda and they all contained around the same amount of sugar per 100g. After I added the bag of SF chips I decided it needed more chips anyway, so my cookies wound up with a combination of Hershey Sugar Free, Toll House Semi-Sweet, and Waitrose dark chocolate chunks. They were amazing and no one could tell they were sugar free!
(This recipe was modified off the back of the Hershey Sugar Free Chocolate Chips, so is measured using US measurements)
You will Need:
1 Cup white flour
1 Cup wholegrain flour
1 tsp baking soda (or 2 tsp Bicarb of Soda if you don’t have access to American baking soda)
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Cup butter (Soft – I used stork out of a tub)
1/3 Cup Splenda for Baking
1/3 Cup packed Splenda Brown Sugar Blend
2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 Cups chocolate chips or chunks (sugar free, semi-sweet, dark, or plain. Using milk chocolate will add more sugar)
-Preheat the oven to 200C and line your baking trays with parchment paper.
-Mix together the flours, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
-In a larger bowl, beat butter, the two Splendas, eggs, and vanilla.
-Slowly mix in the flour.
-using a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate chips/chunks.
-Drop by teaspoons onto your baking sheets. You should be able to get 12 on a sheet.
-Bake each sheet for 9-12 minutes until cookies are golden.
-Cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then continue to cool on a baking tray.
Makes about 3 and a half dozen soft cookies, depending on how big you make them. I went through THREE batches of them this season because everyone loved them so much.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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How My Kindle Changed My Reading Habits
I’ve always been a big reader, ever since I was a child. In fact, I tried to convince my parents I knew how to read when I was three or four by reciting my favourite bedtime story. And I might have convinced my mom I could read if I hadn’t forgotten to turn the page! Before I could read on my own and my parents would tell me to pick a bedtime story, I would hand them a stack. Once I learned to read, I hit the ground running. I was a fast reader, and I was reading well above my grade level. I can still remember a March of Dimes campaign when I was 8 or 9 and one of the adults at my church offered to sponsor me. Most people had sponsored me for 10 cents/book and he thought that wasn’t high enough so he pledged $1/book…..by the end of the month, he owed me $100! When we went to Florida for a family vacation (by car!) when I was turning 10, I was set up in the backseat with one of our American Tourister duffel bags filled to the brim with books. I finished all of them before we got to Florida (and from New Jersey, it was a long trip!). I used to get in trouble with my English teachers (anyone remember when it was called Language Arts?) for doing reports on grade-level appropriate books because they knew I could read at a higher level….but it was hard for my parents and teachers to find me age appropriate books. Once I finished Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, and the Jane Austen collection I moved on to reading Gone with the Wind when I was 11, and I started the Flowers in the Attic series when I was 12. I had read the complete Longfellow, Blake, and Tennyson by the time I was 15. I was and always will be a readaholic.
A trip to the bookstore always made my mom shudder. Stacks and Stacks of books – the latest Babysitters Club book, Sweet Valley Twins or High, Friends 4-ever, Sleepover Club….I read them all in lightning speed.
As I got older, my reading tapered off largely because I couldn’t afford to keep myself in new books. I re-read my favourites over and over and relied on finding books at the library or from friends.
…and then I met Tim, and he introduced me to the town of Hay-on-Wye, a small Welsh village FULL of used bookstores. I was in HEAVEN.
The biggest problem with books though is that you have to have a place to store them. Anyone who has been to our house knows that we are getting short on space. The other problem is that some larger books get really heavy as I hold them, like any of the Harry Potter books after book 3!
Enter the Kindle.
Tim and I decided for our second anniversary last year that we would buy Kindles and we purchased Kindle Keyboards with 3G. The 3G meant that we would be able to access Amazon from anywhere to download new books.
I decided to set myself a goal to read 12 books a month in 2012. As you can see from the graph above, I read nearly 100 more than that. Because my Kindle goes everywhere with me as it’s lighter than a paperback. Waiting at the bus stop, riding the bus, waiting for food to arrive at a cafe, while drinking a cup of coffee….I was reading. And the nice thing is Amazon has loads of Kindle books for less than £1 or free!
And with the free books, I have enjoyed books I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and everyone has a built-in birthday and christmas present for me with getting me Amazon gift cards!
This year, I received the Kindle Fire for Christmas. The downside is the Fire doesn’t have 3G service, but it is basically a mini tablet. I’m in love with it. I’ll still keep my Kindle Keyboard though, particularly to take camping with us — and that’s another thing. The year before we had the Kindles, I read 7 books while we were camping and we had to go out and buy more books. This past year with my Kindle, I read over 20!
Having the Kindle has changed my reading habits back to the way they were when I was younger, and I love it!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Adventures in Christmas Pudding
This year, to make things easier on my mother-in-law, the family is doing Christmas pot luck style. On Tuesday, my Sister-in-law asked if we knew what the plans were and when we said no, she explained and then asked me if I could be assigned the desserts/pudding. I agreed, and so the brain started to churn…
When we got home, I asked Tim what he thought I should make and after a few suggestions got thrown out, Christmas Pudding was brought up. Now, it’s not really a “family favourite”, but it is Tim’s favourite. Most years we’ll pick up a few minis for Tim to have throughout the season and his mum will indulge him and get a pre-made one to go alongside whatever other dessert she’s made. Since the only thing I am responsible for this year is dessert, I have decided to make Christmas pud from scratch….with a little help from my friends.
I posted to Facebook, and my friend Vicky responded with some suggestions and answered all my questions. Some people make their puddings up to a YEAR before Christmas, and some only do theirs a few days in advance. I have decided to make mine this weekend, giving it plenty of time to ferment.
First, I needed a recipe. I have one from Jamie Oliver but no one I know has made it and I wanted a tried-and-true recipe. My friend Nicky linked me to recipes from the BBC and Delia, but she hadn’t tested those, either. Vicky came through for me again, and suggested a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I’ve never heard of him, but Vicky’s used his recipes in the past, so I was off to Google.
The next day I had Tim drop me off at Waitrose, armed with my grocery list. The most puzzling thing to find? the Brandy and Ale. There are LOADS of options. Again, I heeded Vicky’s advice and grabbed a hobgoblin to use.
Once home, I began measuring out the fruit — all 900g of it. It wouldn’t fit in my bowl by itself, let alone once I mix in everythng else! A check of the recipe shows that it makes two puds, so I’m going to half the recipe (I will post it below) where appropriate. Oh, and I may have just dumped 200ml of Brandy on the fruit even though the 2 pud recipe calls for only HALF the brandy (100ml)….I hope it’s not swimming in extra brandy!
As it turns out, I didn’t have to worry about extra brandy. A family emergency meant that my fruit soaked for 36 hours and they soaked up nearly all the brandy in the bowl.
I dutifully halved the recipe (that leaves a LOT left in a pint bottle of ale!) and the resulting mix was hideous. I wrapped the top in clingfilm and am leaving it alone for overnight…
The next morning, I peeled back the cling film and the mixture looked decidedly dry, so I gave it a quick stir and topped it up with a glug from the ale bottle.
I packed it into my buttered basin and I was shocked to discover I have LOADS of pudding mix leftover. I might wind up with two after all, or maybe I can do a mini pud for a taste test.
I prepped the crock pot for steaming, and made a single size pupping to cook on the stovetop.
the mini pud was a FLOP. I only steamed it for about an hour/hour and a half because the instructions on one of the mini puddings from M&S say to steam for 1/2 hour, so I thought as those are pre-cooked and the instruction for re-heating a full-size pud are to steam it for half the time you originally steamed it for that I would do it for an hour. Probably more like an hour and a bit. Tim didn’t like it. He made faces when he tasted it….and I made a face when I tasted it as I could taste the raisins and suet. Ew. So my conclusion is that I didn’t steam it for long enough so as there is LOADS of mix leftover, I’m going to try another mini pudding tomorrow. But the big one is still in the crock pot (been cooking since 4PM, so now about 6 hours). The water level is fine and apparently you can’t oversteam, so I think I might leave it go overnight or at least until I wake up in the middle of the night to use the loo.
I set my alarm for 7, but I woke up around 5, and then again at 6, so I decided to get up and check it. The downstairs smells “like Christmas” as some of the other blogs suggest and peeking through the small gap of the foil I can see a dark colour – much darker than the mini pud I turned out yesterday. The water level has barely moved (though I did top it up last night a little higher than the original instructions say to), so I flipped the crock to high for the last hour, and got to work making another tester mini pud.
And after 15 hours of steaming….I declare it done. you know how you’re supposed to make a handle out of string? Yeah, my string got wet and HOT. Owwwww. The pudding is now cooling in it’s basin. I noticed some water has gotten in through the foil around the bottom, and the foil that was submerged in the water has gone black. Mini pudding is still steaming away.
You can find the original recipe I followed here and the original crock pot instructions here, but here’s my modified recipe (remember: I cut the original in half and still have enough filling for 2 puddings and 2 mini puddings. It’s possible I have a small basin, but it looks like a normal one….)
Hugh calls his recipe Grandma Jane’s, so here is Rebecca Jane’s
You will need:
450g dried vine fruits (Waitrose sells a bag labeled vine fruits, otherwise a combination of raisins and sultanas will do. I also tossed in a handful of mixed peel and some craisins)
200ml brandy
55g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
85g suet (I used 30% less fat veggie suet)
85g dark muscovado sugar (aka brown sugar)
20g flaked almonds
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp marmalade
110g fresh white breadcrumbs (This equaled about 4 white finger rolls. I blitzed them with my stick blender to get a fine crumb)
2 eggs, whisked
150ml ale or stout (I used Hobgoblins). (You mght need extra, so don’t go drinking the rest yet)
Butter
Other things you need:
Pudding basin
Parchment Paper
Aluminum to me, Aluminium to some foil
string
2 mixing bowls
crock pot
boiled water
heat-resistant cereal bowl or saucer
Step One: Put the fruit in a bowl and cover with 200ml of brandy. Cover with clingfilm and leave overnight. Mine wound up soaking for 36 hours due to a family emergency.
The Next Day
Step Two: Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. It’s a good idea to tick off the ingredients as you add them so you don’t get confused as the list is long. Mix in the rest of the items in this order: suet, fruit (add any dregs of brandy not absorbed), almonds, lemon zest & juice, marmalade, breadcrumbs, beaten eggs, ale. cover with clingfilm and let the mixture rest overnight.
Day Three
Check your mix. Give it a stir. If it looks too dry, add a splash more of ale.
Step Three: Butter your pudding basin. Cut a round out of parchment paper that fits the bottom of the basin, put that on top of the butter and then butter the paper, too. Fill basin with mix (I filled mine as high as a half inch from the top).
Step Four: Now, here’s where it gets tricky. You have to prepare the pudding for it’s steam bath. Take some parchment paper and make a pleat in it (fold it like a Z). Put the pleated paper on top of your pudding basin, and use string to tie the paper down. Trim off the excess paper. Next, you will need to use your Aluminum foil and if you are cooking this in the crock pot, you will want to completely wrap your pudding basin (save for a very small gap at the top) in foil. To make it easier to lift, you can make a handle by tying string package-style around the basin and leaving a loop on the top to lift with.
Step Five: Boil the kettle. Place your cereal bowl or saucer upside down in the crock pot and put the pudding on top of it. Check to make sure the lid will fit securely and that the pudding is not touching the walls of the crock pot. Add boiling water to the crock pot until it reaches 3/4 of the way up the pudding basin. Cover and cook on HIGH heat for 4 hours, LOW heat for 10, and switch it back to HIGH for the last hour. you should check the water levels about halfway through, but as I steamed mine on low overnight I topped up the water before I went to bed and it was fine.
Step Six: Carefully lift the pudding out of the crock pot by the string and set to one side. Be careful as water may have accumulated between the foil and basin. Allow to cool, then carefully unwrap the pudding. Poke holes in the top with a fork and pour on a few more tablespoons of brandy or ale. Tightly wrap in clingfilm and store in a cool, dry place (NOT the fridge) until Christmas day. I wrapped mine in two layers of clingfilm, a layer of foil, and put the whole thing in a Zipper-topped bag.
If you want to follow tradition, you can place foil-wrapped coins into the pudding before re-heating.
To re-heat on Christmas day you can re-wrap your pudding in an additional layer of clingfilm and then foil and steam in the crockpot for two and a half hours on high or you can microwave it to warm it up.
To serve: heat a ladle of brandy over a gas stove top (or heat in a pan). Carefully light the brandy on fire and tip over the pudding once at the dinner table.
Christmas Pudding is best served with brandy butter or creame. I bought mine pre-made at Waitrose, so I don’t have a recipe to share.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Fashion Plate
[image from: http://www.janejohnsonphotography.com/]
Sometimes I like to imagine what a magazine spread on my outfit would look like. Today, mine would look something like this:
Shirt by Monsoon, on clearance £10
Vest (Camisole), Bra, Knickers, and Socks by M&S £8/2, £22/2, £1.50, and £6/2
Jeans by Dorothy Perkins. eBay £7
Jumper (Sweater) by Per Una (M&S). Cancer Research UK Charity Shop £5
Boots by Clarks. eBay £5.
So the most expensive item I’m wearing today? My bra. LOL But the shirt would have been £40, the jeans £30, the jumper £60 and the shoes £50 if I had bought everything at full retail price. I <3 charity shops, clearance sales, and eBay. With my on-going weight loss I have been shopping charity shops, jumble sales, eBay, and online swapping/shopping groups (on facebook and livejournal). They have been a godsend. I purchased four pairs of jeans (2 are Dorothy Perkins, 2 are Marks & Sparks) for less than the cost of one pair (though I did need to shorten them), countless tops from Dorothy Perkins, M&Co, Monsoon, Miss Selfridge, Per Una, etc. etc. for again, the cost of one top (maybe one and half), and I even managed to score an amazing M&Co silver sparkle dress I wore to a friend’s wedding for probably 10% of the cost of it brand new.
If I’m shopping at a charity shop or jumble sale, I always go for branded items and stay away from items sold by Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys, and Primark (because the quality isn’t very good, and usually it’s just as cheap to buy new from those places). I always look over the items carefully, checking to make sure there are no pulls, rips, or holes in the item, making sure zippers work and all buttons are attached. If there is a problem, I look to see if it’s fixable. One time, the person on the till noticed a cardigan I wanted had a (fixable) hole in it and knocked it down to £2. I rarely try thing on in the shop because the prices are so low I don’t mind passing the items on to other people, but most shops do have an area to try something on if you are so inclined and also offer a return policy.
Purchasing items off eBay or other online communities gets trickier. I tend to read the descriptions well and examine all the photos. I trust that the sellers will indicate if something has a rip or stain simply because they do not want negative feedback. I also base if something will fit me off of what size I already own of that brand. I’ve only had two instances where that hasn’t worked, and it was due to the fabric of the item. Fortunately, many eBay sellers are willing to let you return items that do not fit.
And when I shrink down further and need smaller sizes I can re-donate the clothing to a charity shop, jumble sale, or I can try to re-sell the items myself. Win-win.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Back?
I logged into wordpress this morning and noticed the top line there and smiled. Back when I started this blog I installed a little widget called “Hello, Dolly” which did nothing other than display a random line from the song “Hello, Dolly” across the top. I loved it because the first musical I had ever been in was in fact, “Hello, Dolly!” and when I first landed on the internet in 1993, I picked Minnie Fay (one of the secondary lead characters) as my handle, and I kept Minnie Fay until I was 23. I think I even still have access to my old email account.
Seeing that made me smile and think, yeah. This is what I should be doing. I should be writing daily. Blogging as often as I can. I was going to do NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo, but I fractured my wrist towards the end of October which put a halt to writing.
I’ve not posted since September….and it’s not because I haven’t done things. On the contrary, I’ve been quite busy! I just never bothered to blog for some reason and I am going to try to rectify that. Maybe I needed that time away. I’ve also not been updating LiveJournal or keeping up with email.
Even though the paralympics were in September, I will be blogging about it. And our trip to Welshpool, and other assorted things I’ve no blogged about yet. I’ll have to make a list!
I’m back where I belong now.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
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Aplogy Owed!
I possibly owe an apology to the author of What the F, UK?. A link to her blog was shared on one of the Ex-pat groups on FB and while there were loads of comments on facebook, I think I was the only one who went to her blog and left her a comment.
I wasn’t myself yesterday. As my friend Brigette said about me, I’m usually not that mean…and I didn’t intend to BE mean. I certainly didn’t expect her to go and mark her blog as private or for a comment to pop up on another ex-pat group (by someone unrelated?) claiming that we were “poor desperate housewives” living in abject poverty!
I can’t access the original post any more because she changed her blog to private, but for whatever reason, it rubbed me the wrong way. I think it was the general tone of her post, the attitude I saw in her post, or her use of sarcastic quotation marks. And I left a comment.
It may have been slightly snarky. I went through her long list of “things that are wrong with the UK” that she had written out in a numbered list and I made my own numbered list in response. Most of her complaints I was able to point out that the “missing” thing was present in the UK…though I suppose I shouldn’t have told her that if she didn’t like living in the UK she should go back to the US. ooops.
So I do apologize. I think that had I not been in a bad mood, I could have written a much nicer reply and addressed her problems with the UK in a better way and maybe even extended the arm of friendship.
Will she ever see this? If she’s anything like me, she would have “stalked” me online and found her way to my blog, so I hope she has seen this and I hope she knows that I didn’t mean to be so snarky and that if she needs another American to talk to, she would be welcomed into any of our ex-pat groups on facebook.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Tesco Online Ordering: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Yesterday, my tesco picker forgot the difference between white bread and malt bread and where I had ordered “Seeded Malt Roll”, I was sent something made with white flour, which I refused and had sent back. I don’t understand how someone doesn’t know the difference, given that the ONLY search result on Tesco.com for “Seeded Malt Roll” is this:
A further search on Tesco.com by clicking on “view rest of shelf” on the Malt Rolls shows this item listed directly under the Malt Rolls:
This is called a “Seeded Spelt Roll” and appears to be what I had been sent. Now, in the picker’s defense, I could understand not knowing what Malt or Spelt meant. However, if I did not know, I would look it up or ask the people in the bakery department. It’s not a huge problem, I just refused the item and had it sent back. It did mea I was out some rolls for my Lunch, though.
But the biggest problem from yesterday was the driver forgetting an entire tray of chilled foods, including milk. The total amount missing was £14.62, which is a pretty decent chunk of our weekly groceries, considering this was all of our dairy products (milk, butter, yoghurt, cheese) and salad items (lettuce, tomato, spinach, mushrooms).
The driver couldn’t bring me the items but he was going to see if an afternoon van had space. Unfortunately, the afternoon and evening vans didn’t, and my only option was if his supervisor was *willing* to bring me my missing items in the afternoon. Like I said on Facebook, we live nearly an hour away from the grocery depot, so I couldn’t imagine the supervisor being willing to take over two hours out of his day to do this. When I received no call back, I rang up customer service and got a lovely woman named Tammy (wish I knew her last name!) who rang the store while I was on hold and unfortunately came back to tell me I wasn’t getting the items yesterday and was going to get a refund for those items. BUT, Tammy would put in an order for the missing items with a delivery for today, refund the delivery charge, and send me a voucher for the trouble it caused me. When I spoke with Tesco on Facebook, they also decided to give me a voucher as an apology for all the confusion this has caused.
You’d think that would be the end, right? Items would arrive, all would be well….you’d think wrong.
Tesco driver, Ashley, rang to tell me he was running late and would not be delivering my groceries until 10:30. I immediately contacted Tesco through facebook again to tell them, and I was offered another voucher for the problem.
When my order arrived…guess what? THEY SENT THE WRONG ROLLS AGAIN!! I was annoyed, but what puzzled me more was the grocery total. £25.32 when it should have been at the most £19.46. What happened? OH, apparently several of the items I had ordered were on a special offer that had expired yesterday. Fortunately, another phone call, this time speaking to a man named Alister, fixed the problem and got the delivery charge refunded.
In the end, Tesco sent me £30 in vouchers, plus refunded delivery charges. I think this is above and beyond anything I expected and I truly thank Tesco…because honestly? It’s the £30 in vouchers that is going to keep me a customer. Knowing that Tesco cares about their customers enough to go the extra mile is what will keep me coming back.
Thank you, Tesco. Thank you Jamie, Tammy, and Alister. But could you teach the pickers in Cleethorpes what Malt rolls look like?
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Myths about the NHS as related to ObamaCare
I was reading the thread on We Survived Bush about MissM’s photo, and this gem of a comment about life in Europe popped up:
Have u been to Europe? If u consider greater quality of life living in places that are old, outdated, everything is compact and not to many modern conveniences, I guess maybe u should move there. Sorry, I like my new house, granite counter tops, having a new car every couple of yrs, etc..
And I can’t help but laugh. I think she watched Lord of the Rings and thinks we all live in dirt huts and dig holes to go to the bathroom. Or maybe she watched a film that takes place in East Germany in the 1960s. Or does she think we all live in massive, sprawling estates like Downton Abbey or in a castle like Hogwarts? I mean, seriously? Define modern conveniences. I have running water in my house, I have electricity. I have a phone line and I have a TV. I have a washing machine (that’s a combo with a dryer) and an electric shower. I also live in an 1840s farm house, but there are plenty of new builds popping up all over the place.
I also happen to have a coal-burning fire place and a coke-burning stove, but that’s also because I live in an 1840s farmhouse and we actually LIKE having a coal fire (don’t talk to me about the stove).
You can have central heating if you want, you can have dish washers, satellite TV, video gaming systems (we have a Wii), computers (writing this on my netbook, which is next to the desktop and I can see my husband’s laptop bag, too), mobile phones – sorry, cell phones…even iphones if you want ’em.
We have more brands of cars than are available in North America and hey – modern cars like Jaguar, Audi, Volvo, and Volkswagen are all made in Europe. All that AND a decent public transportation system. From my house, I can get to Germany in about 5 hours via public transit from London. Unless you live near the Canadian or Mexican border, can YOU get to a foreign country by train in 5 hours? Or drive through 5 countries in one day?
All that AND healthcare. The rest of the European Union will be much the same.
Tell me again how Europe doesn’t have modern conveniences?
Another comment I frequently see states that we have long waiting lists in England and they don’t want this happening in the US. Below is my reply.
The “waiting lists” here are no different than waiting in the US for your insurance to approve a specialist (which as I remember, can take months), but if you are faced with a life-threatening emergency, you will be put at the top of the queue. I needed non life-threatening emergency surgery in 2010. I was send to A&E (that’s the UK term for ER) by the after hours GP I went to see and stayed in the hospital for 3 days waiting for an open slot for surgery because I *could* wait. If it was life-or-death, they would have rolled me into surgery at 2 in the morning. The longest I personally have had to wait for an appointment has been one month, and I chalk that down just to availability as I received the appointment within one week of being told I needed it.
The thing you have to remember about the British society is that as a whole we tend to like to complain more than praise things. But I can tell you firsthand that the NHS works. My husband still has his father alive thanks to the NHS and his family has never had to worry about where the money was coming from to pay the bills from his kidney transplant. My husband’s best mate had his leg amputated due to an accident over 20 years ago, and he has to go to a special hospital to have a new leg fitted every two years or so and he never has to worry about not being able to feed his family because he has to have a stay n the hospital and a new leg so frequently.
I’m a housewife and an immigrant and I receive the same level of care as anyone else….and I’ve even contributed to the cost of the NHS as the NHS is partially funded through VAT (sales tax).
It’s such a relief to know that when my husband and I decide we are ready to start our family that we do no need to worry about the costs of giving birth or being able to afford doctors if there are complications during the pregnancy. So many of my friends in the US give birth and then are faced with thousands of dollars in hospital bills.
And birth control? FREE. No matter if you are a visitor, immigrant, or citizen.
Th NHS might not be perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than my options ever were when I lived in the US, including when I had HMO care through my job at a bank. Even with monthly premiums of over $300, I still had to pay loads out of pocket for a spinal tap to determine if I had MS (I don’t, thankfully), not to mention the follow-up care and subsequent ER visit when the pain relievers didn’t work!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
The Return of the Face of Obamacare
This is MissM:
Once again, her photo is in the media. My guess is because of the upcoming election in the US.
Most recently it’s been on the “We Survived Bush, you Will Survive Obama” page on Facebook and then re-shared on the “Democrats Abroad” page as well as 4,500 other facebook users. nearly 30k have “liked” the photo (as of the time I’m writing this) and it has over 3,500 comments.
…and yet….out of that 30k, has anyone looked at the watermark on that image and gone to the URL? http://giveneyestosee.com/blog. It’s not even that hard to remember while you open up a new tab on facebook. I’ve also re-posted the links in the comments MULTIPLE times, as well as links to M’s interview with CNN and my previous posts about Miss M (each word is a separate link).
If EACH of those 30k….hell, if Half of the 30k donated a dollar to M’s fund, she would be able to completely pay off her medical bill debt.
Has anyone donated anything? Nope. Has anyone bothered to look at her online shop to purchase ANY of the gorgeous items she has there?
Nope.
And really, how sad is that? How sad is it that we as a modern society can feel the need to look at an image of a person in need, share it with our friends, and not bother to look into the full story? Or those who decide to JUDGE Miss M based on…nothing. I mean, I’m not going to quote comments on here, but some were downright hateful and made reference to things that simply were not true…some even called this image a lie or photoshopped and had claimed they had seen “this girl holding up other signs” (in which case, those must have been photoshopped).
I’ve been trying to comment every page or so with a link back to M’s blog, facebook page, or shop. Will anyone click on it? Will people get off their high horses long enough to actually do something to help out a fellow American in need? Hell, I bet my British friends have contributed more to M’s cause than ALL those people liking this photo put together.
Ways to Help
I am NOT asking you to donate money to aid Miss M, but if you’re in the market for some jewellery, please visit her site or Etsy shop. Christmas is coming, and I can vouch that her pieces are stunning. I myself own two trees of life and snowman earrings, my mom has a custom bracelet, and my mother-in-law received a nestlace (bird’s nest pendant) that Miss M personalized with an un-heard of SEVEN birthstone pearls for her children and children-in-laws. I also have many one of a kind pieces Miss M has gifted to me over the years, including some lovely purple earrings I wear all the time and a red and gold beaded bookmark.
If you do want to donate, you can do so via both PayPal and GoFundMe.
Other links you might find useful:
Her Blog: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog
PhoenixFunds: http://PhoenixFunds.etsy.com
PhoenixFireDesigns on Etsy: http://PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com
PhoenixFire Designs: http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog.]
Lost in Lincolnshire! (okay, not really)
[The pink line indicates the route of the number 3 bus]
I had a fun adventure today.
Tim dropped me off in town at the top of the hill on his way to work so I could get photos of Sophie Wells‘ Gold Post Box (post later AND my paralympic post later) and then walk down the hill to run some errands.
I missed catching the 1650 bus back home by about 2 minutes. I didn’t want the 1720 because it takes too long, but between the 1720 and the 1750 there is a Number 3 that goes from Lincoln to Grimsby via Market Rasen that happens to pass through Dunholme (though it does it backwards so it goes Welton – Dunholme, instead of Dunholme – Welton like the 11/12). I got on, paid my fare, and got out my Kindle to read. My landmark for pressing the stop button when I go from Welton to Dunholme is the green fence around the primary school and/or the 20mph school zone section as it’s hard to miss even if you’re not paying attention between the jagged no parking lines across the road and the high fence. I glanced up partway through the journey, and we were in Nettleham (another nearby village). The 3 goes through Nettleham and out the back way via the police station, so I knew I still had plenty of time. The next time I looked up (might have been 10-15 minutes later), all I could see was shrubs and trees lining either side of the road. I assumed we were either on the A46 between Nettleham and Welton or on the road back to Welton, so I kept glancing out for familiar landmarks like the garage turn off on the A46, William Farr Secondary School, The Welton Co-op, Welton Village Hall, the mini roundabout, and of course, St Chad’s primary school and the green fence.
Never saw ANY of those places. I don’t even recall going through the mini roundabout in Dunholme by the pub (which is past my stop, but there’s still another stop before it turns back on to the A46). I suddenly saw the turn off for Toft-next-Newton, Newton-by-Toft and Newtoft (No, I’m not making that up!). I got confused, but thought maybe there was some odd backroads way into Welton I was unfamiliar with since I don’t usually use the Number 3 and in fact had only ridden it one other time out of Lincoln and that was after I had had an eye exam so I had to ask the driver to tell me when we were in Dunholme since I couldn’t see.
Anyway, he next village we went through was Faldingworth. I’m not too good with local village geography, but I knew Faldingworth was nearish to Welton, so again, I thought perhaps this was some back-roads way of getting into Welton and then Dunholme. I did send a text to Tim that said “Where am I? Am I lost? Passing through Faldingsworth!!”, but I wasn’t panicked. Yet.
The bus turned off into Middle Rasen….and then I panicked. Well, ok, not really. But I did start to think something had gone wrong, so I texted Tim again to let him know that I had somehow totally missed Dunholme and was on my way to Market Rasen where I hoped there would be a bus in the opposite direction for me to take back, or I’d have to take a taxi (it’s 9 miles). I also at this point really hoped I had enough money in my purse to handle the resulting bus fare from having the wrong ticket!
When the bus got to Market Rasen, I made sure I was the last person off and I talked to the driver. The conversation went something like this:
Me: I don’t know what happened, but I managed to completely miss the bus going through Dunholme. Is there a bus going back or do I need to find a taxi?
Driver: There will be one shortly going back, but it’s the last bus of the day. The stop is across the street [points].
Me: Thank you. And I owe you the difference from Dunholme to Market Rasen.
Driver: Don’t worry about it. OH, there’s the bus, you better hurry.
I thanked him again and ran across the street with my shopping trolley heaving with heavy bottles of water and managed to flag down the bus at the last minute.
Me: Single to Dunholme please. I managed to miss my stop.
Driver: Don’t worry about it.
Me: Thank you.
And this time, I PAID ATTENTION (and also had a text from Tim telling me what time the bus was expected in Dunholme and to set an alarm in case I got lost in a book again).
Uhm….oooops!!!
So, the moral of the story is: Always pay attention to where you are going when riding an unfamiliar bus route. Although I do wonder if the bus driver hadn’t somehow neglected to drive through the two villages as well, but I somehow doubt that he’d have been able to get away with doing that, so I really must have been off in la-la book land!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
Word to the Wise: Don’t Order from Comet
[copy of the facebook comment I left for Comet on their Facebook Page this evening. Please spread the word.]
Dear Comet,
Given that you do not permit people to post directly to your facebook page (I wonder why?) I am left with leaving you a comment on your most recent entry.
I wish to register a complaint in regards to your telephone customer service representatives who tell lies to their customers. I have been waiting at home all day for the delivery of my birthday present – a new netbook ordered via the Comet website. I rang your overpriced customer service number earlier today and was assured that my item was out for delivery and while she couldn’t give me an exact time, it would be before 7PM. I rang again at 6PM to enquire as to the wherabouts of my delivery as it still had not arrived. I was informed that I was scheduled for delivery from between 7PM and 8PM (which is news to me, as I was told delivery was by 7PM! and if I had known I had an actual slot I might not have wasted my entire day, but I digress), but if I did not hear from the delivery driver by 7:30PM I should ring back because THE OFFICE WAS OPEN UNTIL 8PM. I just rang 15 minutes ago to receive a recording that your office is now closed as of 7PM. This means that your customer service representative LIED TO ME. I cannot possibly trust a company who hires people to tell lies to their customers just so they do not have to deal with them. I do not have my laptop, and my birthday has now been ruined as I was unable to leave my house to go out to dinner due to being told my package would arrive between 7 and 8 when I was expecting it before 7PM.
And now what? I can reschedule delivery for tomorrow, only I’m not available all day tomorrow and no one is there to take my call to reschedule. I am sure that if I ring in the morning, I will be told that it is too late to reschedule delivery services for that day. In fact, the ONLY day I was available from 7AM – 7PM was TODAY, the day I scheduled and paid for delivery.
I would like a REFUND of my delivery charge, a REFUND for all the money I spent ringing up your “10p per minute” line, and an accurate re-delivery slot. It’s either that, or I cancel my order and I will no longer be stepping foot in your store or any of your affiliates (including your web site) and that’s a shame, as my husband and I need all new Kitchen appliances within the next 5 years.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Lockley
—
Yes, I had to leave this as a comment on their most recent post as they have disabled the ability for people to post to their page. I am BEYOND livid. First, that they can’t seem to keep an appointment when the delivery slot IS THIRTEEN HOURS LONG, and second, that they would employ customer service representatives who LIE to the customers. Really? Do they not know what time is knocking off time? Are they sitting in a dark call centre for an additional hour after they shut off the phones? What on earth would possess anyone to tell a customer to ring back A HALF AN HOUR AFTER THEY HAVE GONE HOME FOR THE DAY, if not just because they did not feel like dealing with an irate customer? Oh, don’t they realize that all this does is make me even MORE irate?! If the drivers have mobile phones they are to use to contact customers, why don’t they ring up all their outstanding orders at 8PM just to let the customers know? How do I know my item won’t show up at 11PM tonight after I’ve gone to bed due to a late driver or worse — what if my item has been delivered to the wrong address or left outside the wrong address (which has happened before to me)?
Needless to say, this will be the LAST time Tim and I order ANYTHING from Comet or step foot in their shops. Fortunately, there is a Curry’s in the same shopping centre in Lincoln. It was my own misfortune that I decided to order my new netbook from Comet.
So, yeah. Birthday? Ruined. Netbook? Not delivered. State of the Becca? Extremely cheesed off!!
~~*~~
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
London 2012 Basketball Quarterfinals
[click for bigger]
I have been obsessively checking the ticketing website for the Olympics hoping beyond all hope that I would find something….anything and not having much luck. Several times, Tim and I thought we ha tickets only to have the little ticker count down to 0 and “no tickets available”. So we bought Paralympic tickets instead for the two of us (and they were reasonably priced!) and Tim told me to keep trying for a single ticket for myself. Thanks to a twitter feed called 2012 Ticket Alert, I was able to keep an eye on things as they became available. The only downside was that sometimes an alert would be posted for a single ticket in the highest price range (£495!) and in the lower price ranges they went fast and I still missed out.
Finally, on Tuesday evening, Basketball tickets became available for the following day. I held my breath as I loaded the ticketing website, put a single ticket (at the £55 price bracket) in my basket and clicked on “check availability” and watched the countdown tell me I had 15 minutes left….14……13…12….then it kept jumping between 8 and 9 minutes remaining and I thought for sure I had missed out on tickets….so imagine my joy and surprise when it popped me through to the checkout screen and told me I had 3 minutes to book my ticket! Ticket booked, I ran outside to tell Tim I needed a lift to the station in the morning….I didn’t get much sleep that night.
Due to Tim’s schedule, he wound up dropping me off at Lincoln station in time to get the 0526 train. This was good because the information online stated if you had tickets for the same day you were picking them up, you should get to the box office as early in the day as possible. Instead of heading straight to the North Greenwich Arena (which I only learned the day before is actually the O2/Millennium Dome) to pick up tickets, I decided to go to the gates in Stratford because I wanted to get a glimpse of Olympic Park.
Travelling in London was very smooth! From King’s Cross, you just had to follow the pink signs across the street to St Pancras and onto the Javelin trains to Stratford. From Stratford, you followed MORE pink signs to Olympic Park. The queue was short for picking up tickets, so in no time I had my tickets and I headed to the Jubilee line, with the intentions of getting some photos of Tower Bridge with the Olympic rings (the rings will be replaced with the Paralympic logo when Tim and I go down). I got off at Waterloo station and while walking across Waterloo bridge I spotted the floating rings:
[click for bigger]
[click for bigger]
I decided to take the Dockland’s Light Railway (DLR) as far as Royal Docks and then the Emirates Air Line (A gondola ride across the Thames). The Air Line was amazing, and I got a view of Olympic Park from the air:
[pardon the quality as taken super zoomed in through a window. Click for bigger]
And also of the North Greenwich Arena:
[click for bigger]
It was lunch time. The ticketing website said to “be at the venue two hours before the event” and the first game started at 2, but I decided to take some time to eat before getting into the arena. I spotted a Subway, so for £3.59 I had a very decent sized salad! Can you get anything at the Olympics for less than that? (Maybe the pound range at McDonald’s!) Getting into the arena was a bit like going to the airport. Put your single bag* on the x-ray belt, take off anything metal (including watches and belts) and go through a metal detector. Okay, not bad. But then, once you got into the Arena and wanted to go to your seat, you had to submit to a bag search. This part I didn’t like, as I had packed my bag very carefully and very full and it was hard getting everything back in without causing a traffic jam. The ticketing website advised that you could bring an empty water bottle into the venue, so I went up to the concession stand and asked them to fill it for me. Fortunately, I had my filter bottle, though I wished the water had been a little colder! I watched many people buying bottled water and then pouring it into their reusable bottles, so it doesn’t sound like they are advertising the “free water” very well!
I was in Section 115, Row Q, seat 74. ROW Q. Does that sound as crazy close to the court to you as it did to me? Well, it turned out I was TWENTY ROWS BACK. I think the only reason the ticket was going was because I was nearly dead center with one of the baskets, so it had a partially obstructed view. I didn’t care.
I sat next to a man from Stratford-upon-Avon (I forget his name) and he and I had a great time talking and commentating on the games. The games I was going to watch were Russia vs. Lithuania and France vs. Spain. The first game was good, but a little slow. And there were loads of Lithuanian fans in the arena who booed anytime Russia had the ball! I decided I would cheer on Russia, and was glad I did because they won the game 83-74. During the break, the Lithuanian and Russian fans left, and the French and Spanish fans arrived. The second game was at a much faster pace than the first. France and Spain seemed to be fairly evenly matched and the score was kept close until the fourth quarter where Spain started to sneak ahead. The last 25 seconds of the game took at least 15 minutes to play out because the French team was obviously sore losers and kept fouling the Spanish players, so we would have a few seconds of play, a foul called, 2 penalty baskets by Spain (which was only increasing their lead!), a few seconds of play, foul, penalty baskets, etc. etc. Spain won 66-59.
I left immediately after the whistle, as I was going to be in a time crunch to get back to King’s Cross for my train….and I was so lucky I got to the ticket barrier just as they were announcing my train!
[click for bigger]
[click for bigger]
Ironically, while I’ve been writing this, the gold medal match is being played out….USA vs. Spain. Who do I root for? The team I have been following since 1992 (when my dad and I were obsessed with the Dream Team) or the team I watched? Oh, who am I kidding? USA! USA! USA! USA! (and USA won!! 107-100!!)
If you’d like to see the rest of the photos I uploaded (I took over 500, uploaded a little over 100), you can check them out in my facebook album.
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* You may bring in ONE backpack of up to 25L or a “medium handbag” because you have to put your bag under your seat. Fortunately, they don’t say anything about having things hanging OFF your bag, so I had my raincoat and lunchbox attached to the outside.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
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Recipe: Low Carb Chicken Fingers (Diabetic Friendly!)
[Nuggets, shown with a big pile of Ranch dressing made from powdered ranch dressing mix and creame fraiche]
[please excuse the mobile phone quality and half empty plate!]
I’ve been whipping these up for the past few months, and I realized that I hadn’t shared the recipe, so I thought I would remedy that. This recipe works well with diced chicken (for nuggets), mini fillets (for fingers), and even with boneless chicken breasts if you want to make chicken Parmesan.
You will need:
-Boneless, skinless chicken (breasts can be used whole, diced into nuggets, or sliced into fingers)
-Equal parts ground almond and grated Parmesan cheese. Depending on how much chicken you have to coat, start with 50g of each and use more if you run out. (or do what I do, and just dump some in a bowl. LOL)
-100ml single cream or milk (if you run out, use more)
-1 egg
-1 tsp paprika
-1 tsp oregano
– a sprinkle of salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 180C and line a baking tray with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray.
Pour cream or milk into a bowl and whisk together with the egg. Combine the ground almonds, Parmesan, seasonings, salt and pepper in another bowl.
Coat each piece of chicken by first placing it into the bowl with the egg/cream mixture and then into the “breading” mixture.
Bake for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken (breasts will take longer, nuggets might only take 15 minutes). Topping should be golden in colour and if you poke a toothpick into the chicken the juices should run clear.
Serve with your choice of dip and a side salad. To serve this as Chicken Parmesan, you don’t need to pre-cook the chicken, just add it to a dish with some sauce and top with a little grated cheese, then bake!
Tim has decided these are better than the frozen ones from the grocery store. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could try frying them in a few centimetres of oil or in a deep fryer instead of baking them. I’m too chicken (hah!) to attempt to fry things in oil on the hob!
These are diabetic friendly as they do not contain any breadcrumbs or flour and are also suitable for a low-carb diet. Other recipes suggest using coconut flour, carbquik, ground flaxseed, and other non-flour options. Before using low-fat Parmesan cheese, read the label to make sure they are not full of sugar, as is the case with many low-fat cheeses.
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
No Plastic Bags in Wales!
If you’re going on holiday to Wales, don’t forget to pack some reusable bags for your shopping, including souvenir shopping! If you want a plastic bag, you will have to pay 5p for each bag. Everywhere. From Tesco to the corner shop, farmer’s market stands to tourism sites. There is no escaping the plastic bag “ban”, though there are some exceptions. Using very small plastic bags with no handles or small paper bags is still free.
There are also certain items that you can put in a plastic bag and not be charged, such as fruits and vegetables….however, those have to be the only items in that bag when you walk away from the till. From their informative website:
“You could have loose apples, potatoes and pears in one bag and not have to charge. If you then placed a box of tea bags in there too, you would need to apply the charge.
This is to prevent a loop hole in the law. A person can not put an apple in one bag with lots of other shopping, a potato in another bag with lots of other shopping, a lettuce in another etc. and get all their single use carrier bags for free.”
Which is quite clever, because I could see someone attempting to do that!
The plastic ban also brings up a different kind of disposeable bag…what about fast food? Here’s what the website has to say:
“If you went to a fast food restaurant and purchased a packet of fries and a burger then the fries can be placed in a free bag as they are only part wrapped and you would not be expected to place these in a reusable bag as there could be some food safety risks. If the burger is also placed in the bag, then the bag would be charged for. This is because it is safe to place wrapped food into a reusable bag and the purpose of these Regulations is to change customer behaviour every time they shop and in every situation.”
Wow. Tim and I didn’t eat any fast food while we were away, so I hadn’t thought about the impact of ordering fast food at all. Imagine being charged an extra 5p each time you ate at McDonalds!
I’m also curious as to where the 5p you pay for a bag goes…and the answer is that the shops can do whatever they like with the 5p, though the Welsh Assembly expects “that the proceeds should be passed on to charities or good causes in Wales, and in particular to environmental projects.”. So…any time you need a plastic bag in Wales and pay 5p for it, you could just be lining the pockets of the shop. Or, you could be donating 5p to a worthy cause…hang on a minute, if I pay 5p for a bag I’m helping out charity? That actually doesn’t sound too bad….is this really going to prevent people from asking for plastic bags and bringing reusable bags?
I didn’t know about the charge before we went to Wales, but fortunately, Tim and I always carried folding reusable bags in our rucksacks, and our house at home is loaded with canvas, burlap, and plastic shopping bags — Tim would probably say I collect them, and he might be right. I like to pick up bags when we are on holiday because it brings a smile to my face when I pull that one out to use. For example, when we were in Austria, the local grocery store was called “Billa”. We purchased one of their extra-large shopping bags we affectionately call “BillaBag” and I can take that bag into town for a shopping trip and not need any other bags. I also have a bag I purchased in Walt Disney World on our honeymoon, a bag I bought on my first visit to Stonehenge, and the familiar blue IKEA tarp bags, which always remind me of my time working there. I purchased a bag from the Vale of Rheidol Railway on this trip!
I’m also glad I stuffed a bunch of carrier bags into the caravan for rubbish, or we would have had to purchase rubbish bags!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
Wet, Wonderful, Wales
Wow, what a holiday! Tim and I have been in Wales for the past three weeks with his parents caravan (thankfully!) and what an amazing time!!
I meant to write up blog posts on Tim’s laptop while we were there, but of course, I never seemed to find time, so here’s what you will get glimpses of in the coming weeks…
~Multiple visits to the Talyllyn Railway and Llechfan Garden Railway….including Have-A-Go where I drove a steam train!
~Massive walks…Dolgoch Falls. Nant Gwenol and Dolgellau to Barmouth
~Vale of Rheidol (still too wet to do Devil’s Bridge!)
~The Welsh Highland and Ffestiniog Railway….NINE HOURS of travel by steam!!
~Welsh place names with no vowels
~Machynlleth Market, Aberystwyth, Portmeirion, Harlech Castle
~LLangolen Railway, Bala Lake Railway, Llanberis Lake Railway, Fairbourne Railway
and much, much more!!
I personally have over 2500 photos to go through, who knows how many videos, and whatever Tim has that he wants me to publish…
This could take a while!!!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.
[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]
For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/
Aberystwyth
Yesterday brightened up so we went to the beach! Lovely day for it! Even splurged on a scoop of rum raisin ice cream as I told Tim I was only going to have ice cream once on this trip, and then only good ice cream at the seaside!!
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