Skylarking around Dengie Deliveries

Annual Report delivery day #2 took us out to the Dengie Peninsula, a stretch of Essex coastline that is formed by the Rivers Crouch and Blackwater, both tidal, and the North Sea to the east. The boundary of the Dengie Hundred ran from North Fambridge to west of Maldon.

We drove out to via Purleigh to Bradwell on Sea, home of the power station (not The Power Station – Robert Palmer and escapee Duran Duran band members) and the Chapel, where St Cedd landed to teach us heathens about Christianity in 654 AD. We walked down to the Chapel, then instead of turning left, the usual route that walkers take along the coastline towards the power station, we decided to talk the right hand path that tracks along the saltmarshes towards Burnham on Crouch. We walked for a while then stopped for a packup lunch and watch a bit of nature.

I have one of those apps that helps you identify birds by their call, so when I set it off, it told me that the riotous squawking was coming from Skylarks. We couldn’t see any but they were making an almighty racket. Then there was a different sound, just in one particular spot, and the app told me that was a Redshank. Again, couldn’t see any but this one was rather vocal. We also spotted, but didn’t hear some gulls, mallards, a coote and a solitary egret type bird. There were some other sea birds a bit further out be we couldn’t make them out.

After our 4 mile round trip, we started our deliveries. Reports for Bradwell, only we went up and down the same stretch of road about 4 times trying to find a house name. Then the return journey via Southminster to Tillingham and then Burnham on Crouch.

When we arrived at Burnham we decided to have another little walk along the river edge. And stop for the obligatory ice cream. What a palaver that turned out to be. There are two ice cream outlets opposite each other. One seemed to have a long queue, the other didn’t, so we joined the one with the shorter queue. Then we noticed that they had a sign telling you that basically they’d run out of all flavours of ice cream except two. So we turned around and joined the other queue. It took FOREVER to get served. There seemed to be four staff, one on ice creams and the other three taking it in turns serving chips and hot food, or standing around chatting. The young lady serving the ice cream seemed to have the memory of a goldfish. If you gave her too many options, she just couldn’t remember it. And from the time of taking your order, and your money, to actually starting your order, she had everything jumbled up. It must have taken at least 20 minutes to get our order. We did wonder whether it was worth it, but when you so close to the front of the queue, you kind of have to stay with it.

Anyway, eventually with ice cream in hand, we continued our walk passed some houseboats and the playing field to as far as we could get along the harbour, where the marina is. We clocked up another 1.7 miles.

A leisurely drive back home through the countryside and back into the city, on a beautifully day. Tomorrow’s adventure takes us north!

Planning the week ahead

I have another week off work, to use up some annual leave. I’m writing reports, presentations, planning and attending #bellringing meetings, writing articles, and promoting #bellringing events. At some point there’s a bunch of household things that need doing, I would like to do some baking this week (I have chocolate orange hot cross buns, and chocolate easter cake to make), and I would like to spend some down time going for walks etc as the weather is supposed to be good this week. My to do list is quite lengthy.

C and I have just planned the week out based on what the weather forecast has in store. We have a lot of annual report deliveries to do and plan to splice that with some walks out along the coasts and picnics, so have made a plan based on what we need to deliver where and how many loads can we get rid of in as few journeys as possible.

We went to the wholesalers today, so there was a long shopping list of things to restock the freezer with. Along side that sat the list of reports that we could drop off en route. We dropped the Southern District ones off on our way.

Back home and it was unpacking the shopping and portioning it up into meal sized bags. Our freezer is well and truly stuffed now. We didn’t get home until nearly 3pm so lunch was a bit on the late side, meaning dinner will be even later today. For lunch I tried one of the pasties I made yesterday, they were quite tasty actually.

After lunch, a bit more promotional preparations ahead of tomorrow’s release, then I had a play on Ringing Room, now that I have Wheatley installed, I can ring on my own whilst it does the rest. I plugged in my e-bells and had a go at some plain hunt minor on each pair of bells. I finally got the hang of 3-4. Then I tried some plain bob minimus. After several goes I finally “saw” what I was doing with the 3,4 up dodge. Then I moved on to having a go at some plain hunt major. I found very quickly that I tuned into the rhythm and it sounded pretty good, even if I only did it from 1-2.

For some explicable reason I decided to get my weighted hula hooping out for the first time since 1st January. It took a few minutes to remember how to log exercise on my fitness watch. I did manage about 6 minutes on the first go. I could certainly tell my middle has gone soft.

Whilst C cooked dinner I did some preparations for a meeting that I have on Saturday so that I have everything I need to hand and can share my ideas with the rest of the group.

Only then did I sit down to read a book and watch tv, and fall asleep on the sofa. Until tomorrow’s adventure.

Sweet and Savoury

I don’t often bake savoury things, I’m more of a cake, cupcake, pudding, desserts kinda gal. However, I must get back on the diet train so decided that for my lunches this coming week I’d make some pasties from the first Pinch of Nom book.

Now they cheat because they don’t use pastry, which is fine by me as I’m rubbish at making pastry. They day someone invested Ready Roll pastry sheets was the day the world became a better place. However, these particular pasties use tortilla wraps. I followed the recipe almost exactly, swapping the stewing steak for minced beef (as we have some available) but I included the carrot (yuk), as I figured that they’d be small enough chunks that I’d swallow them whole without having to taste them.

I must admit, I had reservations about how they’d turn out. I didn’t think that they would seal properly as they kept smooshing about when I was using a fork to seal them. However, they did, and there was no leakage. I baked them for a little while longer than the recipe said until I decided that they were nice golden-brown colour. I do think they look pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I guess the proof will be in the eating.

I think that as I used mince instead of stewing steak there was more mixture to do around. The recipe said that it would make 4 pasties but I managed to get double that. Maybe I was a bit cautious about filling them and the one that I did put more filling in was the hardest to try and seal. So now I have 2 whopping great pasties for lunch Monday – Thursday next week.

I only ever seem to make lunches for the 4 days that I’m at work. Friday lunches are usually make do and mend with whatever is in the fridge or cupboard, which has resulted in some interesting combinations, although if there’s enough of C’s bread left I’ll quite often do cheese on toast.

With a bit more planning I should lose some weight before a wedding in July.