Early morning bike ride

I suppose there are some good reasons to head out to work on the dark. This morning's payback was a best dawn as the sun come up as seen from Llyal Bay.

This morning's cycle to work ...

We've had a run on wonderful early winter's days.  Sunny crisp weather, with cloudless nights and amazing dawns.  These were taken from Wellington waterfront at about 7am on the way into work.  Makes it so much easier to get on the bike when there are views like these ... as they say in the ad, "It's a pretty stink view'

 Looking towards Eastbourne

 Looking North towards the docks

 Looking south towards Schaffers Marian

 

Rhubarb Champage

I wanted to do something a little different from the usual Rhubarb Meringue pie with the rhubarb from the garden, so after a trawl around the 'net, I came across this recipe, but there are lots of different options out there.

Ingredients

• 800g rhubarb 
• 600g sugar
• 2 lemons
• 12 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 4.5 L water

The instructions are simplicity themselves:

Chop rhubarb 1cm and finely slice lemon and mix all ingredients into container and let sit for a couple of days or longer (depends on temp). Double strain into bottles (I always use at least one plastc bottle - when it is tight I let a bit of fizz off them all).
They are supposed to be ready after 6 weeks but ours are all finished before then - we drink it from first fizz. 

I made up a batch of this on  using rhubarb that I'd collected over a number of weeks and stored in the freezer (just collect from garden, wash, chop and put into zip lock bags). The freezing of the rhubarb helps to tenderise it as it defrosts, which saves a bit of effort and seems to improve the flavour.

Did a 50-50 split sugar and dextrose as I had some left over from beer brewing. Doubled the batch size as there was plenty of rhubarb in the freezer. Also, used 4 grapefruit from the garden instead of the lemons.

The initial batch before adding the water looked like this

Then added the 9 litres of water to make up the full batch 

And left it in a warm spot for 3 days, after which it looked like this

Strained it from the demi-john in a container, 4 litres at a time

I probably haven't strained it finely enough but I think I kept most of the fruit out

Tasted very refreshing with the grapefruit coming through strongly, but expecting them to mellow over time. Finally, bottle them in sterilsed PET bottles, will put them somewhere dark for a few weeks and will report back on the outcome.

Tramping to Top Maropea

Heading from Sunrise Hut to Top Maropea

Regular Updates - well every 3 months!!!

Looking South towards Makara beach - yes Simon we have dived this spot before!!!

Sunset on Waverley beach

Must be beer o' clock :o)

Seems like only yesterday that I was swearing that I'd update this blog more regularly and yet here we are getting into Autumn with little or no progress - ok no progress. So here's a brief summary of the last few weeks. If I went back any further I have to cover such wierdness as the World Unicycle Championships and other various wonders that Wellington has held over the summer - including some very entertaining footie matches with 38,000 turning out at the Cake Tin to see the Phoenix play their hearts out. It was like watching football from the 80's and it took days for my voice to recover!

Been lucky enough to have the last few days off, so we went to a place called Waverley on the west coast of the North Island and enjoyed bach life for Easter. Then it was back to Wellington, to the surprise that Wolves hadn't been relegated and the not so much of a surprise that the 'Toon were back in the Premiership - hoping to see them in Molineux next season.

Even the dog has noticed the cooler evenings

We've had one of those weird Wellington weekends - no wind on Saturday and roaring Northerlies on Sunday, but managed to get out diving on both days. There was a run of southerlies last week so the water has dropped to 12C, so man was I glad to see my dry-suit come back from the repair shop - woohoo!!

Have to mention, we went for a dive in a place called Makara As you can see it's not really close to anywhere much. but we went to help a guy shift his boat and he only turned out to be from Coney Island, Sligo - you really can't go anywhere in the world without bumping into a local. Maz, if you're reading this, he was a regular at Austies!!

On Sunday, we headed out into the Taputeranga Marine Reserve (Island Bay, Wellington), and here is a little video to show what happens if we stop fishing an area for a little over 14 months ...



Just after this, my dive buddy Helen found an octopus who took a liking to her. I managed to take some video once I'd stopped laughing :o)



For anyone out there who is a Tommy Tiernan fan or hasn't heard of him but would like to know what would happen if you let a lunatic have 3 hours a week to make a real radio programme, with comments that would make the BBC blush - have a look at Tommy & Hector, either stream or podcast - technology is a wonderful thing and I love scaring the locals, inanely grinning to their mad antics.


Now all I need is for Wolves to get the 3 points in the Stoke v Wolves match (sorry Kevin) and the weekend will be made - singing 'Hi, ho Wolverhampton!"


There always has to be a Nudi shot ...

We're back and back in the water ...

Been away from the blog for too long now, so it's time to get on with the New Year's resolutions and actual start updating the blog - rather than reading Farmville updates in Facebook.

Yesterday, we had our second day of summer this year so I decided to head down to the Marine Reserve for a dive. Couldn't have asked for better conditions, 25C, sunny and flat calm water.

The reserve has been open for over a year now and the difference is visible. Getting lots more fish and crays, the paua are increasing in size and there seems to be a wider variety of aquatic life. I'd like to know how the crays know that they are protected, they nearly come out and shake your hand in the reserve!

Shame that the water hasn't warmed up yet, 14C but with a slight thermocline at the surface due to the sun on the water - a shock to the system after the Poor Knights. Still a fair amount of "stuff" in the water (technical term) so harder to get a decent panoramic shot - well that's my excuse anyway.

On an completely different note, veteran rockers AC/DC were in Wellington for the past few days, playing two nights at the Cake Tin. In what can only be called a return to her youth, Lisa went along to see them last night and has been raving about them since. I think she may be going bogan on me!

We're off to Hawkes Bay next weekend, so should be able to post a few pics from the sunnier end of the country not to mention a few from some vineyeards - purely for research purposes.

A visitor, who'd have thought

A few weeks ago we had an e-mail from a fried inSydney who said that he had a work junket, ahem, presentation that meant that he was going to be in Wellywood. So on Thursday, one Rob Ashmore landed on our doorstep and it went from there ...

Opps, sorry not Rob but you can see right up Clyde's nose

So we can confirm that Mr Ashmore is alive and well, can drink as much as ever and still knows his way around a good curry.

Where's Rob?

We'll have to make the effort to get to Sydney to see him soon.

D