Here’s something I’ve been pondering… Is peanut butter sweet or savoury?! It’s savoury, surely? Yes?!
I mean, it goes incredibly well with noodles and rice, and makes an excellent dipping sauce for chicken. It’s even associated with salt. But, on the converse, you spread it on toast like honey, add it to chocolates, and put it in a sandwich with jam. And you might even put it on a sweet pancake. It came up the other evening at home when we were discussing pancake toppings, and I thought it was something of a conundrum. Apparently, the culinary world has a simple answer for this mystery… quite simply, yes – it’s both.
Anyway, and either way, it’s delicious, which is the main thing, and I should just get on with this weekly blog episode before I read another article on this odd topic…
My Week
Since Tuesday, when I published my last weekly blog episode, I’ve mostly been working. Nothing new or exciting there, then. But as last week, I have been doing my best to get some quality time outside around the day job. Being strict about getting out for a lunchtime walk – at actual lunchtime – as well as going for a hike on Saturday and a decent length walk on Sunday, has made it all feel okay. More on those in a moment.
It’s not been easy. We’ve been subjected to two yellow warnings of rain this week here in Gloucestershire. And while the first one only resulted in some heavy showers, the second, which hit on Saturday evening into Sunday morning, really showed us what rain could do. It was so loud! And resulted in some localised flooding and very muddy conditions.
It does feel like the weather is toying with us. One positive, at least, is that I’ve been able to use it as an excuse to carve out time for writing on a Sunday afternoon.
As a result, I’m writing this weekly blog episode sat on my sofa in my comfies (these merino joggers I got from Isobaa ages ago are still my favourite thing for lounging around in), as the blue sky and rain clouds do square dances outside. I’ve got a rather lovely set up, I have to admit – I’m sat with my feet up along the length of the sofa, with my MacBook on my lap, a cup of tea within easy reach, and Scala Radio playing in the background.
Pancake Day
I left my last weekly blog episode with the promise of pancakes. Ah Shrove Tuesday, when us Brits traditionally eat our weight in thin and floppy pancakes covered in sugar. It has to be one of my favourite at-home food days of the year, it’s just so fun – and so sweet!
I don’t know what happens in your house, but in ours, the batter gets made, we eat something reasonably light for dinner (you know, so we’ve eaten something that can be considered nutritious), before we go all in and eat pancakes until the batter is gone.
There’s no making a batch of pancakes and keeping them warm in the oven here. We make and eat and make and eat and make and eat, taking it in turns to fry batter while the other one eats before swapping over.
As for whether we toss or turn our pancakes… the first one was tossed for the fun of it (not by me, I hasten to add), but we used the less risky turn-using-a-spatula method from then on.
Toppings wise, I’m not anti-savoury pancakes, but definitely prefer sweet, especially on pancake day. It’s meant to be a treat, after all. I’m a bit basic in that I genuinely enjoy a good squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle (or two) of granulated sugar. That’s actual lemon, not chemical-filled juice from a plastic lemon. We also had a selection of other sweet things available – fresh raspberries, maple syrup, golden syrup, salted caramel sauce, natural yogurt, and biscoff spread.
Naturally, we both ended the evening incredibly full – of sugar mainly – and a little bit giddy as a result. It’s a good job it’s only once a year!!
On the Dinner Table
There were (sadly!) no meals out for us this week, but I did try two new-to-me recipes, which are worth telling you about. Both were cook-once-eat-twice, which is always my preference, and both will be going on my cook-again list. There’s no photographic evidence, I’m afraid, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
The first was speedy lentil coconut curry – simple, quick, and very tasty. The method involves whizzing up onion, carrot, chilli, ginger and garlic to make a base paste, which is cooked off before you add the lentils and coconut milk. It took half an hour or so from start to finish, and was very delicious. Would recommend.
The second recipe was a pearl barley, bacon and leek casserole, which took a bit longer than the curry (especially when you include soaking the pearl barley first), but was very easy to cook while also doing other things. I can’t help but compare this to the Irish Stew from Cook Out, and while it wasn’t a patch on that, it was still very tasty. A comforting midweek meal for a rainy February day.
A Weekend Walking
I may have gone on a bit about the weather already in this weekly blog episode, but thankfully, it’s not been wet all week. Even if it’s felt like it.
I have, at least, stayed reasonably dry on my One Hour Outside lunchtime walks, other than Wednesday when I decided to go anyway and just put up with it. I even saw some sunshine, which felt rather wonderful – Thursday was unseasonably warm and resulted in a One Hour Outside sans coat. And which definitely helped encourage the crocus and daffodils to open. The first one of the year! Look, I’m British, I’m not allowed to be happy about the weather!
I paid particular attention to the weather radar this weekend so that I could make sure I got as much time outside as possible. On Saturday I headed out to hike my favourite half-day route on Cleeve Common, getting home before the heavy rain started. And on Sunday morning I spent a couple of hours back up on the hill, first with a group of friends from church, and then with my husband following our noses down a path we’ve not explored before.
I didn’t exactly get very far from home, but sometimes staying local really is best. Spending an hour on Sunday walking along a random path my husband noticed and wanted to know where it went was just an excellent way to get some steps in. It caused us to find a quite fantastic new-to-us big viewpoint – proving once again that Cleeve Common really is worth visiting again and again.
Those One Hour Outside Daily Photos
This week’s seven themes have been ‘the smallest’, ‘two’s company’ (for Valentine’s Day), ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’, ‘water’, ‘in the sky’, ‘from where I stand’ and ‘around the block’. You’ll once again see some of the photos I took this week dotted through this weekly blog episode. And I’ve been sharing some taken by others on Instagram in my stories.
I think my favourite snap from my offerings this week is probably the one I took of the horse rider crossing Cleeve Common on Saturday, for ‘in the sky’. I was hoping I’d get a big landscape shot showing the great views from up there, but alas, the hill had other ideas. Complete cloud cover provided an eerie vista, and while it wasn’t what I’d planned, it was beautiful in its own right.
And while the photo itself isn’t that brilliant, the story behind my ‘water’ photo made me smile. I went to Cheltenham’s Pittville Park in my lunchbreak on Friday, to take a photo of the perch that is occasionally visited by a Kingfisher. Standing next to a short line of all-the-gear photographers with their super long lenses who’d probably been in the same spot for at least an hour, I quickly took a photo of the perch on my phone. I very much hope they went home and told their partners about the silly lady in the park who thought she would get a photo of this elusive bright blue bird on her phone camera!
Will You Join In This Week?
There’s not long to go in this year’s One Hour Outside photo challenge, a little over a week. Only hearing about this for the first time today? That’s absolutely no problem – you are not too late to join in. Start from today – your theme for Tuesday 20 February is ‘the weather’ (can I get some rolled eyes at that, please?!). And tomorrow (Wednesday 21 February) is ‘on the menu’.
Check out the image below for the rest of the themes, and head to this article for all the details and a text-based list.
I really look forward to seeing how you interpret the themes and, most importantly, where and how you spend One Hour Outside each day over the coming week. Use #SplodzDPC and #OneHourOutside when you share your snaps, but also consider tagging me on Instagram (@Splodz) to help make sure I can find your posts now you can no longer view search results by date.
My Favourite Cleeve Hill Loop
As I can testify, especially this week when I discovered a brand new-to-me footpath and view, there are lots (and lots) of walking options on and around Cleeve Hill. This spot on the edge of the Cotswolds is a very good place for a wander, and is popular for good reason. I honestly love nothing more than getting out for a walk on my local hill.
My favourite loop, and the one I walked for the umpteenth time on Saturday, takes in both trig pillars on the Common, heads down to the derelict buildings of Wontley Farm, picks up the Cotswold Way through Breakheart Plantation and past Postlip Hall, before returning to the Golf Club.
It’s a six-mile easy-to-navigate circular walk on well-defined footpaths which is perfect for when I’ve got a morning at my disposal. It’s not flat; there is a (very) steep descent and some undulating ground, along with a normally-muddy stretch across a farm, but it’s not a difficult walk.
The reason I walked this route on Saturday, apart from wanting some time outside after another very busy working week, was to recce the route so I could show it off to a few friends next month. I’ve invited my fellow OS Champions to join me for a walk – knowing that the Champions scheme is having a full-on refresh (I mentioned this in weekly blog episode 141), I decided to create an opportunity for those in the current group who can make it to have a meet-up.
The Best Walk on Cleeve Hill?
In my opinion, this walk (plotted here in OS Maps) takes in the best bits of Cleeve Hill, with the added benefit of also going through the beautiful steep sided woodland of Breakheart Plantation. There are fewer trees in the woodland after felling following this winter’s storms, but it’s still a stunning place to wander.
Making use of the Cotswold Way and Winchcombe Way, and taking in both the scenic trig pillar and the one which marks the official highest point of the Cotswolds, there’s some amazing views (well into Wales on a good day) and plenty of historical interest. It seems like the perfect route to do with friends, and I’m very much looking forward to that next month.
World Thinking Day
Were you a Brownie or Guide? Do you remember celebrating Thinking Day? For some reason, this has always stuck in my mind as a date I should mark somehow.
Now called World Thinking Day (it was just Thinking Day when I was a kid), the annual event is celebrated on 22 February by Girl Guides and Girl Scouts across the world. It is an opportunity to speak out on issues that affect young women, and to fundraise for the 8.9 million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 152 countries.
The date – 22 February – was chosen because it was the birthday of both Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement, and Olave Baden-Powell, who was World Chief Guide. In some countries it’s referred to as ‘Founder’s Day’, but the meaning is the same.
I remember marking the occasion by learning about women who were doing great things, especially overseas, writing letters to Guide Companies in other countries, and doing activities which would help me understand my place in the world a little more. These days, an important international issue is selected as the theme, and the day is used as an opportunity to study and appreciate other countries and cultures, and equally increase awareness and sensitivity on global concerns. In 2024, Thinking Day is titled “Our World, Our Thriving Future”.
Setting aside a specific day of the year to give some real and deep thought to how we each can make a difference to the world we live in seems like something that shouldn’t just be for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Something for us all to ponder on Thursday, maybe.
That’s Entertainment
Documentary Film: The Long Way Home: A Pacific Crest Trail Story
This Pacific Crest Trail documentary came up on my YouTube home page, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and so thought I’d pass on the algorithm’s recommendation to you.
The Long Way Home: A Pacific Crest Trail Story is a 50-minute documentary by Titouan Le Roux. I’m always drawn to documentary films like this. There is a small part of me that would like to through hike the Pacific Crest Trail, or something similar, one day. So I enjoy getting a glimpse into the lives of those who have done it.
Of course, this isn’t a documentary about hiking. Not really. As with all the best adventure stories, it’s much more about exploration, connection, challenge, emotion, and how the chosen activity – in this case hiking – impacts the protagonist’s body, mind and soul. It helps that the film is beautifully shot, capturing the beauty and harshness of the experience, both in terms of the environment and the personal story.
My favourite quote from the film is: [I hike to] “prove that I can be the best version of myself when feeling at my worst…”. A most excellent goal for any of us to strive for.
Audiobook: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield
I absolutely sailed through Chris Hadfield’s memoir, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, which I bought with one of the Audible credits I got for Christmas and listened to since my last weekly blog episode went live.
Chris Hadfield tells the story of how he spent a lifetime making the impossible a reality. He recounts amusing and sometimes horrific stories of the amount of work and effort he put into his goal to become an astronaut. And how he didn’t actually mind if he never made it. I mean, Chris’ advice for living well includes never visualising success, caring greatly what other people think, and, my personal favourite, always sweating the small stuff.
My favourite quote from this book is a deep one… “If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you are setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time. Personally, I’d rather feel good most of the time. So to me, everything counts. The small moments, the medium ones, the successes that make the papers, also the ones that no one knows about but me. The challenge is avoiding being derailed by the big shiny moments that turn other people’s heads. You have to figure out for yourself how to enjoy and celebrate them, and then move on.” So there.
But if you aren’t into the deep stuff, you can also hear how this bloke has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft.
Giveaway Winner!
One final thing to do before I wrap up this weekly blog episode… and that is to announce my giveaway winner. Back in episode 140, I opened a competition to win Cook Out by Harrison Ward, as I received a second copy in a prize bundle from the publisher Vertebrate Publishing.
Thanks to all those who entered. Congratulations to Jules for winning. Your book will be on the way to you this week. I hope you enjoy the recipes as much as I am doing – whether you cook them indoors or outdoors. (The rest of you will just have to buy your own copy – sorry!!!)
See You Next Time
Right, that’s quite enough for this weekly blog episode, time to close the laptop and relax for a bit.
In case you missed my new non-weekly blog articles in recent days, do go and read part one of my new adventure journal series featuring the Cumbria Way, my Bucket List Reset for this year, or my ‘What’s in My Pack’ update for 2024.
And if you’ve seen all my recent offerings, why not head back a little and give Volcanic Views in Lanzarote and My Overland Adventure in Iceland a read? Should keep you going until my next weekly blog episode is live!
Buy Me a Cuppa?
If you enjoyed this weekly blog episode and fancy supporting me and my mini adventures this year, you can “buy me a coffee” for £3 (well, a cup of tea, if that’s okay?). Head over to Ko-fi to find out more. Thank you.