Thursday, June 21, 2012

My Photography

I love taking photos. The one below is my most recent favourite. I took this in Limoux, France at Easter whilst on holiday at our Labour of Love. CC is walking DD (Dusty Dog) her little lakeland terrier. This picture captures the moment perfectly. There's no touching up, cropping or brightening, this is exactly how it came out, and I'm very happy with it.



This next one is an 'action shot' of a friend of ours doing the 'Kamikaze' race back in 2009. This was one of those point-and-click moments to try and get as many shots as possible, and hoping for a good one. ST is a good sport and chucked himself down the hill, I think I would have been a little more tentative. I know he was really pleased with the photo, as was I.



This last one is of my BB at the same race - the kamikaze race. It's taken at the end, when he was starving hungry. I think you can tell that it was a crazy race, and he looks pleased that it's over.





The top one is still my favourite. I've yet to find my all time best photo though which was taken in Oaks Park.

What's your favoutite ?

Any photographic hints and tips gratefully received !

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

South End Half Marathon - A review

Well, that was an interesting race. Flat as a pancake, so perfect if you're hoping for a 'pb'. I was hoping for a personal best, I was hoping for around two hours, or maybe less than two hours. It was not to be.

'What went wrong this time?', I can hear you muttering under your breath.. Two things, firstly it was blinking boiling hot again, oh how I hate running in the sun, and I didn't have my water carrier, so every time I needed a drink, I had to stop and walk. I reckon that costs me about 10 seconds a stop, of which I made six in total. That's sixty seconds lost.

Muck up number two, oh how poignant those very words are, basically, just for a change I had a dodgy tum. I ate late the night before, I had breakfast, and I had tummy ache before I even left the house to start the 90min car journey to the race start. At mile 4, I was lucky enough to spot a loo. Another 2-odd minutes lost.

I continued to have a dicky tum for the rest of the day, although I did manage to get to the end of the race, without rushing to the loo again.

So, what was my final time ? A heart-wrenching 2:00:04  - yes, 2 hours and 4 seconds. Based on all the above I was OK with that. I was 36th female in my age group. And something like 786th out of 1485 runners, so that's OK as well.

Yet again, I have no future races on the horizon, so there's everything to go for.. If you want to recommend a race, please do leave me a comment and let me know.

To end on a highlight, I did the Nonsuch Bank Holiday Park Run on Monday and did the 5km in a personal best time of 24:55 - yippeee!

Friday, June 8, 2012

Dog Biscuits

Cupcake and I bought a lovely little recipe book (for our growing collection.. ) called 'Doggie Biscuits' the other day, and from it we made a recipe called 'Bonnie's Banana Biscuits'. They are from the 'Healthy Bites' section of the book, and unlike the other recipes, do not contain any meat. My dog (Dd-Dusty Dog) eats meat, of course, but I didn't like the thought of smelly fish-based, or liver-based biscuits  hanging around the kitchen for three weeks..




Here's the recipe, it's mega easy and Dd loves them.

Ingredients
2 carrots
1 banana
200g all-purpose flour (I used plain flour)
100g fine rolled oats (I used an oat/bran mix)
50ml sunflower oil
Water as needed

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 deg.

1. Grate the carrots and mash the banana.
2. Add the flour, rolled oats and oil to the above and mix to make a dough.
3. Roll out the dough to about 1cm thick. We then got out the various cutters and made all sorts of fun shapes - see the photo. The recipe states to cut them into squares of 4cm in size.
4. Whatever shape you make, bake them in the oven for 25 minutes approximately.
5. After this time, turn off the heat and let them cool overnight in the oven.
6. Store in a paper or linen bag - mine are in a glass jar.

The biscuits will last for about three weeks.

I hope your pampered pooch enjoys them!
Here's my little Dd ready for bed.