ve been reading through

I’ve been reading through the World Snowboarding Guide 2004 (online here) to track down some likely looking places for snowboarding trips next year. Whilst looking for a piste map I came across SkiMaps.com which has a good collection of maps. I’m planning to use it to help me work out a) how many drag lifts/t-bars I’m going to have to negotiate to get around the mountain and b) how many easy/intermediate runs there are.

And whilst talking about winter holidays, I noticed that there is an interesting article over at Guardian Winter Sports about how to package your trip online which looks to have some interesting links. I picked up a copy of The Independent at the weekend and their ski section had a couple of links to tailor-made trip organisers – Ski Independence, Ski Safari and Momentum Ski – all of which look pretty useful for road trips.

Bagels

I made my first bagels yesterday – and they turned out to be a success. We’ve had a bread maker for 2 years now, and have progressed from pre-mixed bread-mixes, through the recipes that came with the machine, to those in a recently bought book. Yesterday I attempted my first “internet” bread recipe – for bagels. I had to adjust the recipe slightly as I didn’t have any Barley malt syrup or Molasses – so I just put them in plain boiling water. They also floated the moment I put them in, but this recipe suggests “cooking for about 30 seconds on each side” which is similar to how long I boiled them.

Don’t send me flowers when I’m dead. If you like me, send them while I’m alive.

Brian Clough died today. Cloughy was my Grandmother’s favourite football manager, and always one she respected, and used in a “Cloughy wouldn’t have done that” kind of way. This was of great amusement to my Father as he used this to wind her up on all possible occasions. I still don’t know why my Gran was a Nottingham Forest fan as she lived in Hull and surrounding areas for all of her life, but she was. One of those things I guess.

There are some great Cloughy quotes at IOL: Soccer – I guess these are the kind of quotes my Dad liked to remind Gran about.