Glorious Galveston

Last time I was this wet was when I jumped into Two Jack Lake.  Squilshy shoes, drippy shorts and a top wetter than a wet T-shirt competition.  Rain, wind and the water filled with surfers.  Comforting to see from Flinders to Texas, they hit the water in any weather!

Texas

Houston, Texas for work and now we have escaped to Galveston for the weekend.  Parked on the balcony of our hotel room over looking the Gulf of Mexico.  Wild, windy and deliciously warm.  The life guard in his wooden station, flags flying, is decidedly bored scanning the empty surf pounding the seawall.

 

 

Banff Triathlon

17 degrees in the water, 15 degrees out under pouring rain for the ride and run legs.  End result - bloody freezing!

Oh and I completed it in a rather slow 1 hour, 52 minutes.

Bischoffsheim to Schirmeck - and back!

Great ride through The Vosges mountains.  A little rain but not enough to dampen spirits and a traditional lunch of salade mixed (basically involves cheese and sausage) for Sean and tourte maison for me washed down with a demi of riesling....

Choucroute

Traditional Alsatian choucroute - my arteries need CPR....

  ... try this at home!  Although Riesling is preferred over beer.

Ingredients

2 pounds fresh sauerkraut
4 tablespoons butter or duck, chicken, or goose fat
1/4 pound pancetta or bacon, large diced
3 yellow onions, peeled and sliced
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
8 juniper berries, lightly crushed
1 head garlic, split in half
2 ham hocks, scored
1 cup chicken stock
2 cups dark or amber beer, such as Abita Amber
1 pound garlic sausage, kielbasa, or knockwurst
1 pound bratwurst or veal sausage
1 1/2 pounds small red new potatoes, well scrubbed and halved, if large
Creole, whole grain, or Dijon mustard for serving

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Place the sauerkraut in a colander and rinse briefly to remove some of the salt from the brine: don't rinse it too much, or you will lose a lot of the flavor. (Alternately, if sauerkraut is not excessively salty, use as is.) Press to release most of the excess liquid and set aside.

In a large non-reactive skillet, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter over medium-low heat and add the bacon. Cook for 5 minutes, not allowing the bacon to brown. Add the onions and continue to cook until they are soft but not browned, about 8 to10 minutes. Transfer bacon-onion mixture to a 3 1/2 or 4 quart non-reactive ovenproof casserole or Dutch oven. Add the drained sauerkraut and toss to combine. Using a small piece of cheesecloth, make a bouquet garni with the thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, juniper berries, and garlic and place in the baking dish. Add the ham hocks, chicken stock, and beer and stir to combine. Cover the pot and bake for 2 hours, undisturbed.

While the sauerkraut is baking, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over high heat and brown the sausages on both sides. Set aside.

When the sauerkraut and hocks have baked for 2 hours and the hocks are tender, remove the casserole from the oven. Place the potatoes on top of the sauerkraut. If the liquid has evaporated to below 2/3 full level, add a bit more water to the casserole at this time. Cover the casserole and return it to the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

Remove the casserole from the oven again and place the browned sausages on top of the sauerkraut mixture, cover, and return to the oven until the sausages are heated through and the potatoes are tender, about 15 more minutes. Remove the bouquet garni and serve immediately, with each person receiving some of each of the sausages, part of a hock, potatoes and sauerkraut. Pass the mustard at the table as a condiment

Le Mont Sainte-Odile

Fully loaded on carbs and sugar following breakfast in Obernai, we headed through the picturesque villages of Ottrott and Klingenthal and began climbing to the top of the mont!  Not too bad, just a relentless 7km at about 10%.  Pretty forest and streams, lots of cyclists and courteous drivers.

The abbey was founded in about 690 and has recently been converted to a hotel. A stunning use of the well-preserved buildings and provides access to the beautiful chapels for prayer and reflection.

Red-faced but happy!

Looking back across the plains.  Rhine River twisting through the middle, Germany in the background, Bischoffsheim hidden behind a hill.

38 degrees

... and that's temperature not latitude.  So we decide to head for the Rhine Canal.  Fabulous bike path along the canal itself but incredibly hot across the plains to get there and back. I think I may have gotten a little cranky about 2km outside Bischoffsheim!

Bischoffsheim to Obernai

Grapevines, sunshine, pretty villages, geraniums - perfect start to our French adventure....

Bischoffsheim

We have arrived.  After an uneventful flight and drive, we have arrived at 3 rue des Merles.  Florence has not changed, Thibaud is a dashing young man, and my god daughter Lou is an adorable 6 year old.

Day One

Rummaging through old photos, pictures and diaries, I came across this story from August 1989...

It was blue.  Standing alone in the middle of a field.  A monolith rising from the dirt.  The port-a-loo.  It stood devoid of even a tree for modesty and was the sole loo available to myself and the forty Englishmen who worked on my section.  The smell, I will leave to your imagination.  To this day, I am forever grateful for the existence of large American hamburger chains with a restaurant on every corner.

The field described was indeed a field as this was England.  And this field was bounded by a Nestles' factory wafting the smell of brewing coffee into the thick summer air, the London-to-Bristol railway line and a brook.  We must admire the English for their quaint sayings but describing a nasty, stagnant drain running through an industrial region of outer London, as a brook, quite takes the crumpet.

So here I stood, in an English summer, in the middle of a field with a port-a-loo, looking at a railway line and a brook, over both of which we were to build a bridge.  And this was my introduction to the construction industry and my first day on the job as an engineer.

Whilst my schoolfriends chose careers in medicine, law, teaching and the arts, and worked in hospitals and schools and glossy, high-rise buildings in the city, I chose engineering.  And worked in a field.  In steel-capped boots and a white hard hat.  And shared a port-a-loo with forty blokes whose habits are not those I pictured of English gentlemen.

And I thought: "what have I done?"

Grease is the word!

New Year's Eve - Grease sing-a-long party at Bill and Karens.  Guess who misinterpreted the invite...