Author: lindsay

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The Secret is Out

For many years, my mother has been well-known for her baking. Cakes and biscuits are turned out regularly, and are well-received. Indeed, when I went to Whangarei a couple of weeks ago, Anna dispatched me with several containers, and instructions to procure some biscuits.

One of the particular favourites is the “Sugar and Spice” biscuits. These are a chewy, spicey biscuit, with a strong hint of ginger to them. However, my mother has for years quite strongly stated that “There Is No Ginger In Them.” This has become something of a running joke in the family.

How can this be possible – how is it that so many people who try them think they are a ginger biscuit? At last, some detective work has revealed the answer. Looking at the ingredients, ginger is not listed…but mixed spice is. Who knows what’s in mixed spice? Well, I didn’t know, and it does vary by manufacturer, but I happened to be looking at a packet of Greggs mixed spice, and noticed it contained…ginger.

Ha! No more denying it, they are indeed ginger biscuits.

But it’s OK Mum, we still love them.

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Route maps added

I’ve finally uploaded an interactive Google Map of my route. Look at the trips page. You can view it there, or follow the link to open in a new full size window.

It’s a bit rough, but it’s close enough to where I went. Over time I’ll add links from waypoints to blog entries, so that you can tie things together.

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Bike Touring

Lucky Escape

Last Saturday was a superb morning, clear skies, no winds, just a touch cool. Perfect for mountain biking. So, dog in tow, we headed out to Woodhill. Nice riding, things going well, just one problem – there had been quite a bit of rain over the previous days.

Came racing down the hill, up to a wooden obstacle that I’ve gone over before, going a bit fast, OK hit the brakes a touch, whoops, the wood’s wet, the bike slips out, and things all go horribly wrong.

Next thing I’m lying on the ground, the bike is several feet away, wheels spinning, Samson the dog is checking me over, and yet remarkably all my limbs are still working. A few minor bruises, a bit of a rest needed, then we go to set off. Hang on, the chainring doesn’t look right – should be it be in two pieces?

Not cheap to replace either, $135, since they only had an XT ring available. Could have been worse, could have been me snapped in two

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Blog

Ch Ch Ch Changes

I’ve finally gotten around to moving my blog across to WordPress. This was triggered by Blogger dropping FTP support, but really, I should have done this a long time ago.

As you can see, it tidies up the look a lot. Yes, the Cutline theme is frightfully common, but too bad, it’s a nice clean look. I do quite like the rotating image across the top of the page – every time you reload, or click on a new page, you’ll see a new image. You can use the Tags on the right hand side to choose all posts related to a country I’ve been to, and when you’re reading a post, there will always be a link to the next and previous posts. This will make it far easier navigating the older posts.

All the old content is still there, but in a new format. You should still be able to post comments, etc, but you won’t be using Google logins – you can just enter whatever details you like.

There will be problems, not least of which is that I’ve moved the base links around – instead of having the blog at northlandboy.com/blog, it is now going to be at northlandboy.com/- this will affect your bookmarks!

RSS feeds have also changed – this is now at http://northlandboy.com/feed. If you are reading this via the old RSS feed, you must update your reader now, or it will not receive any new posts.

Any problems, please let me know, so I can get it fixed ASAP.

Still to come: Interactive route maps, perhaps with links to posts and pictures. At some point my older photos will get moved to Picasa, to make slideshows easier. I’m also going to put together a “highlights” slideshow.

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Family First

Last weekend, things got a bit busy around here. My older brother was competing in the Cure Kids Adventure Race. This coincided with a weekend featuring both my 3 year old niece’s and my father’s birthdays. Somehow this morphed into a family gathering, and next thing most of my family were descending on St Marys Bay.

Because my brothers, sister, and parents all live in different cities (and countries), it’s not often that we are all in the same place at the same time. Weddings and funerals it seems. Last time was not under the best of circumstances, but this time things were a fair sight better. More laughs this time:

With some people staying with Anna and I, and others staying nearby, we ended up with a full house on Saturday night – brothers and sister, with their partners and children, in-laws and out-laws, plus a few hangers-on. Rather good times, eating some good food, having a few drinks, etc. Turns out that having a game involving putting out candles with the palm of your hand is not the best idea, as one contestant can attest. But it was a good time, catching up with family.

The following morning, Anzac Day, we weren’t in the best shape for getting up to go to Dawn Parade. There’s always next year for that. But Nic and Dave put together a nice breakfast, followed by one proper photo of the lot of us:

House felt a bit empty by the time we finally got rid of the last of them…Oh and Nic got us a great present, which I’ll send photos of once we get it mounted and displayed – a destination roll from a 1980’s bus, showing various locations around the upper North Island. Very fashionable it turns out (I had no idea).

Oh and there will be some changes before the next blog post – I need to change to WordPress, will take a bit of mucking around to get things working. Hopefully all links will keep working.

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Chilling

I can’t say I’ve been overly stressing myself since I returned to New Zealand. Things have been very low key, no rushing around trying to find work, no running around the country, just taking it easy. The routine last week was something like: Get up, take dog for long leisurely walk, pick up paper on the way back along Ponsonby Rd, have a late breakfast, read the paper in the sunshine, ooh look it’s time for lunch…you get the idea. It does make it easy that I’ve got a fully set up house here, and it’s not like other times between trips, when I would be moving around, sleeping on couches.

It’s been nice to be home. One of the problems of moving around is that no matter where you are, you always seem to be missing somewhere else that you’ve been. But as I said before, this time I feel ready to be in New Zealand. Sunshine for the first week, along with catching up with friends and family certainly helped. Most importantly, I now have a steady supply of Vogels bread and peanut butter, not to mention wide distribution of superb meat pies.

Savings won’t last forever, so I will start actively seeking employment soon. Truly. Really. I will.

Oh and a special mention of Cascade Designs, the makers of Therm-a-Rest sleeping mats. My Prolite 4 had started delaminating, after hundreds of uses. But they have a lifetime warranty, and the local distributor honoured it. Sent it in, and they quickly sent out a replacement. New model too, same size and weight, but 20% warmer. Nice. The only thing that I’m annoyed about is that these are listed as $100USD on the US website, but locally sell for closer to $300NZD. Should be more like half that – dunno if it’s the distributor or the local retailers jacking up the prices.