The move from Hell, stage Last!

Gosh howdy folks! This is the Move From Hell, stage last.

Before I get to stage last, did anyone watch stage one of the Tour last night? That was the most exciting sprint finish I've ever seen, and Robbie is a damned incredible bike rider. 6 or 7 years ago I didn't like him, but he has matured with age and grown up a lot. If you didn't see it, folks are already calling it a Miracle Finish. Just watch it!

Getting back to the move... I was planning on doing a whole huge long story about it, but I've kinda ran out of steam. So l'll do a summing up.

IT RAINED!!!!! I know that may not surprise many of you, but we've been in a drought for a few years. Guess what? The drought broke, which would normally be good news. I just wish it had waited 10 more days, blech. I had the truck for 9 days --should have been seven, oh well. I got wet but was able to dodge showers well enough that nothing got soaked. Oh, the help I was supposed to have on the heavy and/or bulky stuff didn't materialise --what a shock! Fortunately, I was able to do it all myself... what FUN!

I somehow managed to find space in the new house for everything. That's pretty amazing considering this house doesn't have a huge garage like the last house. However, it does have quite a few features that are very very very very very nice. I'll tell you about that next time --I promise.

Getting back to the Tour. I thought that Fabian's ride in the prologue was incredible and that there wouldn't be any big dramas till stage seven. Boy was I wrong! What Robbie's team did and then was he did in the last 15 k's was the stuff of legend. He's won 178 races in his career and many people are already saying it's his best ever. Go watch the highlights, then see if you can find someone who recorded the whole thing (like me) and watch the last 30 to 40 mins. You won't be disappointed.




Food Stuff

A simple, tasty lamb soup.

You can do this with pretty much any meat, I just happened to have some off-cuts left from a side of lamb the other day. Also, lamb is darned cheap down here.

What you need:

A pound or two of lamb offcuts
lots of dried basil
salt
pepper
water
carrots, peeled and sliced
potatoes, peeled and diced


What you do:

Fill a big pot with a lot of water, put in the meat. Add salt (at least a few teaspoons), ground black pepper, and basil (at least 2 teaspoons).Boil for an hour or so --covered so it doesn't reduce. Let it cool, then strain and add the liquid back into the pot after skimming the fat off*. Pick all the meat off the lamb pieces, toss the fat and bones away.

Put the meat, the potatoes, the carrots, and more basil all in the pot with the broth. Cook till carrots and spuds are done to you liking. Then eat with good fresh bread.

*There are several ways to de-fat broth. Let me know if you are interested, always happy to help.

Oh, this is even better the next day!