Reflecting on 2016 Goals and Lessons Learned

It's New Year's Eve and as is often the case at this time of year, I've been reflecting on what I achieved in 2016 and what fell by the wayside.

I think it's safe to say 2016 didn't really turn out how I'd hoped. There were some amazing high points (our trip to Skye in the camper van) and some pretty big low points. The first half of the year was pretty much a write off in terms of achievements. Some health issues and work stress meant that I did virtually no exercise for about five months, had little energy or motivation for writing and watched way too much TV.

But I did turn a corner in the second half of the year once I'd dragged myself up out of the doldrums. Perhaps the biggest thing was deciding to take control of my career. Rather than waiting around for an interesting-but-hardly-inspiring job to come up, I decided I was going to build the job - and career - I wanted.

Having finally taken this decision, I then committed to it. I signed up for a course on building a freelance writing business and connected with other freelance writers. It sounds dumb, but this of all things made me realise that people actually do this stuff. For real. And making a decent living from it,

If anyone's interested the course in question was Untamed Writing's Start Content writing course, now re-branded to How to Build a Badass Freelance Writing Business. (I mean, who doesn't want to take a course with 'badass' in the title?) And I would definitely recommend it. Karen will kick your butt into shape, but in a nice way.

Anyway, once I'd paid up and invested my time and money in this, I had no excuses for backing out. Yes, it's been pretty tough juggling a busy day-job and trying to set up a business for the past five months, but the reward was being able to finally hand my notice in and plan for a phased transition to full-time writing. 2017 is going to be a pretty exciting year :-)

2016 Goals

Back to the goals I set at the beginning of the year. Or rather, we, as the goals below are a combination of both Sam's goals and mine. This is what we wrote down at the start of 2016:

Sadly one thing that has fallen by the wayside this year is climbing. Rather than training hard to push my climbing to the next level, I've actually fallen back a lot. This has been partly down to lack of time and largely down to exhaustion. Burn out isn't really conducive to hard training.

We also rather underestimated the Cuillin Ridge when we added it to the list at the beginning of the year. Given the right weather and set of circumstances, I think it's definitely doable, but this year that combination didn't happen for us when we were up in Skye. We did however have a great day out on the Dubh's Ridge with amazing views and it was great to tackle part of the Ridge.

Number three on the list also didn't happen, though this is partly because all my free time for the second part of the year was taken up with my work for Windswept Writing. And that work has meant that I will have dedicated time every weekday in 2017 to work on my fiction writing. So the book WILL get written, just slightly later than planned.

I did start making progress with learning Italian, mainly on my walks to work. I used an audio book, which I found really helpful (though I suspect the local school-kids now refer to me as the 'crazy foreign-talking lady') and put it into practice on our trip to Rome in August. Unfortunately the second part of the course was missing from our local library, but I'm hoping to pick this up again in 2017.

Number five, I think it's safe to say, hasn't happened...

Now we get onto more positive news! We settled into the routine of our new vegan/vegetarian/omnivorous diet quiet easily and with the exception of a couple of odd weeks we've kept it up all year and it's now become normal. We have two vegan days, two vegetarian days and three eat-anything days a week, which I think is a reasonable compromise. I'm not quite willing to give cheese up totally yet (the less said about vegan 'cheese' the better) and Sam is definitely a meat-eater at heart!

We had loads of weekends away and a couple of longer breaks in our camper van Sadie. These have been some of the real highlights of my year and I'm looking forward to more adventures in 2017. We also made pretty good progress with the wedding planning for next year and I *mostly* managed to stay calm and chilled about it.

I made it through most of my 2016 Reading Challenge, though didn't get time to read a quarter of the books I wanted to. More detail on what I did read, and what I've got planned for 2017 in this post.

As for number ten, well if you've read through to here then you'll know I failed at that pretty spectacularly. But hey, failure is all part of learning, right? And 2017 will be a new and different year.

What I Read in 2016 (and My 2017 List)

This year I decided my reading needed a bit more structure. In a bid to expand my horizons beyond my comfort blanket of dystopian fantasy and young adult fiction I came across the 2016 Reading Challenge from Modern Mrs Darcy.

12 books in 12 different categories in 12 months. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? Here's what I picked, and how I did:

Looking down the list, it appears I've had rather a pathetic year in terms of reading. Which to some extent has been true. Various work and life things got in the way (as they do). This isn't the first year that I haven't read as much as I wanted to, but the first year in a while that I've really missed reading.

To be fair, I have actually read more books that what's on the list above. At the beginning of the year, I got a bit blase about how long it would take me to complete the challenge (and how long I'd have available) so I merrily downloaded books to my kindle. In addition to the above, I read a couple of excellent YA books by Louise O'Neill (Asking For It and Only Ever Yours), one of James Patterson's YA thrillers and a non-fiction book - The Push.

I also attended a dystopian fiction workshop with Francesca Haig and read the first book in her series, The Fire Sermon, in advance of the session. I really, really had to resist going straight onto the second book - The Map of Bones (which you may notice is on my 2017 list!).

So what didn't I get through? Well despite MANY hours of reading, I still haven't finished War and Peace. But I'm getting towards the end of the epic tale and will finish this off in January. I also ran out of time to pick up Catch-22. I'll move this onto my 2017 list and finally try and get this book finished.

Of the books I did get through, my top two picks would have to be Hugh Howey's Wool and Emily St. John Mantel's Station Eleven. While both dystopian stories, the first is a gripping page-turner whilst the second is written in much more of a literary style. I'd recommend both without hesitation.

So what's on the cards for 2017? Well, I've taken a slightly different approach this year. Firstly I want to read more. A lot more. And should be in a better position to do so than in 2016. I've also realised that, even though I love dystopian fiction, I'm not particularly well read in it. And as those are the stories I want to write, that's something I need to fix. Finally, there are a load of non-fiction books that I've been meaning to read for ages and need to dedicate some time to.

My 2017 list is currently looking something like this:

30 books, in addition to finishing off the everlasting War and Peace. This doesn't mean I won't be reading anything else, but I do want to try and prioritise what's on this list, so I don't make the same mistake as last year.

What do you think? Any books you'd recommend me adding (or storing up for 2018!)?

Life Without Plastic: A Zero Waste Experiment

This week is Zero Waste Week in the UK and in a totally winging it planned pledge I decided I was going to try and not eat any food that comes in plastic packaging. For five days. Doesn't sound that hard, right? Well I tried... And failed.

Why give up plastic? 

Last year I moved from an area where you could chuck pretty much anything recyclable in your household recycling bin, to a council where they would only accept plastic bottles. Which meant all the plastic packaging and wrappers that come with our food goes straight into the general waste.

There is also rather a lot of information out there about the bad things plastic is doing to our bodies and the environment. I'm not going to go into detail here, but a quick google search throws up a selection of scientific (and not so scientific) studies on the topic.

I haven't done a detailed analysis, but I reckon about 95 percent of what we throw into our general waste each week is plastic. Which feels, well, wrong. With the helpful push of Zero Waste Week, it was time to take action.

The rules

I tried to make it easy for myself, mainly because I hadn't planned this at all, and had not prepped or even really thought about how I was going to manage this for the week. I'd also made social plans that I didn't want to cancel. So the rules were as follows:

• I couldn't buy or eat any food which came in plastic packaging.
• Eating out was ok, as long as the food didn't come in a plastic container. So restaurant / cafe meals were in, but pre-packaged sandwiches were out.
• Plastic bottles were excluded (as we can recycle them).

When I posted my pledge on Twitter, Rae Strauss, the lady behind Zero Waste Week commented that I'd picked a challenging one. I felt smug. Until I went to the supermarket for lunch.

A sea of plastic

When I look back, I realise I hadn't thought through exactly how much of the food we buy comes in plastic. I figured I'd follow my usual principles of trying to buy loose fruit and veg, and get the rest of my meals from tins and jars.

I walked into the supermarket and was faced with this:

Plastic

More plastic...

 And it was only then that I realised how much of the food I love I wouldn't be eating this week.

How I tried to quit plastic (and failed)

I left that supermarket with two thoughts: I was going to be eating a lot of bananas, and would need to do a lot of cooking from scratch. Neither of which I have a problem with in principle, but I had a busy week ahead.

Fortunately we have a decent cafe at work, who have got used to the weird Sustainability Manager who insists on taking her lunch out on a proper plate instead of a plastic takeaway container. Normally I eat at the cafe once a week, tops. This week it was three days out of five, and on one of the other days I was at a work event. Yup, there was a lot of cheating going on.

Having informed my other half of our new culinary arrangements by text, I got home from work to be proudly presented with a black bean, vegetable and quinoa tagine (we were also on vegan day - I know, he puts up with a lot). Black beans - tin. Vegetables - loose or tinned. Quinoa - jar (kind of).

New rule:

• Food which has been transferred from plastic bags to jars is ok.

Even stretching the rules, I know in my heart this is cheating. Over the course of the week I fail to keep my pledge in many small, yet significant ways.  I bake home-made biscuits, so I have a snack to eat at work (other than bananas) and despite using flour, sugar, oil and vanilla essence from paper bags and glass bottles, I fail when it comes to baking powder. Can you even buy baking powder that's not in a plastic container?

Our vegetable bag arrives half way through the week; a great big brown paper bag of fresh veggies, with not a scrap of plastic in sight. And it includes potatoes, the one carbohydrate that doesn't seem to come in plastic packaging. Winner.

By Friday I just really want some halloumi cheese to go with my salad. But ALL cheese comes in plastic. All of it. Maybe this is why zero waste gurus are often vegan? But there is salvation: wine (glass bottle) and chocolate (foil and cardboard wrapper). The. End.

Why we can't give up plastic

So I failed in my zero waste target. But the experiment really opening my eyes to the reality of zero waste living. And the reality is, that for the vast majority of us it is not achievable.

Yes, there are people who live this life, and I admire them for it. But most of the blogs I have come across are from US bloggers who live in cities or states where they have bulk-buy stores. I don't even know if there still are any similar stores in the UK (though I imagine there may be in London). And whether they stay open late enough to cater for people who have full-time, office based jobs.

For those of us who don't live in close proximity to Whole Foods or a cosy high street with a string of independent butchers, fishmongers and grocers, the reality is that we're reliant on supermarkets. And whilst supermakets continue to insist on packaging everything up in plastic, we will continue to fill our waste bins with these unsustainable waste products.

To end on a positive note, I have attuned my plastic-free eye to scout out the products you can buy at your local supermarket which do not have a scrap of plastic packaging. And there are small changes you can make to your shopping habits that will make a difference. But that is another blog, for another day.

The end of the line

So, my week of living below the line has finally come to an end. It's been a tough week, but I'm really pleased I did it. It's made me appreciate once again, how much we take for granted, and the physical and mental side-effects of living off an extremely low budget diet.

So what did I have for my first meal after LBTL? Well it was at a motorway service station so there wasn't a huge amount of choice. M&S had also run out of lemon.cheesecake which I was quite sad about. But here it is....

And...

It tastes good - but cost more than the last five days worth of food put together. Which really makes you stop and think. 

Thank you to everyone who's sponsored me and the Hullion through the challenge - it's really made a huge difference and kept us going through the tough times! And I'll probably be back next year, with a different shop and different meals - by all for the same £1 a day budget.

Live Below the Line - snack attack!

I feel like I have spent pretty much all my non-working, waking hours this week cooking! That's the thing when you only have a £1 a day - it doesn't just have to cover 3 meals a day, but all your snacks in between. I'm used to cooking my breakfasts, lunches and dinners, but tend to rely on fruit, dried fruit/nuts and cereal bars for snacks. Not this week...

In addition, despite eating monster portions at meals, they just haven't been keeping me full for long enough, so snacks have been vital to try and keep me going.

So, here are some of the snacks I've been having this week:

First up, lemon biscuits. Well, kind of biscuits...really noticed the lack of butter and sugar in these. They were quite nice fresh out of the oven, but not so great a few days later.

I made some split pea dip out of leftover dahl on Tuesday (extra ginger and some olive oil) which was delicious. The salt crackers were ok, but not quite crunchy enough (poor bake!). The second batch I baked on Wednesday were much better and helped get my salt intake up a bit.

These may be the winner! After I had my windfall of bananas on Wednesday night, I then needed to work out how to use all the battered bananas....the answer - banana cakes! With a heavily adapted recipe as had no baking powder, sugar or much fat. But I bunged some lemon curd in and they didn't turn out too bad - a nice treat to end the week.

Mmmm rice pudding...

One of the hardest things about budgeting for my Live Below the Line challenge was giving up my morning porridge. So one of of key reasons for including milk in my budget (although its had many other uses this week!) was so I could make rice pudding for breakfast. 

What I didn't realise was quite how much milk rice pudding uses - I mean, there's hardly any rice in it! And of course most recipes use full-fat milk and involve a host of other tasty ingredients such as cream, nutmeg and (most importantly) sugar - all of which I don't have.

But I gave it a go anyway - here's my rice pudding, made with half skimmed milk, half water and with a few generous spoons of lemon curd stirred through instead of sugar:

I appreciate that looks rather like a fried egg, but you get the idea.

Anyway, the best part about it that it was delicious! Pretty creamy even with the low fat content. And super-easy to make on the hob (despite a boiling-over disaster). So if you fancy a lower fat version of this classic pudding try experimenting! Though I think if I had the choice I'd replace the lemon curd with honey...mmmmmm.

Don't forget - still time to sponsor us here! www.livebelowtheline.co.uk/me/samandali 

Live Below the Line - dinner 4

There's no getting away from it - trying to make the most of what few ingredients you have takes time - I didn't get round to eating this lot til 10pm! But it was pretty good and actually felt like a proper meal rather than rice and veg...

Lasagne LBTL style ( homemade attempted pasta, nettles and tomato/mixed veg layers, white sauce and breadcrumb topping), roast (tinned) potatoes and foraged dandelion leaf salad.

Two more days to go - this week is dragging...

Live Below the Line - jackpot!

So what did I spend my last 30p on? Well this lot...

I happened to walk into Asda at exactly the right moment to grab these bargains - I've never seen this good reductions in London supermarkets before but it couldn't have come at a better time. One bag of bashed bananas, one bag of satsumas and a leek and potato soup mix to bolster my diminishing supplies!

I just wish I could send some to the Hullian :o(

Live Below the Line - the half way point

Well, we're almost half way through our week of living on £1 a day, and already feeling the effects of our restricted diet. I think we're both struggling to engage our brains fully at work and whilst I haven't been feeling that hungry, I also haven't been feeling, well full...or satisfied by what I've been eating, apart from my excellent curry dinner on day 2. I'm no nutritionist, but I wonder if this has something to do with the lack of fat in our diets. We also both have really dry mouths - all the time. I had put this down to the cold I'm still suffering with, but I think it may also be something to do with just drinking water - and perhaps, lack of salt/sugar to balance this fluid intake.

I have to admit to hitting a bit of a wall yesterday evening, after abandoning my session at the climbing wall after I came over rather dizzy. Still felt pretty light-headed on the walk home and sent a melancholic text to the Hullion, bemoaning the lack of cheesecake in my £1 a day diet. Suspecting that I actually needed a) food, and b) salt, I fried up a quick snack of rice-dal balls, with a healthy sprinkling of salt as a pre-dinner snack. Heaven. And it gave me some much-needed energy to make dinner, which was this:

Baked bean and veg pot, tasty rice (I.e. with added stock) and veg. I admit it doesn't look that exciting. And it is basically beans-on-rice-with-a-bit-of-veg.  But it was quick to make and filled a hole!

I feel I must make an apology for the quality of the photos on these blogs - unfortunately as it tends to be dark when I've finished cooking, the lighting isn't great and I don't have the energy to get out my proper camera, upload and edit the photos. So they're just quick phone snaps! But you get the idea of what we're eating...

Incidentally, here's a pic of the Hullian's baking efforts yesterday afternoon:

Impressive, huh? Though the yummy looking cake was sadly not made from ingredients in his £5 shop - it's to flog to his work colleagues to raise some pennies for LBTL. Talking of raising funds, a bit thank you to the generous cake-mad members of my team for raising more than £43 by buying my baked goodies. And well done me for resisting both chocolate buttercream and carrot cake (not together I hasten to add). 

Well, on with another day - I'm counting the hours until this evening, when I get to spend my final 30p! 

Foraging...

I was missing having anything green on my plate, and just drinking water loses its appeal after, oh, 5 hours...let alone 5 days. Now the rules of Live Below the Line are fairly strict in terms of home grown veggies and accepting donations of food, but foraging is totally allowed. 

The Hullian was ahead of me on this one, and went on a foraging outing in the Yorkshire countryside at the weekend, returning with dandelion, nettles and elderflower. I figured I was out of luck on this score, living in the big smoke. Then I did a bit of Googling and realised how wrong I was! Apparently there are hundreds of edible plants in London's parks (presuming you can avoid those that have been 'watered' by the local canine population) - you just have to know what you're looking for. 

Which I don't...but figured I couldn't go wrong with nettles. So I armed myself with full body cover, rubber gloves and scissors and walked all of 100m from my flat to a small wooded area packed with fresh, juicy nettles. Five minutes later I returned with a bag full and wondered what I could do with them...

First up, nettle tea. This seemed pretty easy; add water to nettles, boil, strain, drink. It tasted....odd. But not totally repulsive. And having made a thermos of it to bring to the office today, it is definitely growing on me, so to speak.

I also figured it may work as a spinach substitute, so tested it in last night's curry dinner. Again, it was odd...but not too bad, and it was nice having some greens to add to the mixed frozen vegetables that I'm supposed to try and get my 5-a-day from. 

So another nettle-picking expedition may be in order this evening, and hopefully a lot more green on my plate!

Live Below the Line - meal of the week?

Well it's only my second dinner on LBTL but I think this may be the meal of the week already! Check it out....

Tasty rice, split pea ginger dahl, kind-of-sag-aloo (nettles and potatoes), gobi manchurian and homemade naan. And it tastes pretty awesome :o)

Live Below the Line - £5 buys you....

The fun part of the Live Below the Line challenge is deciding what to spend you precious £5 on. Both the Hullian and I had done some research before hitting the shops; considering endless combinations of smartprice tins, packets and bags, weighing up the benefits of eggs vs beans and trying to work out if it is possible to avoid the nondescript cheap bag of frozen mixed veg (it isn't).

The 'rules' of the LBTL challenge are outlined here - https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk/challenge - basically, you have to buy items in full (i.e. you can't budget for half a bag of rice) with the exception of herbs, spices, salt and pepper which you can work out proportionately. We also included oil in the proportionate calculations. You can't accept donations of food and for food you grow you have to account for the cost of production.

Cue numerous questions from the Hullion, including "can I have rhubarb from my parents' garden?" (no), "am I allowed to buy 12 eggs for 20p from the roadside leave-a-donation-in-the-tin at the egg farm?" (no) and "what about if I accidentally hit a pheasant whilst driving home*?" (erm....).

Anyway without further ado, here is what we both went for...

The Hullion's £5 shop

Porridge 500g = 39p
Mixed fruit Jam 29p
Plain flour 1.5kg = 45p
Skimmed uht milk 1l = 49p
10 eggs = £1
Rice 1kg = 40p
Sausage mix = 30p
Tinned potatoes = 15p
Mixed veg 900g = 75p
Scotch Broth mix 500g = 65p
2 stock cubes = 7p (pack of 12 was 40p)

TOTAL SO FAR = £4.94

My £5 shop

Self-raising flour 1.5kg = 45p
Rice 1kg = 40p
Skimmed milk (UHT) 1L = 49p
Tin Kidney beans = 23p
Split peas 500g = 55p
Baked beans = 24p
Passata 500g = 32p
Lemon curd = 22p
Tin potatoes = 14p
Frozen mixed veg 1kg = 75p
2 bananas = 23p
Onion = 11p
Small piece ginger - 15p
Stock cubes (5 from pack of 10) = 10p
Mixed herbs = 15p
Vegetable oil (6tbsp) = 3p
Olive oil (2tbsp) = 8p
Salt = 2p

TOTAL SO FAR = £4.66

Now the beauty of this is, I have 34p left if I get really desperate - that could get me a 4 pack of Asda chocolate mousse (18p), some more bananas, or even (if I was really lucky) some reduced priced veggies (though I suspect this may be overly optimistic). Decisions, decisions...

Oh and finally, another plug for our sponsorship page - https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/samandali :o)


*Apparently you can only take roadkill if you don't actually kill it - so you need to hope that the car in front of you gets the pheasant not you - who knew?!

Mmmm pancakes....

Lemon pancakes for breakfast made with self-raising flour, milk, water and lemon curd - who needs eggs?!

And yes, they were delicious :o) 

Live Below the Line - the first meal

As I've got a long drive up north planned for Friday evening, with no hope of microwave facilities enroute, I decided to start my LBTL challenge tonight (Sunday evening).

And my first meal is...<cue drum roll>... Kidney bean and veg stew with herb dumplings (made with flour, water, pinch salt and 1p of fresh parsley from my herb garden). 

It tasted pretty good! Though I suspect that was largely the salt from the stock cube I put in for flavour. Dumplings were definitely a winner. With the other half of the tin of kidney beans and some carrots picked out of my bag of mixed frozen veg (yes I did actually handpick out the carrots - don't ask...) I made some kidney and carrot bean burgers for tomorrow's lunch. 

Tomorrow I *will* post shopping lists for both the Hullian and me, detailing what we each bought for our £5 - I was hoping to do it today but was too busy baking!

Live Below the Line - Interview with the Hullian

I estimate that about 90% of recent communication with the Hullian has revolved around the comparative price of frozen veg, the merits of curry sauce vs cheese sauce and meal planning. As this is his first time living below the line, I thought I'd ask him a few questions to find out why he took on the challenge, and what he's least looking forward to...

Why did you decide to sign up for the Live Below the Line challenge?
Since you told me about LBTL a while ago, it has stuck in my mind ever since. I'm lucky enough not to think about my food budget very often. I eat a lot and I eat healthily so I've always accepted my food bills and never given it much more thought. However, I'm very aware of social deprivation, food poverty and growing obesity trends locally. These concerns are dwarfed when you stop to think about poverty, inequality and food on a global scale so LBTL stuck in my mind as I think it's a really good way to get people to engaged in these conversations. 

What are you most worried about?
I guess my biggest fear is going hungry and then having to read your blogs about your great meals . I do lots of sports/exercise so I’m used to eating lots. I’ll be rationing my portions next week which scares me. I also worry that I will drop/break/waste some ingredients which could be disastrous.

How have you found shopping for LBTL?
Shopping has been really fun. I’ve spent a couple of days thinking about foods. Then I spent a morning comparing shops and prices. I live within walking distance of the University so I seem to have lots of low cost shops near me which meant I was able to shop around for the best prices.

What was your best buy?
My best buy may turn out to be fake sausage mixture (30p) and eggs (10 for £1 – unfortunately they are not the most ethical of eggs). The Sausage mixture uses Soya Protein and claims to make 8 sausages so I’m looking forward to Toad in the Hole on Thursday. Also, eggs means that I can have Pancakes for pudding every night :o)

What item of food / drink will you miss most?
I have no fresh fruit or veg. I also have no fish and no meat which will be really tough. I think the biggest absence - one which I overlooked when I agreed to this - will be my morning coffee. Not sure how I’m going to replace this. I don’t think foraged nettle/elderflower tea will have the same kick.

What will keep you going through the tough week ahead?
I’m saving my Toad in the Hole for Thursday to get me through the first few days. This will be a real treat as I rarely have a good, homemade Yorkshire Pud. I think a big breakfast with coffee will be on the cards Saturday.

Don't forget you can support us both through this challenge by donating on our Live Below the Line webpage!

Live Below the Line 2014

In a few days I will taking on the Live Below the Line Challenge - if you haven't heard of this, it's a campaign to raise awareness of global poverty issues and involves living off £1 of food a day for 5 days. I have done the LBTL challenge once before, a couple of years ago. Unfortunately the increase in the price of food hasn't been mirrored in an increase to the £1 a day budget, so every year this challenge gets tougher and tougher. I mean, kidney beans have gone up a whole 9p! And 9p is a lot when you only have £1 a day...

But I do have a couple of advantages this time round. Firstly, I know what to expect. Last time, I was paranoid about being hungry (I eat a LOT!), so stocked up on carbs; so much so that I actually ended up with flour, rice, oats AND pasta! And, needless to say, had a lot of it left over at the end. I also found that I was never really hungry, but I got heartily fed up of rice and frozen mixed veggies... So this time I'm going to try and reduce the carbs, make the most of everything I buy and hopefully get some fruit or fresh veggies in on the act!

Second advantage is that I've done more research this time around and am more aware of how imaginative you can be with food, even when you don't have much to play with. I'm a huge fan of Jack Monroe's budget recipes - she managed to stretch her £5 budget to a whole seven days, though I suspect she keeps key slim figure by not actually eating a huge amount - I usually eat double her portion size ;o) Perhaps even more impressivelyis the One Pound Per Day blog, where a guy ate for a month on a budget of £1 a day, but without being able to spend it all at once. If you want 101 things to do with a bag of flour, this is the blog for you (I really shouldn't be giving all my secrets away here).

But I'm not going it alone... there is a twist to the challenge, as the Hullian is also taking up the challenge! Usually doing the challenge as a couple is easier, as you can get a lot more variety with a £10 budget than £5. However, as logistically we're 200 miles apart, we're each going to have to do it individually with our own £5 budget. Which means (of course) that there is also an element of competition! In a supportive, romantic way of course... Although given that I got a text today claiming that sausages, chips, yorkshire pudding and gravy will be featuring on his menu, I think I may be onto a losing streak...

We are doing all this to raise money for AfriKids, a fab charity which focuses on sustainble methods of addressing child poverty issues in Ghana. Please help support us by donating via our Live Below the Line page - https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/samandali

Keep a look out here for daily blogs on our culinary endeavours!

Doing without Dairy

The Beginning

I haven't given up anything for Lent since I was a kid - I occasionally had good intentions, but it all seemed a bit too hard. For it to be meaningful, you have to give up something that you would really miss, but that makes it quite hard work, and as I've always said, I can resist anything but temptation...

This year though, I decided I was going to give it a go - I just hadn't decided what delicious edible items I would give up. Fortunately I was rather forced into a snap decision by the realisation on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in early March that it was Shrove Tuesday, and hence whatever I was giving up it had to start tomorrow. I toyed with the idea of giving up alcohol, but not having the option of a comforting glass of wine after a hard week/day/hour at work seemed a bit too harsh. Cake was considered, but discounted - I mean, if I didn't do any baking, the usual recipients of my cakes would suffer right? Chocolate flitted through my mind, but I quickly banished that thought (which probably means that I should actually try giving it up). I had thought about trying a vegan diet for a while, or at least reducing the amount of dairy products I ate, so I figured that perhaps this was the way to go - a test to see how much I missed cheese!

The Rules were set: for six and a half weeks I would have no milk, cream, butter, yogurt or cheese. I decided eggs were allowed. How hard could it be...

Temptation

I figured the first few weeks would be easy - I mean it couldn't be that difficult right? Little did I realise how many food items include elements of milk or butter. On Ash Wednesday I went for my usual session at the climbing wall. Starving, after a couple of intensive hours of exercise, I stopped off at the supermarket to grab a cereal bar to munch on the train home. I picked up a box of my favourite brand and scanned the ingredients list. There it was - right at the top - skimmed milk powder. Bummer.

Needless to say, that set a pattern. I had thought it would be yogurt and cheese I would miss most, but it turned out that it was butter and milk - not milk to drink but the presence of milk and butter in things that meant I couldn't eat them! Like cereal bars. And milk chocolate. And cake. And lemon curd...

Possibly the hardest weekend was a friend's hen do; surrounded by amazing looking (and smelling) cakes, chocolate and cheese, it required a lot of willpower not to cave in. Particularly not to sample the rather scrummy looking chocolate mud cake which was my contribution to the festivities...

Discovery
 
One of the reasons I chose to give up dairy, was to force myself to be a bit more creative with my cooking - and with my baking. A quick internet search showed up a huge range of dairy-free blogs, websites and recipes dedicated to making yummy things without butter, milk or cream. In particular, I discovered that oil was a great substitute for the butter or margarine usually used for cakes; the bakes turned out super moist and didn't dry out as quick as normal cake recipes. Some of my favourites were this recipe for courgette and lemon cake (I used part wholemeal flour and cut out half the sugar to make it healthier) and this fantastic vegan recipe for chocolate cupcakes - I swear they were as good, if not better, than the dairy-laden recipe I usually follow!

The times I did miss cheese were when cooking dinner - I used to routinely add a healthy shaving of Parmesan to the top of my pasta sauces, bean stews or soups. I missed that extra bit of richness - of fat, to put it bluntly. But I managed. The test came when my other half sent me a photo of the amazing, rich, cheesy lasagne he had just made. That was it - I had to have lasagne. A quick google turned up lots of dairy-free lasagne recipes, but they all involved tofu, which I didn't have any of.

A bit of imagination was required, and whilst my veggie and bean lasagne filling was cooking, I whisked up a kind-of-white sauce, with olive oil (instead of butter), flour, soya milk
 and a grating of nutmeg. There was never going to be a replacement for cheese, but a breadcrumb and mixed-nut topping did just fine, adding a nice bit of crunchy texture to the top of the lasagne. It was so good, I may even make it again, as a healthier alternative to traditional lasagne.

The End

Finally after 40 long days, the end was in sight. But I still had one final challenge to get through - my orienteering club's annual tea party. An array of light, dairy-laden sponge cakes, rich and indulgent cream cakes and traditional scones (with jam and cream, obviously). It was tempting, but with less than twenty-four hours to go, I managed to resist.

Easter Sunday dawned grey and misty. I got up, ate my museli with soya milk (all I had in) and ran for an hour and a half over a wet, Welsh moorland. As I walked into the marquee to say hello to my club-mates, I was handed a huge, fondant-iced, cream cake. It tasted delicious and I scoffed it down in a completely gluttonous, unladylike fashion.

I had made it through Lent without milk, cheese or butter, but there was no chance of me turning vegan any time soon. My diet had probably been a lot healthier without the dairy - less fat, more pulses and grains - and whilst cooking at home, it wasn't really an issue. The difficulty came when visiting friends (being the awkward guest), eating out and finding 'convenience' food. My admiration for my vegan friends has certainly gone up a notch, and I've certainly expanded my knowledge of dairy-free cooking, but a big part of me is very glad that I can go back to my butter, cream and Parmesan cheese.

Women's Climbing Symposium (WCS) 2013

One of the key trends I've noticed during the time I've been climbing is the increase in the number of female climbers in what has traditionally been a male-dominated sport. And these are not just beginner climbers, persuaded by their boyfriends to 'give it a go'; these are women climbing as hard (if not harder) than their male friends - motivated, psyched and STRONG women! 

This increase in participation has led to a number of climbing events and sessions focused specifically at women, which my local wall, The Arch has been particularly good at supporting. From my perspective this can only be a good thing, but the announcement of a 'women-only' climbing event tends to provoke outrage from indignant men who vent their frustrations on forums such as UK Climbing - which I suspect is one reason why the organisers of this year's Women's Climbing Symposium did not advertise the event on the forum

And they didn't need to - word of mouth ensured it was sold out weeks before the day itself. With sign up for the coaching sessions on the day, I wasn't the only one who got there as the doors opened at 8.30am and, as hoards of women filed in, I was very glad I did! With some of the top climbers from the UK and overseas giving talks and coaching sessions, we were in for a good day.

Women gathering for the first talk of the day (c. Paul Phillips)

The programme for the day was bookended between the old (sorry Angela!) and the young; with Angela Soper kicking off the day with a look over the history of women's climbing in the UK, and Ella Kirkpatrick  finishing off with her account of climbing El Capitan. I'm not sure what I was more impressed with; having the balls to go up the immense El Cap at 13, or still be climbing 6c at the age of 73!.

One of the frustrating things about the day was not being able to go to all the talks, which led to huge dilemas about which ones to attend, as they all sounded fantastic. I was especially sorry to miss Fran Brown's talk on coping with pressure, which I am hoping there will be video footage of on the WCS website at some point (hint hint...).

However there was one talk I definitely wasn't going to miss; Eva Lopez had travelled all the way from Spain to present on the key performance indicators for female climbers, and most importantly how to train these. For climbers who are serious about training, her blog is a must; combining scientific study and research, and translating this into practical implications for climbing training. Eva dealt with both physical and mental aspects of climbing performance, in a practical, no-nonsense way, as she took us along her climbing journey, from her first 6a, to the 8c+ she climbed last month. Living proof that if you are willing to put the training in, the rewards will come. Her presentation left me desperately wishing I could a) speak Spanish, and b) move to Spain. Eva – I want you as my coach!

The talks were varied, and it was great to hear about some really strong climbers who have full-time jobs, aren't sponsored and yet still manage to climb and train hard. Emma Flaherty is possibly the most enthusiastic person I have ever met, full stop. She was like Tigger on Red Bull as she bounced around the mat, convincing us all to get psyched for climbing and giving tips on how to blag extra-long holidays from work. Anna Rigge, resident physio, helped make anatomy simple (everything's joined to the neck, so look after that!), and addressed not just common complaints and injuries but the under-reported side of climbing injuries. She also emphasised the importance of good climbing posture; so just remember ladies - boobs out, bum in.

The timetable was busy, and I was hugely impressed by the organisation on the day, with organisers Steph and Shauna, and their helpers keeping everything running perfectly to time. It could have been complete chaos, but largely people seemed to end up in the right place at the right time!

There was a choice of four coaching sessions, all of which proved popular. As a sloper-phobic climber at the best of times, an hour spent dangling (and falling) off the damm things was an hour well spent. From the other side of the room I heard the power screams/squeals of people flying up/off the walls, encouraged by the ever-bouncy Leah Crane and Shauna Coxsey. Proof that you don't need to be tall to reach holds...
 

"Boobs out, bum in..." does that work on slopers?! (photo c. Paul Phillips)

The training session encouraged us to think about our goals, and focus our training accordingly, particularly if (like me) you can never fit enough climbing time in. Pull ups, push ups and fingerboarding was the order of the day, though following this session I swear the most effective training tool is probably to have Katherine Schirmacher glaring at you, stopwatch in hand...

But the part of the day which really hit home for me was Mina Leslie-Wujastyk's talk on self-efficacy. I used to think (in my young and ignorant days) than psychology was generally a lot of waffly nonsense. But as my climbing has developed, I have come to realise that it's the psychological aspects of climbing that hold me back more than the physical aspects; something which I would hazard a guess is true for many women. 

Mina gave us a very personal insight into the challenges she's faced, both on the competition circuit and with different disciplines of climbing. It made me realise just how important a factor self-belief is in defining our approach, not just to climbing, but to challenges in life. It was a brave and thought-provoking lecture, and ended with some raw footage from Jen Randall's film Project Mina (due out next year) which left me, and I suspect many others, with a lump of raw emotion in my throat.

I hope the one thing that every woman took away from the event was that there is no 'magic secret' to success, and that the women we see winning competitions and cranking on V12s have worked damm hard to get to that level. It is up to each of us to decide what our goals are, what effort we are willing to put in to achieve them, and perhaps, what sacrifices we are willing to make. 

And I guess if these top women, who are achieving so much, can open up to us about their struggles on the path to success; the very least we can do is to listen, take note, and – if we want to improve – be brave enough to face our own climbing demons, whatever they may be.

Learning to love the tufas in the Grande Grotta

The Grande Grotta is possibly the most well known, and well visiting crag on Kalymnos. It looms above Ameos, a dark maw of a cave with stalactite teeth, ready to bite climbers who approach with a less than respectful attitude. It’s steep, three-dimensional climbing takes many prisoners, a fall into space the penalty for weak biceps and forearms. The climbing is perhaps more intimidating than technically hard; there are rests aplenty, but you have to find – and use – them, and fitness is essential for battling the inevitable pump.

An Austrian climber finding the rests on Priapos (7c)

N and I plodded up the steep approach path in the early morning like convicted criminals on the way to our final punishment. Not that we didn’t want to climb, or indeed to climb in the Grande Grotta, but we were both feeling a bit nervous about the projects we had set ourselves for the day; me to get on DNA, the classic, pumpy 7a/+, and N to have a go at the gigantic roof route, Priapos (7c).

When we arrived at the base of the cave we found that a group of friendly Canadians had already beaten us to the warm up routes. There was nothing for it but to jump straight onto DNA, though I would hardly class thirty-degree overhanging rock as a warm up, no matter how big the holds! N went first, putting the clips in, then I followed, working out the moves and resting on each bolt so as not to get too pumped.

It may be steep, but all the holds are good – once you know where they are – and there are various rests that you can contrive, from an obvious sit down on a tufa seat, to a bum wedge in the tendrils of the jellyfish tufa higher up. At the top you can choose to move out left on massive holds, then back right to clip the chains, or go straight up from the bolt on smaller holds. I chose the straight up route, using some of the smallest holds on the route to gain the huge jugs at the top.

After a rest, I tied in for another go, to see if I could link the route in a few sections. Surprisingly, I made it through to the tufa seat, and sat there for about ten minutes shaking out and recovering. Fully recovered, I made the moves up to the jellyfish, then got a bum wedge / head jam rest to get another shake - no one said tufa climbing was elegant... From there I headed up the final steep moves, to dangle and wrestle with the huge tufa at the top and clip the chains. I had thought DNA would push me to the limit, prepared myself for a physical and mental struggle, but I had not expected to enjoy it so much – a great route, worthy of its three star status.

N was next up on the beast that is Priapos. Harder, steeper and longer than DNA, and requiring a more three-dimensional style of climbing, bridging between stalactites and wrestling tufas. N described it as ‘steep walking’, though that does not do justice to the effort required to walk this roof of tufas. The climbing is so steep that you belay with your back to the wall, looking outwards, not upwards, across the roof. Sometimes N disappeared from view behind a huge stalactite, at other times, you see a leg or an arm, wrapped round or through the hanging needles of rock. Carefully, he made his way through the first crux, past the missing bolt (replacing temporarily by a scarily thin rope looper through a fragile looking tufa) to the final crux section. But Priapos had taken its toll,and this was to be left as a project....for the next trip! 

Looking out across the huge roof of the Grande Grotta, to a climber far out on Priapos

Still feeling like I had some energy left in my arms, I decided to have a go at Aphrodite (7a/+), a short route with a hard crux move. I misread this on the onsight, but quickly worked it out with a bit of beta from N and ticked the route second go. Walking down from the cave in the hot afternoon sun, arms and legs scarred from tufa wrestling, I finally felt that perhaps I could come to love the steep, intimidating tufas, with their good holds and unique, gymnastic style of climbing. And for me, that in itself was an achievement.

Spot the climber...

Stamina climbing at Spartan Wall and Iannis

All good things come to an end, and my run of good climbing days ended rather spectacularly on Spartan Wall, bailing on the warm up route of the day; an intimidating, but admittedly good 6b. 

Probleme Mineur (6b), Spartan Wall

Fortunately N and H were there to bathe my wounded pride and I managed to pull myself together enough to lead up Lucifer’s Hammer (6c) after Nick kindly put the clips in for me. This impressive route leads straight up the seemingly blank and steep Spartan Wall on generally good pockets and holds - another great, fun route!

N looking up at the wall of Lucifer's Hammer (6c)

This was H’s day to shine, as she put in an impressive onsight effort on Leonides (7b), falling high up at the final crux moves. Second go and it was in the bag! With the clips in, I managed to regain my psyche, working my way up through technical tufa and wall climbing, to an awkward (and slightly unnerving) rest position, through a crimpy, tough grove until my arms failed me just as I reached the final crux slab. A fantastic route, which will definitely be near the top of my tick list for the next trip.

Another day, another crag and Ros, Rachel and I headed to Iannis in search of long, off-vertical wall climbs. We had a game plan for the day, and after warming up on Kalyne (6b), Ros lead off up Zagori (6c), a long and in places, quite run out, climb that stretched our 80m rope to the limit. For me, a few more bolts would have made the experience rather less nerve-racking and more enjoyable, but Ros was in her element. Which meant she got first lead on the next route on the list; Sens Unique, a 40m 7a that winds its way up the middle of the yellow wall. Fortunately this was considerably better bolted than Zagori and sustained, technical climbing on slopers and sidepulls (with the odd jug) led up to the crux, right near the top of the route. With variations on grunting, screaming and slapping, we all managed to pull through this and teeter across the delicate traverse to the chains – team send!

Final route of the day was Verikoko, a shorter (mere 30m!) 7a+ that H and N had recommended to me as being ‘your sort of route’. They were right, and though I was feeling tired after the previous routes, I managed to pull up through the juggy bulges and crimpy walls, and balance my way delicately across the tiny, less-than-positive holds at the top to secure my first 7a+ onsight, and another fantastic route. Ros followed suit, then we were all done for the day and headed down for celebratory ice cream and a dip in the pool.

Incidentally, I don’t think I’ve mentioned the fantastic rooftop pool at the Panormitis Studios. With views out to Telendos in one direction, and up to the Grande Grotta in the other, there is no better place to relax in the sun, or have a lazy swim in the clear, cool pool. And I think that's one thing that has made this holiday so enjoyable; climbing in the morning shade until your arms feel suitably knackered, then spending the afternoon chilling and reading before heading out to one of the fantastic restaurants in Masouri - heaven!

View from the pool!