Most of March has been about two thing, two opposing things. The first is my new Big Green Egg, a fabulous ceramic BBQ burning charcoal. The second is training for the Wiggle Spring Saddle Sportive, a 100 mile bike ride I will take part in on 7th April.
On the left here you can see a shoulder of pork that I roasted in the Egg for 5 hours. It was the first joint I'd done on the day it was delivered. While this was bloody lovely I have to say the second attempt was far superior having been in the Egg for 10 hours. It really was good pulled pork and I served it as Mexican Fajitas.
The best dish so far from the Egg has to be the Moroccan Lamb kebabs. The lamb was perfect with good griddle sears but still nice and pink. Next time I'll be cooking the pitta bread on the Egg too as I'm due a delivery of a pizza/bread stone and pizza peel (shovel) as a leaving gift from work. It was really kind, thank you.
On 19th March I had my leaving do from work. A really good crowd turned up and made the night a great one. Karen even had a whip round for my cards which was just superb. Thank you all.
The cycling has gone really well so far. We're just over a week away from the race which will start and finish in Newmarket. I've been training through all this nasty cold weather with a friend, Gwyn. We've built up the distance from a modest 30 miles for our first rides to a pretty epic 81 miles last week. Last week's ride saw us cycle into Cambridge and catch the train to Norwich. We figured that way there was no opportunity of taking a short cut home. We were greeted with a cold and overcast day where the wind was forecast to increase in the afternoon. Luckily for us it was supposed to be an Easterly wind, the standard this year, and so help us home. It never really got up as forecast and I swear it blew in our faces the whole time. We put in a very respectable ride though, averaging 15.7mph. I have to say though it was cold, very cold. Not ever a pit stop for a back buttie and hot tomato soup warmed us up.
So we have just one more big ride ahead of the event. This time Gwyn and I will join Rumbles for a training ride in Norfolk again. 65 miles this time. It should be good though as it will be the first time the three of us have ridden together.