Five star home made chips

I like homemade chips.  I saw a programme once that said to use Maris Piper potatoes as they are the best for chips.  So I peel and cut them and put them in the deep fat fryer at a low temperature (160 degrees) for about 10 minutes.  It was simple and quick.

But no-one else liked them.

My children are not that keen on junk food.  When we go to McDonald's the youngest has the fruit bag in her happy meal instead of chips.  The other two will eat them; they ask for them from the chip shop, but don't always eat them.

Then I saw another programme showing how a five star London hotel turned a 30p portion of potatoes into a £4.95 serving of gourmet chips.

• Peel and cut the chips as usual.
• Boil some water 
• Boil the chips for 10 minutes (no more or they start to turn to mush)
• Drain and refill the saucepan with cold water and allow the chips to cool
• Put the deep fat fryer on at a low temperature, I use the lowest setting on mine, 140 degrees
• Fry the chips for 10 minutes
• Allow the chips to cool again.

All the above can be done an hour or so before the chips are needed.  I haven't timed how long they've been left to cool each time as yet but maybe I'll fine tune it one day.  Then, when you are about to dish up:

• Put the deep fat fryer on at a high temperature, I use 190 degrees.
• Fry the chips for a few minutes until golden brown. 

The resulting chips should turn out to be golden brown, slightly crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

All my girls will eat these chips.  Even Caroline, who avoids potatoes,  eats them and was quite disappointed the other week when the girls ate them all.

Gingerbread house/ruin

Every year a do-it-yourself gingerbread house appears from somewhere.  This year it was actually made around Christmas time instead of part way through the next year.  Caroline does the baking.  She baked the walls and roof with the help of the girls.  She is good at cooking and she is good at DIY but put both together and it is sometimes a disaster.  This is the result.

Perhaps she thinks that as we live in Wales, she'd model the house on one of the many ruined farmhouses up in the hills.  :-) For comparison here's Cell Fechan farm from Hugh's Views (the best site for old photographs of Barmouth).

Despite the appearance, the gingerbread house is quite tasty and always gets eaten.

Portmeirion food and craft fair

Every year we go to the food fair.  It is somewhere for the girls to run around, we get lots of free samples, a few Christmas presents and Portmeirion is a lovely place.  It is the setting for the TV series The Prisoner, and is Wiggyville in Gigglebiz.

The fair seems to be becoming more popular.  This year the car park was overflowing but with staff directing traffic we were parked in no time.  Wear your boots though as it can be quite muddy.

Portmeirion has a myriad of photo opportunities and so much to look at.

Airborne Warriors were there with a selection of birds of prey.
 

We normally stop for a snack from Debbie's Cake'ole with Christmas style decorations. 

There were 74 exhibitors in total.

And of course the compulsory visit to Santa in his grotto which was included in the £2 ticket price for children.

 Another photo opportunity.

In total we spent about 2 1/2 hours looking round the stalls, throwing money into fountains for wishes, and eating.  The weather was sunny but not too cold which probably helped draw the crowds.  And we discovered that the youngest likes lamb burgers, to add to her huge repertoire of food she likes.

Christmas late night shopping

For such a small town (population 2500) there is a lot going on.  Every year we have the late night shopping and switching on of the Christmas lights.  We meet in the square, the mayor says something virtually undecipherable through a megaphone, the Brownies/Rainbows sing some carols, we count down from 10, and the tree lights get switched on.  Only this year we counted down from 10, back up to 10 and beyond that but still there were no lights.

It turned to be a bit of a dark evening.  We wandered into town (via a few mince pies and drinks) where we noticed a Policeman dressed in the usual black trying to direct the traffic but with no high-visibility vest.  (Plus a rare sight of the eldest daughter actually trying to get into a photograph for a change.)

Some local wag sneaked behind the policeman further up the road, into his car, and set off the siren.  I guess that he had previous knowledge of the inside of  a Police car to find the switch so quickly!

Many of the shops are open and providing free food and drink.  I went into the chemist to buy some toothpaste and came out with a cup of sherry, a sweet and a mince pie!  Luvit provide a treasure hunt to spot things in shop windows for the children.

The main shopping road is closed and the local Samba band do their bit.  

Santa is conveniently positioned in a grotto above a pub so the dads can have a drink whilst the children queue up.

Presents are free and Santa's grotto is really quite elaborate.

Of course I didn't take these photographs, I was downstairs having a drink!

Chocolates, hidden in plain sight

My team won a box of chocolates for coming second at the local pub quiz.  I've placed the box in plain view for anyone to see in our hall.  I've challenged the children to find it, in 2 weeks no-one has found it yet!  Even the wife didn't see it for a while, until I pointed it out to her.  I suspect she's been sneaking the occasional sweet on her way past so there might not be any left when a small child eventually finds it.

Can you spot it?

Saving electricity

As you can imagine, utility bills are rather high in a guest house.  This time the electricity bill was the subject of attempted cuts.

We are fortunate in that our house has been fitted with a three phase supply.  The highest consumers of electricity (but not the most expensive) are the showers.  With a three phase supply we can have more showers running at once.  We did have 6 showers and a water heater.  At an average of 8kW each that could be some 48kW at once, which equates to 192 amps.  Most households are only supplied with a maximum of 80 amps.  If you use too much, the main fuse will blow which can only be replaced by the electricity company.

Some high powered commercial appliances can take advantage of a three phase supply for more power.  However, we use the three phase supply as three separate supplies. 

To monitor the electricity we have an efergy energymonitor.  It comes with one sensor which is attached to the incoming electrical supply lead.  The transmitter does have space for 2 more sensors so we bought another two and plugged them in and attached them to the other two phases.  The grey box is a smart meter, the small white box at the bottom is the transmitter.

The transmits transmits (wirelessly) to a readout and to an efergy hub which is connected to the internet and uploads our energy usage every few seconds.  

We also have an instantaneous readout so we can see at a glance how much electricity is being used.  In this case my wife is cooking which accounts for 2kW.

We can log in to the efergy website and see our electricity usage wherever we are.  There is even an iPadapp which shows your usage.

Previously we could see that overnight our electricty consumption ran at around 800 watts.  At 11p per kW this works out to around £770 per year when the house is "idle."  We decided to do something about it and find out where the electricity was going.  We chose a quiet time when we had no guests.  Everything was switched off and then various consumer units (we have 6) were switched on in turn and a reading taken.

There were a few surprises.  We have two Whirlpool washing machines which are A rated.  But the rating applies to their washing capabilities.  When they are switched off on the front, the small one takes 14 watts and the large one takes 17 watts.  That's £30 a year just to have them plugged in!  They are now on an easy to reach socket which enables us to switch them off when not in use.

A coffee machine takes 14 watts.  Our Miele dishwasher takes 9 watts.  And these are all switched off.  And the biggest surprise, our very old Panasonic microwave takes 77 watts just to be switch on. These are all switched off at the socket when not in use now. 

We have a computer for running the CCTV system and uploading the weather statistics to our website every 15 minutes.  I worked out it costs us £138 per year just to leave it on.

Our main computer is now connected to a one-clickdistribution board so that all the peripherals get switched off when the computer is off (printer, scanner, external disks, monitor).  However, the board has since broken so I have had to resort to manually switching it off and on.

To get internet to all the rooms we have 3 routers and a TP-link wifi extender.  The network has been redesigned to eliminate the need for one of the routers.

All these changes should result in a saving of som £130 a year, 10% of our electricity bill.

Movember

For the first time in my life I thought I'd try participating in Movember.  Having always had office jobs meant I had to be careful of my appearance.  Now that I am my own boss that is no longer the case.  I might consider attempting to look like Gandalf when I'm older, although the lack of height and hair may be a hindrance.  Shaving it off was a bit painful; I resorted to Wahl hair clippers, closely watched by my 8 year old encouraging me to get rid of the tickly thing.

I can see why people play with their moustaches, the temptation is just too great.  I won't be doing it again though.

My Mark Warner holidays.

This is my entry for the Mark Warner blogger competition #MarkWarnerDad which you can read about here.

The greek philospher Epicurus suggested that the ingredients for happiness included good conversation with friends, good food and drink.  Mark Warner provide these in their holidays in abundance.

Italy

I was first persuaded to go on a Mark Warner Summer holiday with a friend when we were both single.  We went to Punta Licosa in Italy in 2000 (which is now closed).

Mark Warner have the concept of a "social table" for dinner where people sign up to sit at the table and get to know each other.  On this holiday we had a good crowd of people.  A lawyer, London chef, a banker and a toothpaste saleswoman amongst others.  Some of us hired a car and visited Pompeii where we hired someone who looked like Ali G's dad as a guide.  He’s the one in orange, with the  Ali G glasses, white beret, tons of bling and an orange outfit...

Activities

For me Mark Warner summer holidays are sailing holidays.  They have a wide range of sailing boats including Laser Pico, Laser, RS Quba, Catamarrans and Bajas.  They have windsurfing, tennis and mountain biking and probably other activities too which I’ve forgotten about, mostly inclusive.  They do onsite RYA courses so you can get your qualifications at a price they claim is cheaper than the UK.

On the last holiday I saw adverts elsewhere to hire a catamaran at €44 per hour.  At that rate my time in the catamaran was worth more than I paid for the whole holiday!  I wonder why I don’t sail at home, then I remember, if you fall in the Med it is warm, at home it isn’t.

In the Corsican leg of the Americas cup, the Ceefax Dart 16 passes the Easyjet RS Quba

Turkey

In 2001 I had no hesitation in going on another Mark Warner holiday with my friend.  This time it was Palm Beach in Turkey.  Once again we met up and became friendly with a great group of people.  In addition to the sailing I filled my time with tennis lessons.  They were early in the morning, it was still 40 degrees but it was the middle of July.  Palm beach had just the best bar next door.  It was an outside bar built in a small clearing.  The drinks were stored in the trees.  It was shaped "in the round" with a fire in the middle for the brave to jump over.  The usual relaxing music was playing and when I left in the early hours of the morning it was still open.

Soon after, I got married, started a family and moved house.  However, I did manage to have a few holidays with another sailing company.

Tripadvisor reviews

Last year we decided to go on another sailing holiday.  The girls were old enough to be left for a week and grandma was willing to babysit.  We scoured the internet but couldn’t find anything to rival Mark Warner.  I was quite happy to go on another Mark Warner as you know what you’re going to get.  We booked a week at Corsica.  Nowadays we have tripadvisor to check on potential holiday locations.   Several people did criticise the quality of accommodation but we weren’t planning on spending much time in the room so if that was the worst of the problems we’d be fine, and we were.  Other reviews complained that the mountain biking was too easy.  Again we took a negative review as a positive and it encouraged us to try the mountain biking, it was easy, which was good for us.  This got us out into the countryside and to see a bit more of Corsica.

Flight

We had the last week in September that the resort was open.  Full board was added at no extra cost.  All the flights to a Mark Warner resort I’ve done have been early in the morning, meaning that you arrive at the resort with plenty of day still left.  In this case we arrived in time for lunch!  Be aware that they charter the flights so it is likely that everyone on the plane is going to the same place.  So instead of ignoring each other because you think you’ll never see each other again, this is a time to start meeting people.

Staff

Even though I had a gap of 12 years between Mark Warner holidays, all the staff seemed to be the same; young, enthusiastic and very helpful.  There’s the sun bleached blonde beach staff that appear to be on a gap year before University, the ones that came on a gap year and stayed for a few years, the slightly scatty blonde, and the Antipodean.  I imagine working for Mark Warner must be great fun so there is probably a lot of competition for jobs and they can afford to hire the best.  I’m always impressed by how ready the staff are to help you get in an out of the boats.  However, the hardest workers must be the kitchen staff, preparing and serving hundreds of meals every day.  A couple of the shore staff decided to enter a kid’s Bug into the final day’s regatta race, only to get capsized by the rescue boat.

Bonifacio

We did the day trip to Bonifacio.  It reminded me of Brixham, Devon, with its U shaped harbour; there the similarity ended.  It was hot and sunny, full of expensive boats, and had many places to eat (Bonifacio that is).  I’m always wary of sales people so when a man got on the bus telling us we could go on the boat trip at a reduced group rate I was wary.  I needn’t have been, it was true, everyone does the boat trips to the caves.  The tourist boats were lined up, full of tourists, even in September.  I wish we’d done the train trip to the old town too but we ran out of time.

One of the yachts (La Pellegrina) needed two speedboats to guide it out of the harbour, and could be hired for €220,000 per week.

Childcare

Mark Warner have won awards for their childcare and do get good reviews.  Unfortunately we haven’t been able to take the children with us yet.   As we live by the sea it would be great to get them to learn to windsurf or sail so they can carry on when they get back home.

Conclusion

If you want an activity holiday, then Mark Warner fits the bill.  If you want to just lie on a sunlounger and relax, then Mark Warner fits the bill.  I would have no hesitation on going on another Mark Warner holiday given the chance.  I don't usually return to the same place for a holiday but this is the first time I've been on a holiday and felt like there was more to do than I could fit into a week so I would definitely return.