Sunday, February 28, 2010

Storm Xynthia hits SW France

An incredible strom blew through Spain, Portugal and France last night and was due to head on up to Denmark today.

We were warned that there was going to be a big storm coming through over Saturday night into Sunday morning, and during Saturday evening the storm warning was upgraded from an orange warning to a red warning for some areas, notably the departement that we border, so we knew we were in for an interesting night. After a family debate we decided that battening down the hatches would include for the first time in a long while the closing of all the shutters on the house, something we don't often do.

We were actually watching the unfolding tsunami situation in Hawaii, and when it failed to materialise at around 10pm France time we decided it was time for bed. The wind at this point was nothing special, just a strong breeze, so we all went to bed and to sleep.

At around 2am we woke to the sound of a howling gale and flapping shutters, so I went downstairs to investigate, and indeed one of the shutters had been blown open by the wind, so having secured it again I went back to bed. The wind was so noisy, there was no chance of getting back to sleep, though Fleur slept through the whole thing. Half an hour later, the next shutter broke free, so I went back downstairsto find one of the bistro shutters flapping in the wind, so having secured it again I decided to make a cup of tea and wait to see if anything else broke free in the wind. I was amazed that we still had electricity, since normally if a pigeon burps at out power cable the power goes off, so I was able to tweet with some of the other twitter community in SW France to compare notes. After 45 minutes nothing else was being damaged by the wind but the power was starting to come and go so time to go back up to bed. The wind blew and blew, until about 5:30am, or at least that was the last time I saw the clock before falling asleep until 9:30am. So in the end no major damage for us though on the coast there was extensive damage and flooding, and sadly to date it has been reported that 22 people have died in France, and 45 in total across Europe.

A powerful weekend for mother nature, reminding us who is incharge!!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Corned Beef Hash recipe

Ingredients

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
340g/12oz tin of corned beef, diced
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
4 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

500g or a 1lb smallish potatoes

4 tablespoons milk
25g/4ozbutter
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly ground salt

Put the potatoes on to boil for 20 mins or until soft enough to make mashed potato


meanwhile for the corned beef, start by heating the olive oil in a frying pan and putting in the chopped onions and garlic and cook until soft, and lightly golden in colour
then add the chopped tomatoes and cook gently for another 5 mins, if it starts to look a little dry put some water in the empty tomato can and then add it to the
pan slowly to keep it moist. Add the diced corned beef and allow it to break down in the pan, after about 5 minutes the corned beef will melt into the mixture
keep this mixture on a low heat until your potaotes are cooked

Mash the potatoes with the milk, butter, salt & pepper

now put the parsley into the corned beef mixture, then after a minute add the mashed potato to the corned beef mixture and serve

If you want to give it a bit of a zing you can add a few drops of chilli sauce

2 tablespoons of corriander will also give it a lift

Putting the mash in at the last minute keeps the whole thing nice and light

you can also add a little red wine for depth or even Guiness in place of the water added to keep it moist

So there you have it I hope you enjoy it

Cheers

Darren

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

New PC in the offing...

After the panic of nearly missing my flight last week I got up 15 minutes earlier and left for the airport half an hour earlier than normal and of course I ended up in Bordeaux airport a whole hour earlier than I normally arrive, but better too early than too late. It also means there is plenty of time to blog this morning. This weekend was quite leisurely for me, my main task was to get Au Bellefleur IT systems back up and running after the network card in our long term loan machine from the office decided to give up the ghost.

We pressed our very old PC but not much used PC back into service, and although it is slow it is working fine, and now the task of buying a new computer for Au Bellefleur begins. I am certainly not going to be buying any more small form factor machines as they have no room to insert an expansion card in the event that something small, like a network port, fails, which basically means the end of life as we know it for the small form factor PC.

We really are lost without an internet connection these days, all our contact with our clients being made over the internet we really cannot afford to be off air for too long, so I shall also be getting a mobile pay as you go broadband dongle as an emergency standby along with a little netbook.

We went out to friends for Sunday lunch which was great fun, even Fleur loved it as she had a lovely dog to play with, and she (Fleur) was showing our hosts some of her best dance moves, we eventually got home at about 8:00pm, so bang went any chance of me doing anything on Sunday afternoon, but I'm not complaining because it was good fun and I learnt a few useful things too..