The highs and lows of Football in Coventry

Saturday was a sad day for Coventry sports fans, when Coventry City FC, who play their home games at the City of Coventry Stadium (aka the Ricoh Stadium) lost 2-0 to Doncaster Rovers. A result which sees them relegated from the Championship for next season.

City fans are already showing their 'look on the bright side' attitude, pledging that the club is 'only visiting' the lower divisions and will be back in the Championship very soon.

But as if to showcase both the highs and lows of football, CCFC’s home stadium will tonight host the only official Olympic football test event, when the City of Coventry Stadium hosts the Olympic qualifying match between Senegal and Oman, with the winning team taking the final place in this year’s Olympic Games.

Coventry will host 12 matches during the Olympics, including the women's bronze play-off and I’m extremely excited to have been chosen as an ambassador for the city during the games.
I’ll be looking forward to meeting and greeting visiting fans from around the world and helping them get safely to the stadium.

Many congratulations by the way to the England women’s football captain, Faye White on her recently announced pregnancy. But with Faye out of the games, is it too soon to offer a replacement in the form of this fine young dribbler?  Not quite sure she's got the idea of 'ball skills' yet.

I’m eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s Olympic football draw when we will know which teams will play in the city. Obviously I’m hoping for some of the big teams such as Brazil, or Spain or even – dare I hope – England!
My only disappointment is that the draw is to take place in London. I know the games are badged as London 2012 but wouldn’t it have been great if the organisers had used tonight’s test event to host the draw too?

Update on my olympic bid

I'm so pleased to say that this week I heard from the committee who are organising the Ambassador programme for the Football in Coventry as part of the Olympics.

They have said they would be 'delighted' for me to join them as one of the city ambassadors. (Not half as delighted as I am though!)

So I'm now eagerly awaiting dates for training and I'm really looking forward to being part of the 2012 Olympic experience.

So if anyone is coming to Coventry for the Olympic football I'll be one of your meeters and greeters. I hope to meet lots of lovely people and to be able to share my love of the city and my excitement at being part of the 2012 games.

My Anwhere Working Tips

Inspired to get crafty and start blogging

Friday, 2 March 2012

My Anywhere Working Tips

Over the years I've had the 'pleasure' of working in some weird and wonderful mobile places.


I've hosted conference calls in noisy lay-bys on the A14 on my way home from Ipswich, dialled into netmeetings with Indian colleagues from a service station on the M6, continually redialled into calls while travelling up the west coast mainline on a Virgin Pendolino and raced around Berlin a few days before Christmas trying to find somewhere offering free wi-fi so that I could organise a Christmas rota back in the UK.

So I feel relatively well qualified to suggest some 'Anywhere Working Tips' for a competition being hosted by Anywhere working via this link: http://www.anywhereworking.org/2012/win-the-ultimate-anywhere-working-kit/

One of my best tips is to try to 'network' wherever you go, whether this is to other offices within your own organisation or whether you are visiting other companies. I found that by cultivating friendships with colleagues around the UK I always managed to find a spare desk whenever I descended on their office.

I remember one time when the great and the good (i.e. my manager, his manager and 2 more levels of senior managers) all arrived in an office in Gatwick early in the working day. They immediately began looking for flexi desk space and kept being moved on by the office occupants who insisted 'that desk is already taken'.

I strolled in at around 10am having travelled down from Coventry (my own home office) and I immediately made myself at home at one of the desks that had been saved from the senior bods invasion.

When asked how I managed to nab a desk when everyone else had been moved on I simply smiled and shook the cake box I'd brought from home with home made cakes. I'd called the team that occupied the nearby desks the day before and told them that if they saved me a seat I'd bring cakes and pies. :-)

It seems that senior management just can't compete in the bribery stakes!

So...tip 1 - network effectively and don't be afraid to ring ahead, make mobile working arrangements and bring baked goods!

My next tip is for those whose mobile just never stops - and boy did I know how that feels. There have been huge improvements recently in the software that converts voicemails to texts & email and this is invaluable for anyone who has to sit in meetings with their phone on silent. It makes life much easier if you can glance at your texts or e-mail and get the gist of any messages rather than using a whole lunchbreak listening to messages that are usually out of date by the time you get to them.

My first experience of this software wasn't quite so successful though. I remember getting a message about problems with a system called EMP and the caller wanted me to know that the notes about this had been left on my desk in an office in London.

My text conversion told me there was a problem with the MP's debts in London.....I've often wondered if this was the rumour that started the MP expenses scandals!

So tip 2 - make use of voice to text technology....but don't assume the conversion is 100% accurate!


My final tip is to think light. I remember many days when I've trekked through the Tube network in London with a backpack weighed down with a heavyweight laptop plus all the leads needed to connect this to the power supply, LAN connection, etc. In a separate bag I'd be carrying a projector and my pockets would be full of mobile phones, USB dongles and USB memory sticks.

So tip 3 - save weight whenever possible. Use a lightweight pad instead of a laptop and a handheld projector rather than a hefty desktop model. The only extra pounds to carry are those in the bakery box being offered as bribes :-)

I lied about that being my final tip, I do have one more. Wherever I went would find myself in offices with dozens of men who all carried exactly the same laptop bag, a boring black rucksack issued by the company.

I made it my mission to cheer up the pile of boring bags and I always used to ask family and friends to buy me new laptops bags for my birthday. I loved having a bag that stood out from the rest by being bright pink, or yellow, or floral. My laptop bags were always a talking point (and usually the butt of many jokes) but at the end of the meetings when everyone else was scrabbling around sorting their bag out from the rest of the bags lined up against the wall, I'd grab my dayglo pink bag and be out of there!

So final tip - stand out from the crowd in whatever way you can!

Preview

Preview

How can an unfit mum be part of the Olympics?

This New Year I'm going to try and make a difference - at the Olympics!

Let's face it, the Olympics only happen every 4 years so being involved in the games would be brilliant wherever they were being held, but because the Olympics are taking place in the UK this year, getting involved in the 2012 games is even more special.

So I really hope I can!

Of course I would love to be healthy enough to actually take part in one of the events, but that would be a change too far for an unfit, stay at home, mum of two.

So, instead, I'm taking steps to contribute to the success of the games in my own way.

By volunteering to be an ambassador for my home city when Olympic football comes to Coventry!

Although the games are often tagged 'London 2012' , events will be taking place across the whole of the UK and are not just liked to our capital city.

I've applied to become an ambassador for my home city, Coventry, and will be attending a selection day on February 10th, at the City of Coventry Stadium (shown above) where I'm obviously hoping to shine and be selected to meet and greet visitors to the city during the Games! 

 

The City of Coventry Stadium is very close to my own home and is also known locally as the Ricoh Stadium. It is home to Coventry City Football Club and is one of the venues hosting football games as part of the 2012 Olympics. 

 

The stadium will host 12 Football matches during the Games, including the women's bronze medal match.

In addition to the football, Coventry has also been confirmed as a London 2012 Live Site venue, which will see a big screen installed at Coventry Transport Museum in the city centre.

Coventry Transport Museum http://www.transport-museum.com/default.aspx is another of my favourite places in the city as hubby is fantatical about cars so we often go for a wander around the museum on a Sunday afternoon. The Museum is home to one of the largest collections of road transport in the world and has 300 cycles, 120 motorcycles and 250 cars and commercial vehicles.

I love looking at the old cars and buses but my favourite 'car' is Thrust SSC which holds the World Land Speed Record with a speed of  1,228 km/h (763 mph) and was the first car to officially break the sound barrier!

Ok, so I sound like a geek, but I'm really excited to think that I might be able to get involved in the Games and share my love of my home city at the same time.

Fingers crossed for my assessment day....I'll post an update afterwards to say whether my attempt to get off my backside and make a difference is actually going ahead - wish me luck!

A foodie tip for Australia

A couple of years ago I had a fabulous holiday to Australia. I spent 3 glorious weeks travelling around, from Perth to Sydney, Brisbane, The Great Barrier Reef, Melbourne and then back to Perth.

Obviously when I think about that holiday the first things that come to mind are the sun, the long journeys between cities and the fantastic, friendly people I met.

But the other big thing that I loved in Australia and really wish I could import to the UK was a chain of shops called MYO.

MYO stands for Make Your Own and the chain was developed to allow customers to walk in off the street and build their own lunch.

No sitting around waiting for counter staff to build you a sandwich - oh no! Get in there and do it yourself!

The shops offered healthy breakfasts and lunches, with toast, bread for sandwiches, salads, juices, smoothies, fruit....in fact anything you would want for a healthy breakfast or lunch.

If, like me, you are veggie, or you just don't like some of the usual items included in salads, this is the type of shop for you. Just select from a variety of sizes of container - and fill it up with the things you want.

All the meat eaters out there are also catered for. The stores are not strictly veggie and they do offer sliced meats too.

I used the MYO stores in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth - but strangely not in Sydney. For some reason the shops haven't reached that major city yet!

The pictures above don't show the MYO stores they are just a good excuse to share some of my holiday photos of (from the top down)  Melbourne, Perth & Brisbane. Fantastic places that I would love to go back to at the first possible opportunity.

The MYO stores are just beginning to creep into the UK. There are two franchises in Glasgow, and I personally can't wait for them to find their way into England!

I think the MYO stores are one of the best kept foodie secrets in Australia. So my tip for anyone travelling there is to check out the MYO website, find out whether there is one near you, then get in there and Make Your Own!

If, like me, you love to travel and to share your travel tips you might like to check out the fantastic competition currently being hosted on http://www.travelizer.co.uk/

Oliver at travelizer is looking for your favourite locations, unmissable places, off the beaten track discoveries, unique moments, strange encounters or must try local dishes.

Share your travel tips and you could win a fabulous weekend to any European city.

A Yummy Tuscan snack

Once again I've been inspired to get creative by a competition. Aren't competitions great? Not only do we have the opportunity to dream about a glorious win but the theme of the competition often gets us trying things that would otherwise be out of our normal scope.

This time the inspiration came from a competition being run by  http://www.lovethegarden.com/blog/a-taste-for-tomatoes-a-recipe-blog-competition and requires creation of a meal including tomatoes.

I do love Italian food but sadly since being diagnosed coeliac a little while ago my favourite pasta and pizza recipes have become a rare occurence on the family dinner table.

So the opportunity to do something Tuscan was too good to miss.

As ever, my recipe began life as a regular recipe purloined from elsewhere, but because I'm notoriously fickle about using certain ingredients, it soon developed a life of it's own. Let's start with the ingredients.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes - for a true Tuscan Bruschetta these should be plum, but this is my first adjustment. I'm not particularly keen on plum tomatoes so here they have been replaced by vine ones.

Olive oil - I know the purists amongst you will be disappointed that this is not extra, extra, super duper, special virgin - or some such....but again, it's the oil I like.

Parmesan cheese - smelly and hard to grate I know but there really isn't any better cheese for Bruschetta!

Salt & black pepper

Fresh Basil

Spring onions - another replacement. These should really be garlic but I wasn't in a garlicky mood today. Plus, my garden has a sudden glut of spring onions at the moment and I'm all for making the most of what's available!

Gluten Free bread rolls - obviously the gluten free bit is essential for me because of my Coeliac Disease. Clearly in a true bruschetta these would be replaced with a long baguette or something similar.

Method:

This recipe was so simple that I spent most of the time I was making it convinced that I'd forgotten something! The first step was obviously to chop the onions, tomatoes & basil. Put these into a bowl with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a couple of pinches of salt and a little black pepper.

Slice the bread and place it on a baking tray. Sprinkle with a little more olive oil and pop it into the oven for 5 minutes to toast.

Now I know it's hard and I know it's smelly but the next step is to grate the parmesan.

Simple so far? Well, that really is it!


Once the bread is toasted, remove from the oven and pop onto the serving plate. Top with the tomato, basil and onion mix and cover with parmesan.

Next and most important step is ENJOY!! (I did!)

So, a big thank you from me to the organisers of this competition. I do realise that my recipe isn't particularly difficult or unique but entering this competition has reminded me how much I enjoy this type of food. This recipe will definitely be making a return appearance on my menu sometime soon!

Pipers Cup Cakes

Piper loves to help out in the kitchen and Grandma's birthday recently gave her the opportunity to help make some delicious cup cakes.

Grandma has to follow a Gluten Free diet so cupcakes are made with special gluten free flour, we usually use a mixture of various flours to give a nice light consistency.

For the cupcakes

• 125g (4oz) butter, melted
• 125g (4oz) caster sugar
• 125g (4oz) Gluten free flour (we use 1/2 gluten-free self-raising flour and 1/2 rice flour)
• 2 medium eggs
• 3tbsp milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the icing

• 150g (5oz) caster sugar
• 100g (3½oz) butter, softened
• Few drops of vanilla essence

1. Set the oven to gas mark 5 or 190°C.
2. To make the cupcakes: Pour the melted butter into a bowl and add sugar, flour, eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Beat the mixture with an electric hand whisk, to give a smooth batter. Spoon mixture into the paper cases in the tray.
3. Bake cakes in the centre of oven for 18-20 mins, or until they rise and are light golden brown. Remove tray from the oven and leave cakes to cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
4. To make the buttercream: Using the electric whisk, mix together the sugar, butter and vanilla essence until this forms a creamy, fluffy mixture.
5. Fill a piping tube with the buttercream and pipe a swirl on top of each cupcake. 

The lack of gluten in the cakes means they can go dry quicker than 'normal' cakes so I'd recommend eating them within 1 day of making them. This is no real hardship because they look so pretty with their swirl of icing.

The hardest part of making these cakes is convincing Piper to put the cake mix in the cases to bake it. She would happily eat the uncooked cake mix!

She also particularly likes cleaning out the icing bowl!

 Happy Birthday Grandma, if you need any help eating the cakes just let us know!