Did it really happen?

 I had another of those unfortunate incidents this morning when I got myself up early for a bike ride and failed to turn my Garmin watch on to record it. 

I only noticed when I went to pause the timer when I had to dismount to overcome some building works on the cycle track and realised that it had not been recording.

Whilst of course I knew that I had been riding for probably around 15 minutes at that point, of course this would not be shown on my Strava account so, as far asthe world was concerned, I had been lazy this morning and had reduced my usual cycle time by 1/3.

I was a relatively late adopter of the fitness gadgets. I started with a Fitbit (I think it is still around somewhere in the depths of a cupboard). 

This was not particularly sophisticated (if I went for a morning bike ride it usually thought I was running so it was great for my steps!) and had a complex charging device which meant that if you lost your charger you had to get a new one from the manufacturer rather than getting a “grey” market replacement.

I replaced this 3 or 4 years ago with an all signing, all dancing, Garmin which was much more sophisticated (and when I was travelling on my sabbatical last year and realised I had lost my charger when in Japan I was able relatively easily to get a cheap replacement). 

Garmin also has an arrangement with Strava that you can upload your run/bike ride swim/golf game to their platform which makes it easier to find a community of like minded sports enthusiasts to whom you can broadcast your achievements. 

I have recently read that Strava and Garmin have  fallen out of and are suing each other so I guess it may be at some point no longer be possible to transport my ride data onto Strava but for the time being, it remains the platform of record that yes, I did indeed achieve a certain, time, speed and distance during my ride this morning (if I manage to turn the timer on).

Thoughts on Hummus

Whilst fairly ubiquitous in the context of Middle Eastern cuisine, and relatively straightforward to make, there is nothing (save perhaps for Umm Ali - which would require a post all to itself) that sets a local restaurant apart from its competitors than the quality of its hummus.

This unpretentious dish (made from a combination of chickpea, tahini (a sesame paste), lemon juice and garlic - with a garland of olive oil) is usually served as a starter but has become for me a firm favourite as a meal on its own (particularly for lunch) when served with baked flatbread straight from the oven - in fact one of my favourite restaurants - Bosphorus at DSO - serves the bread as a kind of large inflated ball which you can poke with a knife to release a cloud of hot air.

Each restaurant worth its salt has its own recipe (a little like kimchi in Korea). Another favourite restaurant is On the Wood whose hummus is a very pale yellow/white with a generous drizzle of olive oil and which I regularly have on its own with bread and some olives - delicious. The Bosphorus hummus is a much darker yellow and is served with paprika and is also very tasty.

I was reminded of this at a meeting today at a cafe near my work where one of the other participants was having a late lunch of hummus which was almost brown in colour and very dense which reminded of the various different approaches to making it. 

I can however say that the one thing all of the various versions mentioned above have in common is that they are far and away tastier than any of their equivalents that I have managed to find back in the UK!

Fitness challenge

 A few years ago, the authorities here introduced the 30 day fitness challenge - various events were set up in order to encourage the local population to do some daily exercise during the course of November.

My own efforts have sadly been lacking. I have however (as regular readers will have noted) gone to great lengths to make sure that I am take part in the various build up rides (BUR) for the Spinneys 92km cycle challenge that is held every year (generally in February) - these practice rides gradually increasing in distance before the 92km race

This has required careful diary management as the rides are generally held on the last Sunday of each month so  I have to closely review my weekend travel plans to avoid clashes. My recent work trip to Barcelona was a case in point as I had to ensure that I was back in Dubai in time to take my place on the start line for BUR3 (65km) at 6:45am yesterday. 

This entailed (as recounted in earlier blogs) my first trip on Etihad Airwasy as their flight schedule got me back to Dubai at a reasonable hour on Saturday night rather than the early hours of Sunday morning if I had flown Emirates.

That however is not the reason for this post. The ride itself had seemed to go quite well by my standards as I latched on to the back of a group and managed to hang on for the entire race (even having a bit of a go  at - if not a sprint finish - then a brisk trot to end the race).

On crossing the finish line I noticed on my stop watch that I was well under 2 hours which for me was a very respectable time for 65km. 

It was only when I got home and took a closer look at my Strava that I realised that rather than the advertised 65km, the course was only 60km - so still not bad but not really the stellar performance I had imagined (and I suspect some of the other of the 750+ riders might also have been a little disappointed at being somewhat short-changed on the distance of the route).

Stars in their eyes

 I do not as a rule meet many famous people - presumably because of the circles that I keep but over the last week I have met a couple of people who I guess could be regarded as being fairly famous to a particular demographic.

The first was the Nottingham Forest football manager Sean Dyche who I mentioned meeting in an earlier post. I have long been a follower of his team back to the days when I was at University in Nottingham and Brian Clough was the manager. While Chelsea have always been my first love, I also look out for the Forest result and I  have a number of friends who still regularly watch them play so capturing a selfie with him was certainly something worth remarking upon.

Fast forward a week and my next brush with fame was with Dara O’Brain the Irish comedian who I met in a lift at the conference I attended last week. I must admit that I did not know who it was I was chatting to at the time until a colleague (who had also been in the lift) mentioned it the following morning at breakfast and all became clear later that evening when Mr O’ Brian provided the after dinner entertainment to wrap up the conference (and I was able to get selfie in the bar afterwards).

They say that these things come in threes, so I wonder who I will be meeting next?

Mislaying important documents……

During the Summer we were travelling back from Ireland and V. managed to leave her passport on the plane after landing at Gatwick. You do not need a passport to get through customs so its absence was not noted until we were beyond the point where we could retrieve it. 

Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth from her parents (although V seemed pretty sanguine about the whole episode) and I recall thinking at the time, how can you forget such an important document? 

After many phone calls to Cork airport (various different iterations of lost property) and an opportunity to get to know some of the lively characters working there, she eventually tracked it down and we were able to arrange for my cousin P to pick it up at Cork airport on her way back to London with Uncle K at the end of her holiday (not the first time that Cousin P has returned with various articles our family have left behind in Ireland).

Fast forward 3 months and I have just done exactly the same thing  - I got to the passport control at Abu Dhabi Airport having just disembarked my flight and realised that there was no sign of my passport where I usually leave it (ie in my passport holder which I usually put in my headphones case when I am wearing the headphones on the flight). 

I must have had it when I boarded so felt reasonably confident it would eventually be found but could not specifically recall where I would have left it although I had a suspicion that I had put it down in the overhead locker when I was retrieving my headphone set and simply failed to put it into the case once I had removed my headphones.

Fortunately the passport was tracked down and after a bit of a wait, we were reunited but the moral of the story is I think never judge!

Sense of smell

 A short post this evening about staying at nice hotels and the fact that, regardless of the age of the lift system (in this case probably quite old and certainly unsophisticated given the time it takes for them to arrive), the quality of the furnishings or the age of the concierge, if it smells nice then you are in a decent hotel!

My current hotel smells very nice - a mixture of flowers and high end gentleman’s club so they are doing a good job! 

A change is as good as a rest

 As noted in an earlier post, we are pretty well served by Emirates Airlines in Dubai - although very expensive, the seats even in economy are pretty decent, there is reasonable flexibility about how much luggage you take into the cabin and the check in process is usually pretty smooth.

For I believe the first time since moving to Dubai, today I took a flight on one of the rival airlines - Etihad - who operate out of Abu Dhabi. 

The airport is a bit further away from where I live than DXB (just over an hour compared to around 20 minutes (depending on traffic)) and the prices tend to be the same or even a little higher so there is no real incentive for me to use them save - on this occasion - that the Etihad flight schedules to Barcelona where I have to travel for work this week were a lot more suited to getting me back to Dubai for first thing Sunday morning (in time for Spinneys BUR 3).

It was therefore interesting to note the differences (and similarities) between the two airlines. The first thing that struck me was the check in process was not particularly welcoming - I had been warned in advance that they were a lot stricter about baggage weights and that seemed to play out at the check in desks where there seemed to be quite a lot of complaints about over-weight baggage.

 On board the seats in economy were in a similar configuration but the headrest had one fixed part that jutted out (Emirates allows you to adjust both ends of the headrest). However, this actually worked quite well as the end was fixed in position and so you could lean your head against it at an angle which was quite  comfortable.

The meal was pretty good although the tray was smaller and the main meal had a plastic lid (rather than the usual tinfoil). The entertainment was much more limited than Emirates but an interesting upgrade was that prosecco was included in the drinks available with the meal.

I doubt I will be using Etihad much in the future but certainly they put on a reasonably decent show.