If you have been following this year’s Wimbledon, you would have heard about the epic, world-record, longest ever match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, which lasted over 11 hours. Read about it here.

The final score, in Isner’s favour, was 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68.

How many games is that?

That’s right – 183!

Month completed: June 2010

After a busy day at work, it is very easy to just pop something into the microwave for dinner, or even just order takeaway in (Indian and Thai are personal favourites).

While these are the quick, easy options, and are OK in moderation, it is important to have proper meals at least a few times a week.

So this year, Nat and I have been trying hard to do more home cooking. To help, my Grandma mailed me five pages of recipes to try out, which covered starters, mains and desserts.

And here are a few of the things I have made so far:

- Banana cake

- Porcupine meatballs (image below)

- Sweetcorn and pepper frittata

- Spinach and potato gratin

- Ratatouille

- Bobotie

- Zucchini Slice

Despite the extra effort involved (I guess around 45 minutes, rather than 10 minutes, preparation and cooking time), the result and the satisfaction is much better. In particular, the porcupine meatballs recipe is fantastic, and I genuinely look forward to coming home and cooking this because it is so tasty.

As well as eating better, and having more satisfaction with the meal, by cooking a proper meal there is also the chance to cook enough for leftovers the next day, so I can eat a great lunch instead of a dry, boring sandwich.

I will definitely continue to home cook as much as possible. I doubt whether or not it gets me out of dishes duty though!

For anyone inspired to give home cooking a try, give this a try. And if you want the recipe for any of the other dishes I mentioned above, leave me a comment and I am happy to email it to you.

================

Grandma Tully’s recipe for porcupine meatballs (which I have amended slightly)

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 500g of mince meat
• 1/2 cup uncooked rice (I use basmati)
• 1 finely chopped onion
• Salt and pepper
• Pinch of thyme (optional)

For the sauce

• 2 tins of tomato soup (about 800g)
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1.5 cups of water

1. Put the sauce ingredients in a big pot and bring to boil.

2. Mix the meatball ingredients together, press firmly into golf ball sized pieces with wet hands.

3. Put meatballs into boiling sauce, cover and simmer for about 1 hour.

4. Take out and enjoy (and add tomato sauce on top – I don’t do this, but Nat seems to like it)

This coming Wednesday night (June 2, between 6-9pm) I am presenting at a goal setting workshop in London. As you can tell from this blog, I like to work towards achieving goals, no matter the scale, and I also like to meet and talk to other people who are starting, or have completed, big goals of their own.

It’s free to take part, so if you are keen to get involved, you can find out more here.

My next door neighbour at work, Amalia, has just embarked on a brand new endeavour – as a cast member of an amateur radio theatre production.

I am excited because it is always great to see people try new things, and she seems to be having a great time so far.

And it means I get to experience 1940’s radio theatre in a month’s time when the production starts (Nat and I will be there, cheering her on).

If you are in London at the start of June, why not head along too. Buy tickets here.

You know how when you buy a new car, you suddenly start to see lots of other people driving that car too.

Well, that is kind of like me and the number 183.

Here’s one I noticed late last week.

I felt like I was struggling to make a start on the triathlon I am doing in August, so I have done two things recently.

1. I did a full-day triathlon training course last Sunday, getting tips and whatnot from some elite British athletes (including the head swim coach of the British Olympic team, no less!) – I realised during the day that I have a lot of work to do on my swimming if I think I am going to cover 1,500 metres (with minimal use of doggy paddle)

2. I have joined a gym near work, which has both a swimming pool and bikes, so I can get in lots of training in the next four months.

If you have any tips on how to prepare for a triathlon, I would love to hear them.

I have a good friend called Ronald, who I have grown up with since I was young.

Ronald is someone who, although I enjoy the company of, is definitely a bad influence on me.

Whenever I visit Ronald, I always regret it a little bit later, even though while I am hanging out with him, I have a great time.

Ronald is well known – in fact, you probably know him as well. And he is probably a bad influence on you too.

Given I am now starting to train for the London triathalon in August, I have told Ronald that I can not see him for six months (which started on March 1).

Doing this will also help me to complete goal 8.

Despite being separated for half a year, I am sure our reunion will be great fun. Because even though he is a bad influence, there is nothing wrong with bad things every now and then.

Month completed: March 2010

I seem to be in card playing mode at the moment, so in this current frame of mind, I was taught how to build canasta by Andrew and Phillip, two of the guys I met at the bridge course I did recently.

I know what you are thinking. Canasta – that’s for old people, right?

Well, if that is right, then the old people have a good thing going. Canasta was great fun, and quite easy to pick up. We ended up playing for over six hours, and although I came dead last, I did get a few dirty canastas (not as dodgy as it sounds).

The game is sort of a combination of gin rummy, go fish and a game called Up to Ten, which no one outside of my family seems to have heard of. You play with two decks, including the jokers, with the aim to get canastas (eight of the same number) and then get rid of your cards. If you haven’t played it before, I would definitely recommend it.

A to-do list is a neat way of keeping track of what you need to get done.

I like to-do lists (as you might have guessed!) and was really impressed when I stumbled across Teux Deux recently.

It is a recently launched free to-do tool and what I like about it is that is so simple (or as they describe it, minimalist).

My favourite bit is the logically-named ‘Someday’ section, where you can jump throw stuff in that you want to do ’someday’.

I have been using it for a while now, and think that if you are looking for a easy-to-use to-do list tool, give it a try.

Head to the website to sign up.

And good luck with your teux-deux lists!

Month completed: March 2010

Nat and I just got back from a 5 day adventure to Morocco (which we both highly recommend if you get the chance).

Among the fun of the holiday was the chance to venture through Djemma El Fna, which is the main square of the old part of Marrakech, and which contains (among other things) snake charmers.

So here I am, with a snake around my neck, and a cobra in the face (Nat wasn’t too keen on getting one close to her though).

To be completely honest, the snakes weren’t the scary bit. It was the five snake charmers who gathered around me about thirty seconds after the photos were taken, all demanding money.

Actually, the cobra was kind of scary too.