What a weekend :)

This weekend started off with some baking on Friday. I made an orange and sweet potato cake. It is a recipe I got from Matt's Dad's wife Katy :)

It's a great recipe! All you do is use a box of orange cake mix, but instead of adding 11oz of oil and 2 cups of water you just add a tin of sweet potatoes with their juices. Add 3 eggs and hey presto you have a cake batter. The final result is scrumdiddlyumptious!! So a big thank you to Katy for giving me this recipe.

If any of my europe friends/family want to try it but can't get the orange cake/sweet potatoes just let me know and I'll send you some: that's how good this stuff is!!!

Friday night Matt took me to the circus for date night :) I think I might have annoyed him singing the childrens song "you've got to be strong to work in the circus"

He bought me candy floss and popcorn. Isn't he the best!

Saturday morning I dropped Matt off at the airport, he's in Utah for the week at a conference. So I found myself driving to a town 30 minutes away to buy some mushy peas, heinz baked beans, marmite and hob nobs! I had this for dinner, it was awesome!

Sunday morning I headed out to the horse show. I don't know how they grade showing over here, but from what I could tell it was a novice competition, the jumps were pretty lame and the riding left something to be desired, but it was fun to be around horses and here the talk of horsey competition going on. It's made me even more excited to start riding again. I found myself mentally urging the competitors to 'get more impulsion', 'have the horse focus on the jump, not outside of the ring' etc....

Today the carpet is being replaced in the bedroom :) Then, when that is done, I'm going to take the dogs out for a long walk through some trails.

Penny isn't eating again and I may have to make an appointment at the vets for her to make sure everything is ok. She has kidney/bladder issues and I want to make sure it's nothing to do with that.

I swear I don't have munchausen by proxy!!!!!!

Less bugs, more birds please!

I tend to prefer mother nature's soundtrack to man made noises. However I do not find crickets or cicadas, or whatever the heck is making the seasonal noises here, relaxing. I find it downright irritating!

I took the dogs for a walk today on a trail in the Cuyahoga park, south of where we last walked. It was a really pretty walk, as have been the others, but good God the noise the bugs were making was enough to drive me bonkers!!!

I am hoping that when we finally make it up north (Maine) we will have less of the noisy bugs and more of the bird song.

Anyhoo, enough complaining and back to the beautiful countryside I find myself in!

This time we walked past 'red lock'....

Passed several streams....

Came across a picture of an old man who, when I first looked at him, looked like a relative we had on a painting on our stairway growing up (minus the big beard)....

Through meadows.....

Down country lanes...... (being deafened by them damn bugs!).....

Stopped to say hello to a family of turtles.....

And ended up in Boston!!!

Boston is a little village that boasts an old fashion gas station...

and a country store....
There is also a railway station for the scenic railway that runs through the park and it was just leaving as we arrived, so I didn't get to see it this time.

There was a little store that was selling homemade ice cream and cold drinks to the several groups of cyclists on the trail. I shall have to bring Matt with me next time so that I can try the ice-cream. I don't trust the dogs to be tied up outside while I go in, they tend to go bonkers when they see other dogs!

This evening when Matt got home we had a picnic at the village lake and then went for a swim before going to workout at the gym.
Tomorrow the circus is in town and so my mission is to try and find somewhere that is still selling tickets!!

Mushroom Mushroom

I've had a very busy day!

It started off great; I went for a bike ride after breakfast and had a lovely swim after lunch.

I tried making some scotch eggs to have for a picnic tonight, but they failed miserably. And then I had a run in with the people who run the townhomes we currently live in over a certain carpet still being stained and smelling of dog urine. So by the time Matt got home I was in no mood to throw together a picnic and so we went to Luna's, a local diner, instead.

Afterwards we went for a walk in Brecksville Reservation, my favorite park so far. There is a trail that covers over 1400 miles throughout Ohio (the buckeye trail) and it runs through the reservation, so we decided to walk along that for a little while. I was amazed how many different types of mushrooms were lining the trail....

Oh and yesterday I made an omelette of courgette, yellow zuchini, tomato, olives, feta, onion and parsley served with oven chips. Thanks to Ellie who suggested that I put tin foil over the omelette while it cooked so that there would be no need to flip it and turn it into scrambled eggs. It cooked to perfection!!!!

How is the new font size and color? Any feedback is appreciated! I want to make sure people can actually read the blog :)

Sunny Sunday

This morning Matt and I awoke and went for an early morning swim. We went to the smaller of the two outdoor pools and had the place to ourselves, so it was perfect for swimming a couple of leisurely laps before heading back home for a breakfast of coffee and croissant with marmalade. Mmmm Mmmm.

After breakfast we packed up a picnic and headed out to Bradley Woods Reservation for a walk around Bunns lake. It was only a 25 minute drive away.

After walking around the lake and following some trails through the beautiful woods we got back in the car and headed towards Huntington Park, another 10 minutes away. We stopped here to eat our picnic.

Huntington Park is right next to Lake Erie and therefore also boasts a swimming beach. The place was very busy towards the lake and, as we had our dogs, we decided that we would head to the beach one night this week after work for a picnic and swim. We haven't yet seen the beach, we assumed that there would be no dogs allowed, so instead we headed back to the quieter area to follow some more trails.

It's really nice to be able to have these areas so close by. They are very well looked after (i.e. the bins are changed frequently, there are recycling dumps in each park and lots of courtesy doggy doo doo bags.). They are also free to get into!!!!

When we got home we had 2 tired but happy dogs who were more than willing to take a nice long nap :)

For dinner tonight we had a Sicilian fish stew.
When he have digested for a while we are going to hit the fitness center for some exercising :)

It's been a great day! We also have a circus and county fair to look forward to over the coming few weeks :)

Hello Lake Erie

This morning Matt and I headed downtown to the LeanDog boat. Downtown Cleveland appears to be much the same as any other downtown I have visited so far in the states. It was nice and clean and I am sure we will explore it some weekend.

This time we just stuck to the boat. It is an old restaurant boat that Matt's company has converted into a floating office. They have retained the kitchen and bar, and at 5pm every night a 'beer gong' is rang and the employees head up on deck to drink some beers.

This is the view from the back of the boat, looking over lake Erie. I am really looking forward to doing some more exploring around the lake. We were told that there are some islands on the lake with B&Bs that are a nice way to spend a weekend. We shall definitely be giving that a go! And we shall also be renting some jet skis sometime soon while the weather is still nice!

After being shown around the boat we headed to a place I've been wanted to try since we decided we were coming to Cleveland: Superior Pho!!

We were a little nervous approaching it as it was in what appears to be a dying part of cleveland. It was in a back alley and not visible from the street. We felt a little more confident when we saw how full the car park was.

I ordered Pho tai (noodle soup with round steak). It was good BUT it was NOT as good as Gold Mountain's Pho. Gold Mountain has set a high standard for fragrant broth. The other Phos I have had all have a lighter broth. It was still good, but certainly no replacement for my drug of choice ;)

I also had a delicious passion fruit bubble tea.

We met up with an old colleague of Matts for lunch with his wife. There was a bit of confusion as they had gone into ANOTHER Pho restaurant behind the one we were meeting at. That made me very happy, it means there's more Pho to be tried!!!!

There is also a korean restaurant inside the same building as Superior Pho and we will give that a try too :)

After returning from our time downtown we took the dogs to the national park next to us to try out a different trail.
There was a horse trail too. Here is Matt and Lucy trekking down the horse trail :)
Tonight we bought a small dinner table from Target and had some roast chicken with wild rice and veggies for dinner, accompanied by a good glass of claret.

Tomorrow we are going to head out to two of the smaller metro parks with the dogs :)

Hello Ohio

Well all I can say is Matt gone done good!

He found us a lovely place to spend the next couple of months.

We are in a little town called Sagamore hills and it's right next to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. One of the entrances is a 3 minute drive away and I took the dogs there today for a walk.



It was beautiful, the sky was overcast and raining which made the greens appear super green. We walked for about 40 minutes along a trail that runs by a small river on one side.



There are old locks along the trail, this one was known as 'whiskey lock'




On the way into our town we cross a tall bridge that covers a deep tree covered ravine. The other morning when I was taking Lucy to the eye doctor there was fog gathering at the tops of the trees and it all looked very magical. It was down in that ravine that we walked today.



There is a scenic railway that runs through the park and if you cycle along the trails you can get back to where you started on the train for only $2. I'm looking forward to giving that a go!



I only covered a small portion of the trails immediately available from the location I parked at today. And there are several more parks around the Cleveland area, so I'm going to have a great time exploring :)

You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos I take, I only manage to point and shoot while also walking when I have the dogs :)