A close shave

Still feeling a bit sick today, but at least I'm not bed bound. Now that my medical card has arrived I registered at the local Drs and then because it was hot again and I resolved to do something about it and went to the barbers across from the Drs for a short back and sides. It was an old fashioned barbers. The funny thing was the barber faced the chair away from the mirror and stood behind me, so I wasn't able to see what had happened to my hair until the end. Half way through I felt a hot substance being spread around my ears and then a cut-throat razor appeared at the side of my head. Arrghh! He then proceeded to shave around my ears and neck. It took a lot longer than the UK, but the result was the same.
This afternoon I wired in some of the gadgets in the car, but had to strip down to the 'bare essentials' because it was like working in a sauna. How people can do manual labour in this part of the world beats me.

Sick Boy

Poor Stuart has been unwell since last night. I am not sure if he has eaten something or just picked up a bug while out and about. Anyway, he has spent most of the day in bed today with me calling in to make sure he is drinking water and eating some dry toast. He is looking a little more lively now so will hopefully be feeling better tomorrow.

As for my day, it was just another busy one at work and since I didn't get home till late, I have been bad and have not gone to the gym. I think my trainer might sack me soon for my lack of commitment!

Tonight, we are sitting quietly at home watching NCIS and Law and Order - to make up for missing the Bill!!

Smoking

Today I picked up the new car. If you think it looks like the rental one, then you are correct. We decided to buy the same model, but 2nd hand and a higher spec. It even has seat memory. Anyway it seems to drive well and Em will get to see it for the first time since she wasn't there when I bought it and she had to nip back to work before the salesman was ready to go over the final bits of paperwork today.

This afternoon I've been experimenting with the Smokenator 1000. It is a add-on accessory for a Weber BBQ which allows slow smoking of food at lower temperatures. Before I had arrived in the States, Em had said to her work collegues I would cook something for their regular Firday breakfasts, which everyone takes turns at. I'm trying to smoke some salmon, and if it is successful, then I will be serving it with homemade sourdough bread and cream cheese. Tonight we will try the first experiment with smoked corn on the cob.

Snack d'jour: Mango con Chile (Juicy dried mango slices coated with chile. Yum!)

Dangerous Animals

I could get used to lie in on Sunday's! We must have got home at about one o'clock again! what must the neighbours think and with our outside light on until 10 am this morning indicating we weren't out of bed and therefore certainly weren't at church.

We need to plan the weekends better because we searched through our Day Trips from Houston book this morning, but day trips should start earlier than late morning. In the end we decided a walk in George Bush park was good enough. It is the same park I have cycled to, with Andy, along the Bayou. The temperature has now risen, to my joy, and it was up in the nineties. We walked around the little lake and watched some fish jumping and a stalk at the side trying to catch them. There are no crocs there, but you still would want to jump in, there could be snakes. After our short lakeside walk we went off into the trees, at the start of the path there is a sign saying 'beware of dangerous animals and plants'! You always think walking through the trees would be pleasant, but then the humidity gets you. However, we were out over an hour which is enough, and we walked along the edge of the some wetlands, that was dense with vegetation and could just imagine something jumping out at you! Unfortunately, the path we took was a dead end, with a locked gate, so we had to come back the same way. It would be much quicker exploring on the bike. The path full of the sounds of crickets and cicadas, and gun shots! There is a shooting range that seems to be very busy, as there was no let up.

We treated ourselves to a cold drink before doing the weekly food shop. I had doing the fridge section as it is always freezing! We came away with lots of different chilli peppers to try out for flavour and heat!

As soon as we got home we hit the pool. The temperature outside is great but the pool is just so cold. We both jumped in then flt like we were hyperventilating with the coldness! We tried out the kick board Stuart bought last week and it is good fun. you can push it against the edge of the pool and therefore just kick indefinitely (so you don't have to go around in circles!). We fished out a poor dragon fly that was just about alive. Stu and I tried to get it wings dried out, but even with all that tender love it still died!

Tonight, it is Texan style chilli with tortilla's :)

Indian Theme

Yesterday morning we both went to a Hot Yoga class at the gym. It is like normal yoga except that it is done in approx 100F. The class was about 70 minutes long and at the end I was a sweaty heap. Emily wasn't and says that it because she is already used to the heat from living here for 6 months. It was a really good workout and I think we'll both go again.

After an afternoon of random shopping tasks and waiting for the longest train ever to cross the road, we met Andy, Laura and Danny at the Black Labrador (A British pub) for a couple of beers. There was a small selection of British beers, but I stuck with Stella, since I hadn't had it in a few weeks since leaving the UK. We discussed which Indian Restaurant to try for dinner as they aren't the same as back home. Going with Laura's local knowledge we drove to the London Sizzler. It is based in a strip mall with lots of other Indian businesses, so it was a good sign. There wasn't much of a Texan influence on the menu, except Bombay Nachos and the poppadoms looked a bit like tacos. The food was very good and as close to a British Curry as we will get in the US. I had a Vindaloo, which I base all curry houses on. Though it wasn't anywhere near as hot as a British Vindaloo it was still a great curry.

The end of the evening was spent sitting outside around Danny's pool.

Ginger Man meet up

First of all sorry for not getting this written last night, but it was after one by the time we got home so I would have missed Mum's breakfast anyway!

I met Stuart after work at the gym for our workout session before going to the pub! I normally do my warm up on the same machine as Stu so we can chat but then we go and do our separate thing. I am definitely getting to know the regulars who go at a similar time. Even though you don't actually know names it is all very friendly and you say hello or give sympathetic looks if the person is in obvious pain (normally at the hands of a trainer!)

Anyhow, after all our good, we picked up Andy and headed off the Rice Village to the Ginger Man to meet up with Laura and Danny. I knew Stu was going to like the Ginger Man with its selection of beers. It had warmed up a bit yesterday so it was nice and comfortably warm to sit outside (Stuart may disagree!) Andy and Stuart were having a good tasting session of some of the local beer, Saint Arnold (made in Houston), however, Stuart still says he prefers Shiner, made in Texas in a place called Shiner! Danny was at the pub with another group, and bizarrely enough one of the guys was from Aberdeen University, not that I realised that until they were leaving - but small world!

By 9pm I was starving everyone else was having beer dinner but water just doesn't fill you up the same! We went next door to a Turkish place. I thought it was going to be like the places in Aberdeen which sell nasty greasy Donner kebabs, but oh no! It was run by Turks and they had a bread oven to bake their own pitta. We sat on the terrace and had a double apple 'Hookah' - it was quite fun as it had a flavour just like sweeties. It was the first one I have ever had! The food was really good as well, I had Kofta, lamb mince meatballs, and Stuart had a chicken kebab. And for the price, you just couldn't complain.

Well, we are just getting ready to go 'hot yoga' - I will tell you all about it later!

Some days just ain't that exciting!

Well we both had uneventful days. Stuart did not find anything exciting to do today and I was just at work so I don't know how I am going to fill a blog today!

We have managed to book our flights to Denver at Christmas on air miles, however they have used them all - 100,000 miles!! I think the airlines are being quite restrictive on you using air miles just as Dad found out! We did have to pay $10 - for issuing e-tickets!!! Yes, that is a computer getting paid to do the work - hmmm I hear you say. We have now looked at the luggage costs and yes they are going to get us on that as well!!

We had steak tonight, one of my multi pack that I cut three steaks into 9!, with a Texas meat rub called, Grub Rub :) It was very good with the BBQ'd corn -until you taste it you wouldn't believe how much better corn on the cob can taste when it is not boiled.

Yippee it is Friday tomorrow although we still have to plan our weekends activities. With the weather being so cool (~72F) we are not going to be in the pool!