Technical problems

Sunday, 30 July 2023

I seem to have just fried my Macbook charger with a UK adaptor, so it is unlikely I will be able to update my blog for the rest of the tip. I will, however, try to post more frequent photos on Instagram @veronica.thorne.

It has been raining pretty much non-stop since we arrived in Scotland, as promised by the three young Scottish girls I met on the Tour de Mont Blanc. Nonetheless, it has been great spending time with Floyd and Eva; and somewhat interesting spending time with their insane 1-year-old Patterdale Terrier, Renzo.

We're leaving the Scottish borders tomorrow at the crack of dawn (literally) after our AirBnb in Elgin (booked months ago), then our replacement accommodation, cancelled in quick succession two days ago. By some miracle we managed to get a cabin in a caravan park close to the Scottish 6-Days orienteering event centre. Unfortunately it wasn't available until the first night of the carnival, which means an early start and a long drive before our first race. 

Our accommodation looks nice, and for a mere 50 quid a night, we can use the wood-fired hot tub.

I like baths, but not that much. My question is - who would pay the equivalent of $100 AUD for a hot tub? Especially one they basically have to heat themselves.

Maybe I should offer to explain the concept of demand curves to them, for a 'consultancy fee' of 300 pounds.   

Tour de Mont Blanc, Part deux

Saturday, 29 July 2023

The real highlight of the trip for me was crossing over from France to Italy. It was a long, steep hike up to the border, but fortunately the weather was a bit cooler so it didn't feel as tough as some of the other climbs. I hiked with Anna and Pedro, and when we got there it was so cold that I had to take out my warm jacket, gloves and beanie for the first time on the hike. (And because I am me, I also had to change out of my sweat-soaked top into a dry one to avoid freezing). 

I don't know why Italy makes me so happy. Perhaps it was that I knew we were getting a rest day the next day; or perhaps it was the coffee went from small and crap to large and delicious. Or perhaps because it looks like this:

Well parts of it anyway. Actually the refuge where this was taken was my least favourite, possibly due to the 'token only' showers which were cold anyway; or possibly due to slightly grumpy staff (most of whom seemed to be French, not Italian, which could explain it). The one thing I did like about the refuge - which was called Rifugio Bonatti - was all the memorabilia about pioneering Italian alpinist Walter Bonatti. Here he is looking very dashing and woolly:

If you want to read more about this handsome lad, the text recommended by Denis is 'Walter Bonatti - Mon Frere de Couer' by Reinhold Messner. 

Our rest day was in a town called Courmayeur, which was just about as perfect as a town can be. It was like a smaller, less crowded version of Chamonix, with more pizza, gelato and coffee. What's not to like? 

Brooke and I arrived pretty late into town, after our bonus non-sanctioned hike. For most of the trip, we were staying in refuge dorms, but in the big towns (Chamomix and Courmayeur), we had to share rooms with a randomly-assigned roommate (if you were travelling solo at any rate, as I was). Unfortunately, I scored the one certified nutter in the group, a lady in her early 60s from Florida (originally from the Dominican Republic).

Let's call her V. On the first day I met her - in Chamonix - I asked her whether she was staying on any longer in France after the trip. 'Why would I?' she asked, in her strong Domincan accent. 'It would be boring.'

That was one of the more normal conversations I had with her. When I arrived at the hotel in Courmayeur at the end of Day 3, completely fatigued and covered in dust and sweat, I asked her whether she would like to add anything to my laundry bag (the hotel did laundry for a fee). 'Why would I?' she asked. 'I don't stink.' Then she proceeded to scoff and lecture me as to why anyone would possibly need to do laundry in the middle of a hike. 

'Go fuck yourself, you psycho witch,' I said to her. OK I didn't say that, I just said 'suit yourself' or words to that effect. But I may as well have verbally abused her, as her hostility towards me - and most of the rest of the group - grew with every passing day. In the end, she took a taxi from Switzerland back to Chamonix on the last day; refused to come out with the rest of the group for dinner and left the room at the crack of dawn without saying goodbye. Later on that final day in Chamonix, I discovered that she had left her boots and pack neatly stacked by the door, a final 'fuck you' to the hike she declared 'too steep and too long' after the first day. 

One wonders what she was expecting. 

Fortunately, the rest of the group were great. Here they are after a particularly tough climb up from Courmayeur, during which I sweated approximately half my bodyweight:

The other lowlight of the trip was being stung by a wasp - one on the eyelid and once on the leg - with waiting for the others at an an idyllic little river in Switzerland. Well, idyllic apart from the wasps. The super annoying thing was that we'd actually been there for quite a while before I got stung. Although I never saw the wasp, I knew exactly what it was, having been ruthlessly attacked in the same way while orienteering in France. When it stung my eye, I immediately grabbed my sock (which I'd been putting on), plunged it in the river and put it on my eye. Unfortunately, Bryan-the-Canadian thought I was falling in, grabbed hold of my arm and was stung on the neck for his troubles. Then the wasp stung me again on the leg for luck. 

Wasps are evil. Also, I am allergic to them, so I immediately had to fish around in my backpack - with one functioning eye - to get an antihistamine. Nonetheless, within two days, I looked like this:

Fuck you, wasp. But thank you, Bryan, for taking one for the team:

Fortunately, we were very close to our first Swiss accommodation, a pension in a gorgeous little village where we could drown our sorrows in beer and chocolate.  

Not-quite-pint

Friday, 14 July 2023

Well I didn't quite make it for a run. For one, all the recommended trail runs in the region involved a massive amount of climb, and/or catching a cable car to the top of a mountain then running down (thereby trashing your knees). 

Secondly, being the slacker that I am, I hadn't actually tested out the pack I am intending to take on the hike (well, at least not loaded up with gear). I also realised that I had removed the detachable top/extra pouch last time I used it...and had left said extra pouch in Tasmania. Oops. 

Turns out I left a lot of things behind: hiking socks, sunscreen, electrolyte powder (OK that was deliberate, as I didn't want to be travelling with bags of white powder. But quite frankly, given the amount of customs scrutiny I was subjected too (almost none), I think I would have gotten away with it. 

Luckily, as I believe I have mentioned, Chamonix is an outdoor gear Mecca, and next time I come here, I will be coming with an empty bag. No, bugger that, I will buy the bag too. Seriously, this place is insanely outdoorsy. When I went to buy socks, the first outdoor store I went to had such a bewildering array of socks (divided into various categories, some of which I'd never heard of), I left in a state of anxiety and had to go and buy and ice cream.  

I ended up buying two pairs of socks from a shop called Decathlon, which my regular reader(s) might recognise from trips to Scandinavia. They looked great - and in fact would be great for orienteering - but the turned out to be too thin and started to give me blisters about 3/4 of the way through my EPIC HIKE.

OK it wasn't that epic. It was just more epic than I intended, and I got some kind of sting/scratch from an evil French plant that made my hand look like a rubber glove full of water. 

Fortunately, I didn't forget to pack antihistamines. And because I was testing out my full pack, they were in my first aid kit*. 

Anyone who wants to check out the hike can do so on Strava. I really enjoyed the 'up' bit, although I felt a little weary on the final pinch. Turns out there was a good reason for that - I had racked up over 800m of climb in 7km. I really noticed the altitude too - at least my lungs did. Fortunately my legs felt fine, despite the lack of snacks, save for the last bit of stinky cheese** and a couple of crackers. 

The view from the top.  

Halfway down, where I realised I was getting a blister, I also had the secondary realisation that I had both spare socks and some ankle tape. It wasn't until I'd successfully dealt with my feet that I realised my hand looked liked a gumby hand. Hence the antihistamine. 

Anyway, I made it. Now I am sitting in the bar of the very nice hotel in which I am staying, drinking a beer. The barman asked me whether I wanted a pint, which seemed a bit much even for me, until he admitted that it was actually only 500ml. Which - he informed me - is only 68ml less than an Imperial pint. And here was me thinking it was 600ml. 

'Enjoy your not-quite-pint' he said to me as he handed it over.  

Which I am very much doing.  

*basically a bunch of drugs and some bandaids. 

**I had forgotten that European hotel rooms don't typically have bar fridges. So I had to store the leftover stinky cheese from my dinner in the bathroom...until it stunk out the bathroom. Henceforth I stored it on the balcony in a Keep Cup, which for some reason I brought with me, even though I forgot a decent drink bottle.  

Freycinet-in-a-day

Thursday, 30 July 2020

Well, not much has happened since I last wrote in my blog. 

Actually that's a complete lie...I got a kitten. But more on him later. 

I guess there was the slight issue of being bullied by social media and quasi-legally required to #staythefuckathome, just when I was primed to do some more bush walking in the South West. But that's a global pandemic for you.

Back in March, we were planning to hold an orienteering event at Coles Bay. Cathy and I had even been there on a planning visit, where we went for a fantastic 20km jog-a-hike and taped all the control sites of the aforementioned event. Unfortunately, this event coincided with pretty much every COVID-related restriction raining down upon us like a tonne of bricks, and it got cancelled. As did the Australian Championships carnival we were due to run in late September. Sigh.

Way back in March, I'd just come back from Melbourne where I competed in the Melbourne Sprint Weekend, which - as it has turned out - was last national-level competition for the year. So we were very lucky to have had that experience at least.

Anyway, cut to last weekend where the previously-cancelled Coles Bay event was finally able to take place. This included a fun night-o score event organised by Cathy, and a bush event on complex granite, organised by me and another orienteering friend, Bernard. And it was a huge success, in large part assisted by the amazing weather we had over three days.

Yes, three days. Because Cathy and I had snuck up to the coast on Thursday night, so that we could get an early start on our Freycinet-in-a-day plans.

I've walked the Freycinet peninsula circuit a couple of times as a multi-day walk - once with my brother Tom and another friend back in 1992, involving memorable banana muffins and Nutella - and more recently in 2017 with Cathy and her family and Jo and Anabelle. But I've never run it. Both Tom, my dad and Cathy's husband Jon have run it, in times of between 2h45 and just over 3 hours. Pretty fast!

Cathy and I were aiming for a more leisurely pace - more like 7 hours - but we ended up doing it in slightly less, including an 8km side trip to Bryans Beach.

Although we were both limited by my lingering calf injury, we managed to run about 10% of the way and didn't feel too bad at the end. Not that I wanted to turn around and walk another 25km...but more on that later too!

We decided to tackle the walk in a clockwise direction, in keeping with the way it's run in the 29km race. After traversing an empty Wineglass Bay beach - how often does that happen? - we made it to the first compulsory look out spot in about an hour.

Then it was onward and upwards to Mt Graham, with the best views of Wineglass Bay, the Hazards and the rest of the peninsula:

Although it was a sunny day, we still encountered plenty of iced-over puddles - and mud - as we traversed the plateau. Then it was the slightly hairy descent off Mt Graham. I'd only every done this in the opposite direction with a heavy pack - which isn't much fun - but trying to move more quickly in the opposite direction wasn't much more enjoyable. We both agreed if we ever did it in a race we'd want to wear more grippy shoes.

Once we were off the steeper slopes, I thought I could risk a jog, as this section is lovely-but-boring if you're only walking. So we slow jog-hiked the rest of the way to the southern end of Cook's Beach, where we ate our lunch and refilled our water containers.

When Cathy initially suggested the side trip to Bryan's Beach on email (which she claimed was 4.6km), I'd initially poo-poohed it on the basis that it was too far to go on a dodgy calf. But it was such an amazing day and we were both feeling pretty good at this point, so fueled by our Vegemite and cheese sandwiches, we pressed on to yet another deserted beach:

In the end, the extra distance was almost double the alleged 4.6km (including the length of Cook's Beach and back), but as Cathy pointed out, once we were back on the loop track, we only had 12km to go and 'anyone can walk that far'.

Besides, the rest of the track is pretty flat, particularly Hazards Beach. Here's Cathy enjoying having it all to herself:

Oh wait I think that's Cook's Beach. Also deserted.

From the end of Hazards Beach it was a lazy 6.5km back to the Wineglass Bay car park, along my favourite stretch of track. On the way we passed an amazingly green bay which was too perfect to ignore.

In retrospect, we probably should have gone for a swim! But we settled for a selfie before jog-hiking the rest of the way back. As long as they didn't have to run up hill, my legs were pretty obliging.

In the end, we took between 6 and 7 hours 'moving time' for just over 38km (depending on whose Garmin you believe).

Speaking of Garmin, we returned to civilization to discover that their server was down so we couldn't upload our 'longest activity ever' onto Strava right away.

Eventually we managed a work-around, which is lucky because as everyone know: If it didn't happen on Strava, it didn't happen.

As always, for better photos visit Cathy's blog.

A word about wind

Sunday, 23 February 2020

As I mentioned, it was pretty windy when we woke up on Sunday morning, and the wind continued intermittently all the way to Oberon.

Turns out this wasn't the only kind of extreme wind we experienced that day, if you get my drift. Yes, our vegan diet again reared its ugly head, or rather, breath, all the way to Oberon and back. It got so bad that dad advised me not to walk behind him. Only problem with that plan was, my 'wind' was just as bad. Luckily I was able to walk a bit ahead and spare dad the undigested remains of the previous night's curry. And the previous day's Tom and Luke snack balls. And the morning's almond milk museli...

Unfortunately, the gale warning continued into the night. It was so bad that we had to leave the main tent door open, with just the mesh protecting us from the elements, even though it was quite cold. But even that wasn't enough - when one of us got up to go to the loo, which fortunately happened a couple of times, the windy conditions outside cleared the air, at least temporarily.

It was bad. As for our sleeping bags...let's hope they eventually recover. As Tom says, "They don't call them fart sacks for nothing."

Of course, this is a common problem for vegans. One I went vegan for a month and this was what happened commentator noted: "It's lucky I have my own gym. Because if I was working out at a public gym, I would have been kicked out". Or perhaps asked to relocate to the vegan section...

Speaking of 'I went vegan for a month' YouTube videos...there are tonnes of them. And while the commentators don't remain vegan after a month (and frequently mention their 'intestinal distress'), you'd be hard pressed to find a single negative comment in the comments. This has led me to conclude that an international band of vegans trawls YouTube, in an organised effort, in order to find these videos and gush about how they've been vegan for seven years and never felt better etc. etc.

As far as hiking is concerned...I know I have been subtle in my criticism but just in case you missed it, veganism and bushwalking just don't mix. This is partly because of the no-treat problem, but mainly because vegan food isn't particularly energy dense (OK I guess you could subsist on olive oil, sugar and jars of peanut butter...but that's hardly practical.) And despite what the Game Changers says, you'd need a shitload of lettuce to even come close to meeting your energy - let alone nutritional - needs. In fact you've have to hire a team of porters to carry them all for you.

Which is the problem in a nutshell - when you're bushwalking, you carry all your food on your back. And that food should be energy and nutrient dense, tasty, and as light as possible.

And ideally, not turn your tent into a Hazmat site. 

As dad said: "Whoever said 'Every man likes the smell of his own farts' obviously wasn't a vegan".

Lake Oberon, revisited - Day 1

Thursday, 20 February 2020

Sixteen years ago, dad and I did a famously difficult bushwalk in Tasmania, the Western Arthurs traverse. If I'd know how difficult it was (or more specifically, nerve-wracking) I probably wouldn't have done it. At the end of it, Dad and I both agreed that it was one of those 'Glad I've done it, never doing it again' experiences).

I don't remember much about the walk before Lake Oberon, other than that it 'wasn't too hard', apart from the descent into Lake Oberon itself, which was steep and slow. Beyond Lake Oberon, I remember a lot of pack-hauling and seemingly impossible routes. (My other distinct memory of the walk is that when we emerged from the wilderness, I had a text message from Cathy telling me that she had just given birth to the lovely Zali...who is now 16, still lovely, and a lot taller than both of us!)

Given my selective amnesia about Oberon, I'd always wanted to go back in there, just to hang out, enjoy the scenery and take photographs. So when the opportunity arose recently to tag along with Dad and a friend of his, I jumped at it.

The one slight hitch to this plan was that Dad and I were temporary vegans. No matter, I thought, by default you are pretty much vegetarian when you bushwalk. I'll just switch out the powdered milk for almond milk, the jelly snakes for vegan snack balls, and Bob will be my Aunty*.

BIG FUCKING MISTAKE.

But more on that later. We headed off at around 6am, in order to get an early start on what we knew would be a fairly tough day. At around 9.15 we met Dad's friend Clive, Clive's son Evan and his friend Liam at the Scott's Peak Dam car park. After a brief run-in with the ranger involving a poorly sign-posted toilet and an over-zealous tourist (who dobbed us into the ranger for not using the loo we couldn't find), we were on our way at about 9.45 am.

When dad and I did the Western Arthur's traverse, we spend the first night camped at Junction Creek, an easy 9km walk from Scott's Peak. That left us reasonably fresh when we tackled the infamous Moraine A, a further 3km up the road. I didn't think much about this, as at the time (in 2004), Moraine A hadn't seemed that difficult. Perhaps because I was a lot younger, a lot fitter and a non-vegan...and dad was carrying all the heavy stuff! 

While it's far from the hardest thing I've ever done, it was pretty grueling. I'm not sure exactly how long it took, but it was 2.5km of relentless climb. About a third of the way up, I was avoiding as many step-ups as possible on the eroded main track by taking side-paths wherever possible. About two thirds of the way up, I stopped to wait the rest of the rest of the party, checking my mobile phone for reception while I was there. (This turned out to be a bad move, as I then put it in the top of my back, which tumbled from a rock, smashing my phone screen to smithereens).

When Dad, Clive and the boys arrived, I took a look at Dad's map and confidently assured them that, although the rest of the climb was significantly steeper, the top wasn't very far away.

This turned out to be a complete lie. We still had a long way to go, compounded by the fact that we couldn't see where we were headed due to thick fog. I kept hoping that the ghostly peaks I could see in the far distance were in fact clouds. But they weren't...they were ghostly peaks.

Eventually I made it to the top, where I force fed myself half a vegan roll. It was gross, but I knew from experience that I can hit the wall suddenly if I'm not careful. Thus far I'd only had two vegan snack balls and a lot of water since about 8am. And it was now after 3.30pm.

After waiting for a while, I finally heard some voices so headed back down the Moraine a few metres to see where they were coming from. There I found Dad, Evan and Liam huddled under an overhang to avoid the drizzle. 'You realize you're about 30 metres from the top?' I said.

Turns out they had no idea. 'Is it flat?' asked Evan.

'Completely,' I said. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Once everyone had moved up to the saddle, I gave Dad the other half of my vegan roll and ordered him to eat. He took one bite and said 'I can't eat this'. It was so dry and he was so tired that he couldn't even face a couple of mouthfuls. So I gave him a handful of nuts with a few cranberries thrown in and we set off again. I was getting pretty cold by this stage, so may have been a bit too eager to move on!

The track from the saddle was a fairly gentle gradient, so we set off at a good pace towards Lake Cygnus, our destination for the night. Because it was really foggy, I didn't want anyone walking by themselves so I turned around to see where dad had got to. What I saw was a bit alarming - he had already dropped back 100m, and was having trouble stepping up even shoe-box height steps. 

So I dumped my pack and went back to help him, force feeding him as many vegan snack balls as I could get my hands on. It was getting pretty cold at this point so we stopped again not far down the road so Dad could get his gloves on and I could transfer a bit of his gear to my pack. Fortunately the 2.7km from the saddle to Lake Cygnus isn't that hard, and we eventually made it to our campsite at about 5.30pm. I quickly got the Jetboil going and made us a cup of tea. Unfortunately I had forgotten sugar - in fact had nothing sweet of any kind - so the boys donated me some sweetened condensed milk, which they assured me was vegan**. All I had to offer dad in the way of food before dinner was some Ryvitas and peanut butter, which were at least salty. But not salty enough - within quarter of an hour he was in agony with thigh cramps. Fortunately - again - the boys came to the rescue when Liam produced some Gastrolyte. And by dinner time - vegan Marakesh curry, admittedly delicious - dad was feeling better.

While I can't blame Dad's woes entirely on a vegan diet - he's always been bad at eating early and consistently on hikes - the entire lack of easily digested, high-energy snacks such as jelly snakes and chocolate didn't help. Nor did the totally inedible falafel roll (to make matters worse, I had to carry out the remaining roll and a half, as I couldn't chuck them in the bin!)

We also had nothing delicious to look forward to - no chocolate or hot chocolate, no custard desserts, no cup-a-soups, no honey for our tea, no lollies. I'd simply forgotten how important these things are to your enjoyment of multi-day hikes. More than almost any other time in your life, you have absolutely earned them. And they taste beyond amazing, surround by the clearest air imaginable, stunning mountains and a deep brown lake.

Talk about rookie-vegan error.

*I really did have an Aunty Bob. When she died, she left my mum a small inheritance, with which she bought the Aunty Bob Memorial Coffee Maker.

**Yes, I know it's not vegan. But by this stage I had rescinded my veganism on the basis that it's stupid. This exchange also prompted a discussion about the Game Changers, which Liam amusingly described 'an infomercial'.

Day 10

Monday, 10 February 2020

Today is the 10th day of my temporary veganism. 

Actually I probably should stop saying 'vegan'. The more I read about veganism, the more I realise that it is much more of a dogma than a diet. I guess I always suspected that - after all, there seems to be to be no reason why, for example, vegans can't eat genuine free range eggs, or honey (more on that in a future post).

So I guess I will stick to the slightly misleading term 'plant-based diet'.

So. The biggest problems for me on my plant-based diet continues to be constipation. And the Vinternet continues to insist that this is because my gut is adapting to the 'healthier' diet, but I am fairly certain it's because I am eating highly processed plant proteins. The only reference to this phenomenon I could find was on the website of a company that sold plant-based protein supplements. Their solution was, naturally, to buy their products, not the inferior products of their competitors, which often contain milk-based proteins - the real source of the problem.

Except I haven't been eating milk-based proteins...

(Another vegan website suggested I should eat more 'good' fats in order to 'lubricate' my poo. Which is interesting because I always thought fat was morally neutral. And excess fat in the faeces is actually a medical condition...)

Still on the subject of plant protein, I had a veggie burger last night which tasted pretty much exactly like a beef burger, except nicer:

Full disclosure: my burger didn't look as good as the one on the packet, but it was still pretty nice. And it didn't have that slightly greasy aftertaste that beef burgers often do. The only slight quibble I have with this burger is that one of the ingredients is listed as 'vegan egg replacement', without further elucidation. Given how nice the burger tasted, it's probably code for 'egg'.

Less successful was the 'dairy free pizza topper' I bought (at great expense) from my local IGA:

I first tried it out on my roast potato, along with various toppings. While this has been my favourite vegan meal so far (possibly due to the large amounts of garlic fake-butter I added to it), the vegan cheese added very little (if anything) to the taste. The only way I could get it to melt was to microwave my whole meal, and even then it was a bit clumpy.

I guess that should have tipped me off that my plant-based pizza I made on Friday night wasn't going to be a total winner. As I generally prefer vegetarian pizza, the only difference to my usual pizza topping was - of course - the cheese.

It went crunchy (so much for its 'superior melting results'!) As you can see from the photo, it looks like I have sprinkled the pizza with shredded coconut. Which I may as well have done, given that the main ingredient was - as with so many vegan products - coconut oil (presumably a 'good' fat, even though it is mainly saturated).

Despite the crunchiness, the pizza was still edible. So I ate it. Well half of it anyway. In future I think I will avoid fake cheese, as it will only disappoint.

At the other end of spectrum was this delicious vegan chocolate tart that Dani had left over from her yoga retreat* on the weekend:

Again, it was heavily coconut dependent, but it was sensational. It didn't even need the dollop of cream Dani claimed would really set it off.

To summarize, I have written a little poem about my experiences thus far:

Being a vegan

Is dull but easy

Except for the cheese

Which isn't cheesy.

*Dani's yoga retreats are a gold mine of fad dietary requirements. On any given retreat, she has to cater for everything from low sugar, low carb to non-dairy low fructose to gluten free vegans (I believe that tart was also gluten free!) And she does an amazing job. So amazing in fact that we are often left with a fridge full of faddish treats for a week or so afterwards.

Kenny

Monday, 3 February 2020

One of the (many) problems with being vegan is that most bread isn't. At least according to my 'research', which admittedly was limited to reading the list of ingredients on supermarket bread (most contain some kind of milk product). 

No matter - I figured that for vegan month, I would make my own bread. I grew up on homemade bread - my mum used to bake our own bread for many years (roughly coinciding with the years my father went through his food Nazi/Pritikin phase). Bread making techniques must have improved since then, or maybe commercially available yeast is of a better quality, because the thing I remember about my childhood sandwiches is that they were very hard to chew*. In fact my sister and I referred to it as 'brick bread'. This didn't bother my friend Louise, who lived up the road on a diet of white bread and belgium sandwiches (with tomato sauce, naturally). She also got to eat Sao biscuits with margarine and Vegemite after school, which explains why I was such a frequent after-school visitor. I was SO jealous of her sandwiches - but in a wonderful piece of serendipity, she was jealous of MY sandwiches. So we often swapped (sorry Mum).

Luckily this early experience of home baked bread didn't put me off for life, and I have frequently made my own ever since. In fact I used to make it all the time when I first moved into this house, because Dani had a bread maker (and I am lazy). Unfortunately, the bread maker bounced itself off the bench one day and broke; however I am quite capable of making bread without it.

In another happy coincidence, my friend Rob - who was recently visiting from Japan - is adept at making sourdough bread. Inspired by his delicious loaves, Cathy also took it upon herself to start baking her own sourdough - and because she is a consummate semi-professional, she ordered a bunch of sourdough making accessories online. It also turns out my brother Tom is making his own sourdough, so in keeping with the faddish theme of the month, I figured I should start too.

For those unfamiliar with how to make sourdough, check out Cathy's blog for an entertaining description of her efforts.

For some reason I decided that I would make a rye sourdough starter - partly because I had some rye flour in the cupboard I wanted to use up. It smelled a little funky, but I figured that would only help the process, as the sourdough needs to ferment on naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria (I think).

Turns out I was wrong. The starter - whom I named Ken - stank so badly that I had to put him outside during the day, as I could smell him from one end of the house to the other.

'Surely it's not supposed to smell that bad', said Dani, who claimed that Ken smelled like off Christmas ham.

I consulted Google, and sure enough, Ken was not just dead - he was decomposing. I blame the flour, which according to my mum had probably gone 'rancid' (i.e. off).

So I started again, this time with a nice clean glass jar and some new organic rye flout. I renamed my starter Kenny, at Rob's suggestion (so that no matter how many times I killed him, he would always come back to life).

After almost a week, Kenny smells quite pleasant, but he isn't really bubbling the way he is supposed to. In fact he was bubbling more on day 2 than he is now. We have had a couple of really hot days in the interim, so maybe I inadvertently killed Kenny. Again.

At any rate, I will give him another couple of days before I turf him out then bring him back to life. And in the meantime, I will resort to good old fashioned yeast.

*My mum makes delicious bread these days, so I don't think it was her technique. Or perhaps she was just making some Pritikin oil-and-yeast free bread at the time!