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By Peter, on July 4th, 2010
What a lot of water!!! Hurricane Alex was very weak by the time it made it in to us here in Monterrey however, there was still plenty of water left to drop. Monterrey city had 619 mm (24.4 in) of rain while not too far away in Estanzuela they managed to survive through 1, 819.5 mm (32.26 in) of rain in just under 48 hours! The river was flowing at over 2,500 m3 per second and taking a lot with it as it went including our favorite Go Kart track which used to be on the dry river bed that hasn’t seen rain in 20 years.
Anyway, what happened to all the water? Just as the sun was starting to dry things out the main water supply for Monterrey was cut. By today most people had used up their tank water and bought the shops dry including the really over priced supa dupa brand waters that most people would never normally buy.
Although strange to see that wasn’t the real shock. That came on the way home. Along our street there is a pretty big hill, well OK it is massive. Anyway there were dozens and dozens of people filling up containers to take home, washing their cars and washing themselves.
Here is just one of the lines at one of the more accessable waterfalls.
This whole family made the trek up from a lower lying neighborhood to wash their hair.
Loads more Hurricane Alex photos here including before and during photos. Tomorrow I’ll go and get some after photos.
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By Peter, on July 1st, 2010
Hi-ho all,
Well apart from the remnants of Hurricane Alex causing havoc in and around Monterrey we are also out of just about anything to make a decent meal from. So as we often do in that situation we chuck anything that has any life left in it into a curry. The coriander seeds were just about to go in when Tatiana noticed a small black bug in the top of the container. On closer inspection there were dozens of them looking for the exit and on closer inspection again there were even more meandering around amongst their incubators!
I Googled them but unfortunately coriander seeds have turned out to be good at warding off many garden bugs so I quickly got sick of filtering through over 18,000 results for black bugs in coriander seeds.
Tatiana questioned if we could just put them out in the sun for a while and let the bugs scatter from the harsh heat but while Alex is with us we are a little short on sun and besides, I still don’t think I’d be all that keen to consume the habitat of quite so many unwelcome little critters. I think I’ll stick to the ground coriander for now and safely dispose of the evacuated seeds and the bugs.
Bon appetit.
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By Peter, on July 1st, 2010
Here are some photos from this morning with Hurricane Alex still 6 hours away.
This used to be a great Go Kart track. The Marquee for the PIT has almost gone.
The speed of the water is amazing. Here it is about 2.5 – 3m deep and still the swell pushes up off the bottom.
PIT marquee almost completely gone now. 
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By Peter, on June 26th, 2010
Pastry
6 oz flour (168 gm)
3oz butter or margarine (not low fat)
pinch salt
cold water
Add salt to flour
Rub butter into flour (rub with finger tips, keep mixture as cool as possible) until it looks a bit like bread crumbs.
Mix in a small amount of cold water, enough to make a stiff paste.
Roll out on a floured board, using a floured roller (milk bottle OK)
Grease the dish with butter wrapper.
Line dish with pastry
Trim edges.
Filling
10 fl oz cooked, mashed pumpkin, cold or warm, not hot
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch cinnamon
3 eggs
5 fl oz milk approx
4 oz sugar
10 fl oz is about 300ml
Put pumpkin in a bowl, mix in spices, eggs, sugar and enough milk to make it like a thick batter. Pour it into the pastry case. Bake at 190C for about 40 minutes. Stick a knife in it - it should come out clean.
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By Peter, on June 26th, 2010
Ingredients
500g of lean minced beef
1 medium onion, peeled
1 medium potato, peeled
2 eggs
1/2-1 cup breadcrumbs or 2-3 slices bread, cut or torn into small pieces (may need more or less)
salt and pepper
Directions
Grate the potato and then the onion in a large bowl.
Add 1 of the eggs and mix with spoon or hands addming the salt and pepper.
Add the mince and the other egg, mix until well blended.
Add the breadcrumbs until the mixture sticks together but is not too dry.
Shape mixture into 4 patties each about 3/4-inch thick.
BBQ or fry the burgers for 10-15 minutes.
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By Peter, on June 26th, 2010
I lifted this one from the web and added and changed a few things.
They say it serves four but really it is so yummy that it usually only serves 2! 
Ingredients
6 slices well buttered Bread (actually it takes about 9 or 10.
50g/2oz Sultanas
4 Eggs
25g/1oz Sugar
600ml. Milk
A little extra Sugar
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 170C, 325F, Gas mark 3. Grease a 7.5cm/3 inch deep ovenproof dish.
2. Remove the crusts from the buttered bread and cut into quarters (triangles or squares). Reserve 4 quarters for the top and arrange the rest in layers in the dish, sprinkling the sultanas between each layer. Top with the reserved quarters.
3. In a saucepan, heat the milk to hot but not boiling. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs and sugar then add the hot milk, stirring well.
4. Slowly strain over the bread and fruit, being careful not to dislodge the top layer of bread. Leave the bread and butter pudding to stand for 10 minutes.
5. Sprinkle the bread and butter pudding with a little sugar and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the top is browned and crispy.
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By Peter, on June 26th, 2010
Serves 3-5 people depending on how good it turns out!
Butter – 3 spoons
Sugar – 3 spoons
OJ – 3 Oz (1/2 a glass)
Vanilla – 1 Tea spoon
Cinamon – 1 Tea Spoon
Combine everything in a frying pan and cook to a marmalade.
Put bananas in until black.
Add Rum 1/4 Glass
Set on fire.
Serve.
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By Peter, on June 22nd, 2010
Very funny situation yesterday evening for dinner. Tatiana almost finished the washing up complaining that she is glad it’s over, what a terrible job, bla, bla, bla… Then. . . BAM! More work!
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By Peter, on June 19th, 2010
What a sweet kid we have. Mum was really moved with this suprize from school.
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By Peter, on June 19th, 2010
We had a great laugh the other day setting up our profiles in the Wii Fit. I was as to be expected “a little over weight” but Elena’s was funny after the balance section. It asked. . . “Do you find yourself tripping over while you walk?” Must be true because she was shocked and said with eyes like dinner plates, “that’s BS!”.
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By Peter, on June 13th, 2010
Just put him up on the table for a minute for a photo op and strait away found something interesting.
Here are some more photos from the day around the house.
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By Peter, on May 21st, 2010
So we had a week to kill after finishing a difficult 7 month project and ended up in Cancun. Being low season there were great deals on boats to hire and hotels were as I like them, comphy and cheap! We couldn’t get the Cat that we wanted which would have let us sail up and down the coast as we pleased but Allen Mason from Cancun Catamarans was good enough to scout us out another great deal with Luxury Motor Yachts Cancun who put us on a 45′ Sea Ray motor yacht with two crew and all you can eat and drink for three days and three nights.
Being a motor yacht and our super deal we couldn’t ask them to sail too far away from the lagoon. As it happens the weather was against us for most of the time with storms and or rain every afternoon into the evening. As you can see from the photos it was still a very cool time which I recommend to anyone. We also made it out to Isla Mujeres where Dylan had a quick dip in the ocean with a shark.
Of course what first trip to Cancun doesn’t have the obligitory day trip to Chichen Itza. Allen also set this one up for us a little cheaper than the fast talking Mexican guy with a heavy American accent in the lobby of our hotel. Unfortunately our hotel was last on the pick up list so I was squashed in the back seat of the otherwise comphy bus between two huge guys for the full 2.5 hour journey. The way back wasn’t much better!
All in all a great week without busin’ the budget. Well ok, we did go a bit over the original plan but a good time was had by all.
As usual, more photos here.
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By Peter, on January 31st, 2010
Just getting ready for our tour of the NASA
 Preom - Preom. . . . Mission control to James Speight.
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By Peter, on January 31st, 2010
OK, everyone ready for the xmas photo?
Ahh um, there is a kid missing!
Still Richard is busy posing for the photo and didn’t notice!
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By Peter, on December 5th, 2009
Ok, so it sounds pretty easy. Just go to your nearest pharmacy, take a face front and eyes open picture against a white background and resize them for the passport. I think we went wrong with timing the photo shoot during is morning nap time!
Here are a few photos taken from my camera after the girl couldn’t take enough photos fast enough on the pharmacy’s point and shoot. I put the camera on sports and took around 70 photos to get this selection.
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