Slog On or Scramble Up?
Amundsen’s route to the Pole crosses the Ross Ice Shelf and then ascends the short, but punishingly steep and dangerous Axel Heiberg glacier. Scott’s route crosses the same shelf but then takes the longer, shallower Beardmore glacier. For both teams, glacier crossings punctuated by hidden crevasses up to a mile deep, will be perilous in the extreme.
Each team will be completely unsupported, and will carry their food and fuel across the ice for seventy days.
The modern race is likely to be very closely-run. If all goes well, both teams will complete their journey in two months - arriving at the South Pole by January 2012.
The race is on!
Expedition facts
“The Dorset Flapjack Company is very proud to be associated with The Scott-Amundsen Race and the Royal British Legion. We are a family owned business and are all members of the Royal British Legion. We have nearly one hundred and twenty years’ worth of membership of the Royal British Legion and are very proud to be able to add to that support. The Royal British Legion has been a major contributor to community life in our village and is a very deserving organisation. Our bakery is based between the Bovington and Lulworth Army camps and our shop is a regular port of call for many soldiers based here, we are pleased to be able to return the support. We are delighted that Henry and his team will be using our flapjacks to provide the energy needed to combine with their courage and determination to get to the South Pole. We like to support people doing amazing things for good reasons and can think of none better than the Scott-Amundsen Race. This will be inspirational for us and we look forward to following their progress as the expedition goes forward.”
(Source: dorsetflapjacks.com)
On a glorious Saturday morning earlier this month, we travelled from one end of Dorset to the other to sample the delights of the Dorset Seafood Festival in Weymouth. What a sight to behold it was too with attractive stalls lined up on either side of the harbour in the sunshine and wonderful, fishy aromas permeating the air.
I can’t do justice to the whole array of exhibitors and workshops on offer here so I will concentrate on a few that caught my eye. Visit www.dorsetseafood.co.uk to find out more. The event was sponsored by Pommery champagne and we propped ourselves up at one of their stands with a glass of their ‘light, fresh, vivacious, creamy and elegant’ non-vintage fizz and a plate of luscious oysters while we perused the programme. We were ideally situated for a Pommery tasting workshop that was about to start, presented by Sarah Hix from Pommery and wine expert and TV presenter, Joe Wadsack. When I asked what dishes they liked to pair with Pommery champagne, I thought I might collapse from hunger, and although I had already eyed up squid stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach and pinenuts on Perry’s stall, there was more exploring to do before it was time for lunch.
The menu at Perry’s stand
I shall name just a few of the stalls we enjoyed but there were many more on offer: we tried chilled, refreshing gazpacho from the Blue Fish Café and Restaurant on Portland; we bought elephant garlic from the Isle of Wight based Garlic Farm; we nosed around the delights on offer on Loch Fyne’s stall (smoked fish and pâtés) and my 7-year-old son even joined the RSPB who were running a stall. Dorset Oysters had on offer some fascinating information about the flavour of oysters including some sample tasting notes outlining the differing balance of flavours to be found depending on where the oysters come from in the UK. These tasting notes gave points for flavour, saltiness, sweetness and umami and described nuances such as nuttiness, cut grass, white sugar, avocado and cucumber!
Returning to the food stall set up by local restaurant, Perry’s, for my stuffed squid lunch, I was disappointed to find that I’d been beaten to it by many others who’d also thought this to be the ideal choice for lunch. Sold out! So we opted for seafood paella from Basilica, The Mediterranean Grill, and this was superb especially as we devoured it on the harbourside amongst the hubbub of the festival which, by now, was in full flow.
Paella for lunch
Having the children with us, and it being such a gorgeous day, we were then obliged to spend a post-lunch interlude on Weymouth Beach, but we returned to the harbour before heading home and stocked up on local scallops oysters for supper.
All in all, this was a great day out helped, quite clearly, by the weather but, nonetheless, I can heartily recommend the festival to anyone but particularly for fish lovers who will be in their element and at a loss to choose between cooking demonstrations by top chefs (Mark Hix, Giles Thompson and 2009 MasterChef winner Mat Follas this year), filleting demonstrations, champagne and wine matching sessions, fresh fish auctions, and book signings by famous chef authors. In such a stunning setting, with over 50 stalls selling seafood, a range of associated products and much more besides, there is a definite return visit marked in my diary for 2011.
James and william are off and for the next 10 days are cycling from lands end to john o groats. Raising money. Please take a look at their pages and give some money if you think its a worthwhile cause. We believe it is.
“Very clever logo design….
I never noticed the “1” between the F and the 1 before.”
—
Many Thanks go out to Jane and Simon Colston from Updown cottage on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury for this delightful micro blog. Please Enjoy reading it and then visit them at http://www.updowncottage.co.uk/
Dorset……….out of this world? You only have to say the word ‘Dorset’ for my mind to instantly fill with pictures and my heart to feel the pull……but how to put all that down on paper? We only ‘found’ Dorset four years ago when a picture appeared in The Sunday Times, of a cottage for sale on Gold Hill. We visited two days later, fell in love and with some extraordinarily creative accountancy, begged and borrowed our way to running it as a holiday cottage. In Shaftesbury that day, people stopped to chat, the air was clear and the views over Blackmore Vale stretched for miles. Over the next 6 months of renovation we visited most weekends and resented anything that kept us away. Each stay felt like a holiday as we explored the lanes and discovered more and more hidden places that gave every impression of being ‘our’ secrets…..astonishingly beautiful views, villages, cottages, shops, people and possibly above all else, the food! A revelation! There can be nowhere else on earth where the local produce is presented with such passion and with so much style and pride as in Dorset. It is perfectly possible to breakfast, coffee, lunch, tea and dine in a different superb spot every day of the week. It’s tempting to hope that Dorset remains hidden but equally wonderful to see all such businesses thrive.
We our proud of the fact that Dorset Flapjacks, unlike some other products are actually produced where the name suggests. Deep in the heart of Dorset, just outside Lulworth.
What we would like is for some keen bloggers out there to write a short piece about Dorset. approx 250 words, and it can be about anything. The beaches, attractions, history, villages, people, anything that is Dorset related. Even flapjacks.For some inspiration please visit our website www.dorsetflapjacks.com
Write you blog and send it to jonathan.williams.dfc@googlemail.com and after a little proof read we will submit it on our tumblr site and on our, soon to arrive Dorset Flapjack ‘Dorset Blog’ page on our main site. We will also give you a taster box of our flapjacks for those that are just so brilliant we have to reward them.
We look forward to reading your blogs and strories.
The Dorset Flapjack Team
A delicious Vanilla Fudge Flapajck