... today you are really spoiling me! Came home to find all of this on my doormat plus a new kombucha scoby too, to replace my old one which died.
And the event shirt for the Exeter Half, which is curiously oversized, unless I have shrunk more dramatically than I realised. Not going to try it on until post race though, so as not to jinx it.
And it's Friday... hurrah! Time for a celebratory run then settle down to an evening of reading while the kids watch the new Studio Ghibli.
Oh dear, Mr R - I am starting to worry that you need to get out more! And I had to google two references in that post. Enjoy your strange pleasures! 
Ha ha, glad it weren't just me! No idea what those two things are. I don't get out much either.
I had a parcel today, from SportsD! Ooh how exciting. My new exercise pants!
Go me!
I hope your run went well Rig! Enjoy your reads.
I also need to get out more - the most exciting thing I've done this week (other than graduating, natch) was bake a Victoria sponge. Dullsville!
Kombucha Scoby were big in the Eighties I believe ... of course I only liked their early stuff and went off them when they sold themselves out and became popular 
Me too Still not too sure but the books look very interesting!
What a great load of stuff. Hope you enjoyd your evening with the kids
Hi Rignold. Lovely lot of goodies you have there. I'm not at the stage of calling myself a runner yet so am in awe of the books you have! 
However! My interest was piqued at the mention of the kombucha scoby... have you used it for long and how do you find it? I'm asking because my brother got some for my mum when she had cancer back in the 90's (I'm not sure whether or not she tried it in the end). But, aside from the fact that it sounds like it could do wonders for my creaky bones, I was more interested in the fact that it might be another alternative 'add on' for my dear husband. BUT everything I read about it says you put sugar and tea with it. The tea is fine but we're on a diet of restricted/no sugar and thought you might know whether you can put unrefined honey with it instead?
Sorry for the bombardment and hope you and your kids had a lovely evening
hilbean - yes you do need to use sugar to feed the scoby. And it does really need to be refined white sugar, which is otherwise a complete no-no in my household. I have heard of people using honey, but the live bacteria in raw honey can adversely affect the yeast in the scoby and it is not recommended. Even raw molasses sugars don't work as well as the scoby struggles to digest them.
That's the bad news. The good news is that during the fermentation process, the scoby breaks down the sugar into minerals, vitamins, carbon dioxide, enzymes and other good stuff, and does it extremely efficiently. I have measured the residual sugar content in batches of kombucha after fermentation by specific gravity using my homebrew kit, and it was equivalent to about 1 gram per glass. Which compares favourably to, say, apple juice at 30g/glass. Of course this does depend on the degree to which you ferment it out - I generally make a slighter sweeter version for the children and a fully fermented one for my wife and I.
There are some fermented food evangelists out there who claim kombucha can cure diabetes, which I find rather far fetched, as with all similar 'miracle cure' claims. However, used in moderation I am pretty sure it has health benefits - It is certainly very good for people with IBS and other digestive problems, and can lower cholesterol. and control blood sugar levels.
I am a bit of a fermented foods enthusiast in general though. We have any number of krauts, pickles, fermented grains and beans bubbling away at any given time, and have a dedicated meat fementing chamber in the shed.
I am in awe, Mr Rignold! Shopping for the night's dinner in ASDA is more than I can handle most days. In theory I would love to be more in touch with what I eat but in practise ... doesn't seem to happen. However, you inspire me
I brew all my own beer,
I bake all my own bread,
I also have 5 hives of bees for honey,
....but even after reading about it on Google I still have no idea what kombucha scoby actually is!
lol, kombucha is a drink made from fermented tea, black or green depending on your taste. It can be sweet or sour or secondarily fermented with fruit or other flavours for fizzy drink. It is said to have health benefits ranging from Universal Panacea to useless placebo depending who you listen to. I'm somewhere between those two. I am a proponent of fermented foods and the beneficial effects on your digestive system etc.
The Scoby is the culture of bacteria and yeasts that does the work of transforming the tea and sugars into the fermented kombucha. It is a living thing - look like a thick slimy rubbery mat that floats on the surface of the drink while it is working its magic.
Mr Tomato Face completes W1R1
Oh no!
W5R3 oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!!!
Oh no! 
