Bread Machine White Loaf Recipe with Fresh Yeast

Bread Machine White Loaf using Fresh Yeast
Can't find anything conclusive on the Internet as to using Fresh Yeast (as opposed to dried/fast yeast) in a Breadmachine so this is what I've done with my Morphy Richards (as good a bread maker as you'll ever need says I) bread machine. Ignore the fact that it looks like a bit of a bum-faced effort - that's because this particular machine uses twin kneading blades so sometimes at the end of the mixing process you get two lumps of dough rather than one great big lump of dough which gradually merge together as it rises.

Anyway here's the recipe for a basic white load using fresh yeast.

• Get 350ml of luke warm water (I use 100ml boiling water and add 250ml of cold to it).
• Put 3 teaspoons of white caster sugar into it.
• Get 3 teaspoons worth of fresh yeast and put it into the water stirring it until it's a milky white yeast solutiion (takes less than a minute).
• Pour the yeast solution into the bread pan.
• Get 550g of white bread flour and put into the bread pan.
• Put a table spoon of dried skimmed milk powder into the bread pan.
• Sprinkle about half a teaspoon of salt on top of the flour.
• Add two tablespoons of sunflower oil
  
• Put on the quick bake setting and come back in a couple of hours!!

Beating the Credit Crunch - Breadmaking Economics - How much does a breadmaker make a loaf for??

Abby at work asked me how much it cost to make bread with my Morphy Richards bread maker? "Well, I think it's about thirty odd pence or so" I replied. Seeing as I wasn't sure I thought I'd better do some research to find out how much it actually costs me to make a loaf. I thought white loaves were a lot less than my 50/50 loaves because of the flour being cheaper but in actual fact there's not much in it really.



A 50:50 wholeameal/white loaf costs me about 43 pence plus power so probably 50p for a large loaf. Note have missed 350ml of tepid water from above recipe but it wouldn't add to cost.



A purely white loaf costs 40p even though the flour's a lot cheaper the dried milk powder ramps it up somewhat. I think I can get dried skimmed milk cheaper than that but am not 100% sure so have used Tesco's price checker. Still, even at 50p you're getting a fresh loaf with no added nonsense that's as tasty as you can get in my opinion.

Got to be cheaper than supermarket bread and it's not that cotton wool rubbish either. A breadmaker can do far more than just make bread though - cake, jam, pizza dough and loads of bits and bobs.

Basic White Loaf on Long Program

Picture below is of my first successful 'long program' loaf with the Morphy Richards. The reason for the lack of success up til now with it has been what my old boss Angus would have called a lack of RTFM. i.e. read the flippin manual. If I had read it properly I would have noticed that there are basically two different types of yeast you tend to use in bread machines - there's traditional dried active yeast and then there's fast acting or rapid dried yeast. In the past I've used rapid dried yeast on the long programs and it would appear it's wholly inappropriate!!

This is the first time I've used Allinson's traditional dried active yeast and it works a bloomin treat - you use more than you do with the quick programs but by my reckoning it costs a little bit less. Tesco's are doing 125g pots for 76p at the moment, which compares well with the rapid stuff which costs 54p for 56g (8 x 7g packets).

Anyroad up, this is the recipe I used which is more or less along the lines of the Morphy Richards basic recipe in the manual (which I'm paying more attention to as you can tell!!!). Do the ingredients into the pan in that order and then set it off on the basic program.

400ml tepid water (100ml boiling, rest cold)
4tbsp of skimmed milk powder
3 tbsp of castor sugar
2 tsp of salt
4 tbps of sunflower oil
550g of strong white bread flour
3 tsp of Allinson's traditional dried active yeast

http://www.allinsonflour.co.uk/products/dried-active-yeast.aspx

Week from Sunday 7th to Saturday 13th December

Saturday 11th December
Bit naffed off. Had three cans of Carling last night, was reasonably merry but hungover as anything this morning, don't know how that works. So was up before 6am. Set off a loaf on timer and it worked, so pleased with that. The amount of yeast in the recipe in the Morphy Richards book was basically wrong is needs a good three of active dried yeast not two. Am going to experiment a bit more until I've got the timer one nailed. The quick bake settings I absolutely rock at.

Chucking it down with rain from the minute I've got up right up to this moment 10:15am so no run done and am helping out at the kids party at work later so am wondering where the exercise is going to fit in exactly today. Going to do loads of pressups this morning. Have been doing a dejunking exercise a bit this morning too in the absence of running.

Friday 10th December
4:45am again - what a great time of day this is - almost like being dead only more hassle. Anyway, another five loaves done and dusted. Which is good. Got out running early doors still only done about 3.5/4miles but I can definitely do more I reckon so am going to give it a proper run out tomorrow morning and see what we can do. Got my big Xmas present last night off of Ebay. A Set of steel shafted Callaway X12 irons.

Thursday 11th December
4:45am this morning but my god, am I organised. In office for 8am. Five loaves done again. Going to update my fund raising figures later but we're getting on for £170 I reckon. Three and a half mile run done which I thought was further but looking at BikerouteToaster.com it would appear it isn't


Wednesday 10th December
Up at crack of dawn as usual. Have got my breadmaking mojo back, went to bed with three good uns in the bag and have set two more off at 5am and 5:10am. Morphy Richards have sent me one of the Accents range of Breadmakers which makes lovely loaves like the one below:-

In my view they're not quite as attractive looking as the loaves made by the old faithful but they are quicker by some 20 minutes. This beauty will bang out a loaf in 1hr 38m on the rapid bake setting compared to a smidge under 2hrs for the old one, which is good at it means I can stagger production nicely! It also means I can start upping production (already have really - there should be five loaves done by time I set off for work!). Am just using my standard recipes rather than the ones in the book. I'll have a bit of an experiment at the weekend and then see where we are with the ones in the book. Any, bloomin marvellous of Morphy Richards to help me out this way so look out for a review of their excellent kit in the near future!!


Will be whizzing off for a 3.5 mile run in about three quarters of an hour, just doing some GIS work on the laptop and stuff.

Picture below is of new Breadmaker, not a very good pic but gives you an idea - it's got a cool backlit lcd screen and there's even a light inside so you can have a look what's going on! Not only that but 13 programs including a customisable one which looks a bit on the technical side for me!




Tuesday 9th December
For second day in a row the bread has not risen as well as I'd expect. Don't know what's going on there? Certainly don't think I can charge people for bread that don't look right, might ask for a contribution perhaps. Anyway, lot of effort, no return. Morphy Richards have delivered the goods too, now have two machines, am going to get my head round using it tonight with a bit of luck! Off for a short 3 mile run this morning. Am knackered before I begin if I'm honest but need to get my exercise regime working that's for sure have put on much too much weight and am really hacked at myself for it.

Monday 8th December
Well breadmaking didn't go quite so swimmingly last night. Said the timer one to finish for five o'clock and it's delivered a brick. I've told Julia at work if it's inedible to use it for a paperweight - I've either overdone the salt or killed the yeast but I'm sure you can put yeast in the fridge, maybe I'm wrong. Went up the golf course yesterday afternoon for a bit of a practice. Hit some grand shots so am looking forward to next time I play proper, found a few balls too, which was good.

This morning have done a steady four mile run. After golf my knee seems to be worse so thought I was going to have to walk but thought what the hell let's give it a go and it's worked out alright. Good start to the day.

Sunday 7th December
Friday and Saturday night I thought would be a good opportunity to catch up on disturbed sleep (have been getting up at 3am to load breadmakers and stuff) however, body clock is all buggered up now and am waking at 3am naturally. Ho hum.

Anyway after two hours from 3am to 5am of not being able to get back to sleep I got up and got some work done, yesterday was typing up notes from meetings, this morning writing out a project scope that's about a week late in any case so better get it off in the morning!

Went for another run. Did four miles or so from Clifton to Snelston and back in a big old loop. Talk about cold, there'll be brass monkeys looking for welders everywhere today, I tells ya. Have used Bikeroutetoaster.com to put the map in to work out the distance in the absence of the mighty edge. Think I might have to put one of those Garmin Forerunners or somesuch on my Xmas list.



Rugby was cancelled due to pitch being frozen so missed out on the sunday morning bacon cob. Most disappointed.

Best of Both 50:50 White/Wholemeal Breadmaker Recipe

I've been working on improving the 50:50 recipe, scanning t'interweb I've picked up some top tips over the last few days so been trying out this and that. This is me new, improved 50:50 recipe!

100ml boiling water (new*)
230ml cold water
2.5 tbsp sunflower oil
1tsp salt
3 or 4 tsp sugar
275g strong white bread flour
275g strong wholemeal bread flour
1 and a third tsp fast action yeast

Bang into Breadmaker pan in that order, switch onto quick program and two hours later you get something like the following:-

Standard Quick White Loaf Recipe

Am starting the week's production run! It's for charity though pop-pickers but I don't like to talk about it (much). This is my standard quick white loaf. I say quick it takes about 2 hours but that's quick in breadmaking land that is.

Yummy white bread, no bother in the Morphy Richard Breadmaking Machine. They rock!

Here's the recipe
350ml water
550g strong white bread flour
2 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon dried skimmed milk
3 or four teaspoons sugar
1.5 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon dried fast yeast

Bop em into the breadmaker pan in that order, select the quick option, press start come back in a coupla hours and hey presto, yummy bread. Go easy on it though it's a weight loss nightmare!!!

Week Sunday 30th November to Saturday 6th December

Saturday 6th December
Good news is that have run up town and back this morning. Steady three and a half miles at a moderate sort of a pace - no idea how fast, still haven't found the edge that I lost some weeks back now. Am really getting the hang of the breadmaking though - loaves are looking the absolute business!

Did a steady forty five minutes in the gym yesterday 30 mins of cardio for a good 400 cals and then some weights. Steady, two visits last week, need to get it back to at least every other day and preferably every day.


Friday 5th continued - Quick game of spot the idiot, anyone? Weight's up again - have just noticed something - where there's been gains December and back in August both coincide with periods where haven't been going to group. Well guess, what I'm back next week and week after god knows, what I was thinking. I reckon I think I'm an expert but I obviously ain't.



Friday 5th December
Improved Thursday a little bit by going for a two and a half mile walk last night and did 20 pressups to boot, not much but feels better than nowt. This morning got another four loaves done and did a three and half mile work (jogged last half mile which was good) and still into office for about 8:15 - pleased with that.


Thursday 4th December
Knackered. Got up at 3am set breadmaker off, got up at 5am set breadmaker off. Went back to bed for half an hour, got up late at 7am!! bloody hell, what a rush. Got to work a minute or two late for the 8:30 meeting and then had to bomb off to Wigan as soon as it finished. Bloomin nightmare. No exercise done today whatsoever. Knee's playing up a tiny bit which is kind of good as I don't want to go to Doctors with it not hurting.

Wednesday 3rd December
Well, the new breadmaker didn't arrive yesterday so hopefully it'll come today, we'll see. I did another 3.5 miles walking this morning. Ran the last half mile or so. No problem with knee again. Not playing golf this weekend so might do a whopping big run if knee continues in an okay fashion. Did another three charity loaves last night and one for the homestead!

More on the knee - have got an appointment at Doctors' on Monday 15th after finally getting round to making the phone call. Only problem now is that I've got to lose a load of weight in a hurry - he said stay in the 14s and that'll be good I've gone almost half a stone past that now which is rubbish. Could be just the focus I need!

The Doctor's appointment has set me off now! Been to the gym for the first time this week. Did damn near an hour - 11 minutes on exercise bike on setting 6 for a steady 152 cals, then 10 mins on treadmill at 10km/h for a further acceptable 160 cals and finishing off with a creditable 188 cals in fifteen minutes on the rowing machine. 2 x 12 reps each on triceps pushdown, biceps curl, seated mid-row and that other thing you do on that particular machine (lateral something or other). Anyway, was longest I've done in gym for ages and am reet pleased with it.

Tuesday 2nd December
Another 3.5 miles walking this morning. Knee is okay I think but not going to put too much stress on it just yet. Another four loaves done last night - hopefully bread machine number two should arrive today and then production can go into overdrive. Had to take drums into work today as Xmas is coming and we gotta do a turn so we're getting the band together again. Oh no, not again.


Stocked up with flour on way home. Tesco's have Hovis Wholemeal Bread Flour cheaper than their own label stuff? Wonder whose I bought? Shame it's twice the cost of white but there you go. Am experimenting with the breadmaking a little bit tonight as I've only got three orders to fill I can cock one up. What I'm investigating is a claim that more oil equals more volume so have upped it from two tablespoons to three of sunflower oil. We'll see what it is? Was going to go for a walk but it's damn cold out and feel knackered so am going to have a kip on sofa while loaf number two finishes. Derby just knocked Stoke out which is great, well done the mighty Rams.

Monday 1st December
Another four loaves done overnight. Am thinking that this going to be getting expensive if not careful, think I'm going to have to get costs back somewhere. Covered 3.5 miles this mornig. Ran maybe 3/4 mile, knee if sort of stiff rather than painful. Will try and ring docs up later although am thinking of going to sporting injuries place where the police station used to be in Ashbourne.

Sunday 30th November
Blimey damn near in December already, what's happened to the rest of the year?? Been walking again this morning I reckon about five miles done overall. Went up the golf course to look for some spare ammo, not the best time of year for this sort of pursuit but still found three nice titleists and a couple of cheapos so not too bad. Used a company called Photobox to order some photoprints this afternoon and by time I got back it said they'd despatched them - if the quality is any good I'll be well impressed, let me tell you.

Took Lucy up for Rugby practice this morning. I tend to have a bit of a stroll round Ashbourne rec while she's training and you can tell when it's cold cause the half the cars in the car park have got parents in 'em! Jeez, it was damned cold, was glad they finished fifteen minutes early for a change.

Light Granary Loaf

At the weekend I get a bit of time to experiment with the Morphy Richards Breadmaker (my personal favourite) so I thought I'd have a crack at a light granary loaf. I think I can tweak it to make it better but it's come out pretty well first go. Here's the ingredients:

• 350ml water
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 175g strong granary flour
• 400g strong white flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar (I think three/four would give it a better colour although the crust is crisp enough really)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 crushed vitamin C tablet
• 1.5 teaspoons fast dried yeast

Put the ingredients into the bread machine in that order, set to quick program and you get a lovely light granary as picture below shows.

New Morphy Richards Breadmaker Coming

Morphy Richards, bless 'em are helping me out with my London Marathon fund raising by lending me an additional BreadMaking Machine. It should be coming on Tuesday which will be great but before it does arrive I think I ought to mention my current Morphy Richards breadmaker.

It's a 48265 and I think it's seven years old - says 1991 in the manual anyway. Being quite an early one it's not got all the programs you see on some of the newer models but it does exactly what it says on the tin and more. It bakes great bread, over and over again. For me it's been doing four loaves a night over the past week and more without a single duff loaf. I'm going to list the recipes that work best for me soon, might even do some of that fancy dancy photography these foodie types do! So if you're in the market for a really good breadmaker in my view you get great value for money with Morphy Richards kit and they keep going a long, long time!

The Specs for the Morphy Richards 48265 are as follows:-

• Two loaf sizes, 1.5lbs and 2.5lbs
• Light, medium and dark crust settings
• Two kneading paddles for more effective kneading
• Viewing window
• Programmable timer 60-minute keep warm function
• Non-stick traditional shaped breadpan
• Cancel button
• Cake and jam settings
• Non-slip feet
• Removable lid for easy cleaning
• Two year guarantee
• H28cm, W41cm, D28cm

Week Sunday 23rd November to Sat 29th November

Saturday 29th Nov
Christmas Fayre at golf today or 'Fur and Feather' as it is known to most golfers. Me and John did okay for a change accumulating 41 points in a 3/4 handicap better ball. We got 38 last year so definitely an improvement. It was also a good score because we played in thick fog and made a lot of pars considering you couldn't tell where to green was let alone the pin on some holes! Quite pleased. Did a 3.5 mile walk this morning as well so even more pleased.

Friday 28th Nov
Did another four loaves over night. Am chuffed to bits with how it's all going fundraising is now at £115 and best of all have had a call from Morphy Richards and they're sending me one to help out with my capcity issues. Too much demand and not enough time to supply but not no more!!

Didn't make gym due to being busy as hell but went for a two mile walk when got home. Knee feeling better and better.

Thursday 27th Nov
No run again this morning, am going to get appointment booked with Doctors this afternoon, get em to have a look at me knee. Going to gym in a minute as I got to get something done, did another four loaves of bread today and the fund-raising is currently standing at a little over £108 quid which is going swimmingly well if I do say so myself! Have added a ticker thing to top of screen cause I think it needs a touch of the Blue Peter's!!

Good session in the gym, 15 minutes and 200cals on the exercise bike followed by 25 mins on the rower, legs were really tired and knee held up pretty well, finished off with some weights and then back to business. Didn't manage to get an appointment with doctors.

Breadmaking working a treat have about 18 loaves to make next week. Have picked a breadmaking tip off the net that is to put butter on the kneading paddle which makes the bread easier to get out which seems to work. Also seems to make the loaf a whole lot browner. Can't think of anything else I've done different so it must be the butter?

Wednesday 26th Nov
Didn't actually get to gym yesterday. Was mega busy all day. Didn't get home from work until 7:30 but still managed to do five loaves!! No exercise but fundraising in optimal mode at the moment!!

Tuesday 25th Nov
Am continuing to rest knee from running duties. Am going to do gym at lunchtime and do a solid hour of cardio and weights so will get some exercise. Did 70 odd pressups last night but that's not a whole lot of use really. Bread production is being maintained at 3 loaves a day which with gift aid is raising me 3.84 a day for the marathon fund which is £19.20 a week. I reckon I can squeeze the odd extra loaf here and there which will get the fund up quite nicely! Have got 17 loaves on order for this week which mean five get up at 03:00 to set the breadmaker off, then up at 5:10 to reload etc. Not a problem, am getting used to it!

Monday 24th Nov
Well even if the training has been a little curtailed by the iffy knee the fund-raising is going on great guns. Got up at 3am to set a loaf off and then at 5am to set off another. Got to work and got more orders have 10 orders for the week thus far (current production capacity runs to 3 loaves a day unless can get another bread machine). Training non-existant as nee hurt a wee bit first thing and then have made things worse by forgetting to bring my gym kit with me. Am going to have to either go a ride on bike or out for a run when get home if knee’ll have it.

Sunday 23rd Nov
Did nothing at all, exercise-wise on Sunday. Lucy was playing in the Ashbourne under 9s at the Notss/Leics/Derby qualifier at Derby Rugby club so I was there for 9am and we didn’t get away til about 1:30pm. Ashbourne under-9s absolutely whooped Bakewell and Melbourne so are qualified for the finals at the end of the season which is nice.

Over to me mums to pick Phil up and then home for about 4:30ish. Twisted my knee a little bit during golf on Saturday (we lost again 3 down, shook hands on 17th) so having a rest day.

Zippy

Not shown any of my bread victories for some time. Well here's one:-

Recipe:-
400ml water
350g strong white bread flour
350g wholemeal bread flour
2tsp salt
2tsp sugar
2tbsp butter
1.5tsp yeast

Bang it on quick and 2 hours later you get a really nice 50:50 loaf. Just having a slice of toast from it now!

Quick 11 miles, not done times yet but quicker than 15mph average I'll bet.

New Breadmaker

Just 11 miles on the Fcr1 this morning went down the Punch for the first time since coming off and breaking my wrist on it.

Got a Breadmaker off Ebay yesterday for £20 - set it up to do a loaf overnight and hey presto result with the first go. Well pleased.

Monday bedlam

Bread maker played up - first forgot to put bloomin yeast in last night so got flat bread. So set if off with another load, then the darned thing kept jumping out of gear during the mixing phase so I ended up having to wait while the mix phase completed before I could go out running . Hey ho, such is life, I suppose.

Ran 48 mins for 5 miles, bit slow but at least had a bit of go in the old legs. Bloomin scales are saying 14st 12lbs this morning which is a bit of a nightmare scenario. Some work to put in this week.

Did the mini-circuit again in the gym, added tricep pushdowns and biceps curls to it but notched up the weights and speed on treadmill a little bit again.

Torn on the fourth of July...

Running record for week
8:32 minute miles this morning. 35 miles overall since Sunday



Whaddya do?
Disaster this morning I thought last night when was loading up the Breadmaker that the pan was losing a bit of water. This morning my suspicions are confirmed as from pics below you can see what bread with nowt (except water) taken out looks like and below that what a breadmaker with an oil leak looks like.

Am torn between trying to get a new pan for it and getting a big kick-ass Panasonic Breadmaker? We'll see, off for run now. Expecting a gain this week, not done much wrong but that's the way it goes. Am on the beer as well tonight probably.

Breadfan

Woohoo, a beauty!

Recipe :
280ml water
420g strong white flour
80g wholemeal flour
1½ tbsp milk powder
1½ tsp salt
1½ tsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp yeast

Put them into machine in that order and make sure yeast is last and dry especially if you're running it on a delayed start.

Made the bread on setting two (1.5lb white) on Morphy Richards 48220 bread maker. Was so impressed that I did the recipe a second time and got the same results a second time, that's a first! Well pleased.

The basic recipe comes from a pdf I found on the next title Crabble Corn Mill so will try and find some details out on my source at some time. The key difference in results is that this recipe has far less water than the ones in the Morphy Richards book, near as damnit 20% less water in fact to the same amount of flour. I might modify the recipes in the book a wee bit and see if that's the governing factor.

Daily run
Ran this morning's five miles in a smidge under 42mins. Not bad at all.

What's it gonna be?

After all that whinging ended up going out for a solid run, not as big as the recent ones but still a solid 10 miles and mainly up hills - see the gradient profile in image below.

Early Morning Whinging

Yesterday was a rest day so only did a bit of biking and a bit of golfing which was average at best. Today I should be doing a big run but I don't feel up for it so lord knows what am going to do. Am going to fetch papers in a bit. Apparently in New of Worlds there's a voucher for Tesco's that gets you five pounds off a £30 or more shop so I'm going to get a couple of papers and get £10 off if I do some shopping and Janette does the rest. Wedding anniversary today.

On positive side I've done a white loaf overnight that looks absolutely great. Picture below:

Kids and the boss said it was yummy so am notching this up as first real success with the breadmaker (don't really eat white bread myself - it's not in the plan!). Got the recipe off the internet after doing some more research found out that 1cup = 237ml so worked out an American recipe and it seemed to work great - the key difference being that there is less water than the recipes in the Morphy Richards book have.

Anyroad it was as follows:-

Water 3/4 cup - used 180ml'ish
Flour 2 cups - 480ml'ish
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Sugar - 1 tablespoon
Dried milk - 1 table spoon
Yeast - 1 6g sachet

On the Morphy Richards 88230 (i think - not the fastbake one) breadmaker it was setting 2 which is a 1.5lb white loaf, not the dark crust option.

I know breadmaking is supposed to be a science and people keep putting measure exact amounts but blimey, there's got to be a little margin for error, some sort of tolerance. Anyway it came out well.

Fetched the papers, went on slow but comfy. It chucked it down on me so I did the four miles as fast as I could on that bike. Think I average about 16mph which is faster than I aim for on the FCR1 !!!

Made good progress with the report am doing, confident of having something ready to go by end of monday. Report scrapes something like three and half months of weekly data and crushes it into granular info for Crystal Reports. When I get it all grouped properly in Crystal it'll summarise it all nicely and allow the viewer to drill down into ever increasing detail. I'll tell you why it's clever in a couple of days when I've got it nailed down and ticked off my list.

Fabulous Disaster Breadart

Part of my morning routine some days is to unload the Bread Maker - imagine my surprise to find this beauty which I've decide to sell to the London Art Galleries for a princely sum. I've called it Bread Explosion. Funny thing is that I thought I was getting the hang of the breadmaking mullarkey. Hey ho.

Didn't do any exercise last night, me and little Phil had a ton and a half of hardcore to shift as the base for his shed so didn't feel like much after that. Went to bed early too which was good.

Up at 5:10 this morning as usual. Five miles done in under 46 mins then 4 miles on bike. Phil couldn't get out of bed so went on my own so it was a bit quicker. Good start to the day.

Wahey Weekend - Saturday - no running!!

Rest day today, at least for running. Have golf at 12:20 I think and haven't practiced at all this week so that should be average.

Have moved all the Sky box around before kids are up so when the installer guy comes next week he can plug it in and be on his way without having to work out the fifty million wires at the back of our telly.

And have just got the third loaf out of the breadmaker. Beginning to look something like I reckon, a little bit more yeast with next one and then we're there!


Golf - hacked off again, played for ten holes at least as well as I've ever played, went par on first, par, bogey, triple bogey, par, par, birdie, double bogie, par for a total of 5 over par for the front nine, excellent start, the triple bogie wasn't as bad as it sounds either. Hit the biggest drive I've ever hit down four, left a steady seven iron in which I pulled out of bounds, a few degrees to the right and it'd have been a perfect shot. Anyway the back nine begins with a par and thereafter it all goes to hell in a handcart. Triple bogey on 11, a nine on the par four 12th, bogey on thirteen, bogey on fourteen, double on fifteen, bogey on sixteen, eight on par five seventeen and on eighteen I didn't even finish the hole. By that stage I was so hacked off at crawling round the golf course for four hours ten minutes that I couldn't be bother to play on.

I had a moan at the golf club last week, sent em an email which they didn't respond to about the height of the grass in the rough we have. They didn't respond to my message but that's not the first time. They have put a quote in the June newsletter that says "Rough should have high grass. When you go bowling they don't give you anything for landing in the gutter, do they?"

Am going to email the quote back to them in context - I think the quote should read -

"Rough should have high grass. When you go bowling they don't give you anything for landing in the gutter, do they?, but then again, they don't charge you seven hundred quid a year to make you wait for five minutes on every shot while some poor sod looks for his ball in a ruddy jungle on every hole? and while I think about it a game of bowling doesn't take four bloody hours does it? my God, I do make some stupid analogies, don't I"- Lee Trevino or something like that.