Guus Bosman

We received a beautiful plant this week via the mail, a present from Jerry and Marjolein. It's a bromelia and a pink orchid.

The plant arrived in a very solid box, with lots of protective materials and it arrived in perfect state. We transferred it from it's temporary pot to a permanent one, and it's beautiful and cheers up the living room. Thank you!

A few weekends ago we had guests for lunch, and I wanted to make a fully vegetarian onion soup.

Obviously, onion soup is mostly vegetarian by itself, but the exception is the bouillon which is typically based on beef. So the night before I made a vegetarian bouillon for the first time. It was a lot of work, but interesting to do, and the result was very good. I used half of the bouillon for the soup and froze the rest of it.

The recipe was something like this: bake carrots, celery, potatoes and onions in the oven for 45 minutes so they become crispy. Then, put those vegetables and a bunch of herbs in a big pan of water, bring to a boil and simmer for a long time. Interesting enough you can even add the skins of the onion (not baked); they'll give the bouillon a nice dark color. At the end, you filter the vegetables and herb out and you're left with the bouillon.

The lunch the next day was a great success, and the soup was well received.

This morning I ran my first race of the season, a 5k in Durham called the Great Human Race. It's a charity run to raise funds for local charities, and there was a very friendly atmosphere.

Next week is my first big race, the Raleigh Rocks half marathon, so this was a nice way to get back in the rhythm. My result was 24:55, about a minute faster than my previous best. So even though I'm getting old I can still keep up!

For the first time in a week the weather was nice. The endless rain has stopped and while it was cold at 8.00 am, when the race started the sun had come out and it was perfect running weather. The race was well organized. It has a clear emphasis on the charity element. There were no mile markers but at mile 2 a volunteer called out the intermediate times, which was very helpful (mine was 17:44).

I never knew what exactly "cross country running" is. Well, tonight I ran a cross country course, and I know now what it is. It was the start of the March series, a weekly run organized by NCRC at the Cary Academy, not too far from my work.

Cross country is "a sport in which runners compete to complete a course over open or rough terrain. The courses used at these events may include grass, mud, woodlands, and water". There was no water in the course we ran, but it was nice varied 5k course with a few small hills and nice trails through the woods behind the Academy. My time was about 27 minutes, based on people finishing just in front of me (I need to get watch battery replaced).

These runs are fun to do, with a friendly group of people. There were about 40 runners tonight.