The 19th June was the Midwinter Swim. It had been cancelled from the 18th due to poor weather. Basically everyone heads down to Surf Bay for a swim in the water. It was cold!!
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| Simon and John (science teacher) looking cold before getting into the water |
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| Waiting expectantly for the starter's gun..... |
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| It was blooming freezing! |
Several weeks ago, we ordered a half side of beef, and it arrived in the back of a trailer about 30 minutes after we got back from the midwinter swim. The cost was a mere £115 for half a prime bull! The meat was fantastic quality, and had some really nice fat marbled through it. The meat we get here would actually be marketed as Organic in the UK. We set the beef on the table and then realised that maybe this was not a good idea!
We sterilised the tiled kitchen floor and set to butchering the carcass. Our friends Ben and Hien had ordered some beef too, so we had a house full of beef while it was butchered. Ben decided to wimp out though, and took responsibility for getting rid of the bagged up fat and bones to the tip while Hien and Simon spent the next 3 and a half hours on their knees! The meat is now sat in the freezer. We have a 3/4 size chest freezer, and it is full with nothing but beef!
Tell you what though, it was well worth it! We had fillet steak for tea, and it was so tender it virtually felt apart in your mouth! Tea on Monday night....Lamb chops from a whole lamb we had bought the previous week! I guess we were sick of the sight of beef!
Lamb here is classified differently to the UK. Lamb is anything that is old enough to be weaned, up to about 6 months old at the most, everything else is classed as mutton, so the lamb is very tender and pale, whilst some mutton can be very tender, whilst others can be tough, so you rapidly get used to the different ways to cook mutton.
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