Lack of food-related constraint - AnnaTheApple

March 4, 2013

Weekend Catch-Up

Helloooo. Another week and closer to summer!

And it’s my lovely husband’s birthday – happy birthday, Ben!!

(A photo from a couple of years ago, but one of my favourites)

So catching up from the weekend. We had a great one! Friday night was ice cream and movie night. We watched Looper and though there were several times Ben and me had to pause the film to discuss it as it was such a head warp, we really enjoyed it. And the ice cream was obviously AMAZING. I’ve successfully trained my body into being able to consume an entire litre of the chocolate brownie frozen yogurt Ben and Jerry’s. Not a talent I’m hugely proud of, but delicious none-the-less.

Saturday morning I got up early and did my 10 mile run. This time I started slowly, took it slowly and didn’t push it. Though I’m currently suffering from a cold at the moment which is highly irritating. [Ben keeps informing me that I sound really creepy because when I’m sat next to him and breathing through my nose I breathe really heavily because it’s slightly blocked – like I can help it!!] So the run wasn’t the easiest despite slowing the pace. I just can’t win!

And thankfully I had no issues from my Achilles and only slight pain in my knee at the end. But I’ve been doing lots of stretches to loosen my ‘hip flexor’ which has definitely helped. Funnily enough I listened to a Marathon Talk podcast on my run (one from a few weeks ago as I’m a bit behind) and they had a physiotherapist on and they literally talked about my exact issue. What a coincidence!

After the run I did lots of housework while Ben was out doing something-or-other to his car (installing a head-unit…I thought this was some strange technical device he had to wear on his head but it’s actually the CD player…who knew). As it was his birthday weekend he was allowed to forgo his housework duty. I try to be a good wife sometimes

My outfit for the day:

Jeans from Republic (in the sale as they’re sadly closing down), top from New Look, scarf from Accessorize, necklace from Mango, shoes from Next.

Then we met up with a couple we’re friends with and went to Nando’s for lunch. It became a bit of a chicken eating competition as we ordered. The two guys went for WHOLE chickens and two sides and us two ladies went for half chickens and two sides. Now usually I’m the greedy one out of Ben and me so I was fairly impressed. Though Ben did cave at the last minute of ordering and gave me one of his sides. The embarrassing part is that when I ordered for us at the till the man asked me if I wanted three drinks because he thought there were three of us eating…

And we had a mezze board to start!! With the world’s worst photos I’m afraid. It was so dark in the restaurant!

And for my main, my half chicken with a corn on the cob and side salad (I wanted to maximise on the chicken experience):

Sorry that really is a terrible photo… I had mango and lime sauce on it and it was really good. After my run this was a truly appreciated meal. I finished this off and had Ben’s other side (another corn on the cob; I have a crazy obsession with them) and helped Ben with some of his chicken when he was struggling.

Literally could not move afterwards. Needless say I don’t want to see chicken for a while now.

Afterwards we all needed to get outside and walk a bit for fear of exploding. I managed to get a steal in French Connection – a lovely sparkly clutch down from £65 to £10!!! Crazy. Apologies no photo…but it’s very dainty and pretty. I also got some Estee Lauder BB cream. I love BB creams because they’re so lightweight. I don’t usually wear make-up but if I’m going out or having an ugly day I’ll slap some tinted moisturiser on so this is perfect.

And I also got some running leggings as well from Nike.

They’re perfect for when it gets a bit warmer. I have shorts for the summer, long leggings for the winter and capris for the in-between bits but I hated how they flared out at the bottom just under my knees. Also the new ones have a zip just above the bum where I can put my key. Perfect.

Then we had a drink at a little bar and then went home where Ben and I enjoyed a nice evening of Game of Thrones series one (watching again because series two is almost released). Dinner was porridge for me and toast for Ben. Seriously, nothing else would have fitted after all that chicken.

Sunday was a quiet day of family coming over to wish Ben a happy birthday and basically doing not much else (on my part, Ben was still doing his head unit thing – this was his birthday present, by the way). Though I did enjoy a truly delicious lunch.

Butternut squash and coconut milk soup. I forgot how much I loved this soup. It really hit the spot.

And a standard pudding at the weekend for me:

Melon! And do you know what, I’m embarrassed to say that I went back and had the other half a few hours later. So yeah, an entire melon was consumed. On a random note, melons really freak me out. Ben has to cut them for me because I honestly can’t stand the inside of them. All those seeds just make me feel really sick. I’m not sure why. The same happens with bell peppers. I’ll use a word that I really hate to describe it: clustering of seeds. GROSS.

I’ve also recently been thorough enjoying snacking on these bad boys:

I was sent these from Lord Poppington’s range of popcorns to review and honestly loved them. I did get the Four Cheese flavour as well but for some reason didn’t manage to photograph it. Probably because I gobbled it down too quickly.

I’m a big fan of popcorn so I was looking forward to trying these. They’re gluten free, low in fat and with no artificial flavours. And being a wholegrain product it means they’re a good source of fibre. And each pack contains between 94-128 calories. And you get a fair amount for this! Better than Snack a Jacks I have to say.

My favourite flavour by far was the Chilli and Lime. It was so flavoursome. My mouth was a little bit on fire, but in a good way. The Four Cheese was my second favourite. I just love the flavours.

But the only thing I will say is that they only seem to be available on Amazon and quite expensive. I’m a little bit devastated by this as I would honestly swap these for my Snack A Jacks. They’re probably a lot better for me than the God knows what they put in Snack A Jacks.

But, inspired by the above, I have since bought some plain popping kernels to make my own…watch this space.

What did you get up to this weekend?

Sweet or salty popcorn? I would have said sweet but after trying the savoury flavours I’ve changed sides for a bit.

March 1, 2013

Friday’s Randomocities

It’s Fridaaaaaaay. This week went by stupidly fast. I vividly remember those feelings of post-weekend blues and suddenly we’re back round again. I’m not sure this is a good thing to be rushing through life so quickly…But who cares because it’s Fridaaaaay!

I’m afraid this post is going to be a collection of randomocities. Not a word? Don’t care.

Randomocity #1: I work in a shared office block so there are other companies sharing the building. So there’s a lot of people I don’t know floating about the place (and stealing my mug, AGAIN). However, I know for a fact that someone famous has a sibling who works in one of the offices [I won’t reveal the famous person as I don’t think that’s fair on them]. Anyway, I went to get a drink and that person (not the famous person, the sibling) was there and they were talking to someone else and they mentioned their famous-sibling’s name. Does it make me a bad person that I took ~~a lot~~ longer at making my drink purely to hear this unadulterated bit of gossip? OK, it wasn’t actually that good but it was quite nice to hear about a famous person spoken in such a way that only a family-member could speak about them. Sorry that’s vague. Imagine: “Oh Brad now lives there with Angie” kind thing.

Randomocity #2: Do you have a person at work who is just annoying to everyone? So annoying it’s awkward. They don’t realise no one cares about their ‘ever so fascinating life’ and they do that lingering thing where they expect you to comment and acquiesce on their amazingness. Then you do that nodding thing while smiling and there’s an awkward silence and they’re STILL stood there.

Randomocity #3: I love to listen to depressing music sometimes just because sometimes it’s nice to feel a bit melodramatically sad. Lana Del Ray, Damien Rice…all good sources for melodrama. I think this also goes hand-in-hand with watching films that you know make you cry: City of Angels (all she did was go and buy pears…*sobs*) and Time Traveller’s Wife are perfect examples for me.

Randomocity #4: I am excited about the next three consecutive meals. Dinner tonight is meatballs. Breakfast tomorrow is oatmeal (OK I am always excited about this). And tomorrow’s lunch is Nando’s with friends. I love me some chicken!

Randomocity #5: My oatmeal sludge (aka savoury oatmeal) looks ~~a lot~~ better in a bowl.

Randomocity #6: Today I had an appointment with a physiotherapist as my knee has been painful while running. I find it amazing that she looks at the bottom of my running shoes and can judge how I run by the wear on the bottom. In my eyes it’s like reading tea leaves! I am always so impressed about how good these people are at diagnosing things. Thankfully she said it wasn’t serious, gave me a sports massage (so painful but so good) and has given me some exercises to do (apparently I have a very tight quad). And I can still run! Woohoo. Just no more stupid running.

Tonight Ben and me are looking forward to an evening of yummy meat balls and we’ve also bought some Ben and Jerry’s for an ice cream and movie night. The film of choice is Looper. The ‘ice cream’ is the Frozen Yogurt Chocolate Brownie – my absolute favourite. Ben has gone for the Vermonster – yeah like we were going to share!!

What are your plans for this weekend?

What’s your favourite Ben and Jerry’s?

Have you got a randomocity you wish to share?

February 25, 2013March 10, 2016

Lessons Learnt and the World’s Best Brownie

Can you believe it’s Monday again? The weekend felt like it zoomed by. How depressing! I feel shattered! The weekend was brilliant though.

On Saturday morning I got up early and ran my 12 mile long run. For the first 6-7miles it was brilliant. It felt easy, I was running a fast pace; I was really chuffed. Then I started to feel quite tired around mile 7. So I thought I’d have a sweet to pick my energy up. Last time I had a mini Tootsie Roll but found this really annoying to eat because it was so chewy. I chose a boiled sweet I got from Bulgaria in our epic pick ‘n’ mix swag instead so I could just suck it as I ran. However, it wasn’t a boiled sweet at all but another chewy sweet. I find chewing really hard when I run because I ordinarily breathe through my mouth when I run so when I have to chew I find myself gasping and not taking in enough air.

By the time I had finished the damn sweet I then had a stitch (this is about mile 8 now) and it was a killer. I knew at this point I had stupidly started too quickly – of course it felt easy and amazing at the start: I had only just started!! I didn’t think that maintaining that speed for another 10 miles would feel so hard. I know, I am incredibly dim.

Mile 9 was the hardest. The stitch was so painful I had to stop. I stopped my Garmin and took in huge lungfuls of air for 30 seconds just to get rid of the bloody stitch. Then I got back to it and everything was fine again. But it did really worry me.

My time was great but if I’m honest I feel really stupid and sheepish about it. I was too fast. I shouldn’t have run like I did. Maybe for the actual half-marathon it wouldn’t have been so bad, but not while I’m training. Really, really stupid. Risking all kinds of injuries…stupid, stupid.

So I’ve learnt my lesson. No matter how good the run feels at the beginning, always start slower. Your legs will thank you at mile 8 or 9 or whatever mileage your aiming for.

Anyway, so after running I quickly got myself together, had breakfast, and got on the road to Bristol. It wasn’t a bad drive and I listened to a Marathon Talk podcast which reinforced how stupid I had been earlier.

It was so lovely seeing my university friends again. And I got to meet Kate’s (the girl who lives in Bristol and who we were staying with) little pug, Doug.

Awww, look at his little face. He is adorable. Completely different persoanlity to Alfie, but adorable none-the-less.

After catching up for a bit we headed out to grab some lunch and do some shopping in Cabot Circus, which is a huge shopping centre in Bristol. So good. Designed in a way to get you lost though so you spend more time and money there!

We had to wait 20 minutes before we got a seat in Giraffe (love this restaurant) as it was so busy. So by the time we were sat down ready to order it was like 2.30pm and I was quite extremely hungry by this point! I ordered a feta super salad…

There was avocado and bulgar wheat and borlotti beans in there as well. The menu said broccoli as well but as you can, there wasn’t any. As my friend also ordered this and was broccoli-less too I complained and the waiter brought us out a plate of broccoli. I think he thought we were a bit strange, but seriously I want what I ordered!

On the side I also had sweet potato fries (because I was so hungry!)

Can I just say, hands down, they were the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had.

After lunch we did a bit of shopping and I bought some jeans and…three scarves!! I just couldn’t stop. Here’s one of them that I’m wearing today.

I love this! It’s got skull and crossbones on it. So different from my usual scarves.

After shopping we dropped into Tesco to buy something for dinner and then headed back. We chatted some more and relaxed. Then it was dinner time. I had bought a beetroot and horseradish soup (sounds weird but really, really good) and had that with a bit of bread and then my apples for dessert (well, what else?). My friends know me so well they know about my apple obsession. In fact, Kate had even bought a load of apples purely to feed my addiction! Bless her. She also bought porridge oats for me as well for the morning

Really yummy. Going to see if I can find a recipe for this soup.

Now, every time my friends and me meet up and stay over someone’s house we always have a tradition. We make the world’s best brownie. Technically, it’s probably not a brownie. Not the way we eat it! I can’t disclose exact the recipe (because it changes every time & I’d have to kill you ) but it vaguely goes like this:

World’s Best Brownie (serves 4-5 greedy girls) – edited for an evolved better version

90g flour
50g caster sugar
2 eggs
2x 400g tin of prunes in own juice (with stones)
300-400g milk chocolate (ideally Cadbury’s – more chocolate is never a bad thing)
Bar of Mint Aero/bag of Mint Aero balls
Optional piggy extras: digestive biscuits or 120g Milky Bar

– We mix the flour and sugar together.

– Break up all the milk chocolate and then melt it over a pan of simmering water. We like to reserve half the Mint Aero bar to add in just before it goes in the oven as finding semi-melted mint bits is incredible.

– De-pit the prunes and get rid of the juice (or reserve for another recipe?). Then cook in a small pan until all broken up and squidgy. Allow to cool.

– Then add melted chocolate and beaten eggs to the prunes and blend together. Blend really well because seriously, a big blob of prune in a brownie rocks no one’s world. We always use a hand blender.

– Then fold in the flour and sugar and stir in the added extras.

– Bake for an undefined period of time. This is where it gets interesting. For how we eat it, I’d say 15mins. For normal people, I’d say 20-25mins (but this misses the point as you will see).

Important points: We don’t bake it for long enough to cook the entire thing ‘properly’. We make sure it’s cooked 3/4s of the way so that underneath the crust it’s seriously gooey.

We also don’t cut it. We literally put it in the middle of the table and each have teaspoons. We wait, oh, all of 5 mins and then dig in. Then proceeds the expressions of pain and gasping of “this is stupidly hot!!”

Yes, this is sheer gluttony. Yes, we do feel very sick afterwards. Yes, it pretty much is the best thing to do EVER.

The Mint Aero is a delightful addition to the brownie. Big blobs of melted mint chocolate are scattered throughout and it’s like a treasure hunt. It’s closer to pudding then a brownie as you can see, but it is bliss whatever it technically should be called. And between 5 of us, we finished the lot. Though, as usual, we all felt quite sick afterwards. But a contented sick feeling.

This brownie, and it’s long-standing tradition, came about because when we were at university we all lived together (this is years ago now) and would often make cookies. We got bored of cookies and wanted something different. Something a bit healthier so we didn’t feel so bad scoffing it. Also, a measly cookie never satisfies the need for something really naughty.

So we Googled a recipe and I think it was THIS one we found. We wanted a recipe that didn’t have butter (as God forbid we included something as fattening as butter! Don’t worry about the sugar and chocolate haha). However, this recipe obviously does have butter and I think we just didn’t read it properly.

Since then we’ve always made this brownie, but it’s been tweaked and adapted and extras have been added through the years to increase it’s amazingness. Obviously, it is not a healthy brownie anymore (or was ever?) but the prunes instead of butter allow us to live in our dream-world that it’s better than a normal brownie haha. Also, the texture is SO good. We do this about twice/three times a year.

Anyway! We then chatted and went to bed at like midnight – seriously past my bedtime! Haha. The next day we had breakfast and then took Doug for a lovely walk around a beautiful park.

VERY cold though.

And then I drove home! My lovely husband had done all the chores, bless him, so I just got back and could have lunch and chill. Perfect weekend!

What did you guys get up to?

Do you do any crazy/weird traditions with your friends when you see them?

Have you ever learnt from a fitness mistake?

February 17, 2013

Cake, cake, and, er, more cake?

Oh I do love Sundays. Once all the housework is done and everything sorted, it is just nice to put the kettle on, make a cup of tea and just relax. And the weather is beautiful today! The sun is shining and it’s not absolutely freezing.

So this week has been fairly tough in terms of running. Getting back into it after skiing was hard. But after the first run it eventually got back to normal.

Monday – 6 miles with an average pace 8mins20sec. Normally I find running at this speed quite easy but it was really tough.

Tuesday – 4 mile interval run. I did several intervals throughout this run and then ran slowly after each one so average pace doesn’t really mean much.

Wednesday – 3mile lunchtime run with a guy at work. I saw this as my easy recovery run as we were chatting and just enjoying the fresh air. Average pace of 8mins26sec.

Thursday – 5 mile tempo run. Between miles 2 to 4.5 I maintained a steady 7mins50sec (total time of 39mins56sec, which I think is my best 5 mile yet!).

Friday – rest day, and boy did I need it!

Saturday – this was my 10 mile long run. I got up early on Saturday, walked Alfie and then set off. During the first mile I wanted to go home as I just couldn’t be bothered. But I persevered and got into it as I hit the second mile. Here are my average paces for each mile:

I’m over the moon with this. The run was hard, don’t get me wrong, but not impossible and I wasn’t dead by the end (I was ready for home though!) This has really made me consider running the half marathon faster than 8mins/mile.

Best thing about this run? I got beeped by someone. TWICE. Once at the start of the run and then at mile 9! I mean seriously, I’m wearing glasses, looking sweaty, dishevelled and basically about to keel over. Fairly chuffed with that haha. There are some weird men in the world!

After the run I showered and then shovelled about a kilo of oatmeal into me (long run = Anna the Hungry Beast). Then Ben and me had to dash around to his mum’s house where we were helping to prepare for her birthday open house celebration.

Ben helped with sorting the drinks out and I took charge of the food (let’s stick with what we’re good at!) It was quite a casual affair to be held in the afternoon in her house with drinks and nibbles so there wasn’t masses to prepare but there was enough to keep us busy before 1pm! Ben’s mum and me had previously gotten together the week before to decide on what nibbles to go for and I think in the end we were very happy with our selection!

I made tomato mozzarella sticks:

These were basically mozzarella balls, a sliced cherry tomato and a bit of basil on a cocktail stick with salt and pepper. Simple! Thankfully simple considered I had to assemble a million of them haha.

Then there were smoked salmon and cream cheese blinis:

Again very easy. We bought pre-made blinis, put them in the oven for 5 minutes. Then smeared cream cheese on top, added a torn piece of smoked salmon and then sprinkled a garnish of dill on top.

I made hummus the night before so we had that with crudités and bread sticks:

I don’t think this was my best hummus ever. Because I made twice as much as usual it wasn’t as lemony and garlicky as before. But it was still OK!

The most tricky thing to prepare were the cheesey garlic mushrooms:

I used THIS recipe. It was quite fiddly cutting out stalks and preparing the filling. This was the most time-consuming nibble to make, but luckily we had enough time.

Along with these home-made pieces, we also had garlic bread, Doritos and salsa, cocktail sausages, and sausage rolls:

It went down very well I think. Almost all the garlic mushrooms went. They were so good – totally recommend! It was really relaxed and lovely with Ben’s mum’s friends milling around enjoying the food and drink and chatting with everyone. Ben and me tried to make sure that his mum had nothing to worry about, which meant we were dashing about a lot! But I loved it. I love doing things like this (like when we had the Boxing Day buffet round ours).

My parents also came and my dad shocked me once again by bringing round a home-made apple tart that HE had made. Well, that’s TWO baking adventures he’s had in one week.

French custard, home-made pastry…oh my goodness. The guests at the party went crazy for this. Luckily Ben and I even got to take a couple of slices home with us. Amazing! And yes, it tastes pretty darn good.

As much as I wanted to try the tart I thought I’d save myself for the birthday cake though (I have since munched on the tart at home though obviously).

The cake was made by the same lady who made our wedding cake. The cake is perfect because Ben’s mum loves the gym and goes all the time. I just love the dumbbells and towel! So cute. And it tasted AMAZING. It was vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream.

While the cake was being cut I luckily managed to reserve a corner piece (well, I had worked hard all day!) – losing out on the first corner to Ben’s uncle who got in there quicker (mental note: must improve my speed on these things). Corner piece = more icing. Then as there happened to be another normal piece floating about I had that too. Can I just clarify that they were little pieces? Like the size of an IPhone (and that is an official cake measurement just so you know ).

However, the third piece was just plain greedy, even I will admit. Ben and me were haggling over sharing this third piece but couldn’t find a fair enough way to split it so that both of us a) got enough icing and b) got enough buttercream. In the end Ben just said “Oh for goodness sake, I’m having my own piece”. Well…if I’m pushed to it!

I felt I had very successfully rewarded myself after my long run after all

Then after all too soon Ben and me quickly tidied up so his mum didn’t have to and then collapsed onto the sofa to chill and reflect on such a good day before going home (with some leftovers in tow – hurrah!)

Such a good day and everyone looked like the had a good time. We were shattered in the evening and had a nice early night. So today we had a nice lie-in, did the housework and now we’re just relaxing. Perfect.

How has your weekend been?

What nibbles would you/have you made for a party? I think the best advice I can give is, don’t make everything. Make a few really nice things and then do more simple crowd pleasers alongside (i.e. cocktail sausages).

What do you hone in on at buffets? The savoury stuff or the sweet?

November 11, 2012November 11, 2012

Moral of the story

Hi guys, hope you’re having a lovely weekend. The weather has been chilly but sunny and dry here which makes for lovely crisp days.

Yesterday I can’t say I did anything terribly exciting I’m afraid. Ben and I went for a nice run. Mine was a short, sharp 2 miles as I ached from my lower body routine from Friday…

…but Ben went for a whopping 6mile run. I’m so proud of him! He’s starting to get back into it which is great as I missed running with him. I have to say, I was a bit jealous when he told me how far he’d run.

This week’s workouts have been great. My usual strength routine’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday and a 3 mile run on Thursday. The 3 miler was really tough. I’m running a new route that hits a hill about a mile in and the hill goes on for .5mile. I think I started a bit cocky as by the end of that hill I was ruined. It really took it out of me. Moral of the story: PACE MYSELF.

I was going to run on Friday as well but I just didn’t have the energy.

In a slightly related story…When I said I was running the other week a guy I work with seemed keen to join me. He goes to the gym and kept bragging about how many miles he’s run and how fast he goes la-de-da so I was really excited about running with him as (and please don’t take this as me being big headed or anything like that) I haven’t run with anyone who runs at my pace before. OK I don’t really run with many people so that’s probably why!

So anyway, I was looking forward to it. We started off at a nice pace of 8.10mins/mile. Then we hit that hill I mentioned above. Suddenly all that bragging and hot air disappeared very quickly. The pace dropped to over 9 mins and he was dying. I felt quite chuffed with myself as I was OK. By the end of the run, he was done for. Now, I might be a leeeeetle bit too competitive for my own good and we weren’t racing. But if we were…I would have won that race. Just saying.

So my run on Thursday was the same route but me on my own to see how fast I could do it alone. Hence why I ruined myself.

I have to mention lunchtime yesterday. It was amazing. Now I realise that this may seem gross and wrong and random, but it tasted gooooooood.

Three egg omelette with chocolate peanut butter (PB2) and Brussels sprouts. Before you judge me, you need to try it. I love it when lunch tastes a little bit like a dessert. With vegetables. Win-win situation. Basically I ran out of my plain peanut butter and had to improvise quickly before the hungry beast that is Anna at lunchtime took over the world. Not my finest hour, but definitely one of the tastiest.

Then last night Ben and I went out for a fireworks night at a friend of the family’s house. It was Ben, my mum, my dad, my sister, brother-in-law, niece and me in convoy. The house was packed full of people and it was all very relaxed and fun.

The fireworks were brilliant. A home-made affair in the back garden. Ellie, my niece (on the right), and her new found friend Abbie loved it. Abbie kept asking her dad to turn it down though haha.

There was a slightly unsafe feel to the fireworks when two fireworks clashed together and made a huge explosions. Cue all the mum’s grabbing the small children and running inside (yes, that might have including me. I’m small and I was scared).

But otherwise it was great! Seat of your pants stuff.

The hosts provided a mass of food and drink – amazing punch (the bottom one was apple and ginger – with marinating apples floating about, the top one was tropical punch):

And I happily tucked into a bowl of hearty chilli.

Followed by pudding.

Look at those home-made cupcakes! The were sparkly and everything.

Ah yes, that is a piece of rockyroad. To be honest, I’m not sure how that got in my bowl. Think it fell in there by accident…

As amazing as the cupcake and rockyroad was I think I was too quick for my own good (yes I’m one of those people who’s pretty much first in the queue at buffets). After stuffing myself full they brought out crumble. I was devastated. I did contemplate having crumble as well but I’m not sure I could have driven us home afterwards without being sick. Moral of this story? Wait until they’ve finished putting all the food on the table before stuffing yourself.

So, a pretty good evening!

And we woke up this morning to this furry, scruffy hound:

I really need to get his haircut sorted. He is a mess, bless him.

What’s everyone up to this weekend?