Photos from London

Fortnum and Masons

Yummy chocolates and fruit creams

Posh tea

The V&A

Tipoos Tiger at the V&A

A holy calf

Royal Albet Hall

River trip to Greenwich

Cable car over the Thames

The beach

Dinner at The Gun - lovely gastro pub on the river

St Pauls

I did finally make it to Gatwick

At 3am!

Stayed in the Bloc hotel as the Yotel was full.

Bit bigger, but for some reason similar purple lighting... Is it meant to be restful or something?

Fruit tree arrival

We ordered a Bramley apple tree from the UK, also a couple for friends and 3 other apple trees, 2 cherries, a peach and a plum.
You can't get Bramley apples in France, they cook with eating apples. Baked apple, crumble and apple pie just aren't the same without Bramley's so we really miss them. The French also seem to like apples that are less sharp and crisp than we like, we also ordered some other trees. Then as there was still room in the box we ordered the other trees too. Of course we can get those here but it worked out a bit cheaper anyway.
They are mostly just sticks at the moment, or sticks with a few little branches. They need to get growing if they are going to have any fruit.
We have been super keen and got the 4 apples planted already. Luckily the ground is quite soft at the moment as that is a lot of hole digging.

The orchard lawnmowers looking on

Surprisingly small box for ten trees

Planting a Bramley twig in the ground

Goodbye London, hello France!

I have been back for a few days but have been too hectic to write.

Thanks to Aidan, Helena 'n Kirsty and Rob 'n Sarah for putting me up and to everyone else for the chats, beers, tea, meals etc great to see you all... I miss you!

I enjoyed working - kind of. It was strange going to Moorgate again for a while but it was good to exercise my brain some, and make sure I haven't forgotten everything I once knew.

Before leaving London I took in the Colombian Gold exhibition at the British Museum. Enjoyed it, lots of gold! And some non gold stuff too.

I mentioned before that we had lunch with Ruth, Huw and Christopher before hand. I was very impressed with this ham holder in the restaurant

We went to the friends room afterwards for cream tea. Yummy.

And then popped in here to get some whisky to ship back with a few other things I had bought

I went with Aidan to Hush - an acoustic music evening at a pub called the Perseverance. Enjoyed it a lot, and the beer too - although next morning I felt I may have had a spot too much.

I went to the Natural History Museum

and the Victoria and Albert

I remember going to the museums in South Kensington with my parents - not often I guess as it is a long way from St.Andrews. This tunnel seemed hundreds of miles long to me back then and although I have been here many times since, it still makes me think of my mum and dad.

Rob and Sarah cooked me some very yummy meals - no photos - keen to try cooking pork in milk sometime myself.

I went to see Iain and Hilary's very pretty if somewhat sleepless baby. I haven't put a picture here as wasn't sure if they would mind or not.

I also topped up on curry and crispy duck as well as some Wagamama noodles before coming back to the land of delicious but curry free food...

I keep meaning to try and make these

I cook Japanese noodle soup, but it is never the same as this

I did a teeny tiny bit of shopping before I came back and shipped it home.

When I got back we went on a 2 day drinking spree in celebration. No photos of that either. Since then we have been busy with the autumn harvest, I will do some separate posts - although I didn't do well on taking photos

Poppy seemed pleased to see me... and Doug too. He says that she was much better behaved when I am not here because I let her get away with naughty things!

The view is a tad different

Family

Aidan (my bro) and I went to the Colombian Gold exhibition at the British Museum - I will post some photos when I get a chance to download them from the camera.

Before that, we met for lunch with Ruth, Huw and Christopher (doug's sis and family). We were going to go to the court restaurant, but it is closed for refurbishment so we went to the temporary replacement '63'. Nice food and lovely catch up. Aidan is not in the photo as he took it...

Surprisingly tasty!

I went in to the beer shop near Rob and Sarah's this evening (amazing selection) to chose something to go with my curry (important to eat as much as I can while I am here! Not good for the waistline, but worry about that later).

I picked up a bottle of something I thought was porter, then read the label and quickly put it down again. The guy standing next to me piped up and said that he had done the same when he first saw it, but then decided to try it and really liked it. So I decided to go for it despite closer inspection showing it should be disgusting!

Surprisingly it is very nice! Sarah liked it too - generally she doesn't like beer.

It is sweet for a beer - although not more than some porters are - and has a delicate apple-y sharpness as well as some hopiness.