Pictures of London

I am still here and hope to see lots more friends and London things. Here are a few photos.
I love London despite having decided to leave. It is so vibrant and bustling and full of variety.

London at night

Putney Bridge

Not rush hour. Northern Line is some kind of torture at rush hour

Ahhh shops. I haven't bought any clothes (I promise Doug!!)

Tower Bridge (fun lunch time excursion)

View from Tower Bridge

Reminder of home

The castle near Manor House (dodgy area - used to live near here as a student - Aidan goes climbing here)

Mmmmm pubs with proper beer

Camden near where we used to live

Camden seems to be going up in the world with nice cafes

Camden high street - all looking very nicely painted and doing well

Barbour wellies sold in Camden - what is the world coming to?

Camden Market - I used to love the place - posher and more expensive now

Performance art in Covent Garden

St.Pauls Cathedral - I went to evensong. Good singing and organ music

The wibbly wobbly bridge with Tate Modern

Hops growing at Borough Market - apparently there is some kind of 'thing' and they are growing all over London

The British Museum

Egyptian bit of the BM

Groovy ram at the BM

The Assyrians

What are the lemons and handbags for?

From the Acropolis

A cow at the BM

Aidan and I went to the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. Doesn't this dog look like Poppy! 

Green Tomato Ketchup Recipe

This would have turned out greener if I had used white instead of brown sugar, but the brown gives extra depth to the flavour. Thanks Kim for the tomatoes!! Ours got blight.

1 onion
2cm cube of fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
Fresh or powdered chilli. Amount depending on how hot you want it
A bunch of basil - maybe 15 leaves or to taste
1kg green tomatoes
200ml vinegar (I used apple cider)
70g of sugar (brown is nicest)
Some spices eg Coriander seeds, pepper, juniper seed, cloves, cinnamon... whatever you have really

Fry the onion gently. Add the tomatoes, chilli and basil stalks plus a dash of water. Boil until the mixture doesn't look watery but is not sticking to the bottom at all.
Add the basil and liquidise thoroughly.
Then push through a sieve a few times until the mixture is very even and shiny looking. It will be a lot more watery than ketchup at this point
Boil until the mixture is reduced to a ketchup texture.
Put in to sterilised jars. You don't get that much from a kg of tomatoes - a couple of jars perhaps. Tasty though and good if you have a glut (if only)

Homemade Lemonade Recipe

I make this after various recipes that use a lot of lemons, such as Courgette and Lemon jam or Lemon Sorbet.

1.5 Litre bottle
4 lemons cut in half with the juice squeezed out (and used for something else)
1/2 tsp bread yeast
200g of sugar

Boil 1.5 litres of water
Add the lemon rinds and sugar
Leave overnight to cool
Add the yeast and stir gently. Leave for a few hours and then bottle. Top up if necessary.

Knocking down the wall around the stairs

So that we can move the stairs, we need to have two new A frames added to the roof. At the moment supports come up the side of the stairs and are built in to the wall. The first thing is to knock out all the wall and get rid of the ceiling on the stair well. Then finally the roofer will take out the supports and replace with 2 A frames - he will build them outside then bring up bit at a time and put together and raise in to place - apparently.
Rob and Sarah very kindly helped with this - Rob made the mess and Sarah helped us tidy it up. As always with this kind of job the tidy up is much bigger than the knocking down.

Just started

One side down

Getting rid of the wood - rubble is going to the tip

Mr Destroyer (AKA Rob)

Job done - you can see the roof supports - they will be replaced soon

I'm back! And laying concrete

No not in France, but back to do a blog or two. I have been super busy working, but have found time to visit lots of friends (more to go!) and see a bit of London.
First I am going to update on a few things we did before I left France - although they seem a lifetime ago at the moment!
We laid the 2nd (and final) bit of the concrete for the shed. It was such a hot day and not really less effort than the first slab. The finish on it is a bit less smooth as the heat made the concrete go off very fast. There is about 1mm height difference between the two which is pretty good I think. We are going to focus on insulating the roof when we next get to doing some DIY so not sure when the shed will get re-prioritised, but glad to have this bit done anyway and glad to have had the experience before we start on the garage or anything more important

Poppy took the chance for a rest... better than her trying to help...

When we finished we went for a very nice walk up the Lesponne Valley - we were scoping out potential BBQ spots for an evening out with Rob and Sarah.

Cycling with Poppy

Fairly recently we started cycling with Poppy. We didn't exactly mean to as we thought she would be a nightmare, but when she naughtily caught us up one time (having escaped from Janet!), and she actually turned out not to be too bad as long as you don't go very fast downhill.
Since we started I have been keen to cycle in to town in the evening for a meal and some drinks.
We gave it a trial run when Rob and Sarah were staying (thanks Denise for the loan of your bike and sorry I failed to return it before coming to London!!). It was really fun. I think we learnt two key lessons
1.) Give Poppy a chance to go to the toilet before setting off - she suddenly decided to screech to a halt from full tilt causing Rob to fall in to the verge - luckily he wasn't hurt
2.) We need better front lights on our bikes. It is really dark along outside the town where there are no street lights. Reeeeaally dark. It was lucky Sarah had her head torch on otherwise we would have had problems staying on the road. Slightly different to cycling in London!

I am wondering about getting a device that lets you tie the lead to your saddle stem as I tried it like that when walking the bike and she can pull you off balance less - the worry of it like this is that you cannot let go if she is tied on. It seems you can get some kind of velcro thing that is meant to give when pulled hard. Bit of a worry it would give too soon or too late though.

These photos were from another ride we took in to town via a scenic route rather than along the road. One day we would like to take the horses along there in to town too. We imagine tying them up in a pay and display parking space with a sticker stuck on them.

Sorry for lack of posts!

We have had Rob and Sarah staying and have been busy having fun - as well as doing useful stuff.
We went for a nice walk up towards the Pic du Midi, we had a BBQ up the Lesponne Valley, we cycled down in to town for dinner one night (thanks for the loan of the bike Denise!) and on the work front we demolished the wall around the stairs (thanks guys!!).
I will do some posts with pictures about these things at some point, but my other excuse is that I have suddenly got a 6 week contract in London, so I have been rather busy packing and doing paperwork to try to start as soon as possible.
Must dash for now, but will try to update properly soon!