millionreasons (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
millionreasons) wrote2009-06-01 08:48 am
millionreasons) wrote2009-06-01 08:48 am
Oh yeah, it was the start of the summer
My parents are staying the weekend to aid them in their life-long task of interrogating, monitoring, and questioning every single thing that I do see Scully and Dr Who in The Dolls House, and Judith Law as Bosie in Hamlet. To pay their board and lodging, they take us out to Alaister's Brasserie on Church St which even to such an urbane, urban palate as mine is pretty darn delicious. Creamy risotto with asparagus follows a stilton souffle with caramelised apple and I have a happy finish with a quite frankly sexy peanut parfait with (i) chocolate sorbet (ii) mini chocolate brownie and (iii) nut brittle. Yum.
To walk this off, on Saturday we meet Heike and venture into Hertfordshire once more, starting at Watton-At-Stone and ending some 15 exhaustedly blistered miles later back at Watton-At-Stone, although at one point I was considering living in a field and eating under-ripe corn instead of walking a. single. step. more. We walked through some woods, via a stately park complete with ladder stiles to take you over walls, but mostly it was an arable landscape, shimmery corn fields, lush looking wheat fields, sniffly oil seed rape meadows (I pulled off a pod to see what the seeds are like; quite nice) and field upon field of a strange potato type crop with brown and pink flowers which Heike claimed was "a cross between celeriac and swede to feed pigs on".
At one of the pub rest-stops, Heike talked about her upcoming trip to Finland and St Petersburg and much like my list of Things To Do Before October, here are the places I must visit before senility and death:
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
Reims and the Champagne region
Pamplona, Granada, Murcia, Valencia
Rome, Pisa, Bologna, Florence
Vienna
Budapest
Somewhere in Eastern Europe (Croatia? Estonia? Latvia? Poland?)
Northern India and/or Sri Lanka
Somewhere in SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos)
Sydney, Aus
Japan
West Coast of America (San Fran, Seattle, Portland)
Somewhere in S or Cen America (Mexico? Bolivia? Costa Rica? Peru?)
Space
It was perfect walking weather, sunny with a fresh breeze, or at least it was for the first ten miles before we got lost. My feet feel like they've been in a Chilean prison.
Thus on Sunday it's pretty blissful to take an early morning cycle ride to London Fields, no-one on the road, the park empty of later-on picnic-ers (although yesterday's al fresco diners seem to have imagined the recycling and refuse fairies would visit during the night); how quickly the road goes by with two wheels and minimal effort. We ate breakfast at Mess Cafe and then Dave met his BMX Bandit gang to go on a ride to Sudbury and I went to rehearsal where wine was drunk, nibbles were consumed and songs were played.
To walk this off, on Saturday we meet Heike and venture into Hertfordshire once more, starting at Watton-At-Stone and ending some 15 exhaustedly blistered miles later back at Watton-At-Stone, although at one point I was considering living in a field and eating under-ripe corn instead of walking a. single. step. more. We walked through some woods, via a stately park complete with ladder stiles to take you over walls, but mostly it was an arable landscape, shimmery corn fields, lush looking wheat fields, sniffly oil seed rape meadows (I pulled off a pod to see what the seeds are like; quite nice) and field upon field of a strange potato type crop with brown and pink flowers which Heike claimed was "a cross between celeriac and swede to feed pigs on".
At one of the pub rest-stops, Heike talked about her upcoming trip to Finland and St Petersburg and much like my list of Things To Do Before October, here are the places I must visit before senility and death:
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
Reims and the Champagne region
Pamplona, Granada, Murcia, Valencia
Rome, Pisa, Bologna, Florence
Vienna
Budapest
Somewhere in Eastern Europe (Croatia? Estonia? Latvia? Poland?)
Northern India and/or Sri Lanka
Somewhere in SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos)
Sydney, Aus
Japan
West Coast of America (San Fran, Seattle, Portland)
Somewhere in S or Cen America (Mexico? Bolivia? Costa Rica? Peru?)
Space
It was perfect walking weather, sunny with a fresh breeze, or at least it was for the first ten miles before we got lost. My feet feel like they've been in a Chilean prison.
Thus on Sunday it's pretty blissful to take an early morning cycle ride to London Fields, no-one on the road, the park empty of later-on picnic-ers (although yesterday's al fresco diners seem to have imagined the recycling and refuse fairies would visit during the night); how quickly the road goes by with two wheels and minimal effort. We ate breakfast at Mess Cafe and then Dave met his BMX Bandit gang to go on a ride to Sudbury and I went to rehearsal where wine was drunk, nibbles were consumed and songs were played.