Singing hedgehogs!

This is fantastic - don't click it unless you've got a spare 10 minutes though!

Tech knitting

As we're about to head off to RUSSIA, I've been thinking about what warm clothes I have and whether they'll fit the bill. I'm pretty well stocked with thermals, scarves and gloves, but my warmest hat which is a great woollen beanie from Insidious Fix in New Zealand (and only $5 - bargain!) unfortunately is a bit scratchy against my forehead so not so good to wear for long periods of time.

Solution? Buy a new hat?? Nooooo... Find out a way to line it!

And that's when I stumbled upon this great blog called 'Tech Knitting' which has a couple of posts on lining hats with polar fleece.  You can either line a strip of polar fleece at the bottom, or go the whole way and fully line the hat.  Of course, seeing as we're going to RUSSIA FOR CHRISTMAS, fully lining was obviously the way to go.

We're really lucky in that we've got a great fabric store just down the road from our house called 'Fabrics Galore' and so yesterday (a very cold, sleety Saturday morning) I headed down there and incredibly fortuitously, managed to find the exact colour polar fleece I wanted as a bargain £2 off-cut.  Score!  So much cheaper than the pre-made fleece hats I'd seen for sale.

Back to the house and the sewing began.

This is pinning the lining to size

Getting the first stitches in - sewing the tube shut

Having sewn most of the tub shut, pinning the top of the hat to size.

I look like a rooster!

Sewing the hat at the top.

Pinning back the front of the hat so it fits better.

Making the big cuts!

Hard to see, but I also had to pin back and sew the beanie because it was a bit big (always has been really).

Finished lining, now to sew it to the hat.

Getting it all pinned and in place.

Starting to sew.

Nearly done.

Finished!  Slightly uneven, but...

...I think it looks great!  No cold head for me.

 And there you have it - even a total amateur can do some tech knitting (well, in my case, tech sewing).  It only took a few hours and was really easy to follow with the great instructions.  This is the post if you're interested, and if you're a knitter, definitely check out the rest of the blog, it's really interesting.  Although I'm sure her socks aren't a patch on Emmy's wonder socks!

(Update: Adrian pointed out that I've lined the hat inside out!  So the fleece lining is actually the wrong way round...d'oh!  Ah well, it's all about learning these things isn't it...)

Snowing!

Just a quick update to say that today we've had the first snowflakes in London! I saw a few as I crossed Waterloo Bridge to go into uni, and then have seen some more from the 10th floor window as well. It's definitely of the 'blink and you'll miss it' variety, and I'm sure this is nothing compared to what might be in store for us in Russia, but still, the first snow of the season is always pretty exciting!

Winter photos

Here's the link to the photos of all the stuff I talked about in the previous post - I'll keep adding to it over this winter (although obviously Russia will get its own, probably very large, album) so keep checking back!

This one's from Secret Cinema:

Click here to see the rest of the photos.

It's Christmas time!

Posting has been slow as of late, and while that's not usually anything out of the ordinary, this time I have a really good reason!  And that's the fact that it's Christmas-time.

It really does deserve to be called the 'silly-season' I think because how can one not go a bit crazy when what seems like three-quarter's of your year's social activities are crammed into one month.  I think they even go more over-board here in the UK than in NZ because while we're all relaxed about the prospect of a nice long summer break, here it's a whirlwind of December madness before the unimitigating gloom and doom of January and February.

We've had all sorts of things on, ranging from work and university Christmas parties (the bottomless glass of prosecco party being my personal favourite), to Secret Cinema which was absolutely so much fun (but I can't tell you about it because that would spoil the secret for the people yet to go!), to leaving parties and DJ nights (my friend Duncan DJ'd at the Ministry of Sound which is a really big deal as it's one of the most famous clubs in London and we thought it was a great excuse to go and check it out), to me organising 14 of us to go to a big pub lunch and ice-skating outside the Natural History Museum...

And that's just what's been happening, not to mention the birthday party in Cambridge, Aston Villa vs Liverpool game in Birmingham, Christmas lunch, more work parties, and then RUSSIA (it definitely deserves all-caps) that's going to happen between now and Christmas.

Oof!

I've got lots of photos of various things that we've been doing, but have yet to find time to upload them all.  They include my first ever batch of mince pies which were pretty yum and the decorations I've hung on the chilli plant in lieu of a pine tree (well, considering the size of our house it'd be a pine branch probably...).  I'll get them up as soon as I can.

In the interim though, Merry Christmas to everyone!  I'm, as always, missing the sunshine and everything that comes with a Kiwi Christmas, but having lots of mulled wine to make up for it.  Got to make the cold worthwhile somehow!

Sunday soup

I went a bit crazy buying carrots last week, and we still had about 1.5kg left by the end of this week.  I also went to this great 'Feeding the 5000' event which was highlighting the issue of food waste (feeding 5000 people in Trafalgar Square - what a mammoth task!) and was given a couple of bags of vegetables which would have otherwise been thrown away, and which contained even more carrots...

So, I had a look online and decided to make this carrot and thyme soup.  We had some delicious organic bloomer loaf left over from lunch yesterday, and so I had myself quite a decadent lunch!  It was a nice distraction from the uni reading I've been doing today I must say...

It was pretty tasty; I liked the thyme, but there was a bit too much honey.  But if you need to make something with lots of carrots - give it a go!

Brains and poetry

A slightly odd combination I agree, but good nonetheless!

A few weekends ago we went to a really excellent exhibition all about brain donation.  My friend Megan who is a neuroscientist and really interested in art-science collaborations had found out about it and we decided to tag along.  (Oh and beforehand I had breakfast at Dishoom in Covent Garden which had the best spicy chai and egg naans...mmm).  But back to the art!

The exhibition was called 'Mind Over Matter' and was basically about de-anonymising brain donation.  I found it absolutely fascinating, and the amazing setting of the Shoreditch Town Hall basement which was all twisty and turny underground was so perfect for it.  You can see in the photos the various things the exhibition was made up of, including audio, photos dulled to represent dementia, and the other things to represent memory.  This website tells you much more about the exhibition better than I can!  We have an A5 picture of the lady from the website on top of our fridge at the moment - she was fantastic, even having a male stripper at her 100th birthday because, why not!  If it ever comes to your town, absolutely go and see it.

Then after the exhibition, we headed up to the Bloomsbury festival in Russell Square, right by Adrian's work.  They had a really eclectic group of things happening, from Siberian singers (surprisingly really good), to lots of food stalls, to art and crafts fairs, to book fairs.  The best thing though was the poetry tunnel.  You basically created a short (five or so word) poem from a selection of cards and then hung it up so people could walk through.  I think the photos explain it quite well (and sorry, no idea why these photos can't go the right way up...):

So cool with all the random things you can do in London - never a dull moment!

Prancing about in Prague

Back in July we spent four days in the Czech Republic with our friends Bas and Pip.  It was originally supposed to be the weekend he proposed but we crashed the party - whoops!  Fortunately he found another time to do it!

We spent two days in a very wet Prague, then another two days in Cesky Krumlov which is further south and near the Austrian and German borders.  I had huge expectations of Prague - everyone had said how amazing it was, and I'm sure if it was the first city of its type you had visited it would be incredible, but I think having already been to other European capitals (especially Budapest) it wasn't that special to me.  I'm such a world weary traveller!  But I think that's the thing - the first cathedral you see is amazing; the 10th, not so much.

But it was very interesting to see it finally and lots of fun to travel with our friends.  We saw all the big sights, like St Vitus' Cathedral, the castle, Jewish quarter and the astronomical clock.  We spent a fair bit of time stopping for food and drinks as well - got to fuel all this touristing somehow!  One slightly different thing we did do was go to the Museum of Decorative Arts which had so much stuff, ranging from suits of armour and a room full of clocks, to all these old posters and fantastic clothes.  I would definitely recommend including it on an itinerary for Prague.

After Prague, Adrian and I continued down to Cesky Krumlov which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and famous for its pretty setting and river rafting.  Unfortunately it wasn't so hot while we were there, and we were a little rushed for time (we got the kayak back with minutes to spare!), but overall I really enjoyed it there. Here's a quick video of some other people rafting taken from up by the castle:

They had the same basic highlights (castle, old town etc.), but other neat things included extremely cheap ice-creams, a fantastic tower and a very cool mirror maze which amused us no end.  Garnets are hugely popular in the Czech Republic and in Cesky Krumlov, after much looking around at the incredible variety of pretty things on offer, Adrian very generously bought me a beautiful little pair of earrings - how spoiled am I...

Click here to look at the rest of the photos.

First impressions of the LSE

Now that I'm officially a student again (have ID card, will get discount), I feel I should share my experiences at my new university so you can have an idea what it's like to be not just a mature student (+25) but practically an ancient student (+30!).

I'm at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE).  Yes, that's right, the one with the whole Libyan government scandal...  Or maybe I shouldn't be emphasising that one!  In serious terms, it's a pretty good university (46th in the world), although not as good as my previous alma mater (Oxford is now 4th in the world).  More importantly for me though, is its ranking as a social sciences university which is very good (check out this link for more info) and the fact that I'm affiliated with a world-leading climate research institution, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. 

For my PhD I'm going to be looking at something to do with climate scepticism and impacts on policy-making.  Or so I hope!  I'm sure that it's going to change somewhere along the lines, but hopefully a year from now it should all be pretty settled.

But enough about me, and more about the university.  Well, it's right in the middle of London, minutes from the City, Covent Garden, the Thames, and Trafalgar Square.  Hopefully I won't be too tempted to do much shopping!  The campus itself isn't really like a normal university campus, basically being a small collection of buildings virtually un-isolated from the rest of the city (so I found out the other day when a truck barrelled full-bore down what I had naively assumed to be a quiet pedestrianised street).  It's the usual mixture of brand spanking new buildings and old, falling into disrepair mazes of lecturers' offices and study rooms.  I've heard that it can get to fisticuffs in the library around exam time regarding access to computers, so luckily as a PhD student I have access to dedicated computer rooms so won't ever have to defend my computer with my body...

The other students (mostly PhDs and Post-Docs so far) are all extremely friendly and welcoming which is great, and there seems to be no end of clubs and societies, as well as interesting speakers and events to help you while away the time you ought to be spending studying...

But I'm determined to be focused and to finish on time (your three years starts...NOW!), so hopefully it'll be more reading of books than drinking of pints (although obviously some leisure time is a clear necessity...).

Wish me luck!

Autumn in Aotearoa

Paying £1400 for a four minute appointment at the immigration office (solely to get fingerprints and a photo taken - both of which they already had on file from a previous application) seems slightly OTT, but that's what it takes to get a UK student visa these days...  Oh, and that's not including the approximately £250 cost of the visa itself - yikes!

But, it made for a great excuse to go home for a three week visit.  I behaved like a proper socialite, with morning and afternoon teas, lunches and dinners scheduled at every available opportunity.  I gorged myself on sushi as it's so expensive and so terrible in London compared to NZ (massive shoutout to Umi Sushi in Takapuna - the best sushi rolls in NZ and only $1 each!).  Big thank you to Mum for supporting my sushi habit too; I was mightily spoiled.  It was great being at home in general - I certainly got used to a life of luxury again very quickly!

Another highlight was going with Dad to a Rugby World Cup game (Australia versus Italy).  We were passionate Italian supporters, but despite going into half-time at a nail-biting 6 all, it wasn't to go our way, with Australia storming home in the second half.

Here's a video of Dad and I at the game enjoying the fantastically temporamental Auckland weather:

It was great seeing everyone as well, particularly the lovely Auckland ladies who are just as gorgeous as ever.  I had a fleeting visit down to Wellington as well which was excellent.  I tried to see everyone, and even though a few people missed out, my bank balance certainly reflected the fact that I saw as many people as I possibly could!  It was so interesting catching up on what everyone's getting up to, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the next generation - little Sonja and Oscar were so adorable.

I hardly took enough photos, but the few I did remember to take are here using this link, so check them out.

Amerrrria in Tokyo

The rationale to visit Tokyo was pretty simple: my friend Nicci lived there, I love Japanese food, and it was on the way home.  Sorted!  The extra NZ$1200 it added to the cost of my flight...well, we'll just forget that shall we...

Overall impressions were of lots of shrines (Shinto) and temples (Buddhist) - I visited the Yasukuni Shrine, Meiji Shrine, Asakusa Kannon (also known as Senso-ji) Temple, Nezu Shrine, and tried, but sadly failed to find the Gyokushin Mitsuin Temple (it sounded amazing, you enter the temple, then descend to a pitch-black, 100m long stone tunnel, before emerging into a room filled with 300 candle-lit boddhisattvas...but no sign-posting at all meant I wandered the streets of Tamagawa for nearly an hour before giving up...).  And that's not to mention all the tiny shrines and temples I saw all over Tokyo - each slightly different and generally always with someone there offering up a prayer.

And then obviously the food was incredible - my favourite was probably the 'stand-up sushi bar' Nicci took me to on our first night where the chef makes the sushi up in front of you as you order it - I especially loved the salmon ngiri where they took the blow-torch to the mayonnaise on the top of it so it was all bubbling and delicious...mmmm...  I also had freshly caught tuna for breakfast at the Tsukiji Fish Market, ramen with the Tokyo salary-men during the lunch rush (I loved it, you order from a vending machine, take it to the counter, and then a steaming hot bowl of noodles arrives minutes later), an incredibly expensive prawn tempura with hand-made soba noodles (note to self, always find out the price before you order), and a very non-Japanese but delicious pizza from Costco in the 'burbs one night.

I did heaps of walking, including a walk around the imperial heart of Tokyo which includes Kitanomaru Park and the Imperial Palace East Gardens, as well as a great walking tour through a suburb of Tokyo called Yanaka, which was very relaxed and included a walk around the Yanaka Cemetery, famed for its cherry blossoms (although not when I was there - it was stinking hot and everyone was carrying around little sweat cloths to mop themselves up with...).

Other great things included the free viewing platform at the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (although it was too hazy from the heat to see Mt Fuji), the kitchen-ware district (known as 'Kitchen Town' or Kappabashi Dori) and having a traditional onsen in piping hot mineral-rich water.

Japan has experienced a 95% drop in tourism since the earthquake, so other tourists were few and far between, lending the city quite an 'undiscovered' air which was odd (I mean, come on, this is Tokyo!!).  But it was totally safe, and the wonderful hospitality from Nicci made it even more special.

Click here to see the rest of the photos!

A taste of Japan

This is at the Cold Stone Cremery, an ice cream chain which was highly recommended to me as worth a visit while I was in Japan.  This one is in Roppongi Hills where the staff were super enthusiastic!

More photos and stories of Japan to come...

Flying through the air with the greatest of ease

For our five year anniversary, I took Adrian out on a date.  But not just any old date, a trapeze lesson date!  It was part of the summer session of the Gorilla Circus down in Battersea Park, and was a two hour class learning how to do a knee-hang move.

I could explain it, but here's Adrian getting it perfectly on his first go!

Damn those naturally talented people...  I had a bit of a harder time:

But in the end I managed to get it!  I was so determined that there was no way I wasn't going to get those legs through that bar...

But because Adrian was able to demonstrate he was good enough, he got to do a move with the instructor:

Impressive non?!

Here are the rest of the photos.  I'm covered with bruises today and have incredibly achy shoulders - but it was totally worth it!

Great recipe site

Not that I normally want to promote anything Australian, being as partisan as a good NZer ought to be, but I’ve just rediscovered this website and am going to post it here for you, as well as for me to remember to use it!

This Sanitarium 'great recipes' site has a wealth of healthy, and Antipodean-cooking-style-friendly recipes.  It’s also nice and basic which is normally what you want when a) you’re trying to come up with inspiration for what to buy for the week and b) when it comes to actually making it during the week.  I also like how it’s got lots of vegetarian recipes which is how we (mostly) eat at home – saving the planet and our budget one meal at a time...

We’re making a variant of this pumpkin, feta and pea risotto tonight – I’m a big fan of risotto (good for the shoulder muscles) so hopefully it tastes good!

(P.S. Sanitarium have never heard of me - I just like their site...)

Kippers

We tried out a different farmers market last weekend (we normally go up to the one at Clapham South on a Sunday) just to see what was there and how it compared.  This one was on a Saturday by Oval tube station in the grounds of St Marks Church - it was funny to see all the stalls backed up against ancient gravestones!

It was quite a bit bigger than our usual, with cookies, a coffee stall, different vege places and lots of fancy cheese/spreads/bakery/meat etc. stalls.  I resisted trying some of Adrian's pain-au-raisin, but when he got the strawberry and white chocolate cookie all my resolve crumbled! 

The vege we've had so far has been good - especially the giant lettuce - but the new thing was the fish stall.  It had samphire which I didn't even know what it was, and coincidentally was on the menu at the pub later that night (obviously I ordered it being a sucker for interesting additions to menus) - however, it was crunchy and delicious so I'd definitely try it again!  The other thing we got were some kippers.  I'd never had kippers before, but knowing that they belong to the high omega-3 fish family, we thought we'd give them a try.

I made this River Cottage recipe, which was good, but the problem was the bones!  It took ages taking most of them out with tweezers, and then the ones I missed just looked wrong when you were trying to eat the dish (even though they were really small and light).  Apparently you can get de-boned kippers in cans?  The other thing I was surprised about was how salty they were - is that a sign of a good kipper or not I wonder...

Anyway, it's all about experimentation, and I got to use the mint I've been growing in the garden which is always good.  We'll try the fish stall again and see what else he's got to tempt us!

Tea with the Queen

As Kiwis in London, we're eligible to apply to attend one of the Queen's annual garden parties held at Buckingham Palace every summer.  It's a ballot, with a one in four chance of success, and this year we were one of the lucky ones!  (The hilarious thing is that while NZers just apply online with our passport number, the Australians have to send in something like three letters of character with their application...).

Bastiaan and Pip got tickets on the same day as us which inspired us to make it a really big event and do it in style!  Firstly we went to afternoon tea at a hotel in Belgravia - one of those Groupon deals which meant it was a bit of a palaver to organise and was a bit odd when we were there (it certainly wasn't the Langham or anything...), but the scones were pretty gosh darn good. 

Then it was onto the palace!  There were something like 8,000 people there, mostly in recognition of service to the community - so we felt like we were slight intruders - but we definitely looked the part so that was something at least!  The boys looked incredibly dashing in their top hats (and the old ladies we spoke to thought so as well!).

The Queen and Prince Philip came out accompanied by the national anthem, then they do a bit of a walk-around, then have tea in the royal tea tent.  Us plebs have the regular tea tent, but the food was so delicious (amazing cucumber sandwiches, passionfruit tarts, salmon tarts, chocolate square things with a gold crown on the top and all sorts of other goodies.  In fact, as this article shows, the food's so good everyone gets a bit greedy and goes back for seconds!

We didn't manage to meet the Queen, and had a bit of trouble getting a good look close up as she's quite short, but got a good look at Prince Philip who I must say is doing pretty well for 90!  We also got to walk around the grounds and took some sneaky snaps (cameras weren't allowed but everyone had their phones out...).

It was fun leaving through the front of the palace with all the tourists gaping at us - I felt like a bona fide celebrity!  Then we headed round the corner to The Library Bar at The Lanesborough - a very formal bar in a five star hotel which was fabulous and very fitting for our attire!  Bastiaan and Adrian got essentially very large glasses of neat gin, while Pip and I had champagne cocktails.  With four drinks costing an eye-watering £72 it's not somewhere you'd go very often I think...

And not to be outdone, we then moved onto Galvin at Windows which is the michelin starred restaurant at the top of the Hilton.  It had incredible views and the food was great - exactly the right sort of thing to finish off the day!  The rest of the photos are here.

If only every Tuesday was so much fun...

Can you run up 1,037 stairs?

Well, I certainly can't, but Adrian managed it in just over 5 minutes - amazing!

Back in May we volunteered through the NZ Women's Business Network for a charity climb up The Gherkin which was organised to provide funds for the Christchurch earthquake relief.  The event, 'Step Up 4 Christchurch', had the morning briefing meeting up the top of the building which was very cool - it's only open to the public once a year and it's really hard to get tickets for it, so it was a neat opportunity to be able to see it without lots of people and for a good cause as well!

We were stationed down the bottom, letting people up into the run and it was interesting to see all the various types of people who were participating.  The guy who won did it in 4 minutes 56 seconds which was pretty incredible...  Our turn was at the end of the day (immediately after eating a late lunch which definitely weighted me down I reckon!), and it was a great feeling to get to the top and celebrate.  I did it in 9 minutes flat (mostly walking) which I didn't think was too bad.  All the volunteers had a glass of fizz up the top, then tootled off home with the left over goodie bags - nice!

More photos are here.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in Andalucia

Having essentially fallen asleep due to the sheer necessity of not wanting to throw up anymore (this is a lovely way to start a post isn't it...), I awoke as we finally arrived in the twisty, turny streets of Ronda.  Pip had been wanting to come here for years, and we were all hoping it would live up to expectations!

Having ensconsed ourselves in our hotel, we went out exploring all the incredible vistas that Ronda is known for.  It's perched high up in the hills with a series of fantastic bridges over a deep ravine, and despite the mist and blustery winds, we managed to get a great sense of the town.  Sadly my stomach wasn't up to eating much, but we tried our first tapas and everyone got stuck into the ham that had been sadly missing in Morocco!

From Ronda we drove down the coast to Cadiz which is on the south-western coast.  It had a wonderfully eerie cathedral and we walked all around the coastline and out onto the piers to see the waves throthing about.  The boys went out for 'one drink' and we saw them about 3am - and finally someone else felt as bad as I had been feeling!

And then it was the turn of Seville.  We did lots of walking around, seeing the cathedral, the Plaza de Espana, the bullfighting ring, and on the last day, the 'Feria de Abril'.  This is essentially a week-long excuse for the people of Seville to dress up in flamenco outfits and spend all night partying and dancing!  Families have their own tents which they've kept for generations, and there are also big groups of people with tents (and the public tents for the plebian likes of us).  There was also a big fun-fair, where of course we managed to try out a few rides - just for quality control purposes obviously.

It was quite an odd experience to be there when it was so wet (the torrents of rain in Seville were unbelievable), and then also personally not to be able to eat anything was a bit of shame (particularly when the others were eating giant skewers of seafood and meat, and all this delicious tapas and sangria), but in the end the enforced starvation killed off the bug which was such a relief.  Since Kazakhstan I seem to have the dodgiest tummy - no more boasting about having an iron stomach that's for sure!

Anyway, here are the photos of Spain - see if you can count some where it's not raining!

Cupcakes and cocktails

As a birthday present from Jeff and Ruth for my 30th, today we had the fun times of going to a 'cocktails and cupcakes' experience. 

The cupcakes were all made in advance, so all we had to do was learn how to decorate them.  We had fondant, buttercream and cream cheese icings to play with, as well as glitter, hundreds and thousands and chocolate sprinkles.

Check out the fruits of my labour!

The rest of the photos are here - go check them out!

Marvellous Morocco

To make the most of the Easter weekend here in the UK where you could get 11 days holiday while only taking two days leave (thanks Will and Kate!), we headed further afield than normal, all the way down to Africa...

Our Morocco holiday was all completely planned by Pip which made life unbelievably easy, and meant we could basically just turn up and enjoy ourselves.  We flew into Marrakesh (Adrian and my flight was delayed which meant the others (Pip, Bas, Erin and Kerryn) had to wait at the airport for a couple of hours which was a bit stink), and then went straight to our first riad.  A riad is a traditional Moroccan house with an interior courtyard, and every single one we stayed in was just lovely.  This one was run by an Italian guy who didn't speak a word of English, only French, so it was good practice for me!  We spent the rest of the day just exploring the souks and having some incredible freshly squeezed orange juice (only NZ 80 cents a glass!) and mint tea.  I also loved the storks which were perched everywhere on the roofs:

The next morning we started our 4WD tour which would take us all the way through the mountains up to Fes.  It started off inauspiciously with our guide not being able to start with us, and having to meet us the next day, but it didn't really matter as we were absolutely transfixed by the fact that it was snowing as we traversed the pass into the mountains!  Even our driver was surprised and was videoing it on his phone as he was driving along the hairpin bends...  That day was also the start of my unfortunate problem which sadly reoccurred pretty frequently throughout the rest of the trip, but considering I was a pretty adventurous eater wasn't too much of a surprise!

Our first stop was a small town called Skoura where we stayed in a mudbrick house with an incredibly friendly family and which had some austere, but beautiful scenery.  They also had some honey which was probably the closest that I will ever come to eating true ambrosia - even the memory of it is making my mouth water!  They also had a pretty delicious couscous - that and the tangines were incredibly basically everywhere we went.  It was also really interesting to see how the houses were made:

The next two days were spent travelling through the Middle Atlas mountains, seeing some amazing scenery, including the Dades Gorge which was absolutely stunning.  It was where one of their major rivers starts and quite cool to see the water just bubbling out of the ground!  We spent the night in Tamtattouchte which was a tiny Berber village and where we spent the night dancing and singing with a group of locals and a group of German tourists...quite a random mix of people!

The next day we headed up to Mergouza for the start of our camel trek!  Well...they're actually dromedaries, but it's much easier to say camel...  Anyway, it was amazing - the sand in the desert (I think it was the Sahara) was the most incredible rose colour, the camels were very cool, the sunset was stunning...I think I'm running out of superlatives!  We spent the night sleeping in tents and rode out early the next day.  I think I'll just leave it to the photos...

We then drove up to Fes and spent a couple of days exploring there.  I have to say I enjoyed it more than Marrakesh - the lanes are narrower and twistier, everything is right up in your face, and heading up the hill to look down on the city is fantastic.  The smell of the tanneries still hasn't quite left my memory, but maybe it's because I'm currently wearing my goat slippers and camel belt! 

Adrian and I also went to a traditional hammam and I got scrubbed down in places I didn't even know I had!  That was definitely a most intimate experience and for once I was pretty pleased that they're so keen on female/male segregation in that part of the world...  I didn't need to exfoliate for days...

After Fes we got a ridiculously hot train up to Tangier where we stayed in the most elaborate riad yet - the tiling was just amazing.  Unfortunately, Tangier itself wasn't so crash hot, and the food poisoning I got from dinner there was not the type of thing I was keen to hit me at 1am the night before we were due to leave.  Unfortunately it continued (along with the previous TD), for the entire duration of a) the 45 minute bus ride to the ferry terminal, b) the three hour ferry ride to Spain, and c) the drive from the port up to Ronda...  Let's just say it wasn't the best experience of my life!!

But overall, there's no way it tainted our experience of Morocco - it was just a wonderful place and I would heartily recommend it to anyone!  The photos really tell the whole story better than I can do in words, so have a look!

Fancy pants dinner

Having had some lamb shanks in the freezer for ages (bought on special, obviously), we finally decided to bring them out for a special Sunday dinner.

I made this recipe for the lamb shanks themselves, and then a modification on this one for a kale and potato mash for underneath.  And it was delicious!

Check out the scrumptiousness: 

Surprise birthday dinner!

Alexandra was the lucky recipient of a surprise birthday dinner on Saturday night - and seeing as it was at a Japanese restaurant, even the better!  It was a teppanyaki place and the chef was fantastic, cooking everything deliciously (and amazingly, there was heaps of food), but also making sure we were all having a rip-roaring time.

As you can see, Alexandra was much better at the egg-toss than me!

Fancy a port? Don't mind if I do...

To take advantage of a work meeting of Amelia's which was (every so conveniently) arranged for a Monday morning (now how on earth did that happen to get organised like that I wonder...), we spent the weekend soaking up the sun (and a lot of port) in Porto.

Now, it may have been the sheer delight in seeing sun again, or all the wonderful food and drink, but Porto would definitely have to be up there in my favourite weekend holiday destination list.  It was cheap, interesting, and not so taxing on the 'must-see' list that you didn't feel bad spending most of your time debating the relative merits of white or tawny port...  We did see some interesting things however, like climbing up the Torre de Clerigos to get a great view over the city, heading out to the beach to the Atlantic Ocean (I think I've got my geography right there), and stumbling across a bird market with every kind of parrot or canary you could think of.

The port houses in and of themselves are really interesting too - I learnt heaps of stuff about how port is made (essentially wine + brandy = port) and we tried to think that we could tell the difference between the aged and straight in the bottle stuff, but in hindsight who knows what we were talking about!  It was great that they're all so close together along the river and you really get a sense of how different some of them are in their approach to things (depsite most of the industry being owned by a few companies with several different labels).

The city itself is really interesting in terms of its buildings and layout.  There's the labyrinthine old town on the banks of the river, replete with red tiled roofs and blue tiled walls and which is basically crumbling away, then across the river is the Villa Nova de Gaia - essentially the 'new town'.  It was only joined to the old town by the Luiz I bridge, designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel.  Then back on the same side as the old town you've got Foz which is a beach area out the west of the city, then the newer areas further north.  We had an unlimited travel card which we definitely made use of during our three days there!

We managed to bring three bottles of port home with us - one white, one normal tawny, and one 10 year old tawny.  I'm now on the hunt for port glasses from the op shops so we can drink it in style!

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Fun times with a razor

To celebrate the end of winter, it was time for the annual de-hairing.  And, being a (very) good sport, Adrian let me have a bit of fun with the razor... (apologies for the sideways photos - I can't work out how to turn them round!).

But rest assured...it hasn't stayed like that!  Although the moustache is here for a few more days yet :)

New house!

It's been pretty quiet in this neck of the woods lately in terms of travel - however there are some trips coming up (Porto and Morocco!) so keep an eye out for those posts.  We've mostly been keeping busy by finding our new house and packing up all our stuff.  Here are some photos of the new place: pretty cute don't you think!

I particularly love how it has a garden - and a shed!  I've been longing to have something green and to be able to get out and enjoy the sun (when it finally shows up) so here's hoping it gets a bit of sun throughout the day.  It's still in South London and close to all the transport links etc. we need (well, that I need, not Adrian on his bike!) and should hopefully be a place we can settle into for a little bit.  We move in this Saturday - can't wait!

I also recently won tickets to the opening night of the Affordable Art Fair (£25 per ticket - score!) which we went to last night and we celebrated our new flat by getting two prints to hang on the walls.  The first is a Graham Carter print (he's based in Brighton) and you can see it as the first picture to the left on this link - it's the one of the panda made entirely out of birds.  It's reasonably large (bigger than A4) and we bought it just as a print so we'll need to get it framed.

The second is a print of this painting of the Battersea Power Station by Jayson Lilley (a graphic artist from Devon).  We looked at possibly getting the original painting (maybe A2 square, so quite large), but at £860 or so it was quite a big investment! Instead we've got a limited edition print which is quite a bit smaller (maybe only 15cm square) but box framed which looks really cool.  The power station is not far from our house so it should fit right in.

I can't wait to hang them on the wall!

Throwing ourselves down steep cliffs for fun

As is becoming a slight habit now (well definitely for Adrian!), once winter arrived, it was straight online to book our ski trip.  Having gone with the absolutely brilliant UCPA last time (kind of like the YMCA for France – ensuring that expensive sports like skiing or diving are available for those with less generous means), there was no question about who we’d choose this year. 

Adrian was keen for a bigger challenge than La Plagne, so we decided to go with Val d’Isere from 1-8 Jan.  There’s lots of back country area and it had a specialist ‘off-piste’ group which Adrian could join (think lots of hiking up mountains with a shovel strapped to your back).  I went with snowboarding again, and as usual with the UCPA, everything was thrown into the price (accommodation, four meals/day, gear, lift pass and full-time instruction).

This time we also learnt from our mistakes and flew over rather than submitting ourselves to the torture of the bus ride.  And thank goodness we did – we learned on arrival that something had gone wrong with the buses and they took nearly 40 hours to get there!  Yikes...  Although we didn’t do amazingly well either – a slight miscalculation of the tube times meant an incredibly stressful sprint to the train which we made with literally 90 seconds to spare!  It was a bit of a hectic start to 2011 that’s for sure.

We went with Bryony, a friend from Oxford, and Frances, a friend from Adrian’s work.  It was good having four because we got our own little (very little) room and could all compare notes from when we got back from our respective group sessions.  The snow was pretty icy for the first few days, but luckily we got a big dump on the Wednesday night and so everyone got some excellent powder runs in.

One of the crazy things about Val d'Isere is this bar called 'La Folie Douce' which is located right in the middle of all the runs and only accessible either on skis (or snowboard!) or via a telecabine.  It was crazy to come over the crest of the hill and see it with all the music pumping away.  This is what it looked like in the middle of the madness:

At the UCPA they didn’t supply helmets with the gear so I ended up buying one (just about as cheap as renting one).  Thank goodness I did because I took two big falls in the first couple of days (one completely my own fault, the other when someone ran over my board) and broke my helmet!!  Better than breaking my head...  Luckily I’d remembered to keep the receipt so now have a brand new one nestled in the cupboards at home.

It was awesome snowboarding down the glacier right at the very top of the ski area – I think it’s about 3600m above sea level.  I loved the off-piste powder too – makes you remember why you pay all that money to go!

As usual, lots of photos uploaded here – enjoy!

Brumal Budapest!

When we found out that both of our offices were closing down over the Christmas period, there was a mad scramble to the internet to see what cheap, last-minute deal we could get for a quick holiday between Christmas and NYE.  Of the places we had down on our respective ‘want-to-visit’ lists and which had good deals on offer, Budapest came out tops!  (Or ‘top-best’ as our guide in Turkey a few years back would always say).

So early on Boxing Day it was off to the airport for a quick hop on Malev Hungarian Airlines (no cheap airline for us my friend!) over to freeeeeeeeeeeeeezing (there aren’t enough e’s in the world to explain to you the coldness) Budapest.  But luckily, as we were living it up in style, our hotel room was nice and warm (although not cosy – we got the wheelchair friendly room so it was massive!) and we were well rugged up against the cold wearing an interesting and fashionable selection of thermals, gloves, scarves, jackets and hats.

We spent the first day exploring the Buda side of the river, including the usual suspects of the castle, St Mattias church, the Fisherman’s Bastion and Gellert Hill.  It was all covered in snow and any refuge indoors we could find was most welcome, but the walk up Gellert Hill was nice and warming as well so a good choice of activity to round off the day.  We also got into the local culinary scene by trying some paprika flavoured chips!  Dinner was at the Christmas market in the middle of town on the Pest side.  We got a fried potato pancake kind of thing smothered in sour cream (Hungarian cuisine is most definitely not calorie-conscious) and a kürtös kalács which is a kind of twisted Hungarian doughnut.  Delicious!  The Christmas market was smaller than the ones we had seen in Munich, but it was nice to be able to catch them for a few days after Christmas anyway.

Day two was spent looking at things on the Pest side, including the Synagogue, food market, Parliament, and Heroes’ Square.  The highlight though was definitely the baths – we went to the Szechenyi baths which were the big ones at the top of the hill (painted yellow).  It was dark while we were there, and snowing, so with the heat coming up off the 38 degree water it made it all foggy and very cool.  Such a strange feeling to have the snow coming down while you were heated from the bottom!  They had three outdoor pools, then lots of indoor ones – and we tried them all!  The saunas were a bit too hot for me to stay in for too long, but the whirly jet pool outside which propelled you around in a circle was ridiculously fun.

I should mention here the joy of our hotel breakfast.  It was a buffet in the Hungarian style – so lots of eggs, meat, bread etc. Basically perfect lunch food!  There was a small sign asking not to take things for lunch, but it was ignored by almost everyone there.  We tried to be subtle about it, but some families had almost chain-gang style lunch making going on with piles of ham and cheese rolls ending up at the end of each table!  It was great though to have some boiled eggs and rolls to get us through the day between our massive breakfast and dinners...

Day three we went out into the Budapest ‘burbs to Memento Park.  It’s basically a big patch of land where they put all the statues from the Communist era together.  Because they were mostly intended to be seen from a fair distance, having them right on the ground looks crazy!  The scale is all skewy.  It was a bit of an adventure getting the trams and buses out there and thank goodness I knew about how long it should take because it felt like we were seeing the entire suburban landscape on the way!  Unfortunately again, it was freeeeeezing so while they had a really interesting film on (an original ‘how-to’ guide for communist spies), it was far too cold to sit there watching it for long.  We also saw the cathedral that day before heading to an all you can eat and drink restaurant for dinner.  While this wouldn’t normally be top of our list of places to eat, it was actually really good – lots of Hungarian things like goulash and the quality was pretty good.  The red wine servings were rather enormous though which led to a bit of a headache the next day...

Our last day was spent visiting the cathedral and some other random bits of pieces around the city like a great sculpture made up of little shoes along the banks of the Danube.  It was kind of a shame it was so freezing that we couldn’t stroll around the city at a leisurely pace, but at the same time the snow was very pretty and it was always a great excuse to pop into a coffee shop for a piece of cake to warm up!

The photos are here – enjoy!