Making friends with our local parks

We live close to a couple of quite large parks in South London, and either cycle through or past them daily. As a result of that, and being curious about the notices put up at the gates etc., we've stumbled upon some great (free!) nights out lately.

The first was in Burgess Park, where they had a pedal-powered screening of Pan's Labyrinth. With some friends, we turned up bright and early and helped power the music pre-film, as well as pedalling throughout the evening. It was a good way to keep warm, especially when it rained halfway through! The film was every bit as gruesome as I remembered - definitely not one for kids - but the idea of a pedal-powered film was brilliant. We had to keep it above 14 (not sure whether that's RPM or what) otherwise the whole thing would shut down! Love this great photo from Electric Pedals of the night:

And then last night, we went on a 'Bat Walk' in Southwark Park. The local council's ecology officer gave us a short introduction to the bats we might encounter, handed out a few bat detectors, and then off we went! We had to wait until it was pretty dark, but soon enough, woosh!, there they were, swooping and diving over our heads. We walked around the park's lake (as there's more insects there, and therefore, more bats coming in to eat the insects) and listened out for the noise from the detector.

We saw lots of these guys: the common pipstrelle (pipistrellus pipistrellus). Click on where it says 'listen to a common pipistrelle' in the link to hear the noise that we could hear through the bat detector (set at about 45 or 46 decibels).

Photo source

They're the most common bat in the UK (lots more stats here) and due to the great backlit clouds, we could see them reasonably well (although taking photos would have been impossible due to the low light and how fast they were moving). I had no idea that there would be bats in our local park or that we would see so many of them, so it was a really interesting evening.

During a walk around Southwark Park in the pouring rain on the previous Monday we also found out that we can play lawn bowls for only £2 a go, as well as go boating on the lake. So, inspired by our recent successes, we'll definitely be keeping an eye out for other events in the neighbourhood - who said you had to go far afield to have fun??

You spin me right round baby right round

It was a pretty exciting week this week as we finally got to taste the honey from our Connaught House beehives for the first time! I went down to the Bee Collective in central London with some other LSE colleagues where we uncapped the frames and then spun out the honey in a centrifuge, before trying our liquid gold for the first time. It was delicious! I can't wait to try it side-by-side with the Passfield Hall honey as I wonder how different it will taste.

You can read all about it (with lots of other photos of us in those fetching hair-nets) on the other blog I currently write: LSE Bees.

And let me know if you'd like a jar! They're selling like hotcakes (I've pre-sold 70 jars already)...

Homebody - kitchen edition

So as I said, as well as tending to the garden, I've been doing lots of cooking and baking over the summer. The latest season of the Great British Bake Off has started (which is essentially the only television show I watch all year), so I joked that I should make things to match the theme of each week, and then the idea just kind of stuck!

First up was cake week, so Adrian was treated to a banana cake (best banana cake recipe ever) and a carrot loaf. Last week it was biscuits and I made some oatmeal raisin cookies (disappointing, I don't recommend the recipe). This week it's bread week - any suggestions for what I can make??

On the weekend I made this delicious granola:



We've been eating granola on the weekends (changing it up from our usual muesli/rolled oats combo as a treat) and this actually works out cheaper than buying it and is pretty good if I do say so myself. We've been toying with the idea of making it for a while, and finally got all the ingredients together (normal size, not ground to dust, rolled oats are surprisingly hard to find and expensive in the UK). I'll definitely make it again!

I've also recently made these amaaaazing truffles - you would never in a million years guess that the main ingredient is dates (they're vegan!) and it's been pretty hard to keep them in the freezer and not eat one every five minutes...



The other interesting thing we've made were some brandy snap baskets to take to a friend's house for dinner - I couldn't believe how easy they are! It took a bit of experimenting with different size things to work out the perfect size to mould them on, but we eventually got there and they tasted delicious. I was fascinated with the process too - it was so interesting to watch them spread out and go all lacy in the oven:

I have a long list of other things to make, so I'm sure there'll be more updates! Adrian's definitely getting his reserves in before triathlon training starts in earnest next year that's for sure...

Homebody - garden edition

To make the most of the summer, and to make me feel like I'm getting at least a bit of a holiday, I've been taking both days of the weekend off (normally I try to put in a half day at least on the weekend to make sure I get enough stuff done). We've also been trying to be very frugal and save money (well, not so much save it, just not spend it!) as my funding has come to an end and I'm now living on savings.

As a result, we've been spending a bit more time at home and I've been doing all sorts of stuff in the garden and the kitchen, so today I thought I'd tell you about our horticultural adventures. First up, the thing I'm probably proudest of, our beans! In the words of Fatboy Slim, they've come a long way baby - I planted them from seed and grew them inside on the window sill before planting them out on the 26th of June:

They grew pretty quickly; this is a picture from just a few weeks later on the 12th of July:

And then again on the 29th of July (the amount of growth in two weeks is pretty astounding I think!):



It was a bit hairy when cyclone Bertha came through as we weren't sure whether they'd make it or not. I couldn't put the poles very far in the ground unfortunately, so it was multiple guy ropes to the rescue!:



But they survived and are looking bushy and healthy (luckily no aphids in sight) and we had our first harvest for dinner last night! I made this recipe and they were delicious. The variety is 'Moonlight' in case you're interested.





In other garden news, we had an amazing one-day-only flowering of a cactus, and we've also been enjoying the roses, strawberries, herbs, and actually learning the value of pruning things to make them grow back stronger (our chilli plant inside is pretty miraculous as a result of a good prune). We've also been told that we needed to 'turn' our compost, so did that this morning to great success (I now realise that our flat layers of stuff weren't actually going to do anything, but it now looks pretty good).



Adrian's still on a mission to try and fix the lawn (it's being taken over by rampaging dandelions and other weeds), we have a dead lavender that shows no signs of being able to be resurrected (and it died instantly on being brought home from the supermarket and put into a pot which is a bit annoying), and successfully growing coriander is still a mystery to me, but one step at a time! It's been such a great summer and having a garden has been so nice. Here's hoping autumn is benevolent and we can enjoy it a bit longer...

Le Tour à Londres

The Tour de France came to London today, and along with thousands of other people, I popped down from my office to Embankment to have a look (helmets helpfully identified - I don't think otherwise you'd be able to see them in amongst all the people!). Where we were standing you could also feel the District line trains rumbling under your feet - a very strange sensation.

As you can see from my photo it wasn't that great a spot (although being under the trees did save us from the dreary London drizzle), and they all came whizzing through so fast, but it was fun to see and leaves you with a renewed appreciation for their athleticism (hoping that it's natural, not artificially enhanced). 

It also brought back memories of the last time we saw the tour in Lourdes - can't believe that was six years ago! Time is seriously flying...