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.