Life round here

I really can't believe it's 2015 and that I'll be handing in my thesis this year - the past three and a bit years have absolutely flown by (cliche I know). It's also somewhat amazing to realise that we've been in London for over five years now. That time really has disappeared! So I'm making an effort to try and capture more of the little things that we've been doing, to remember what daily life was actually about. So here's a few shots of life round here, circa February and March 2015.

I organised a celebration of Waitangi Day at university, mainly so I could have an excuse to try these delicious NZ-themed doughnuts (the kiwifruit jam one was particularly good).

To continue the baking theme, Adrian's been baking up a storm with all sorts of innovative and delicious bread. These are two of the best: a braided white loaf and then a swirled wholemeal cinnamon and raisin loaf. Now you know why I married this man!

At the amazing skip-fit classes I go to at uni, Adrian managed to come to one and get a special one-on-one boxing lesson. He got beat up! (Not literally)

Also at uni, we got our brand new red cedar hive delivered which everyone's very excited about. The wood is extremely soft but smells really lovely. Can't wait for the bees to arrive and make it their new home!

We went up to Cambridge for the weekend to see a friend (I got the train and Adrian cycled - Ironman training has already started!) and visited the Fitzwilliam Museum. While we were there a recital was on - it was lovely hearing the music echoing through the rooms. My eye was also caught by these beautiful tiles from ancient Egypt. Incredible how the colour has lasted so well for so long.

We've also been thinking about some of the differences between the UK and NZ, like the price of food. This is our weekly shop (barring a few other bits bought at another supermarket) from Lidl - £25, or about $50. I definitely won't miss all the unnecessary packaging on the fruit and vegetables, but the cost is hard to beat!

Suffice to say, we definitely eat well around here. Here's dinner from Friday night - a delicious red pesto and goats cheese pizza, with baby corn, mange tout, red capsicum and rocket. Yum! We're using every occasion to use our brand new (to us) KitchenAid mixer. It's pretty amazing what it can do!

And finally, the piece de resistance - my new chair! Because we live in a cul-de-sac, our road is a magnet for fly-tippers, and there are always all sorts of things out by the rubbish bins. One thing that arrived one day was this chair. It's missing a bottom stabilising piece of wood, but I think it looks pretty good in its brand new shade! The paint was left over from a university project and after five coats and a few more coats of varnish, I think it's pretty nice. Definitely brightens up the living room and not bad for a total outlay on varnish of £4.99!

So there you have it, five weeks worth of photos and stuff going on. Pretty homebody stuff, but given I'm now completely unemployed and focusing on the PhD and triathlon training has started, it suits us fine! Stay tuned for more updates - the weather's just starting to warm up so I'm sure there'll be all sorts of things to report on.

Walking in Epping Forest

To help banish the winter blues, I decided to organise a walk in Epping Forest for my birthday. We followed most of this route, although we started a bit further north at Leytonstone and in the end, finished a bit further south at Theydon Bois. I'm guessing it was about 19km all up and although we tried to follow this excellent 1970s guide, GPS was our saviour on the day as even though I'd read that the route wasn't very well-marked, I wasn't expecting there to be no markers at all! I also think, given that we were doing it in the middle of winter, the paths probably weren't as visible as they may be in drier conditions...

We started bright-eyed and bushy tailed, despite some unexpected rain slightly dampening the party (although happily it got sunny later on).

After a bit of a false start (hence the need to bring out the GPS) we got back on track and picked up the pace. Well, that's not true. We tried to pick up the pace but the mud was just a bit too much!

Here we are a bit over half-way making the most of a pretty lake for a photo opportunity, and me contemplating whether I'd just stop where I was and sleep there the night...

 

And finally the end! It was pretty tough going for us city slickers, particularly given that my terrible boots ripped my heels to shreds (I'll refrain from posting that particularly unsavoury photo), and I've definitely got some sore legs now, but definitely landed on the side of fun overall. 

I'd also arranged for everyone, as well as some other friends, to head to a local pub for drinks and dinner - our large group of 20 mostly mud-covered hikers definitely stood out like a sore thumb amongst the extremely well-groomed and glamorous other patrons! I hadn't even thought we'd be heading into Essex territory (epitomised by a TV show called 'TOWIE' for those in NZ) so our muddy trousers being out of place was the understatement of the year so far... Cultural appreciation was had by all though - we'll have to go back when we're slightly cleaner I think...

So, overall I'd recommend walking in Epping Forest, but probably not again in winter! Maybe we'll head back there when all the leaves are fresh and that lovely new Spring green. 

Birthday chronicle

Despite being told by a friend that 34 is a bit of a 'nothing birthday', the fact that it's winter over in London means that I think it's all the more important to make a bit of a fuss about a birthday that you're used to spending wafting about in the glorious heat of summer.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough that the terrible weather forecast didn't really arrive (think torrential rain etc.) and was instead gifted with a beautifully sunny and crisp day. To start with, I got the coveted front seat of the bus which meant I got a stunning 360 view of the Thames from my favourite bridge in London - Waterloo. You really get a sense of how the river bends from Waterloo Bridge, and you can see nearly all of the city's most iconic structures. Here's the view looking east where you can see St Pauls, and the Gherkin hiding behind the 'Cheese Grater' (love the random names of all the buildings):

The reason I got the bus in was because I'd made an Italian apple cake and didn't want to get it all mushed up in my panniers. Here's a half-finished shot of the cake - it took six apples and it was pretty delicious if I do say so myself!

After an extremely decadent lunch of leftover lobster mac'n'cheese from Christmas (which, when separated from all the other rich food we had at Christmas, was discovered to be insanely cheesy), it was time for a quick birthday visit to the bees. Fortunately our remaining hive is doing fine (no further sign of varroa which is great) and we're looking forward to seeing the entries to the beehive painting competition, due next Friday. Here's a birthday selfie I took from the roof looking south over the Thames where you can see the Shard in the background:

And then to top it all off, Adrian took me out for a fabulously fancy dinner at Roux at the Landau (in the Langham hotel in central London). We had a glass of champagne, delicious bread, an amuse bouche (cheesy choux buns), starter, main, dessert and petit fours (quince jelly, rum and raisin macaron and handmade chocolate). It was excellent and I would highly recommend it.

The final photo above includes a shot of Broadcasting House, the main BBC building on Regent Street. I've gone past it so many times but never really stopped to look. It looks great all lit up at night I thought.

So there you have it, a chronicle of a birthday. As I said to Adrian, hopefully by the time my next birthday rolls around I'll be a Dr! Viva timing dependent obviously, but here's hoping!

Love London Go Dutch

Even though London is officially in a drought, it hasn't stopped the heavens opening this past fortnight, giving us some of the wettest and chilliest April weather on record apparently.  However, that doesn't stop hardy cyclists like Adrian and I, who've been getting out and about and on with our business cycling through the streets of the city in our wet weather gears.


This Saturday we joined an estimated 10,000 other London cyclists who took part in a central city bike ride to raise awareness for cycling safety.  While the situation in London is incredibly advanced compared to Auckland (recently suggested as one of the worst cities in the world for cycling - now that's not something to be proud of), with lots more cycle lanes and bike parks, it's not so good when it comes to big intersections.  I cycle through several of London's most dangerous intersections on a daily basis on my way to and from university, and let me tell you, there's always an exhalation of breath when you know you've made it across in one piece.  The 21 year old cousin of a good friend of ours over here was also recently killed by a lorry while cycling (in broad daylight, wearing fluro), so the situation really does need to improve.


The bike ride was part of the London Cycling Campaign's initiative called 'Love London Go Dutch' which aims to make London as safe for cycling as the cities in the Netherlands and despite the rain, wind and cold, was good fun to be part of.  There's a video of the event here (can you spot me??) and some great photos on this Flickr stream by beenbrun, including this one below showing us all coming up Piccadilly:

The London mayoral and local government elections are coming up, so here's hoping it made a difference! 

Having a riot

On a whim at the end of last year, a group of us decided to take advantage of the cheap fares to Ireland, and booked a long weekend in Cork.  I've been wanting to go to Ireland for ages, so it was definitely something exciting to look forward to.

We headed off bright and early on Friday morning and arrived in Cork keen for a look around.  Our first stop was down in the middle of town for a quick snack at the English Market, which was filled with all sorts of delicious food and has been going since 1788 which is pretty impressive!  I tried a 'chester cake' which was extremely rich, and is basically a cake within pastry, covered in icing...  It was one to share!

After a quick scoot around Cork we drove to Blarney Castle to check out the famous Blarney Stone, say hello to some horses, check out a poison garden and generally marvel over the technicolour of the green, green grass.  It was a nice surprise just how interesting the whole grounds were - if you go don't just head straight to the castle!

Tamara and I saying hello to the horses at Blarney Castle

Getting the gift of the gab!

From Blarney it was down to Cobh (pronounced Cove) which is on the coast and was where the Titanic stopped in on her ill-fated journey.  After checking out the cathedral high up on the hill and the edge of the harbour, it was time for a late lunch.  And this is where the incredibly friendly and accommodating locals came in for the first time - the pub didn't have food, but the cafe didn't have Guinness, so you can just bring your food down to the pub!  Excellent.  There were some old guys having a sing-a-long as well which contributed to a very Irish-sounding meal accompaniment!

Lunch in Cobh

Cobh harbour

From Cobh it was back to Cork to check in to our grand old hotel high up on the hill, then a quick walk down to town for dinner at the delicious Market Lane.  I have to say, I wasn't expecting much from the food in Ireland, but I was very gladly mistaken - everything was delicious!  

After a (very) hearty breakfast the next morning (who knew that you could get white and black pudding), it was off to St Anne's Shandon to try out hand at some campanology.  What's that you say?  Well, at this particular church you can actually ring the bells in their tower and they even provide music to try out.  While I definitely feel very sorry for their neighbours as uneven peals of 'Jingle Bells' roll out across the city all day, it was so much fun!  We got some pretty good tunes out and absolutely loved the friendly lady at the entrance who regaled us with some very entertaining stories.

Very cool concrete art near to St Anne's Shandon

View over Cork from St Anne's Shandon

After St Anne's it was off to Kinsale.  This is another picturesque coastal town just down the road from Cork, but sadly seemed to be mostly closed until Easter - don't they know there are still a few tourists in winter!  But the pub was open so we could watch some football and have some more Guinness - it's all about priorities.

From Kinsale we drove west to Kenmare where we stayed with Edel in her amazingly retro house - it was so perfectly preserved!  Apparently Kenmare's a popular haunt with the oldies, and Edel said it was so lovely to have young folk in the house - I didn't want to disappoint her by saying we were all over 30...  Kenmare's a very pretty town with loads of pubs and restaurants.  We tried hot whiskey which is a delicious concoction of whiskey, hot water, lemon and cloves, and then had a feast at one of their restaurants - steaks the size of two fists put together!  

The next morning it was off for a drive around the Beara Peninsula, which was absolutely gorgeous.  I was really taken aback how different County Cork was from County Kerry - the former is really green, quite pastoral, whereas County Kerry is all rugged mountains and exposed rocks.  It was so nice to get out and see the sea all around and smell the fresh air - it was a definite change from London that's for sure!  

Beautiful scenery on the Beara Peninsula

Me on the Beara Peninsula

Loved the scenery

And then it was all too quickly back to the airport and back to the big smoke.  I was so pleasantly surprised by Ireland - I guess it reminded me of home a lot - it was a lovely restorative break and I would say well worth the trip. 

More photos here...

Learning to play the gamelan

Do you know what a gamelan is?

I didn't until a few weeks ago, but now I even know how to play it!

In 1987 the Southbank Centre in London was given a gamelan by the Indonesian government and they run taster sessions for people to have a go at learning how to play it.  So of course, when I found out about it, I booked us in!

Now, what is a gamelan?  I think the best way to describe it is as a percussion orchestra which about 20 people can play at once, and the whole thing is called a gamelan.  This link gives a really good description of all the different separate instruments and you can also see some videos etc. of what it should sound like.  We only learned to play a simple melody (2-3-2-3, 2-1-2-6) but it was hard enough!  Some of the instruments play the melody, and some play beats (like the drums or the gongs).

Here, Adrian's playing a slenthem, and as well as hitting the keys, you also have to then tamp down with your thumb on the key as soon as you play a new one (basically to stop the resonance of the previous note interfering with the new note).  It was tough!

Here you can see Sophie our teacher, and the kendang (double ended drums) with some other instruments.

 This is the kenong which was the first instrument I played.  You hit the top bobble bit when you play it.

Adrian's getting to grips with it!

And here's Alexandra in with the gongs (the big ones at the back which made an amazing wooh-o, wooh-o sound) and the kempuls (the smaller ones at the front).  You also hit the bobble bits on these ones.

This is Mazida, a friend from uni, in with the gongs and kempuls, and some other people on the sarons in front (those are the things that look like xylophones).

Alexandra's playing the gambang - it's quite high pitched and tough to get right!

And finally this was my last instrument - the gender - which was also part of the melody.

It was such a fun way to spend a couple of hours - if anyone's in London you should definitely try it!

Famous!

In an effort to win a new camera (having sadly not replaced mine since breaking it on the dance floor in South Africa...), I've entered a competition to win one by writing about my experience at the UCPA (a non-profit French organisation which aims to make outdoor sports holidays affordable to the general public).

My post has just gone live - have a read here!

Sunday soup

All the wintery vegetables in season at the moment are just perfect for soup (funny that, seeing as it's winter and all...) so it was time for another installment of Sunday Soup.  This week I resurrected a recipe we ate a bit last winter, cauliflower and blue cheese soup.  But this week I mixed it up a bit and included some leeks to give it a bit of a different flavour.

I couldn't find a recipe online that perfectly matched what I wanted, so kind of made it up:

Chop and saute 1 onion and 3 leeks in some oil or butter until soft, then add 700g of chopped potatoes (skin on) and 1 head of cauliflower along with 1.5L of water and some stock cubes (or whatever stock is handy).  Boil until soft (at least 30 mins I guess) and then either blend using a stick blender, or cool slightly and blend in batches in a blender.  I quite like this soup completely smooth, but you could make it kind of chunky if you wanted.  Add salt, pepper to taste, and more water/stock if you want it to be more liquidy.  

Then at this point, you can either roughly chop some blue cheese (as much as you want!) and add it to the soup, or you can add it on top of the soup in the bowls as you serve (so people can have it as flavoured as they like).  I did the latter, and then also added some toasted pine nuts on top for a bit of crunch.  Yum!

Alexandra came over and helped me taste test it, and seeing as she asked for seconds I'm figuring it can't have been too bad!

Out of the cold came Russia: Moscow

Arriving bleary eyed at 5am may not be the most glamorous way to start a visit to a new city, but sometimes it just has to be done.  We had caught the night train from Novgorod to Moscow and travelled third class (which basically means open bunks to the corridor).  I got a bit of sleep, but Adrian was so paranoid about being robbed again (shades of Serbian night trains) that he pretty much hadn't slept a wink.


We stayed at Hotel Vega, one of the hotels built for the Olympics, and they were amazing enough to let us all check in early so we could have a wee nap before starting the day.  Vega also had the best buffet breakfast of any we came across - it was actually quite incredible with everything ranging from soup to cakes, to fried cauliflower, to sliced goldfish (yes, you read that right) and salmon strudel.  That breakfast was probably the main culprit behind both of us having a slightly more snug pair of jeans than usual by the time we flew home...


We all reconvened and headed out on the incredible Moscow metro for a quick walking tour and orientation of the city.  The metro is incredible not due to its speed or efficiency (although the frequency of the trains was much higher than in London, leading to feeling like a sardine much less), but the beautiful decorations in the stations.  It's all chandeliers, mosaics, sculptures...  Every station is different and every mosaic tells a story which was really cool.  The below video (not my handiwork) gives you a really good look at what it's like:





But as fascinating as the metro is, what's above ground is even better.  Walking onto Red Square for the first time is just amazing - seeing St Basils at one end and knowing all the history of what's happened there.  We were lucky enough that Stalin's mausoleum was open that day (as it was closed for the rest of our time there), so we all dutifully filed down past his pale, waxy corpse and along the paths were all the other Russian leaders are buried.  It was really quite odd I must admit - he's very shiny and it definitely doesn't look like a body at all - hopefully he'll get buried up in St Petersburg with his mum as he wanted someday soon.

We had a delicious lunch at one of the communist eateries in the famous GUM department store right on Red Square (more beetroot!) and then went on a tour of a 'secret Soviet bunker'.  This bunker, 18 stories underground, was built in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood, totally on the sly, and was enormous.  It housed all sorts of information gathering people and machinery, but has now been opened up for tourists to visit.  We had a great time playing with the authentic stuff left behind!

Other things we did in Russia included a visit to the Kremlin where there are some incredibly ornate cathedrals (sadly no photos of the interiors but some are covered in frescoes from hundreds of years ago which have survived because they were only used extremely occasionally such as for coronations and that was it), a visit to a very quite and eerie sculpture park, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which had a whole other layer in the crypt which we nearly missed, the enormous (and quite tacky) monument to Peter the Great, Gorky Park (which had an amazingly elaborate ice-skating rink and some cool snowpeople), and walked right up to the top of one of the hills overlooking the town for a spectacular view.


The main point of being in Moscow though was to be on Red Square for New Year's Eve.  However, seeing as there had been a lot of protests there lately (and was another one that night in which several hundred people were arrested), it was completely different from normal.  Police absolutely everywhere - we would have gone through nearly a dozen different metal detectors - and very limited freedom of movement.  That turned a bit sour for some of our group who wanted to go to the toilet and then weren't able to make their way back to us, but Adrian and I had bladders of steel so luckily didn't lose each other!  The night ended back at our hotel hanging out with a group of 19 year old Russians who hardly spoke any English (and we speak no Russian at all!) who were having a huge party in one of the rooms down the hall!  Definitely an interesting experience!


Overall, the whole trip was incredible; I couldn't have asked for more.  I would definitely recommend Russia to anyone!  Click the image below to look at the rest of the photos:

Out of the cold came Russia vol 2: Moscow

Running for happiness

In Novgorod, there's a tiny wee church (surrounded by about four others - they like their churches there) which has a beaten path completely encircling it.  Apparently (so we were told), if you run on the path around the church three times, you'll have happiness for life.  So, obviously, we had to give it a go!  If you listen closely you can hear Pam squealing with joy as she runs in the opposite direction to us - getting some of that happiness already!

I've since found all sort of other rationales for the 'lucky' church, including this one about marital bliss.  Considering Pip was the only one amongst us even close to matrimony, hopefully the good luck will last for the rest of us a bit longer into the future...!

Out of the cold came Russia: St Petersburg and Novgorod

It's been about a fortnight since we got back from Russia and I'm still absolutely raving about it to everyone we talk to.  And now I get the chance to do it all over again here!

So we flew in on Christmas Eve, got to our enormous hotel (Hotel Moscow, but in St Petersburg...confusing!), and had our group meeting.  I was apprehensive about travelling on a tour group, but our guide, Vladimir, and the other people, were all really great.  Vlad especially was so knowledgeable about everything - I was in awe of his demeanour and random facts, especially when we found out he was only 24!

We spent our first few days in St Petersburg and covered a fair amount of ground.  My favourite thing was The Hermitage, which was absolutely spectacular.  I had no idea at all about it really, and to see such beautiful art (especially the stuff I'd learnt about at school) was such a wonderful surprise.  The building itself (it's the Winter Palace of the Tsars) is stunning as well.  We also went to one of the summer palaces, the palace of Catherine I on Christmas Day (although the 25th of December means nothing there - Christmas is actually on the 7th of January in Russia).  It was ridiculously opulent and lovely to prance around in the snow for a bit.

Other highlights in St Petersburg was a folk dancing show which was quite hilarious and ice-skating afterwards in the middle of town on a rink nearly all to ourselves.  That's not to mention the food!  We had pancakes with caviar, delicious pies at a place called Stolle (cabbage and rabbit were the best flavours), dill flavoured everything (Adrian will tell you it was dill-icious...bada boom...), and obviously, vodka!

After St Petersburg we travelled down to Novgorod, which is about a four hour drive south towards Moscow.  It's one of the most historic towns in Russia, founded in about the 9th or 10th century.  We saw their kremlin (fortress), a very cool massive brass sculpture which shows the history of Russia, ran around a church (more on that next post!) and went ice-skating again.  I still can't stop very well, but Adrian managed to skate backwards pretty well which were all very impressed by!

From Novgorod we got on the night train down to Moscow...stay tuned for more adventures on that front!

But I will tell you about when we got back to St Petersburg so you can understand the rest of the photos.  We had a huge dump of snow which was great fun to play around in and we stayed at a very friendly hostel called Mir Hostel right on the main street (Nevsky Prospect) which was great (the link actually shows the room we stayed in - it was so cute).  We climbed up to the colonnade of St Isaac's Cathedral and looked out over the whole city, went to the Kunstkamera aka the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (which was a bit odd - not so keen on pickled babies - don't click through to the link if you're feeling a bit fragile!), saw the haunting monument to the Siege of Leningrad, and finally had a delicious meal at Chekov, a very traditional Russian restaurant, which included a crayfish salad and a magret of duck...mmmm!

Click below to see the photos.  Let me know if you can't see them!

Out of the cold came Russia vol 1

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...)