Catherine’s Blog

This weekend was quite busy but strangely relaxing.
Ela and I flew out of London city Airport on Friday afternoon, I think I can now say I have flown out of all of London’s commercial airports.  We arrived to be meet by Graham who told us we were the first to arrive only to find Tal in the flat having stealthed in under the radar via an obliging house mate.
As I have already said, then we killed some brandy bottles with Katie and Snarl and got up bleary eyed in the morning.  It was very good see them and just talk, and talk.
Tal and I went out to shop early and only got slightly distracted by shiny things and finished the supplies we would need for the ensuing craziness.
Ela and I baked and cooked our arses off, we made cakes to cater for all and enough food feed thousands.
In the middle of all that Graeme and I quickly ducked out to visit Dot and call and the bean which is officially named Sam.  Dot looked pretty darn good for a new Mum.  Sam was snuffly but lovely and Call was doing Dad stuff whilst we were there.
Then it was back to the ravening hordes and Gin.  The people were feed, lots of drink was consumed, people talked and cake was eaten.  Then sleep!
Sunday was a slow start but I managed a bit of fabric shopping before we caught the plane home.  Another successful nodermeet.
I was stopped in security for a hip flask in my bag, the one that had been there though out my trip, since Whitby in fact.  The one that had been missed at London Airport!  I thought it was odd at the airport because I had forgotten to take out my toiletries and they did not pull me up then, was the x-ray man asleep?
Any way, it was a little exciting getting back with closures on the DRL and no signage letting us know where the replacement bus service was.
Home again to a rested Anthony who had pottered at home one his own for the weekend and seemed to be very relaxed for doing so.
Monday was slightly manic as I went to work, quite tired but relaxed from the trip away and the fact I had not bought too much washing home with me.
I had promised to go photograph a gig for Ed Flay, Flay and DeVille’s Circus of Marvels on Monday night.  Anthony and I ate at Satsuma which we have decided we won’t eat at any more as the veggie range is minimal now and we would rather eat proper Japanese for the Price they were charging for okay food.
Once I had feel for the light and was comfortable with it all I was ready to shoot my first time in RAW format.  I think I went okay, and there seems to be a number of good photos in them all.  I need to come up with a formally worded but simple photo policy for such things.  There were some very good acts but I was a little disappointed that many of the women, bar one belly dancer seemed to take off a lot of clothing.  I know burlesque is meant to be quite popular but this seemed a little excessive to me.  I would have like to see a female magician or comedian or something.
Today is my long day at work and I am a little tired from getting in bed at one this morning.
Tomorrow manual handling, with the bonus I don’t have to come into work as it is at Harrow and I have my time off in the afternoon.

This weekend was long weekend. We left our house guests to entertain themselves and set out in the direction of Chichester to spend some time with Phil. We headed out on the 2 hour journey on saturday morning and it ended up taking over three hours. Most of this time was spent in the M25, the freeway that hems in greater London. It is a traffic nightmare but on the first day of half term it extends into a new level of hell. We spent half an hour getting off the off ramp, enough time at one point for us to swap drivers and Anthony to go have a wee in bushes whilst I moved two car lengths!

We finally got to Phil’s parents place and met his parents. This has been a long time coming.

We spent what was left of the afternoon wandering around Chichester. It is a lovely little town and Phil seemed quite proud of it.

We had a lovely Italian meal and caught the end of Eurovision.

Sunday morning we slept in, big time, very relaxing.

Then it was off to Fishbourne Palace. It was amazing! Just astounding that Roman artefacts say just under the fields.

Then it was lunch with Phil’s family and lounging around, a walk in the west Sussex country side in the sun.

We drove back to London to be greeted by clouds and rain. We had dinner at the Spaniards Inn and must admit I was disappointed. I had heard good things but it was just standard mediocre pub fare.

Sunday, was pottering and stuff. Not much to report! It rained, most of the day.

I have not written about the Shoot London treasure hunt a couple of weeks ago, I was quite disappointed with the results. I think Haje and Anthony say it a lot better.

My word! Where has the time gone? I am a bad blogger!

Last week was not that exciting; I spent a great deal of my time uploading photos. The Australian Wedding reception photos are up as well as the Australian leg of our Epic travels. I am in the process of sorting through the South African photos and they will be up in the next few weeks. Yes, it takes that long! After that I am going to tackle the rest of the photo backlog and start putting card sets together.
So another thing I did last week was catch up with Phil, I got to give him his bead work elephant that he really like. We had an okay meal in the Tokyo Diner in Soho, it was more expensive than the nice Japanese restaurant in Golders Green and the bento box was not as nice as I was hoping.
We then wandered around China Town and Leicester Square which was lovely, just chatting and enjoying our own company.
I did not end up out on Thursday night, I stayed home to bake, but the rolls were not as nice as I was hoping for.
The rest of the week was as I said, uneventful until we went out for dinner with Phil on Friday, to a Georgian restaurant in Kensington. I am going to review the restaurant in another post but we had a great time! There was lots of good food and chatting there was a slight hitch with my meal but it turned up and so did a bottle of free wine. Which considering that was our third and Anthony refused to partake it was a very jolly Catherine and Phil leaving the restaurant. I have not heard form Phil since so I am not sure if he felt as rough as I did on Saturday morning or if his gout flared up in a big way. It was a great evening and we have decided to do it again in the near future.
Saturday morning I felt like I had been mugged the night before, I had sort of by the red wine. I had to be up and early to get my eyes tested which turned out to be a bit of a carry on but I am glad I did in the end. I picked my new glasses up last night and boy is everything is clear! It is just astounding, I can see to the end of the library as clear as day! Everything is all sharp and I can read stuff a long way away. I suspect not being involved in rowing has meant I had not realised how bad my eyes had got. I now no longer have reading glasses but general use which I will wear mostly for work. Oh, and driving so I don’t squint at the road signs anymore.
I killed my hang over with a Big Mac meal which in hindsight was a bad idea considering I had drank and eaten my body weight the night before.
The rest of the day was spent moving Robin and Ruth from their old flat to the new one which is only 25 minutes form our place by bus!
Got home late to be greeted by Anthony who had been at a conference for work for the day (I will not go into how annoyed I am on that one). He had run a hot bath and I soaked for a long while before I got dressed and we drove off to Charles and Sally’s housewarming. All I can say is there were a lot of Dragons! Oh my.
Sunday we slept in and rolled about the house before venturing out finally use one of our gift vouchers from our wedding and buy … crockery! Yes I can have more than four people to dinner now, and am having a dinner party on Saturday to celebrate this fact!
The rest of our Sunday was reasonably laid back and we got stuff done!
Anthony left early Monday morning, again, something we are both finding tiresome.
I pottered around on Monday night, putting up the wedding reception photos and generally relaxing. I will admit that I watch the beginning of season 9 of America’s next top model, I am not sure if like this crowd or if there is enough personalities to keep my attention but the first shoot was interesting. They are on an anti smoking campaign which is pretty good in my book.
I have to get back on track with my weight and I have to be serious, the week end was a huge blow out and I ended back in square one.
Tuesday night Ela came to stay and we grocery shopped and then made a mess in the kitchen. I really enjoy cooking with Ela, there is this feeling of symmetry, we know where each other are in the kitchen at all times and we feed on each other with ideas and advice. She made the most divine spiced lamb meatballs, spiced with cumin and cinnamon they are a taste combination I have not really had before. Whist she did that I prepared chicken for the dinner party by poaching it sherry and vegetable stock. It was going to be white wine but we forgot to by it and it was too cold to go out again. So the mother of invention stepped in and I used the cooking sherry. I was using kosher chicken which is oddly different from normally butchered chicken; there is no blood in it which gives the flesh a different colour. (I used kosher chicken because Ela was cooking meat and being Jewish, kosher is the normal thing, frankly the quality seems to be better than the supermarket butcher and we don’t have a non kosher butcher inn Golders.) I also stewed apples for apple crumble and put together Gin and Tonics for us. We talked briefly if we could manage a cooking show and possibly some cooking books, now there is fun. We could call it ‘Loud and Obnoxious’ and let the public work out who is who.
Other than that there has not been much going on.
Tonight I am off to the pub with LGS and then Friday could be a gentle night in and Saturday a dinner party prepared by me on my new plates! Exciting!
Work is going well and with the new glasses, a new pair of headphones with a new internet radio station I am getting more work done. Sunday I must pull out the sewing machine a try to work out what its issue is.

Most of the 2nd of Jan was filled with travelling. We packed up a left Betty’s Bays after a delightful breakfast of croissants and cheese. It was lovely staying there but we itching to see more of the country.
We stopped for morning tea with Linda and Laurence and some of the Steele family’s friends. The garden was lovely, full of natives that Anthony’s mother had helped with. The house they had built themselves and it was a cool design with the bedrooms underneath and the main living area on the first floor.
Then we got on the road to travel to Touwsrivier. We wend our way from the Fynbos to the Karoo, the drier part of the country, the landscape becomes more scrubby, like the Mallee but with less trees but there are still gum trees everywhere. I don’t think there is an English equivalent besides maybe the Scottish highlands but with a lot less water. Our trip did take us a while as we stopped a number of times, mainly to taste wine! We bought quite a bit, I am thinking of officially not thinking about my weight until getting back to soggy London.
The wine was lovely although it was obviously a red wine area. The South African vineyards appear to be more closely clustered than in Australia even in places that have poor soil, no wonder the gums and wattle go mental here.
We arrived at Touwsrivier a small country town, rather like Birchip, Victoria* , not much appearing to be there besides a farming community, truck stop and over night accommodation for those on the Cape Town to Jo’burg journey.
The place we stayed in was quite amazing, Loganda Karoo Lodge, was the place and it looked like from the outside a time warp. It was a 1960’s job and I was a little concerned we were in for a bad night. As is the nature of South Africa I an continually surprised. The place looked like it had recently underwent a refurbishment. In what Anthony called a faux African theme. There was lots of dark wood, camphor by the smell of it, plant vegetation used in the decoration, including the lamp shades and lots of animal prints and crisp white linen. Very gentile and relaxed feeling from the place, it was clean and welcoming although the person who met us was grumpy and the place smelt strongly of fried food. We decamped into the large room that was generally clean and comfortable.
We ate in the restaurant, which I am sad to say was one of the worst eating experiences I have had in a long time. To start we were the only people in the restaurant and later we discovered we were on of thee booking for the night. The food was all meat, not vegetarian options besides salad, the waitress looked blankly confused when Anthony said he did not eat meat.
The choice was not great and it appeared the only thing the meat came with was different fried potato. Everything appeared fried or grilled and there was a lack of sauces except for mushroom or pepper. At that point I thought I was becoming a food snob but I think not because I would have eaten a mass produced chicken kiev.
I ordered the chicken burger and Anthony the Greek salad and fries.
Hmmmm, where to start? The burger was a crumbed chicken breast that was overcooked, dry and stringy, the melted cheese was like and oil slick and the wedges were very oily. Anthony’s salad was iceberg lettuce, cucumber, feta and olives and the fries were soggy and oily. The sweets menu was ice cream with chocolate sauce, which was it.
So, nice place to stay but I would not eat there again.
The 3rd of Jan was an early start which was easy as we managed an early night.
We forgo breakfast at Loganda and headed out to Aquila Private Game Reserve, where Anthony had told them he was vegetarian.
We were greeted at the gate and then went to the main reception area, this showed us it was a huge undertaking, and there was a corral of horses and a lot of game vehicles.
We booked in and were directed to the buffet. Well, for an establishment that is catering for a lot of people and many of the tourists, they were doing a fine job. Anthony was well fed and I was as well but passed on the chicken liver stew but those wishing to throw themselves into the experience did try it.
I need to say at this point on the subject of game drives, Anthony and I have been very spoilt with Kruger and the honeymoon.
We got into a huge vehicle and off we went down the dusty track. On the drive we saw a number of animals including, rhino, elephants, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, hippopotamus, springbok, klip springers and lions. Most of the grazing animals besides the springboks were in small herds. There were only two elephants and the giraffes (2) had to really stoop for their food. It was a bit odd, and made me feel unsettled, Anthony is right that you need these places for the conservation but it had a weird feeling of it being a zoo of types. The animals were happy enough as they were breeding, the hippos had a 2 month old baby but I felt the area was not big enough to support many animals and surely two elephants did not make contented elephants?
The lions were in a huge enclosure in the centre of the reserve and there were four of these animals looking a little bored at the five game vehicles surrounding them but did get interested if something flapped out to the vehicle, you could see them think ‘when is the food getting out of the tins?’ This was also a surreal thing and I still don’t know what to think.
The afternoon after a lovely lunch held a horse safari. I was looking forward to this, I had wondered how they did it but with the Lions caged there was nothing to eat the horses.
I got on the horse with the help of three men, there was much giggling before we got on but they were super helpful and serious when lugging my stupid body up. I felt fine in the saddle until we started to move, I am sad to say I think that will be the last time I ride a horse. The pain was intense but it was well worth it!
We got out and about and it was interesting to see the animal’s reactions to us, the horses do not like elephants but they don’t care about the horses. Zebra are quite skittish and ostrich, non-fussed, they allowed us to get very close. It was amazing to wend our way through the park on horse back, it was very difficult to take photos but an experience I will never forget.
By the time I got back three hours later I was sitting quite oddly in the saddle I think in general annoying my horse. Anthony raced off to get my stick and the great staff literally lifted me off the horse, I was grateful that they did not tell me I could not ride and that they waited and calmed the horse while the stick was fetched. The pain disappeared with walking and a gin and tonic with painkiller chaser. I can not tell how much the kind nature of the staff meant at the point I was almost in tears and just wanted off. But I would do it again because the answer of was it worth it is a big fat yes!

So yesterday, (I am almost up to date) was pottering around and doing washing and odd jobs. Including replacing the swampy water dunked lens.
The evening was off to the Ballet, the Cape Town City Ballet doing Orpheus in the Underworld. Set in the roaring 20’s with Pluto as a Mafia boss and Orpheus as a flapper. It was full of very good ham acting from the ballet company and danced very well. The company appears to be running on a shoe string budget and I could not believe how cheap the seats were! It appears the South African arts scene is struggling but I suspect that will change with time and more money as the economy grows.
Today we are getting ready of a braai!

*Sorry to my readers who are not Australian but it is difficult to give a frame of reference other than Australia as South Africa has some striking similarities.

As a general rule I like bog standard pub food. My soul can be warmed by a massed produced chicken Kiev, a deep fried uniform shape filled with heart attack inducing garlicky goodness. It is possibly a sin out there to epicures but you have to have some guilty pleasures in this life.
This was the time of fare that I was expecting when I went to eat at the Matthew Flinders Hotel, a family style uber hotel with a large Taberet, pool hall, and in house Irish bar. The restaurant area is a large space awash with noise caused by the large numbers of families there on a Thursday night. Combined with the indoor play ground and amusement arcade you can forgive me for expecting to consume the above mentioned sinful food. I was very wrong. The experience at Matthew Flinders has lead me to believe that standard pub food is a rare breed in Australia.
Even though the noise was horrendous and the décor not particularly inspired, industrial carpet and wipe down surfaces, the food was quite inspired.
The menu including a couple of standards including steak and chips and fish and chips but the rest of the menu was full of interesting choices including five vegetarian choices. Oddly they were not marked on the menu but I think I am used to the English way of doing the V besides the veggie options.
My adult dinning companion ordered the beef vindaloo and the younger member of our party ordered chicken nuggets and chips, while I chose the pork cutlet with brie and sweet berry sauce.
The vindaloo came beautifully plated with each component in separate white bowls. She was very impressed and said it would have been perfect with the addition of raita.
The eight year old we ate with enjoyed his nuggets and chips. I was surprised that considering the adult menu was so extensive and varied that the children’s was fairly unimaginative. I would have liked to have seen at least offers of half serves of some of the adult choices.
My pork cutlet was cooked beautifully, it was moist and tender. Presented perched a top of red skinned potatoes halves and with generous amount of berry sauce with viable and recognisable fruit pieces. The sauce was very good, sweet without being too sickly although it could of done with being a little more fruity to round it out. The brie was unfortunately not strong enough to compete with the well cooked meat and sauce and its flavour was lost but it was delightfully creamy and gooey. All in all the meal was very surprising, it was delicious and it was pleasant to complete the meal undisturbed as our younger companion had wolfed down his meal and went off to play on the indoor playground.

This post is bought to you by long boring flights)

I have had a very pleasant weekend.

On Friday I went off with Charlie, our house sitter, to immerse ourselves in the late night at the V&A museum. While we were there we saw some embroidery being done from Hand & Lock, a very old company who seem to have survived the down turn in bespoke goods and paying for handmade quality.

We also saw a ballet that revolved around a cutting table. For those who are not into sewing these are massive tables that you find in sewing workrooms, they are large enough for entire garments to be cut and pieced together on the work top, and as we found out on Friday a ballet to be performed on. It was such an interesting night even though it was crowded I will be keeping my eye out for such nights again.

We then went and saw The Golden Age of Couture exhibit. The most beautiful dresses and suits from the post war boom in Paris and London. There was Dior evening gowns that just took your breath away. They also had the tiny doll mannequins that were used to display outfits for shows. Just amazing!

It was just lovely and once it was established that Anthony was happy entertain himself we went off to have dinner. We found a tiny, quite crowded Thai restaurant in South Kensington called Thai Square. The service was quite slow and it appeared the young waiter was trying to to serve all the tables whilst the waitress was faffing behind the bar. It was very warm and steamy and with a group of tipsy excitable young women very noisey. The tables were very close to each other as well. The menu was fairly standard Thai fare but my sweet and sour pork was just lovely. The sauce was rich and tomato and the pineapple chunks were huge and obviously from fresh pineapple. The pork was small slices and cooked well, and a far cry from the chewy cubes in bright red sauce you can get. Charlie’s Thai green curry with chicken was spicey, just skirting on the edge of too much for her but was deemed very good. For £22 for a glass of wine each, a main dish each and rice in a rather snobbish part of town it was reasonable value for money.

Saturday was mainly getting things sorted for the wedding reception, I have managed to speak with the owner of the function centre and things are going along well. I am just chasing up a few of the out standing RSVP’s. I think I have everything under control and have started the all important list making process. I have all most everything under control and the final bits and bobs to be done.

Saturday afternoon we headed off to Ashley, a tiny village near the town of Newmarket and close to Cambridge. It is home to the fabulous Ela, who was celebrating her 28th Birthday. We got there without getting lost which was great! We finally got to meet here parents and in Anthony’s words “They are the nicest family I have ever met, I knew they were going to be nice but not that nice.” Indeed they were lovely and a family that seems to be swimming in good humour and warmth! We met her mother, a delicate woman who was resplendent in a mod style dress, her father, an ex jockey now trainer who was a great laugh, her Grandmother, Sadie a grand woman who dealt with us crazy people so well and younger brother Josh who is finding his own image as a musician wonderfully and his mane of curls looks very cool.
Els was looking beautiful in her new purple corset and was very happy in general. She was pleased with our present which was a photo frame but we could not work out what photo to give her so we gave her 18 of our favourites. Haje trounced us all with a beautiful camera that she processed to have a technology moment with by not being able to get the batteries nor the memory card in. James her ex flat mate was there as well, he always strikes me as terribly English. And the final guest was the effervescent Marina who seems to have lost the American flab (it was not much weight but it worried her) quickly and looked stunning in her white dress and real amber beads. I had hauled out the wedding red shoes for the night, and Anthony looked handsome in mint green shirt and beige trousers.

We ate out at a local restaurant called, ‘The Plough’. It looked like a pub but in fact it is an old pub turned into a quaint restaurant. Now, I use the word quaint because it has the feel of a family run pub with lots of knick knacks on the walls and a very local orientated appeal. There were painting of horses on the tables and very friendly staff and the most amazing toilets painted in an all over jungle mural that extended to the roof and cistern.

Onto the food, it was recommended that due to the size of the main meals we skipped starters and go for the mains. Anthony had mushroom stroganoff, it said a lot for the establishment that the vegetarian options were not on any of the menus, for me this did not bode that well. I ordered the veal cordon bleu after wrestling whether I wanted the half duckling in a choice of different sauces or veal. The meals did take some time to appear but there were ten of us in the party and there had been a large group before us and we were having lots of fun. All the meals arrived together which was impressive but there was no veggies besides the garnish, it was a large piece of meat that was thing and crumbed beautifully and the other meals looked very similar quality. Then came a waitress with a bowl with sprouts and beans on it and began to serve silver service style the vegetables. Now I will try to list the vegetables; green beans, Brussels sprouts, new potatoes, carrots, broccoli, peas, cauliflower cheese, broad beans, butter beans and chips (I am sure I missed something). The veal was succulent and the cheese and ham smoky and tasty. I have eaten veal, but not for a long time and this has made me want eat more often.

It was a lovely meal with lovely company, good wine chosen by Ela’s mum and great birthday cake made by Marina.

We headed back to Ela’s parents after coffee and then headed off ferrying people to Ela’s Grandmother place. All the family were left behind including Ela’s Grandmother (brave woman) and we camped in her lounge drinking red wine, piling up like puppies and chatting about stuff.

In the morning we made a fairly quick get away but not after admiring Sadie’s wedding photos, as there were things that Anthony wanted to get done but it was a great night, good food and good friends.

Sunday was cooking for me and coding for Anthony.

I made my lunches for the week. I had bought normal cous cous and cooed that up with capsicums (peppers), onions, garlic, herbs, tinned tomatoes and butter beans. I have got to a point of checking all the calories of my meals and I was well impressed how low this was going to work out, I even will be able to add guilt free cheese! I think the extra butter beans will help in halting snacking so much because there has been a lack of protein, I hope. The weight lose is going well which is making me feel or shiny, at this rate I will be 66 or 65kg for the wedding reception, but I am going to have to work hard to maintain that or even to shed more whilst away and eating and drinking out. I am thinking of taking some dress trousers, size 14 to keep me on track, as I am fitting into them comfortably now.

Today is work, I am exhausted as I did not sleep well last night and Anthony was very restless, he has an ear infection that is making life quite difficult. He can not hear anything in his right ear and noisy environments are taxing. There should be an ear syringing on Friday which should help.

All is good in the world, I am excited about going home that I am ignoring the fact it is dark at 4.20pm.

On Wednesday it was Anthony’s birthday. He was in Scotland so there was little in the way fo celebrating besides sending him a card and him testing out his new Roomba. Apparently it is quite noisy but cleans his Scottish flat well. He came home early last night which was great and we met at the Dev, which I shall post about at a later date. It was a really nice night and we trundled home to open up his remaining presents. He seemed quite pleased with what he received, Joyce and Arnie gave him a CD, Laurence and Linda a book and I rustled up a South African Monopoly and bottle of Hendricks gin for him.

Friday night we headed out for dinner and head a lovely evening, just the two of use eating too much food. We ate at Manna in Primrose Hill, the meal was lovely but the range of main meals was quite disappointing. The deserts were reasonable and entrées were divine.

Saturday was an early start with Marina and Ela in tow and a mad dash to Dover to catch the ferry. The ferry system was very organised and we got on by the skin of our teeth and were one of the last cars on the ferry but that did mean not much waiting.  The crossing was short and pleasant and out on the deck very cold.  It was really weirid being able to see the white cliffs of Dover from France.

We got off the ferry, and with the help of Dolores, Ela drove in Calais, which was only mildly frightening, I’m glad that ela drove because I would have seriously freaked out.  Eld managed to get on well driving on the wrong side of the road and in an automatic.

We spent the day wandering through the town, checking out the shops and the food.  We had coffee and hot chocolate and then hit the shops.  We found a shop that the size 16’s were so small some things did not go over my hips which are a 14 at the moment.  Ela bought some dress shorts and a silk shirt.  I am not keen on the tailored work short look with tights myself, but ela looked great in them.

I bought some tops for work.

Then it was dinner time and I had turkey with a cream sauce, yum! Marina had a huge bucket of mussels which she consumed with gusto.  I tried some mussels and was pleasantly surprised, so there you go, the fussy eater has added something fishy on her list.  Ela had mullet, I was not that keen to try that.

Sunday was doing housework and stuff before heading off to Coffee, Cake and Kink to help Ellie celebrate her Birthday.  I must say, you should go, the kink is quite tasteful.  The staff were lovely and the cake was just wonderful.  The almond cake and the orange chocolate cake was just divine.  The huge mugs of hot choclate were decadent and the glass dildos interesting but out of my price range.  It was a very pleasent evening.

This week is going to be reasonably quiet with getting things ready for our trip home.