One single plant has produced around £100 worth of redcurrants this year. I was somewhat amazed to find a few more the other day at the tail end of September. Tasted amazing. Thoroughly recommend a redcurrant plant for 2016.
Redcurrants from surrey
Redcurrants from surrey
Redcurrants from surrey
Redcurrants from surrey
Redcurrants from surrey
Although I am not generally a fan of airport hotels, this one at Arlanda Stockholm is the exception. Really nice rooms, really nice breakfast and nice bar areas too. And you reach it from the concourse somewhere between terminals 4 and 5
Just a various eclectic mix of food photos taken in various locations. Nothing special. Just enjoy and be hungry.
Coconut Tart
Sliders and Beef Wellingtons
Saw this rather nice car parked outside St Pancras Renaissance Hotel today. Numberplate reads BO55 CFC. So is this boss of Chelsea? Charlton? Curious to know.
A truly amazing hotel situated on the outskirts of Helsinki essentially by the edge of the sea and in a forest. The hotel has three buildings that are connected by tunnels. The rooms are warm, the people friendly, the hotel quite different. Well worth a visit. These photos were taken outside the hotel and in the foyer. The photos are all taken with the I Phone so not a great standard of course.
As we all know the weather has been awful and there are many examples of flooding all over the country, it is not a great example but it is an example of flooding that I cam eacross yesterday in Fareham. The car park of the Holiday Inn hotel was flooded, as were the fields opposite and numerous other places. The flooded Tennis courts were in New Malden.
Flooding in Fareham
Occasionally one travels to a country and finds immediately it takes your soul. This is Slovenia. The people are pleasant, helpful and vibrant. They smile and do not complain. The mountains with snow on top look beautiful. The city is a place to walk and look, eat ice cream at cafes ( hazelnut and raspberry are recommended) and drink coffee. The bard look enticing and the prices most definitely not european. This is a good place to come to. The contrast cannot be more stark. Heathrow airport is a vile place, full of heaving, pushing people, expensive drinks and little to do or see. There is no customer satisfaction. These views were not made better by arriving back at Terminal 1 friday evening around 11pm to find that security staff for BAA had kindly locked one of the corridors stopping any passenger either to get to or from their gate. Thanks. And of course gone home. I only had 2 days in Slovenia and the lectures I gave were recieved with interest and politeness, and humour. A quick trip to Lake Bled allowed me to see the castle perched on a cliff. Whoever you are, you should go there.
Lake Bled in March
Castle overlooking Lake bled
Someone's Back Garden
Day two of my incarceration in Toronto. The room temperature in the hotel seems still pre-set on minus zero. The staff all continue to look like they need a group ECT session. The colour of the sky a grey shade of grey.
The congress is curious. It seems obligatory to have numerous badges almost looking like Wellington should have been there fresh from battle. The food inside and outside is incredulous in price. For example the cost of burger and chips from a street van outside is 8$. The food looks like it was cooked in medieval times and a good recipe for food poisoning. The congress hotel is grand and huge and I fail to even find the right floor. A huge room quite full with folks looking to learn about adhd but a single small screen in the corner. More massive badges with sub badges attached that almost reach to the floor. Well stay in one place for long enough and the cabaret will always arrive.
The congress is actually very good content wise and we are taught very clearly that inability to plan is a key symptom for adhd particularly in adults. So it may be considered a little surprising that the organisers also do not seem to be able to plan. A large ballroom packed with chairs and folks standing. So around 300 people. Room is flat with no incline. One small screen to see the slides in the left hand corner of the room. So even in the 5th row out of perhaps 20 one cannot see the bottom half of the screen. The lectern in contrast is so high that one cannot see most of the speakers behind it! Finally there are no microphones for the audience to ask any questions so they shout them out and the speaker has to repeat them. Hmmm……..
More bad news in the hotel. The food that is favoured in the restaurant is the mushroom. The Wild Mushroom Festival. I hate mushrooms so I suspect another burger will be devoured tonight.
Travelling is always an interesting occupation. There are so many not average people. For example I seriously considered on this flight to Canada if David Walliams might be a flight attendant in disguise. Furthermore a definite age limit exists and I am not objecting. No employee shall be under the age of 60 years at any time.
Another aspect worth consideration is the chauvanistic one. Only on a plane can so many presumably competent males become incompetent and need redress from the air hostess. The clever males ask clever questions. Such as what wine? Then having been told the answer they pretend cleverness by asking for French. Seemingly unaware for the last 1000 years the French have made white as well as red wine.
The toilets are also a topic worthy of mention. Despite a plane being of small size they remain incredibly well hidden with a series of hieroglypics on the wall that mean nothing to 21st century man.
But the food is nice but not necessarily quickly produced. This always surprises me. Cold salmon is not often found at 30,000 feet so a delay of more than 2 hours flying time before the obligatory starter appears seems curious. However it was very nice and came with a 20 ml bottle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Can these be bought albeit in larger quantities in UK? Meanwhile clever male behind talking in one one of those deep voices made for TV has now forgotten if he evn had red or white wine. I suspect he has forgotten if indeed he had wine. But he manages to say yes or no. And that’s exactly what he did say!
The air hostesses are now falling out. ” I have no idea what SHE is doing…..”
Entertainment without need for TV.
Now the food conversation. Cold Salmon a nice starter. Main course of standard of Co Op ready meal. Fish and mash and fennel and what is described as ratatouille. Hmm. I ate it all. But yup co op dinners are sometimes my preferred option. But for the others here paying £ 3500 for business class? Can I be cynical and presume that airline marketing shows that business travellers have an n= 1 for number of flights? Can this be the best food to be eaten 35,000 ft in the air above Greenland? Not sure. Would I pay 4£ at co op next saturday? Yup. But I did get 2 bread rolls as well that were definitely not as good as co op. Gor those who do not yet know know, bread rolls at co op are the best.
Having arrived at Toronto airport I can say that the airport puts Heathrow to shame. Clean, quick etc…..you get the picture. Heathrow is really the worst airport I have anything to do with.
Toronto however is grey, drizzly, crowded, streets full of pushing rushing people……….have not seen anything desirable to date. My hotel is dreary, expensive and food average at best. For some inexplicable reason all signs detailing the breakfast offerings were in Chinese??? Was expecting english or French maybe.
The hotel room is cold. Trying to work some heating scale on the wall led to the room being colder, seems the options are either cold or even colder ( with cold air being blown out).
Anyway enough moaning. Off to the ADHD congress to see what I can learn.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 