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
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
St Helena Chruch in Austerfield that sits on the border of South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire is a small church sitting back from the main road almost hidden by a copse of trees. Inside the church is calm and beautiful and with a lovely mellow feeling not at all at the high end of religion . In short it looks a lovely place to worship. Where however it becomes unique is that William Bradford was baptised there around 1590 and he went on to become one of the most important figures of the 17th century by virtue of becoming one of the founding Pilgrim Fathers. Travelling over in the Mayflower to New England where he became Governor of the Pilgrim Colony.
On Bank holiday monday May 5th 2014 the church hosted an excellent art exhibition by a British artist Ann Wildgust.
It seems I am replicating the Grand Tour but instead of Italy am focusing on Scandinavia. All that I am trying to do is get back from Copenhagen to London. However last night having got onto a plane and sat there for 2 hours it became too windy for the ground staff to work. This also meant that they could not connect the air bridge so we were all stuck on the plane. Today the weather is a little less stormy but snow has arrived. Copenhagen airport is chaos, with people and queues everywhere. The pushing and shoving at the gates reminds me of Rugby League. Mr Angry is out in force and has been cloned too. Mr Important is standing there shouting into his phone that ” he has to get to Bejing”. Which is where most folks might wish to place him. Restaurants are packed selling high priced pizza and hot dogs. Most folks are surgically attached to wine or/and beer glasses.
Somehow I escaped on a plane to Stockholm that then promised me a trip to London however the london flight was cancelled along with most other flights. So I am here in Stockholm Arlanda Airport, most likely all night. The queues to book at the SAS ticket centres stretch around 200 yards or longer and just keep on getting longer. The staff are doing their best and remain cheerful and pleasant and SAS cannot be criticised at all.
For those of you who would like to experience this joy a few photos. As for the weather, well cold, windy, actually very cold and very windy and lots of snow here. Posted 8 pm. A glass of wine for me
The Hilton hotel is at Copenhagen airport and the sky shows that snow was coming. The queues you will have to just work out as they were endless. The pushing at the Gate. Well thats easy. The folks sitting on the baggage carousel was last night at Copenhagen. They may well still be there!
I am living it seems in a parallel universe and clearly was away the day, week or month, they taught us how to design a Renaissance church. This is a weekend homework item. Two versions scanned in, neither played with, the first greyscale and the second monochrome. I remain impressed……..
Renaissance church designed by 12 year old
Renaissance church designed by 12 year old
One of the best meals I had for a long time was in a restaurant in the suburbs of Milan called
There was no menu, although it became apparent after a while that there were maybe 3 menus on offer. The 30 euro menu, a 20 euro menu and maybe a 18 euro menu. We had the largest menu. Food and wine were superb. Nothing was less than 100% here. You may ask what was the menu? Well let me try and describe what we had.
Wine was also excellent and I could have been fooled into thinking it was a claret.
My third and final musing over Milan. Whilst walking outside the Milan Convention Centre where an ADHD congress was taking place, a group of maybe 200 protestors aged from 5-60 years. Placards, balloons and a huge inflatable buffalo. The signs do not make sense to me but generally seemed to be protesting against ADHD. No idea why. A lively group but not really threatening at all.
As promised a return visit to Milan was part of the second part of my week, the original visit was a few days before. In summary I remain underwhelmed. Would I go back for a holiday? Never. Would I enjoy a day back there maybe for work? Maybe.
Lets start with the good things. One of the best meals I had for a long time was in a restaurant in the suburbs of Milan called
There was no menu, although it became apparent after a while that there were maybe 3 menus on offer. The 30 euro menu, a 20 euro menu and maybe a 18 euro menu. We had the largest menu. Food and wine were superb. Nothing was less than 100% here. You may ask what was the menu? Well let me try and describe what we had.
Wine was also excellent and I could have been fooled into thinking it was a claret.
The meal aside I found nothing to inspire me in Milan. It seemed that every street was being dug up and walking is a supreme hazard as the one place where cars do not stop are pedestrian crossings. The city seemed grubby, dirty and I saw nothing worth photographing, other than maybe standing on the tram track. Cars seemed to have no rules, overtaking,undertaking, speeding, driving up/down one way streets, rarely stopping at pedestrian crossings, just frankly it all looked dangerous. Milan can be added to my list of places that I will not be driving in, ever.
Signs are almost absent and even somewhere like the Milan Convention Centre was not signposted. Roads all seemed designed to confuse. Cars parked at all angles in all places. If there were happy smiling faces then maybe I missed them. 
View from Bedroom window. Sheets or large underwear?
This post I have to admit is a little unfair as being there for 2 days spent most of it underground in a conference room, cut off from the world seemingly. Awful telephone reception and little better wifi connection ( which at least was free). And then when one factors in a 12 hour sleep, to recover from missing a night, you can agree that my views of Milan are not exactly complete.
On balance I was not enthused about the city. The trip from Linate airport to the hotel did not inspire me and neither did the driving ability of the taxi driver, who gave a decent rendition of having ADHD. Those who are not familiar with ADHD just need to understand that the key symptoms of impulsive behaviours and/or inattention are not ideal qualities in a taxi driver in a busy city centre. The first learning was that pedestrians who step onto a crossing should consider a few things. Making a will would be obligatory and consideration to not crossing would also be a good judgement to make.
The streets were not full of colourful fashionistas nor shops and the restaurants did not make me want to jump out of the taxi. The same process was repeated on the return journey. The positives? Well certainly not the costs. Lets talk cocktails, not that I was offered any. In Spain where I was sunday night, a Pina Colada would cost 3.50 euros, and in the hotel here 11.50. The fact that they were advertising their drinks and prices in the elevator suggests they considered these prices reasonable.
On a positive note the food was good. A large lunch buffet and a meal of Salmon in breadcrumbs with aubergine that got me thinking it might make a good dinner party dish.
Rooms are always small in Italian hotels but this one really was. The view from the bedroom window was not exotic but did make my mind question whether what was hanging out was sheets or rather large underwear.
So I make my biased and unfair decision that Milan is off my holiday destination list. But lets give it a second chance as I am returning on friday and hopefully may see a little more. I may even take my camera.
An interesting day and its only halfway through. A few days ago I made a strategic decision that I would not travel to florence on saturday, as would be sensible, but travel on sunday so that I might watch the Brentford v Notts County game, which had given Brentford fans some slight hope of a play-off position. The game ended 0-0 and with it Bees chances of the play-offs. My penalty for this travel crime was that I had to fly out of Luton airport on a 7 am Easyjet flight. Working backwards this entailed getting up at 3.30am and a taxi journey to the airport. The taxi must have taken the most circuitous route to the airport known to mankind. Maybe the sat-nav calculated the shortest route but it was a strange one. The driver was a pleasant Romanian soul but in sited on talking to me all the journey and ended up by asking me how he might stop biting his nails………….
Luton airport is a horrible place. Where they can charge you for something they do and where they cannot they still do anyway. Firstly, this financial frenzy began with having to pay to be dropped off by a taxi, £1 ok not going to bankrupt anyone but not necessary and not kind. This donation to Luton airport allows 10 minutes of drop off time. To exceed this 10 minutes costs a mere penalty of 80£. Now at 5 am the airport was not so busy but I suspect there are days when it would be seriously busy and a queue might develop on exit to pay this fee, and suppose the queue took longer than 10 minutes and everyone was being fined 80£? In the airport the usual selection of average to hideous food at extottionate prices, all being sold from kiosks with stupid names. A fee again to buy those plastic bags to put one’s liquids in. A fee to go through the sensible paced security ( called fast-track, but I suspect the advertising standards authority might withhold a case against them). People everywhere pushing in, standing and blocking anyone passing and folks looking dead on the seats, you get the picture. Put simply,I hate Luton airport.
Easyjet flight to Pisa was on time taking off but late landing as French air traffic controllers were refusing something or other, work most likely. Now arriving at Pisa for a novice might be complex, but I remembered the system. Buy a ticket from a miserable mute man in a box who charges an extra fee plus the cost of the train ticket to Florence. The timetable advertised a train at 11.03 and dozens of folks stood waiting and waiting and waiting………never came. The station I can tell you for sure is not twinned with either Kew Gardens nor Wisley. Despite having a similar amount of foliage growing between the tracks. Everything looked run down and tatty and sad. So we all clambered aboard what looked liked a first world war relic, a two carriage train covered in graffiti, nice graffiti but still graffiti, and went off at no more than 5 mph to Pisa Central. There are no signs at Pisa Central. Again grateful to have done this before. Found a train going to SMN, which is one of the Florence stations, but what confuses many folks is that Florence is called firenze. The train was packed. There is some rumour of a strike by Trenitalia but the real problem would be actually being able to tell the difference when they are on strike. The trains are old and this one was packed. There were a curious mixture of passengers. One couple caught my eye and also the camera on my blackberry. A younger woman who had clearly spent many hours putting on her make up, the blue make up around both eyes made her look as though she had gone 12 rounds in a boxing match. Her clothes and also those of what I presumed to be her mother can only be described in terms such as this. Imagine going to a car boot sale and being foxed not only to buy but to put on all remaining items of clothing. None of whom match any other item, style nor colour. Totally bizarre. Mother had a pair of glasses on that Austin Powers and maybe Joe 90 would be proud of. They covered essentially her whole head and making matters even more curious were pink. Covering her head was maybe a good strategy as her hair looked like it had been set on fire then microwaved and painted red as a final punishment to all non-colour blind people. From her ears hung what can only be described as awful silver looking blackberries. and she spent the whole journey sitting on the edge of her seat perched like a small crow. I have seen circus folks looking more sartorially elegant. The end of this part of the story is arriving with suitcase, and coat at 1 pm at the Congress centre. A 9 and half hour journey.
I have now taken my humble belongings to the hotel and again a magical extra fee payable only in cash! 3 euros a night city tax, but why only in cash? The hotel is fine, Malaspina, stayed there before 2 years ago during the ash cloud debacle.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 