Our Royal Wedding

So with much hype and expectation the Royal Wedding came and went over a week ago now.

As with everywhere in the world there were some that didn't want to know about it while there were others who camped out for days to get a good spot to see the bride and groom. To see the most committed though check this guy out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWKlUi2avo

If you can't view that video search for John Loughrey on YouTube

Jackie and I were in the middle of that spectrum although I think I was a bit more excited in the lead up than Jackie, but then the day before Jackie got into the spirit, buying us ingredients for a breakfast fit for a prince and princess (or Duke and Duchess as it turns out).

The night before the wedding we headed down to Clapham Common to have a look at 'Camp Royale' a temporary camping ground where people were believed to be going to stay and party over the weekend.

Camp Royal was a bit of a let down but we did see a guy riding a penny farthing which made the trip worth while

Camp Royal

A sneak peak inside camp royal confirms that there is nothing royal about it. 

Our Royal Wedding went something like this...

I woke up early, excited and woke Jackie up, we had to get packed for our night in Henley, have our Royal Breakfast and get somewhere to watch the main event.

Our Royal Breakfast

I had the computer streaming the BBC first thing so we could watch everyone turn up to the wedding as we got ready.

Jackie with the red and blue on for the wedding.

After breakfast and packing we took our bags and headed in to Balham, the first pub we went to we couldn't get a seat, everything was either taken or reserved  - at 10:30 in the morning! The next place we tried was all but empty so we settled down with a drink, they had an ale called 'Perfect Union' so I had to have one of those, and this is where we watch the ceremony.

Our spot for watching the wedding, it's a sports pub so there was booming sound for the 6 people that were here. 

Around midday we left to go to Heathrow to pick up my parents.

We decided to walk to nearby Wandsworth Common train station to give us the chance to see any street parties, we saw a couple, including one with a bouncy castle, but I think most people were still glued to their tvs so there wasn't so much going on to see.

Signs of a Street Party, road closed but the partly taking place around the corner.

St James Street Party, Bouncy Castle and Hog Roast were going to make this a doozy I reckon.

From Wandsworth Common our route took us through Victoria train station which was tantalizingly close to Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, I told Jackie she might have to hold me back in case I made a break for it to join in with the million or so people. I managed to restrain myself though and we got on the tube to Heathrow, finding my parents and picking up a rental car all went well and we were on the road to Henley.

Our first stop though was Danesfield House for a Royal afternoon tea that Jackie had organised. I don't have any photos but the website (http://www.danesfieldhouse.co.uk/) gives you a fair idea of how nice this place was. We all ordered the Royal Afternoon Tea which included scones with clotted cream and jam, sandwiches and cakes and pastries. It was a ridiculous amount of food and we were never going to finish it all but I did my best to get through most of it.

From there it was on to Henley were we were staying in the Rowbarge Pub accommodation. After spending about 5 minutes trying to find the hand brake to park on the hill we moved on to the pub which was too busy to check us in to our room so we had a drink while we waited to be checked in. The other patrons had clearly been there since the start of the wedding, there were several people that were worse for wear which gave us plenty of entertainment while we waited.

After getting checked into our rooms, and watching some of the highlights of the wedding we went for a walk around Henley, which is a beautiful English town and had a great meal and a Greek Mezze restaurant, although I really didn't need any more food after the huge afternoon tea.

So that was about it for our Royal Wedding. Jackie and I were kept up into the wee hours by the noise of the pub including various arguments which we could here in a lot of detail. That combined with Pride and Prejudice on the tv was entertaining enough that we didn't mind staying up later than usual.

The next day, after a poor breakfast we went for a walk along the river, stopping for a while at Henley Lock watching all the boats go through. Lunch and an ice cream was all that remained before getting in the car and heading back to London.

London in 50 Walks: Walks 16 and 17

Beautiful weather in London doesn't come along too often, especially not coinciding with a long weekend so to make the most of it Jackie and I decided to do a couple of our 'London in 50 Walks' walks, we chose walk numbers 16 and 17 to do together as they shared a common start point.

The map cards for walk 16 and 17 overlap making it a good opportunity to do the two together

We started with walk number 17, doing the walk in reverse from Archway tube station to Highgate tube station. Doing the walk in reverse tested our abilities to follow the walk instructions in reverse, we managed alright.


View London Walks #17 in a larger map

The start of our walk at Archway was reasonably uneventful, other than the fact that we start off walking up quite a steep hill. At the top of the hill we turned in to Waterlow Park.

Getting our bearings in Waterlow Park

We promptly decided to have a slightly early lunch, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, not that the rest of the day wasn't great but the lunch was exceptional .We had packed left over orzo salad from the night before, it was great the first time around and even better the second time as we sat in Waterlow park, overlooking a pond and a beautiful hilly, green park.

Jackie modelling a very summery outfit at our early lunch stop

We moved on past a hoard of kids ensconced in Easter Sunday activities. After strolling around the park we got to the Highgate Cemetery  where Karl Marx is buried, however it was with great disappointment that we found there was a £3 charge to enter the cemetery, which we objected too, so we carried on walking along our path, up another steep hill.

As often is the case in parks there were many benches in memory of people, this one however was just a one person seat, I'm not sure if that says something about the budget available for this memorial or if it was symbolic of their lack of friends, either way it was out of place in amongst all the 4 person benches around the park. 

Photo of Highgate cemetery, as much as we could get for free. Disappointing that we couldn't go and see Karl Marx's grave but I'm sure we'll get over it. 

At the top of the hill we were at Pond Square, which lacks a pond these days but which had a great looking pub called the Flask. Unfortunately it wasn't time for another stop yet.

The Flask pub, unfortunately too soon after our lunch to stop here.

We carried on along North Road, past a petrol station with an inviting menu including smoothies and Monmouth coffee (one of the better coffees to be found in London). Here we missed our turn off, possibly distracted by people asking us for directions.

There are loads of blue plaques around with obscure famous people, at least we'd actually  heard of Charles Dickens, although the fact he stayed there in 1832 is hardly a claim to fame, I'm sure he stayed in lots of places over his life, it wasn't as if this is where he wrote one of his books.

We backtracked and found our turn off, just in time to see a volley of oddballs, starting with a cross dresser, followed by a jogger who was panting so hard we were worried whether he was going to make it home and finished with a generally odd looking girl. All quite peculiar given the suburb seemed especially normal, if slightly fancy.

Onwards, through a narrow lane way which I'm sure claims its fair share of side mirrors of cars and into the homeward stretch.

We started walk 16 with a coffee and Portuguese tart from a coffee shop called Laos. Despite using Monmouth coffee and having a flat white on the menu, what I got was a milky drink with a hint of coffee flavour, not particularly satisfactory. The tart was good though which almost made up for the poor coffee. A bit of a disappointing end to walk 17 and start to walk 16.

Laos cafe, bad coffee, don't go there.

Map below shows walk 16 in blue, our walk back to the tube in red.


View London Walks #16 in a larger map

One of the most interesting parts of the walk was the section which was through a wooded walkway which is a disused railway line. The tracks have been taken away to create a long thin park, which is mainly a walkway. It was pleasant in the shade, just before we had to turn off the walkway there was another Easter egg hunt underway with lots of raucous kids.

Parkland walk, along the route of a former railway track

Jackie on the Parkland Walk

After a brief return to the footpath the walk took us along another narrow, wooded walkway.

Jackie checking we're on track

 After the walkway we turned back onto a regular footpath. From here we had a view of Alexandra Palace.

Alexandra Palace in the distance (you can't actually see it when the picture is this size) but we had a half decent view

We then walked down the hill into Crouch End, where the walk finishes. We did the loop of Crouch End to complete the walk as required by the map and then settled at a cafe for a smoothie and cake as a reward for our efforts. Unfortunately the cakes weren't particularly special, a bit dry, which was a shame as we deliberated long and hard about which of the numerous cafes to go to and we both agreed this one looked like the best, clearly we were wrong. Nevertheless it was still good to sit down and rest after our walk.

Banner's cafe/restaurant in Crouch End where Bob Dylan had a regular table in the back

We decided to finish off by walking back to Highgate tube which was a nice walk in itself through rather swish  residential suburbs. We were lucky that the tube took us all the way back to Balham, the final challenge was staying awake on the tube to avoid missing our stop.

Three walks done, 47 to go.

Coming soon.... our Royal Wedding update.

Olympics

Lots going on in London at the moment, not the least being some stunning weather which has caught everyone by surprise.

Needless to say people are making the most of it while it lasts. Especially as we've got our bank holiday bonanza at the moment, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Royal Wedding Friday followed by a regular May bank holiday gives us a 4 day week followed by a 3 day week and then another 4 day week. Lots of time to enjoy the sunshine so let's hope it lasts.

As well as the weather and the holidays there is of course the hype around the royal wedding, our borough has had the second highest number of applications to the council to hold street parties so I'd say come next Friday there will be no escaping the royal wedding in our neighborhood. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13168742

We are escaping to Henley with my parents on the day of the wedding so we will probably miss the actual ceremony. I expect Henley will be in full celebration mode when we get there though so that will be good to soak up some of the atmosphere.

The other reason why there is a lot going on at the moment is that the ballot is closing for Olympics tickets, I've just filled in our entry to the ballot. We've applied to 7 events including 2 days of athletics, gymnastics (I applied for rhythmic by mistake which is the ribbons and balls, I'm going to do another application for artistic gymnastics which is the bars, vault etc.), hockey, beach volleyball, swimming and weightlifting. It's only a ballot so we're hoping we don't get all the tickets we've applied for. If we do get all our tickets it will cost £385 (plus so more if I get the artistic gymnastics as well). For some of the sessions we were able to apply for tickets for Baby Bush, which cost £1 and hopefully mean we get an extra seat.

We'll find out by late June which tickets we have.

That's all for now.

Paris Marathon

Last weekend we went to Paris, mainly for me to do the marathon but it was also a good opportunity for a bit of a holiday and to catch up with my parents as they were also in Paris as dad was doing the marathon.

On the Friday Jackie and I went for a walk around Montmartre, the suburb where we were staying before going to meet up with mum and dad, we all went up to level two of the Eiffel tower.

Photo from level 2

Photo from the bottom

Photo of Eiffel Tower at night

For dinner that evening we went back to the suburb where we were staying, where we went to a great restaurant called Chez Toinnette for dinner. We all had red meat, I had rack of lamb (which was more like lamb chops but nice all the same) Jackie had a delicious lamb shank, mum had a stuffed veal roll and dad had the pigeon. I tasted all of the meals, they were all great but I think dad's was the best. It turns out that the restaurant is rated number 5 out of more than 6,000 restaurants in Paris on tripadvisor ratings.

Next morning (after loading up on croissants) we went to the marathon expo where we picked up my race pack before going back to catch up with mum and dad for lunch before going on a river cruise. The river cruise was ok although the seats weren't particularly comfortable, it was extraordinarily hot, the view wasn't the best from the seats we had and the river had a really bad smell, so all in all probably not a highlight. After agreeing on plans for meeting before the marathon the next day we went our separate ways to have our final evening meals before the run. Jackie and I went to an Italian restaurant up the road from where we were staying with a couple of friends, one of which was also doing the marathon.

I had an ok but not brilliant sleep before the marathon. Everything went well in terms of getting ready, getting on the train and finding dad before the marathon, getting to the start was easy enough and the start went quite well too. It took us 16 minutes to get over the start line which was about what I would have expected. The number of people running at our pace made it difficult to keep a consistent pace but we did pretty well. The heat was clearly going to be an issue, it was warm in the sun at the beginning of the run, it was undoubtedly going to get hot before long.

Before the start in front of the Arc de Triomphe

Before long we managed to bump into the Bixley's who are Jackie's parents accountants. The usual conversation transpired between people wearing identifiably NZ clothing which went something like "where are you from... oh really, do you know so and so.... " and sure enough we knew people in common. Jackie had told me about these people doing the marathon before hand but I didn't know what they looked like and even if I did the chances of seeing them in amongst 40000 other people running the marathon would be slim to none, but there you go, further proof it is a small world after all!

We carried on, seeing Mum and Jackie at the 9km mark. Mum had fashioned herself a device to be spotted more easily amongst the crowds - picture a lot of bird scaring metallic tape attached to the end of an umbrella - that's exactly what mum had, and it was very effective too!

Me and dad (cut off on the left) at 9km, feeling fresh

Mum with her bird scaring tape device

After seeing mum and Jackie we ran around the first of the two parks, which involved a slight hill but we managed that fine. We next saw mum and Jackie at 19km, spotting them early thanks to the bird scaring tape. Dad got rid of his glasses here and we powered on, still in good shape.

At 19km, still feeling ok

However before long we hit some undulating roads as we went under road tunnels which involved a down hill and flat bit through the tunnel which was easy, followed by a relatively steep incline out of the tunnel, that was the tough bit and took its toll.

It was at this stage that we were running past some great sights, although I'm not sure dad was enjoying them as much as I was! We went past the Notre Dame cathedral, Eiffel Tower, original Statue of Liberty, Roland Garros tennis complex and probably lots of other notable sights along the river Seine that I didn't notice or know about.

Just after going into the second park we saw mum and Jackie again at 35km, probably a bit later than they were expecting and I think they got the message that it might still be a while before we get to the finish, but we will get there. And so we carried on through the park with the crowds urging everyone along and the kilometres slowly counting down.

Finally we turned into Avenue Foch leading towards the Arc de Triomphe and the finish line. We had enough left for a sprint to the finish line which is always important and we were done! It was such a great experience to run a marathon with my dad, I hope that I will do many more marathons in my life and I'm sure I'll do faster times but I don't think anything will ever compare to running the Paris marathon with my dad, truly a once in a lifetime experience.

After picking up our finishers shirts dad sent me ahead to let mum and Jackie know that we were alive and that he would join us shortly, along the way I had to perform my chivalrous duty as a young French lady had injured herself on the run and needed assistance to get to her meeting place, I duly provided an arm for her to lean on as we limped to our respective meeting points.

Not long after I found our supporters did Dad arrive, looking much fresher than when I'd left him.

After the finish, back where we began the day, in front of the Arc de Triomphe

After going home to freshen up (and have a snooze) we went back to mum and dad's hotel where they were having their 'debrief' with their Kerre Woodham tour group before we went for dinner.

The next day Jackie and I went to the Louvre, as is the case with everyone we made a bee line for the Mona Lisa which was quite underwhelming. What was impressive were the vivid colours of a lot of the other much older paintings, which you would generally associate with being relatively dour in colour. We didn't stay long at the Louvre, it was impressive but the crowds and tired legs meant we couldn't really enjoy it. We went back to Montmartre to soak up more of the atmosphere and had another great meal before getting back on the train to London.

Lunch on our last day was a highlight

Celebrating the cricket world cup

On Saturday I was doing some work, listening to India play Sri Lanka in the cricket world cup final. Jackie was out shopping.

It was a pretty exciting game, with the momentum swinging between the teams.

When Jackie got back from shopping I gave her the run down on the game, she feigned interest although I was surprised that when I suggested we go to Tooting for a curry to celebrate India's impending victory she agreed. But then the momentum swung towards Sri Lanka, to which Jackie coolly suggested that we would have to go to Hop and Spice (our local Sri Lankan curry house) instead.

So it was, the outcome of the game was going to determine our choice of meal for the evening.

As you're probably aware India won...


So we trundled down the road to Spice Village, the nearest decent curry house to us in the suburb of Tooting which is well known in London as having some of the best curry houses around.



I'd been for a decent run in the morning so was hungry, so we ordered:
Pakoras

Popadoms

Chicken Tikka Masala

Chana Masala 

Two Naans (one plain and one garlic) 

Rice 

And a mango lassi for me (Jackie had a can of Fanta) 

We managed to get through pretty much all of it and it came to just over £20.

After dinner we rolled ourselves across the road to an Ice Cream parlor called Afters (http://www.aftersoriginal.co.uk/) , unfortunately there are no photos of it online, it's a pretty funny place with a big pink motorbike in the front window. After much deliberation Jackie got an ice cream (raspberry, coconut and something else) in a waffle cone. I'd done myself in on the curry so abstained from having ice cream.

One of the interesting stories about Afters, apart from having a pink motorcycle in the front window, is that Salman Butt, the former captain of the Pakistan cricket team, who was suspended for match fixing, claimed that part of the cash that was found in his hotel room came from Afters as payment for him attending the opening of Afters. As mentioned in the following Guardian newspaper article... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/13/salman-butt-pakistan-spot-betting-scandal

There wasn't as much wild celebrations going on in Tooting as I'd expected, a few people wandering around in their India cricket shirts but nothing over the top. I suppose it confirms what everyone says that all the curry houses in London are run by Bangladeshi's.

Ah well, it was a good excuse for a curry and we had a great celebration all the same.