July 2016
In July I swam in Hampstead Ponds and visited Chislehurst Caves again, and made a dinner using an ingredient starting with each letter of the alphabet. I also visited a couple of photography exhibitions and toured a vineyard in Devon.
Science Museum and Britain from the Air
We visited an outside photo gallery of "Britain from the Air" which had lots of aerial shots of various places, both countryside and towns. We also visited an exhibition in the Science Musum about William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented photography in Britain in the 1800s. There were some of his and his contemporaries' earliest works, along with some of his equipment. It was rather interesting.
Hampstead ponds
We also went swimming in Hampstead Ponds again. I jumped in, expecting the water to be too cold to lower myself slowly into, but it turned out to be very pleasant. I did a few laps of it before my arms tired and enjoyed the sun a bit while Emily, Tim and Matt carried on.
Alphabet supper
We hae been watching Taskmaster on the Dave TV channel recently, which is a pretty good series of comedians attempting unusual tasks. One episode featured a task where they had to name a foodstuff starting with each letter of the alphabet, then make dinner using them in two hours.
This caught our imagination and so we got to it, and had Tim over as our judge/guinea pig. We agreed the ingredients should be items you would reasonably find on a shopping list or in a recipe. Here was my set of ingredients:
That is: Apple sauce, Bicarbonate of soda, Chocolate chips, Demerara sugar, Elderflower cordial, Flour, Grapeseed oil, Harissa, Iceberg lettuce, Jerk spice, Kiwi fruits, Lemon juice, Maple syrup, Nectarines, Onions, Pomegranite, Quorn mince, Radishes, Salt, Tinned tomatoes, Udon noodles, Vanilla Extract, Water, Xanthan gum, Yoghurt, Zest of a lime.
Here's my meal plan! It ended up looking like this:
Emily made a prawn cocktail (with homemade mayonnaise), ratatouille with homemade bread, nectarine and chocolate mousses with raspberries, served with a fruit cocktail to drink.
My "superbol" udon noodle / spaghetti bolognese concoction was a surprise hit, and Tim gave the overall win to me!
Chislehurst Caves
We visited Chislehurst Caves again on a warm weekend day, where it was much cooler. The tour guide was particularly engaging and after polling the group took us a different route to usual where we got to see a large ammonite fossil in the ceiling.
Dad's 60th
For my Dad's 60th birthday, he and Mum had arranged a hot air balloon trip, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to wind. As a substitute we had an ad hoc murder mystery weekend, using a box of character sheets with motivations and acting tips in it. Getting into character was surprisingly fun.
Beforehand we had visited a local vinyard for some wine tasting. It was interesting to learn about how wine is grown in Britain (in short: in the south and in very specific fields with the right microclimate).
We also found out that grape leaves are edible, and got to try a couple, which taste just like the skin of the fruit. Nom!
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