A busy weekend

Saul sorting the cutlery while we wait.

The house was given over this weekend to boys and their toys!  

We started on Saturday with lunch out to celebrate Rupert's birthday, although Abe thought the absence of a birthday cake was a serious oversight.  However, the 34 year old wasn't too put out!  Lunch was followed by a walk in Holt Country Park and a trip up the watch tower, which Eliot remembered being further away from the car park and much higher!  We spent many hours in this park with the boys when they were small, so it was a great pleasure to share it with the next generation. 

Useful uncle

Up the tower

Grandma, Saul and Eliot

During the course of the weekend, various forms of transport for small boys were enjoyed.  First Eliot fixed up the two wheeler for Abe and then proceded to run up and down the road bent double, encouraging Abe to pedal and steer and look ahead at the same time.  Limited success, but it's early days.  The so-called pizza delivery bike was also charged up and brought out, Saul riding shotgun on the back! 

Eliot guiding

Pizza delivery

There were also haircuts to be had.  A traumatic process.  Eliot slashing with the scissors and me feeding the boys blueberries while they looked at the ipad perched on the top of the boiler.  Then more ipad to recover afterwards!

Saul, amiling at last

Two shorn lambs drying off.

After the drama of the shearing, it was time to bring out another surprise, the Radio Flyer which Rupert had been renovating.  This is the original that Peter brought back from the USA on a visit long ago and which our boys enjoyed for many years.  It was languishing in pieces in the cellar and quietly rusting.  However, it can now be enjoyed again.

They liked it!

Rupert checking his handiwork

Eliot at work again!

Book group

Book group last Friday at my house.  The book was pretty poor and we all enjoyed picking holes in it.  We decided the author, who's a  historian, should stick to writing history and leave novels alone.  He didn't seem to understand women or have much insight into romance.  It seemed as though he thought he had found a use for bits of information left over from other historical research.  It didn't work for us.  Occasionally he was downright banal, as when he describes life under Stalin as "an odd system".  Something of a ridiculous understatement!  In case you're interested the book in question was 'One Winter Night' by Simon Sebag Montefiore.  Of course the exercise of our mental faculties left us feeling hungry so we repaired to the kitchen for tea.

On offer, Vietnamese summer rolls with peanut dipping sauce, barm brack (Irish tea bread), Moroccan orange and almond cake and banana muffins (an American recipe).  Pretty international fare!  The banana muffin recipe suggested making the mixture entirely in a zip lock bag, but I didn't have the nerve and used a blender instead.    My cake making skills are not of the best and I'm always amazed when things turn out approximately right.  The muffins were excellent!  The orange and almond cake was pretty good too although rather too much of it got stuck to the side of the tin making it look a trifle moth-eaten and leaving the air a pretty shade of blue!  The Vietnamese summer rolls were made with rice wrappers.  I didn't think they were afternoon tea fare but a friend had requested them and they disappeared quickly.  Just enough of everything left over to keep me happy for a few days! 

Fish fumet (aka fish stock)

I decided to make paella and looking through my recipe book I came across the instruction to make a fish fumet as the base for a chicken and seafood paella.  Now, I would normally skip this instruction in favour of a bit water and a few extra flavourings, but as I was standing at the fish stall on the market buying my squid and tiger prawns I asked the fishmonger to make sure I got the heads for fish stock.  "Ah" he said, "I can do better than that" and he produced a large bag of lobster and crab shells.  So I made a fish fumet.  It had rather an elaborate list of ingredients but it did make a great stock and the paella was very tasty!  I have much more stock than I needed so I have frozen it in three containers marked "400ml Fish Fumet".  I feel so grown up!!

Little green shoots

Having given up on herbs in the London window boxes, I've decided to extend my geranium collection.  They are so hardy, they are the ideal plant for the absentee gardener.  I raised all the current plants from seed.  Here's my new crop of babies.  Looks like almost 100% germination rate.  Now that they are hatched I'm transferring them to the cold frame in the garden to do their stuff.

The next day...

Sunday morning and the boys are up and playing with the pirate ship!

The finer points of piracy are explained to the cabin boy!

Meanwhile, across London, the grandparents are having lunch with son no. 1, walking along the Regent's Canal towpath, avoiding cyclists and runners and the murky water, and visiting a 20th Century modern furniture shop.  Along the way admiring the eccentricity of this area of London around Old Street and De Beauvoir Town.

Regent's Canal

Ghost of the Salvation Army hostel

One of the many Hawksmoor churches in this area

The weekend continues

Posing in new hats

After the gardening and lunch, a drive south of the river to Brixton to see the grandsons.  Nancy was out at a birthday party with the boys so we pitched in and helped Eliot clear up and get a move on with supper.  When the boys returned, clutching their birthday bags they were presented with Chilean fishermen's hats, a present from my old Chilean friend Lucila who has known our boys since they were born.   After modelling the hats, we gave the boys a joint birthday present...with which they were absolutely delighted.   It was actually the birthday of neither of them, but they are still at an age when time is immaterial and birthdays can be shifted to convenient dates!   Unfortunately we had not reckoned on the amount of time it would take to put the pirate ship together...as fast as we took the little pieces out of the packets, the boys scattered them!  Then supper intervened - a delicious meal of Sri Lankan curries (chicken and prawn), lentils and flat breads.  Eventually, and after the boys had gone to bed exhausted, the pieces were rounded up and Eliot completed the ship.

At last, ready to leave harbour!

Eliot and Nancy went out to meet some friends for a while and we babysat.   We watched a film about the Mosquito, the wooden World War Two plane, our interest due to the fact that Peter's father, a cabinet maker, worked on the mosquitoes during the war.  He was responsible for quality control.   We were glued to the screen to see if we could catch sight of him in the old footage from the factory near Watford.   No luck!

Weekend in London

View from the balcony - a grey day

Surviving geraniums before getting a haircut.

This is the first time we've been to London since we arrived back from College Station.  I'm pleased to be here.  I love the flat and the London views from the windows.  I don't love the dust so much!  It's inevtitable in the centre of London, but it's quite a task keeping up with the house work when you're only around for a weekend and have better things to do.

However, I have been 'gardening' if I can use the term for tending the window boxes along the balcony.  All but three of the 15 boxes are filled with geraniums which I raised from seed and are now into their third year.  Poor blighters.  They survive on so little water.  You'd think that there's enough rain in London to keep them watered but the cunning design of the Barbican balconies means that almost no rain falls on them.  They've been sadly neglected but, amazingly, are still flowering.  I've spent a good couple of hours watering, spreading dried chicken manure and cutting back.   It seems dreadful to cut off the flowers but the plants are getting so leggy that it's the only way to promote some new growth.   So, over to you geraniums, I've done what I can today!

Not much in the way of herbs!

The herb boxes have fared worst of all.  Just the rosemary is alive and perhaps one little sprig of thyme will make it.  I think I'm going to have to give up on fresh herbs.