Wednesday 9 May 2012

Food; art; South Downs

Had my first evening out with the Information Office a couple of Thursdays ago – to my knowledge there hasn’t been an evening get-together since I joined the team, so credit to Rebecca for organising it. Around 8 of us began with pre-dinner drinks at the large Wetherspoons on Midsummer Boulevard, before joining Sara and Hoa at Thai Modern. Very enjoyable meal and smart restaurant though I was slightly surprised to discover that my pork ‘Moo Gata’ tasted very like Mum’s old sweet and sour pork recipe. Not that there was a thing wrong with the latter, in its appropriate context, but from the description on the menu I had expected a rather more intriguing mix of herby flavours. Still, most of the other stuff looked nice and Hoa ordered an impressively-presented whole sea bass though Liz, who evidently doesn’t care for fish, claimed to be disquieted by its eye peering at her. Bart has been tasked with organising the next event and there was some talk of trying the London restaurant 'Archipelago', which serves various exotic dishes including a ‘Love bug salad’, consisting of pan fried locusts and crickets in chilli and garlic. I feel there may have been a certain amount of machismo talking.

The weekend of 28th and 29th was Reading Contemporary Art Fair and Ruth and I again went to the ‘private’ screening on the Friday evening, this time courtesy of Ruth’s having previously bought a picture at the show. Evidently a lot of other people had also previously bought pictures at the show and were lured in by the prospect of a free glass of warm white wine, as it was absolutely packed and I found myself wishing we’d just paid the entrance fee to go on the Saturday. We had a mooch around and jointly bought a small picture for around £50, though Ruth was tempted by the art of some Italian painter whose name I forget, but whose prices appeared to start at around £2500. I urged us to leave while we still had some prospect of being able to afford further house renovations. We ran into Ali, who had just bought a nude lady, sadly already wrapped in bubble wrap by the time we saw her so am told I'll have to wait to see her in Ali's living room. Reminded me of my ambition to acquire a Venus of Willendorf statuette for our living room, to appropriately symbolise Power Of Woman, fecundity etc, though not sure whether this would conflict with the Buddhist-type serenity exuded by Herbert.

We followed the show with dinner at the Spice Oven, now billing itself as a 'Brand New World Cuisine Buffet Concept'. They were certainly doing a roaring trade, but the whole thing’s a bit weird if you ask me.

Went over to Maidenhead with Ray on the Sunday afternoon for a quick stroll in patchy weather, followed by tea at Barbara’s. I took her a bottle of wine and she had baked fairy cakes in our honour, of which I put away about four. Barbara has been a bit laid up recently with a bad foot, so unable to be as active as she would no doubt like.

The attic continues to make progress, with a now-complete wall of shelving. Even better, I have managed to offload the IKEA shelving unit that it replaced to a good home, via the 'Freegle' network (successor of Freecycle in the Reading area). A lovely chap called Mark turned up last Saturday afternoon and collected it all, saying that it was just what he wanted for his attic.

On the Monday we set off for a four-day break on the South Downs, again courtesy of English Country Cottages, whom we are embracing as master/mistress of the undemanding UK-based short break. The South Downs was Ruth’s choice and not somewhere I’d ever spent much time, but the area seems to have potential. After short-listing a number of cottages a few weeks ago, we had eventually got frustrated and just picked one at random, Old Post Office Cottage at Jevington, a village west of Eastbourne on the South Downs Way and about 15 minutes drive from the coast. After a quite tedious and surprisingly hot two-hour drive, we parked up at Eastbourne and walked along the front past the pier and stopped for lunch at The Cavendish Hotel, where Ruth stayed for an event about six years ago. After lunch we had a quick wander along the pier, which is as depressingly anachronistic as such places generally are, before leaving Eastbourne in pursuit of cottage.

On the Tuesday we parked up at the Seven Sisters Country Park and walked down through Cuckmere Haven to the shore at the foot of the first Sister. Ruth spent a while looking for stuff in rock pools, but nothing doing. We had a pleasant lunch in the courtyard garden of the Exceat Farmhouse Restaurant before driving up to Beachy Head for a visit and a look over the cliffs. I had managed to remain remarkably oblivious to Beachy Head’s notoriety as a suicide spot, but according to its Wikipedia entry it’s the third most popular suicide spot IN THE WORLD, after the Golden Gate Bridge and some forest in Japan (intrigued by this: what do all these suicidal people do once they get in there? Dash their brains out against a tree?). Indeed, I discovered from colleagues that a member of OU staff ‘used’ Beachy Head for this purpose a few years ago. Blimey. As it was remarkably nice weather at the time of our visit, we took quite a few sparkly sea pics.

On the Wednesday we went for a bit of a walk up the South Downs Way, a national trail extending west-east from Winchester to Eastbourne. I had hoped to take in the Long Man of Wilmington en route, but misread the contour lines and discovered the SDW passes above the Long Man, rather than below. In the end we went to see him the following day instead. We had a brief picnic before returning to the cottage via the Lullington Heath nature reserve.

On the Thursday, after paying a quick visit to the Long Man, we drove to Lewes and had a mooch around its cobbled olde-worldeness. We spent some time in an antique shop, where Ruth bought a necklace, and walked up the steep Chapel Hill with its attractive houses and onto an even steeper footpath which led out onto the course of Lewes Golf Club. We had a look at the obelisk commemorating some Protestant martyrs before eventually retracing our steps. After a quick ham and cheese toastie at the Riverside Cafe Bar we drove back eastwards to Pevensey Bay, somewhere Ruth remembered visiting as a teenager with her godmother. However, on this occasion it appeared somewhat bleak and tired-looking (not helped by the weather) so we changed our minds about staying and drove back to Pevensey village instead, where we visited the castle followed by the tiny Courthouse Museum, where we were seized on by the elderly curator who regaled us with a lengthy local history lecture; Ruth managed to listen politely while my attention wandered to the postcard display and thoughts of a cream tea. We rounded off the trip with dinner at the Eight Bells, Jevington's quite cosy little pub.

Met Claire on the Friday evening at the pub formerly known as the Hobgoblin, now known as the Alehouse (all a bit puzzling) followed by dinner at Prezzo, followed by a walk up to The Turks to hear a band featuring the violinist from Claire's Vocal Harmony Group. On Saturday Ruth cut and fitted a new clothes rail in the cupboard in bedroom 1 - v. impressed, though she ran into the same problems as with the floating shelves with dodgy wall at one end. So far it seems to be holding though. Ray came round for a meal in the evening in payment for helping us with the water feature a few weeks back, and is sporting a startling short layered haircut with which I sense he is not entirely happy. We had been hoping to acquire rabbit from the butchers, as Ruth has unearthed a couple of recipes that sound quite nice, but it was not to be so we had roast pork, accompanied by the usual arguments about education and politics until I started dozing off.

Returned to Milton Keynes on Monday to clean the flat, throw away old food etc. Baked some more apple muffins from my ongoing supply of elderly apples, which went down well with the office. Also found a recipe for stewed plums, which I have eaten for breakfast the last couple of days. Not bad actually.