Horses; substandard meals; exam

In the context of the BP Portrait Award: forgot to mention that I noted that one Jo Fraser had received a £5000 grant to go to Peru to paint impoverished Quechua weavers. Amazing the things people get to do. Presumably the fact that the label next to the paintings specifically used the word ‘impoverished’ is significant – just makes painting them even more artistic? "Put that easel away, love, and give us a hand with this weaving" leaps to mind as the sort of thing such a weaver might say.

Another visit to London on the 29th, this time to visit the British Museum’s temporary exhibition ‘The Horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot’. Ruth’s thing rather than mine, but I thought it might be fun to tag along. The exhibition was busy, probably because it was the last weekend it was on, and, never having been a horsey type, much of it only moderately interested me, though it was interesting to learn how supposedly all thoroughbred horses are descended from only three Arabian stallions - don't know how they work out/keep track of that kind of thing. This article on a horsey website tells you more. After a while I left Ruth to it and decamped to the various gift shops, where I bought Mum a postcard of a Lady Anne Blunt, who was married to a poet called Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (not sure I've heard of him) with whom she apparently travelled around the Middle East buying Arabian horses. After leaving the museum we went to Ruskin’s Café on Museum Street for tea and cake, via the Seoul Mate for me to stock up on more kimchi.

Prior to our London trip, I went along for a pedicure I’d booked myself in for at Serenity Hair & Beauty, a local Caversham salon which Ruth has been to for a couple of bits and pieces. OK, though manicures and pedicures are done in the ‘public area’ along with the hairdressing. One hopes they have a private room for the alarmingly comprehensive range of waxing they claim to do, including a chin wax, which I hope never to need. Emerged with smart red toenails, and am now contemplating a manicure to match – never had one before as I’ve always bitten my nails on and off, but over the last year or so have generally managed to keep them in a reasonable state.

Unusually, have managed to have two restaurant meals in the space of a week that have left me feeling slightly queasy. Ruth and I didn’t fancy cooking after our London trip so we decided to go to the Bina Tandoori, until recently the ‘other’ Indian restaurant in central Caversham after the Spice Oven. Sadly the latter has since demised into Buffet World horror so the Bina is the only curry house in easy walking distance (slightly lazy, admittedly) from the house. The Bina is, on the surface, posher than the Spice Oven was pre-demise, but the food doesn’t match up. We both ordered chicken tikka masala, being in a mood for faux-Indian rather than actual, but what we were served up was bright red and tasted suspiciously of Heinz tomato soup. Amazingly, the Bina's website claims they've been voted among the top 30 restaurants in the UK.

The second incident was a work dinner on the 4^th at the Zen Garden in Milton Keynes. As we were pushed for suggestions, Sara, our Office Manager, suggested it as somewhere she takes her teenage sons. Admittedly I perhaps didn’t pick the right options, but after my first plateful of starter-type snacks it dawned on me that everything appeared to be laced with sugar. Had a deep-fried sweet chilli chicken or pork (no telling which) that simply tasted like hard toffee, and chose quite an appetising looking smoked chicken dish – I had assumed the crystals scattered over it were salt, but it turned out to actually have sugar sprinkled over it. After a few more bits of food in this vein I started to worry about the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes before the end of dinner, so laid off the food and had a second beer instead. Lovely company though. Matthew has suggested an all-cheese restaurant for our next outing, so I await with interest.

What with the ex-Spice Oven and now this, though, my antipathy to all-you-can-eat fusion buffets is growing by the hour. Seem to be catering to people for whom quantity is all, are intimidated by going out to dinner so want to go somewhere they can dress down and ladle themselves huge plates of food from school dinner-esque tureens, and not be bothered by waiting staff.

Went for a walk on Saturday from the house up into Bugs Bottom and thence a bit further, up the (muddy) footpath opposite Shipnell’s Cottages and up onto Dysons Wood Lane, coming out into Tokers Green where we meandered back down into Caversham Heights and for a lunchtime pint and burger at The Grosvenor.

Much of the last couple of weeks has been occupied with attempting to revise for the upcoming M255 exam on 11 October. Having struggled to understand some of the concepts in the later units, and in fact having skipped the last unit altogether (I’ve never yet seen it come up in an exam question so am taking my chances), I’m not sure how well I’m going to do. At this stage it’s in the lap of the gods. Slightly peculiar having to do a three-hour exam in Java programming using a pen and paper, when all the work of the module is done at the PC in the development environment. Have been practising writing parentheses and semi-colons. Well, one doesn’t hand-write much these days.