Now although I am not an American I loooove a bit of pumpkin and adore pumpkin pie as much as any Yank! Thanksgiving or not I will eat it!
Unfortunately we don't get a lot of pumpkin flavoured food over here in England so I have to make do with what I can find which is usually pumpkin spiced lattes in Starbucks in October time and the occasional tin of pumpkin in Waitrose...because who can be bothered to cut up a whole pumpkin just to get the flesh of it!
Anyway my point is pumpkin is awesome and here you can find lots of scrummy recipes to make it even awesomer. First on my list to try are the turtle pumpkin ice cream cake and triple chocolate pumpkin pie....told you there would be pumpkin drool! I mean how can you resist something that looks this good
<----- turtle pumpkin ice cream cake
I read a really interesting article today on the Guardian website about the language used to describe women and how some words are generally (though not always) used against women in a discriminatory way. I honestly had never really considered this until I read the article and realised it had been going on without me even noticing!
Anyhoo the article can be found here on the Guardian Life & Style section and you should all go and read it!
Well, here I am back at work again after a week off. At the start of it, the time seemed so long...9 whole days off in a row, but it has soon slipped past! To be honest the holiday started a bit earlier as we had plans on the Thursday and Friday night and whole of Saturday before going away on the Sunday to London.
London was a great break if a bit (read a lot!) wet! We got pretty much soaked in the rain every time we stepped out of the hotel on Monday & Tuesday though Wednesday was better at least, no need for the umbrella! We had a lovely time none-the-less and did some spectacularly touristy things as well as more unusual ones.
Trolled up to the National Gallery to see an excellent exhibition called Making Colour which surprisingly enough is about colour!! Was a fascinating thematic exhibition and talked about the theory and the way the different pigments were developed as well as showing the traditional uses of each colour. It's on until 7th September so if you find yourself at a loose end near Leicester Square and the National Gallery I would highly recommend it!
We also went to see a Prom (Austro-Hungarian /Viennese music) at the Royal Albert Hall which was just up the street from our hotel. Had a slight drama when I ACCIDENTALLY spilled some water on a woman in the bar where we were having our pre-prom drink (typical clutzy me!) and she went absolutely mental and we then made a swift exit. Her shrieks included the following "Ohhhh, What have you thrown on me?" "My hair is ruined" (it wasn't, in fact you couldn't even tell she'd had it done...) and when Chris apologised again saying that we were as wet as she was, from the 20 minute walk in the rain obviously..., she just tutted at us and said "I don't think so!" I'm sure if we were older she wouldn't have kicked off as much. So barring that incident the proms were lovely, the Albert Hall was amazing and the music was beautiful. Even got to hear the Blue Danube waltz which is one of our joint favourite pieces of classical music.
On Tuesday in the rain we went to the amazing shop that is Libertys of London. My Mum first took me in there when I was about 13 or 14 and I fell in love with the place. For those that don't know, Liberty is at heart a posh department store but is really so much more than that. It has a beautiful mock Tudor frontage and sells the most amazing fabrics and all sorts of exquisite things. I think my favourite place there is the rug room, which is just a room chock-a-block full of oriental style rugs, on the floor, in massive piles, hanging from the ceiling...heaven! Now because I am paying for a wedding and am poor I resisted all the beautiful Tana Lawn fabric and treated myself to some little scissors in the same print as I liked, the height of restraint I'm sure you will agree.
Another highlight of our trip was a visit to a fabulous restaurant called The Big Easy, we went to the Chelsea one but there is also one in Covent Garden. Basically their specialty is Lobster but they do all sorts of other Americana type foods like ribs, burgers etc and amazing cocktails. Being brave souls Chris and I decided that we would try the 1 and a half pound lobster as neither of us had tried it before. And dear readers, I can truly say it was delicious! I'm not a massive fan of seafood so this is a departure for me and I'm so pleased I made the brave leap. The meat (if you can call a crustacean's flesh meat!) was very sweet and not at all disgusting. Plus we had awesome fun with the implements they give you to eat it, cracking tools, long prongs etc...and took funny photos with claws. All in all a great place to go and have a good meal, great drinks and an excellent time!
One of the best things about where we stayed was its proximity to Chelsea and the Kings Road meaning we could do a bit of celeb spotting while we were there. Not that we were that great at it...our best spots were Spencer and Andy from Made in Chelsea. Speaking of MIC if you've been watching the new series in New York you should read this blog about it on Tatler website. Very funny stuff by Sophia Money-Coutts.
You know for all me starting this post moaning about being back at work, I've actually cheered myself right up by recapping our London trip for you all.
