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Windhovery
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| Okay, I have my timer set for Torchwood - though, really why do I put myself through this perpetual disappointment? At least this time I can be disappointed every evening for a week and get it over with.
I've just watched a little soupçon of Doctor Who Christmases past to whet my appetite and reflected on the fact that recent efforts starring pint sized Aussies and David Morrisey have failed to even touch the whirling Christmas Tree of Death chasing Jackie or the TARDIS bouncing along a motorway with Donna dangling out of it. (Oh Jackie, oh Donna - wherefore hast Russell forsaken you?).
Next fix will be The Sarah Jane Adventures (guest starring David Tennant, btw) and that doesn't start until autumn. Ho hum.
You'd better be good for once, Barrowman, that's all I'm saying. | comments: 18 comments or Leave a comment   |
| I was pondering on food earlier today as I drove around Oxfordshire looking for a pub to feed me a decent meal and supply a decent drink for under £10. I visited two pubs in a row who thought that they were restaurants, and that putting their food in the middle of huge square plates and adding lots of green stuff was going to make me willing to pay £7 for a starter and £14 for a main course. This is not what I am looking for in a pub lunch, and it made me sulky.
Eventually I found a pub aiming for a commoner demographic - very common in fact, since its menu led with macaroni cheese and chips, followed with scampi and chips and followed up with burger and chips. (There were a few non-chip options lower down, but you could see where their hearts were.) It had been picked out by the organisers of a cycle race as one of their official refreshment stops, and I can see why. I had a square meal and a pint of beer for £6.40, and sat in the garden with dozens of cyclists, many of them clad in ill-advised lycra, while red kites soared overhead.
This evening however, I was grazing slowly through friends-of-friends and found this:
Tastespotting.com
Oh pretty food, and lovely recipes. I click on them, and just for a moment feel inspired to believe that I might actually go out and buy all those ingredients and make those little works of art.
Or possibly I'll make myself a ham sandwich. | | comments: 29 comments or Leave a comment |
| I would just like to place on record at this point the fact that I love my portable air conditioner. Contrary to what I may have said in winter time, I do not begrudge the space it takes up in my kitchen and I do not resent dusting it, washing it, or tripping over it whenever I need to find my extension lead/vacuum cleaner accessories.
And this is why:
It was 28 degrees and humid both outdoors and indoors when I got in this evening. Now it is 27 degrees and humid outside my living room and 23 degrees with dry air inside my living room. *loves*
In other news, 'True Blood' is starting on FX next week. They are selling it as 'perfect for Twilight fans', bless them. | | comments: 24 comments or Leave a comment |
| So, today I managed to leave the house for an extended period. Not entirely fulfilling because it was a nasty overcast, sticky, sweaty sort of day - but still.
I went to Sutton Courtenay, which has a nice medieval church with a Norman tower and an odd Tudor porch: ( Read more... ) | | comments: 21 comments or Leave a comment |
| And now I'm watching Dollhouse ep6 - heh.
ETA: And okay, that was persistently interesting right through the episode. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's 34°C in Seville right now.
*wibbles*
I am off to Spain tomorrow morning and back on Friday night - if I haven't melted into a tub of English white lard by then.
ETA: In slightly better news, it is 27°C in Malaga, which is where I am spending the first night. | | comments: 14 comments or Leave a comment |
| I know, I know - you bump along quite happily for weeks on end without me posting a single Norman arch or glowing water meadow, and then two lots come along at once. Blame the Bank Holiday.
Monday, then, featured a terribly slow start, with me heaving myself out of bed at 9.30am with a hangover and then to be found pottering around Tesco an hour later, looking for sausages and beans and milk and (gluten-free) bread and orange juice, so I could make myself brunch.
Eventually I pulled myself together, and set off north to find St Margaret's Well, in the teeny Oxford village of Binsey. Which was teeny all right but turned out to be located off a suburban road in Oxford, and within the ring road.( Read more... ) | | comments: 22 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's 10am on a Sunday morning.
The rain is beating against the window panes and I have the lights on. Beans on toast and tea have been transferred from outside Kes to inside Kes, the internet has been perused, and I have listened to indignant politicians on Radio 4 moaning about democracy being undermined by publication of their moat cleaning bills.
What next...?
*twiddles fingers*
I will settle in to read 'Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich. A slender book I would have deeply resented paying full dollar for, but I picked it up in Oxfam yesterday, so that's okay.
p.s. All praise to the genius who is behind 'Genius' bread - the first gluten free loaf that tastes like the real thing. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sal101010's comment on my last LJ post has set me to thinking about the cars we learned to drive in.
1. What car did you learn to drive in?
2. Was it a good car to learn on?
3. Did driving lessons teach you valuable lessons you are still benefitting from now?
4. Did it leave you with a lasting soft spot for the make of car in question, or are you still bitter and twisted?
5. As a bonus question, when was the first time you ever used an emergency stop, as taught in your driving lessons? Or have you never yet had the pleasure?
p.s. I learned to drive in a Peugeot 309, remarkably like this one:
Peugeot 309 | | comments: 16 comments or Leave a comment |
| I have a hole in the back of my left hand, inflicted with a pair of secateurs that were held in my right hand. I do wonder if I am cut out for physical labour, sometimes.
In better news, I spent most of yesterday either en route to Twickenham, or strolling about Twickenham in the sunshine, or sitting in the sunshine in Twickenham drinking beer and watching rugby. Admittedly I saw more fist fights, late tackles, cheap shots and forward passes than actual rugby. But still, a good day, with a curry at the end of it. Hoorah!
One of the few moments of excitement during the Quins v London Irish match - the blond guy is about to score a try:( Read more... ) | | comments: 15 comments or Leave a comment |
| Come with me gentle LJ reader, and try to decipher the walls of All Saints, Little Kimble. Saints galore cry out for you to recognise them...
I had a very vigorous Saturday. I drove over to Buckinghamshire, walked around College Lake and Tring Reservoirs and the Grand Union canal (straying into Hertfordshire en route), where I saw a kingfisher and, amazingly, a weasel, which popped out on to the towpath in front of me, disappeared into the long grass of the river bank and then, when I sat down and waited, popped back over the towpath again and into the hedge. Magic, even if I did put my hand on a nettle when I was sitting myself down. *rubs tingling fingers*
On the way home I stopped at no less five churches, three of which were having Open Days. So I admired thirteenth century pew ends at Ivinghoe, chatted with a nice old lady in a cold and lonely redundant 12th century church at Pitstone, joined walkers galore at Wendover to eat cinnamon cake and drink orange squash, climbed the tower for amazing views and had tea at Ellesborough, and finally marvelled at the wall paintings in Little Kimble.
Wendover and Ellesborough were thronging with people, while Little Kimble, which is a few hundred yards down the road was deserted - despite its rather desperate sign, reading "XIII Church - Wall Paintings and Medieval Tiles". Well, it worked on me. Whoo hoo, said I, and swerved right into a layby and walked briskly back (well, limped - my feet had negotiated a six mile walk, four churches, and a 80 step church tower by then).
And I was glad I did:( Read more... )
And to think I nearly drove right past the place. Sheer magic | | comments: 31 comments or Leave a comment |
| I took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to venture north up into Oxfordshire, and after a walk in the sunshine I dropped into Stanton Harcourt, which has a very nice church, right next to a 'Papist's Tower', which caught my eye on the map.
( Read more... ) | | comments: 14 comments or Leave a comment |
| Don't happen to have a 500 year old religious ruin in your garden at present? Here is the answer:
( Read more... )
I am not entirely sure the statue of jonesiexxx in the foreground is strictly authentic, but what the hell - it's decorative.
Here is the link to the company's website, so jwaneeta can order a brochure. | | comments: 32 comments or Leave a comment |
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Windhovery
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