Oooh, a shiney car !!!

It's been almost a year since I last got to drive a car. So today, we picked up a VW Polo from Wembley. It felt a bit odd, but at least it was on the right side.

We've always agreed that, as much as possible, we would avoid motorways and definitely tollroads - we want the picturesque pretty English drive. Turns out it didn't work as well in this regard as it did in Italy. But anyway, onward and westward.

Ruby Blue

Apparently rubies are blue. This came about because at th end of last year, we splashed out £30 on a Taste Card. The Taste card gets us 50% off or 2-4-1 offers at a huge number of restaurants around London and, we believe, other places in te UK. We'll test this in Bath.

Singularity Christmas

While it may be far from the first christmas we have spent together, this year was the first christmas we actually spent alone. Figuratively speaking. It doesn't mean we couldn't eat up a storm though.

More Chip Flavours

So I see that recently, my post on Chip Flavours has been quite popular. (Yes, that's right, I'm a little man, sitting in a server room, looking at everything you do. I can also Read Your Email.)

So, I thought I'd write another post on chip flavours. This one refers to chicken flavoured chips, and is quite pleasing, while saddening at the same time. So let's crack on chaps. (See how I dropped some english-speak in there ?:P)

Chip flavours!

Our weekly food shop at Sainsburys was undertaken today. Since our relocation to Kilburn, we've found it necessary to go to the Sainsbury's at Finchly road, which is no big deal. There's another one down the bottom of Kilburn High Road, but it's a small minger of a store, we were actually disgusted by the state of when we were there the other week.

A French Dinner...

As Rhiannon was working it the city this week, we've been travelling in and home together. Except last night, I finished at 7. So she met me at work and we went out for a bit before heading home.

Paris by Dots

Too lazy to reform this, so have some dot points about our week in Paris. It's taken us a while to get this up, oh well. We'll add some more photos at some point too.

Toulouse, weather and foosball

Had a nice sleep in. Think we really needed it. Had a look out the window to realise that it must have rained and that it was pretty grey looking. Wasn’t raining at the time, though, and we have been very lucky with the weather, so no complaining. Out we went...

The train in Spain falls mainly... in it's standards

Horrible Spanish train! We were in first class, which was full of seats like scratchy material lounges from the seventies. All brown and orange and yuck. Very slow train. We didn’t get reservations because we didn’t think they’d be necessary. They weren’t required on the last Spanish train we were on and we couldn’t book reservations when we first tried.

Mini train and old, old city

There were a couple of self walking tours noted on our map. Did the first one through old town. Fascinating. Plaques along the way to read. Cute, little streets. Although, they don’t seem to clean them at all. We found the Italian ones a lot cleaner. There was one very old street (Rue Grand). Dated as around 600 BC (Marseille is France’s oldest city) with a very old cool looking building that had been literally turned to match the new layout of the street when it was changed. Hard to imagine a building being turned.

First day in Nice

Day to explore Nice.

Amazed by the colours of the water.

Walked up to citadel/ rocks/lookout/waterfall/ruins of old church/parts of old town, incl Place Garibaldi.

Damn rain, but good food

For 99% of our trip, including both Ireland and the Isle of Man, we've had pretty stunning weather almost all of the time.

Unfortunately, it has turned on us today and is raining fairly heavily. Kinda puts a dampener on our explorations. We're expecting tomorrow to be clear, but who can tell...
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Weiner Schnitzel, Hefeweizen, Apfelwein, and Chocolate Popcorn.

Yes, you heard correctly. Chocolate Popcorn marked our first afternoon in Frankfurt. Closely followed by good, hearty German food, and of course, beer.

For LOLs...

Recipe book recalled and pulped due to typographic error.

Penguin Group (Australia) confirms the Pasta Bible ISBN 97801 43011071 has been pulped due to an error in the recipe for Spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto. The recipe incorrectly suggests adding salt and freshly ground black people – instead of freshly ground black pepper. The error occurred during the book’s editing process. A member of the public contacted Penguin to advise of the mistake, and 7,000 copies of the Pasta Bible were immediately quarantined in Penguin’s warehouse and pulped. A revised edition of the Pasta Bible will be available from late May 2010.

Would you like some freshly ground people with your pasta sir?

The Sefton Hotel...

We've been on the Isle of Man for a few days now, and had a pretty good time. Rather than make massive, long War&Peace entries, I'm going to make several smaller posts, about various things.
In keeping with what I plan on some of the blog theme to be, these posts may be reviews on attractions, establishments, foods, drinks, or anything like that.

This particular one, is about the Sefton Hotel, Douglas, Isle of Man. We were very impressed.

Camden Market...

Today being Saturday, we decided we needed to do something..... see London and all of that. Rhiannon has been at work, pretty heavily limiting our time to do things during the week...

Ok, I admit it.

I'm kind of addicted to the supermarkets here. They just have so much cool shit, like the ready meals. Or, stuff like single-serve shepards pies for 90p, 3 for 2 pound, stuff like that.
The meat prices are pretty crap, which is basically in line with most of the meat quality, but oh well.

One thing that we haven't been able to find though: Chicken Salt. And, Pasta Salad! i don't know if creamy pasta salad even exists here !


Also, differences:
Chip packet colourings. Blue is plain, green is chicken, purple is salt and vinegar, right?
Oh no.... no.. blue is Cheese and Onion. Orangey-red is original (or, lightly salted). Green is Salt and Vinegar. I haven't really noticed a chicken, or bbq flavour yet. Prawn cocktail flavour is pink though. At least that colour makes sense.