the adventures of super meg

I had a pretty cool last week and a great weekend to top it off!  Here are my highlights in order:

1. Bread Baking School!  Sounds so cheesy but it was pretty darn cool.  I took the train from Paddington to Bath early on Monday and spent the better part of my day there learning about new techniques to make bread by hand.  The school is run by a Frenchman who has been baking for over 20 years and living in the UK too. There were mostly women in the class but we had a few guys learning and at the end of the day we came home with a whole lot of bread.  Of course Alan was a willing taste tester of the samples and declared them good enough to make again! 

2. Dave Matthews Band at Brixton Academy on Thursday night!  Finally I got to take Alan to a DMB show and it was a really good one where they played for nearly 3 hours to a sold out crowd in a small theatre. 

3. Viewing the white cliffs of England…Saturday we took the train to Seaford and started a 13 mile trek to Eastborne.  We had amazing weather, views of the cliffs and sea and a good pub lunch stop.  Both Alan & Brian have blogged about the trip so check out their pictures. 

4. The Killers Concert in Hyde Park on Friday, we rocked the house that night!  It was a very different show then Thursday with DMB but the energy was awesome and we enjoyed a tall pitcher of Pimm’s in the park. 

5. Listening to music in Hyde Park on Sunday…we trekked up to Hyde Park with Daisy and a couple of containers of pre-mixed homemade Pimm’s and listened to DMB (again) and then a bit of Bruce Springsteen for free outside of the concert.  The Boss opened up with a cover of “London Calling” by the Clash which was pretty darn cool!  We finished up the night back at home with Alan on the BBQ and watching the sun go down ever so late to trick us into thinking it was earlier than we thought. 

Now I do wonder if this week is able to match this past week!  I have yet to make any of the bread recipes from class as we were super busy most evening last week too with the garden.  Yes we are working in pots this year and have about 25 of them going with a range of tomatoes, beans, lettuce, herbs, peppers, peas and leeks.  With all the warm weather this week and last week it should really help to get them growing strong.  This week is back to bread week…yum!

Well tonight marks the official break up of Daisy and Milo.  Friday Milo departs for his home back to Seattle not to return to be a London dog anymore.  No more meeting at the creepy hospital in the big field to run around before meeting in the pub and playing games. Maybe my liver will thank me but I will miss our friends and Milo.  It has not really sunk in yet but it will over the next few weeks for sure.  Milo has a long journey home tomorrow so we hope that he makes it in the crate for the long flight back to Seattle.  Good luck back in the Emerald City! 

Africa pics & stories coming soon…no travel for the Tetley’s for a bit we are actually not getting on a plane for 6 weeks!!  Plenty of time for cooking & baking.

It is going to be quiet soon for us as we are heading off into Africa!  Zambia, Botswana and South Africa all await our arrival or at least we think so.  We depart on Thursday night and then come back on the 16th.  It should be a nice long break with no email/laptops/or mobile phones to keep us occupied.  I am really looking forward to it!  The rest of June we are then spending at home and finally getting a garden going and catching up on life.  So until then…safe travels wherever you might all be!

Wow has May already gone past me?  I look back and wonder what has happened and I realize it was an all around good month.  We went to Rome, a food show, Palm Springs, spent time with friends in London from Seattle and now about to wrap up from a 4 day work week.  Palm Springs you say, yes I did fly all the way to LA to visit my brother and then onwards to Palm Springs for a Hen (Bachelorette Party) for Jody.  I tested out Air New Zealand’s advertising and their idea that they are going to LA anyways on their way to NZ so why not take them?  The price was right and I must say the flight was quite nice too.  A bit more leg room in economy, a cool entertainment system that works even while sitting around on the tarmac and good wine.  The food is still airplane food but not bad sides and the bread was warm!  I spent two nights with David and we got to hang out and shop which was good for me and my need for a few new pairs of shoes.  Plus we made a stop at In’n’Out for the requisite California burger.  The girls came into LAX on Thursday and off we went to Palm Springs.  We had a very cool house to spend our weekend in and we all caught a bit of sun…what happens in PS stays in PS!  The flight home was long but I managed to sleep and then run to the office to catch up with an executive visiting!

Matt & Dana visited over the bank holiday weekend and we managed to take them to our favourite pubs, cook out in the sunshine and go to our my first Fulham Football game.  We sent them on their way to Spain on Monday and we ran around to finish up our weekend chores but in the sunshine.  The weather over the weekend was great and we enjoyed the sunshine as much as possible and we are keeping our fingers crossed for more this weekend. 

June brings us to travels to Africa!!  A bread class for me and several concerts and yes after Africa we stay home for awhile, really we do. 

Bank holidays make for good 4 day weeks but we still managed to have a busy week that went by too quickly.  Alan didn’t even get to go to the movie on Wednesday night (we have a 241 deal with Orange every Wednesday any movie which is a steal of a deal!)  Our next weekend adventure kept us at home for a little time to breath and remember what our house looks like. Our Saturday event after the normal farmers market run to stock up for the weekend and we were off to meet up with Brian and Lorie to check out the Real Food Show.  I know a food show sounds dull but it is really cool!  It is like a farmers market but on steroids!  We went last year to the first one and were stuck how cool it could be, plus all the samples you get there is no need for lunch. The show is for folks who are passionate about food mainly fresh, organic, local, and have something to sell you! Alan and I had high hopes for a few of the vendors that were there last year to stock up on some of the favourite chutney’s that we had grown low on and we were not disappointed.  The real spirit of the show lies in the people you meet there and who are working in the booths trying to sell their goods and also to try and be noticed by people to get their products in the stores.  The event is held at Earls Court a big convention hall and there are loads of booths to visit and purchase from.  We had our shopping bags and a backpack with us but we did a loop around first before purchasing as things tend to get heavy rather fast.  Many times over we stopped at places and said to ourselves we would be coming back for more or purchase on the spot and they would hold it for us until we came back around which was rather helpful.  One of our favourites was the Sheep Dip Whiskey and we got to taste and chat with the makers of the whiskey.  I had seen an article about them written up in the Jamie magazine recently and was excited to taste.  We added that to our list of things we had to go back for before leaving.  All in all I think we spent around 4 hours at the show and sampled our way through with our bags starting to burst at the seams we made the trek to the tube and home to Daisy.  We got there and suddenly realized we had forgotten our whiskey! We are not big whiskey drinks but this stuff is pretty good plus as Alan says we watch a lot of Mad Men (tv show) and all they do is drink whiskey and somehow it makes him crave a glass on occasion.  We knew what had to be done and we packed up dog walking supplies and leashed up Daisy and out the door we went for a long walk back to Earls Court with our ticket in our pocket to get us back in.  It is a good walk there and we found a few parks along the way for Daisy to play in and when we got there Alan waited outside and I went in and had no problems going back in and found the whiskey easy and made my purchase and was about out the door when I spotted the gelato.  It had to be done it had been over a week since our last intake of gelato!  Alan was very happy for it too and it made the tube ride home with Daisy all the better. 

Our damage was done but we were happy with our new chutney’s, whiskey, ciders and other assorted goods for another year.  I have already marked the date for next May in the diary.