Another year another (different) Food Festival, another Michelin-starred chef to meet... Philip Howard from Mayfair's The Square back at the homely and wonderful Northcote Manor near Blackburn. (So much for the de-tox);(
Counting the days now until half-term break...

Have you ever seen a bunch of people on a hen weekend or corporate 'teambuilding' event or something similar - all walking around in the same colour, appropriately printed-up T-shirts and thought - "what a bunch of *$%^%$^%s!!"? Well, I confess, I have. But after last weekend, I'm afraid that I shouldn't really be critical anymore, as I was one of them....

There was about 350 of us in total (we were the red 'Thames' team) running around London trying to accumulate 'clues' from various touristy attractions and dressed-up characters along the way.

This was the Leaseplan Annual 'Eurogames' event - and takes place at a different European city every year apparently.

It was a glorious day (I would have prefered to have been in my garden - but hey ho, the sacrifices us corporate wives have to make;). But I have to admit to being quite proud of the city in the sunshine, when many of our 'guests' from all over Europe had never been here before. Trafalgar square looked particularly impressive, and I longed to lie down and relax on the grass when we got to St James' Park... but it was non-stop...









Each team was allocated a proper red old-fashioned London bus to transport us from one side of London to the other..

Before lunchtime we were already two valuable team members down as the Irish contingent went back to the hotel to sleep off the far-too-many-free-guinesses they had the night before at the 'English Pub' evening the hospitality team had arranged for us the night before (inevitably, some people never got to bed at all). With only 4 other team members who had enough English and enthusiasm to complete the 'challenge' we had our work cut-out for the afternoon. We decided to split into two teams - one was to get the obscure photos we needed (26 items in only 10 polaroids - and we had already wasted one)
And the others to get the remaining clues (last destination, Kensington). This was strictly against the rules - but heh, it was a near impossible task and by this time we just wanted to get what we needed and get back to the hotel bar for a glass of something cold...







There was a few street-painters along the way...









I saw the famous, controversial sculpure of Alison Lapper's torso (she was on Radio 4 tonight talking about it)...
.........The only disappointing thing was lunch. We ended up near to Swiss Cottage, but the pub that was arranged for us only had a room downstairs in a claustrophobic cellar and the food was....how shall I put this politely..worse than terrible. Fortunately, there was a little authentic sandwich-bar place just opposite, run by a friendly Italian guy, who it turns out can speak about four languages (that we witnessed) and made an excellent fresh ciabatta..



























Needless to say, some of the less experienced Europeans went round the corner to the nearest Mickey D's...(sad).

Patrick and Peter outside Charing Cross station...we're waiting for the rest to catch-up (those shop windows are so tempting)...























We collected most of the clues and challenges. The only one we struggled with for a while was the signature of a traffic warden (apparently they're not allowed to give them out)!! But we persuaded one in the end with a little white lie that it was for charity;)

J in Hyde Park - with the answer to our last clue (at last!!!) - Kensington palace "Which King is inside the gates?"
Afterwards it back to the hotel to get dressed-up in the Little Black Dress (not J you understand - although some of the French unsurprisingly obviously didn't really understand the wording on the invitation) for the evening do. Before long we were back on our (by now, beloved) old London Buses to travel over to Fulham to dine at the Georgian Hurlingham Club which is (amazingly) set in 42 arcres of private gardens....where they had arranged an excellent reception and dinner for us which included the marble sculpture people you see sometimes on street corners (although obviously alot more professional)! It was all very impressive, including the grounds, croquet lawn and the modern water features outside the dining room. You couldn't have hoped for more quintessentially British summer evening surroundings...

Can you spot where I am...?

With many thanks to Candy and all her team for being an excellent team-leader!

PS Hey, thank God for Blogging eh? What else would you do when you can't sleep???ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

One good thing about this bloody weather - visiting the RAH for our annual Prom concert (s) is approaching comfortable for the first time in years! Although they've made some effort recently to renew the ancient old building, the airconditioning is still far from adequate and it's normally so frustrating to have to put up with sitting there sweating, and people around you annoyingly constantly fanning themselves with their programmes (a rip-off £5 now) and opening bottles of pop at the most quiet of musical moments during the performance. But refreshingly, there was none of that on our last two visits recently. The first one was the 'French evening' - that was Debussy (L'apres midi..), Ravel and Faure a couple of weeks ago, and instead of racing home at midnight like we normally do, we decided to make a weekend of it and treat ourselves to another (leisurely) late lunch at my favourite: Bibendum, and stay over at a cheapy hotel in Kensington.

It was a busy concert as you can imagine, and we had left it too late to get any decent seats, but managed to get two in the choir seats for the same price as the prommers. I can never understand why they don't sell of the cancelled tix cheaply just before the performance if they haven;t managed to re-sell them. Seems such a waste to see those good seats not taken up! Anyway, it was a wonderful performance and as usual a great atmosphere. We said no thanks to the rather sad looking over-priced breakfast under the hotlamps at the hotel and instead stopped at a great little Italian cafe for a full english. The sun was shining and we sat outside watching all the different Londoners taking their dogs for walks in the nearby park.

Last week we went to see some of the 'Brass Day' (J's choice) and your know that this was the first one they had celebrated in 20 years apparently. The programme was vast including:
Monteverdi
Orfeo – Toccata (2 mins)
G. Gabrieli
Sonata pian’e forte (5 mins)
Grillo
Canzon Terza, from Sacri concentus ac symphoniae; Venice 1618 (5 mins)
Traditional Uzbek Music (15 mins)

Vaughan Williams
Overture – Henry V (9 mins)
Hans Werner Henze
Ragtime and Habaneras (14 mins)
Heaton
Toccata (Oh, the Blessed Lord) (7 mins)
Philip Wilby
...Dove Descending (18 mins)
Elgar
Severn Suite (22 mins)
Musorgsky, arr. Elgar Howarth
Pictures at an Exhibition (35 mins) (One of my favourites, which for sone unknown reason always reminds me of Henry Moore sculptures)???!!!!!!!

I almost wished I played a brass instrument as I saw the streams of brass-playing people carrying their beloved huge instruments across The Gore from ICL, all ages and abilities, joining-in with an afternoon of rehearsals with the Black Dyke Brass & Grimethorpe Colliery Bands. What a great opportunity!

Just down for the day this time, we had lunch at our favourite little Italian Restaurant just down Prince Consort Road (fantastic seafood Linguini) and were at the afternoon performance for 2pm. Interestingly we sat next to one of the trumpet players who would be performing in the evening concert although he was very distressed during the first half as his (new) girlfriend had to be seated the other side of the Circle as there were no seats left together for them (Oh the joys of new love and being separated for a devastating 35 mins)!!! Fortunately, a member of staff managed to re-unit them after the interval (!!) The most unusual part of the concert was a small group of traditionally dressed Uzbekistan horn players, standing in the centre of the Arena. They had meter long single note horns, and played long monotones whilst simultaneously turning around so that all the audience felt they had been 'spoken to' personally. The sound was amazing and a bit spooky too! There was a drummer involved also, but very simple and haunting...

I've re-asserted one of my life's ambitions (along with flying in a balloon): to rent one of these wonderful grand Victorian apartments next to the RAH, overlooking Hyde Park for the Summer, buying a Season Ticket and going to every single Prom' concert of the season. Of course it would also involve sitting by the Serpentine in the sun (or maybe in a rowing boat) and drinking lots of champange whilst having picnics bought from Harrods..... MMMmmm maybe one day...

Oh dear, and now its March and not one single thing to say about February. It's such a dull and depressing month anyway.

We did visit some good eating-places though:

we went back to Bibendum (again) . And sorry, I don't agree with some other people

I think its the most relaxed, light and airy lunching-place in the whole of London. My personal favourite. ..

We also visited The Square in Mayfair. Very nice. Very French. Nice fishy menu. Nice ambience and lovely people. Apparently, you can't normally get in there for a Saturday evening unless you book months and months in advance. Fortunately, one of our party knew the chef, so we benefitted from special treatment...

Whilst in London we saw the Cirque Du Soleil again. For those not in the know, this is the best human-only circus in the world. Now with lots of international sections and each performance with a different theme. The choreography just takes your breath away. It's just so original and entertaining...

Highly recommended.

My teaching placement is drawing to a close and assignments and stuff all completed. Counting-down now until the end of term.

Time to plan a Summer holiday methinks....