a gluttonous April and May (and my review of Pollen Street Social)

Once again, I've been a bit sloppy in updating this blog.  As I've mentioned before, I've been tutoring first year uni students in law at one of the London universities.  I've spent the last couple of months dealing with panicked students in the lead-up to exams and then was busy marking exams.  Generally the standard was satisfactory, but there were a few exceptions.  My favourite of those exceptions was the student who wrote in answer to a problem question: "If Graham [the fictional protagonist] thinks he's going to get any damages ... he's an idiot!".  Another student began a sentence by writing: "next I'm gonna..." before sensibly crossing out the word "gonna" and replacing it with "going to".  Many of the exam scripts were full of texting speak - lots of text abbreviations (FYI, BTW) and even smiley faces.  It made me feel very old and brought home the fact that the uni students of today are from a different generation to me. 

Thankfully the last couple of months haven't been all about work.  April saw our friends D and L come from Perth to London and we spent a few happy days hanging out with them.  I even persuaded D to come for a run with me to Hampstead Heath, a run that resulted in us getting completely lost but meant we had a lovely little tour of North London. 

The four of us made it to my new favourite London restaurant, Trullo.  Trullo is a terrific (and very reasonably priced) Italian restaurant in Islington.  It does not have a "concept" (unlike too many London restaurants at the moment) and the waiters don't bore you to death by explaining what the chef is trying to achieve/say by his/her food. And thank god for that.  It's just really good food at great prices in a good atmosphere.  We have been there a few times recently.  I knew I loved the place when, on our first visit shortly after they opened (with two other friends, C and L), the co-owner/front of house came to clear our plates and caught C and I dipping our fingers into the delicious leftover sauce on our plates (we'd already devoured every morsel of food).  Instead of politely ignoring our terrible table manners, he just enthused: "that's great.  That's totally what we wanted to do, to make food that leaves people wanting to scrape their plates clean".  They've also recently opened a bar downstairs, under the restaurant, with tapas sized plates of food and drinks  I can recommend that, also. 

My delicious lemon sole at Trullo (I couldn't resist and started eating it before I took the photo)

G, D, L and I along with D's sister and boyfriend (K and C) (this is starting to turn into an alphabet soup!) also had dinner at Pollen Street Social, only a couple of days after they opened.  This is the much-hyped new Jason Atherton restaurant.  The evening got off to a bad start. About half our group arrived half-an-hour early, for a drink at the bar.  The front of house staff immediately tried to show us to our table, insisting that our reservation was half an hour earlier that it in fact was.  When we insisted that was not the case, and the rest of our group were still to arrive, we were then told, very brusquely, that we would only have an hour and a half for our table (rather than the usual two hours which they apparently allocate), at which point we'd have to return it.  The warning proved unnecessary.  Despite the restaurant being apparently solidly "booked out" for weeks and weeks, with a waiting list for reservations, it was in fact half-empty throughout the time we were there.  Not that this stopped us from worrying we would be thrown out before our dinner had finished, especially given it seemed to take about half an hour for anyone to come and take our orders. 

When the entirety of our complement arrived, we were given some keys (one per couple) and told that we would receive a special gift at the end of the evening.  We were then shown to our table, all dutifully taking our keys with us.  A waiter came over to our table and said he wanted to explain the "concept" which was that there were numerous small dishes, and we should order lots and share them.   We asked how many dishes per person we should order, to ensure that we were all able to try each dish, and were told that one dish per two people would be sufficient.  So with that instruction, we busily ordered most of the menu.  When the dishes came out, they were tiny.  The scallop dish consisted of one scallop.  Small dishes (when exquisite) are not a problem, but it did surprise me that the waiter seemed to think it possible to share one scallop between two people.  None of the dishes was bad.  But only a few of them were terrific.  I think I could have eaten double of what was before me and still not been full, a complaint that I notice was echoed by some of the newspaper restaurant critics.  Apparently Pollen Street Social have now largely abandoned this "small dishes" concept, in favour of the more traditional starter, main and desert. 

A few pictures of the small plates are below.  These were cheekily taken with an iphone and without a flash, so they are not brilliant photos.  They also make the dishes look a fair bit bigger than they were.

I can't even remember what this dish was ... it obviously didn't make much of an impression

Again, I can't remember what these were.  Crab cakes or something, perhaps?  They look pretty, anyway. 

The service was also a little sloppy.  There is a dedicated sommelier but, given the restaurant was very quiet, she didn't seem to have a lot to do.  Nonetheless, she seemed determined not to come to our table.  The result was all six of us trying to attract her attention like marooned castaways trying to flag down a single rescue plane.  G is quite the wine buff, but always enjoys having a sommelier to recommend some untried and tested wine.  Unfortunately, when we finally did get the attention of the sommelier, her wine recommendations were of the very basic (and very obvious) "you will want a dry white" variety, leaving us wondering why we had spent so much time trying to attract her attention in the first place. 

Given the quality of many of the dishes, I could bear all of the above.  What I couldn't, however, stand was the response when I managed to drip some of one of the sharing dishes on the table cloth in front of me.  It left only a modest mark but the service at that point became very attentive, with our waiter rushing over with an enormous white napkin.   He lifted the napkin up, waving it in the air, causing the conversation at the table to cease as everyone wondered what he was doing with this enormous flag.  He then made a great show of placing the napkin in front of me, slowly smoothing it out over the mess.  All of this left me feeling rather embarrassed and did not encourage the "social" aspect of Pollen Street whatsoever, as for the rest of the evening I was overly cautious when spooning tiny morsels onto my plate, eager to avoid the embarrassment of the white flag for a second time. 

When we finally finished our dinner (well and truly after the 1.5 hour slot we had been given had ended) we paid and then went back to the front of house to return the keys to the woman who gave them to us (leaving us wondering why we'd had to keep hold of these keys throughout the meal in the first place).  She then exchanged them for a paper bag containing two friands and two tea bags, with a note "breakfast on us".  Cute, but it was too late to win me over. 

Pollen Street Social just isn't my sort of restaurant.  You can't compare it with Trullo - the two are aiming at completely different markets.  But I think I'll take the place where you can happily dip your finger into your leftover sauce over the fussiness of Pollen Street any day. 

Laser eye surgery (and my review of it)

I do not wear glasses anymore!  This is big news for someone who has been a four-eyes almost all of her life.  I've tried contacts but never found them comfortable (dry eyes).  Some people suit glasses and look good in them. I'm not one of those people.  It doesn't help that I'm a size six (UK) and only 5ft 2 and have a head in proportion to my midget-sized body, meaning that most glasses look enormous on me.  And now I'm an international athlete (meaning I run in London and when I'm abroad) and I run in the rain, wind and snow, wearing glasses became even more of an irritant. A run in the winter would typically involve me having to use my fingers as windscreen wipers in order to see anything in front of me.  But all of that is now over ...

I have R to thank.  That and a few glasses of vino.  We had R around to dinner and he talked (at some drunken length) about how his laser eye surgery was the best thing he ever did.  That same night I drunkenly went onto the internet and booked myself a consultation.  I had an appointment the next day and a further appointment for laser eye surgery only one week after that.

The procedure itself didn't hurt.  It was done privately but by an NHS surgeon.  I googled him beforehand and was pleased to see that he seemed to have extensive experience!  And, unlike the procedures of old (or the cheaper procedures of the current day), no knife was used - in fact, I couldn't see any implements at all descending onto my eye (which is what I was most worried about).  All I could see were some flashing lights and all I could feel was, at one point, some pressure. And then after about five or ten minutes it was all over.  That was a Saturday morning.  I was warned I would experience "some discomfort" after the anaesthetic eye drops wore off and for about four hours but was told I would be fine to go back to work on Monday. 

Now, if you're reading this and thinking about getting the surgery done, there are a few points to note. 

1.  The prices advertised are not the prices they charge.  Those prices are to get the old-fashioned "slice and dice and zap" surgery.  The more modern (and painless) version is a fair bit more expensive (all up it cost me around £3,000).

2.  Discomfort is a medical term for "pain".  Once the eye drops wore off my eyes did hurt for about three hours and I had to keep them closed.  The pain was bearable thanks to a couple of valium downed with some red wine.  But it wasn't pleasant.  After those three or four hours, there was no more pain. But my eyes did feel really dry and gritty for about a week - they felt like my eyes felt when I'd had contact lenses in for too long.  But that was manageable with eye drops.

3. I got the most high-tech (and so expensive) procedure done.  I have no idea what the other procedures are like.  Thankfully, there are interest free payment plans, so for me it was pretty economical (considering my astigmatism and expensive prescription).  But it may prove less so if you have a pretty run-of-the-mill prescription.

4.  The advice that I would be fine for work on Monday was totally wrong.  First of all, I looked like a zombie from 28-days later.  My eyes were so bloodshot a worried colleague ran up to me and said very loudly "oh my god, your eyes are bleeding!!".  But, more importantly from a functional perspective, my eyes were hyper sensitive to light and the vision still was pretty blurry, particularly when looking at a computer screen.  Perhaps if I didn't have a computer-based job I would have been fine but, as it was, it was not until Wednesday that I could comfortably read a computer screen.

5.  It took about a week before my vision was "good".  No one warned me it would take that long - up until then, I was getting tension headaches from my eyes straining.  When I went into the surgery, I had only read the book of "testimonials" where people had said that their "personal experience" was that their vision was dramatically improved within an hour of the surgery. That was, most definitely, not the case for me.  In fact, my vision is still improving and apparently it isn't until about 3 months after the surgery that it's at its peak.  Bizarrely, I think the staff (at least at the place I went to) try to minimise what it is that you are having done.  They never refer to it as "surgery", it's always referred to as "the treatment".  As far as I'm concerned, a "treatment" is a facial.  This is most definitely eye surgery.

6.  The staff at the provider I used were much more upfront after I had the procedure done.  It was only then that they admitted that for people with stronger prescriptions than mine, they have to sometimes do "top up" treatment (which they do for free) after the initial treatment, because when their eyes heal they sometimes undo (don't ask me how) the laser treatment. 

7. For the first week after surgery you have to wear very unattractive goggles to bed.  You also can't get your eyes wet (so no putting your face under the shower), wear makeup or play any sport (including running). 

Notwithstanding all of the above, I have to say that I am incredibly glad I got the laser surgery.  I got it done about three weeks ago.  One eye is still a little red, but it's only noticeable up close.  And my vision is terrific! 

Paris!

G and I finally made use of our free Eurostar tickets to Paris last month (just before the tickets expired) and spent a weekend in Paris, leaving on a Friday night after work and returning Sunday evening.  The free Eurostar pass was given to us by Eurostar to compensate for the disaster of a journey we had from Paris to London approximately a year ago. We decided that this trip we would overlay the bad memories of Paris with new, happier ones.

The journey got off to a good start - the train left London on time and did not break down.  So far, so good. We arrived in Gare du Nord around 9 pm and had a very easy ride to our hotel (Hotel de Nice) in the Marais area.  Our hotel room was tiny, but that's pretty standard in Paris.  It had charm, was in a nice area and the shower was big enough that you could actually turn around while standing in it, rather than at our last hotel where turning in the shower meant having to exit and reenter it.  In short, things were looking great.  At least, until I unzipped my handbag to discover that at some point on the metro a thief had managed to unzip my bag, steal my iphone and then zip my bag back up, ensuring I didn't discover the thievery until it was far too late to identify the culprit.  The next hour was spent on the telephone to my mobile provider to cancel and lock the iphone and with me tipsily storming around our hotel room cursing all the thieves in Paris. 

Thankfully, after a night's sleep (and after remembering I have pretty good travel insurance) the weekend recovered.  Fresh baguettes and coffee the next morning, at a nearby cafe, certainly helped my outlook.  And the process of obtaining the police report was relatively painless.  Mobile phone stealing on the metro seems to be a national past time, and the police (although they didn't speak any English) were well equipped in dealing with foreigners who were victims of the metro thieves.  All I had to do was say, in French, "mobile telephone", "metro" and "stolen" and I had all the relevant forms to complete given to me and within 20 minutes had in my hand the signed police report that I needed to claim the phone on travel insurance.

The Saturday was sunny and perfect, and we decided to spend the rest of it exploring some of the  areas in Paris we haven't seen, being mainly the trendy east part of Paris - the Marais and beyond.  We spent a considerable time in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, enjoying the sun and the outdoor bars. 

Then it was off to dinner at Restaurant Le Gaigne.  I'll put some photos up in the next couple of days.  We had the tasting menu and it was all very nice, although not exceptional.  We heard about the place through a review in the NYT from 2009 that came up when we were google searching restaurants in the area.  Unfortunately, most of the other diners were Americans who were also there seemingly because of the review, so it was not exactly a "local" experience, as the various tables of Americans were busying introducing themselves to one another, and shouting introductions across the very small restaurant. Nonetheless, it was a good night.

The next day we wandered around some of the Sunday fresh food markets and then had brunch in the Marais.  That was more of a traditional experience.  Burnch was a set (enormous) menu, including a croque monsieur.  When I asked the waitress whether it was possible to get the latter without the meat (given I'm a pescatarian) she looked horrified, saying to me "it is a problem.  It is a problem for you, as it does not taste good".  Eventually she relented, and I had a tomato and cheese croque monsieur (which, incidentally, did taste rather good).

Finally on the Sunday night we were off and back to London.  In comparison to our last trip to Paris, I would say this one was a success, the thievery notwithstanding.

February - sun, surf and bodily functions

I find the most miserable month in London to be February.  The refreshment I feel after the Christmas break has worn off, the next holidays seem far away and I wake each morning to the unremittingly cold weather of February.  If you think that sounds bleak, it's because February is bleak! 

Thankfully, this February some good friends of ours decided to marry in Perth - a perfect excuse for G and I to jet out of London and head to summery Perth for 12 days.  

The wedding was beautiful - the bride looked stunning and the groom very handsome.  This is a couple blessed in the looks department, but they looked exceptionally wonderful on their wedding day.  It was a fantastic wedding and we happily spent the night drinking, eating and catching up with good friends. 

The rest of the Perth trip was also pretty wonderful.  We stayed at my sister's house.  My sister (A) has three gorgeous children. Well, most of the time they are gorgeous.  The eldest is about to turn 14 and I won't say anything else about him because it may be that, when he can tear himself away from facebook, he reads this blog.  Anyway, to be honest, there's not a lot to say other than that he's incredibly smart, funny, loads of fun and I miss him to bits when I'm in London.  The youngest two are also terrific.  AP (a mischievous little girl) is 3 and JP (a  boy otherwise known as The Pudding, for obvious reasons) is 2.  While each is terrific, together they can be a handful.   One minute they would be playing together sweetly, but by the time I had hold of the camera, the play would have degenerated into a brawl with each screaming "it's mine!".  

AP is a beautiful blonde, but has decided that she wants to have dark hair, like her mum's.  She is convinced it will turn dark, and keeps asking visitors if they can "see the black coming through", pointing to the roots of her hair.  She is ridiculously intelligent and determined to get her own way, a combination of traits that I'm sure will serve her well in life but which prove rather challenging in a three-year-old.

The Pudding is also clever and full of boyish charm.  He is obsessed with rubbish trucks and any time he heard a beeping noise would excitedly shout "rubbish truck", looking for the beloved vehicle.  The Pudding, for no good reason, took to calling G "man".  If he was looking for G, he would ask "where's man?".  He knew G by name, so I'm not quite sure where the "man" name came from - perhaps it was his retribution for the fact we kept calling him The Pudding.  

The Pudding is currently going through toilet training, a process which wasn't always successful while we were there.  Thankfully, being a guest, I could usually pass him back to his parents on those occasions but once or twice found myself having to clean up decidedly adult-looking (and smelling) products of his bodily functions.  G also found himself the recipient of The Pudding's bodily functions.  As he was walking around the garden, with The Pudding having a piggy back, I saw G's face go from happy to horrified, as he asked The Pudding: "my back's wet, is that wee??" only to have the Pudding giggle in response and tell him it was.

When we weren't being entertained by the children, G and I managed to catch up with family, including celebrating my Dad's 60th.  We also caught up with a couple of good friends and saw the very flash new house One friend and his significant other have bought.  

G and I also reacquainted ourselves with Perth's beaches. 

Walking along the white sand at Cottesloe did rather make me wonder why we are living in London.  That is, until we went to Beaches cafe and were charged $5 for a take away coffee.  When did Perth become so ridiculously expensive?  

We arrived back in London just over a week ago, which has been a bit of a shock to the system.  After 30-something degree days, I'm struggling to stay warm in the 3 degree days of London.  I'm also missing everyone in Perth terribly.  However, February is now over.  And G and I have a holiday to Paris to look forward to in the next month and theatre tickets to several shows.  All in all, things are looking up.  And we're still beguiled by the charms of London.  Just not in February. 

January - a summary

So much for my promise to myself to post more frequent updates.  Sorry self.  I'm not good at keeping promises to myself.  In fact, I usually forget my New Year's resolutions by 2 January, beating most people's time-to-forget by a good month. 

So, to catch-up and summarise late December and January ... 

For most of December and until mid-January we had C and L (a hetero married couple - C is female and L male) staying with us.  They are good friends from Perth who have temporarily moved to London. I wish I had some funny stories to tell about their inappropriate house-guest behaviour.  Sadly for this blog, I don't.  They were perfect house guests (and C and L - I'm not just saying that because I know you two are in the teeny tiny group that reads this blog!).   

C, L, G and I brought in the new year by attending a party in Islington.  The party was in a flat occupied by six people.  Unfortunately, one of those people was Ricky.  Ricky is a man.  Apparently his actual name is Richard.  The fact that someone named Richard chooses to be known as Ricky (rather than Rich, Richie or any other one of the many acceptable abbreviations of the name Richard) should have sent alarm bells ringing.  But, after a few pre-party champagnes at our flat, I was willing to be open minded.  C and I therefore struck up conversation with Richie.  Very early in the conversation, Richie asked if C and I had come to the party together.   We said we walked there together, yes.  Richie clarified that he meant did we come together.  I then clicked and asked if he was in fact asking whether we were romantically involved.  When he confirmed he was, I explained we were both married, each of us to men.  At that point Richie asked if I was sure, saying "but my gaydar is never wrong".   Clearly C and I have made the wrong lifestyle choices and Richie knows something we don't! 

In early Jan G and I managed to fit in quite a bit of fun, including spending time with my Dad and family who were in London for a week. We had a few dinners together and all went and saw the RSC's production of As You Like It at the Roundhouse, which was excellent. 

G and I also did the usual January activities, being sales shopping (not many bargains to be had this year) and ice skating at Somerset house.  We survived the latter with no broken bones. 

January saw yet another near-fight between G and a random girl at Kokos.  Kokos is a club/music venue we often frequent.  Unfortunately, every time we frequent the venue, a random female punter decides to try and pick a (usually pretty ridiculous) fight with G.  Those who know G know that he's the least likely person to attract aggro but, for some reason, it always happens at Koko.  The first time this happened (when we were seeing Avett Brothers, not exactly a heavy metal or hard rock band!), a random girl started remonstrating with G over his height and the fact he was blocking her view.  All G said was "it's a club.  People are going to stand in front of you.  Anyway, I'm about a metre in front of you" before the girl's boyfriend leapt between the two of them, placing a hand on the chest of each and telling everyone "to chill.  Just CALM down".  This January we went and saw Dirty Projectors.  At the end of the night we joined the (reasonably short) queue for the cloak room, to collect our winter coats.  When G politely told a girl that she was queue jumping (she was blatantly pushing in front of us) she shoved him and asked him if he was from Melbourne because he had a "squishy nose and tight arse".  G wasn't sure what to make of that one.  Nor was I.  

January also saw us attending what was probably the booziest cocktail party that I've attended in the last couple of years.  J and J were the hosts and put on a fine spread of cocktails.  C, L, G and I all went along, not intending to have a big night.  I can't remember what time we got home.  It's a sign we're getting old that we spent all of the next day curled up in the foetal position on the floor (or at least I did, I was in too much pain to see where everyone else was!).  

In mid-January C and L found their own place and so moved out.  Their new flat shares a toilet with the flat next door, a fact which I'm rather worried about; moving into a flat with a shared loo rather suggests that C and L were somewhat desperate to find a flat and move out of ours.  This desperation may have been caused by by poor L's experience of having to look after me for a week in January when I had a nasty stomach virus and everyone else in the flat was working.  I'm not the best patient, and playing nurse to me with a stomach bug is more than any house guest should have to endure. 

The rest of January progressed as per usual.  These days, usual means that I'm frantically busy during the week, doing my teaching work and regular work.   

No doubt we did various other noteworthy things during January but I've already forgotten them.  I blame the cocktail party.  

I am promising myself that I'll summarise Feb over the weekend, to bring this blog up to date.  But I suspect that by now you realise just how much that promise is worth!  

If it's yellow...

Merry Christmas everyone!

Our accommodation in Dublin consists of a very nice serviced apartment.  It's not cheap accommodation (although it also isn't the Ritz).  Generally it's very nice, but there are some rather curious features.

Amongst them is this sign:

You may need to enlarge this to read it.  In short, it advises guests that due to the adverse weather, there has been an increase in broken water mains and so Dublin City Council are reducing the water pressure or turning off the water as a way to conserve and build water levels back to normal.  It includes a number of tips to "aid with your conservation of water".  One of these is "only flush the toilet when necessary".  The thing that concerns me about this particular tip is that flushing the toilet isn't a particularly pleasurable or exciting exercise.  I certainly have never pressed the flush button just for fun. Indeed, I suspect that most people only do it when necessary.  So what does this request really mean?  I rather suspect that it's code for "if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down".  Now, we may not be staying in the Ritz, but asking us not to flush our number 1s is still just taking water conservation a bit too far.

It's been a while

When I warned, in my last post, that I would write only periodically for a while, I didn't appreiciate just how long a period would pass before I would write another post.

I've been busy.  I want to say that I've been busy travelling the world, righting injustice and ensuring freedom and fairness for all.  In fact, it's been far more boring than that.  I've been working two jobs - being a lawyer and a teacher - and have also discovered a passion for running.  It hasn't all been work, however.  I've also managed to squeeze in a trip to Basel (and a 5.5km city fun run in the snow) and been to various gigs, including the National, the Dirty Projectors and Local Natives.

G and I have also been trying to cope with the "big freeze" (as the media have been calling it).  London has been snowed under, with ensuing mayhem and chaos. Flights have been cancelled, Heathrow has started to resemble a refugee camp and we entered an emergency world where anything goes.  The weather seemed to give everyone license to do anything, so long as they prefaced their actions or cut off any criticism by saying "adverse weather conditions".  People started turning up to work one or even two hours late.  This was perfectly acceptable during the big freeze - so long as you announced to the office "adverse weather conditions" with a slight shake of the head, to which everyone would respond with a knowing nod.   "Adverse weather conditions" seemed to excusae anything for a while there - people were turning up to work in jeans and uggboots - "adverse weather conditions", they would announe, and no one would question it.  Similarly, people would duck out of hte office for extra long lunch breaks, returning only to say "adverse weather conditions".   It was actually rather fun. At least it was until our flight yesterday from London to Dublin was cancelled ("adverse weather conditions").  For a while, it looked as though we might not have the planned xmas in Dublin.   and we found ourselves rebooked on a 7 am flight yesterday (meaning a wake up time of 4.30 am). 

Now G and I are in Dublin, where the snow is even thicker.  Our first white Christmas!  I promise I will try to post again soon, to let you know how it goes.  If I don't manage to post soon, well, what can I say other than "adverse weather conditions"?