Brussels / Bruxelles / Brussel

After 3 years of winter, summer has arrived! 29 & 30 degrees and not just during the week when we all sit in airconditioned freezers. No, this time we are enjoying hot weekends both in London and Brussels!

William has found work contracting to a bank in Brussels for a few months, so we are once again part of that micro trend of professional couples that live and work in separate cities - separate countries even!
But it's all good. We share the travelling, one weekend he returns to our apartment in London and the next I visit him at his pied-à-terre in Brussels.


Last weekend - another blissfully warm one - I visited him. Just 2 hours on the Eurostar et voila! - chocolates, beer, french food and sightseeing :)

Chocolats de la Belgique!
William's pied-à-terre in Brussels







Une petite et une grande Leffe Blonde and footie (Germany v Argentina)





Manneken Pis - the Tour de France was passing through Brussels while we were there.
Hotel de Ville / Stadhuis on la Grand Place

A long long winter....

So it's been an incredibly long winter....
I swear it started earlier than usual - sometime last year in October... that's 5 months ago!! And it's STILL cold. Not just chilly, but bitterly cold. Snow, sleet, rain, hail, howling wind, dark skies, long nights... Just rubbish really... So once again we spent the weekend INDOORS. And I got my cooking mittens out :)

This Torta di cioccolato e noci with walnuts, almonds and bitter chocolate was absolute heaven.














On Saturday I made my first souffle and I was pretty pleased with it - packed with spinach and still light as a feather














I got this Marmite Scone recipe from a family friend and they came out perfectly!

Like a Cat On A Hot Tin Roof !!

Valentine's weekend......

James Earl Jones; the woman from AVP, Bill Cosby's wife in the Huxtable family and the guy from The Day After Tomorrow and As You Like It.
On Saturday evening we treated ourselves to a night at the theatre. What a great cast! I thought it was an excellent rendition.
Lucky me - lucky us :D

http://www.catwestend.com

Then William took us to Locanda Locatelli - London's best Italian Restaurant.
Although it was sublime and terribly glamorous, it has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I find it sad that a renowned Michelin Star restaurant would charge more than twice as much for the same menu items - just because it was Valentine's Day.

http://www.locandalocatelli.com

African Sunshine

After a fabulous Club World experience on BA's 747 upper deck, with champagne and fully reclinable seats, we touched down in sunny Cape Town on the morning before xmas. From there we took a hire car along the quieter inland route to George, through the Du Toitskloof mountain Huguenot Tunnel to Worcester, Robertson and south to Swellendam, arriving at my folks early afternoon.
Xmas, my birthday and New Year flew by in a blur, visiting cousins, aunts and uncles on both sides of the family.

Almost everyday turned into a gorgeous sunny beach day with red wine sunsets on the front balcony.
We braaied many evenings and indulged in too much chocolate and cake, having to walk, run and cycle off the excess calories almost every day.

This picture was taken xmas eve while Dad braaied sirloin steak, the day we arrived. On other days William and I made fresh pasta, warm tagliatelle salad with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella and butternut and sage stuffed raviolli.
On New Years Eve the De Beers joined us for snacks and at midnight we got silly with Dom Pedros and a wicked chocolate cake from Christine!

On our last Monday, Dad drove us all to Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary and Birds of Eden - the largest free flight bird aviary in the world - near Plett. We saw many Lemurs, Tamarins and both a Howler and Spectacle monkey.
In the aviary we saw some local birds including Louries as well as exotic birds and waterfowl.
The above picture was taken at the Wilderness on the way back, enjoying a Foresters! While travelling back to CT to see Nix, Chris and D, William and I detoured almost 450km to Sutherland to visit SALT (the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere - and equal in size to the largest in the world).

We stayed over night at Kambru-Kind Guest House and had a fabulous dinner at Cluster d'Hote. Although the afternoon was cloudy, the evening cleared by about 9pm and we were lucky to use one of the telescopes at Sutherland to see the brilliant Sirius star cluster (Canis Major) and the spider like nebulae of Pleiadies and Orion.

The next day we drove a further 400km to CT through the dry Great Karoo and lush Hex River Valley.

This is Will at Wafu where we had sunset cocktails in the wind :) It was really great to see my mates again and we had 2 wonderful home cooked dinners with bubbles and red wine.But the time went too quickly and now I am back in cold London, missing them already, and the African sunshine !

The Nightmare before Xmas

So with just 10 days before we are due to fly south, BA cabin crew vote to strike for 12 days over xmas - dashing our hope of any sunshine over the festive season. Despite being the highest paid of all cabin crew on all the British airlines, and despite the fact that they WILL be getting a salary increase in 2010 (I haven't had one for 2 years), they decide to ruin xmas for over 1 million people and their families.
BA had to force court ruling to get the bastards back to work. So, the good news is we ARE flying... but only if it stops snowing. Last Friday and again yesterday the whole of south east England came to a grinding halt after snow storms.

Last night it took me 3 hours at 10 miles an hour to commute home through a blizzard on icy roads.. I passed 5 car accidents along the way, one car turned on it's roof on the motorway.

This was the scene outside our apartment this morning.
At least we can look at the stars at night. On Sunday evening, braving the freezing temperatures, William and I stood on our balcony and were able to see Jupiter and 5 of it's moons through this baby.

Winter Wonderland

Where: Hyde Park
What: German Xmas Market
When: On the Eve of St. Niklaus







Every year London brings a bit of the continent to the UK with the German Xmas Market at Hyde Park. You can get everything German at the market from bratwurst to glühwein and continental gifts like wooden handcarved toys from a village of wooden chalets.

This year it also boasted London's largest ice rink and a giant big wheel.


We chose to go there Saturday afternoon and had a german garlic potatoe salad from the Bavarian Village and a beer and some glühwein at Café Grell.





http://www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com/

oh xmas tree, oh xmas tree....

December has arrived and our xmas tree is up and dressed and the presents are wrapped!

On Saturday I dragged William to Westfield Shopping Centre at Shepherd's Bush in West London. This mall is massive! with 256 shops. We managed to get all we needed from House of Fraser, M&S, Next, Debenhams, Zara Home and of course La Senza ;)
5 hours later at 6pm, with sore feet, we drove back home through a grid locked London in the pouring rain.

Next weekend, xmas cards.....

http://uk.westfield.com/london/