Fruity Dessert and Heraklion

I had an artistic moment here with my pie crust sculpture. Unfortunately it didn't withstand heat despite the fact crusts are meant to be baked, however the taste was great! Under the layers of fruit was pastry cream, which was a bit of an experiment as it was baked into the middle. I say was, because it disappeared quickly! 

We had a big storm last night in Southern England. The day was clear in a million, hot and sunny. One those perfect summer days. St Elmo's fire was dancing for almost an hour on our windshield after departure like exquisite black light electric vanes. Below is the A380 making us feel rather insignificant. 

The weather improved to the East and the night was lovely as we approached Iraklion (Heraklion) on Crete. As the sun began to make its impression on dawn, we flew toward home past Athens. 

And a about 20 minutes later:

Since that fruit tart was polished off so quickly, we naturally needed something else sweet, so I made something English for my visiting canadian guest: Lemon Curd! Unfortunately Linda doesn't seem to enjoy lemons as much as I do in this format. Oh well I guess I'll need to use up the egg whites the curd would otherwise waste, and make mousse au chocolate...

Walking Tour in Kensington and Westminster

I thought I could easily live in this 'cottage' near the Italian Gardens in Kensington Gardens. After all who wouldn't want to live in a gingerbread house, right down the lane from a love garden? Did you know Albert had the Italian Gardens made as a gift to Victoria? I hope she liked it! I didn't make it to their museum today as the weather begged my presence outdoors.

The cost of bike rentals in London is much more affordable than in San Francisco and the instructions about charges are quite clear. 

This is Regent Street just off Oxford Street. Both are high priced tourist shopping areas where you can find Burberry, Selfridges and the like. I don't care for over priced items, but I sure love the window dressings at Selfridges. While at Harrod's I was overcome with the need to sample a few truffles, but sadly, they were not as delicious as the equiviant treats in Vienna or Switzerland or even at Harland's on Salt Sping if you haven't got time for international travel. However I must say I loved to look around at Harrod's, especially in the food sections! 

I may just have to make this dip. I have an inkling the recipe it may also include garlic. Yum!

A few double deckers and Big Ben. The new busses are pretty neat. They look very modern and sleek in some aspects but still retain the important features. To about my 4 o'clock is the original Westminster Abbey which reminds me of one of my favourite books: Pillars of the Earth and the talented Tom Builder. 

Here's an approximate tracing of our walk:

It was a great mini adventure! 

Avenue Verte - A Section

I have a friend who I don't often see, but when we get together it's always time for an adventure. I'm up for just about any crazy idea, and Rob is the instigator. Sometimes ideas are not attainable in the time frame, like biking the Avenue Verte to Paris in 2.5 days, however it would be pretty darn cool to be able to say I'd done that. Instead we took that plan and shortened it to a two day ride, made it a loop, and used pathways 21/2/20. Check out Sustrans for bike routes in England. It's a very helpful site. 

We stopped for lunch here on the first day as we went through Crowborough.

Day 1: We got off to a late start as we had to find a bike for Rob to rent in the morning. We rode for 7.5 hours and covered 56 miles or so. The trail was pretty well signed, but where it wasn't we accidentally went our own way and then had to find our way back. That was a rather lot of riding for me on my old cruiser, five gears and all. Most of the route was fairly flat and also off road in some very picturesque areas, which living in Crawley I would never have expected to see. There were also some hills which were a struggle to climb, but a delight to fly down. With about two hours to go I really noticed my energy level dropping, but we made it to Seaford, a cute little retirement fishing community, where we ate fish and chips as it started to get dark. Unfortunately there is nowhere to stay there so we took the train to Brighton. 

We could finally see the ocean from here. I needed that glimpse to get me to the end! Biking on grass is mighty tiring. 

Yay! The shore!

Day 2: Brighton was too interesting not to poke around on the pier and in the Laines, so we spent the morning and early afternoon there. There is also a Robert Street, so we had to bike that, of course, and I needed a new tube on my back wheel so I got that sorted as well. Next was the 20 route to Crawley, measuring about 25 miles. We should have left earlier as we may have arrived in time not to get soaked and to return the bike, but what's a ride in England without a little rain? The route was for the most part directly beside, if not on, the road. A few bits were off road but it really made for a noisy ride. Muscles were a wee bit sore but sitting on a bike seat and pedaling made for some rather painful chaffing... 

Standing on the pier where there's a midway, I was able to get the city, beach and a part of the pier all in one photo. I forgot to take photos of the Laines...

"Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use." 

- Charles M. Schulz

Over the two day ride, I definitely used all five of mine. 

And was jealous of Rob's 24. And streamlined tyres. 

And maybe his bike in general.

I do love my Crimson Super Two, but I may be thinking about a newer version...

Nevertheless I am rather proud to say my bike and I made it all the way! 

Next time the Eiffel Tower with Lucy and Jordan, too...?! We will need four days. And maybe another few for Paris :)

Zakinthos

Jeppesen spells it that way. Some other spelling aficionados might spell it Zakynthos instead, which does look more Greek. 

It's in the Ionian Sea on an island, which may go by the same name. I'm sorry to say I didn't have the chance to take photos, plural, of the island, but I do have to work sometimes. We approached from the south over a gorgeous blue-green bay and the temperature was 31 degrees. 

These are the photos I did manage to take:

We passed Wildspitze, a very high peak in the Austrian Alps on our way there.

You can see the runway in this photo... It's the brown dry line. It's actually paved, though. We are flying southeast and the orientation of the strip is 160/340. We will land on runway 34, which means making a left turn from this position over the bay in the center of the photo. 

As we flew home we flew up the east coast of the Adriatic Sea and past Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and the we tab of Bosnia and Hertzkovenia. This is Split, Croatia.

We are over Switzerland, looking into Germany. The lake is Walensee, Glarus Nord on the left, and Walenstadt on the right tip. In the distance is Lake Constance. It's a peculiar perspective. 

Egg-cellent

The studying like a maniac section of my life is over for now. Yahoo!!! 

Time for everything else fun! I've been riding my bike around but I am planning to do something somewhat more major, for which I got a detailed cycle-way map today. I may start Sunday. Maybe Monday? I purchased it at the bookstore, then took a little walk aroud the downtown area and ran some errands. The core of Crawley is a bit of a maze-like pedestrian courtyard, in a way similar to Belfast, but not as extensive or as nice, but there were a few street musicians which were really great to hear. My cupboard is slowly becoming stocked for some real cooking because I'm missing that kind of food. Baking will follow, naturally.

And knitting, too. As a matter of fact I've got a little hat on the go. It's in a colour that reminds me of loving a whole palette of colours, not knowing which one I could love best, literally. When I was a little girl, my sister was painting, as usual, but she had a particular pallet on the go that really spoke to me with its squirts and squiggles of watercolour... everything was a mess in a way, but was in the precise spot to make the other shades and hues dance around eachother and pop. It in itself represents art to me. Yep, the creation and beginning of ART! There were two colours on that pallet which remain in my memory still - one was a maroon, the same shade as this new project. It's exciting when colours make you this excited and you can knit in them, too! The other colour was a light green the colour of new leaves, mixed with aqua, of which she gave me a large blob. I paint so infrequently I still have a tiny blip of that paint in the heart ice cube tray I also still use as a paint box. 

There's even a knitting group meeting twice a month not far from here which I hope to join up with. I hope they are as friendly and lovely as my ladies in Ballyclare. 

At the grocery store, to my surprise and delight!!! while looking for eggs I came upon these first:

Duck Eggs!!! How cool is that. Better for baking they say, irresistable for Lemon Curd I say! 

Next door sat another mighty surprise contained in half dozen cartons:

Can you see the colour of these eggs??? Well if your monitor is off, they are blue. Yep, blue-ish green even perhaps. Similar to the ones my next door neighbours had once, though those were truly green, just like the ham ;) ... but they were vegetarians. lol 

These say soft boiled eggs and dipping toast fingers! Ohhhh, I am a kid at heart :)