Coffeehouse.co.nz

(Long overdue catchup entry No. 1)

We’ve always had a great time in Switzerland, so we thought we’d have one more weekend there a, ummmmm, number of weeks ago. Zurich was the choice this time as it’s easy to get to from London City airport and flying from there is just a bit like going to the shops really. You’re in and out just like that with nothing like the queuing issues and general hassle of any of the other London airports.

Last time we passed through Zurich it was about -5C, snow on the ground, howling wind, and we ended up sitting on a random tram as it went up and down the line just to get our feet warmed up a bit. We hoped that going at this time of year we’d actually get to see a bit more of the city and environs.

We managed to miss the snow, but we did seem to time it right to hit all the rain!

But that didn’t phase us much we managed to walk around the city a bit and take in a couple of sites. We took a train up to the top of the hill to take in the view, but guess what? Just as we got to the top of the hill, it chucked it down and you couldn’t see a thing. So we wisely just got back on the train and tootled back down again. Then a quick visit to the toy museum, which was very small but the very old doll houses and clockwork train and steam engines were actually quite cool.

And just like normal we walked and walked and walked around the town to see what was about, and took in a couple of gardens on the way…

On Sunday we decided to hop on a train and head out to Lucern, where we’d stayed for Christmas about 8 or 9 years ago when we toured through the whole country. And it was extra cool as we got to take the double decker train – I had forgotten about them so it was a bit of a surprise. Lucerne, was still pretty much as we remembered it, except we could remember sitting on the toilet in the hotel and having a marvellous view of the alps all around. This time we got about 2 glimpses of the alps though the very low rain clouds. Oh well. We’ve got the old photos somewhere, I’m sure!

It was a nice break away, it’s just a pity the sun didn’t come out so we could take in some views. Oh well maybe next time!

Well, not too many apologies, but we’ve been falling slightly behind where we should be in terms of posts. And that’s possibly stretching the usual meaning of the word “slightly”…

That’s right. Since we last posted anything we’ve seen a little of seven different countries. That’s a minimum of seven posts owing. We’ll try to get right on it now we’ve stopped making any large movements for a while. We might even do them in order!

Stay tuned!

86 boxes of stuff on the wall…

86 boxes of stuff on the wall…

And if 86 boxes should happen to fall into a little truck…

There’d be pretty much nothing left in the flat except 2 suitcases, 2 laptops, and some cleaning products. Gulp!

Following on from the enigma of the last post, another enigma…

This one is a slightly different beast!

We took a trip up north a bit the other weekend to collect the last of the belongings that we’d had stored up in “Kiwi Corner”, and to take the chance to catch up with a few other friends in Milton Keynes. I managed to convince Bec that the only thing that almost passed for a tourist attraction there is Bletchley Park, home to the WWII code breaking effort. Well, unless you’re some sort of roundabout freak, or something….

The story of what went on there has somehow made it into my head over the years, and was brought to life especially in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, so it has been a place I’d long wanted to visit.

The park itself was an interesting mix of old mansion and coach houses etc., with barrack type sheds and all sorts of other temporary (at the time) building shoved all over the place. As they were obviously so temporary some have started to feel the ravages on time, but recently with the help of some extra funding a good amount of restoration has started, with the most historically important sheds naturally being done first. The grounds themselves look like there hasn’t ever been too long between visits from a gardener and would have been a great place for a picnic. If we’d had any food. Or it was close to a meal-time. Which we didn’t and it wasn’t. But we had a nice stroll around anyway.

As well as the buildings and grounds, there was the main event. Various displays of both old and newly rebuilt code breaking and decoding equipment, along with various displays relating to the war period. Some obvious highlights such as the Turing bombe rebuild project, and the Enigma machines themselves.

It’s still pretty mind-blowing to think of the thought and ingenuity involved in all of this. And, of course, this was pretty much where the beginnings of modern computing, erm, began!

Which means it was no surprise to find that The National Museum of Computing is situated in a few buildings on the edge of the park. There has obviously been a bit more cash (or at least a bit more cash per square metre) for this bit. Not surprising really given the subject matter. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been too hard to squeeze a wodge of cash out of Microsoft or IBM or similar to get a wall painted now and then…

It was really fun to see all the old computers I first started out using at home and at friends places. Here’s the second computer I really used, and the first one I/we owned.

I still say a huge silent thank you to Mum for buying it whenever I see one, as without the Spectrum at home I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t’ be doing what I’m doing now. So here’s a slightly less silent thank you: Thanks Mum!

All in all it was a really interesting place to wander around, and I’m really glad I got to see it. I just hope they manage to secure a bit more funding so they can perhaps find a way to tell the story of the place in a slightly more integrated way than it felt at the moment. But as you get a yearly pass with your ticket, if we’re ever passing though Milton Keynes again in the next year I’d consider another visit to see if I could spot things we no doubt missed. I might even consider taking a picnic too…

The last week or two have seen three new kitchen experiences here:

1) Cooking with Quail’s eggs. They’re just so cute! And fiddly to de-shell. And seem to taste pretty much the same as ordinary eggs. Did I mention that they’re really cute though?!

2) Finally using our pizza stone to cook pizza on. Which did a fantastic job of getting the first crispy base pizza I’ve ever had with home made pizza dough.

3) Finally using our pasta machine to make some, wait for it… Wait for it…. PASTA! A bit of fun and games there, but we seem to have got the hang of it, and our ravioli and noodles turned out fine in the end.

Yup, it’s all go here!

Hopefully this has gone by pretty much unnoticed by you, but I’ve just shifted the server this blog is hosted on in preparation for some pretty big infrastructure changes here in the next few months.

A few things currently still look a bit different as I still need to track down some of the changes I made the the template that ran the previous version and redo them in the updated one, but all in all I’m pretty happy with how the move went. No major dramas, no databases getting lost… All pretty smooth!

Cross fingers it continues like that!

A couple of weekends ago we had a night out of London.  Once again we went and stayed with Liz and Dave.  And every time we do they always take us to something that is happening in the local towns/villages.  Last time it was a raft race and this time it was a good ole fair in Stamford. The fair had been set up all over the town, basically wherever they could find space (not like I remember from when I was a kid and they are set up on a local field or something similar).  So the town was taken over by a number or rides, candy floss sellers, and game stalls.

Its been a while since I have been on a ride, but Liz managed to convince me to get on ‘the frog’.  And once on I was thinking “what have I done?!” and “is there no way to get off now until the ride is finished?!”  But once I had been round a couple of times and was used to what was happening I managed to relax and remove the startled look from my face. And for the bargain price of £3 it was eventually quite enjoyable!

The afternoon saw us play many a game of pool at one of the local pubs.  I do love the quaint English country pubs. You just can’t beat them!  Then the evening had us at their local town hall for an Irish night.  A meal, some drinks and a raffle – of which we managed to win a prize.  A quiet night but something different for us which is always really nice.

Then on Sunday we visited another couple of relatively local spots. The first was a grand collection of hills and holes from an old quarry. Really nice to wander around, even if the flowers weren’t quite out yet. The second was the Nene Valley Railway.  It has steam trains which you can go on or even learn to drive (we didn’t do either – yet. We may yet be back…)  We just spent the time wandering around the old trains and then looking at a lot of 3 wheeled cars (like the one Mr Bean had) in the car park.  All in all another nice weekend out of London.

I’ve been meaning to start this post for about a month now. I was going to see if there were 12 things that I could think of during this year that I would implement if I were king that would make my world just a bit nicer. For me at least. For everyone else, tough!

January’s choice –   Chewing gum would be illegal. I pretty much violently hate it. I can see no reason why it is still around. Rubber with a bit of mint in it? What a great product! Sticks to everything, including hair, shoes, seats and trousers etc. It leaves pavements absolutely disgusting too. And it’s just really, really charming watching (and often listening) to someone chew it. If you’re worried about cleaning your teeth, carry a toothbrush. It works for the rest of us.

For February  – All food cans would the the stacking kind. They just make life so much simpler, easier, and I think safer too (at least when the cans are stored at above head height like in our kitchen). Nowadays they can’t be that much harder to produce, or much more expensive by the thousand, so I can’t see any reason why they can’t be the new mandated standard. “Health and Safety” seem to get blamed for all sorts of weird things here, so why don’t they do something useful and sort this out for me?

March – Leggings Permit. I think anyone wishing to wear leggings as their sole bottom half covering should have to be in possession of a permit signed by five of their closest and most honest friends at all times. The permit would state that the friend has seen said wearee in the leggings, and they are not making a fool of themselves, or likely to cause others to feel the need to either vomit or gouge their eyes out. Said friend would also have to state that they would be more than happy to spend a whole day out in public with the wearee (who would be wearing said leggings). Failure to carry this permit would result in compulsory re-clothing into a prisoner type baggy orange jumpsuit. And mandatory attendance at a lesson on how to find more honest friends.

(Note: Just be very, very very happy there is no photograph to accompany the above item to show what made it March’s choice!…)
Now, I wonder what the target for April will be….

Lately whilst I have been away from work Mike has been cooking himself some fancy food and then writing a post about it. Why won’t he cook food like that when I am home?

So today I decided to see if I could make some food worthy of writing a post.  And guess what it turned out not too bad at all!  So we had a layer of roasted red peppers and spinach, with a couscous red onion and feta cake, topped with some home made green olive tapenade.

OK so I used a recipe but I am happy to say my food even looked like the one in the cookbook. And it was that nice I would make it again, but I would add some water to the vege so it makes a bit of a sauce.