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It’s the last long weekend until the end the year here this weekend, so we’ve been trying to make some use of it and the nice-ish weather to couple some chores with some fresh air and exercise.

So yesterday we jumped on the bikes and went to have a look at the Thames Barrier. “That’s hardly far from your place”, I hear those of you that have been here say. But if you look really carefully at the above picture you might spot that it has been taken from the other side of the river!

Luckily we didn’t have to swim across towing our bikes.  Just a bit further east is a dinky little roll-on-roll-off ferry that shuttles backwards and forwards across the river.  Of course we got the timing completely wrong both ways, getting to it just a little late, and had to wait for a whole crossing to complete before we could jump on, but that gave us time to make friends in the queue with a guy playing some primo reggae Floyd on his car stereo.

The “chore” part of the whole exercise was to go and get some bamboo steamers from an Asian cash and carry in North Greenwich, but as it was our first time exploring down there a tour we took the long way. Which started getting a bit long for one of us (someone was a little cranky now and then), but we got there in the end and got our steamers. And somehow a collection of little bowls fell into the trolley too.  Hmmmmmm.

We took the shorter way home (but still had to wait for the ferry…)!

As I seem to be earning a few blogging Brownie points by filling in some of the silence as Jo seems to be taking a well earned rest, so here’s another small filler for you. Meet our lettuce trees!

Unfortunately this is the  last ever sight of them, as the tall lettuce trees have pretty much gone to seed and it tasted pretty horrible. So they’ve been cut down and chucked away. Hopefully the little ones that were planted a few weeks later is still ok.

The rocket’s also started to flower, so I think we’ll have to try that tomorrow and see how it tastes…

I think it’s about time we ‘fessed up. For quite some time now we’ve reverted to buying coriander to meet our cullinary needs.

I think the combination of completely the wrong pot, the parsely for a pot-mate, and our occasional forgetfulness with regard to watering them on some of the hotter days meant that we never really managed to stop the plants bolting.

On the upside, it has meant that we’ve managed to get a few coriander seeds for the next curry that needs them!

Separating all the seeds from the chaff today by swirling a plate around took me right back to trips to the old goldmines when we were schoolkids too. It was almost even fun!

It was about time that I cleared off a few of the ripe chillis so that hopefully the plants will keep producing more and more flowers and therefore chillis. And we also decided it’s a nice night to munch on Bec’s first two red peppers (they’re at the bottom of the pic, obviously)

Note: that is a dinner plate, not a bread and butter plate!

The big green ones are the Anaheims, and the little red ones are Chilli Bombs.

Yum! And best part is there are still many, many more out there!

Well, today I became a British citizen!

The last stage in the long, long process (well to be honest once I was allowed to put my application in that only took five weeks, it was just getting through the qualifying period that took so long, especially as they kept changing the rules) was a ceremony at one of the local council offices where you do your swearing and collect the all important citizenship certificate.

I was even slightly nervous waiting for my ceremony, though I’m still not sure why?  I even managed to convince Mike to come with me. Actually I didn’t have to do that much convincing as he thought it was a good idea that someone could bring a camera along and take photo’s to mark the event.

It’s an interesting little event. There was a huge mixture of people from different cultures.  I feel sorry for the Registrar trying to correctly pronounce all the names (she did a pretty good job though)… Especially as mine and only one other person’s were basic English names (there were about 25 of us).

So after we listened to some councillor talk about joining the local family and also about the local community or something, off I went to swear allegiance to the Queen.  Then after some photo’s with the councillor and Mike (who (the councillor, not Mike) was quite particular about where you placed your hands when holding your certificate) that was pretty much it .

So now I am officially a British citizen.

You may be wondering why there is no picture with this post as that was pretty much what Mike came along for? Well that’s because Mike left the memory card for the camera sitting attached to the PC after taking the shots of the swimmers this morning… hee hee hee!!!

We seem to be catching up on or posting quite a bit on news this weekend!

Last weekend we had another surprise package of a weekend.  A trip up northwards (just a little bit) to attend the first concert that we’ve been to in ages. It wasn’t quite the sort of crowd or concert that we’ve been used to in the past. I can honestly say that this is the first concert where I’ve seen cut-crystal champagne glasses and silver cutlery arranged on a linen tablecloth, along with a 7 candle candelabra!

What concert? It was Jools Holland and guests playing in the grounds of Belvoir Castle  (pronounced, apparently, “beaver castle” – go figure!). And very good they were too. Bravo (how very English of me)! But… the music for us was almost overshadowed by the fun of people watching. A hugely mixed crowd there, from family groups with young kids to family groups with older kids to groups of 20 somethings to groups of 40, 50 and 60 somethings. And everything in between. Including a hen’s night of about 20 women right next door to us.

The most entertaining bits of the night were pretty much at the beginning and the end.  The beginning because we arrived to find a queue about 400m long of people all carrying tables, chairs, chilly bins etc. While us boys waited with all the gear, the girls duly trotted to the back to queue and mark a place for us. This was the strategy that most people arriving followed. So very English to have that many people queuing so nicely without any sort of stewards etc. around to tell people what to do (which would probably just have made things a complete disaster).

I did say “most people” didn’t I?  One family arrived and the mother took one look at the queue and said something like “that’s a ridiculous queue. I’m not joining that.” in a fairly posh English accent, and marched herself and her family up to the front and just barged in. Then she somehow managed to find some way to completely ignore anyone who tried to politely point out that she might have, you know, jumped the queue just a little?… I still can’t quite believe they got away with it, and I’ve no idea what that taught her kids about how to behave.

Luckily the queue moved pretty quickly anyway and we managed to get in and settled well before anything demanding our attention was happening.

The end was equally entertaing as  finding the car in the car park in the dark at the end of the concert was a bit of a mission, but once enough cars had cleared out of the way we managed to track it down. I assume the trip back was smooth. I was asleep for most of it!

And another highlight was Bec’s attempt at opening some Cava…  She reckons she’s never opened a bottle of bubbly where the cork goes flying out.  And we had no idea what direction it went flying in either.  I just hope nobody ended up in A&E due to a cork in the eye!

It helped with the overall enjoyment that the weather was perfect for it too, although we seemed to have forgotten how much cooler the nights get in the countryside. We were very grateful for the rug to cover our knees…

On the way towards the train station on Sunday we called in on another local event. A raft race in “the Deepings”  . Apparently this used to be a regular event, but after a couple of years off they seemed to have forgotten what was meant to happen for a while. Which meant that seemed to be running very late, so we saw very few rafts, and even less racing before we had to leave to catch the train back to London. But it didn’t matter.

The village was lovely to walk through, the air fresh, and the fish and chip lunch was probably one of the nicest we’ve had for ages.

There was even nice little fair type thing on the main st.  I managed to actually hit some of the sweets with the cork air pistol thingee and knock them off so I could take them home.  Twice!

Thanks, Liz & Dave, for a great weekend!

Someone seemed to think that it was a good idea to get on a microphone at about 8am this morning and drive us all from our peaceful slumbers. Well, to be honest I’d already got up about 7:30, but still.

Some idiots (about 1,000 of them apparently) were taking part in the Great London Swim in the dock.  That’s a one mile swim. That’s actually quite a long swim!

I know someone who’s mad enough to be doing this through work.  I’ll have to find out what he thought of it all next week… And check he hasn’t come down with any yucky lurgy! Oh, and didn’t drown!

Update: It’s now noon, and he’s still going strong on that mic!

Woo Hoo!

The first red chillies of the season have finally appeared. A few chilli bombs – one fully red over the course of today, and two others close to full red.

There’s been one of Bec’s peppers that has slowly been getting redder, and now it’s fully red. But it doesn’t really count. It’s a pepper! It does look nice though, I’ll give it that.

In terms of eatin’, we’ve now had the pleasure of three (green ones, semi-obviously). Two Jalapeños and a Ring of Fire.

It was that time of the year again last weekend.  Outside our place all last weekend long were nutters swimming, biking, and running around all day. London triathlon weekend 2009.

How anyone could bring themselves to swim in the dock, I’m not quite sure, but there were wave after wave of them lining up to jump in and risk whatever disease that’s listed on all the signs warning everyone not to swim in the water (along with the signs saying “Danger of Drowning”. Erm…. yes…. thanks. I guess.)

Then they were off on the cycle.  Some of them must have had quite a picturesque little trip up to Westminster and/or Tower bridge on the Sunday, if they had time and energy to look around.  It was quite a nice day for it on Sunday. Sunny, but not too hot, and no rain like on the Saturday.  Though I suspect there might have been a small but annoying headwind most of the way in one direction.

And then the run. Only the 10k to finish up for those completing the Olympic course I believe. Again, not too bad along the docks and through the trees etc…

For those wanting top indulge in a bit of celeb spotting Jenson Button was competing.  We’d seen that on the F1 show a week or two ago, and by some amazing piece of fluke we walked out of the house at the exact time he was running past. we couldn’t have timed it any better. Photo? No, no photo. We weren’t quite prepared enough for that, but then I’m sure by that stage of the race (about 2k left) he was probably pretty sick of people taking photos of him. However, quite what he thought about the man with the TV camera that was following him on a motorbike I’m hoping to find out when there’s finally another F1 race to spend Sunday afternoon watching. I’m sure they’ll have a section on how he found it all.

Anyway, I don’t know what it was like from a competitors point of view, but as a resident and spectator the organisation seemed fantastic. About 6,000 people per day out on course, and at least double watching with no hiccups or problems that we saw. And once again we were pretty impressed by how quickly the whole area was back to normal.  By the time the sun was going down on Sunday, all the cups and water bottles were gone, almost all the cones and fences had been taken down and if not carted away at least stacked up neatly waiting to be picked up. The area was almost back to normal. And by the time we left for work in the morning, you really couldn’t tell there’s been anything on at all.

Maybe next year I’ll give it a go. Actually, maybe not…

Here it is.   The first home grown chilli eaten this season. One of the Jalapenos gave it’s goodness for the sake of last night’s yellow yoghurt gloop like we made a while ago.

May there be many more lining up soon…