Spym and I were up relatively early and decided to have a walk by the canal after breakfast, there was an antique market on so we stopped and had a look. I bought a gorgeous painting of the Beguine Convent. By this point, Elizabeth and the others had all arrived at the hotel, Freeman had gone off to book our brewery tour for later that evening.

We went out for lunch in a small square and everyone introduced themselves. After lunch the others checked into the hotel and everyone roamed about doing their own thing prior to meeting up before the brewery tour. I decided to visit the St John’s Hospital. The hospital has been recorded in documents dating back to the 12th C. and was actually used right up until the 1970’s! It was originally run by nuns and priests. There was a really good audioguide that took me through the history of the hospital, including explanations of hospital art and surgeons tools :o. Inside the hospital chapel were six works by Memling. The hospital itself is a sprawling complex with multiple wings added throughout its history. After much ineptness on my part in not being able to open an unlocked door, i eventually made it into the old apothecary. All i can say is it smelt bad! It still has all the containers and even some of the dried herbs and animal pieces (!) used in medicine. There were also some huge mortar and pestles!

Later i met up with everyone else, and we did a guided tour of the Half Moon Brewery. I got some very amusing shots of everyone’s arse as they climbed down the steep staircases. Also managed to get a shot of Freeman trying to steal a barrel! We ended the tour with a nice chilled half of beer from the brewery before all heading back to freshen up before dinner.

Someone had the sense to book our table in advance (well done!). Prior to making it to the restaurant, the cash machine ate Philipa’s card – i hope she got it back! The restaurant was lovely with very tasty food. As the beer the night before had made me a little ill, i stuck to cognac – OMG i love continental measures…. Each “single” for 4-5 euros was the equivalent of 4 shots in the UK!!!! We moved to two other bars throughout the course of the night and ended up getting drunk in a small bar near the funfair. Elizabeth’s friend Natasha ending up dancing on the bar (!) and we stayed out till 4am! Lets just say i wasn’t feeling too good the next morning…

So Spym and i got up at 4:45am in order to get to St Pancras for our 6:30am check in…. after so little sleep this was not good! We made it on time though, only to find that Eurostar had double booked almost every seat in our coach 🙁 not a good start!

In the end the train manager found us some other seats – after my travel sickness tabs i was knocked out for the whole journey….we changed trains in Brussels and headed on out to Brugges.

It was lovely and sunny when we arrived in Brugges, and just a short 15 min walk around the picturesque canal, small streets and around the Beguine convent till we got to our hotel. After checking in, Spym and I went on a hunt for food, and found a lovely little deli bar we visited more than once on our trip!

First tourist attraction was the Brelfort (bealfry) in the Market Square, which was built in across 13th-15th centuries. At one point it also housed important city documents and the treasury. It was 366 steps up a winding staircase to the top [which wasn’t as claustrophobic as Prague cathedral]. We stopped off in the gears room at 2pm just when all the bells started – i took some cool videos of all the massive cogs rotating and turning to make the bells ring and the time to change. We climbed up to the top and looked across the whole city. Its a strange view with modern housing spotted with random pockets of Gothic and (later) architecture.

We moved onto The Burg, a market square east of the main one, and full of beautiful decorative buildings. We first went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood and went to the shrine of a crusader that supposedly brought back a vial of Christ’s blood during the 2nd crusade. The vial was even on show, you could touch it if you donated some money. The inside of the upper chapel was stunning with brightly painted walls and ceiling and unusual stain glass windows.

Next on our list was the 14th c. Townhall, which we toured with a very good audioguide. It was fascinating, covering the history of the town, key residents and the building. The most amazing sight was the vaulted ceiling inside the Townhall….photography was prohibited, but i took some sneaky shots on my cameraphone. The ceiling was full of gold hanging arches, something i have never seen before! Pics will be posted in the photos section. Finally we popped next door and had a look in the 16th c. Renaissance hall, it was used as a treasury and a place for law officials to meet to discuss cases.

Spym and I ended the day with a leisurly 3h long dinner, sampling traditional cuisine and beer 😛 which sent us to sleep quite nicely!

So I’ve had a couple of busy days! I began my “weekend” at about 2pm on Thursday – we had our office party to celebrate funding brought into the department. The party was at The Plough, with free booze and not having drunk alcohol for 12 weeks, this was a dangerous combination for me. I decided to brave the red wine as i seemed to be OK with rasins (oh how i regretted it the next day! red wine = nono). I left MK and headed for Spym and Als office in Highgate and was met by a frantic Spym and Al and a very tall Jean! Spym and Al went off to Charlee’s bday dinner whilst i made a frantic phone call to Aaron to let him know of my change of plans. In the end I met with Adam and Aaron for tapas, it was gone 1am by the time we all crawled back to Spym’s. Then it was gone 2am by the time we all went to sleep.

So after the trauma of the last “incident” where we suspected an EDS air con Ltd van ran into our garage, damaging the door and the uPVC facias (less than 7 months old!)….Olly spoke to the residesnts that own the van. They told us that the driver was no longer with them and the van would not be parked there any more. What a load of bollox! Guess what i saw parked in front of our garage less than 1 minute ago….yes the exact same van, parked in its usual spot , in front of my now damaged garage.

Luckily for me, the resident that owns the van was out in the road, happily twittering with other neighbours in front of her house, were there is a pick up truck and two other cars parked. I told her in front of everyone that the van had to be removed from in front of my garage, as last time the driver caused a lot of damage (which surprise surprise – they won’t claim on their business insurance if they have any!). I also informed her that it was residents parking four our courtyard, and that the freeholder was putting up signs shortly. I have now been pro-active and found a sign making company to produce the parking signs. I have also chatted to other residents in the courtyard who are happy for signs to go up on their property, providing we consult them as to the exact locations. I swear to god, as soon as those signs go up, if that van parks there i am going to phone the police and council straight away!

People complain about having problems with travellers/gypsies parking on their land – we just have a chavy irritating resident outside of the courtyard, using the courtyard parking spaces, damaging our garages and damaging the tarmac courtyard residents will need to pay to replace! I really have to wonder why people are so selfish. I am contemplating parking my car in the annoying neighbours driveway – in front of their garage….perhaps that will make my point clearer?

So last July I went to an Astrobiology themed summer school in Austria, where the team I was in (the Red team) designed an astrobiology mission to Europa. It was all good fun, I met some fun people who i am still in contact with 😉 and learned lots too!

Imagine my surprise when a friend sent me this link

http://www.esa.int/esaED/SEM5PYOR4CF_index_1.html#subhead4

I have made it onto the ESA website – the picture makes me look so brainy too LOL! Though credit goes to Fatah on our team for actually supplying the maths…I was just striking a pose as the glamorous assistant 🙂

So yesterday Olly and I visited Bath, a day trip organised by the University. We left pretty early :s and our coach managed to make it to Bath [unlike the other OU coach that took a long detour round the outskirts of Oxford looking for one of its passengers!].

We managed to pack quite a lot in one day:

• First we went to the Roman Baths/Temple complex (I have visited the Baths once as a child but can’t remember too much and it was nice to visit after studying about it during Latin GCSE) . Olly learned about Aquae Sulis and the Goddess Minerva, Roman cleanliness and bath house etiquette. We touched the water it was nice and warm, and you can still see the hot springs flowing around the complex into the great bath and other smaller baths. We have some great pictures which we will upload to the phots section. You can also clearly see the Victorian/Georgian influence on the place where they built over and above the existing Roman baths.
• After the baths we managed to find ourselves in a quaint little tea shop enjoying cream teas.
• We meandered past Bath Abbey – magnificantly ornate for a relitavely tiny building!
• We meandered past losts of shops and things and made our way to the Jane Austen Centre, a privatley run museum. We listened to a fascinating talk about Jane Austen, her family and their connections to Bath – where they lived etc. The museum itself is very tiny and focuses on 3 aspects i) where Jane and her family lived in Bath [which are still standing so you can go and see them] ii) Aspects of Bath used in her various novels: which was absolutely fascinating! and finally there were some constumes from various TV drama adaptations of the novels. The museum is small but a must-see for any dedicated reader of Austens books, as i’m not sure Olly enjoyed it as much as me!
• We then took a meander through the streets of Bath and managed to find an antique map shop – we purchased a lovely antique map of Bucks to add to our collection, and got to look at some really old maps from 1600s which were ornately decorated with crests and things….unfortunately these were thousands of pounds outside our budget!!!
• Somehow we found ourselves in yet another tea shop enjoying cream teas (i know – very naughty of us!) before getting the coach back home.

All in all i had a lovely day – unfortunately we didn’t get to make it to the Herschel museum or the glass blowing place 🙁

I also got a great birthday present and am having much fun playing on it and it has distracted me from the crapness of B&Q! Cheers everyone!

After much searching for recipes and experimenting by baking one pie a week i have discoverea very tasty savory pastry recipe. Of course olly and i were both getting fatter from eating all the pies i was making, so i have now had to limit pie making to just once a month 🙂

Ingredients:

75g rice flour

75g cornmeal

75g potato flour

~ 1tsp xanthan gum

1 pinch salt

150g soya butter

1 egg whisked

• Sift the rice flour, cornmeal, potato flour, salt and xanthan gum into a large bowl and mix well.
• Add chunks or cubes of the soya butter and rub into the flour (or use a pastry cutter) to make “breadcrumbs”.
• Add enough of the egg to bring the pastry together but make sure it isn’t too wet as it will shrink in the oven.
• On a lightly potato/rice floured board knead the dough. Roll into a ball slightly flatten it, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 30 mins but best left overnight.
• When chilled roll the pastry out between two baking sheets and use as required.

Tips

• I brush a bit of whisked egg over the top of the pastry after it is half cooked, it makes the pastry go golden.
• if cracks appear in the raw pie casing smooth pastry dough with a little water to fill in the gaps.
• Always use a pie funnel to stop pastry collapsing and filling from boiling over.

We are back from our epic journey to Portugal and a few days in London. All in all we had a nice time, (see the photo album if you are bored) and I shall be writing a page about what we did etc. when I get a chance.

London was fun, we got to see some old friends and Becca’s family. We also went to the Tower of London, it cost £45 for a family ticket! Far far far too expensive for what it was. The torture room was rather disapointing, it only had three implements of pain, no where near as good as the musuem in Prague. And the crown jewels had a queue that rivalled the one to get a Wii, I know I am English and all but even I don’t enjoy queueing that much!

Then we watched TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the uninitiated) (Tinja Ninja Turtles for the childlike), oh how it took me back to my youth.

My first paper has finally been submitted too, just have to rewrite the whole thing when the referee sends it back!

So Cat invited us to Lisbon to experience the way she lives, so off we trotted….

Day 1, 27th March

First things first, someone had to lose their luggage, that award went straight to pip. Luckily though his iPod made it off the plane.

We were stopping at Cat’s apartment in a suburb of Lisbon south of the river. By the time we got there it was late and we were all hungry, so Cat took us to a local restaurant, the food was ok (steak and chips), but we didn’t expect much that late at night, but the wine was very nice. I am not a red wine drinker, but since we were here I thought I would give it a go, and mmmmm, alentejo.

Then, when we got home, we made a wondrous discovery, Dan brought cards with him!

Quote of the day; Pip: Have I corrupted anyone?

Day 2, 28th March

Today began the big exploration of Lisbon, so after a bus and ferry we were in the centre of town. Luckily the ferry was relatively calm, so we didn’t have to put up with a pukey Becca, but we thoroughly expected to have to later in the week.

We wondered around the main square for a while, took a few pictures, and found an Irish pub, how English we are. We were all rather amuzed when we saw a car that had bumped into something and broken it’s headlight, not a great travesty, except it had stopped in the middle of the road and brought most of Lisbon to a halt!

We ate at a seafood restaurant close to Cats, not being a fan of sea food I ate steak, but the others assured me the fish was good. Then we retired to play some cards, who would have thought the game shit head could have so many different sets of rules.

Quote of the day; Pip: Patronize me more.

Day 3, 29th March

We called into the cathedral on our way to the castle, it lacked much of the grandeur you would expect from a cathedral, still I guess there is something to be said about understatement.

Cat used to be a tour guide at the main castle of Lisbon, so we used her super tour guide skills to get a tour (how cheap we are). The castle itself is rather dull, there are some nice views of the city, but no real museums or things to see, except the periscope that is. This was a mirror and lens system mounted in a tower which projects the city onto a large white thing. The guide there gave us a tour of the landmarks with this thing, it was very cool, and now I want one put on my house……..

Pip did his utmost to help the Lisbonese street economy by hanging his wallet out of his pocket for all and sundry to see. Luckily, just as the inevitable was happening (pick pocketing) a nice Portuguese lady saw the perpetrator and shouted at him so he ran off. Thank you lady. Pip’s luggage turned up too.

Cat took us to an Italian restaurant tonight, the trouble with this being that Italian food is probably the only cuisine Becca cannot eat anything of, ho hum. Then back for more cards.

Day 4, 30th March

Cat decided to go leave us to go see her friends a family today, time to see if we can survive by ourselves.

Apparently the Portuguese church elders said during the war that if they managed to escape unscathed then they would build a mini version of the big Jesus thing in Rio. They did, so they did, and so we went up it. It’s just up the road from Cat’s house so we walked there and took hundreds of pictures (reduced to just fifteen).

From here we went to the fado museum (it’s a type of local folk music), all spanishy guitary type stuff with a whiney singer, not really my cup of tea.
We also found a church with the word ‘testes’ on a display, amused us a bit. Even more cards was played.

Quote of the day 1; Pip: Something a bit ooh. (Pip’s interpretation of that wonderful Girls aloud classic).
Quote of the day 2; Pip: I’d rather be cold and frightened then warm and frightened.
Quote of the day 3; Dan: Cuck funt.

Day 5, 31st March

With less of us in the house we managed to get out of the house and down to the port by 10am!

Lisbon is rather hilly, so some bright spark built a lift in the centre of town near a big hill, nice. Some nice views, which of course means lots of pictures.

We were reliably informed that the Bario Alto is the place to go out in Lisbon, so we went for a wonder around during the day to see what it was like. Everything was closed, covered in graffiti, and smelt of urine. We decided that this wasn’t really the kind of place we wanted to be drinking in.

We had heard that there was a nice eatery and drinkery place by the docks in the general direction of the big bridge so off we went. We couldn’t find it, sigh.

We found the restaurant district and found somewhere that was selling kid, so we had some, it was nice, a little salty, but nice. Afterwards were very English and went to the Hard Rock cafe.

Quote of the day; Pip: Becca’s going to do a Marylin Manson. (This was in the context of Becca walking over a grill venting air from the subway while wearing a dress).

Day 6, 1st April

Woke up feeling rather dehydrated, all that salt I suspect.

We went to St. Vincent, some fantastic views. Got to climb all the way to the top.

Dan bustificated his travel card, again, like the retardo he is (hence danificardo). We traced the problem to his ass, bizarre!

We finally found the dock area with lots of restaurants, lots of different nationally places to eat in. We were bored of Portuguese food (too salty and bland) so we decided on Spanish, mmm it was good.

Now one of the odd things about the Portuguese is that they don’t seem to like using toilet seats; virtually all the places we went didn’t have a toilet seat at all, it was only the really touristy places that did. Just struck me as a little odd.

Quote of the day; Dan: Danificado.

Day 7, 2nd April

Pip and Dan went to an art museum in the morning so Bint and I went shopping, she bought a few things, but seemed to have trouble paying everywhere we went. We ate at the Hard Rock cafe, again trouble with her card. Then when we tried a cash machine all our cards failed, maestro, switch, mastercard, all danificardoed, hmmm. We tried different cash machines, all broken, the people in the bank said they were all broken to foreign transactions. We met up with the others who had had the same problem, looked like we were about to be stranded in a foreign country with no money, so we did the only thing we could do as English folk with our remaining 40 Euros, drink.

We went to the Port wine institute, it had a wealth of different ports. We were considering on trying them all, but after the first three we decided against it. We had Ruby, tawny, and white, it was a split opinion on what was best, the ruby or the tawny.

Quote of the day; Pip: Tawny is like a party in your mouth, Ruby is like your grandparents staying over.

Day 8, 3rd April

Sintra is a small town outside of Lisbon that is a must see, so Becca booked a tour for all of us. This did mean that we had to be at the Hard Rock cafe at 8:00 am, not a happy bunny. Still, we made it, and Cat and Russ made it too, albeit 30 seconds before 8:00!

We went to the most westerly part of continental Europe, it was westerly.

Went to a nearby beach, Dan and I stood and took pictures of a gheko while the others paddled and got wet.

We finished up in a small fishing village, Caiscais, rather a posh little place, still, I managed to buy a lot of Portuguese cocks for my sister.

Pip left his glasses on the bus, but managed to get them back, luckily. Then the others went to a classical concert while Becca and I ate and went back.

Day 9, 4th April

Belem is a small part of Lisbon with a lot of stuff hidden away. There is the coach museum full of pretty old school coaches. A really old fort used to defend the city back in the day. Of course back in the day they were a lot shorter, and so us modern men struggled inside a bit!

We decided to go back to the eatery place we found the other day, this time we picked a nice French restaurant. It was posh looking (so we stuck out) but the food wasn’t that great, which was a shame.

It was today that we discovered that testes is Portuguese for forehead, as you can imagine much merriment was had.

Quote of the day; All of us: Testes.

Day 10, 5th April

And so we come to the end of our holiday, a thorough tidy up of Cats apartment and we are good to go. We all made it back ok, Pip’s luggage even made to London and not Johannesburg.

We are off to Lisbon on tuesday 🙂 Trouble is I have to pack before hand 🙁 So many things to think about, so many things to wash, so little botheredness to do it. Ho hum, I guess I had better go look for my passport………..