New Years Eve

A little late, but I just realised going through my photos that I never posted this, and some others which will come later.

We went to Peppone's for dinner. A really good dinner with lots and lots of food! Peppone even spoilt us with an extra plate of food not on the menu for the night -calamari! Yum! Besides that there were canapés when we arrived, soup, risotto, sorbet, beef wellington, and an amazing dessert. A very full 6 course menu!

As always, Peppe is a great host and also a talented DJ and played great music. We danced until midnight when we went outside for fireworks and each had a sparkler too. Then back inside for coffee and more dancing.

Here's the fireworks show in London.

My birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I'll still share more of our German Christmas later but thought I'd first share about my birthday since my family might be wondering what we did.

We arrived home from Germany just before 12 midnight on Wednesday the 28th. We decided to treat ourselves with massages for my birthday the next day. Firstly we hardly ever plan anything in advance and we might have at least booked a few days in advance but arriving home so late we didn't have anything booked. So yesterday morning first thing we phone around to try and get an appointment. We phoned so many places and all were either fully booked or just not answering and not getting back to us after leaving messages and sending emails.

We decided to abandon that idea and I went and searched online for a pretty little village not too far from us to go for a drive and walk around. I found Bray-On-Thames, only about 30min from us where there is this pretty looking hotel on a little island. You can only get there by boat or by walking over the narrow bridge. And their website advertised afternoon tea from 2.30pm onwards. 

Bridge to Monkey Island, Bray

We had no food in the house so wanted to go for the full tea with sandwiches pastries and scones. We arrived a bit early so walked around the village first. Then went to the hotel where there wasn't much going on. We were pretty hungry by this stage so didn't care if we were going to be the only table! BUT then we were told that the afternoon tea is only served from January onwards! No idea why, probably because they're so quiet for some reason.

Doesn't matter we decide, as we saw a nice pub actually belonging to chef Heston Blumenthal who also has the Michelin starred Fat Duck restaurant in this same village. I wasn't initially in the mood for pub food on my birthday but at least this should be a more special kind of pub with really good food. We walked in only to be told that the kitchen has just closed!! No! I was so annoyed! 

Hind's Head, Bray

Andre had a Guiness and I had a hot chocolate which was served with some fudge on the side too which at least made me feel slightly better. I was ready to cry as my birthday wasn't turning out so good. But right then my sister surprised me with a phone call to wish me happy birthday so that made me feel much better! Thanks Simone! xx

We were meeting friends at a hotel near Heathrow for a fairwell dinner in the evening and considered just driving there early in the hope of getting something to eat at the hotel bar. It being the type of hotel you stay at just to be near the airport we were afraid they might not have too much to offer so drove to nearby Windsor instead. 

More thinking about my sister as it was a year ago that she was here with us in the UK. We spent a day in Windsor, the day before my birthday last year actually. We spent my birthday last year in London.

Windsor 28 Dec 2010 with Simone

Last year's birthday in London

Finally we found food in Windsor at 4pm and I decided to have a cocktail too to help improve this day!

With our tummy's finally filled and feeling much better we headed to the hotel to meet our friends. We thought we might just stay over at the hotel since we haven't spent much on my birthday and might as well both enjoy the evening with a few drinks. Quick stop at a pharmacy for eye make-up remover and moisturiser as I can't go to bed without removing my make-up!

(Can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the hotel since I've done so well documenting my birthday throughout the day until here!)

We ended up not staying over though. Had a good, but light dinner after having such a late lunch. And then sadly had to say good bye to our friends who left for Australia this morning. We'll miss them lots, but look forward to seeing them again sometime for a sunny diving holiday and hearing about their new adventures 'down under'.

photo instead of said friends having dinner at our house
earlier this month

Marlow & Maliks

Andre's mom arrived here early on Sunday morning. After spending the day at home relaxing and catching up, we went out to dinner in Marlow. We first had a walk around the town and along the river Thames. The weather has been behaving remarkably well all week.

Andre took some great photos along the river. 

After our walk we went for our favourite meal out: curry at Maliks!

Peppone's Italian Restaurant

This post is a week late now. I've had a bit of a busy week last week, but now I'm back.

Two weekends ago friends of ours took us to this Italian Restaurant called Peppone's. Peppone is the chef and owner. His wife Anna was there too and they were such fantastic hosts. Our friends have been there quite a few times before and so knew the owners already. We ordered some antipasti (starters). The chef's specials. 

After a while several waiters started bringing out plates and plates and more plates of food. So much that we had to shuffle things around on the table to make more space. The table was FULL of food. And it was only the starters!

The starters: a very full table of food!

We finished it all except for some of the mussels and Peppone then had one of his chefs make us a pasta with the mussels and some shrimp. Then there was also a surf & turf platter and after that steaks! 

With Peppone & his wife, Anna

There was no way we could still order dessert after eating so much but Peppone insisted and out came Zeppole di Riso - deep fried rice pudding served with honey and Grand Marnier. Andre said it reminded him of "koeksusters". It was divine and despite having eaten so much already we quickly finished the dessert. So of course out came ANOTHER serving!

Andre deep in discussion with Peppone about the dessert

After dessert a bottle of limoncello was brought to the table. And left on the table. It was really good limoncello too. Andre took on the job of pouring the limoncello when the waitress needed the bottle to serve to other customers. Notice how she's pointing to the glass to make sure Andre doesn't fill it too much!

It was such an awesome evening. Peppone and Anna spent much of the evening sitting with us at our table, eating with us and drinking red wine. This restaurant is about more than just great food. It's about the people and the atmosphere and just about sharing a good time with good friends.

River Cottage

Every time before I start writing a new post, I click "View Blog" to well, view my blog. And each time I see the date and think, "Was it that long ago I was on here last?!" Then I look at the calendar to check exactly how long ago that was. This time it's been over two weeks. I am ashamed of myself. Where are the days when I sat thinking up random things to write about here? Oh right, I left those days behind in Switzerland. We have a very busy social life here, not to mention business life now too! Oh and how can I forget the couch-and-TV life. It takes up so much time!

I'm not complaining. Not at all.

Just trying to make excuses for my lack of regular blogging. Sorry.

But I'm here now and will hopefully finish this post in one go.

Andre and I have been following Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's River Cottage cooking shows for a long time now. Andre has some of the DVD's so I've been watching it in SA already. Last week we were watching one of the shows again and saw them at the River Cottage Deli & Canteen. Well we saw it written on the building Hugh was sitting outside of. We were able to rewind the program to find out where this is. With a little extra help from google we found that it's 2 1/2 hours drive from us in a town called Axminster.

So on Sunday Andre and I drove there to go try Hugh Fernley Whittingstalls food. I suppose not really his food, but his restaurant. It's a very casual, homely restaurant with plain tables and chairs and not much decor besides all his books displayed on shelves along the wall.

The deli counter had so many delicious things. Lots of organic and local produce. Cheese, oils, truffles, milk, yoghurt, flour and many many more as you can see from the picture.

The menu changes daily depending on what comes in fresh from the farmers and fishermen. I had fish and mussels. I can't remember when last I had seafood. Andre had roast pork.

On the way to Axminster town centre, we took a wrong turn and (accidentally!) found River Cottage HQ and took some pictures at the entrance to the farm. Maybe one day we'll go to an event there too. You can have dinner there when they have certain events in the evenings but which will be quite a bit more expensive than eating at the canteen we went to on Sunday.

Castle Combe- "The prettiest village in England"

So says this website and it's definitely the prettiest I've seen so far. I'm sure there are many other pretty villages but I haven't really seen that many...

This little village in the south of the Cotswolds has also been used in some films and it looks like something out of a fairy tale.

Luckily our friends knew about the Manor House Hotel, otherwise we would have driven right past this beautiful place. It was built in the 14th century and has 48 rooms.

We went there for lunch,

then walked around their gardens which are so pretty we had our own little photo shoot there!! Imagine having a wedding here.... Andre said no, we're not getting married again..

They said we could leave our car in their parking lot while we walked around the village. The village is very small, really just one street. It has a population of about 350.

We saw many people walking up the hill as we first drove into the village on our way to the Manor House Hotel. So after lunch we wanted to go see where they were going. We walked and walked but saw no signs along the road giving clues to what might be the attraction that everyone was going to see. Eventually Sonya asked someone passing by where everyone is going to up the hill. He said they are going to the parking lot!!

So we walked back down. At least we got to walk off the lunch we had and were then able to go back to the hotel for cream tea. That means tea and scones here in England. The most delicious scones I have ever ever tasted.

Before the afternoon tea the guys also managed to find another geocache on the way. It had a travel bug in which we took out to go put in another cache somewhere else.

I'm busy uploading these pictures of our day at Castle Combe to facebook now, and I can't believe how many pictures we took of such a small village! I won't be able to put half of it on my blog so you'll have to go see on facebook if you want to see the rest. :-)

Sunday pub lunch

After a nice Sunday drive we found this pub called The Anchor in Wisley along the River Wey. It's a beautiful setting right on the water. The food was good (I had steak and ale pie) and the desserts were great too! They had a selection of 6 mini desserts which you could order individually or have all 6 for a slightly reduced price. We got all six (shared it between the four of us so it's not as bad as it sounds!) and were so excited when it arrived that I never took a picture!

After lunch we went for a walk outside and watched the boats coming through the lock. It was my first time actually seeing how this works. On the one side of the lock the water level is higher than on the other side. So if the boat is at the top, it opens the lock gates and enters the lock, closing the gates behind the boat. Then someone opens the sluice gates to let the water out and lower the boat to the level of the water at the bottom. When it is at the right level the gates will open and the boat goes on it's way. It works the other way round too of course. You can open the sluice gates at the top to fill the lock when you need to go up. A bit like an elevator for boats! Click here for an illustration of how this works. It's a cute site where you can click to go up or down the river and it shows you with pictures what happens.

Letting water in from the top to fill the lock up.

And then letting water out to lower the boat.

The guys helped opening and closing the gates for the boats for a while.

It was a lovely end to the Sunday and it felt even better knowing there was one more day left of the weekend! A little more on what we did yesterday for the Bank Holiday later.