Swarovski Crystal Palace exhibition – some highlights

Posted on August 4, 2007 by Grace

Highlights from the Swarovski Crystal Palace exhibition are currently on display at Selfridges. I missed the recent exhibition that was on at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park so I made sure to check it out when I was Selfridges today. The exhibition isn’t really all that large. There are about seven or eight pieces set out in this pitch black room on the lowest floor at Selfridges. The only light came from the crystals themselves. A pretty innovative, if expensive, way to light your room that’s for sure!

Lunch in the Park – Summer at last?

Posted on August 1, 2007 by Grace

Everyone’s saying it – could summer be here at last? Finally, in the month that is basically the back end of summer we finally have some dazzling weather. And in fact the weather has been absolute bliss for three days in a row!

Jenny and I have been sure not to take it for granted and have made the effort to spend our lunch breaks in the park. Truly delightful.

Bunnies make a nice change

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Grace

These bunnies make a nice change to the squirrels in Hyde Park:

Is the Coconut Man a sign that Summer is here?

Posted on May 20, 2007 by Grace

Congratulations Jules

Posted on April 7, 2007 by Grace

Today Jules displayed stunning will power to finish the Two Oceans Ultra Marathon (a wicked 56 km course!) in Cape Town in a time of 4 hours and 46 minutes in difficult conditions. Well inside the time required for the Sainsbury Medal (one better than his bronze last year!)

Congratulations too to Anita who finished the half marathon within her goal.

Off now to celebrate!

Dinner at Christy’s and Scott’s

Posted on March 10, 2007 by Grace

Christy and Scott had me over for dinner tonight at their new place in Clapham. Its a really nice place and is sooo much bigger compared to my little shoe box. Hopefully seeing their place will motivate me to find a new place to move out to. Having said that I must admit that I am quite attached to my shoe box despite how little space I seem to have!

Christy cooked up a very nice meal and it was very good to catch up with both Christy and Scott. The dinner was really made memorable by a visit from a scarily drunk person. We were just sitting there on the couch when all of a sudden this drunken man started knocking on the window. Scott went out to talk to him and turns out he wanted only wanted a taxi. But seriously he was so drunk that we couldn’t even make sense of him. When the taxi finally turned up he’d wandered off! I think the funniest moment was when he was just standing in the hallway outside in the dark. Guess you had to be there …

Monsoon Restaurant welcomes Christy and Scott

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Grace

Some good friends from back home are back in the UK so tonight to officially welcome them back we went out for a typically London thing to do – a curry at Brick Lane.

Brick Lane is what non-Londoners seem to associate with curries in London so its surprising that I haven’t actually eaten at any of the restaurants at Brick Lane in my nearly three years here.

Navigating up Brick Lane is made extremely difficult and slow as each restaurant has their own little touter shouting out discounts to you and sometimes even following you and hassling you up the road. I find it hard to just say no and ignore such people so I always end up carrying on some sort of conversation with them.

Finally we had had enough of the touting and chose Monsoon at 78 Brick Lane.

We were the first diners in the small restaurant but it soon filled up and actually got quite rowdy with both the conversation and sound system. The prices are fairly cheap but I’m sure are inflated to incorporate the “discount” being offerred on the street. No doubt the “discount” is to get you to come in and then buy big on the alcoholic or other drinks.

I’ve read some reviews where a lot of people weren’t very impressed with the service but I can’t say that we had too much of a problem, in particular I was happy with how our bill dispute with dealt with, though I’m not sure how they’d cope on a busier night. The food was actually pretty tasty to my uneducated palette and, though not giant portions, we couldn’t actually finish all that we’d ordered. You will have to definitely choose the right curries to suit your taste to get the most enjoyment out of it.

In the end Monsoon offerred pretty good value for the quality of the curries. Probably best to avoid when super busy as you will no doubt be on the receiving end of harried service that may possibly try and push you out the door to fit in another group of diners.