What better way to spend a very wet Bank Holiday Monday than to indulge in a bit of culture. The Design Museum has been on my to do hit list for quite a while so this was prime opportunity to tick it off.

As the name implies the museum showcases modern design and its exhibitions change on a regular basis. The museum explains how design has impacted on our lives today by taking us from the early roots of design to what we see in our lives today.

I love seeing these kinds of exhibitions but entry into the museum was sooo overpriced at £7! It took Sandra and I about half an hour, or maybe 45 minutes to be generous, to go through the exhibition AND the museum shop. I’m not sure how the museum can justify the price. Admittedly its not government funded and therefore operates as a charity but it still seems like a very steep charge.

When Jules and I were in South Africa we heard about these things called Floatation Tanks. The concept seemed quite strange – you get into this tank which is about 30-40cm deep of salty skin body temperature water. The water has enough salt content to allow your body to float. Once the lights are switched off inside the tank it is as close to a total sensory deprivation experience as you’ll ever get:

– It is pitch black so you can’t see anything
– You aren’t supposed to feel the water because the water is supposed to be same temperature as your body
– As your ears are below the water line you can barely hear anything (but your heart beat) especially when wearing the ear plugs.

The main benefit of floatation is stress-relief but it has also been known to help with injuries, skin disease etc.

Jules was keen to try this out and I must admit it sounded intriguing. I’ve never been one of those people into the whole massage therapy/beauty therapy thing but this just sounded out there. A quick search on google and we found The Worlds Largest Floatation Centre near London Bridge.

A session lasts around about an hour but build in showering before and after and it can take quite a bit longer. I guess the concept of the tank is to go into a meditative state to allow your body to relax completely. For the first ten minutes I wasn’t sure what to think but it wasn’t long until I felt the first effects of the floatation – nausea. I hope it doesn’t disgusts my readers but I have to admit that I think I threw up just a little in my mouth. Gross huh?! After that I concentrated on trying to enter a state of nothingness and I think this almost had the opposite effect as I had so many random thoughts just popping into my head. After I guess about forty minutes I think I must have actually reached a meditative state because I remember feeling that time had passed but I didn’t remember thinking anything. Soon after that I started to feel really really nauseas and I had get out of the tank or face getting totally sick in the tank – not good for the person using the tank after me! It actually ended up being perfect timing as time was up (as signalled by the gentle music used to “wake” people up at the end of a session.)

Apparently its not all that unusual to experience nausea at your first session though it must be noted that Jules didn’t feel it at all. I asked the girl about it and she thought I might have some stress around my stomach. I couldn’t think why but maybe it was from overeating at Blubeckers last night! Ha ha. They say that it takes a couple of floats before you get the full benefits of floatation. I’m not sure if I’m ready just yet for the next one but I think I’m willing to give it another go at some stage in the future.

A couple of weeks ago Sandra dined at a restaurant that served what she described as the Best BBQ Ribs ever. The restaurant was a Blubeckers Eating House. It was so good it was worth a text message to me in South Africa. BBQ Ribs are one of my all time favourite meals so of course it became my number one mission to try it out when I get back. The only hurdle was finding out that all of the eating houses were located outside of London with the easiest eating house to get to being located at Hampton Court. Despite how much I love Ribs traveling almost an hour and a half to get there seemed a little OTT so we planned a whole day out that would get us there in a round about way. Luckily for us the weather behaved itself perfectly.

Our first stop of the day was Kew Gardens between Kew and Richmond. I read on wikipedia that these Royal Botanical Gardens took in £44 million last year! Holey Dooley that’s a lot of money! The gardens are huge at over 300 acres which seemed a lot of ground to cover in just a few hours and there are certainly a few different things to see including the Palm House (a beautiful tropical glasshouse), Temperate House (the largest glasshouse in the Gardens and also housing apparently the largest indoor plant in the world), the Pagoda (a 10-story pagoda), and lots of trees, flowers, gardens, and dells. Lots of perfect spots for a picnic too. Sandra was nice enough to go to the effort of putting together a very nice picnic (which I could see a lot of people were jealous of) consisting of quiche (cooked from scratch), salad and dessert of strawberries and grapes. Plus muffins on the side if we could fit it in. She was well organised bringing plates and cutlery (and not disposable!) and everything. A perfect way to enjoy the beautiful spring day. Cheers Sandra!

After lunch we took a boat along the River to Hampton Court. Aside from the fumes of the boat and the random blowing of the horn (which was stupidly loud and shocking) taking the boat is the perfect way to travel thought it may take a an extra hour or two. And it doesn’t hurt when you have guys like this on the right on the boat to check out. 🙂 Before I knew it we’d arrived at Hampton Court.

Its nearly been two years since I’ve been to Hampton Court but it hasn’t changed too much. Interestingly this time around we got to see the Royal Tennis Court which was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Pretty cool to see though. The gardens were as beautiful as ever but we didn’t bother going into the Palace itself. We did go and check out the maze though. It’s a fairly simple one and I think Sandra was a bit disappointed at it because it didn’t take all that long to find our way to the centre and there’s not really a way out – you just sort of exit straight out from the centre. I still find it hard to believe that people pay something like £3.50 to try it out though I imagine most people have it included as part of their Palace/Garden ticket. The gardens are still my favourite part of Hampton Court with the best part being able to lie on the luscious lawns.

At the end of a surprisingly long day we finally made our way to Blubeckers which was conveniently located across the road from Hampton Court. The Blubeckers menu is actually really good and even though I knew I was going for their Ribs I was already thinking that another visit (or two) would be required to try some of the other tempting delicious – good stodgy stuff. However after tasting the Ribs I doubt I could really go past them! The Ribs were as good as Sandra made them out to be – tender (so tender you could literally push it off the bone – we could have eaten with spoons!), juicy, and dripping in a very tasty BBQ sauce. So well done to Sandra! The ribs weren’t the only great thing – the calamari starter was perfectly cooked and served with the most amazing aioli and the dessert – I don’t know how we fit in those gigantic servings but oh boy it was good and sooo rich. The only slight negative, and I’m not sure this is something that happens often, was that the food was quite slow to come out. On the plus side the extra time probably allowed our food to settle so we could fit more in. Ha ha.

Its just a shame that there is no Blubeckers in London. Or maybe it’s a good thing otherwise I think I would start to grow a little curly tail …

Clay Pigeon is so much fun. I was expecting that none of us were going to hit a thing especially when our instructor showed us the clays (about 10-15 cms big!) but we all managed to hit quite a few. Probably down to the fact that the shot guns had a giant spray area! The only drawback to today was that it was frickin’ cold. Even with a fleece and thermal I was cold – and everyone knows if I’m cold then everyone else must have been freezing!

For £40 we each got 50 shots which is actually fairly standard for these packages I guess. 20 shots were warm up and then 30 in competition. To my surprise I did okay at first though I really didn’t feel like I was even aiming. I was looking form but cracked under pressure. Kudos to James who took the trophy in trying conditions.

Position	Who was it	Stand 1	Stand 2	Stand 3	Grand Total
1st		8	9	9	26
2nd		9	9	7	25
3rd		4	9	6	19
4th		3,4	5,3	2,3	10,10
6th		6	0	3	9

Here are some more photos:

For my birthday last year Jen got me this voucher from lastminute to do all sorts of activities. One of them was an indoor skydive and since one of my goals in life is to do an actual skydive from a plane I thought this would be a good opportunity to see what the experience would be like … without the threat of imminent death! I also dragged Sandra along for the adventure.

The introductory package at Airkix gets you basically 2 lots of 1 minute flying time. This does not sound like a lot but when we were flying it seemed to last for longer than this. Plus there is the build up while you’re waiting in the cone for everyone else to have their go. The whole experience takes about an hour with the safety instruction and gearing up. When our instructor was telling us about the dos and don’t dos (like kicking your legs etc.) we were thinking yeah yeah sounds easy enough but its quite funny that once you’re in the wind tunnel you have very little awareness of what your legs and arms are doing and where they are even! That’s how I felt anyway. Half the time I didn’t even know if my legs were bent or straight, or my arms or my body. Its surprising just how much the littlest movements gets you going. The wind was also a lot stronger than I thought it would be . . but then again for some reason I was thinking it would feel like an anti-gravity space rather air blasting at you.

Great fun and has me itching to do more! Here are our videos: