My Week in Review to the 22nd July

I am linking up with The Sunday Post hosted by Kimberly at The Caffeinated Reviewer.

I'm got a GoFundMe appeal today which I hope might twang your purse strings or at least get you to click through and hit a share button or two. It's not actually Me being GoFunded (is that a word?) but my sister's friends, talented actresses and playwrights Alexandra and Kate Donnachie, who are taking their play 3 Years, 1 Week And A Lemon Drizzle to Edinburgh! They've got pretty much everything sorted except their own accommodation which is the purpose of this appeal. If you can help out at all, I know it would be very much appreciated. The play explores the true experiences of the sisters in coping when Alexandra developed an eating disorder. There's lots more information Through This Link or you can Buy Your Edinburgh Tickets here. Thank you!


My week has been pretty chaotic and has mainly consisted of zooming between different friends, hours of great chats, and far too much good food. I'm not complaining about the food you understand?! The pace doesn't let up until we drive back to Torquay today and I haven't even really got time to write this post. Apologies for any bizarre typos! And remember my pride last week at having caught up with all my commenting? Yeah, that didn't last long did it. Oops!

In lieu of a 'proper' post, here's a quartet of this week's good eateries that I'm happy to recommend if you're ever thereabouts:

In Cheam, London, Tasha's Tearoom  has a lovely atmosphere with elegant decor. The Banana And Pomegranate Cake is lush - and generously sliced!
In Herstmonceux, Sussex, Indian restaurant Eastern Promise is well worth a try. We'd been here before and were happy to return. My Vegetable Balti was rich and delicious.
In Eastbourne, Sussex, traditional fish and chips doesn't get better than that served at The Holiday Inn. This restaurant has been a favourite of ours for over a decade. We only get to visit annually now and it's a keenly anticipated treat.
Ganapati South Indian Kitchen in Peckham, London, is another superb Indian restaurant with delicious vegetarian thalis.


Posts on my blogs this week were:
Stephanie Jane's #Giveaway and #FreeBook Linkup
My Week in Review to the 15th July
Artisan Rainbow - Coasters

Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood
Liberty Landing by Gail Vida Hamburg + #Giveaway
Dortmund Hibernate by C J Sutton + Excerpt
Blood In The Woods by J P Willie + #Giveaway + #FreeBook
Notes From A Big Country by Bill Bryson
The Collision Of Grief And Gratitude by Rosanne Liesveld + #Giveaway
Hold by Michael Donkor

Around the blogosphere:
I'll get back to this!

Have a great week :-)

Artisan Rainbow - Coasters 

My Week in Review to 24th Dec 2017

We're on a beautiful campsite in Denia, Spain at the moment. It's called Camping Los Pinos. There are large pitches under loads or mature trees - pines obviously, as well as palm trees and (possibly) beech trees. A pair of red squirrels run around most days showing off how good they are at flinging themselves from branch to branch! We can see the sea from our pitch and walk along the promenade most days. The other campers are almost entirely non-Spanish which is a bit odd. We are a mix of mostly Brits, Dutch, Germans and French. The facilities are good and the staff friendly and, after 7 nights, the price has dropped to just €12.50 a night including electricity.

On the downside, our mobile wifi gadget doesn't work here - presumably because the Montgo mountain that towers over the campsite is blocking its signal - and the campsite wifi, while free, is pretty useless for most of the day. Consequently I've been concentrating on keeping Artisan Rainbow and Literary Flits going and rather neglecting posting over here. Oops! Fortunately we've not been doing much to tell you all about anyway!

We have been cycling and had a walk up over the hill towards Xabia. We reckon we could walk all the way there, have ourselves a lunch and walk back so we're looking forward to doing that between Christmas and New Year. In fact, having driven the winding road to Xabia on Wednesday, it might almost be quicker to walk! We camped in Xabia three winters ago so it was fun to walk around again and reminisce. The excellent Indian grocer is still in the Arenal part of town so we stocked up on spices. Then we walked to the beachfront and treated ourselves to coffee und kuchen at the Austrian Cafe. It was almost nothing like being back in Vienna but very good all the same!

Wednesday evening saw us eating out again - twice in one day and we were out after dark! The Indian Palace restaurant was almost deserted apart from us, but the food was absolutely delicious. If you're ever in Denia, I am happy to recommend it to you.

Merry Christmas!

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
S A T U R D A Y
S U N D A Y

Currently reading

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

tagged: currently-reading, fiction-africa, and charity-shop-find

A weekend in Bristol - Blackbeard to Banksy Walking Tour

Pixel Pancho street art, Bristol 

We were back in Bristol this weekend just gone visiting with Dave's family. Bristol is still my favourite of the UK cities I have visited because I love its creative vibe and enthusiasm for independent businesses. There's a strong motivation towards sustainable living too which could well get a real boost on May 5th. If you live in Bristol, South Gloucestershire or Bath and North East Somerset, vote for The Green Party's Darren Hall to be your Metro Mayor! Far from an insignificant or decorative role, the Metro Mayor will command a £1billion budget over the next 30 years and will shape the West of England’s landscape by deciding where new homes, amenities and transport routes will be built.

El Mac street art, Bristol 

Dave's daughter, Gemma, always finds us something great to do when we visit her city and this trip was certainly no exception as she booked us onto a fascinating walking tour. The Blackbeard To Banksy tour incorporates history and street art, two of our favourite topics, so its two hour duration absolutely flew by. It is led by local artist Duncan McKellar who both knows his subject well and imparts this knowledge in an engaging and entertaining style. He took us through Saxon alleyways and to pubs famed for their pirate or literary connections. We also saw the largest, the tiniest and the most famous street art in Bristol. The first two photos on this post are of huge works created for the See No Evil street art festival on and around Nelson Street. The second two are of phenomenally detailed images painted by Ben Wilson onto pavement chewing gum blobs. Really!! We also admired the iconic Banksy on Frogmore Street, Well Hung Lover. Excellent value at just £7 per person, I would highly recommend the Blackbeard To Banksy walking tour to both tourists and Bristol natives!

Chewing gum art by
Ben Wilson, Bristol 

Coincidentally, part-way around the tour, Duncan recommended a Lebanese restaurant, Mezze Palace, as a great place to dine. We had eaten there on the Friday evening and I am more than happy to second his opinion. It doesn't look much from the outside, but I loved the stone wall decor inside and the low curved ceiling. The food is good too with generous portions we struggled to do justice to! If you're down by the harbourside and getting peckish, I'd suggest a visit to The Pi Shop too. It's an upmarket pizzeria. We shared two pizzas between four for our lunch after the walking tour. The one with Wye Valley asparagus and sheep's cheese was absolutely delicious!

Visiting London: Borough Market, Tate Modern and The Blues Kitchen

Staying overnight in Tulse Hill this weekend meant that

The Shard, London 

our journey into central London took us to London Bridge railway station instead of our more usual starting point of London Victoria. I didn't realise the iconic Shard building was going to be directly overhead and looking straight up from its base was bizarre. Vertigo alert! We also spotted the Gherkin, the Cheese Grater and the new Walkie Talkie building peeping over the skyline. I couldn't get such good photos of that trio though and I am quite proud of this moody Shard shot!

Our first destination was Borough Market which I have heard about from others many times, but never actually visited before. On the way we passed a(nother) replica of Francis Drake's ship, The Golden Hinde. We were a little blase about it having recently seen a remarkably similar Golden Hinde in Brixham. Did someone order a job lot?!

Borough Market wasn't so much a place to visit as a giant hall to struggle through. Perhaps a rainy Saturday in June wasn't the best time to go because hundreds of other people had had the same idea. I got an idea of the wealth and variety of products on offer and the whole experience was quite overwhelming, but there wasn't enough space to properly browse. Our guide, Dave's daughter Carrie, told us that it's never much quieter there regardless of when you go! We did find a good lunch from the street food stalls. Dave sampled a Balkan spinach and cheese burek and I chose an Indian chickpea pancake filled with masala potatoes.

Tate Modern was also busy (especially the cafe where we

Valentine by Evelyne Axell 

were served quickly but had nowhere to sit!) but the crowds here were far less rushed. We toured the free galleries of hit-and-miss modern art. I found a few pieces I really liked, all of which (I think) was by artists whose work I hadn't seen before. Pictured to the right is Valentine created in 1966 by Belgian artist Evelyne Axell. Valentine depicts the liberation of the female body as personified by Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. It is oil on canvas with the addition of an zipper and a helmet.

Babel 2001 by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles was fabulous but impossible for me to photograph well as it was displayed in a darkened space. The work illustrates the information overload experienced in modern society and consists of a huge tower made of radios. There were dozens of them dating from the 1940s to the 2000s, tuned to different radio stations, and stacked from the floor to almost the high gallery ceiling. Finally, a display of numerous images by German artist John Heartfield were surprising as they were created and displayed in the 1930s and are very anti-Hitler and Nazi-ism. Six are pictured below so you can get the idea.

Images by John Heartfield 

After the Tate Modern we made our way to Brixton for an evening at the Ritzy Cinema. Last year we saw the film Suffragette there and this time we were lucky to catch the new Michael Moore documentary, Where To Invade Next. It's an interesting film which I will soon blog about fully in a post of its own.

The Blues Kitchen
(photo pinched from their website!) 

That busy Saturday pretty much wore us out and neighbours partying in their garden until 4am didn't allow us much sleep so I was glad to be taken to The Blues Kitchen for a reviving Sunday brunch. I absolutely loved the decor and ambience here. There is parquet flooring on the walls, Blues music images everywhere, a neon name in a fishtank, stained glass lampshades and beautiful copper tables. Whoever designed this place did a fantastic job! The food is excellent too. I had the Healthy Breakfast which included poached eggs, fried kale and sweetcorn fritters. Those fritters are now my new favourite food! And the coffee was considerably better than that served at the Tate. I definitely want to go back to The Blues Kitchen next time we are round Brixton way.

A birthday lunch at Cranks vegetarian restaurant, Dartington

Thank you so much for all your birthday presents, phone

Willow tunnel at Dartington 

calls, messages and emails yesterday! It's official - I'm forty-one :-( Eeek!

As mentioned in my previous post about the unusual shops there, we did return to Dartington for my birthday lunch. Cranks restaurants started in London in the 1960s and Dave remembers them being the first real vegetarian eateries. Dartington is now the only one left of the chain as the general popularity of vegetarian food meant too much competition for the London branches and apparently it is not truly independent anymore, but part of the Nando's grocery group. Cranks still serves excellent food though!

I had Aubergine Charlotte which was lots of tangy feta

Aubergine Charlotte at Cranks 

cheese and juicy mushrooms in a delicious aubergine wrapping. Dave had the seasonal tart which was spinach and mushroom. Both were served with Cranks Salad - actually portions of four different salads - so the whole meal was filling and good value at about £11 each including a drink - I can recommend the Vanilla Steamer. Service is cafeteria style so we could actually see the various options before ordering and the place was nicely busy - buzzing, but not uncomfortably packed. I would definitely go there again.

Parking at Dartington is 50p for an hour or £1 for four hours (and contrary to the car park sign, you can now get a parking refund at Cranks subject to a spend of over £10) so we thought we would make the most of it by walking some of the Sustrans off-road path towards Totnes. The path goes through woodland carpeted with bluebells, primroses and wild garlic flowers. We also saw a patch of kingcups - essentially giant buttercups. Interesting fauna was limited to a single yellow wagtail and a tiny brown and cream warbler-type bird that will probably be forever unidentified.

I was impressed to see a working waterwheel on the side of an architect's offices, then at the edge of the Dartington Estate we found the above pictured  willow tunnel over a boardwalk leading to an observation space. There wasn't actually much yet to observe, though signs of work underway for a nature conservation area. I thought boardwalk markings for www.greenspace.co.uk would lead us to information, but they turn out to be the company that made the boardwalk!

Further along the River Dart, I was very excited to discover

Looking across the River Dart 

the Totnes Hydropower Scheme. Completed in December and now, I think, just in the final landscaping phase, this project utilises a pair of Archimedes Screws - just like we saw at Cragside last year - to create enough hydroelectric power for a school and nearly 300 homes. How fantastic is that?! The power house building also incorporates a fish ladder to enable and encourage salmon and sea trout, and will have a canoe launch and natural recreational areas. I was so amazed to see this technology we had previously admired working in its historical setting actually being put to use here for the future. Well done Totnes!

A final note on a completely different subject: Dave has just renewed his Kaspersky anti-virus software and, as a thank you and a promotional thing, Kaspersky have a special offer for any new customers he recommends. Please Use This Link to buy your new software at up to 50% off the usual price. You will also receive a £5 Amazon voucher and Dave will get a £10 Amazon voucher. Woo hoo!

Revisiting Le Boulou and Collioure - there's always more to see

Marta, one of our friends currently 'next door', wanted to

Sainte Marie at Le Boulou 

visit the tourist office in Le Boulou yesterday so Dave and I decided to accompany her for the cycle along the brilliant Voie Verte. It was a sunny wind-free afternoon and we even saw another hoopoe by the Plan d'Eau lakes! (Turns out they're a bit like buses ... !) Once at the tourist office, Marta got chatting with the staff which led to their offering to open up the historic Sainte Marie church. Sainte Marie dates from the tenth century with its impressive carved portal being apparently a twelfth century addition. Once inside, there are fifteenth century painted panels on the walls, but these are very dark so it was difficult to make out the scenes. However what really stands out is the incredibly flamboyant high altar which almost seems too big for the church. It is made of marble and, once we found the light switch to illuminate it properly, was astounding to see.

Sainte Marie at Le Boulou 

Today we revisited our Le Racou to Collioure walk, this time with Chris and Marta and sunshine all day! We all treated ourselves to a delicious Menu de Jour lunch at Restaurant Le Dali which Dave recalled him and I visiting on our first visit ten years ago. Then we all made our way to the Musee d'Art Moderne which is a lovely little gallery with two floors of local paintings and photography ranging from wow to hmm! I particularly liked a pair of acrylic on wood works by Patrick Jude. Entitled Yin and Yang, they were created in 2005 and show the view out over Collioure harbour in a fun way. Other highlights included a series of sixteen wickedly detailed paintings by Emmanuelle Jude - all depicting tourists eating ice cream - and several weirdly staged photographs by Aurore Valade. Both the latter two artists are featured in this Vent Sud post about the Musee exhibition. This exhibition finishes on the 21st of February so we might just have to come back in March to see what's new!

Opposite Collioure tourist office we were lucky to also spot

Photo Expo ville de Collioure 

a free photography exhibition being held in the old Mairie. Works included historic black and white photographs of the pre-war town and these were shown alongside early colour images probably from the 1970s or 1980s and present day shots capturing the vivid colours of Collioure as it is now. Several of the present day photographs were in black and white too - very sharp images compared to the early pictures. The Expo was subtitled Streets and Scenes of Streets in Collioure and showcased various ideas from large family and friend groups to empty streets, scenes of the town carnival, random ballerinas, people outside cafes and bars, and one memorable shot of two young women waist-high in snow! This exhibition finishes on the 31st January so we were pleased to have caught it.