Tag: london (page 4 of 12)

November 16, 2014 / 0 Comments

The Weekend

I haven’t disappeared completely. This week has been insanely busy and with my computer on the fritz, it isn’t as easy to post as it normally is. But, I’ll get there slowly and surely. We’ve spent our weekend cleaning, organising and running a few errands. Mr. Michie met me after work on Friday and we headed to one of our favourite places, Wahaca. I had the chicken enchiladas with a creamy tomatillo sauce, it was delicioso!

We’ve walked, drunk copious amounts of tea, ate freshly made banana bread (no point in letting overripe bananas go to waste!). Watched holiday movies and feasted on hot chocolate for breakfast before going grocery shopping.

It has been such a nice weekend, I’ll be sad to see it come to an end.

November 10, 2014 / 0 Comments

Rooftop Sunset

October 16, 2014 / 0 Comments

Sunlight

For what started out as a pretty gloomy morning my tube ride was filled with light. Sunshine poured through every window, nook and cranny. It filled my soul with happiness and hope, for that is what the light is supposed to do.

October 13, 2014 / 0 Comments

Rain

It was dark, raining and very windy when I left the cottage this morning. It was still dark when my train pulled into London. The view from my carriage window was blurred by the raindrops speeding down the glass, their velocity matching the train. The lights we passed seemed to stretch out for miles, the dark and the rain exaggerating their glow.

I found my salvation this morning at 7:26am, while waiting for the tube, I took my first glorious sip of hot coffee. I’m normally up not long after 5, so by that point in the morning, I am more than ready for a little jolt of caffeine. Everyone was quiet this morning. The darkness, the rain, the fact that it was another Monday all played their part, I think.

It has rained off and on all day. Night is starting to close in earlier now. You can tell that we are not that far off from moving our clocks back and shortening our days. We have sat on the cusp long enough, I think we are finally slipping into Autumn.

September 30, 2014 / 0 Comments

French Fries

Mr. Michie had a late school evening tonight, so I took advantage of that and ran a few errands that I needed to get done after I left school today. My last stop was dinner. I wasn’t overly hungry, but I was craving something naughty, so my dinner of choice tonight was Five Guys french fries with lots of ketchup. They were delicious!

September 25, 2014 / 0 Comments

In the Homestretch

“Sometimes life is tough and that’s okay!” That was the caption under this image when I found it ages ago. I know I have used it before in a post and again today, it perfectly sums up how I feel. I feel exhausted, bedraggled, I’ve got a humdinger of a sinus infection and I want to be like this little bunny, laid out on my couch.

This has been a very busy week at work and in our house. Mr. Michie has been sick as well, so neither of us are getting a lot of sleep, I feel like a zombie. The thought of getting on the tube to go home tonight and have insane people try and cram into the carriages when they are already filled to capacity, made me want to cry. But, I persevered, I just want to get home in one piece and as stress free as possible, so I refuse to fight people for space, or rush past them to grab a seat, I just take it as it comes.

I’m so happy tomorrow is Friday, for that means the weekend is here and I am going to just rest, even though I would rather plow through my to-do list, the wisest thing for my mind, body and spirit will be to let them rest. I’m gonna try very hard to do that!

September 21, 2014 / 0 Comments

A Walk

We stayed in on Saturday, Mr. Michie was a bit under the weather. Which was just fine. I cleaned the house, he rested, we listened to music, made dinner, the house was calm and quiet. It was a lovely feeling compared to the hustle and bustle of the week.

Today we ran in to Marylebone as I needed to run a few errands and Mr. Michie came with me. The day was cool and sunny, it felt like Autumn. We took a short stroll through Regent’s Park to sit beside the miniature waterfall within the island part of the Japanese garden. Being there restores my soul. I feel as if I have stepped in to another world and it is all my own.

Slowly, the leaves are beginning to change, there were the hints of gold and red and orange around us. As we headed back out we walked by a ginormous sunflower that was starting to lean over as the starburst of a flower head was just to heavy.

We stopped by the Farmer’s Market before heading home. The air was filled with the scents of sausages being freshly cooked, sizzling away in a large cast iron skillet with onions slowly browning next to them and the heady scent of apples mixing with that to perfume the air in an intoxicating way.

We stopped by one stall selling a variety of vegetables and fresh eggs. He had the most beautiful duck egg blue fleshed heirloom pumpkins. One of them just jumped right in to my hands and came home with me. It was lovely to be out for a few hours, that is not something we normally do on a Sunday as work seems to take it over, but I was happy to reclaim back some time just for us.

September 19, 2014 / 0 Comments

A Ray of Sunshine

This was my brief glimpse of the sun this morning. It tried so hard to peak out from behind the clouds, but alas, the clouds won and the sky has turned to ash grey again.

It rained last night and the morning air felt clean. The air was crisp, but by the time I made it into the city, it had started to become muggy. Everyone was moving slower this morning. Not the usual exciting pace a Friday morning normally has. Maybe it is the weather, it can’t decide whether it should be hot or be cold. Everyone seems tired, worn out already, waiting for a pause to catch their breath.

This has been such a busy week, I will confess, that I have been living for today. Waiting for a break. I got back in the pool for the first time since our summer vacation this week to put in more hours towards my scuba certification. I was a little rusty, but I remembered the majority of it! It was wonderful to feel the weight of the tank on my back and the rush of water washing over me as I jumped in. I love being under the water, it is a certain kind of freedom.

I have tried very hard to come in to my space this week. But, it has proved difficult. I must work harder to find my balance as this little space is also a freedom for me. A freedom to write, to think, to share.

There are papers to grade this weekend, a cottage to clean and hopefully a long meandering walk through the park. I can feel the Japanese Garden in Regent’s Park calling my name. I want to walk from one end to the other and cut down our “secret” path that is behind the London Zoo, so we can look down at the animals from the hill. The camels are normally outside munching away and if we are lucky the warthogs will be out lying in the mud when we cross the bridge.

Here’s to the weekend, long may it last.

September 9, 2014 / 0 Comments

The Quiet

Quiet moments. I am trying to grab as many as I can at the moment. They seem few and far between. School is busy as it always is, trying to get back fully in to the swing of things and find our rhythm again is tough. We will get there I know. We move around each other in the morning, slowly, quietly, a kiss, a small smile, a gaze over a bowl of yogurt or oatmeal or cereal.

I normally read when I travel, but this morning, I listened to music and soaked in the cool air while I walked to the station. The weather is starting to turn. The morning was crisp and I could see my breath as I exhaled in one continuous stream. A mist had settled over the fields as the train sped by and the sunlight streaming down made the lake sparkle as if it was on fire.

I was tempted to veer off in to Regent’s Park this morning and sit in the Japanese garden with my cup of coffee. But I didn’t. I inhaled the scent of coffee beans and vanilla before tasting my first glorious sip of the morning. I disappeared again down in to the tube station, but since I chose to take an overground train this morning, sunlight dappled my path and danced around the floor as the train made it’s way along the tracks. I listened to my music and swayed with the motion of the train. I was content. I found my quiet this morning, no matter how briefly it lasted, it was mine for a moment and in that moment my world was still.

{Image found HERE}

July 21, 2014 / 0 Comments

Summer Squash Pizza

I love vegetables! One thing I truly miss living in London is the roadside vegetable stands and pop-up Farmer’s Markets that exist in the South. The places you stop by on a hot Summer day, the vegetables still warm from being picked out of the fields. A Southern staple is yellow squash. I have not been able to get it in England until recently. Last year we noticed that Whole Foods was selling it and like crazy people we stocked up.

This year, I have done the same. Stocking up, slicing it and throwing it in to the freezer, so we have it as a side dish or to throw in to soups, pastas, risottos or in a vegetable medley. I picked some up on my way home from work on Friday and an idea started buzzing in my head. I knew just what I was going to do with it. Mr. Michie was on a school field trip on Saturday and I decided that I would make pizza for dinner. I have played around and around with this one particular dough recipe we like, making adjustments and tweaks and I have finally perfected it to satisfy our tastebuds.

I made the dough early in the day, so it had plenty of time to rise and just be. Before, Mr. Michie got home, I sauteed thin slices of yellow squash and cubes of pancetta. I also slowly cooked down an onion, till it was golden yellow and tender. Once he arrived home we got to work. I shaped the dough and brushed it with garlic oil and a little salt. We sprinkled freshly grated mozzarella over the top and then layered on onions, squash and pancetta. We finished it off with little dollops of ricotta, here and there. Once it was out of the oven it had a sprinkle of freshly chopped basil and some oregano.

It was wonderful. It was the taste of Summer in your mouth, the salty, the sweet, the savoury. It is most definitely a combination that we would make again.

{We have tried many different dough recipes over the years and this has become our favorite. I have made my own tweaks to the dough, but this is the recipe I used before I took the leap to start changing things: Annie’s Eats Homemade Pizza Dough}