I went to a wine tasting tonight at Cambridge Wine Merchants, this time to the branch on King’s Parade to taste Greek Wines.
“This is a rare chance to try wines from a part of Europe, which has produced wine for centuries, but where there are many undiscovered gems still waiting to be uncovered. One such, for example, is the white Assyrtiko variety, which we will taste on the evening.”
Michael and I met up with Christine, Jessica, Lewis, Mum and Dad for a day out in London. We took a bus across town to have lunch in a lively restaurant in Covent Garden. Walked across Hungerford Footbridge and had a ‘flight’ on the London Eye. Went to look at Buckingham Palace, then had a beer off Piccadilly. It was great to see the family and to have a day out in London—it’s the first time we’ve done anything like this in a big group.
Had a free glass of Campo Viejo rioja in the Arts Picture House before we watched the new Almodovar film, Volver. It was superb. Penelope Cruz and the the other three lead actresses were wonderful and this is really the best I’ve seen Cruz. She stares into the camera and at the other characters with fierce, dark eyes that make her look quite hard and wicked but seductive at the same time.
The film isn’t as off-beat or frantic as Almodovar’s earlier films. There is also a lot of charm, fun and love in this film.
Technorati Tags: Almodovar, Films, Penelope Cruz, Spanish, Volver
Michael and I went to Hotel Felix for dinner last night to celebrate our six-monthiversary of our Civil Partnership. We started with big cocktails, which was an opener for a tipsy evening. The food was good: the starters particularly so. Michael had slow-cooked cod with spinach jelly. I started with veal kidneys accompanied by lovely mushrooms. A bottle of white rioja to wash down the mains: rabbit roulade with puy lentils for Michael, and monkfish in a smoked paprika crust for me. We had an enjoyable walk home in the evening, about 40 mins, managing to dodge the rain and not be lured into any pubs. It was a lovely evening, bringing back the memories of the day—we can’t believe it’s been six months. We bumped into Shara after dinner) wedding manager for Hotel Felix) and she remembered us to say hello to, which was lovely.
Technorati Tags: Civil Partnership, Cambridge, Restaurant
After a couple of month of using Dospuntocero as the WordPress theme for this blog, I’d like to say a big thanks to Alex Sancho for the great theme and for releasing it for free. I love the bold colours and the single column, which make it clean and fun. The theme looks much better on Safari than on Internet Explorer, so that’s a perk for MAC users!
I used to go to the Farmers’ Market on market square religiously every Sunday. getting there about 9ish. I lost the habit a couple of years ago (Marks and Spencers Food Hall opened just round the corner…)
Went back today after months of meaning to, and stocked up with gorgeous organic veg, eggs and free-range chicken. My arms are two inches longer from the walk home. Feel healthier already.
“Cambridge Market Square” by GrahamMcCannCAM
Technorati Tags: Cambridge, Farmers Market, Organic
Today 
was the Pink Festival, Pink2006, held at at Cherry Hinton Hall. The weather in the morning was lovely, but it was clouding over by the time we left the house at 1.30. The festival was pretty quiet, not surprising with the looming clouds. We had a nice lunch, sheltering from the showers in a little tent. Wandered into the cabaret tent, seeing some of our neighbours there enjoying the show. Saw a little of the end of Amanda Playwith‘s act—she’s a local cabaret act who is very funny and lively. She was followed by Astariel (who cleared the tent, sadly). I thought he was rather good, he describes himself of his web site as a bit of a narcissist (this agrees with what I saw) and
A little bit of Marc Almond, a little bit of Billy MacKenzie, a lot of biting irony
… probably trying a little bit too hard as being intellectual. I’d like to see one of his gigs with the right audience for his style.
Michael bumped into a colleague from Engineering who was one of the five women from Grandpa George and the Jumping Fleas. They all live on boats and all play the electric ukulele. After 20 minutes of problems with the electrics, they did a few numbers which were great fun. The sun was shining and we sat on the grass to listen. Just towards the end of their set the rain set in again and we wandered off to explore the other tents: I had a nice chat with one of the Special Constable recruiters and ended up filling in a form. We’ll see what that leads to. At one of the stalls we bought some Naga Morresh Sauce, from Facing Heaven.The naga chilli got quite a bit of publicity recently as the hotest chilli grown, but the sauce is wonderfully flavourful, as well as being very nice and hot. Met Jonathan and Oliver at he festival, but the rain finally drove us away just before 5, in the (by then) pouring rain. Michael’s making some Thai vegetable masman curry now to warm us up!
The more I look at it the more I’m impressed by this photograph “Love” from Ian on his blog, chemical. The phoptograph was taken in St Matthew’s Street just off East Road, Cambridge.
Technorati Tags: Photography
Michael went off to London last night to see a musical, Avenue Q, with Chris, Matthew and friends. I didn’t think it was me and so I stayed at home: rather regretting it now, it sounds like it was a great night.
Finally watched Jarhead: Nuala and Joel gave me a copy for my birthday in June and I’d been aching to see it for a while. I’m not sure why it took us a couple of months to finally put it in the DVD player… Jake Gyllenhaal was really good as Swofford, and I liked his chunky, hunky look! The film was more thoughtful that a regular war film and even though the individual characters try to glamorise war for themselves, they never succeed. The camerawork was great. It’s the sort of film you could watch a second time and get something out of—watch this space!
Technorati Tags: Films