What's a Crumpet?

In answer to a question in the comments of a blog I follow  this is what crumpets look like.  Unless you call them pikelets that is.

In my family, a crumpet is something around three quarters of an inch thick, whereas a pikelet is thinner.   Both are referred to, together with (English) muffins and fruited teacakes as "tea time toasties" in this household and are one of our weekend favourites for ...well....tea time, of course!

Hope that helps.

We meet, we eat...

We met Mary in London yesterday, spending time catching up with her in her "swapped" home in Bayswater before inevitably, going off to eat.  Sharing a meal in interesting surroundings in such great company is always a pleasure and as our tastes are remarkably similar the limited time we get to spend together is often around a table.

Onto lunch then at Fifteen.  It's awkwardly situated in a part of London which doesn't feature on our agenda generally, but Mary recommended it from a previous visit and we were only too pleased to give it a whirl.  Always up for a lunch invitation, so was Edward.

We were not disappointed!  Though the upstairs trattoria was noisy and every table packed, our table downstairs in the dining room was a little quieter.  But it was fun to have a drink in the clatter and chatter first and watch the immense boards of charcuterie go out from the kitchen - we must return and try some of that before long too.

No starched linen tablecloths here - the place is as unstuffy as one might expect - but the service and quality of the food was topnotch and we were delighted with all our choices.  Everything was tasty and well presented - not in the least bit twee or "designed" but simple and robust.  With a strong seasonal slant to the menu, we loved the rhubarby influence from the cocktails through to desserts.  Great!

The theatre last night was fun and we enjoyed the play with only one or two minor reservations. It was good to see a full theatre, too.  But a couple of reviews have hit the spot in commenting that it's a somewhat slight production - light on numbers, we felt - and lacked some of the ooomph we expected.  But some of the more drawn out parts of the film were dispensed with (no American scenes) and the condensed version of the story was more successfully told as a result.

This morning, we started the day with breakfast at the Wolseley - after all that "viennoiserie", birchermuesli, crepes, eggs benedict and full English breakfasts (not all eaten by the same person, I hasten to add) we drove home.

Will there be spare calories for chocolate?!

O Silver moon

The moon last night was simply magical and my photograph doesn't do it justice.

Getting ready

Approaching a holiday weekend, I'm always surprised at the hordes of people who appear to be preparing for a seige.  I arrived at Waitrose this morning before 9, to find the car park already half full and the store bustling with shoppers packing the food into their trolleys as if there was no tomorrow.

Being on holiday last week has meant plenty of do these last few days and both Mark and I seem to have been running around catching up rather than thinking of what needs to be done for Easter.

I found time to add a few feathers, Swedish style, to our trees by the front door and hung a few eggs on the all-purpose branch which sits in our porch from Advent until Easter.

This afternoon, I've baked some Easter Biscuits, to take with me tomorrow, when we're off up to London to meet our Californian friend, Mary.  Weve got lunch booked at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and tickets for Calendar Girls tomorrow evening.  Should be fun.

Oh, and I've finished my Sweden journal today, which must be a record.  It's a bit of a departure for me this time, for instead of using a ready-made plain sketchbook, I created all the pages from ephemera collected along the way and bound it using my Bind-it-all. 

I'm quite pleased with the end result - nno matter where we go, we always end up with loads of paper stuff, which turned out to be very useful in the end.

Last lap

Our last day here dawned dull and dreary, so it wasn't too hard to pack up, jump in the car and head for the airport.  We had a day to enjoy first though, so stopped off at Uppsala around lunchtime.  The guidebook suggested there were interesting things to see and we found a convenient (and free!) place to park right by the cathedral. It being Sunday, however, there was a service going on inside - not the best time to go exploring.

The rest of Uppsala was closed on this chilly Sunday lunchtime and any hope of finding somewhere to eat a hearty lunch was dashed.  Eventually we stumbled into a deserted Italian restaurant and each had a bowl of pasta, but this was mere fuel and nothing memorable.

But exciting things were happening on the river now, and standing by the weir, we watched as the first of many kayakers came down and through the rapids.  Totally crazy, we thought!

There's only so much excitement to take in however, so after a few races, we decided to head out towards Gamla Uppsala - the original old city - where there seemed to be interesting things to see.

This was another of those old landscapes and the site of three burial mounds, thought to be those of important characters...possibly kings...where some archaeological treasures have been found.

The museum here was open - good grief! - and so was the little old church, where a baptism had just finished.

The inside was lovely - more painted walls in similar style to those in Vadstena, and some rune stones too.  These weren't quite in the same league as yesterday, though.

Taking one last look at this wide open space, we gathered ourselves together and headed for the airport.

We've had a grand week here in Sweden, have been incredibly lucky with the weather and look forward to returning in June, to Umea - rather further north - when we'll hear more music, enjoy good company see another part of this fascinating country.

Update on Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 3:52PM by Gill Thomas

When time came to board the plane, we heard those magic words "You've been upgraded".  Sure enough, instead of the Airbus we'd expected, there was a long-haul format 767 on the stand, so not only did we get to eat supper from china plates with real metal cutlery, we got to recline and think of England too!  Thanks BA - we'd booked those flights on points, too, so can't even claim to have paid for the fun