The search for the polos

This weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Pembrokeshire for the banquet. We started driving straight after work and after several stops for food, toilet, and getting Miss B into her PJs we made it to our B&B and went straight to bed.

This gave us all Saturday to potter around and get ready, so we took Miss B to run around on a windswept beach before going back for a dose of CBeebies and sorting out our costumes. I don't have any photos of us all though.

This year the theme was the travels of Marco Polo, so dishes served were taken from China, India and Venice, with one return taken from each. As always the food was superb. From China we had mutton dumplings, crispy duck, plum balls (drool!) and "clairvoyant biscuits" as a subtlety. From India it was breads and chutneys, a fantastic "pre-Columban" (i.e. no chillis) chicken curry, a lovely coconut desert thingy, followed by an (un-) subtlety of a very daft Kama Sutra inspired cake. Finally, the Venician return was pigeon and mushrooms in cream (fantastic), salt fish and bread (wow) and a gorgeous lemon torte, with little chocolate thingies as a subtlety to finish off. Of course there was plenty of mead and ale to wash it all down.

<3 and I were doing entertainment again this year as they haven't worked out how to stop us yet, but at least some quality was introduced into the procedings with one of the other banqueters putting her lovely voice to good use. So <3 wowed everyone with a very delicate performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I got everyone standing up (mostly on chairs), and for this year's firsts: I danced a solo jig in public for the first time (Princess Royal, Bampton — inexpertly, but it went OK) and then drummed (on my djembe -- again inexpertly) for <3 to dance.

Lots of fun. The discussions have already begun on what next year's theme will be.

Weekend

Some of the win from the weekend...

• We all went to a car boot sale at the donkey sanctuary, so saw the donkeys and bought some tat. We also bought a big bag of plums which got made into some very tasty jam.
• Would you believe that we had our first barbecue of the year? Well, we've been to a couple but hadn't had one in our own garden. This particular one featured our new speciality: barbecued flatbreads. We'll be doing them again.
• Another gallon of turbo cider is on its way. This time I have added a cup of tea to see how that affects things.
• Finally got around to watching In Bruges and laughed pretty much the whole way through. Great stuff. This was on <3's recommendation, and a good one. One of these days I'll persuade her to watch Fight Club.

Vegelicious

It's a bit sad. Our broad beans and peas are now just about giving up their last and we are now half way through the spuds. The peas (Feltham First), in particular, have been a spectacular success, providing us with a regular veg portion for something like two months now. I'm leaving the rest of them, along with the broads, to fatten up and dry for either winter pulse supplies or next year's seeds.

On the plus side, we're doing OK for courgettes, have a row of gorgeous red chard, a decent amount of carrots, the French beans are just starting to crop (and the runners look like they won't be far behind), there's enough spud left for at the rest of this month, and I'm backfilling the space they leave with pumpkins, the leeks are looking like they'll provide a good winter crop, and I've just sowed a row each of carrots and pak choi. I do need to start some more lettuces, though.

These new raised beds are really making gardening so much easier. I may even add more this winter.

Cafe Culture

I've had something stewing in my head for months about taking a small child to cafes and restaurants for food or snacks. This happens quite regularly for both myself and <3 so we seem to be building up a fair bit of experience.

Very often we grab a snack or a meal at a supermarket cafe, generally being convenient, decent value, and having the "right" facilities (primarily good baby changing spaces). Our experience is mostly with Tesco and Sainsbury's, and some thoughts come to mind...

• In one of the Sainsbury's stores we go to, the till service is usually slow due to a poorly thought out workflow (one person takes money and makes coffee, making for huge queues at busy times).
• Our other usual Sainsbury's has self-service drinks, which speeds things up, but usually has a very limited selection of "kiddie meals" available, even though the full range is still displayed on the menu boards. This can lead to frustration, but at least the Youngling isn't old enough to choose her own meals.
• Most Tesco cafes used to have a fantastic system where most adult meals were available in mini-portions, so we weren't limited to the usual fish fingers or chicken nugget child options. Unfortunately, over the last year or so, Tesco have been replacing their in-house cafes with Costa Coffee franchises, which means nice but pricey coffee and far less child-friendly.

It must be said that most motorway service stations are pretty darn good for dealing with kids (even if they are not that good for adults!) but that's no good when out shopping. We're also impressed with Ikea (though the nearest is over an hour away), but there is little they do that isn't well thought out from a family point of view. Then, of course, there are the independent cafes and smaller chains, but I could probably write a book on them, so I won't bother.

No real point to this, just some musings.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Hadron

I finally got home from Geneva at about midnight on Friday, after an OK trip — once again BA didn't lose my luggage at T5, although for a while it looks like it had. Just as I was about to go to the enquiries desk, there appeared my little case packed with dirty clothes.

The week was interesting, though a lot of the content of the meetings went over my head. Probably the most useful aspect was getting to meet and chat with a load of the UK grid people (including several who work at the same site as me) who I will be working with over the coming months and years.

We ate well too, including a stonking steak at Cafe de l'Aviation, a veal saute thingie at a great little bistro in a back street, a proper Italian-style pizza laden with fish, and my first ever steak tartare, which was really very nice. Unfortunately no fondue this time though.

As pretty much expected I didn't get to have a proper look around CERN. It would have been great to look into one of the experiment caverns, but them's the breaks. They've already started to cool the ring down (it'll get below 2K over the next few weeks, so darn cold!) and are planning to fireup the first beams later in the summer, so I think the chances of getting a real look are diminishing now. It's all very exciting stuff though. I expect we'll be seeing a lot of press coverage later in the year, though it'll be some time before the LHC is running at full power.

Chilli Child

So there we were at the noodle bar, the Youngling in her highchair and munching through spring rolls, noodles and prawn crackers, when she noticed that <3 and I were dipping prawn crackers into a dish of chilli sauce. Next thing I have a cracker thrust at me with some waving and looks that left me in no doubt that the Youngling wanted it dipped too. Okay, I thought, so I dipped for her and handed it back. She sucked the sauce off and gave me the cracker again.

After a couple of iterations, we let the Youngling dip for herself, which she did in a very ladylike manner and continued to do so until eventually she stopped, pulled a face looking like she was chewing a wasp (or, perhaps a heap of chilli sauce) and expressed displeasure quite loudly.

A drink of water and some rice later and all was well again, though I don't think she trusts prawn crackers any more.

I get the feeling we are bad parents...

Anniversary Binge

So yesterday was our anniversary and as a friend of <3's had volunteered to babysit for us we managed to celebrate by going out for dinner. The one friend had actually turned into two and they happily spent the evening watching Serenity while the Youngling snoozed happily in her bed.

Dinner was at the Yummy Thai restaurant in Wantage, chosen because we both rather like Thai food and have walked past the place on many an occasion and figured that we really should try it out. Now, I reckon our standard benchmark for an eatery is would we take our foody friends, E. and I. to it? Based on ambience (very homely, reasonably busy for a Thursday, quiet music, very friendly and polite staff) and starters (very nice dim sum and tempura) we decided that this place passed.

The more advanced standard for a restaurant is if, having brought E. and I. along, would E. use the word "sublime" about the food. I think, having tried the crystal scallops, the answer to that is almost certainly yes. Melt-in-the mouth scallops in garlic, lovely stuff. The rest of the food was excellent too. We'll definitely be going back.

<3 and I had agreed to stick to token presents to mark the occasion. She got me a pair of rhythm bones, curved sticks that can be held in one hand in such a way that they can be used as a sort of rattle. All I need to do is learn how to do this properly — I'm slowly making progress.

Munchus Maximus

That was quite some weekend... Friday after work <3 and I drove to Heathrow to pick up F., then zapped over to Blackwood to crash with I. & E., who welcomed us with a log fire and a big bowl of chicken soup. Saturday morning we set off in convoy to Little Haven, a Pembrokeshire village, nestled in a tiny valley on the coast near Haverfordwest, where we were attending this year's banquet.

This year was set in the Byzantine Empire and presented more-or-less Roman style, with a series of tables carried in, each laden with food and placed amongst a group of reclining banqueters. Food was plentiful and included the now legendary beef-cooked-like-bear, baby octopi, quail, stuffed squashes, venison, cheese, baklava, and more other stuff than I can remember. Drink flowed freely, and due to problems related to everyone eating from the cushion-strewn floor, occasionally flowed across said floor, which got a bit sticky from mead and ale in places. Songs were sung (I'm pleased to say that we managed to find the words to "Old MacDonald" and other songs in Latin) and much silliness occurred.

The next day we had to leave fairly early in order to get F. back for her flight from Heathrow, but managed to do this in good time, introducing her to almost the entire length of the M4 and (including the trip down) no less than five service stations (note: we even got free steamed milk for <3 at the Swansea West services, which shocked and pleased us in equal measure). A great weekend, though I still need a couple of days to relax.

Milling and chatting before things got started. Thanks to F. for the pic.