England - Day 4

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After a slow start to the morning Sam and I ventured into the centre of the city to go and visit FIGO. We departed the train at Victoria station, which is one of the main stations in London. As you walk out of the station one of the first buildings that you see is the theatre that performs Billy Elliot. FIGO is located very close to New Scotland Yard.

FIGO was fairly quiet as it is the party conference season here at the moment. It was good though to catch up with Colin and James. Whilst anything is an option at the moment, i am hoping to change my flight back to the FI from the 18th to the 22nd December, the result being i am not weight listed. It was also very good to see the tail end of Griz Cockwell's art being displayed, Griz is a local artist and part of her display was removed earlier this week. A lot of the art featured landscapes with clearly defined, often angry looking skies. When i am photographing landscapes the sky is an important feature for separating one persons photo from another in my opinion. I loved the paintings Griz!

Unfortunately we had to leave early as i had a dental appointment back in Putney, an unfortunate toothache that has now been treated. Sam and I did take the opportunity to feast on some cod and chips for our lunch. Fish and chips is so much nicer for some reason when it is raining!

Spent the afternoon buying some essentials - boxers, socks, mosquito repellant (I have already been bitten on the finger in London!), antihistamine, sun cream (i got the expensive stuff that is suppose to last all day) and the lonely planet guide to Thailand. It was then time for coffee in cafe Nero. I have been in UK for 4 days now and only today picked up my first paper (not the Daily Sport).

Back at the house spoke to mother on Skype, good to hear the orcas are back. I downloaded the movie 'blackfish' to watch. I believe it is a documentary regarding Tilikum and the effect of captivity. I look forward to the photography in the wild and I am sure it will highlight how lucky we are to be able to see these fantastic mammals in the wild on Sea Lion Island. I am informed there are 2 elephant seal pups as well. I also downloaded the BBC series Africa, might as well watch it on the plane and in Africa! I also downloaded the entire 3 series of 'An Idiot Abroad', maybe i can pick up some tips from Karl Pilkington.

I also had a delightful phone chat with our Pammy (Mossman), our Falkland Island ambassador to Northern Ireland. I plan to go and visit Pammy and Chris when i return from Tanzania. If it coincides with my birthday there may need to be a rendition of banging on the pots and pans.

What a fantastic evening i had. Started with a pint of ale at Sam and Anna's local. The bar has a sausage platter instead of a cheese platter and it is possible to get a black pudding scotch egg. Knowing i was on the way to a tapas restaurant for supper i showed tremendous restraint.

I would highly recommend Roxy's tapas bar in Putney. It was such a shame that we were the only ones, we did get there full attention however. Round 1 - We started with olives and seranno ham, oh yes and a beautiful rioja! Round 2 - we ordered 2 dishes each to share - King prawns in a garlic sauce, spanish meatballs, chorizo, aubergine baked with manchego cheese, padron peppers (one of my choices) and calamari (we had to order). It all was so delicious so we couldn't stop there. Round 3 - Steak, chorizo and the aubergine with machego cheese. The outstadning dish was the aubergine and it worked so well with the chorizo. I think is is rare when all of the people dining agree on one dish! we also had another bottle of rioja. Round 4 - I had pecan pie and ice cream, oh boy that was great also. Our waitress was from Lithuania, we deduced that beaches are well worth visiting, they don't eat bear (Anna informed me you can buy it canned in Estonia) and the eat and drink lots of potatoes.

We had to walk up the hill to justify having pudding. There was a lot of rain today so it was nice to get home dry. Mr Cockers (being part Caribbean), decided to woo me with his extensive rum collection from Trinidad and Tobago. I was fascinated that a good rum with some ice, is as smooth to drink as a good whiskey. We had a few tots as every scientist should do to ensure this statement was statistically significant.

A champions league win for United finished off the perfect evening.

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Comments

[peter]

Tapas and orcas
Hi Andy. Good to hear you are coping well without the big skies and brisk breezes of the FI. If you like tapas you could do a lot worse than try Don Fernandos, a family-run place next door to Richmond station. (Plenty of good pubs within strolling distance, too). Am off to Sealion on Sunday, so looking forward to the Orcas. And you can buy a visa for Tanzania on arrival at the airport for $50. Any other questions about Tanzania, let me know. Try the Kilimanjaro beer... :-) Peter