Bees!

A while back I'd seen this recipe for 'Bienenstich' cake, a traditional German cake that translates as Beesting cake. It sounded interesting and I wanted to give it a try, so had a go for my Dad's birthday.

Bienenstich is a yeasty cake, that needs rising time and doesn't have much sugar but does have an amazing honey and almond topping. I was pretty nervous as it was made quite differently to your average Victoria sponge, but the results were better than expected although I did have a little trouble with the filling.

Bee's my own addition (guess which one is Jimmy's!)

Cats and cake...ohhh Viennaaa!

Shortly after our visit to Prague, in fact the very next week, we spent 5 days in an amazing apartment in Vienna. It felt almost luxurious to not try to cram everything the city had to offer into 2 days!

Vienna was the ideal holiday due to the copious amounts of cats and cake! Vienna is home to a cat cafe...which is basically what it sounds like - a cafe with cats in. Probably our favourite was Moritz below.

We stayed in an apartment just above 'Grimm's Bakery', supposedly the oldest bakery in Vienna so it was important that we sampled some of their breakfast pastries. However, a rainy day was spent in search of the best Sachertorte in Vienna (the cake that was invented in the city), and we spent a silly amount of time queuing at 'Demels' for this. Jimmy unfortunately couldn't save his sachertorte in time for the photo!

We also found time for lots of statues of composers, palaces and the excellent Schonbrunn zoo in the grounds of the palace. Vienna didn't feel quite as 'Austrian' as I was expecting, although I feel that my many, many viewings of The Sound of Music may have influenced my views on this! Lots to do however in the city as well as schnitzel and strudel!

First stop...Prague!

We had rather a good May, with two holidays! First, a weekend in Prague! We travelled Friday night, finally arriving at the hostel around 2am Saturday morning and proceeded to pack as much into the weekend as we could!

 Prague has a lot more to do than I expected, as well as being far prettier and more picturesque than either of us had anticipated. I suppose we were stuck in Prague's past and expecting a very communist/eastern bloc type city. Prague is actually a beautiful city to walk around, and I would gladly go back just to spend more time taking in the scenery.

Apart from the usual castles and good views, we also visited the Staropramen brewery (cheesy but fun!) and a KGB museum complete with guided tour from a very nice man with a very strong Russian accent!

We also visited the Museum of Communism, where Jimmy met Stalin, as well as walking up a lot of steps to Prague's huge castle, including the beautiful St Vitus's Cathedral - home to some of the most spectacular stained glass windows I have ever seen.

A real highlight for me was getting to visit the Mucha museum and see some of the work of one of my favourite artists up close.

A few new London visits

One of the best things about living in London is that there's always something new to do, whether that's something new opening up or something that you haven't got round to yet.

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Olympic park in its' current state - having last been there in July for the Paralympic Games. The visit included a short tour around the park, and most excitingly the chance to go up the Arcelor Mittal tower - the massive, abstract red structure that gives views across the surrounding area. We visited with a Chinese friend, which was also very interesting as a chance to discuss our take on the Olympic Games compared to Beijing's.

The week before I visited Libertys department store, just off Regent Street. Although I had walked past several times and knew the name well, I had never actually been in. The building is beautiful, and the range of fabrics they have is stunning. They also do a good cup of tea and tasty cake!

Finally, we have been twice now to Surrey Docks City Farm. The farm is just round the corner from us (bearing in mind we live in Zone 2) and is home to cows, pigs, donkeys, goats, sheep etc and is so wonderful to visit for a bit of nature in the middle of the city. Yesterday they held a spring fair, we managed to show up in time to catch the last of the morris dancing!

A sophisticated evening out on the town

On Monday we went to Burger & Lobster, a tasty restaurant where we both tried lobster for the first time. The novelty was good and it tasted expensive but the difficulty eating it meant I would choose the lobster roll (basically a lobster hot-dog), which Vicki had, next time.

We then went to the Wydhams theatre in Soho to see Quartermaine's Terms which was very good. The best play I've seen and the first one I would pay to see again. Rowan Atkinson plays an eager but ultimately very lonely St John Quartermaine and the play covers a couple of years at the end of his career as a teacher of English to foreign students in Cambridge in the 1950s.

Reg would have enjoyed it too but he was too fat to fit in the box we had, as you can see from the photo.

Wriggly Tin

Wriggly Tin - 'a slang term for corrugated iron'

Otherwise known as the shepherds hut where we spent the first few days of the Easter break. Jimmy's birthday was Good Friday, and his birthday surprise beginning Easter Monday was two nights staying in a shepherds hut in the middle of a field in Hampshire! A bit risky, but luckily he says he loved it!

Wriggly Tin consists of two very cute and very cosy shepherds huts fully equipped with warm bed and wood burning stove (the bathroom is in another hut across the field!). Our hut, called Butser, was just big enough for the two of us to sleep and cook our breakfast before heading out for the day to enjoy the countryside around us.



We were able to hire bikes, which we made full use of by trying to visit as many villages in one day as we could (we managed 5). It really did make me want to pack up my bags and leave London for the countryside, all the villages so pretty, especially in the sunshine.

Alex, the owner, provided us with a lovely breakfast basket full of local produce which really did taste so much better! Another excellent foodie time was visiting the tearooms in the nearest village of Hambledon, all homemade and very quaint with their collection of over 100 different teapots!


It was a definite wake up call to how much we rely on the everyday mod-cons of electricity and plumbing! But also really peaceful to be completely away from it all, just the two of us. Plus we were blessed with some beautiful weather which always puts a smile on my face!

I found Wriggly Tin on Canopy and Stars, which has lots of 'unique' places to stay including yurts and treehouses - quite keen on trying one of these next!

More info on Wriggly Tin can be found at Alex's website 

Book review...Doors Open

I only learnt to drive about a year and a half ago, and have yet to own my first car so I have always had a close relationship with public transport! Currently living in the middle of London and working in Kent, my closest friend at the moment is the 7:08 to Tunbridge Wells so I spend an awful lot of time reading - meaning I always need a good book in my bag so I don't need to succumb to the celebrity pages of the Metro!

I just finished 'Doors Open' by Ian Rankin - one of Jimmy's that he hasn't yet read from Christmas.
It was probably different to what I would normally read, but I'm broaden my reading horizons a little bit lately and have been trying out lots of different genres and authors.

Doors Open is a crime novel I suppose, but with a bit of a twist in the sense that the main characters hatch a plan to 'liberate' some priceless artworks that are being stored away from public view.

The book has quite a few twists and turns, and although a lot of people may see the ending coming it took me a while! There's some very interesting characters, and the story is easy to read - a bonus for early mornings! It's also set in Edinburgh, and having visited a few years ago it was good fun remembering the landmarks that the characters visited.

ITV made a tv movie of the book which showed over Christmas, so I'm now looking forward to watching Steven Fry's portrayal of the art school professor!

Just a little baking...

I've just made this recipe again, and it was just as good the second time so I thought it was worth posting! I got this from a recipe calendar, but can't remember the magazine it came from...and adapted slightly.

50g unsalted butter
175g plain white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g caster sugar
1 egg
120ml milk
125g blueberries
100g white chocolate (chopped)

Heat oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
Melt the butter, and allow to cool a little before whisking together with the egg and milk. Beat into the flour mixture.
Mix in the berries and chocolate before pouring into a loaf tin.
Bake for approx 50-55 mins and leave to cool before turning out of the tin.

This cake is so easy, and the blueberries make it really moist. Drizzle with icing, or dust with icing sugar to finish!

Oslo in pictures

Just before Christmas we took a little trip to Oslo for the weekend, to enjoy some serious snow! We woke up on the first morning to this:

It was super cold, and we stocked up on thermals before we went. However, we were amazed at how life simply goes on as normal with such heavy snow yet grinds to a standstill when we have just a couple of centimetres in England!

We got ourselves an 'Oslo pass' on the first day, which worked out really good value as it got us onto buses and into all of the attractions and museums for free.

One of the highlights was seeing two versions of The Scream at the Edvard Munch gallery, which was really fantastic having studied the painting in my school art lessons! (See Jimmy doing his best 'Scream' impression!)

Many of Oslo's museums are on Bygdoy, which is a peninsula to the Western side of Oslo. This was great as we headed over there and were able to walk from museum to museum around the island. We saw a lot of boats including the Polar Ship Fram, Kon Tiki (to the left) and some Viking boats.




We also visited the Norwegian Folk museum, probably my favourite as it was an open air museum that allowed you to walk around houses and buildings through the ages.






However, the best was yet to come...on the Sunday we went toboganning! Neither of us had done anything similar before, but both agreed it was awesome! We had to get on a little train up to the top of the slopes, which was pretty eerie at first as the train dropped us off in the middle of what looked like an arctic wilderness!

However, we found our way and spend the whole morning whizzing down the slopes and occasionally falling into snowdrifts (mostly me). Even Reginald enjoyed himself!

An amazing weekend away, and a fantastic way to get in the festive spirit!