LADY DATE – SUMMER 2016
I’ve been very naughty and have taken a very
long time to write up this most recent Lady Date in London. To be fair I had my
sister’s wedding a couple of weekends ago and have been doing a lot of work on
my ‘new’ house – I will maybe be posting a little bit about this at some point
because I know some people are interested in these things – at the moment I
feel too stressed to talk about it and anytime someone asks me how the house is
coming I want to scream at them - so
give me time – plus you know I’m not great at these personal posts – I’m
working on it… for now I will give you a quick run down of what we got up to…
We started the day with butterflies; I wanted
to be sure we’d get in so in I booked in advance for the Sensational Butterflies event at The Natural History Museum. This
exhibition was housed in a gloriously humid greenhouse-come-tent in the
museum’s grounds. Immediately you enter
through those sticky plastic curtains and you are surrounded by free-flying
butterflies. There are a few stands with the names of the butterflies (mostly
long complicated Latin names) with pictures so you can tell which butterflies
are which. The most impressive ones to me were the slow moving butterflies,
they were brown on the inside and a beautiful blue on the outside and they
hovered in groups. The most impressive
thing about them was the fact that they moved so slowly and yet still managed
to stay in the air. (I didn’t manage to get a video of this hypnotic movement
but I did get a video of them congregating in a spot where someone spilt their
coffee here:
Our next stop was to walk around Highgate Cemetery.
I’d never been before and as it was a lovely day I thought it would be a nice excursion. It did take a little while to get there and a
bit of an unexpected hill climb from Archway tube station. We went to Highgate
East as the other side containing Highgate West was open for guided tours
only. It costs a small amount to enter
and you are given a map containing information and locations for the cemetery’s
most famous residents. Douglas Adams’
grave is austere with a little pot containing pens placed in front. The most
famous of all the monuments is the new resting place of Karl Marx, a very
impressive tomb which is popular among the tourists, one of whom had a portrait
taken in front of it while inexplicably holding a violin (which he didn’t
play!) Another highlight to see is the grave of Malcolm McLaren; his is
complete with a death mask, which is hardly surprising but quite rare for a
modern grave. It was heartwarming to see that people had left safety pins on
top in a sign of admiration much like the pens, flowers and stones seen on
other graves in the cemetery.
Our next stop was Cahoots, a London Underground themed cocktail bar with a ‘blitz
spirit.’ We hadn’t booked (as usual) and when we arrived there were already two
people waiting for ‘standing room.’ The man on the door, dressed in spiffy 1940s
get up, was friendly and welcoming and invited us to wait. We didn’t have to
wait long before we could go down the stairs and into the bar area. The
attention to detail was something special, even some of the floors were decked
out in the same wood as the old underground trains. Everyone was dressed
impeccably in World War II era style, victory rolls and tea dresses for the
girls and waistcoat and braces for the boys. A special mention has to go to the
maître d’ who was especially well turned out (by well turned out I mean good-looking
– in case that was lost on you?!)
I love my vodka-based cocktails and ‘Keep
Marm and Carry On’ did not disappoint. A fruity cocktail in a teacup containing
lemon curd, passion fruit juice, sloe gin and syrups of vanilla and cassia and
served with a biscuit. This was one of the most refreshing and delicious
cocktails I have had for a long time.
There were sandwiches and snacks available at
Cahoots but we had already planned
for our traditional pizza and so headed to one of our favourite areas in London
to Far Rockaway. This wasn’t our
original choice of destination. We actually went to Bethnal Green Station with
the intention of visiting Story Deli
down Bethnal Green Road. Little did we realize that not only is this road very
very long and we walked right down the other end of it but the Story Deli was no more. It was a shame
as I was really looking forward to trying what some people have described as
‘the best pizza they’ve had in their life.’ Unfortunately Far Rockaway was a bit of a disappointment. The décor was amazing; the place is strewn
with music posters that are fascinating to look at while you eat very mediocre
pizza. The worst thing about this place
was their Coke. It tasted disgusting, either their pumps are broken or their
syrup was running out or they bought some value cola from the Sainsbury’s down
the road. I have no idea what happened to
their Coke but I won’t be going back again. Maybe this explains why it was
empty on a Saturday?
Our next and last cocktail stop was The Cocktail Trading Co. I think we must
have walked past this place a million times without even noticing it, and it
wasn’t even a hidden spot like some we sometimes visit. I struggled to find a cocktail
to drink here. The menu was a little book with lots of information and humour
and even an impossible crossword in the back, but I had a hard time finding
something that I thought I’d like. There were only one or two vodka-based
cocktails but each of these had something odd about them that put me off, like
coffee and milk (whole milk teamed with kiwi sherbet and club soda was not a
good post-pizza drink in my mind.) So I had to forgo the vodka for something
called ‘Nightingales Gin-O-Cello.’ The cocktail I chose was called ‘Morning
Glory #2’ I was pleasantly surprised, whatever Nightingales Gin-O-Cello is, I enjoyed
it.
Rebecca’s cocktail was a little more
sensational than mine ‘Instaspam’ comes in a custom made SPAM tin and even
includes a little pot of ice cream.
For more photos of this Lady Date and others
go to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29592695@N08/albums/72157648848576528
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