By Alice | Published:
December 20, 2011
It was my birthday on Sunday and I celebrated with days and days of events spread over two weekends. I really love having my birthday and it’s exactly a week before Christmas so feels very festive and people are in a happy jolly mood.
Birthday number one was with my family, we met at an Italian place for lunch and then went to One Man, Two Guvnors and after we had dinner at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand which is a fun place to eat as it’s very traditional British food and they come and carve at your table.
Birthday number two was going with some friends for pizza and drinking. This was also jointly Simon’s birthday as our birthdays are close. We ate the pizza at La Cucina which was excellent and coped really well with having lots of people.
Then on my actual birthday we had a whole plan of going off to London but the weather was a bit crazy so instead we went for a delicious lunch around the corner at the Magdalen Arms (like last year), and went for a walk. The weather was indeed pretty crazy!
The annual picture of me when I make Simon take one :)
It was a very good birthday.
By Alice | Published:
November 20, 2011
December is birthday season in our house, I’d been starting to think about what I’d like to do for mine and I’d really like to have a meal at the Magdalen Arms like last year. This reminded me I had these unpublished Lomo pictures from a different celebration there in the summer. It is now one of my favourite places to eat in Oxford and luckily it’s only around the corner from my house. It has been a bit erratic but when they get it right they get it so very right.
This weekend I also came to the realisation that I really don’t want to leave the city. We’d been considering moving out to the countryside as we’d be able to get a much nicer and bigger house, and it would be quieter, safer, and nearer to my work. I like the life I have now though, where in the evenings and weekends I can walk or cycle everywhere, bump into lots of friends in the street, gigs just down the road, and of course have a wide choice of local eateries like the Magdalen Arms. Oxford is great!
By Alice | Published:
October 24, 2011
This weekend was Supersonic Festival, a festival that I’ve mentioned many times over the years, as ever it was fantastic and a really really fun four days. We saw lots of interesting music and talks, my highlights are hard to pick but possibly Wolves In The Throne Room and Alva Noto. During the day we continued our exploration of Birmingham where we had left off last time. This time we visited the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, the Back to Backs, Ikon gallery, the Cathedral, St Paul’s Gallery, as well as general visiting of record shops and so on.
For food we wanted to try new places we hadn’t been to on previous visits. We didn’t quite have the energy to make it out to the balti triangle so tried the more central Maharaja, which was tasty. We really liked Cafe Soya, especially the cheung fun. We had lunch one day on the floating cafe we had spotted last time, a greasy spoon type cafe in a narrow boat. One re-visit was to Cafe Chino, the HK style cafe, still great. We brought home a couple of things from Wah Kee bakery, their egg custard tarts are amazing. On our last day before we went to get the train we went to The Warehouse Cafe and had a delicious lunch, we had things from their smaller menu but I’d love to go back to it again to try from their main menu. Next year hopefully!
Birmingham Cathedral with Burne-Jones windows.
Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
Cafe Soya
Wah Kee custard tart
Food area at Supersonic, we didn’t actually eat here as we had enough during the day :)
Marketplace at Supersonic, I had lots of peppermint teas from the tea stall.
Back to Backs
Floating Coffee Co
Ikon
Cafe Chino
The Warehouse Cafe
By Alice | Published:
October 12, 2011
Some kind of somen, soup, mackerel invention. Yum.
By Alice | Published:
September 26, 2011
Why do some people with allotments like having bonfires so much? We live near several allotment areas and the smoke was particularly thick in our back garden on Sunday morning. Simon’s dad makes very nice jams, on our lasts visit we were given plum jelly, delicious!
