into a 3 day weekend

i like how the UK seems to put all bank holidays on a monday. i'm also pleased with this one as it seems like a great time to schedule a bank holiday--the last week of August--odds are good for sunny weather. much nicer, than say, the November 1 one in Germany where it was usually raining that day in my corner of the world. ;-)

and even better--the stores are open here on a bank holiday, although on limited hours. therefore none of that crazyness of last minute shopping due to the stores being closed on sunday/monday--so feeling stress-free tonight. :-)

6 months

August 15th marked 6 months in the UK for me. I've been busy with other things, as well as that time is flying, so I haven't been overly introspective on this point.


However--I was out watering the roof terrace garden, specifically the pepper row that week:

Tucked behind them, between the peppers and the glass wall was a greeting card.

The front says 'Congratulations', inside is a handwritten message to someone (not me) about a training contract.

I'm not an overly religious person (although I have no issue with those who are), but I do retain some spiritual belief in the connectedness of the universe. I took it as my mother sending me a card from heaven congratulating me on 6 months here, and that things are going well.

Uninformed, analytical, agnostic Semi-significant other who misses some of the background details on this topic, looking at this from face values says: 'this card isn't for you.'

Heather: 'I'm four floors up off the street and getting a card down from Heaven isn't so easy in general, let alone four floors up onto a private roof terrace. It was deposited in my peppers on an anniversary, therefore it was most certainly for me, so that I knew she was thinking of me. And such good taste, a Marks and Spencer card no less, very impressive of her.'

I believe that the universe works in mysterious and impressive ways sometimes... ;-)

From the Saturday market and the rooftop garden

I went at 16.20 so the prices were starting to drop for the 17.00 shutdown. :-)

-In the photo, starting at 12 o'clock, 3 packages of strawberries from Kent, all 3 packages together were 2 GBP

-1 o'clock - 5 ears of corn for 2 GBP

-4 o'clock - 6 peaches for 2 GBP

-center - 3 bananas for 60 pence

-6 o'clock - 3 packages of berries for 2.50 GBP

-8 o'clock - young purple broccoli shoots and leaves, the giant bag for 1 GBP

So everything in the photo came to 10.10 GBP (16.51 USD/11.52 EUR). Food tends to be more expensive here in the UK, so I was pretty pleased at the above. To preserve the berries I am drying them as I would only be able to go through one package of the raspberries and one package of the strawberries before they would start to go off.

What aren't I buying there?

- Lettuce - I'm still a big convert of lettuce in a bag with the roots in dirt from asda as that extends its shelf life for me. Next week my roof terrace lettuce should be ready.

- Tomatos - those are coming from the roof terrace as well.

-Peppers - I'm not a big fan of eating them although I do enjoy growing them. Unfortunately, the roof terrace favors pepper growing. This proficient one has produced 3 so far with 18 more still growing, nevermind what her 3 sister are doing in their own right (the scotch bonnet, bell pepper and sweet pepper plants).

Other people get overwhelmed by zucchinni, I'm stuck with peppers. I never imagined this would be the case in the UK...

I've now taken to inviting people over so that I can make pepper based dishes. ;-) Tonight's guest is being treated to Mexican with a variety of chopped up pepper based salsas and fresh pepper toppings for the tacos.

Some German English fun

Yo H, where've you been?
Still here, busy with work and some holiday planning. In addition, I have a German visiting. She came to me through http://www.hospitalityclub.org/, similar to http://www.couchsurfing.org/ if you know that one.

She is a student who has never been to the UK before or to any native English speaking country. She's spending her time and limited student funds trying to see as much of the country as possible and rachet up her English, which until now has been only 'school English'.

Not wanting to deter someone from their dream, I've only been speaking English to her-- although I will give her the English word when she only knows the German term. She wanted to 'mitfahren' to save on expensive British train fares but was having difficulty to find a source in English without knowing the term 'rideshare'.

Of course she makes the classic German mistakes: 'I drive with bus'.

But I love the other mistakes or how someone comes up with a way to say something in English, which while correct is not how a native would usually say it, because it gives you better insight into their language and seeing things in differently in English. This morning as I'm trundling out to work she tells me:

Your cat, she was broken in this night.

(Pause, Heather thinking--looks at cat who is noisily gulping down breakfast--she is physically fine having ran into the kitchen upon hearing me...)

(thinking.....The cat does meow a lot, I did warn the girl that the cat can be locked in the hall so she is not so disruptive....or maybe the cat was walking on her while she was trying to sleep, meaning she's broken or not well trained, although I did warn her that she wakes up at 2 AM full of energy....the girl is not so much a cat person, she's always had dogs....I haven't yet had any coffee so I'm not awake enough to figure this one out....she's broken...kaputt sein...defekt...lots of words ending in brochen, what can she mean?)

On the floor...where you are standing...?

Oh! She threw up, she was sick = she is broken.

Sheesh, I must be losing my touch, I don't think I would have figured that one out even with coffee.

The face of new Europe

While shopping on High Street on Sunday, I saw these two. (Yes! in my corner of Essex, all the shops are open on Sunday--but that's a different post.)

Unfortunately I missed to get the fellow's face in the photo--his is painted with the Lithuanian flag, while hers has the Polish one.

I've been to the store they advertise, it's close to my flat. Specifically--this store has all sorts of Eastern European goods--frozen pierogis and jars of mushrooms from Poland, Russian juices, frozen Lithuanian cepelinai, that sort of thing. There's little in the store which isn't Eastern European--unless it's something from elsewhere in Europe which one can buy in Eastern Europe--i.e. German Milka bars.

I find it interesting that they advertise the store as 'European' rather than 'Eastern European'--or maybe that's how they see themselves--as opposed to British.

They have little competition in my corner of Essex, beyond Tesco's token attempt to sell to the Eastern Europeans here by importing their cheeses and jars of pickles.

Vegan day 9 - Fresh Saturday

Were you wondering what happened with the food from the Saturday market?

Everything looked so great and fresh, so I went extremely basic on the cooking--minimal spices and low, short cooking.

Here is a third of the carrot bunch. The were sliced in half and given a short fry in olive oil.

Here are potatoes, fresh from the roof terrace garden:

The broad beans were in the '1 pound' markdown area, so I knew they needed to be used Saturday or Sunday. They had gone for about three minutes into boiling water and then were rinsed in cold water. Right after that they were shelled. Here new friend Ian is demonstrating the appropriate shelling technique.

The cooked potatoes and beans were then combined together. I had some ideas from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/, I like their photos, as well as that their recipes are not too complex. They were suggesting mint as the appropriate spice, but I wanted to leave out anything heavy as I wanted to truly taste the potatos.

Super Saturday - from the market

August is a great time to buy local produce here in the UK. Most of the 'local' produce here is coming from Essex or Kent. It's especially good if you go at the end of the market day on Saturday as the prices start to drop. ;-)

My photo isn't so great, but starting at the bottom and moving clockwise:

1 bunch of carrots
2. cauliflower - the carrots and the cauliflower were a deal together, for 1 GBP
3. 3 kilos of onions - 1 GBP
4. bunch of 4 bananas (the only non-local item) .90 p
5. in the back - tomatos on the vine and small tomatos - the gigantic bag weighing a few kilos for 2 GBP
6. broad beans - 1 GBP for the lot of them
7. strawberries - 2 containers for 2.50 GBP
8. in front - rosemary/olive oil bread - 2.50 GBP

I'm now set for the next few days with veg, excluding lettuce. :-)

Vegan dinner - day 7

Yeah, back to Mexican. :-)

Tonight: two bean burritos I assembled at home, easy peasy. A can of beans plus two flour tortillas. I was feeling a little edgy so I applied liberally jalapeno peppers to the interior. ;-)

To the right, I whipped up a little tomato mix to liven them up. I had roma tomatos from the weekly market. I added chopped garlic (from the roof garden) and as well as a pepper from up here. I finally have my first rooftop tomato which is about ready to be picked, looking forward to that one tomorrow...

Vegan dinner - day 6

It was warm and humid here today through this evening, now it's cool and rainy.

Today's dinner was pasta, two zuchinnis (we're in full zuchinni season here, they're dirt cheap!) in Dolmio's pasta sauce and a bit of bread. These pasta sauces have been on sale at asda, two 500 gram jars for 3 GBP. I'm a big fan, because there is nothing in these sauces which wouldn't be there if I made them from scratch.

You may notice this is a little carb heavy for me. I've noticed when I go vegan, to drop the cheese out of meals really knocks out a lot of the fat/calories. The rest of my work days usually look like this:

Breakfast: 08.00 - coffee in the office

09.30ish - cereal in the office. (I keep Bran Flakes in my desk drawer)

Lunch: 11.30ish - lunch in the office. Lunch is usually a leftover dinner. So when I made the above tonight, I made enough to have a second, smaller portion which will be tomorrow's lunch, usually with a side of salad, but sans bread.

Dinner: 17.00ish - tonight's dinner was the above.

19.00 - tonight a small bowl of cereal (again, focusing on the carbs a bit more than usual to keep the energy up--not normal when i'm my normal vegetarian self).

My morning commute

I walk about five minutes from the center of town to enter the park.

Most people are coming into town to work or catch the train to London while I'm heading out of town.

After about 15 minutes through the park, I continue on pedestrian paths.

The pedestrian paths finally end in a cute little neighborhood.

The final ten minutes are industrial areas similar to what you'd see on the intro to the Sopranos, so we'll skip those photos. :-)

A little over two miles each way, twice a day, usually four days a week = 16 miles of walking/week for the purpose of 'commuting to/from work'.

On each trip I burn approximately 145 calories for my walking speed/weight.

vegan eating - day 2 Mexican Sunday

It's difficult to find good Mexican food in Europe. Thankfully, finding the ingredients in the UK is a little easier and less expensive than it was in Germany.


Breakfast was coffee.

Here is the late lunch. Starting around the table, here we go...

11 o'clock is Old El Paso refried beans.

12 o'clock is a veg chili mix from Asda. The suggestion is to add mince to it, but it perks up nicely with dried soya chunks.

1 o'clock is some of those mushrooms from the freezer with Old El Paso Mild Fajita Sauce. I orginally bought this sauce because it was a markdown due to a torn label and I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It has a mild smokey flavor.

3 o'clock is partially hidden behind a glass, it's the lettuce, tomato and pepper salad from yesterday.

4 o'clock is fresh tomatoes, a smattering of garlic, and more garden fresh pepper - a light little flavor

6 o'clock is mild English cheddar for New Friend Ian.

7 o'clock is Heather's sauce. Chopped tomatoes, garlic, and Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce which I bought at Asda in the UK.

9 o'clock is some fajita wraps.

The setting is outdoors on my patio table, slightly in the shade because it was hot as heck.

Later in the day was leftover Chinese from yesterday.

Aug 1 - vegan eating day 1

Saturday started off with a long 'to do' list of things to do in town and tasks at home. As I've been living in this flat for almost two months, I'm starting to get more ideas about how I want to use the space in some areas.

Breakfast - coffee at home.

Lunch - since we were out and about in town, we went to Nosh+Coffee. The one in the center of my corner of Essex is relatively new...

On the plus side:

-they are less expensive than their coffee counterparts Costa or Starbucks

-their food selection is more expansive--salads, sandwiches, containers of fresh fruit for 1.50 GBP

-they have a vegan option - salad with beans, hummus, and falafel for 3.50 GBP (which I had), as well as plenty of decent veg options like a feta cheese salad or egg and mayo sandwich.

On the negative side:

-I suspect the people management is lacking at this particular one, or maybe they're all this this, it's the only one I've been to. When you go to the main Costa in my corner of Essex, it's staffed by friendly Eastern Europeans or Spaniards, the Costa above the bookstore is staffed by friendly students, the Coffee+Nosh people are always sour faced, or complaining to one another about their work hours. But anyway...the salad is quite nice...

Dinner: We start with fresh peppers from the garden...

I'm not a fan of eating peppers, but I enjoy growing them for my guests...

I did a stir-fry--it's broccoli from the Saturday market, zuchinni from my garden and tofu, which later had Sharwood's Kung Po sauce added:

The final results....

At 12 o'clock on the table is a fresh salad with lettuce, tomatos, and olive oil.

1 PM is a homemade dipping sauce: tamari sauce, olive oil, water, dried chilli pepers.

3 PM is homemade vegan spring rolls that oversprung

The bottom are our two plates in action

center of the table is the fresh peppers chopped up.

The fancy table setting is a giant cardboard moving box which gets a new round of paper to cover it weekly. I still haven't decided upon a dining room table or coffee table yet, so I'm making due with this one until I figure out how I want the layout of the flat to be.