Helios

(Aileen)
The sun gods blessed London today. It was a glorious day. Summer's here! Sun's up at 5 am these days and lingers around until around 20:30.

To kick off our first sunny London Saturday this year (NB. There may have been others but since we've been in India for most of the year we wouldn't know), we hit the tennis courts first thing in the morning, despite the Friday night hangover. Torture, but a necessary evil for the events to follow.

From tennis, we took a leisurely stroll over to Northcote Rd to pick up supplies:
-Short rack of pork ribs and 2 chicken legs from Dove (friendly neighbourhood butcher which we absolutely love!)
- 4 medium prawns at the fish monger stall (made sure to hiss at the Fat Face clothing store that now sits where the fish monger used to be)
- French salad greens and 2 medium roasting potatoes from the veg stand across the street
- Wedge of brie, half-cylinder of goats cheese, and small chunk of lincolnshire poacher at Hamish Johnston (friendly neighbourhood cheese store - a true gem of nortcote Rd)
- Rustic baguette at the bread stand

Back home to quickly pop the £25 Bandol rose (which we bought on a whim one rainy day last week to honor a day such as today) in the fridge, pack up the blankies, books, iPods etc before heading across the street to the park. Picked a nice spot and planted oursleves there, with cheese, baguette and wine until about 18:00.


Then it was back home for our first patio BBQ of the year - to negate the gains of our post-India/Vietnam diet , drink more wine, and chill until the sun went down.



Good stuff.

For, tomorrow I've somehow convinced Ed that a 7 hour walk through the North Downs Way (a national trail south of London) was a desirable thing. The "carrot" I dangled was that Denbies (an English Vineyard that produces excellent sparking wine) is along the path.