Melimel's got her mojo back

Cooking mojo that is.

Yesterday I was cooking like a woman possessed. I ate out three times last week. The first a lovely dim sum restaurant at London Bridge called Dim T, with my friend SM. On Thursday it was mine and Paul's five year anniversary (I KNOW!) so he took me to a tapas bar called Meza in Soho. And, on Friday evening on the way home from work I popped into Ping Pong for a quick drink with my friend JS from work so he could tell me all about his wonderful new long-distance love affair with a girl from The States. The waft of the yummy dim sum ended up getting the better of us so we decided to hang around for dinner.

Then ... of course my Saturday morning staple of "Saturday's Kitchen" got me in the mood for some serious cooking.

So I searched the web for recipes, shopped for ingredients, came back, put some loud music on, grabbed a drink and cooked for over three hours.

I was in my element. Loving every minute of it.

The end result was a deliciously fragrant and spicy chicken and sweet potato curry with pork filled Chinese steamed buns on the side. The recipe for these and more pics are here on this secret little site ... Food For which I don't keep up to date as much as I should I'm afraid.

The kangaroo mafia

One weekend in a time not so long passed, in a land far away, I head off to Selfridges department store for a bit of sniff around. As best I understand the story, Mr Selfridge - an American - defined department stores as we know them today. Perfume department on the ground floor, lights on at night so that people can see into the store ... I am sure there are other things worth noting but I imagine you have the idea. Anyway, he opens up Selfridges on Oxford St and Oxford St goes on to become one of the world's true shopping Meccas. But that is enough of the history lesson.

En route to the aforementioned ground breaking (and - I must say - really, really large) department store I stop off at an HMV music store, almost directly across from Bond St tube station. I was due to head back to Oz at the time and was hoping to buy a CD for one of my nieces. Unsuccessful at that task, I head out of HMV ... when it happens. In the corner of my eye I see it. Like a vision in the night ... except that it was during the day, of course. I see The Voice, John Farnham, in the pop rack under 'F' (no surprises there, I suppose). And not the current, teddy-bear-with-short-hair John Farnham, but business-up-the-front, party-up-the-back Jon Farnham. Oh, what a treat that was.

This, coincided with my siting of Chicago posters all over the tube stations of London announcing that Tina Arena is the new Roxy. Tiny Tina Arena. Now that was a surprise. Not that I am going to see it. Nothing wrong with our Tina, I will have you know, more that I find Chicago fairly well ... well, boring. If you haven't seen it, let me save you the trouble: it is kind of like Natural Born Killers in tights.

Now all we need is for Paul Hogan the next cameo appearance in the next series of Extras (should there be one) and that will be the completion of a beautiful trifecta.

5 favourite things this weekend

1. Conversations on the couch with Paul on Friday night
2. Trying out a new gym near me in Wandsworth (let's hope this time I can stay motivated)
3. Scrummy Vietnamese food on Saturday evening with Paul, S & M
4. Getting to wear my new halterneck summer dress today
5. A surprise text message from the Delectable One Miss KW

Tick!

Yesterday we ticked off one of our "Ten things to do in London" list. We walked the Thames, all the way from Blackfriars (the city) to Putney (near home). It's about 7.5 miles from our place to the city, but walking the Thames is further. Yesterday we covered just over 10 miles. The weather was absolutely stunning, as you can see from the photos and it took us about 3.5 hours.

It's such an interesting walk though. We started at the touristy (we are one of them of course) Southbank where you have the London Eye, London Aquarium, The Oxo Tower, British Film Institute, County Hall (which was showing an exhibit of Star Wars - I nearly lost Paul), through to the Battersea which boasts one of the most impressive buildings in London, the Battersea Power Station (pic below) and then past the gorgeous Battersea Park which is an absolutely stunning urban park that hosts a variety of events and activities.



Some of the bridges crossing the Thames are gorgeous. We passed 11 bridges on our walk yesterday. With the exception of Tower Bridge, my favourite would have to be Albert Bridge (below). It's the cutest pink, blue and yellow suspension bridge which looks like it should be made of gingerbread and icing. It was also the theme of a science lesson from Paul (see second pic), all about oscillation and resonant frequency and glass shattering and stuff (he articulates it so much better than me).





After Albert Bridge and Battersea Park it was pretty much residential all the way through to Putney. In my opinion, London doesn't do water-front living as well as Sydney and Melbourne yet. The apartments we walked by yesterday, were all very nice but they were just that ... apartments. You can see that they have plans to put some more infrastructure in place such as restaurants and shops etc, but at the moment living there means being pretty isolated. It's still all rather bland ... and in some instances, right next door to a garbage tip. I don't think I could see myself living there.

Our walk ended in Putney through another gorgeous park onto Putney High Street where we plonked our butts in a cafe for lunch. We were absolutely exhausted and straight after lunch we caught the bus home to Southfields for a nana nap.

A fun day - with blisters on my feet to prove it.