More Birthday Celebrations!

RIMG0005, originally uploaded by Bio-hazar.

Well the celebrations for my 40th are still going strong. After a shortened work week, it was time for more festivities. This time at the London South Bank. We went down to the South Bank Centre to check out the Slow Food Market. I was especially looking out for a little van that I knew was going to be there called Jimmy! He is a converted ice cream van that now brings chocolate joy to the world and is called Choc Star! As we drove through the South Bank, we saw Choc Star right away, so after some time finding a parking spot, off we headed straight for Jimmy. I had the original chocolate brownie sundae with hot fudge sauce and Peter had the Blondie brownie with caramel sauce. It was a bit of a cold day, so we stood in a sheltered area next to a exhaust vent to keep warm. Then we walked around the rest of the Slow Food Market and has some samples of bread, humus, venison and pigeon sausages. After looking around we decided to have kofte lamb burgers for our lunch/tea. It started to lightly spit, so we bought a couple of coffees and retired inside the Royal Festival Hall. After some browsing in the bookshop and a nice long leisurely stroll along the river, we headed back to Choc Star for a nice Jamaican Hot Chocolate. Petra even threw in a gorgeous chocolate truffle made with amazing Willie's pure cacao chocolate free for my birthday. Thanks again Petra!

Then it was back to the Festival Hall for the main event of the evening, seeing the Kodo drummers. Peter knows that I'm am a big fan of the Kodo drummers, and when he found out they were coming to London so close to my birthday, he knew it would make a great birthday present. He managed to get seats just 4 rows from the stage. They weren't even the expensive seats. They were the row behind us. When we were aloud to go into the Hall, I was surprised just how good the seats were. We had left our camera's in the car, as no photography was allowed during the show, so we only had our phone cameras. We took this photo before the show started to prove were were there. The concert was amazing. The show started off with the usual drumming you would expect from Kodo and then three guys came out with about about 2 meters worth of bamboo strapped to their backs and sticking up above their heads all decorated with flowers. The were also wearing very brightly decorated costumes, as well as carrying drums. You think at first that the bamboo is just for decoration, and then all of a sudden one of the guys bends right over and slaps the bamboo on the floor of the stage by just using his back. All through the rest of the number the three drummers with the bamboo slap the floor in different patterns. Some times alone and other times together in a circle. It was just jaw dropping, heart pounding excitement. The concert just got better and better from then on. It definitely was the best birthday present EVER!

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

Well today is my birthday and also my last day to have our fourth meal out. This time I decided to go out for lunch, as it's back to work tomorrow I didn't want to have a late night out. So we headed over to Beckenham to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. We got there and it was very quiet. Only one other table was occupied. We found a nice little corner booth and perused the menu. We first ordered a couple of shakes. I had an oreo and Peter had a banana. Then we made our order, a Buffalo burger for Peter and I got a Greek Lamb with houmus, tzatziki and a tomato relish. We also ordered a portion of chips to share. The burgers came they they were so huge, you couldn't get your mouth around them. I opted to not eat the big white bun and use a knife and fork for the rest. Where as Peter ate his in layers from the top down.

After lunch we went around to the in-laws who were baby sitting my neices. They had taken them up into town and had brought back some Cin-a-bons. They put in some candles in the buns, sung me Happy Birthday and my neices helped me blow out my candles.

This brought an end to my four meals for each decades. Peter asked me which meal represented which decades. So I thought about it and came up with this order. I think the brunch would represent my first decade. As it was made up of eggs, which is the beggining of life. Then the Gourmet burger was my teen years. The picnic would be my 20's because during most of this time in my life I lived by the lakeshore. That would leave the Tapas to represent the last 10 years of my life. I think this is good because in the last 10 years I've moved to England and visited European countires.

I hope that you have all enjoyed reading all my adventures for my 40th birthday.

Picnic in the Park

RIMG0008b, originally uploaded by Bio-hazar.

Sunday saw another beautiful day of sunshine, so we made plans to meet some friends at Danton park for a picnic. After church we picked up a few things from home and then headed to the park to meet our friends. We got there just on time, but our friends who live closer to the park and have been before got lost and was late. LOL

We found a nice bit in the park under some trees and set up for the day. We had some lunch and then played a bit of cricket. We split up into teams and played an over each player. In the end we ended up in a draw. Almost like proper cricket! Then the kids ran around for a bit, played on the monkey bars and kicked around the football for awhile. While the adults had a lazy day sitting in the shade and having a nice chat catching up. We spent the whole afternoon in the park. Then after our friends to take the kids home for a good bath, Peter and I took a nice walk down though the park, by the manor house and along the boating lake. Where we saw lots of different ducks, Coots, Geese, Mute Swan. We also saw lots of baby ducks as well. It was a nice way to finish off the day. I think I got a bit of sun though, as when we got home I felt very wiped out, but didn't do anything all day so it must have been the heat.

Birthday Brunch

DSC00045, originally uploaded by Bio-hazar.

After a bit of a lay-in on Saturday morning, we decided to get up and get out. It was another beautiful day of sunshine and blue skies. Not a cloud was to be seen. We had one errand that we had to do first. That was to go to the postal sorting office and pick up a couple of packaged that were delivered this week. We thought that while we were there that we would go to the restaurant beside it for some brunch. However, when we got there the restaurant still had it shutters down. We thought maybe they open later and went to check their opening hours. Only to find an eviction notice on the door. So instead we went across the road to what looks like a very small cafe with a few chairs outside. Looks can be very deceiving, because as you walk into the cafe and pass the counter/ grill, you go down a few steps. Then you walk along a hallway which has about 4 other rooms off it which you can sit in all done up nice and cozy. We carried on down the hallway and found another room at the end off of which is a conservatory room. Then off of that is another door leading outside to a patio area. We decided to sit out on the patio and found a nice table in the shade, next to some lavender. It must the be the spot to go to after the post office, because we saw lots of other people come in with packages and others we recognized from the post office queue. We ordered our breakfast and Peter nipped out and got a paper to do the crossword. We spent a nice lazy morning enjoying the peaceful soundings and each others company. Just after mid-day we decided to head back home as we were no longer in the shade at our table, the sun was getting hotter and we had been there already for a couple of hours.

Tapastry

DSC00246, originally uploaded by Bio-hazar.

Well another year has come and gone. Which means on Monday it's my Birthday. This year it's a BIG one. The big 40! I can't say that I've been very excited about my birthday this year. I didn't know what to do to celebrate it either. Then on Friday night I came up with an idea. For the next four days we'd go out for a meal each day, one for each decade of my life. Last night I decided to try the local Tapas bar called "Tapastry". We were seated and ordered a pitcher of Sangria and was left to peruse the menu. We ended up choose meatballs in tomato sauce, chorizo in honey, tortilla and egg white baby bell peppers. The evening was a nice lazy evening people watching and seeing the sun down. We were still a bit hungry so we also order the Tapastry Meze which was two different cold meats, fete cheese, olives, houmus and a few more bell peppers. We finished the evening we me trying my first Mojito and Peter had a Baileys latte. After two and a half hours, we walked hand in hand back home.