Han, in London

After leaving Parc de la Villette I carried on following the walk in my book, heading towards Parc des Buttes Chaumont. This turned out to be a very nice park with a weird island in the middle of a lake thing, and on seeing it my thought process was basically ‘is this a thing I can climb for no other reason than it is there??’

The answer, sadly, turned out to be not all the way, for construction work is being done to it. However I intend to go back because it looks a bit spooky and mysterious, this thing plonked down in the middle of an urban park:

( loads of photos )

 

This is so niche - even more so than my London stuff - but I am currently on holiday in Eastbourne with kikishua and have been to some fab restaurants (have also cooked some nice food too but I cook nice stuff all the time). So in case you ever find yourself on the south coast of England, here are some restaurant recommendations:

The Cavendish Hotel, Eastbourne ( http://www.cavendishhotel.co.uk/)

What I ate: seafood platter - amazing grilled salmon, smoked salmon, green lipped mussels, prawns, scallops in ham, salad, potato salad. I know this one was good because kikishua tried some stuff and liked it and she doesn't even like fish. 

Baltica, Lewes (www.baltictrader.co.uk/)

What I ate: Leek and Potato soup and Fasolka Po Bretonsku, a dish so good I wrote down the name so I could look up the recipe later on. Butter beans, bacon, Polish sausage, tomato. I plan to add this one to my stock dishes. 

As an excellent bonus, the cafe is attached to a pottery shop with some lovely lovely stuff. I got a lemon squeezer, a little plate and a decorative candle house thing (I will take a photo at some point). 

Chaula's, Brighton (www.chaulas.co.uk/)

What I ate: Lunch menu (two curries, rice, chappati, snack << their words, it was a samosa, chutney)

This was lovely. We got to Brighton for around 2.15, which is firmly into 'oh my God I need to eat something' time, and this restaurant was just outside the car park. The waiter did attempt to ask me what I wanted but I was basically at the point of going FOOD. I WOULD LIKE FOOD. 

I ordered the small lunch menu and got a chicken curry, a lentil curry (which was yum), a samosa, some really nice chutney and a chappati. It was very good and stopped me from falling over with a massive headache for the rest of the afternoon, and was very reasonably priced (£7). 

The Belgian Cafe, Eastbourne (www.thebelgiancafe.co.uk/)

What I ate: All you can eat mussels (NB they may not have been prepared for how many mussels I can eat). 

So The Belgian Cafe does mussels, as all good Belgian restaurants do, and they have an offer on Wednesdays where you can pay £13.95 to eat as many types of mussel dish as you want (same type of mussels, different sauces). I went this evening and I had the following: thai green curry, herbs, lemon, capers (unexpectedly gorgeous), lobster bisque, teriyaki, seafood pot, paella. Oh and it came with amazing fries and bread. 

Yes that is six sauces. They weren't full dishes - I'd say they were maybe around a quarter or a third of a normal dish - which is just as well, as even I would struggle to eat more than two. I had a fantastic time continually requesting more, and the rest of the menu looks pretty amazing as well. 

I was not actually expecting to have this many fantastic meals on this holiday (I usually save the foodie stuff for when I am in Europe) but it has been amazing so far. I am probably done with restaurants for this week but if I do go anywhere in the next few days I will update this post :D

The Atomium is a massive structure...thing out near the end of one the metro lines in Brussels. It was originally built for the World Fair in 1958 (also known as Expo 58, which is a far cooler name). It's 102 metres high, and the shape represents an iron crystal multiplied 165 billion times (!!).

It was originally only supposed to last for the duration of the Expo but it proved to be so popular that it stayed open  to the public afterwards. It was closed for a big renovation in 2004, which included replacing the original aluminium spheres with stainless steel. It reopened in 2006 and now gets about half a million visitors a year, iirc (not nearly enough imo, more people should go). 

There are nine spheres in the Atomium, of which five are open to the public (although one of those is the Children's Sphere which is only for school groups). We didn't go right up to the top sphere (despite the temptation of a panorama) because the queue was massive and we'd already been in a queue for a stupid amount of time (that's the problem with tall buildings just made for climbing). 

View from outside, anyway:



( outside views )
Inside the Atomium:

( inside the atomium )
There was a viewing platform in one of the spheres so you can get a higher view without going up o the panorama.

( looking out from one of the spheres )

This is just a bunch of photos of big crashy waves on the rocks at Fistral. There was a bar at the bottom of the steps where we could get quite good views without getting massively soaked.

( waves )

Oh boy, I've just found a bunch more pictures from a house we went to visit. Guess there's still one more post to go!

St Michael's Mount was awarded to the Benedictine abbey of Mont Saint-Michel after the Norman invasion (seems like a very long way to me...). The original church was destroyed by earthquake in the 13th century and the current church was built in the late 14th. 

The estate is currently in the hands of the St Aubyn family, having been bought by John St Aubyn in 1659.



( loads of pics )

I still have more pictures to post (!) but I am tired so I am off to bed and will post part 3 tomorrow. :)

We went to the Dartington Crystal factory last week (http://www.dartington.co.uk/) as Crishna makes glass things and likes glass and generally feels about glass the way I do about card making supplies (/beads/yarn/oh God I have too many hobbies). Also, they have a glass blowing experience thing and we wanted to blow glass. 

The visitor centre has some interesting displays, and places to do glass painting and jewellery making (we didn't do either of those, and I'm still not 100% sure what the jewellery making thing was but unless it involved making actual beads I'm pretty sure I can do it at home), and you can walk through the factory to see Dartington products being made, so this was our major point of interest besides the glass blowing.

The blowers make between 4 and 11 types of glassware per day, and it's pretty involved and tough (not to mention hot) work. 

( Factory pictures )

( Glass Blowing )

 While we were in Hastings, we went out to the fabulously-named Herstmonceux Castle as it wasn't too far away. It's a 15th-century moated castle, and the name is explained thusly:

By the end of the 12th Century, the family at the manor house at Herste had considerable status. Written accounts mention a lady called Idonea de Herste, who married a Norman nobleman named Ingelram de Monceux. Around this time, the manor began to be called the 'Herste of the Monceux’; a name that eventually became Herstmonceux (pronouncedHerst-mon-soo).

We didn't go for the tour of the castle (it's mostly used as a study centre but can be hired out for other things), or the science centre, but the grounds were lovely to explore. There are formal gardens as well as a large woodland area and a lake, and entry isn't very expensive so it's a good day out if you're in the area. 



(excited running child a bonus feature)





( Formal gardens )

( Folly and lake )

http://www.herstmonceux-castle.com/index.php

In July, I went to Paris with my parents, aunt, cousin and granddad. It was a fun holiday, but very busy as we only had 3 days. It was also very very hot (around 30 degrees), which didn’t really suit me. You may not be surprised to know that we ate a lot of food, but shockingly no mussels! Lots of photos behind the cut. 

 

( Photos yay )

Just the Tintagel pics left to post, pretty much. And then I've got my Paralympics pics to post. 

( Rocks and sand and sea and sky )