So it has been the week leading up to my first deliverable for my book. I don’t know if I have written it specifically on the blog, but I’ve been commissioned to write a book on coffee. It’s been killer fun – I’ve visited coffee labs in Amsterdam, Roasters in London – I love culinary research and learning and I am getting paid to become an expert on coffee.
But it is hard work. I’m never switched off, always thinking about the book and whatever I am doing I am thinking I should be writing. I’m writing from when I wake in the morning until when I go to bed. Every so often I try and have a switch off day, but I still feel a little guilty.
Anyway, as such, I haven’t really had any full days of fun activities to blog about for a while. I’ve done little things here and there, breaking up my work. Sarah + Theo, the owners of the Deli I work at had me over for dinner, and we somehow started talking about iPhoto’s new ‘Moments’ feature. Theo went a small rampage about how it was the most ridiculous thing ever. ‘I’ve had a moment, let me just take a photograph.’ It is ridiculous. But it stuck in my head – that’s how I am organising my life right now. Work, work, work and then a moment of fun. So to perpetuate the ridiculousness, here is a collection of my ‘moments’.
Korean BBQ + haircuts from Korean Hipsters in the Cambridge Heath converted railway arches at Hurwendecki.
Had a staff meeting at the Deli, which ended in beers and chats. My colleague Jimmy and I started to head home – we should have known better than to walk past the Lauriston, the pub on the other side of the roundabout in the village. We got dragged in and more and more villagers kept arriving and joining – I didn’t get home until after 2AM. It all started when Jimmy did his impression of Blue Steel.
My friends Dylan and Allie went to Wales – they knew I was super excited about Welsh Cakes so they brought me some made fresh all the way back on the bus to London – and I got them at 10PM at night on a monday, warmed them slightly and slathered in butter. Kind of dense, they are like a cross between a scone and a pikelet. Yum.
The weather is getting warmer, so we have been in and out of Victoria Park all day every day. Riding, walking down to Mile End Rock Climbing Wall, picnic-ing, buying the best bread in London at the restaurant in the middle, or having fish and chips with curry sauce on the grass. We go into the Bottle Apostle, the specialty wine and craft beer store in the Village, pick a different local brew every time, and go and sit in the park in the sun.
Parties. Summer means parties. From a backyard BBQ house party to a converted warehouse party in Whitechapel.
We rode cycles home at 6AM in the light as the city was waking up. We decided to wander through Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. It was so beautiful. Kids were playing, families were cycling, people were walking their dogs and reading books. It was, essentially, a park. However it was also the final resting place for centuries of East Enders. Every so often you would step on a part of the path and your step would sound hollow. The gravestones were higgledy piggledy, stones from 1894 leaning on those from 1963. Everything was overgrown, there were no plots, there was just nature and memory.
It’s turning into summer. After work on sundays we do drinks. This sunday was marvellously warm, so we bought some Pimms and fruit from Broadway Market and head into London Fields. We had a Pimms Cup picnic while my friends entertained me – they are both circus performers. The park was full of people lounging around, having BBQ’s. The difference between here and AUS is that everyone is crammed in next to each other here, so you have to have a sense of community. We went and danced with one group of people who were playing music, and ended up joining another group for the rest of the evening. People were from everywhere, France, Spain, Germany.
The guys we were sitting with left a huge bag of popcorn, so we threw it all around, making it rain.
Hackney is the best place to have ‘moments’ in. There is so much to see and do, and you can pop out of the front door and your friends are always near.