Category Archives: Family
Arbor Restaurant, Bournemouth
Although quiet for lunch in the week ( which I loved), Arbor was a bright and breezy place to dine.
Food tasted like it had just been grown in the kitchen. The restaurant was covid safe. Staff were attentive. Great lunch time dining experience.
#arbor #restaurant #dining #lunch #bournemouth
Yosma
A TURKISH MEYHANE, MANGAL & RAKI BAR INSPIRED BY THE STREETS OF ISTANBUL.
I love Turkish food and eat it often; so it was an absolute delight to find a restaurant in Baker Street that doesn’t do generic Turkish food but excellent Turkish food with a twist. Every dish melted in the mouth from the bread and humous to the lamb dumplings. Even the salad was amazing. Mouthwatering, with excellent ingredients where I could taste the quality. This is a true find for Turkish cuisine. Beautifully presented and served with a smile. Easily the best Turkish inspired restaurant I have eaten at in London thus far.
Alice’s Adventures Underground
The Vaults at Waterloo are playing host to an amazing version of Alice in Wonderland. A show that draws you into the world of nonsense and makes you play along with the characters. I don’t want to be a spoiler but it’s an outrageously fun 90 minutes of mayhem. The sets and costumes, intricate and curious. Twists and turns in every room. Unpredictability is the name of the game. I laughed with wonder and humour for the full duration. Puppetry and dance, comedic turns coupled with a lot of being bossed around in the madness. Watch out for the Queen of Hearts! There is a children’s version and an adult version and it’s not on for long. If you can – do it! Photos aren’t allowed inside so I offer my snapshot above. If you wanted to ever visit Wonderland they have made it possible.
https://www.alice-underground.com
Serpentine Pavillion
I wouldn’t normally post something to say don’t bother, as I like to focus on the positive, but this is how they have made the new structure look on their website. I was very excited and planned a day around it.
And this is what it looks like. And I was VERY DISAPPOINTED. Spend money better elsewhere. I know art is down to the individual but one definitely worth missing. A big paper mache mess.
New York, New York Days 7 to 10
Spring in New York
So after resting up in Florida and moving onto New York I turned up still exhausted. Who on earth escapes from a city like London to come to a city like New York to rest? Lucky for me that I have a couple of very good friends in New York and I was looking forward to spending some quality time. I didn’t have an apartment arranged until Day 11 so I stayed with a good friend until then on the Upper West Side.
The Upper West Side is probably my favourite area of New York to be situated in. It’s residential but has a lot going on with cafe’s, supermarkets and of course banks. You can’t not look up and see a bank so no need to worry about that for a second in Manhattan. Banks that have the biggest waste of space known to man. I entered through the door and then turned to left and walked what felt like a mile to some cash machines. There was nothing in that empty space apart from my thoughts. I could have moved into that space and it would have been bigger than an average studio apartment in Manhattan.
Although I was staying in an apartment that had a married couple and two small children it ended up being a pleasant experience. The little girl aged three could rationalize like a thirty-three year old so that proved challenging at six in the morning when the life, universe and everything needed to be discussed. Even trying to convince her when she put the light on that maybe we needed more sleep time I was met with ‘ No it’s daytime and in the day time we get up and are awake.’ By day eleven, the conversation was flowing with
‘Morning’
‘ Morning’
‘Sleep well?’
‘ Yeah.’
‘ It’s awake time? ‘
‘Yeah.’
End of any argument.
The second child who I stayed with is an anomaly to all babies. At five months old I’ve never seen such a happy chilled out little chubster. I was told that if you get the timing of the milk wrong by the minute you will certainly hear about it but honestly I was present in the room whilst the baba was changed and bathed over half hour and I didn’t even realize that had happened. His mother’s nightmares are that she forgets him somewhere because he can be so quiet. She is not wrong.
A place to walk
So the first few days I was in family land. Eating home cooked food and chilling out. Watching rubbish TV and going to bed early to rise early. Central Park has become a place to go walking. I didn’t realize that from Broadway you can walk a few blocks one way and come to Riverside and walk by the Hudson and go the other way and you are in Central Park within ten minutes. And Central Park is huge. A sudden haven in the concrete jungle. I already have a favourite place to walk around which is the Jackie O Reservoir.
Day 9 the Sunday I ventured out to a place in the Lower East Side called Fat Buddha. And one thing I love about New York bars is that if you sit up at the bar and you are friendly enough the drinks start coming for free. Yes you heard it free. You don’t know this is happening until the end but when would that ever happen in London? The place where alcohol is measured by a thimble, here they may as well be holding you down and pouring it down your throat and for a borderline British alcoholic and most definitely a lush this was Manna. The next morning of Monday (day 10) waking up at half six to work was most certainly not.
Life is short
Today our caretaker at work suddenly died. Bob was a smiley fellow in his sixties. Slim frame, smoker’s gentle London voice and smoker’s lungs. Slim and cheery, always so cheery. He was someone who had become part of my every day am. I park my car and there he would be, popping out to say ‘morning’ from his underground office or in the lobby and a comment about another day in the rat race and a chuckle. That was 9am this morning. At three pm someone came into me to say he had been found dead in his office.
Already this week my family have been in remembrance of my Uncle who passed away a year ago on the 19th May. His wife had fallen seriously ill and was in intensive care in hospital. The panic and shock and unhealthy life style he had led took it’s toll and he died of a heart attack; A broken heart. She made it through to find him not there…
It’s also the remembrance of my granddad Alf. The blond curtain haired cheeky chappy that I was so close to through all my years. He is the one who used to sit with me as a child playing a word game. He would say to me ‘Think of as many words as you can beginning with the letter G’ and being about seven or eight years old I would sit and concentrate for what felt like an hour. I’d have a list of about ten words. If we had the same word we’d cross them off and the winner would be whom had the most left. It took me years to work out that he had always been reading my words and putting less than me so that I would win but learn also.
Grandad was a religious man who never went to church. A solitary man who married once and then was never connected to anyone else although we were always suspicious that he liked the lady in the local launderette. He had watched every nature programme on television. He saturated the meat in too much fat. When he cooked for my friend and I and I told him my friend was vegetarian, grandad panicked and said ‘but kid what does he eat?’ My friend ended up with a big plate of cabbage.
He snored like no other and when I was age seven I used to have the top bunk of bunk beds and him the bottom and I’d fallen asleep on an old style cassette recorder where I had tried to tape the evidence of the snoring. Everyone knew though. You could hear him from down the street. Grandad who started crying when I cried at the monkey’s dying in the film Project X, because he didn’t want me to be upset. Grandad who laughed the loudest when we did impressions of him. Grandad who listened to every thought I had like it was the most important thing he could have ever heard. He loved us all so much and we loved him. He really was the best Grandad a girl could have wanted.
So in remembrance my little blog a reminder that all we have is the here and now and it is a waste to not live life for the moment. And a glass raised to Bob, John and Grandad Alf. Rest in Peace.
worldwideattitude 