Last weekend was spent in London with Steven and Sherry, the main event being a visit to the Albert Hall to see Cirque Soleil.
Lots to tell you, but I will break it down into bite sized chunks.
We travelled down by train on Friday afternoon, the trip from Rugby station, about 10 minutes away, costing a mere £6. Bargain. The return trip, at £15, was also quite reasonable and the journey was much more convenient than using the car, especially since we coincided our arrival at Euston with Sherry finishing work at the Euston branch of Boots, allowing us to travel together the four stops to Finsbury Park Underground station, a short walk to Steven and Sherry’s flat
We ate locally in the evening. Steven had two ongoing challenges for the weekend; (1) Find at least one pub that serves proper ale (2) Arrange a visit to a traditional pie and mash shop. Steven has form on this. On previous occasions he has enthusiastically ushered me into a pub and proudly directed to a tap serving chilled John Smiths Smooth, which, by any stretch of the imagination is not proper ale. The problem, you see, is that Steven drinks Kronenburg, a corporate lager that tastes the same everywhere, and is chilled to numb the taste buds. With regard to a Pie and Mash shop, Steven did introduce to one of those on our last visit. I had just been forced to consume Portuguese chicken and lager in a Nandos restaurant , and we passed a pie and mash shop, that also sold London Pride ale, about 1 minute from Nandos. “Oh yes” says Steven, “I had forgotten this place”. A visit to this establishment would have ticked both boxes of the London Gourmet Challenge.
Anyway, this time Steven took the challenge seriously, and having decided that his local pub was convenient, took the time and trouble to not only pop in on his way home from work to enquire about the ales, but also mailed a photo of the labelled beer pumps to me, as we were travelling south, for my approval. With a choice of three ales, I approved and we headed for the pub not long after arriving. The beer was excellent. The food was not. The kitchen had been taken over by a hot dog franchise. This was fine by me, since the beer was excellent, and was fine by Steven, since the Kronenburg was just the same as anywhere else in the world, but the ladies wanted better quality establishments in the area (which is what smart phones are for), and ended up in a local pub where once again the kitchen had been taken over by a separate enterprise, but this time serving excellent Thai curries. And the beer was good. And the Kronenburg tasted the same as anywhere else in the world. And so we were all content and had a very pleasant evening.
Part 2 of the blog to follow!
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
