gourmet while you wait...

after a freezing start to the year the weather went mild, giving London a couple of weeks of comparatively warm weather. my scarf and gloves got stowed and i went out for a few days without a couple of my regular layers, then just as suddenly the weather went "psych!" like a 13 year old in an american sit-com and went fucking freezing again, with a brief moment of snow again as i was waking up this morning.

i'm blogging on the bus again, heading out on the hour-trip to Woolwich to help an english girl make lammingtons, and beg the use of her bath (the hot water at my place being barely enough to wash the dishes, let alone run a hot bath. i'll not complain - it's a good time to sit, look out the window and reflect on the last few days.

yesterday, after a month or so of meaning to, louise and i finally wandered out to the Borough Market off near London Bridge - absurdly packed and full of gourmet food (Ondine, pay attention!). you want a whole, unbutchered hare or pheasant? check. cheeses made in some farm's back shed, sliced off a 20kg wheel? got it. wild boar sausages, venison jerky, ostrich burgers? just keep your eyes open (the ostrich burger was really very good - that i can vouch for). 13 different kinds of olives, extra virgin olive oil, infused with a chunk of truffle... hell - whole black truffles stored in a jar on a bed of wild rice (£46 for one the size of a toddler's fist). organic bakers (selling brownies of the sort that chocaholic's dreams are made of), organic cheese and yogurt, organic coffee... fuck - think of it and some fucker's selling an organic one. it was great to wander and snack and taste and smell... well, as much as we could smell over the pervasive fumes of mulled wine which seemed to be a requirement. the application process for a stall must be:

"Good morning, what will you be selling then?"
We specialise in Jersey and Guensey organic raw sheep's milk cheese.
"Ah, we can always do with another stall selling that... wait... I don't see anything on your application form about selling mulled wine."
Well, no - it's not something we really do at Ben's Bovine Botherer's Farms...
"Oh no, we can't be having with that. EVERYBODY's got to sell mulled wine in winter, otherwise no one'll be able to tell it's English! The nerve of some people. You'll never fit in. Out!"
But...
"OUT!"

as we wandered we picked up some cheese, bread, some fresh apples and other odds and ends before heading back to base-camp for the evening and having cheese and cold-cuts for tea and watched movies until we were sick of the idea.

we'd have gotten in earlier, in part, had i not been out so late the night before. my resolve to Not Drink Too Much was tested hugely by the free booze at the Ruby Blue Lounge and one of the saffas (South Africans) who declared me to be his new favourite drinking buddy, but i managed to stop at 7 (or at least, that's the point i was at when the tab ran out). a good time was had - a big bunch of drunken IT Professionals in a classy venue with various girlfriends and wives trying not to look so uncomfortable. i managed to narrowly skirt a conversation that started with the line "You see, the idea that everything started from nothing, which exploded, and that after billions of years we've learned to walk and talk, is harder for me to believe than that God made it all in 7 days," but the rest of it was pretty damn jovial. i tried to leave at 9ish, but was dragged back in. i tried to make a move at 10:30 but was prevented. 11:30 and i finally excaped, walking Cathy (one of staff) to her bus stop since it was right next to mine. when i got in louise was still feeling a bit sick, but looked much better than she had for the week previous.

it's been a slow week, as i've discussed previously. i'm about ready to shoot people - if they could just tell me that i don't have the godsdamned jobs i'd be able to go and do something productive. you know, like Scotland (ok, i don't know how productive Scotland is or isn't, but doing Scotland would be in my book). each day that goes by drags while i wait and try not too piss off the pimps by badgering them too much. maybe i'll just do a spur-of-the-moment trip to Oxford or something in the meantime - where i can go and see and be back from in a day. something that doesn't involve sitting around the house in my tracky-daks.

meanwhile, i should probably pay attention to where this bus is going now so that i don't wind up in Plumstead.