faroe day 1

the weather quickly changed for the worse and whilst we'd started in gjogv, the bits we drove to weren't any better weather-wise. the nice thing about the faroe islands is that anywhere and everywhere is a free for all walking path. so one needn't drive far to find a nice bit of cliff / coastline to walk along.

did also spend half the day helping a stranded couple from atlanta whose car went off the road, before admitting defeat and getting the professionals in.

chanced upon the cutest cafe called cafe frida which had MATCHA LATTE (be still, my beating heart) and when i saw the barrista whip out the matcha brush for frothing, i almost convulsed in joy. best matcha latte outside japan. the cake was incredible too. chocolatey with a hint of banana. they were on to something, in fact every single pud i had in the faroes (and believe me, there were many) was exceptional. liked the cafe enough to drive back over an hour each way to revisit it later in the week, this time for a proper lunch because everything looked so good but wasn't hungry enough in the afternoon.

arriving in faroe

casual waterfall drive bys, this one was near the airport. the good weather lulled me into a sense of complacency, thinking that every day would be like this. how wrong i was.

no-choice dinner of roast lamb and potatoes. lamb was overdone but nothing some gravy can't fix.

copenhagen

feeling very grown up, i took my first few days of annual leave ever! when i was a pupil / practice trainee / trainee barrister, call it what you will, we didn't have a single day off! i remember being sick and being kindly shooed home to "work from home" by my ever-understanding mentor but it was not fun. to make matters worse, the heavy-handed and ineffective board that governed our training would've made us pay back any time off (!!!), threatening to push back the day we got called to the bar (this might've entailed waiting months to be called and left woefully out of sync with our peers). and there were school holidays in uni round two and i may or may not have taken a few cheeky days off. but annual leave! woohoo!

initially planned to straddle a bank holiday long weekend and take 4 days but in effect have 9 days off (incl 2 weekends) to attend dear freinds' wedding in montana. but the 8h flight to DC, connection to chicago then billings then driving to the wedding venue was too ambitious even by my unrealistic standards. decided to go east (sorta) instead and chanced the faroe islands, although the flight route was silly. 2h to copenhagen then back on myself another 2h to faroe. could've flown to edinburgh from london then on to faroe but the timing didn't work out as well.

also, i like copenhagen! the soft light and pure coffee was worth the visit alone.

had a 21 item brunch and was all set for a week in the faroe islands where i'd been warned the food would be seabirds and horse mussels.

incidentally, hilarious danish friends had warned the three topics to avoid when making conversation with the locals were

1. gay rights

2. why whaling is bad

3. why marrying one's cousin is bad

must admit i didn't stray, although there were a few close shaves ;)

team dins

i like work and am fortunate to be in a good team. appreciate this might not always be the case so am extra grateful to have lucked out this job with wonderful consultant and seniors. consultant is a wonderful mix of fatherly concern and font of wisdom. it's funny how he's convinced i'm working too hard (far from) and chases me home when i'm still in the office. during my maternity assessments, he's been incredibly fair and while i've yet to use any of the wriggle room he's so kindly made available, it's nice to know it's there should i need it. couldn't have asked for more. 

team dins is another highlight and we went to a pakistani curry where our party was the only non south asian clientele! always a good sign ;) the curries were fantastic and my inner el cheapo was thrilled when it came to £10/person including service. say what??? methinks i need to venture out of RBKC more often heh.

newlyweds

it's funny how we smug marrieds stick together ;) one of my co-workers just tied the knot over summer and moved into his marital home a stone's throw from mine. once upon a time, the mister and i used to run past his to get to spin class across the river. then we got lazy! but i noticed his shiny new wedding band during induction and we got talking. hearing him speak so warmly about his new wife made my heart sing. i'm a self-confessed love junkie / serial monogomist so people in love is one of my favourite things. felt like i knew her already. missed their housewarming as was going to be in the country that weekend but they very kindly invited me round for dinner after work one night. S (the blushing bride) is the sweetest and made a mean roast. lovely time round their table talking about weddings, about how people were surprised they got married "so young", as if marriage was a death knell to their respective ambitions. felt that was really unfair and took umbrage on their behalf when people are presumptuous and give marriage a bad rep. 

all for long term monogramy so hm don't think marriage itself is a huge deal but if it's something the couple believes it, why be a downer?

ckt

my palate is decidedly asian and i'm happiest slurping noodles in soup. the MSG gets to me and being parched / disproportionately thirsty after is never a good thing. that'll teach me to not make broth from scratch. but noodles in other forms are great too and one day i was craving char kway teow so badly i practically ran from the tube to the restaurant. it must've been a wednesday afternoon cos that's when i slope off a little bit earlier and thank goodness i didn't have far to go for my fix. this may or may not have been triggered by my fam sending pics over whatsapp from singers. 

the restaurant was surprisingly crowded for mid week afternoon but i got my ckt and then banana fritters after. sometimes comfort food is all i need.

incidentally, a friend just moved near me and she makes a mean ckt from scratch so i'm planning to take up her kind offer of popping round for dins one night :)

ventures north

as per the 'about me' blurb - "escaping london every opportunity" and a couple of weekends ago it was no different. thought to make use of my 1/3 railcard discount while i still could and hopped on a train north. was hankering after chawanmushi (because ikeda my go-to was under renovation) and unforch there's a little japanese kitchen in edinburgh that i'm partial too. the katsudon is solid and despite being ravenous, i struggled to finish it.

went walking the next day (it was the weekend of the festival, the fringe, the tatoo and fireworks!) and chanced upon this glorious rainbow.

broke in my new walking shoes (childs size, saving on VAT!)

and had to take the obligatory thistle shot :)

also went back to the waterfall i climbed just after passing finals and it was nice to have a touchstone that connects this most recent transition to the immediately past stage of life.

weekend in london

i've clinical supervision on friday which means an extra early start. supervisor is stickler for punctuality (rightly so!) and i grew up in a family where 5min early is late. so i got to work early enough to stop for a bacon and egg sandwich en route. at times like this i miss the north east. why is a bap so hard to find??? i just wanted a bacon roll :( but ended up with bacon and egg in crusty bread.

had a hankering for dimsum after work and chanced a place in the city. usually try my darndest to avoid corporate types, having tapped out of that world five year ago but alas my desire for congee was too strong. found ourselves at liverpool street and while everyone else was drinking beer and basking in summer sunshine, i was determined to have my dimsum fix. hit and miss and wouldn't recommend because it's middle-eastern owned and far from authentic but the restaurant was pumping. the party of four at the table next to us kept having whiskey cokes which i found hilarious because i fail to understand cocktails / mixers at a chinese resto. granted, it's not really a chinese resto but pseudo-chinese. all i could think of was if i'd an extra £40 to blow, i'd get the lobster noodles in claypot.

lazy saturday at my local for matcha latte and rosti. didn't have rosti in wengen despite making a mental note to have it and was only too pleased to see it on the ever changing menu.

the weather was good and the markets were calling so traversed london (literally) to broadway market. took a slightly different route (tell a lie, took the tube and bus having sold the car in january) and passed the korean coffee / street food place. despite having just had brunch, i'd never say no to fried glass noodles and chicken wings. then continued to broadway for more food and meandering walks by the canal.

back home Y rang asking if she could come hang for a bit because she'd gotten locked out! well, yes!!!! spontaneous drop ins are the best and it was so good to see her. we've been friends since we were three, rode on the same school bus and went to the same schools till we were 16. our families have travelled together (brunei, bangkok) and then she joined me in valencia on my grad trip v1 on the harrowing night we stupidly left a party late and got flashed on our way to my friend's. i joined her fam for her graduation. this, naturally, triggered massive uni envy. hm in fact it was her brother who planted the thought of going to medsch where i did and i'm so glad that's where i went. she's incredibly low maintenance, we see each other a couple of times a year (when i'm in singers / she's in london) and despite her being jetlagged she very sweetly obliged my pasta craving and we'd a fashionably late home made pasta dins. 

had brunch for the second consecutive day at my local and this time tried their avocado donuts with tomato jam. seemingly strange combination but worked really well :)

wengen

in my final semester of lawsch, i took a "take home" final exam to danang, vietnam to complete at a friend's birthday party. definitely one of my (few) proud moments, although the prof for that module was unimpressed by my lack of self-control. note to self: don't post gloaty holiday photos when you're in the middle of a 72h take home, at least not without restricting the audience first. but if i hadn't gone to danang, i'd never have met S who has become a dear friend over the years. visited her at her home near luzern a couple of christmases ago, she's come for tea at mine in london while looking at universities for her daughter and more recently, has been very generously extending an open invitation to her home in the mountains. 

jumped at the chance to escape the big smoke yet again and didn't need to have my rubber arm twisted. her cabin is in wengen, car-free and accessible only by cogwheel train (!!!). bonus - i love trains and even more so when i'm not on godawful virgineastcoast up and down the country. as luck would have it, found a weekend other friends (puerto rican lawyers based in NYC and their college-aged sons) from the same danang party (all connected through E&P our danang bday hosts) were going to be visiting and made a pre-party of it. was resigned to massive FOMO because they were pre-gaming prior to E's 60th birthday extravaganza in berlin which i very sadly couldn't attend because, well, work. but hey, a bonus weekend in the alps? sign me up.

the alpine cabin was what it said on the tin and when i told another friend of my weekend plans, he got very excited and thought it would be all bond baddie alpine lair stylez a la blofeld's lair from on her majesty's secret service with hot chickies in lycra. uh, think again. gimme S' swiss hospitality anytime :)

spent two glorious days walking in the mountains. S and her husband knew the paths like the back of their hands, walking in summer, skiing in winter and it was like living in a technicolour ricola advertisement, if you get what i mean. was feeling incredibly smug about my pseudo-mountaineering ability at 18 weeks gestation until i suspected they'd probably picked the easiest walks for us to do.

M would wake early and procure us fresh yoghurt, bread and cheese from the lone grocer. breakfast was a simple yet hearty affair and i could eat it forever and ever. the milk! the glorious fat in it! the butter! all the dairy products my lactose-intolerant constitution could stomach!

S even had the brainwave of doing a hot chocolate blind tasting! so we'd plenty of energy to use against gravity on the mountains.

alas i might've underestimated the summer sunshine and ended up lobster red. silly :( also missed my flight from zurich to london because of sunday traffic. but hey who's really complaining about an extra night in switzerland? had redeemed BA miles for the flight anyhow so took the first flight out monday morning and made it to the ward in time to prep for ward round. never mind it was walk of shame-ish cos i had to be gross and wear the same clothes i'd left the ward in on friday cos i'd gone straight to heathrow after work.  #winning