Hampstead and Woodlands

Posted on 2016/01/20 22:00:45 (January 2016).

[Sunday 10th January 2016]
I think Chie may have complained of a lack of daylight compounding her jetlag after her return from Japan, so I determined that we should go for a walk today. Hampstead Heath was the obvious choice, so we set off toward the end of the morning in that direction. It was quite a nice winter's day actually - the sky was blue, and although there was a chill in the air there was undeniably sunlight.

We got as far as the playground in Parliament Hill fields, and then it seemed like lunchtime was upon us, so we ended up not really walking over much more of the heath, instead heading quite purposefully through the backstreets of Hampstead in the direction of the Hampstead branch of Woodlands, as I'd suddenly decided I really fancied a curry.

When eating out with Erika we've generally steered clear of Indian restaurants because she just can't tolerate anything even remotely spicy - she typically says "karai!" (the Japanese word for spicy) then spits it out. I thought Woodlands might be worth a shot though, being a South Indian restaurant they specialise in dosas, and I imagined Erika would probably quite like the giant paper dosa. She did indeed, and also nibbled around the edges a bit of a couple of other things, so whilst this particular meal wasn't probably very nutritionally balanced for her, it seemed like a useful step in the right direction toward expanding her horizons a bit.

After that, Erika requested ice cream, and as she'd been so well behaved throughout lunch (particularly in the face of some challenging culinary conditions) I felt we ought to comply. A quick Google search later revealed there was a branch of Oddono's in Hampstead, which suited us perfectly.

We also did a bit of shopping whilst in Hampstead - bought some art supplies for Erika in the arty shop, and also a new pair of (quite expensive) shoes for her in Jacadi.

Generally I was left with the impression that Hampstead is much nicer than where we live. No real surprises there. When we got back home, I did a quick feasibility search for upping sticks and moving there forthwith. I looked for non-religious schools in or around Hampstead with Ofsted ratings as good as the one Erika is hopefully lined up to go to. The answer to that question was the school she is already hopefully lined up to go to. Thinking about it we had walked to Hampstead on the way there, so perhaps we should just think of our current abode as being in the "Hampstead borders" or somesuch.

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