Erika and Ralph

Posted on 2016/03/05 13:05:12 (March 2016).

[Sunday 14th February 2016]
Oddly enough, it being Valentine's Day, Chie had decided she wanted to go to IKEA, and mine and Erika's presence wasn't really required. So instead, having heard Kyle and Ralph were at a loose end, having been similarly abandoned by the woman of their household, Erika and I headed down to Dulwich for an afternoon play date. Superbly there's a single train from Kentish Town which goes all the way to one of the stations near where Kyle lives (admittedly not the absolute closest, but it didn't seem worth changing trains just to save five minutes or so of walking).

When we arrived at Kyle's place, Ralph became quite upset, assuming I was a babysitter and therefore he was going to be abandoned. It took some reassuring, and pointing at Erika, before he relaxed.

We went out for lunch not long after arriving at an Italian cafe/deli place near Kyle's place, which Ralph slept throughout, and with much coercion I just about managed to get Erika to eat some of a panini. In fact Ralph continued to sleep for a while after lunch, so rather oddly both Kyle and I were engaged with keeping Erika entertained, at which I felt a bit sorry for Kyle, who might have quite enjoyed a complete rest while Ralph was dozing. Eventually Ralph did arise from his slumber, and the two enjoyed playing hide and seek etc.

We headed off round 4 or 5 (about which Erika protested quite a bit) and walked back to the station. Erika fell asleep on my shoulders, which was rather an impressive feat. As she hadn't been particularly cooperative in leaving in a timely fashion, we missed the train I was originally aiming for, so instead caught one which meant a change at Blackfriars. This was rather lovely as it meant we (or at least I, Erika being asleep) caught the sunset over the river from the platform which extends across Blackfriars Bridge.I had by this point successfully managed to transition Erika to my arms rather than shoulders, without waking her up, but she did eventually wake up as we were getting on the train from Blackfriars to Kentish Town. We had a nice chat on the train with a very sweet old couple, although Erika was a bit too shy/drowsy to say anything, and just clung onto my arm the whole time.

Just managed to get back to Kentish Town in time before Phoenicia, the Mediterranean / Middle Eastern
food shop closed, as I had a bit of a craving to make Lebanese food for dinner, which somehow like a fittingly Valentinesy sort of thing to do - I don't know, Arabaian Nights or something like that. I made all the usual things - tabouleh, grilled halloumi, foul medames (well, "made" - it was from a tin) and also attempted foul moukala, which wasn't a great success (and reinforced the skill involved in the version they do at Ishbilia). We had the bottle of Chateau Musar I'd got as part of my Waitrose Wine order, and was reminded how much I liked it.

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