John - Archived Entries for 2023 / 4

Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

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Recent Entries:: Picnic
Devil's Dyke
Friday
Belgravia
Shepherd's Pie in a Holly Bush
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Erika's New Bike
Heath
Girls Back from Japan
Pizza
Bluebells and India Club
Monday
Rainy Morning Walk
Penmaenmawr Stone Circles
Sabrage and Macaroni Cheese
Risitto in a Ditch
Wednesday
Tuesday
Easter Monday
Easter Sunday
Easter Saturday in Devon
Good Friday on Dartmoor
Disappointing Curry
Outdoor Cooking
Tuesday
Vegan Planet
Sunday on the South Dorset Ridgeway
Saturday on the South Dorset Ridgeway

Picnic: [Sunday 30th April 2023]
Went for a picnic with local friends followed by a walk on the heath.
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Devil's Dyke: [Saturday 29th April 2023]
Did a walk to the Devil's Dyke near Harpenden in the morning. In the early evening it turned out I unexpectedly had more free time so headed to the heath.
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Friday: [Friday 28th April 2023]
End of the working week ESW in the garden (accompanied by some disgusting crisps) then macaroni cheese for dinner.
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Belgravia: [Thursday 27th April 2023]
A night out in Belgravia with old work friends.
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Shepherd's Pie in a Holly Bush: [Wednesday 26th April 2023]
I cooked a shepherd's pie in a holly bush for dinner. Of course I did.
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 25th April]
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Monday: [Monday 24th April]
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Sunday: [Sunday 23rd April 2023]
Just some Gevrey Chambertin in the garden in the evening.
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Erika's New Bike: [Saturday 22nd April 2023]
Bought Erika a new bike.
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Heath: [Friday 21st April 2023]
Erika had a birthday party to go to after school today, and I went off to the heath for a bit while she was there.
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Girls Back from Japan: [Thursday 20th April 2023]
The girls got back from Japan this morning. Rather impressively we got home from the airport at 8:50AM, and Erika was in school by 9AM! In the evening exchanging "omiyage" (souvenirs, generally edible) from our travels.
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Pizza: [Wednesday 19th April 2023]
Went for a pizza at a local Italian restaurant.
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Bluebells and India Club: [Tuesday 18th April 2023]
Some photos of the bluebells flowering in the back garden. In the evening I went for dinner at the India Club.
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Monday: [Monday 17th April]
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Rainy Morning Walk: [Sunday 16th April 2023]
An early morning walk down a misty / rainy mountainside to Penmaenmawr, and then the train back home to London from there.
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Penmaenmawr Stone Circles: [Saturday 15th April 2023]
Took the train to Penmaenmawr in North Wales, and then walked up into the mountains to see the nearby stone circles and other Neolithic sites.
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Sabrage and Macaroni Cheese: [Friday 14th April 2023]
Crikey this is my 7000th blog entry!

Sabraged a bottle of Exton Park and had a macaroni cheese for diner.
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Risitto in a Ditch: [Thursday 13th April 2023]
More al fresco cooking this evening - this time I made a risotto primavera with the first of the season's English asparagus, in a muddy ditch on the heath.
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Wednesday: [Wednesday 12th April]
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 11th April]
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Easter Monday: [Monday 10th April 2023]
I was a bit unsure what to do with myself on the day off, but ended up going down to St. James's / Mayfair (largely so I could buy a discounted easter egg from Fortnum and Mason!) and while in that neck of the woods had a late Lebanese lunch at the Noura in Mayfair.
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Easter Sunday: [Sunday 9th April 2023]
Didn't take any photos today! Quite unusual for a day off.

Had a mostly quiet day at home, some time spent dealing with my camping stuff after my trip to Dartmoor and finishing off editing the videos.

Just briefly popped out to the Pineapple towards the end of the afternoon to catch a bit of the usual Easter festivities (they have an Easter bonnet competition etc), but somehow only really felt in the mood to stay for one quick pint.

Improvised some lazy version of a Sunday roast for dinner in the evening - I really can't be bothered with going through the full performance when cooking just for myself, so I bought ready made roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings from the supermarket, as well as vegetarian sausages, bunged all of those in the oven, then just made instant gravy and microwaved some frozen peas. Massively less effort than doing it properly and to be honest the end result was not actually terrible.
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Easter Saturday in Devon: [Saturday 8th April 2023]
Woke up to a frosty morning on the moor, packed up my tent, and then walked to Chagford via Scorhill stone circle and some other antiquities en route. As often seems to be the case on these expeditions the early morning walk at the end of it was one of the nicest bits. I was very impressed by Scorhill stone circle, and also the other megaliths I saw (the stone avenue and standing stone near Kestor Rock). In fact even the country lanes and paths off the "high moor" as I approached Chagford were very picturesque and made for a lovely walk.

I had a funny sort of breakfast in Chagford, I was rather hoping for more of a fry-up but ended up with beans on toast. Anyway, I had a bit of time to kill there, then a rather hair raising bus journey from there to Exeter down ridiculously narrow country lanes which can barely accommodate cars, let alone buses.

I made a diversion on the way home to pop in to see Dad for afternoon tea, which coincided with Lucy and Martin and the boys visiting from Scotland.
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Good Friday on Dartmoor: [Friday 7th April 2023]
A bit of an ordeal getting the train down to Okehampton amidst the Easter weekend madness but I made it there by not long after 2pm.

I walked onto the moor from Okehampton via a different route to last time, following the road rather than the East Okement valley, and headed up onto Oke Tor and Steeperton Tor before heading across the moor to Buttern Hill, where I camped in the stone circle there.
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Disappointing Curry: [Thursday 6th April 2023]
Went out for a curry to one of the local curry houses which I'd had takeaway from some years ago (and thought it wasn't bad) but I don't think I had ever eaten in before. It was rather disappointing: it lacked richness and depth of flavour, they were obviously a bit stingy with the spices. Should have just ordered a takeaway from our usual place instead! Ho, hum.
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Outdoor Cooking: [Wednesday 5th April 2023]
Various purchases related to al fresco cooking today, ahead of my upcoming trip to Dartmoor - a blow torch, some Butane for it, and some more camp stove (isobutane?) fuel canisters, with the aim of refilling the smaller ones I already have.
Cooked tapas for dinner, under a tarp on the heath, and made a video of it.
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 4th April 2023]
Some outdoorsy / camera stuff arrived in the daytime. In the evening I went for a walk to the heath around sunset, and was surprised I managed to get there in good time even though I didn't leave home until 6:30pm.
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Vegan Planet: [Monday 3rd April 2023]
Went for dinner at Vegan Planet, the all vegan Chinese restaurant in Camden with a Szechuan leaning. I still always seem to want to eat Chinese food on a Monday, even when dining alone. I'm not sure I really like the name Vegan Planet - it makes it sounds like one of those generic "Happy Beansprout" type vegetatian / vegan cafes, rather than what actually happens to be a fairly upmarket Chinese / Szechuan restaurant where it just happens all the food is vegan. I think the Szechuan dishes are particularly good, really gutsy and flavoursome - something often lacking in vegan/vegetarian food in my opinion.
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Sunday on the South Dorset Ridgeway: [Sunday 2nd April 2023]
The second half of my walk along the South Dorset Ridgeway, taking in most of the more interesting Bronze Age / Neolithic sites: two long barrows and two stone circles before 9:30AM in the morning!
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Saturday on the South Dorset Ridgeway: [Saturday 1st April 2023]
I took the train down to Weymouth this morning, and then a taxi from there out to the tiny village of Osmington Mills, where I started my walk along the South Dorset Ridgeway. It's an 18 mile trail, which I split over two days, and is one of the biggest concentrations of prehistoric (Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age) sites in the UK.

Today I walked as far as Bronkham Hill, which is covered in Bronze Age barrows. I watched the sun setting from there, had a sort of tagine for dinner, and a few glasses of Gevrey Chambertin.
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