Adventures with Kake

On Monday I went to choir! It was the first rehearsal after the summer break, and it was great; also good to see techiebabe again.

On Tuesday I went on the first leg of the New Good Beer Guide Pub Crawl, visiting the White Swan in Whitechapel, the Hamilton Hall in Liverpool Street Station, the Hand and Shears and Fox and Anchor in Clerkenwell, the Museum Tavern in Bloomsbury, the Courtfield in Earl's Court, and the Leinster Arms in Bayswater. ewan, shermarama, superpitching, mjg59, and wildeabandon joined in at various points along the way. We'd intended to eat at the Leinster Arms, but they were running short of food, so instead we went to Kiasu for Malaysian food.

On Wednesday I did the second leg of the New Good Beer Guide Pub Crawl, starting in Harrow-on-the-Hill with lunch at the Castle. While waiting for the bus to take me to the station ready for the next pub, I had a chat with a chap also waiting for the same bus. He told me he'd lived in Harrow-on-the-Hill for 40 years, but couldn't suggest anything interesting to do in the area — a shame, since I forgot to photograph the pub and hence will have to go back some time.

I also ended up having a conversation in the next bit of the journey; having got the bus to Harrow and Wealdstone, and waited 20 minutes for a train, the train got cancelled and I found myself chatting to a lady who'd also been hoping to catch the cancelled train. I never found out her name, but I did find out that she has a pretty similar attitude to life-work balance to me, and her sister is poly. When a useful train finally did turn up, the journey to Watford seemed to take pretty much no time at all, thanks to her company. In Watford, I went to the Estcourt Arms for a quick one, then headed to Watford's other station to get the Metropolitan line down to Eastcote, where I visited the Case Is Altered for some not-very-good food in an almost laughably bad environment, then beat a quick retreat to the Black Horse for a soothing half to get over it.

Thursday saw the final leg of the New Good Beer Guide Pub Crawl, a much more compact affair covering the New Prince (not actually a NGBGP but it needed a review) and the Lamb in Surbiton, the Boaters Inn in Kingston, the Builders Arms and Adelaide in Teddington, and finally the Railway Bell in Hampton. I'd intended to get food at the Railway Bell, but in contradiction to what both the Good Beer Guide and the pub's own website told me, they only do food at lunchtimes, so I drank my pint quickly and ran off to find a chip shop.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I alternately worked and rested, though I did cook a fine roast dinner on Sunday evening, featuring expensive organic chicken roasted on a bed of black pudding, braised parsnips, celeriac stuffing, tamarind gravy, roast potatoes, and a tiny fraction of the frozen-pea mountain from the freezer.