I don’t know what’s come over the North West recently, but the weather over
the past few days has been absolutely stunning!
So nice, that I have been ditching my customary black tights and leather
jacket for sandals and sunglasses. I
spent all of Wednesday reading and playing the ukulele in my garden which was
so nice and chilled, but resulted in a very red nose on my part – I always go a bit Rudolphy
when I catch the sun.
Thursday made my sun-burned nose even worse, but I had a
lovely time. I went for a wander down to
the beach, which is a fifteen minute walk from my house, with a couple of my
friends. We ate some very fancy
ice-cream, had a paddle in the sea (well, it was probably actually the River Mersey
but let’s pretend it was somewhere nicer!) and just a generally really great catch-up. It's so nice when we actually get to enjoy living right on the coast - it doesn't look quite as appealing when it's raining.
And then on Friday, my family and I had a wonderful cultural
day in Liverpool . The original plan was to just go to the Rolf
Harris exhibition at the Walker
Art Gallery Liverpool specifically for this exhibition which I really
liked, and a lot of very impressive Australian outback landscape-y stuff. I was generally very impressed with the whole
exhibition. And it’s always fun to mock
my dad, who has been accused of looking like Rolf Harris on more than one
occasion!
We left the gallery and stumbled upon possibly the best
thing in the world, for me at least – a big international food fair on the
plateau outside St George’s Hall and opposite Liverpool Lime Street station (for those
who are only mildly familiar with the area).
There were stalls selling everything you can think of; from cakes,
biscuits and crepes to paella, curry, frankfurters…even an impressive range of
exotic meats, including wild boar, springbok and I believe kangaroo! Clearly those last few didn’t entice me in
the way they would others (vegetarian and all), but I must admit, they smelled
pretty good and people seemed to be enjoying them! If that isn’t enough for you, there was a big
German beer tent, a thriving florist stall and some very interesting jewellery
and other knick-knacks available.
My parents bought three of what claimed to be “the best
macaroons in the world”, and I have to say they were very nice. I also bought some dried figs – I’m a big fan
of anything figgy – and some of probably the
best baklava I have ever tasted. Not
that I’m a big connoisseur of Turkish pastries, but I know when I’m tasting a
good one. And my word, I was! If you don’t know what baklava is, it’s a
heavenly combination of filo pastry, honey and nuts (in this case pistachios)
and this one in particular was absolutely exquisite.
If you’re around Liverpool
at all, I highly recommend you nip across to St George’s Hall to sample the
delights of the international food stalls.
As far as I’m aware, the festival will be in situ until Sunday 19th
August, open between 10am and 8pm every day.
It was a brilliant place to spend a happy hour or so wandering, but you
could easily spend longer there if you sat and had a fancy Swedish cider or
explored some of the exotic foods. My
brother and I favoured the ‘try all the free samples’ approach, which is still
fairly time-consuming!
After practically being dragged away from the food stalls by
my family, we nipped into a few shops on Bold Street before
heading for some lunch in the Egg café (review to follow, as I believe everyone
should experience its wonder). Then my family
headed home and I did a spot of shopping, purchasing myself a big floppy straw
hat to try and avoid any further nose burn whilst we’re on our family holiday
this week.
All in all, a brilliant Friday and a very splendid few days.
I hope everyone’s enjoying the wonderful weather and fingers
crossed it stays this way for a little while longer! I will be spending the next week in the
beautiful region of East Yorkshire (which is
also where I spend the majority of my year at university…great holiday
destination, Mum and Dad!) but I should have the Internet and hopefully,
something interesting to say!
How have you been making the most of this glorious weather?