Derbyshire Food and Drink Festival

As spring is now in full swing (and we can say good bye to the long winter they had here)… it’s time for the Food Festivals. These aren’t like the food festivals that we would expect at home (like the “Taste of …” events that happen throughout the year)… these are more like our typical farmer’s markets or craft fairs, where people are selling “homemade” food and goods. Also, it costs money to enter.. but still totally worth it.

We learned how to NOT put out a “chip fire” (a grease fire), but didn’t learn how to put it out. The only advice the fire authority told us was to turn off the gas and call the fire department. By the time the fire department comes, wouldn’t the kitchen (and maybe the house) be up in flames? We sampled some good food, including, but not limited too… brownies, spicy peanut butter, cupcakes, salami, chorizo, cheese, sausage rolls,… it was great!

Welcome to the Derbyshire Food and Drink Festival

STRAWBERRIES!

nom nom nom

Chocolate cupcake

rmgrmadj?

Chip fire! Don’t put water on it!

Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes

Even on castle grounds, they park on the grass..

Can’t go to a “food and drink” festival without getting a drink.. Strawberry Mule

Castle Life – Elvaston Castle (Derbyshire)

Sunday (May 19) was seriously the most beautiful day we’ve experienced since we got here.  The sun was out, there were barely any clouds, and it was actually WARM! 21 deg Celsius (70 deg F)! Trust me.. that’s warm around here. After the walking around the Derbyshire Food and Drink Festival, we headed over to Elvaston Castle, just to check it out. You can’t go inside the castle, but you can walk around the grounds and the gardens and the nearby cemetery.

Elvaston Castle

Bird Hedge

Got this shot through the window..

Beautiful garden hedges

Helmet hedge

Cycling is prohibited around the castle..

Horse stables

YIPPEE!

I kinda like that we can drive 30 minutes (approximately) and come upon a castle. Yea, they’re all in different states of restoration (some in ruins and some completely restored to their former glory), and some you can’t even go inside.. but just walking around the outside is pretty awesome.

Crime&Punishment – Galleries of Justice (Nottingham)

If you’re interested in finding out about the history of the justice system in the UK (or at least in Nottingham), you should definitely check out the Galleries of Justice. It started out a bit slow, maybe because we were a tad late and or maybe because the Sheriff of Nottingham was not my favorite of the three characters we encountered during the tour. But, it was interesting to find out that the Galleries of Justice was used for sentencing as recently as 1990.. that they used to have public executions on site.. and we discovered who the lady on the £5-note is (Elizabeth Fry).

View from the prisoner’s box

View from the witness boxes (to the back)

View from the witness boxes (to the front)

ORDER IN THE COURT!

Read for your flogging?

The gallows

This contraption was used on people who spoke out (including wives against husbands)

Burned at the stake…

Rules of the County Gaol (back in Georgian times)

This is where the gaoler stayed.. pretty posh, right?

Part of the women’s quarters (after women were separated from the men.. in Victorian times)

More laundry equipment..

This bed was supposed to hold 2 to 10 women!

Women and children were educated so they could at least say their prayers

The noose

Shoemaker

Different examples of chains and shackles

Examples of doors

Prisoners used to carve their names in the brick walls (like ancient graffiti)

These blocks memorialize prisoners who were buried in the prison yard

The prison yard

There was an exhibit about “Transportation” of prisoners to Australia

run away!

Old Police Car

Police Shed (like Dr. Who!)

We actually learned a lot from the museum… especially about the differences between how the Georgians treated prisoners and how the Victorians treated prisoners. The main difference being that the Georgians were ruthless with the treatment of their prisoners, whereas the Victorians came along with all sorts of reform, like productive and unproductive work and separating the women from the men. There was also an exhibit on Her Majesty’s (HM) Prison, but we were allowed to take pictures in that exhibit.

Going Underground – City of Caves (Nottingham)

Something really cool about Nottingham is that was built (way back in the day) over a sandstone cliff. As a result, and over the years, there is now an extensive network of caves that goes throughout the city. The caves were made over the centuries for many different purposes… food storage, cellars, underground roads and hideouts, pubs and inns, gambling rings, tanneries, bomb shelters, etc. As the city was growing, caves were covered up and forgotten and then later on rediscovered during excavations for new building developments. If you drive around the city, you can actually see entrances to caves all over the place.

Anyway… Minh and I had a free weekend, so we spent Saturday doing some touristy things in Nottingham. One of the stops was The City of Caves, which is  a small portion of the caves beneath Broadmarsh Shopping Centre. It was pretty neat, because we could see the  how the caves were used for a multitude of purposes throughout the centuries. There were sections that were used as ancient and medieval water wells. We walked through an old tannery. We sat in a replica WWII bomb shelter. We saw the foundation of the shopping center. See pictures in the gallery below (click to enlarge):

Tiggua cabauc – Ancient Anglo-Saxon for “place of cavy dwellings”

Example of an ancient water well

Footholds carved into the side of the well for people to climb in and out for water

Main pillar cave

The caves naturally stay at approximately 14 deg C..

which is perfect for underground cellars

Feces pits.. used in the tanning process

Square pits used in the tannery

Remaining walls from what was the Narrowmarsh (Victorian times)

Caves used as basement dwellings

the foundation of the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre

Replica WWII bomb shelter

Doctor Carrot!

Eating In

As most of you know, Minh has been cooking dinners lately… since he’s been home and I’m at work most of the day. He’s been doing a great job having dinner ready(ish) by the time I get home from work. Like earlier this week, he had all this ready for us to make spring rolls … ah.. a taste of home (sorta).

Spring rolls for dinner! (shrimp only)

I still remember how to roll these things..

He also used the Zoku for the first time since we got it. Pretty much with whatever fruit juices we had in the fridge.. orange, cranberry and tropical..with pineapple chunks.

Good for an after-run snack.. . not matter how cold it is outside..

Imagine his excitement when we got this new Ferrari in the mail! In red, too!

Our first FERRARI!!

Now we’re going to have pizza all the time! Or something like that.

“Rolling” out the dough

Toppings ready

Before going into the “oven”

The oven is ready..

Pizza in

Pizza out! Margherita

Second pizza out! Pepperoni and onions

Third pizza out! Mushrooms and onions and basil

This is how we eat pizza.. standing in the kitchen…

Weekend Dilemma’s

Nottingham – Land of Robin Hood

This past weekend (11-12 May) was a disasterous waste. We didn’t make any plans for Saturday, so we ended up sleeping in like we usually do. By the time we decided to go out and do something, it was already 12pm.. too late to go anywhere far.. so we just headed into Nottingham to hang out. Walked by the Castle and had lunch at the oldest pub in the UK…

Taking a long trip back in time..

.. to the oldest pub in the UK

Couldn’t go to a pub without getting a drink.. or two..

Descent sliders..

nom nom nom

Walked around the shops in town.. finally went into Primark (which was like going into Nordstrom Rack on the weekend during Christmas season.. craziness).. grabbed a snack at Homemade… stumbled upon an awesome stag party in the rain (if you can see… they’re all dressed up like Disney characters).. and then headed home.

Homemade Cafe – voted Nottingham’s best cheap eats (2012?)

Interior of Homemade.. pretty basic cafe

SMILE!

Latte .. not so awesome… but they did have free issues of Vice magazine

Boozy smoothie for Minh

Pulled pork quesadilla

the rain won’t bring down this stag party

Sunday we actually had a plan.. but it was an epic fail. I was supposed to meet up with a group of ladies for the Rapha Women’s 100 training ride through the Peak District. Minh was coming along too.. either to ride with me or to do his own ride. And since Minh refuses to drive.. he was playing navigator.

Real life puzzle.. how to fit two bikes in a small sedan..

seats down. wheels off.. tight fit…

We ended up at the right restaurant, more or less on time, but in the wrong city… We ended up heading back to where the meet-up was supposed to be, then driving a bit of the route to try to find a place to park. After much driving and frustration later.. we just decided to give up and head home. The weather was rainy (as usual) and by this time (over an hour after we were supposed to start riding), I was just over it. Instead of heading home, we hit up the East Midlands Designer Outlets, which was on the way home.

lunch at the outlets.. where’s the green?

Outlet here are nothing like outlets at home… much smaller and not as many good stores. I did come home with a new Superdry jacket and some chocolate from the Cadbury outlet.. but that was pretty much the weekend. This coming weekend will hopefully be better.

London Calling: to the Tower!

Not so much traveling on the Monday (BANK HOLIDAY!!!). The majority of the day was spent at the Tower of London. I can tell you all about it, but really you just need to go see it for yourself. And if you want to get the whole experience.. I would set aside a good portion of the day to see the whole thing… the whole history of the Tower is very interesting, and tells you quite a bit about the history of England in general.

Hard to miss when you walk up from the Underground..

Welcome to the Tower

At least it was a t-shirt kinda day..

Here I am attempting to take a panoramic shot with my phone..

.. still taking it…

The Tower of London – A Panoramic View

Pretty ominous looking from the outside

A grassy moat

Ferocious lions

People actually live here…

The Tower of London is actually comprised of several towers

Tower Bridge

Collection of canons

Medieval Crossbow

Archer windows

Where’s my bow and arrow?

White Tower

Many many steps at the Tower

Medieval armor.. including parts of King Henry VIII’s

Children’s armor

Beware the dragons!

It’s actually made from weapons and armor and things like that..

Pistols for claws.

Tunnel vision

The Armory

Golden winged lion..

Lots of weapons in this room..

Also.. make sure you plan your visit to the Tower when the Crown Jewels are there. This is the only exhibit in the Tower that does not allow photography, so I can’t really show you how cool it is, but I thought it was definitely worth seeing.

Off to see the Crown Jewels