Fitness/Travel 2018 – Tokoinranta parkrun, Helsinki

Saturday, December 1st 2018 – Tokoinranta parkrun, Helsinki Unlike some people I’m not an obsessive parkrun tourist, which means I don’t find a parkrun first before deciding where to go on holiday. Rather, if there is a local parkrun and I’m in the area and can fit it in, then I will. Which is how…

Food 2018 – Ask, Helsinki

Friday, 30th December 2018 – Ask, Helsinki The White Guide says “Dazzling Finnish poetry – In the sparsely decorated room, with benches along the walls and Ilmari Tapiovaara’s simple wooden chairs, nothing here betrays that we are about to be treated to a spectacular show in roughly fifteen acts. Chef Filip Langhoff surely learned a…

Travel 2018 – Helsinki, Day 2

Friday, 30th November 2018 – Helsinki, Day 2 Friday started slowly, and we spent some time enjoying breakfast in the hotel (I’m told it’s been voted Finland’s best breakfast and though I can’t verify that, it is a very good breakfast indeed and is improved further by being included in the room rate, as is…

Travel 2018 – Helsinki, Day 1

Thursday, 29th November 2018 – Helsinki, Day 1 And so, at stupid o’clock, we loaded up the car and headed for Heathrow to get the 10:20 Finnair flight to Helsinki. It was quite a blustery day with the tail end of the latest storm blowing itself out over the south of the country, and there…

Travel 2018 – A Walk Round Towcester

Saturday, 24th November 2018 – Towcester I was having a mooch around the town at lunchtime, and had for once taken my phone with me. As a result I was able to take a batch of photos around the church, where the Armistice Day displays were about to be taken down, and around the new…

Food 2018 – Tight, Copenhagen

Wednesday, 31st October 2018 – Tight, Copenhagen This was a day when I let my colleague choose where we went for dinner, though to be fair he had requested that we go to Kødbyens Fiskebar the first night and I’d left him to his own devices on the Tuesday when I went out with a…

Food 2018 – FIAT, Copenhagen

Tuesday, 30th October 2018 – FIAT, Copenhagen On the middle of three nights in Copenhagen I’d arranged to have dinner with a friend who I had only ever met online, Maria. Although she’s Swedish, she works in Copenhagen (we know each other through the online community based around a weight loss website weightlossresources.co.uk, that we…

Food 2018 – White Horse, Kings Sutton

Saturday, October 20th 2018 – The White Horse, Kings Sutton With the increasing shortage of quality restaurants in our area, every so often we strike it lucky, and find a gem. Now that the Roade House, the Vine House and Cameron’s Kitchen are all gone, we need a high-ish end establishment for the more special…

Food 2018 – Hibiscus, Northampton

Saturday, October 13th 2018 – Hibiscus, The Derngate Theatre, Northampton It’s true – if unkind – that when thinking of Northampton the last thing that comes to mind is fine dining, but with the county’s annual food and drink awards coming up in a couple of weeks, and the announcement of the Restaurant of the…

Food 2018 – Game Dinner, Le Gavroche, London

Monday, 8th October 2018 – Game Dinner, Le Gavroche, London I’m a massive fan of Michel Roux Jr and his cooking style, which is basically proper French cooking taken to the extremes of refinement, nothing flash, nothing “molecular”, nothing outré or extreme, just the best possible ingredients, cooked to perfection. However, as a consequence, it’s…