Bunkering down in Berlin

Sir S and I flew our little red plane over Berlin and crashlanded sausage-side, where we parachuted into the cosy digs of one St John Nottlesby with the last of our chocolate rations intact.

As to be expected, Notts was a super guide. Having gone native, the fellow nattered on in the local lingo with ease, took us out to some glorious cafes and restaurants, including a charming Russian Jewish restaurant of esteemed crepes, and a sunny delightful beer garden. 

Evening decadence too was overindulged upon in Weimar Berlin style. We stepped the Charleston in the sauciest of dark dance halls and flirted with fine company in the sexiest of speakeasies, and it being Easter, we downed the most gruesome and potent of nectars ("Mashed Chick", wherein the strawberry liqueur mush was rather worrying) and had a brush with a delightful polar bear (but thankfully did not fall into the pit like one poor fraulein). 

A grand weekend!

Bluebell Dell

Golly, it's certainly been an aeon between posts. Sadly London life does not inspire the same as the Far East, and thus my output has dwindled greatly in the bloggery department. Things are set to change this summer however, if things turn out right.

A nostalgic past-time that I rediscovered here in grey wet England is that of strolling through bluebell woods in late April or early May. Almost an inverse of Japanese hanami, here when at their most splendid, the bluebells carpet the ground so that all that can be seen in the pooled shadows of trees is the purple-tinged lilac haze of nodding bluebell flowers. Under cherry blossoms in Japan, people picnic and admire the boughs above, but here in English woods one cannot picnic for fear of squashing 'em (and the ground is likely to be wet from torrential rains), so one instead strolls and observes on foot.

Sir S and I spent an afternoon in Bluebell Wood in North London. It's a small scrap of woodland, but said to be very ancient, and the scrap itself is quite busy with birds, squirrels, with signs of foxes too. What appeared to be a woodpecker's hole in a tree was of great interest to Sir S, who dangled my camera in said hole and got more than he bargained for when something squeaked, growled and battered the camera with a forboding hiss. We had no idea what it was, as we ran a mile in the other direction, and the only snap taken by my camera was useless as it just showed an empty, dark void.

Unfortunately the vivid bluebell carpets of my childhood were not to be found in this wood, however the scattering of blue, pink and whitebells was charming enough all the same, and the sun stayed out long enough for me to get a tad sunburnt.