Jason in Liverpool: A video from the archive...

travel flashback #2 Anna Blume Cafe, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

postcard


Jason and Birgit's friend Sandra

catching up with posting photos from the first week...

for us the flooding was just an inconvenience,

the locals have to live with the daily consequences and

limitations, for them this means more than wet feet.

Jason in one of many many temples

view of Bangkok and the swollen river

so high was the river tide..

(better tasting when barbequed)

flapjacks...

no news

we just haven't updated the blog much because while we are kind of busy, we haven't really done much out of the ordinary that we could photograph or write much about. Birgit is shackled to the desk and laptop most hours: working on her dissertation; and Jason is carrying on being happy, inspiring, yogaing, meditating, climbing and sharing the household love for good food. We eat a lot of lentils and have become experts at cooking them.

That is about as exciting as life gets at the moment...

Yoga in the park with Birgit and Jason

actually there's no Birgit on the video, just Jason, but she was

definitely on her mat, doing much the same as Jason. The whole

practice takes us about 90 minutes to 2 hours. It doesn't feel that

long when you're doing it. Very relaxing and refreshing.

Jason's Sunday breakfast

It is Sunday lunch time, Jason has just finished his yoga practice

(while Birgit looked blankly at material for her dissertation which

is progressing at the rate of the global economy recover... i.e. barely)

And here is Jason's breakfast:

I have a feeling that this is the WRONG video!

Another attempt and I hope this is now the right file:

catching up ...

... on the events and things we did over the last week.

So saturday the 23rd was Birgit's birthday and below some of the day's itinerary:Jason made pancakes for breakfast on his camping stove, we waited for a replacement electric cooker to arrive (as Birgit's had given up the will to live and couldn't be fixed until after the weekend). Then dashed off to Princes Park, which is at the end of the road to see the Carnival parade of the week long Brouhaha Festival.

Then we got some veggy food in the park and saw the Hip Hop Circus (after much delay and waiting around).

This made the day great.. Then we went to Yoga class and at last had dinner, I forgot what dinner was but Jason made a wonderful tiramisu and is now ready and prepared to work in Italy as a tiramisu chef.

and Jason made coffee granita, too....

We watched a cooking program by Rick Stein, who is a well known TV chef in England and learnt about northern Spanish cooking. Jason was inspired to buy chorizo at the next best opportunity (monday). This sample video of Rick Stein cooking is actually from Morocco, so it's not what we saw, but if you want to know who Rick Stein is, this will do fine:

Sunday we cleaned the flat and as soon as we were done Birgit's friends swarmed in (in comemmoration of her birthday the day before) and we were a little surprised, it was probably obvious and to be expected that lots of people would come but somehow we were a little sleepy and had simply forgotten that people were invited..

A lentil dal saved the day. It was a lovely afternoon! And some friends also bought stuff from Birgit's 'house-shop' (we had to turn the bedroom into a EVERYTHING in HERE is FOR SALE ROOM.. ) And Alex took home one of Jason's glass works. We've been invited to visit her in Leeds where we can stay with her (in exchange for more glass - sounds like a great deal.)

Monday: we escaped from the flat before anybody could come and visit us and went to the beach. It's tough being loved and having friends.. ;)

We sat in the beech forest on our Yoga Mats and did a combined 108 rounds of OM. Jason may tell you more about that himself perhaps..

We walked along the beach and through the shallow water, collected more shells and left over homes of crabs and eventually were driven into town by hunger. So we took the train back to Liverpool Center and ordered Panini's at a Spanish tapas place. needless to say the flavour was good but our wallets got a little shock. So we do tend to stick to cooking lentils for pennies at home most days. Or at least many days. Eating out is almost always disappointing and to pay to be disappointed is just not right. But we had a nice time. Jason's chorizo panini was good and so was Birgit's (non chorizo - but veggy). We felt lazy so we just cycled to the train station and hopped on the train with our bicycles to ride the train the 3 stops home.

I bet we cooked lentils that evening.

p.s. Jason bought a chorizo, which makes him happy.

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PHOTOS COMING UP AFTER DINNER. - please return in an hour or two. or even tomorrow.x

visiting the Hale village and the lighthouse

Just a very short drive (perhaps 25 minutes) from Birgit's house in Liverpool is Hale Village. A quaint small suburb which is part of Liverpool but feels quite like countryside. We forgot to take photos of the village itself but took many at the river by the lighthouse.

moments after stepping out of the car and we stood among fields.

Jason found apples floating in the river and opened one up to smell it.

small succulent type plants growing on the river beach, we

found out shortly after that you can eat these like vegetables.

We'll come and try sometime.

climbing, of course.

Spending time with a holy cow

Jason discovered a wall to practice his spiderman moves on...

meeting (mad) people:

These pictures are a few weeks old:

befriending a penguin

teaching the penguin how to be cross eyed... ?

no comment

Manchester China Town

Jason took this photo! We spotted this lady in Manchester.

friends we lunch with (candid shot as they really don't like photos)

buttering a muffin..