A DAY OUT - NO LESSONS REQUIRED

Good evening peoples.  And what have we been doing today?  Well education in it's formal and most obvious state wasn't on the menu today.  Today we had a day out; no lessons, no workshops, just a day out with friends.

We were taken to Greenwich today for the Chinese supermarket.  I've been cooking a lot of Indian and Asian food recently and was in desperate need of expanding my store cupboard.  So Carol and Lauren, myself and Callum were let loose with a trolley for each family unit into a vast warehouse full of goodies.  Was amazing to see so many things that are often so difficult to get hold of and when you can they are really expensive.  Here it was available and reasonably priced.  I was like a kid in a sweetie shop and Callum pushed the trolley and enjoyed looking through all the bits and pieces and boxes and bottles and cans and packets.  As a pescatarian and gluten free individual (one through choice and one not) I find buying foods often difficult and/or expensive, so to be able to get large packs of rice, rice noodles, rice wrappers (for summer rolls, like spring rolls), a wide variety of dried mushrooms and frozen fish at ridiculously cheap prices plus all the condiments I could possibly wish for was fantastic.   Callum even got a large box of prawn crackers (I can't eat them, but he loves them) and a gigantic box of fortune cookies which we split between Carol and myself (again I can't eat but Callum also loves) for £11.  I also treated myself to a bamboo steamer for just under £7, a pack of beautiful chopsticks and a couple of other utensils which would be handy.  Spent rather a lot, but most will be things I will never have to buy again and the rest will last me months.

Then off to Hall Place for a picnic lunch, where we had to fight off the geese, and a wander round.  Weather stayed lovely even though they had threatened rain today.

Callum at Hall Place

 There was a stream/river running through which, of course, drew Callum's attention and this is the view from the bridge we walked over.  The rest of the pictures are me playing with the macro button on my camera in the green house including one which shows the fish in the pond.  The large one, middle right, was Callum's favourite (of the fish that is).

Frangipan blossom

Bananas

Grasses

Bottle Brush Plant

After having a good walk around and looking at everything, including eating mulberries off the tree and swiping a couple of quinces, we made out way home, stopping off at Morrisons so I could show Callum the wide variety of fresh fruit and veg that they have and so he could see the 'dry ice' machine that they use to keep things fresh.

Carol picked some rosa rugosa hips for me and then it was home for a cuppa and a division of fortune cookies (one rather full carrier bag each) and then me attempting to find a home for all our wonderous goodies.

Callum's favourite memory of the day "FORTUNE COOKIES"

Tomorrow will be back to normal with lessons and then group trampolining.  Cya