Wicklow Way: Worth waiting for

On a trip home a couple of months ago I was reminded how beautiful Ireland can be when the weather's behaving itself.

This is the Guinness Lake. So-called some say because it looks like a pint of the black stuff, while the rest say it's because the stunning house nestled beside it is owned by the Guinness family. It seems alcohol is good for you after all.

Sigh. And if this wasn't reason enough to move back to Dublin immediately, my mum's cooking surely is.

All the same, I arrived back to London to be greeted by another Jamie Oliver iPhone App Special (Thai green curry this time) from Michael, so I really can't complain.

Blogs, bloggers, Christmas and copious amounts of wine

From time to time you can't help but ask yourself why it is that you do a blog. Recognition? Reassurance? Boredom? For me, it was a lot about reminding myself why I live in London. It can be all too much sometimes with long working hours, nose-to-nose tube journeys and constant police sirens signalling fresh nastiness in the area. It helps to force yourself to sit and think about what it is exactly that makes this such a great city. Why do this in public? Recognition? Reassurance? Boredom? I'm not sure.


Anyway I don't think I qualify as 'doing a blog' exactly, having given up after a few short months. A couple of months ago, my laptop was stolen and I just couldn't be bothered anymore, took it like a sign for a fresh offline start. But yesterday I was very kindly invited to the London food bloggers' Christmas lunch by the lovely Uyen from Fernandez & Leluu (thank you!). Chatting to some of the faces behind names like the London Foodie, Maison Cupcake, Hungry in London, Miss Immy's London and Grubworm gave me the impetus to start again. Fascinating listening to them talk about why they blog, and keep blogging, and to hear that so many of them seem to be in entirely unrelated professions, like banking and law. Strange. But then I thought maybe it's the creative outlet they need - or just that they have the spare cash to keep eating out in nice places. Amazing to find out they were real people too. People say the internet breeds loners but the 50 friendly and really quite normal people who stepped out from behind their computer screens on Sunday would beg to differ.

Lunch was at The Ship in Wandsworth, a pub I'm happy to have trekked across London to discover. While the walk across a roundabout and through McDs drive-through was a bit worrying, it turned out to be a lovely, warm, welcoming pub. Huge and sat right next to the river. The food was suitably suitable for the discerning palates of 50 hungry foodies. Was thinking they must have been nervous about inviting such digitally-promiscuous food bloggers, but if they were they needn't have been.

A surprise amuse-bouche (crab cake I think) was followed by a gorgeous ham hock terrine with black pudding, kumquat jam and celeriac ribbons, then duck artfully poised on the plate like something out of the Krypton factor (with Yorkshire pudding, brought out when plate envy took hold), a surprise cheese plate then turned up, followed by Christmas pudding which, though feeling stuffed as a Christmas turkey by this stage, would have been rude not to eat.

All the while, an endless supply of wine, artfully teamed with each dish kept sloshing its way into my glass. Finished with orange Madeira dessert wine. Oh god there was a bloody mary at the beginning too wasn't there? It was a long afternoon. But food aside, the highlight had to be a swarm of starlings that performed aerial cloud tricks over the river out the back. They looked like a shoal of fish swishing around an invisible sky shark, totally mesmerising.

They even spelled out Happy Christmas for us... or was that one bloody mary too many...