Monday, Monday

Posted on January 9, 2017 by nicdempsey

This is usually where I put a ‘Life Happened’ post but they were getting a bit dull, I don’t find my life to be at all dull but it basically consists of the same elements; sleep, allotment, friends, housework, reading, wrangling the nephews occasionally, being ill (something I’m really hoping to do less of this year) and repeat.img_5475Like I said, I really love it but I’m not really enjoying writing about it and from the stats on the blog, you’re not really enjoying reading about it either! I honestly don’t know if there is anything to replace it with, the blog is my space and functions as something between a journal and a spare brain, I’m not sure who reads it or why they read it and that works for me because I think if I tried to change it to grow an audience or to make money, it would fundamentally change the space from what I need it to be.img_5403What am I saying? That I may not post on Mondays anymore, that it may be less about what I’ve done and more about what I’d like to do or about something that occured to me over the last week, it may be a photo I’m particularly happy with or a chat about what the week has in store and what I’d like to do about it. I’m not sure. I committed to focus this year but in this space, I’m giving myself room to be less focussed, I’m not committing to any definite weekly posts, generally, if it’s a recipe, it’ll go Thursday, Links with go on Friday and if there’s music it’ll be Sunday but I’m not going to be rigid about things having to go up or being in a particular strand because that felt quite constraining.img_5225This week I’m all about my routine and work, which is going to be busy. I know that we’re past the shortest day but it’s still pretty dark and I need a routine more in the winter than the summer, so I want to start to bed that in properly for the rest of winter, with emphasis on yoga and walking so I’m more likely to sleep better and be calmer about the business at work. I had a idea about the plan for the allotment, so I want to look at that. It’s the second week of January so I’m going to be gentle with myself about everything else and focus on the art of surviving January!

What are you doing this week?

Posted in How I Live | Leave a comment

January 2017 Goals

Posted on January 7, 2017 by nicdempsey

January is a month to be endured, the aim is survival but on the off chance that January will set the tone for the rest of the year. Not much happens in January, but Ben and Laura are moving and I want to be around to help them if they need it. I generally want to focus on making some gentle changes that will help me survive the month and prepare me for the spring. It’s also a time to re-set my good habits that I’ve slipped with over December and the Christmas break.img_5725

  • Use Bright Light Therapy Headset every day. I was given a bright light headset for Christmas. I’ve started to use it first thing in the morning. When the alarm goes off, I put this on for the prescribed 12 minutes and then I get up. This is something I want to do every morning to see if it has an impact.
  • Get out of the house by 7:30am on workdays. I get to work by 9am every morning, but the day goes better if I get into work earlier and have some time before people come in and start asking me for things. So I’m committing to getting out of the house in time for the 7:56 train in the morning, which will get me in the office by 8:30 at the absolute latest.
  • 10pm lights out on schoolnights. This really goes with the ‘get out of the house’ goal. Christmas holidays really mucked up my sleep patterns so I need to reset them. I need to sleep train myself again. This also means no screens after 9pm and making sure that ‘bedtime’ starts before 10pm, so I’m already in bed at 10pm.
  • Daytime walk in the park. I want to start walking more again. I really enjoyed it in 2015 and it sort of fell by the wayside in 2016 as I didn’t feel that my foot was up to it. So this month, I’m going to commit to a lunch time walk (providing it’s not raining!). 30 minutes in Regents Park, which is just next door to the office and kills three birds with one stone; I get a walk, I get outside in the daylight, and I get out of the office.
  • Drink two litres of water every day. I’m pretty good at this usually but I didn’t drink enough water over Christmas, so I just need to get back into the habit.
  • Yoga. I need to make time for this more consistently. When I do, I feel better, but I tend to let it slide. So I’m going to commit to 4 times a week and see how it goes. I signed up for this so that should help.img_5597

These are the focus for the month, there are other things I want to do but I think that these six things will help me set the tone and the other stuff will happen more naturally. Those things include taking care of myself (cleaning my face properly every night, moisturing, cutting back from December’s alcohol and bad food fest), taking care of the house (hoovering, getting housework routines re-stablished), blogging (here and on the EDAS website), the allotment (more weeding, planning for next year, thinking about how I’m going to start seeds etc!)img_5716

Posted in Goals | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Friday Links

Posted on January 6, 2017 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!  The first week back to normal after Christmas is often full of resolutions and confusions. Hopefully, you all transitioned seemlessly back to real life. I more or less did aside from a doozy of a migraine yesterday. However, it’s Friday and life is back to normal so here are some links…

Underwhelming NYE photos. These are fab and I give you mine!img_5720

Ma rang me to tell me about this. A letter to all of the permissive parents. She thinks it could have been me. I think the author of said letter is far nicer to those parents than I would be!

Christmas isn’t over yet! Exactly, I think that New Year should really be in March or April, when it feels like a new year, it seems wrong to have it in the middle of Christmas.

We dedicated a year to self help and this is what it taught us. I found this hilarious…

I loved the response to this. Ask Polly. I’m pretending I’m happy single but I’m not. I would have used less words, more of the ‘get over yourself’ variety’ but it’s good advice. Make your life. I’m a firm believer in ‘if you build it they will come and if they don’t, it’ll still be amazing and yours’ school of living…

We’ve all been playing UNO wrong. We haven’t because Ma read the rules to stop Ben, Lu and Oli’s shameless cheating, but it’s easier to play the way everyone else does!

Posted in Links | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Food and Budget Review 2016

Posted on January 5, 2017 by nicdempsey

One of last year’s goals was about food and budget. I wanted to see if I could set a budget of £15 a week for my food. That’s roughly £2.14 a day. There were some things that budget didn’t include, booze, coffee and entertaining. So family celebration meals and people coming over for dinner weren’t included in that £15 although feeding Ma when she stayed over (which is most weekends during the summer) was.

I did really well. I stuck mostly to within my limits and while I didn’t save the change, I still feel good about it.

Here are the things I learned:

You have to plan and prepare – I’ve always been a fan of food prep and menu planning and this is really important when you are sticking to a budget. You have to work out what you have, what you need and make sure that you have something that you like to eat, if you don’t plan it, it all goes wrong.

You have to find alternate sources of protein – I’m always going to be a meat eater, I like meat but I eat less meat than I did because meat is expensive. I’ve noticed that I eat more eggs and cheese than I used to but I also eat more beans and lentils than I used to. img_5408

I still make my own bread – with the exception of tortillas and french bread, it’s easier and cheaper for me to make my own bread. That’s rolls, bread, flatbread mostly. I appreciate that if you have children or make a lot of sandwiches, it might not be but it works for me.

On toast will save you when you’re too tired to cook. Mushrooms on toast, cheese on toast, hummus on toast. When you can’t be doing with making an effort, something on toast is the answer.img_4625

I know what costs what where –  I have two Lidl’s near me but I generally go to the bigger one in Hanwell because it has the best deals but that doesn’t mean that everything is cheaper. I very rarely buy peppers from Lidl because they always have green ones in them, dried beans are cheaper in Waitrose than in Tescos. I’ve learnt to keep an eye on offers and check prices more.

I don’t waste food. I was always pretty good at this but I’m even better at it now, I also have a better appreciation for the effort that goes into food production whether that’s growing the vegetables or making dinner.

Of course things happen and one of the biggest impacts on my diet this year was the allotment. In the summer I was mostly trying to keep up with the produce and did less planning. Next year, we have plans to grow a lot more veg and to stretch out the season, so hopefully I should be getting some veg into October and November and start getting stuff off earlier than June, although you can never tell what the weather is going to do! I want to grow leeks and other winter vegetables. We’ll also grow some crops just for the freezer and work on preserving something other than courgettes!

We didn’t grow anything we wouldn’t have eaten but the quality of what we grew was so much better than anything I could buy. Ma became a fan of salad leaves, I ate raw tomatoes, there weren’t a lot of peas but they were amazing, I became a fan of beetroot!img_4760Overall, it was useful for me to look at the amount of money that I spent and the food I bought. I know people who spend less on food and people who spend much more but I feel that I have the balance right for me and I will continue to set a £15 a week budget, I won’t be updating you here though because it’s been really lovely not to take a photo of everything I eat!

This year I want to spend some time thinking (and posting) about how I do things, I may post menu plans too. Is there anything you want to know about any of this? I think one of the more interesting things for me is how my view of ‘what’s enough’ has changed. At the start £15 seemed a real challenge (and some weeks it really was!) but now it just seems normal and relatively easy to do. So if you are thinking about cutting back on food spending or changing how you cook and eat, don’t panic, it’s very doable!

Posted in Cooking, Food, Money | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What I’ve Read – December 2016

Posted on January 4, 2017 by nicdempsey

I didn’t read much in December. Nine books might seem like a lot but I took most of the month to read Gentleman Bastards book and A Darker Shade of Magic. Most of the rest were read in the last week of December after Christmas!

Once Upon a Christmas – Sarah Morgan (Kindle TBR list)

I love Sarah Morgan, this one is a category Mills and Boon which I’m guessing has been re-packaged. The men are steely and determined, the woman virginial but at least they have a career. As I get older, I get less tolerant of the ‘alpha-hole’ in romance and the hero verged on that in this. Having said that, snowy Cotswold setting and I’m happy.

Managed – Kristen Callihan (bought)

I liked this so much better than the first one. Read it in a day, it had all the usual NA ridiculousness that I know and love.

A Darker Shade of Magic – V. E. Schwab (Kindle TBR list)

I really enjoyed this one and read it at the right time, I have the next on the TBR list AND the third is due out either this or next month!  I loved the concept of the different London’s and loved that there’s still more to learn.

The Lies of Locke Lamora: The Gentleman Bastards – Scott Lynch (Kindle TBR list)

This was recommended to me ages ago and has been sitting on the TBR list forever, I think I bought it as Kindle deal before I started to limit my book buying in 2015! It was clever and detailed and I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I will read the others at some point.

Bittersweet (True North Book 1) – Sarina Bowen (borrowed)

Fast and easy reading which I really enjoyed. One of my issues with NA is that the settings are so unrealistic. A theme through all three of the books is about things not working out as you planned and how you come back from that. This was the least dramatic. I know nothing about Vermont or apple growing or cider making. If the hero was making calvados with his apples (or maybe even gin a la Chase) I would have been more invested!  But I liked that both the hero and the heroine still had things to learn and that neither of them was sure about their lives all the time. Also that the hero worried about doing the right thing by his family and farm and employees.

Steadfast (True North Book 2) – Sarina Bowen (borrowed)

I wasn’t sure about this. The whole thing looks pretty hopeless and was quite NA in that both hero and heroine had horrible parents AND the hero was an addict. I liked that her chapters started with a song (and that I recognised some of them!) and his with a craving scale. I really liked that it dealt with addiction head on and had some stuff about chemical help for that. It was a bit melodrama-rama but there’s a scene near the end of the book where the heroine’s mother wakes the hell up, which I cheered at! I also really liked the realistic way the heroine described her career choice and not choosing to sing for a career. Like I said the books seem to reflect some of the growing up that happens in your 20’s..

Keepsake  (True North Book 1) – Sarina Bowen (borrowed)

I liked this one least, because the heroine really annoyed me but I still read the book in a day, I liked that the hero wasn’t pushy and that he did the right thing, even though he wasn’t sure. I also liked the theme of family that ran through all the books but really played up in this one.

Archangel’s Heart (Guild Hunters Book 1) – Nalini Singh (borrowed)

More Singh book crack. Although I got that this was about the change that Ellie had on Raphael, I really, really could have done without the repetition. I get it, they have a love for all the ages but show me, don’t tell me. Also and this is something I’ve noticed in all of her books, she tries to have the characters make jokes but they aren’t funny!  Still read the hell out of it though!

Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor – Rick Riordan (library book)

One of the things I really like about Rick Riordan is how he’s introducing diversity to his books. I don’t know if someone talked to him about it or he’s always wanted to do it and can because the books are so sucessful. However, Magnus has a Muslim character (who has to work out how to be Muslim and work for Odin) and her brother/sister, Alex is gender fluid (which makes perfect sense given who his/her father is). This book didn’t question the right of the character to be who the hell they wanted but did deal with the confusion of other characters (Magnus) about how to understand and be appropriate. I don’t know how a trans person would view it but I liked that Magnus notes that he’s never felt like that and the closest he’s come is being made to right with the wrong hand, which he knows isn’t the same but is the best he can come up with to try and understand the sense of wrongness a transgender person might feel. I’m all for diversity in books and for explaining and then getting on with it. I also really liked that Alex is better than Sami at some stuff because Alex knows who she/he is (and I’m using he/she because the character specifies that using ‘they’ doesn’t work for him/her, although it may work for others). Other than that, it’s a typical Riordan romp through the Viking deities and in the next book, Percy Jackson. Fun times…

Posted in Books, Reading in 2017 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Year, New Goals – 2017

Posted on January 3, 2017 by nicdempsey

This post has been sitting half written since before Christmas. The run up to Christmas was trying in a way I didn’t expect, it was fine, I was fine but I was tired and just trying to get to Christmas and a rest. I didn’t write any Christmas cards and did most of my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve! I was really not ready for Christmas.

But you know, Christmas happened anyway and it was fine.img_56482017 started as well and I’m not really prepared for that either but here it is.

I hit 2016 feeling that there were things in me that needed to change and 2016 changed them, ok I did some of that work too but 2016 happened and overall it was pretty damn good. I know, the narrative is that it was a terrible year, but I’m going to say it, 2016 was a good year for me. So now we’re in 2017 and the question is what do I do with this new and shiny year?

I’ve been thinking about goals and setting specific goals like I did last year but that didn’t quite fit. I still have most of the same aims, work on paying off my debt, stay employed, keep in control of the house, work on the allotment, be healthy. Life will change in 2017, it always does, but my needs and aims are pretty much the same.

The thing that keeps coming to me is focus…

So that’s the word for 2017.

Focus. I want to focus on the things that are important to me. I’ll set monthly goals as usual but they will be in the same vein as last year.

So ready or not, here it goes!

 

Posted in Goals | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

2016 Goals – How it went

Posted on December 28, 2016 by nicdempsey

Time for the recap of my 2016. The current opinion is that (unless you are Donald Trump or Nigel Farrage) 2016 has not been a good year for the world. Honestly, I think that there have been worse years and I’m not terribly optimistic for 2017, however, I had a pretty good year. Most of it was down to the allotment, I was honestly not expecting to be allocated a plot so soon and it derailed quite a few of my goals, because it ate all my time and most of my money but I love it and the responsibililty I have to maintain it. I’ve also gained more oportunities to exercise and socialise and I feel I have a mental calm that I didn’t have before. I am emotionally fairly self sufficient and pretty good about being on my own but if there is a negative side effect to being so self sufficient it’s not having a focus outside of myself. The allotment has provided another focus, I’ve joked about it being like having a baby, which of course it isn’t, but it is something that needs attending too and that had been good for me.img_5283

HOME

I had three things that were all about focussing on the flat..

  • Decoration. In 2016, I need to paint the bathroom, bedroom and living room again. I’d like to tackle the bathroom before June but the other rooms will have to wait until I have full use of my foot again!
  • De-clutter. I want to have another clear out of the cupboard of doom and have a serious look at what’s in the kitchen.
  • Deep cleaning. I will assign a weekend every three months to deep clean the flat. In this weekend I will scrub the floors, clean the oven and windows and all that stuff I’m not good at remembering to do!

I think I did really well in the first half of 2016; January was a mouse fuelled whirlwind of cleaning, mopping and generally being worried about the vermin. That lead to a natural declutter of the kitchen and I did have another clear out the bedroom in September time. The other work on the flat was held off because May to October was mostly all about the allotment and Winter is not a good time to paint the flat. I do really need to get to it in 2017, all the rooms, so if I have to take a week of work to get it done next year, so be it. I have done more deep cleaning but not as much as I planned, but the daily things are all done and 2016 raised the bar for what I consider tidy. Generally, when I look around and think that the flat is really messy most normal people point out that it isn’t (that’s everyone except my mother!).

DSCF5044FINANCE

My major goal this year with money was to face it head on and the goals were all about that. Here were the goals…

  • Tracking. I’ve been using a spreadsheet, that Ma (the queen of the spreadsheets!) helped me set up. It tracks what goes in and out of my bank account and what’s left. It also helps me plan for the year. In 2016, I will be consistent about using it.
  • Food Budget. This one is already in play, in 2016 I will set a food budget of £15 a week and I will record my spending and eating on this blog each Tuesday. Any money I don’t spend each week will go into the change jar, which is sealed and won’t be opened until 1st December 2016.
  • Overdraft. I have one and I want it gone, so I will pay it off in 2016.
  • Credit Cards. I won’t use them in 2016. I reserve the right to use them in an emergency but I can’t plan for those…

So generally, it’s been good which is not to say that it’s been easy or that I met those targets. My big successes were the food budget and the tracking, which are ingrained now, ask me about last week, when I misread or mistyped a 3 as a 2 and my determination to work out where the hell the missing penny was! The penny wasn’t the issue, the money was. There have been some things that have thrown me off track with the targets for the overdraft and credit card spending. They came down to the allotment (yep that again), work mucking up my travel loan not once but twice and have left me paying them back more money that I planned and me not being as disciplined as I could be. So I’ve paid off half the overdraft (and it’s costing me less than £4 a year) and I’ve worked out that I’ve spend less than a quarter of a months salary (net) on my credit cards this year. This is a huge improvement on 2015. It’s not perfect, I’m not perfect but it’s a huge leap in the right direction.

My spending generally is more considered and less spontaneous although I’m a nightmare in a garden centre nowadays. The £15 food budget has been mostly met and I’ll talk about that in more detail tomorrow.

IMG_3249BODY AND MIND

Physically my major issue was recovering from the osteotomy and feeling good. Here were the targets…

  •  Walking. Walking more was a game changer for me in 2015 and I want to get back to that, obviously that will depend on how my foot recovery goes. So I need to have small, long term goals for this, a) by the end of March 2016, I would like to be walking either to work from Paddington Station OR from work to Paddington Station, that’s about 35 minutes a day. b) by the end of June 2016 I would like to be walking both ways and getting my 10,000 steps a day.
  • Body Balance. I love doing this when I do and my work gym membership resumes in July. So I’d like to go to one class a week in July and August and then resume 2 classes a week from September.
  • Yoga. The evening routine is good for me so by the end of February, I want to be doing this at least twice a week.
  • Volunteering. I want to start attending the volunteer allotment days in June and this year use the two CSR days work gives me. I’m sure that my Mum can find a use for me either at the foodbank or the homeless project!
  • Books. The 12 book target was good but restrictive last year, I’m going to give myself a bit more leeway and have 24 books this year.
  • Work Uniform. This year I want to have a work uniform, but not use it as an excuse for buying more stuff. I need to wear office clothes 4 days a week so I will create 6 outfits for work make sure that 4 of them are clean and ready to go for Monday morning.

Some of these were really successful. The work uniform was a genuis idea and has made mornings so much easier. The book target – I bought 23 books this year. I got lots of books free or borrowed from the library, I also did really well at Barter Books in April because I bought books to trade and got a £20 credit. I have a different mindset about when I need a book now and am deferring gratification a bit but I still have a ridiculous TBR pile and I need to work on that next year. I did more volunteering in 2016, the Ealing Half Marathon, the allotments, I also did less formal volunteering with my various babysitting duties (which worked well for me, weekend in Paris, Match of the Day watching and so on!). I want more of that next year. The walking and the body balance got abandoned because my foot wasn’t up to it and my breathing wasn’t up to the polution, the yoga was more sucessful but not as regular as I could have been. Other than the goals, there were two other things that had a real impact on my heath and wellbeing. First was the the allotment (it really did effect everything in my life!) there was a point last month where I was shovelling woodchip into a wheelbarrow realised that this wasn’t nearly as tiring as it had been in May, so physically it’s good for me and mentally, I don’t know if it’s the happy microbes, the community, being out in the ‘fresh’ air or eating so many courgettes but it makes me a more cheerful balanced person and that is a good thing. The second thing was finally getting a confirmation of asthma. Not a cough, not acid reflux, asthma. I have had some awful colds this year and all but one triggered horrible coughing hell, I thought I had asthma, everything I read suggested I had mile adult onset asthma and I also am in the perfect group for it; history of family with ENT issues, check; live in a city with bad air quality, check; perimenopausal, check; coughing when I catch a cold, check; hayfever, check. It was frustrating and scary but the best news is that it’s fixed! Hopefully, I’ll be healthier in 2017.

20140521-092208.jpgWord for the year

I chose authentic because I wanted to work on being honest about who I was and valuing myself and my interactions with others. Which I believe I did, and it was easy to do because for lots of reasons, I really like myself and my life and it’s mess and imperfection and ability to cope with 36 courgettes in one week and not throw any of them away!

Posted in Goals | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Night Before Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2016 by nicdempsey

If you’ve been around for a couple of years, you’ll know that this goes up on Christmas Eve.

I’ll add my wishes for a happy Christmas to all the boys and girls from Satchmo..

Posted in Christmas | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Friday Links

Posted on December 23, 2016 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! and Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I’m so glad to finally get to Christmas and a couple of days off work and routine!

There probably won’t be links next week, unless something else truly dreadful happens, so I’m going to be optimistic and say see you next year!

On the genuis of Stevie Wonder.

Trump can’t protect the US from foreign enemies because he’s too busy targeting domestic ones. Interesting…

Homeless and working. This is wrong. It’s wrong.

Why “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” became an annual controversy about date rape and consent. I totally get why people find it problematic, I still love it and it’s a song.

This was interesting. Working-Class Parents’ Investment in “Self-Reliance” Is Working Against Their Best Interests. I wonder if that translates to the UK, given that we have better maternity leave provisions. But mostly, what the hell is up with Americans and their fear of government?

Honest Christmas cards.

7 things to know about the winter solstice.

Posted in Links | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ginvent Pop Up

Posted on December 21, 2016 by nicdempsey

Every year for the last 5 the Gin Foundry has put together a ginvent calendar. 24 different gins to taste from the 1st to the 24th December. It’s a marvellous idea, one year I’m going to get one for December.

For those of us not able to drop £120-ish on the calendar, last weekend there was a Ginvent pop-up at Vinyl Records in Poland Street. They had lots of stuff going on but the thing that caught my eye was the speed tasting. 2 hours, six gins from the calendar, with each of the brands given 7 minutes to tell you about their gin and the best way to drink it. As they said, you won’t find love but you might find a new favourite gin!

On getting there we were given a gin and tonic. This was actually one of the gins we were tasting, the ginvent gin. They make a new one for the calendar each year. The serve was fever tree tonic with orange and clove. I didn’t mind it (Ma was not that keen!)When Olivier came to tell us about his baby, he talked about Christmas and the chocolate, cherry and licorice tastes. It’s cold distilled, the botanicals (amongst others) are star anise, kaffir lime leaves, elderberry, black cherry, cinnamon, clove, and chocolate. Straight up, the chocolate really came through, with water the licorice really stood out. We also tried it as a negroni with additional chocolate distillate that was left over from making the gin. I could see how it might work with a bitter less bitter than Campari (I habitually make mine with Aperol) but the chocolate didn’t quite work for me, although part of me wonders if its a use for the cocoa eau de vie that I bought back from Cote d’Ivoire ages ago! I like strong junipery gins, so this isn’t one that I’ll rush out to buy but it was very interesting.img_5579Strane is a Swedish gin. Made about 130km north of Gothenberg, it’s a London Dry that comes in three expressions, Merchant Strength (47.4%), Navy (57.1%) and Uncut (75.3%). img_5587It’s made by whiskey producers, so they make three gins, junipery, citrusy and herbal and blend them to get the taste they want. This means that each of it’s expressions has a different botanical profile. We tried the Merchant Strength. It was fine on it’s own but I really liked it with tonic.

Makar Gin was a gin I had never heard of before. It’s made in Glasgow (Makar is Scots for poet) and we tried the Old Tom. img_5589Old Tom is getting more popular nowadays, it’s an old style gin, sweeter and easier to drink straight. I liked it. It was quite floral which I often struggle with but I could have quite happily drunk this straight or, given it’s 43% ABV, cut with water. The Makar suggested serve was with fever tree elderflower tonic and an orange garnish and I could se that working but I also liked this one with the straight tonic.

I had at least heard about Tarquin’s gin before Saturday. It’s Cornish, made in small batches (220 bottles a time), using really old fashioned methods (hello heating the still with a naked flame!). img_5590The tonquin (42%) is more floral at the end but the Seadog which is navy strength (57%) is much warmer and spicy. I liked them both but would go for the Seadog if I had to pick. I had a Seadog gin and tonic later and it was marvellous!

I was less impressed with the other two gins The Pinkster and the Bishops Gin. I love gin but I accept that it’s a marmite spirit, you like the juniper and botanicals or you drink vodka. I think that these two are towards the more neutral end of the spectrum for those vodka drinkers. The Pinkster is a straight London Dry gin made with five botanicals, that has a maceration of raspberries and another three botanicals added afterwards. Which makes it pink. I didn’t get that much of anything off it served straight and found it too sweet with tonic. The suggested serve is with ‘slapped’ mint and it made it better to drink but this is something I’ll suggest for people who aren’t keen on gin.  They also bottle and sell the raspberries after they’re done and I did have the thought that this gin with some mint would probably make a good (and pink) fizz cocktail – perfect for Valentines Day and weddings – with the raspberry at the bottom.img_5583The Bishops Gin has nasturtium as one of it’s nine botanicials but but I didn’t taste that. We started with the guy who made it, telling us that he didn’t like gin, which is not really anyway to sell it to a bunch of gin obsessives but onto the gin. It’s a very smooth London Dry bottled at 40.9% ABV and is clearly designed for ‘gin and….’ people. It smelt like petrol (I wasn’t the only person who reached for that as a descriptor) and was shown to best advantage when mixed with fever tree mediterrean tonic.

This was such a brilliant afternoon, I’m really hoping that they do it again next year because it was educational and a great way to taste and learn about some new gins..

Posted in Booze | Tagged , , | 4 Comments