Bumper pumkin crop

Very pleased with the harvest from my two Australian butter pumpkin vines this autumn - three huge pumpkins and eight smaller ones. There will be plenty of delicious pumpkin soup this winter!

Elizabeth Taylor

Sad news today that Elizabeth Taylor - truly the last of the great movie stars - has died aged 79 after many years of illnesses.

I thought she was astonishingly beautiful in her heyday, and not a bad actress despite making many not so great films - but in her good films she really was terrific. I loved her in National Velvet, Jane Eyre, Suddenly Last Summer and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Even in her lesser films she was always good.

She was so glamorous but seemed to have a wonderful earthy and self-deprecating sense of humour - in interviews she was always witty and seemed not to take herself too seriously.

Yes, she had that soap opera life with all the marriages, the illnesses and near death experiences, and all those diamonds she collected. But she also did much fine and pioneering work for AIDS research, and by all accounts she was kind, generous, loyal and very funny person in her private life.

With her dying, there are no more real movie stars left.

Afternoon tea review: Mint Hotel, Manchester

We stayed for a couple of nights at the simple but lovely Mint Hotel and enjoyed their surprisingly good (not to mention good value) afternoon tea. They had a lovely selection of sandwiches, nice scones, and nice, not too heavy cakes. The Piccadilly Lounge is a lovely place for people watching.

It gets a solid 8.5 out of 10 on the Scott Scale.

That makes my current rankings look like this:

1. Peninsula Hong Kong 9.5/10

2. Lovejoy's San Francisco 9/10

3. Mint Hotel Manchester 8/5/10

4. Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong 8/10

4. Westin Melbourne 8/10

6. Ritz-Carlton Singapore 7.5/10

7. Four Seasons Hong Kong 7/10

7. Hyatt Hotel Canberra 7/10

7. Langham Place Hong Kong 7/10

7. Regent Singapore 7/10

7. Sheraton on the Park Sydney 7/10

7. Swissotel The Howard London 7/10

Afternoon tea review: Swissotel London

Just back from a whirlwind European trip. We had a lovely time but of course now I am struggling with the post-holiday blues (for which apparently the only cure is to book another holiday). We went to Singapore, London, Winchester, Manchester, Berlin and Amsterdam. We spent most of our time in Berlin. I had never been to Europe in Winter before. It was quite cold!

I did of course manage a couple of afternoon teas. Tom and I met with his sister Christina, who has been living in Switzerland the past few years, at Swissotel the Howard hotel in London on a chilly afternoon for afternoon tea. We had their traditional tea but on reflection I think we should have had their special TL afternoon tea, which includes fun little cakes in the shape of London icons such as Big Ben (see picture).

The weather was perfect for indulging in tea and scones. We also had sandwiches and pastries. I thought the cakes and scones were very good and I enjoyed the tea. I thought the sandwiches were a bit dull. The Mauve Bar is quite nice, but I found the chairs to be far too low.

Overall, it gets a 7 out of 10 on the Scott scale.

Springtime in Curtin

So, for context, Curtin is the Canberra suburb where we live.

Today I planted some dwarf lemons and a cumquat in some pots on the back terrace. I also took a few other photos of our garden, which after all the recent rain in looking great.

Springtime in Canberra

Spring has certainly sprung in the national capital and the weather is glorious.

This weekend Tom and I went over to Lake Burley Griffin where we walked along the promenade and were delighted by this couple of black swans with their cygnets. We then went to see a very interesting exhibition contrasting east and west German architecture post-WWII at the Gallery of Australian Design. It was full of fascinating photos, plans and models and highlighted the similar approaches taken in both of the then nations to housing as well as commercial, leisure, cultural, civic and other public architecture and town planning.

We then walked over to have a look at the much anticipated, much delayed and now just newly opened National Gallery 'front door' and Indigenous art galleries. I must say I'm not quite sure how sympathetic the additions to the building are from the outside (you can judge for yourself from the pictures - don't you think all that glass somehow cheapens the uncompromising concrete brutality of the original?), but there is no question that the interior improvements are fantastic - several, huge new Indigenous art galleries, a much better shop, a more lobby-like entrance space. Overall, I think it is a big improvement - from the inside. I do however loathe their hideous 'new' retro '80s NGA logo - it's cheap and vile.

After a browse in the Portrait Gallery bookshop across the road (absurdly small and poky - was it an afterthought?), and some tut-tutting about the disgraceful state of disrepair of the outdoor spaces around the shamefully neglected High Court, we drove over to Yarralumla Nursery to buy some plants for the garden.

First produce of the season

Great excitement today as I picked my first bunch of asparagus for the year.

These are truly amazing plants, cropping for over 20 years. We have four plants in the backyard. They are so productive that by December we'll almost be sick of the taste of asparagus, but then there are so many things you can do with it - steamed, blanched, in a soup, baked in quiche or pie (it goes well with chicken), cold in salads, grilled on the BBQ.

I'll fry these in some butter and serve them with pepper and Parmesan cheese tonight.