I went to Hampstead, which is still in the city, but nearly as far north as you can go without leaving London. I walked around a bit and took some pictures, really soaked it all in. It reminded me of Hyde Park (Chicago) in springtime. Just a little more upscale.
As I walked, I followed the "Mystery in Hampstead" route from my Fodor's 24 Great Walks in London. But I did it backwards. The journey was supposed to start at the Hampstead Overground station. I started at the Hampstead tube station, which is where the walk is supposed to end, so I just followed it in reverse.
The walk wasn't a particularly eventful one. It had me stop in front of a lot of old houses that have the blue historical markers on them. But it was nice just the same. I took a detour through this little garden when I came to it:
Wandering along back on the trail, I stopped at the Keats House! I was bummed, though, because it's closed for renovations. I couldn't go inside.
But seeing this sign almost made up for it.
Excellent. I continued on and walked into the Heath, where I wandered around a bit, and then climbed to the top of Parliament Hill. There, I had an excellent view of the city below.
I plopped down in the long grass and took out a book. I read for about an hour and finished it. It was nice to rest after all the walking, and to rest my feet as well. I picked the wrong day to break in my new shoes, I think. I bought them to replace the ones I had that were already on the way out, but then became my bakery shoes. These ones are similar, half sneaker half mary jane, but slightly more on the sneaker side. Anyway, I had the most enormous, painful blisters on my feet after walking around in them all afternoon. I was hoping to be able to wear them to Germany, Copenhagen, and Scotland when Ian comes, but I can't bear the thought of putting my feet back into them right now. And they were so comfortable, too!
Anyway, enough whining. I had a very lovely afternoon and found myself and excellent reading spot! When I got back to New Cross, I decided to bake the scones I had planned on making on Saturday. I started with the chocolate scones. I was working out of the Avoca Teatime cookbook I got in Ireland.
Now, I don't have a scone pan and the dough was too sticky to shape into triangles by hand, so I had to make due with just plopping them down in blobs on the cookie sheet. That wouldn't have been such a bad thing, but then they spread! This is how they ended up:
It's hard to tell from the picture, but they're huge! They're also not very scone-like at all. Much more like whoopie pie ends, except less sticky. They're very cakey and, actually, kind of dry. But I think they'd be all right with a big scoop of ice cream on top!
My second round of scones, also from the Avoca Teatime book, was pear and almond scones. I just happened to have two pears and some flaked almonds (and all the other ingredients), so I figured that recipe would be perfect! Now, with chopped pears in the dough, I couldn't have the scones spreading, so I put them in a muffin tin. This is how they came out:
They look like muffins rather than scones! Ah well. And they actually taste a lot like the muffins I made from the recipe in the Avoca book. And, personally, I think these could use more sugar. They weren't very sweet at all (the recipe called for just 65 grams!). I also couldn't figure out why the scones wouldn't brown. They were definitely done, so I didn't want to overbake them, but they still look sort of...raw? I blame that one on the oven. Stupid gas oven.
Well, despite the fact that my scone attempts didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, my roommates will still eat them. And I will too! It was a lovely, lovely Sunday. I wish everyday could be that sunny and relaxed and wonderful. Minus the blisters.
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