Zooropa

Amongst bundles of discarded wrapping paper, turkey leftovers and bags under the eyes during our trip home I also made my first ever visit to Colchester Zoo, re-discovered some old London stomping grounds and had a couple of cracking pub lunches.

Colchester Zoo was much bigger than I imagined. Our friends had suggested a 4-hour visit and as we drove up there in the drizzly rain I truly wondered what an earth we were going to do for 3 of those hours.

But I should have feared not as we comfortably strolled it’s 60 acres during 3 hours and still left some for another day, although there were a fair amount of exhibits that had migrated for the winter. There are apparently over 260 different species and they are laid out in numerous zones where you can get pretty close to the animals.

Girls, goats and iPads

We are leaving Chicago first thing tomorrow after an enjoyable few days here. Without one shadow of a doubt, me and the other half will have the same conversation we always have when we leave Chicago during the journey back which will end in us categorically agreeing to move back as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

That of course doesn’t mean it will and we are happy in Bermuda, although we have had a couple of blips recently, namely having great difficulty in getting our daughter into a (decent) pre-school, which we have finally done for a start in September.

There are few places however that light me up more than when I’m walking the streets of Chicago, which I did a lot these last few days, mostly holding my daughter’s tiny hand as she explored every minute detail at an extremely slow pace as only 16-month olds can.

I was in the Apple Store every day trying to get my hands on an iPad 2, but as expected they are only available to people prepared to sleep outside on the pavement every night with a credit card and a duvet. I can wait.

Lunchtime today we had sushi at one of my favourite restaurants, Sushi Wabi. The little ‘un has a strange liking for soy sauce we found out but neither the food nor the Sapporo disappointed.

I also grabbed some Dirty Bastards and a few different Goose Island brews with some friends at the Hubbard Inn on Monday night, but our best meal was Sunday night at the new Girl & the Goat. Owned by US Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard, the menu was a delight with some inspired concoctions such as seared scallops with goat sausage. There was a lot of goat (I skipped the cheese) plus for the more adventurous there was wood oven roasted pig face, grilled bison buttocks, braised beef tongue and cod cheeks. Pick your body part!

Every dish the four of us picked was excellent and despite one hell of a miserable waitress, I will still be recommending this place.

Weekend supplement

My weekend back in the UK was a change from the norm in that I had quite a bit of down time, i.e I didn’t have to be here, there and everywhere. I had a great few days and got some quality time with my son and my parents and even (whisper it) got some long craved for sleep!

Saturday my son and I were at The Valley but only for around 110 minutes – we embarrasingly missed the academy parade – because we were in the pub. We started with friends at our regular haunt, The Bugle and then popped into the Royal Oak before we got to the game. Afterwards we went back to the Oak to meet Dave and his lovely wife to discuss the game in more granular detail. Those grains mostly consisting of beer. Then Miso in Bromley solved our Chinese food cravings.

Another real highlight of my weekend was joining the Charlton Live team at their Valley studio on Sunday night to take part in their internet radio show and pick up my ‘Rufus’ prize. Dave, Peter, Deb, Bob and their resident trainee Statto were fantastic company and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Dave Lockwood and Peter Finch have some great plans for the show including a podcast and call-in’s but there was passionate debate and a very steady stream of emailers and Twitterers joining in the 2-hour show (every Sunday from 7-9pm). Driving back to my parents in East Sussex afterwards made me realise once again what a truly committed and loyal bunch of supporters the club has.

Ask any expat Brit the 10 things they miss most and one of them will be the country pub, and I went to a cracking one on Friday. It was the Beachy Head high on the white cliffs of the same name. It had a roaring log fire, tremendous food, Harveys beer and from the cosy inside looking out onto what could be described as a grass covered moon slowly undulating until it disappeared into the galaxy like sea.

When I actually think about it, I spent a fair bit of time in pubs this past weekend because I was also in The George in Trottiscliffe at the foot of the North Downs in Kent for Sunday lunch where a roast dinner would have fed an army.

Before that I watched my son play football for his club away at Ditton. As Dads will know watching your son play any sport is a cause for great pride. His team lost, we got soaked but he played well and we both loved every minute of it.