Mr. Toad's Wild Ride! : December 2014

WEIGH-IN WEDNESDAY

Wel, another week - another one pound off - considering it's that time of year and the shops and super-markets are full of little mouth watering treats - I don't think that's half bad! But I defer to you all - to level your own verdicts!

"SING WITH THE STARS"

St Petroc's Church - Padstow - Cornwall

Thursday 4th December at 7:30pm

For the third year running I travelled down to Cornwall last Thursday to take part in "Sing with the Stars" - a special Carol Concert put together to raise money for The Merlin Multiple Sclerosis Centre.

The Actors that took part this year along with myself were Jeremy Child and Jenny Agutter. I worked with Jeremy years ago on the BAFTA Award Winning Series: "Edge of Darkness" Jenny was one of the children in the all time kids favourite movie "The Railway Children."

With Jenny and Jeremy

The Celebrity Carol Concert

St Petroc's Church - Padstow - Cornwall

From the Programme.

Inside the Church.

Seasonal Fruit Cake.

One of my pieces I had to read. This is the recipe for a "Seasonal Fruit Cake" with taking a nip of Brandy every now and again. I took a drink from a Hip Flask I took with me, every time you see a red asterisk. This was a great piece which went down a storm.

The TRAIN TRIP FROM PADDINGTON to BODMIN PARKWAY.

Jenny had brought a Super Picnic to have for Lunch

Along with a bottle of Sparkling Wine

Sushi anyone??

CONSTANTINE BAY

One of the perks of the Padstow Carol Concert is being able to stay with Amanda and Martyn Hedley in their beautiful house overlooking Constantine Bay. It really is a most stunning place. And they look after us so well!

Amanda and Martyn.

Finally the best part of the whole evening: The yummy dinner they provide for us after the Concert!

KEW GARDENS

Towards the end of the week I took myself off to Kew Gardens - something I've been meaning to do for ages. I just scratched the surface this trip as I didn't realise how vast it was - as you can see from the map below:

Luckily I had a chance to take the KEW EXPLORER LAND TRAIN which gave me a chance to go around the entire gardens to get an idea of what was available. Don't worry I did plenty of walking once I got off the train!!

Some of the Structures I saw around Kew.

One of the Big Attractions at Kew Gardens.

King of the Palm House, this huge Jurassic cycad, Encephalartos altensteinii (i), was collected in the early 1770s from Eastern Cape region of South Africa, by Kew's first plant hunter Francis Masson.

Meet the world's oldest pot plant in the Palm House at Kew Gardens

The plant hunter Francis Masson was commissioned by Sir Joseph Banks to step aboard the Resolution and join Captain Cook's second voyage around the globe. This ancient plant, commonly known as the Eastern Cape giant cycad, arrived back at Kew Gardens in 1775 and has thrived in Kew's majestic Palm House since it was built in 1848. This cycad was one of the first living collections to arrive at Kew Gardens, kick-starting a legacy which makes the Gardens what they are today - a living collection of over 30,000 plant species.

SYON PARK

Syon Park for the last few years has opened it's gardens from 5:00pm until 9:00pm just before Christmas for people to experience the area around the the Lake bathed in coloured lights.

For children walking around I think it must have been quite magical.

On the way out there were all these stall with:

Hot Chocolate

Mulled Wine

And Hot Dogs!

It took all my self-control to bypass these - believe me!!

BAFTA SCREENINGS

Went to another couple of BAFTA Screenings this week - both unfortunately disappointing!

Firstly:

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"

This does exactly what it says on the tin: "The Battle of the Five Armies". It is a battle fest from start to finish. What I liked about the previous "Hobbit" was, unlike "Lord of the Rings" at least that film had character development, a story and bags of humour. This film relies on endless battle sequences which after the first gets a little old and boring quite frankly - but I'm sure the true "Hobbit Fans" will lap it up! Jimmy - let me know what you and Jack made of it!

Secondly:

This is a "Sword & Sandles" Epic directed by Ridley Scott. It is a re-working of the Moses story with Moses being played by Christian Bale. I'm a fan of Ridley Scott ever since "The Duellists" and of course "Thelma and Louise" but this is all big visuals - which are stunning - and very little interesting story and dialogue. It covers a huge expanse of time and place and everything gets lost in between. There is also a huge amount of controversy about casting white lead actors and then making them up to look Middle Eastern. An awful lot of money was spent making this film and even though there were four screenwriters credited with writing the script they should have spent a bucket more of cash on more writers!!