attend the first international gathering of the Breakfast Martini Gang

here is a photo which Silvie took of the gang in action! Only 2 bottles of gin visible. For those who don’t know already, Moose is on the left, I’m the one cheefully scoffing profiteroles in the middle, and Stine’s on the right.

What a great evening it was!

about not sending anyone any pictures yet!
My computer still refuses to cooperate. I haven`t been able to transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer for some reason. And even if I did that, sending attwatchemnts is generally impossible these days because of my #¤%&#x%x#%/ internet connection. Sending e-mails with atatchments takes a few seconds, which is aparently too much to handle for my internet connection, and it generally shuts down in the middle of the process and I have to start the process of writing the e-mail and adding the attatchments all over again. Indefinitely.

But better times are coming, or so I hope, once I`ve got the firewall and virussoftware installed in my new computer!

Anyway, thanks for the pictures Moose and SL! I didn`t receive the e-mail from Silvie though, strange!

in true Ziida agent style I have dione some research. It’s here and spookily the guy lives in Sheffield (which is very close to me) and got the recipe from a cocktail bar called Muse in a local pub. ^{I think it must be pronounced Moose}

I tried to mark this goal as done, and note that I’d done it vicariously, but I accidentally picked the Chianti goal instead, and didn’t realize it until I started wondering why the BM Gang goal was still in my list.

Hurriedly, I tried to repair my mistake, but in the middle of my deleting and editing, I got a message from the ever-watchful leopard… So I must confess to having had a caffeine-deprived moment, and posting under the wrong goal. Or… perhaps, it was a time-warp moment… who’s to say?

Anyway, I regret that I wasn’t able to attend the First International Gathering of hte Breakfast Martini Gang in person, but I happily was able to enjoy their exploits vicariously!

43T is denying me the right to say I`ve met Moose! But I have met Moose! This isn`t fair! The whole “I want to met this person/I`ve met this person” part is gone from Mooses page. Why? Are the robots offended they didn`t get to go to the BM gathering??

Many thanks to the gang and especially to SL for all the planning and making sure it all went fantastically. We even had perfect promenading weather right up to the point when it ‘was go to the pub time’.

Some highlights and memorable moments for me were

-turning the corner into Brunswick Place (or whatever its called) and recognising SL and Stine immediately
- Chatting like we had known each other for years so that I almost forgot to go to the Proms
- Profiteroles
- the Royal Parks
- ooohhh and that child who went out of control on Primrose Hill and almost broke his neck
- Promenading for the photo shoot
- Poodles in the pub (well assistant poodles, but how spooky was that!!!)
- Meeting Paolo in the pub (what great company)
- and of course the wide and delicious selection of BMs

- and enjoying a day in the fantastic company of my fellow 43ters

Can’t wait to do it all again.

^{cocktail shakers at the ready}

Woho!
It`s quite sad to be back in casa spider now, but I had such a great time in London! And at least now I`m armed with a spider catcher, which Snowleopard gave me, I think the spiders can smell it, so they have stayed away so far.
It was so nice to finally meet you all!
Snowleopard and moose have ofcourse summed up the adventures much better than I could, so I`ll just record some higlights.
The adventures started immediately when I got to London. I just showed up in London with the name of a hotel (which later turned out to be the wrong hotel), not even checking which part of London I was going to on beforehand. My whole, genius plan was to simply call Snowleopard when I got to London, and she had promised to come meet me. That brilliant plan proved a bit tricky when my phone refused to work in London. So I tried payphones, and they politely informed me that Snowleopards number was banned. In the end though, a nice guy explained to me how to call English people (you have to add a zero to the number). Snowleopard rushed to my rescue, cleared up the hotel confusion and we then went for a nice ride in the laundry lift at the hotel. And then I finally got to go to the most important landmark in London: Paperchase!

Saturday was packed with highlights. For instance a really nice walk around London (I`m not going to try to explain where in London, but it was very nice nice!.) A great visit to Tate modern, where Snowleopard pointed out that most of the art was in fact food related (probably BBC sponsored), and I explaned all about painting elephants and art-appreciating pigeons. Then we followed some very interesting traditional dancers around (snowleopard tried to convince me we weren`t following them around, that she hadn`t planned that and it was pure coincidence that they showed up wherever we went, but I`m not that easily fooled).

Then it was time to meet the rest of the gang, Moose and Silvie! And profiterole making. Snowleopard was very nice and enouraging about my cooking contribution, almost managed to hide that she was a tiny bit worried, and they turned out great! (Thanks to Snowleopard and Moose mainly, although I did melt the chocolate). We had a brilliant dinner, I can`t remember the last time I laughed that much! Moose then insisted on taking pictures with waiters and I knocked over everything at the table.
And then ofcourse, the brilliant higlight of the weekend breakfast martinis! Made by the one and only Snowleopard herself! And three different kinds even! The Ikea martini was especially brilliant, and should make Snowleopard very rich I think. A really great evening, we really must have another breakfast martini party very soon!

On sunday we got to promenade the lovely primrose hill, which was lovely! And we got to meet Paolo, who came to a pub near Primrose Hill, that was fun!
Then Sadly Silvie had to get to her train to go home and cook sausages for HP. Snowleopard and I had a really nice dinner at a great restaurant, and even though the put lots of little plates with food on our table, I managed to behave myself and not knock anything over.

Hm, I was going to make this a short entry since several other gang members have already summed it up so well, but it`s impossible to write short entries about such a great weekend!!
Now you must ofcourse all come to Oslo very soon to frolic the fjords with the poodles.
And I will certainly be going back to England as soon as possible. Silvie has promised us breakfast martinis at pemberley, and Snowleopard has promised me tapdansing hobbits, so there`s no question that I have to go back!

And ofcourse, special thanks to the wonderful Snowleopard, who was really the mastermind behind all the great plans that made the weekend brilliant, and who made breakfast martinis for us!

The first meeting of the Gang was certainly an occasion to remember!

Yesterday Stine and I walked down to Waterloo Bridge where one of the Gormley men could still be seen on top on the National Theatre – I wonder if he’s going to be a permanent fixture. We went along the South Bank to Tate Modern and had a look round some of the galleries. I particuarly liked a work by Anish Kapoor which reminded me of a giant Easter Egg. Stine noticed that all the things I liked seemed to be food-related – oh dear!

After that we went for a wander round Borough Market where we kept bumping into groups of morris dancers (not deliberate, honest!) Then we got the nice man on the Italian cheese stall to make us mozzarella and tomato ciabattas which he told us would be the best we’d ever had – and I think they might have been – and ate them sitting by the river while the morris dancers had some sort of competition. Let’s just say there was a lot of jangling and clashing sticks and weird hoops and accordion music.

We walked back over the wobbly bridge, past St Pauls and home. Then it was time to meet Moose and Silvie! It was just as well Silvie set her phone to go off when it was time for her to go to the Prom as we were talking so much. The rest of us went back to my place and found that the profiterole-making process was assisted by a swift breakfast martini. We had a great evening making them and the chocolate sauce, and Moose’s contribution of a jar of lingonberry sauce led to the invention of the Ikea Martini, surely destined to be a classic (see Moose’s pic below).

We talked about all sorts of things and raised a glass to the absent members of the Gang. We all agreed that Stine must come to London again soon so that we can go to see the dancing hobbits in the Lord of the Rings: the Musical!

This morning Stine, Silvie and I went over to Regent’s Park and up to Primrose Hill to promenade, with a lot of dog-spotting en route. Then it was getting a bit nippy so there was only one thing for it, to go to the pub, where Paolo joined us. We had a lovely afternoon stroking poodles and talking yet more.

Eventually it had to come to an end and Silvie has taken her carriage back to Pemberley, but we’re meeting again next Sunday for the cocktail masterclass at Claridges which should be great! Stine and I have just come back from dinner at a Turkish restaurant where we managed not to knock any plates on the floor even after they dimmed the lights. I’m so sorry that she has to go back to Oslo, but all in all it has been a fantastic weekend and I’ll enjoy thinking about it tomorrow as I clear up the carnage!

Bring on the next one!!!

Oh wow that was so much fun!! In spite of the mulitple dangers facing the agents in London, we successfully managed to locate each other, and, having completed our Profiterole Assmbling Mission, proceeded to spend a thoroughly giggly evening courtesy of the magic catchphrases Internet Dating and Tapdancing Hobbits. Parsnip the Moose was particularly enamoured by Agent Silvie’s expert antler-tickling abilities, and kept a good grip on the gin at all times (see picture). Great academic advancements in the study if Stineglish were made, of coruse.

Recommend that all agents convene to discuss preparations for the 2nd IGOTBMG as soon as feasibly possible!!

I imagine you are too busy and possibly too tipsy to post, but those of us who are attending vicariously need to know what we are up to!