Dorking, Food, Photographs

I have recently been struggling with accepting that I have to commute 1.5hrs on a good day, every day to London to a job that I broadly love, from a town that I broadly love too. ‘Wasting’ 3hrs of my life every day on a train was beginning to be a pain, particularly in [...]

One of the advantages of living in a lovely sleepy town is that not a lot happens. Some might say that’s a bad thing, but I get my kicks when I’m in London.
Two news items that caught my eye recently were these:
‘Dorking restaurant manager risks life to stop death plunge‘
Clearly an incredibly selfless act [...]

Have a decent sized patio means that we can grow veg and herbs close to the kitchen and do as much as possible to protect them from the wildlife that are intent on chewing their way through anything. Here are 2009’s attempts at a laughably self-sustainable existence!:

This is my first crop of mint leaves, [...]

Polseden Lacey Tulips
Originally uploaded by Yppop

Another pretty pic from Polesden, with my new 18-200mm lens.

In 2007 we made a Nower Blackberry & Apple Crumble, after going blackberrying one saturday. This kept us in puddings for some days, albeit not sequential.
The Nower starts in Dorking and can be traversed all the way to Guildford.  At the Dorking end there is a field full of blackberries.  Being unprepared we emptied out [...]

I was tipped off by The Dorking Blog (manic depressive local blogger with an ear to the ground) that the local chocolate shop, which as he rightly says hardly ever opened, had changed hands. Since I am a big fan of good local stuff, I thought I’d drop in and check it out.
The chap (owner?) [...]

We dined at the The Westerley some time ago with family and on a drive back from Wimbledon, we decided that we had to go again.
Husb is one for trying anything and that anything that night was calves brain for starters. I didn’t want him to order it, so I suggested that I’d prefer [...]

We have been waiting quite a long time for venue to pop-up in Dorking that would tick the boxes of:
a) not an old man’s pub
b) not a young man’s pub
c) preferably called a ‘wine bar’
d) has good nibbles
e) isn’t pretentious
Finally yesterday we managed to test out the new Wine Bar on South Street along with [...]

Scoop opened during Easter 2008. I love it!
What a great idea to have something like that near to Dorking Halls so you (or your little ones) can get an interesting ice-cream or pick-n-mix (don’t worry its not like Woolworths). They serve Italian ice-cream (fruits of the forest, banana, mint icecream and apple, pear [...]

The Brockham Bonfire is one of the largest in the country. Brockham itself is a gorgeous little village between Dorking and Reigate with the classic village green and is overlooked by the Surrey Hills. This annual event is a big deal here - they shut down the local roads and you have to [...]