We hired a car for the weekend so we could take Jason and Louise to the Cotswolds – specifically, we wanted to go back to Bourton on the Water, so they could have a play in the hedge maze there. They too figured out where the golden dragonfly was, but like us, their time fell slightly outside the “genius” 20 minute mark.

Of course, the real reason to go back to the Cotswolds is the clotted cream. Oh man, that stuff is the goods. I even managed to control myself long enough to get a photo of it this time. Warning: if you’re feeling snackish, this will be enough to top you over the edge!

We meandered around a number of the other towns to pass our afternoon, eventually settling in for a very late lunch in The Swan hotel in Broadway. It was delightful! Jason reckons they served one of the best burgers that he has ever eaten!

We were a bit undecided on where Sunday’s destination should be, but eventually we agreed on Stonehenge. I was a little in two minds about this one, as I’d heard many people give it very average reviews, with comments such as, “it’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be”. However, when I drove over the final hill and saw the rather famous stones in a field in front of me, I was absolutely blown away! I thought it was amazing!

I must have taken about 200 photos of the stones, from just about every possible angle. I really, really loved it. So much so, that Kristy and I even joined up to the heritage/historic/whatever it is society (bonus: free entry to over 400 sites in England!). 15 months for the price of 12! And I really don’t know why people had said it was “smaller than they had thought”; not only does each stone way up to 45 tonnes, but look how huge they are compared to the people next to them!

The only “bad” thing about stonehenge was the fools who decided the rope barrier didn’t apply to them, and hence felt no shame in jumping over it to take some photos a bit closer to the “action”.

Well, as a member of the society whose name I can’t remember, I was offended! So I pulled out my extra loud whistle – the one I usually save for encores at concerts – and let rip at them, followed closely by me yelling, “get out of there!”. The fools had a bit of a panic – which no doubt came from the sudden realisation that there was about 1,200 people who had noticed they had jumped the barrier – and scurried back behind the rope. Not before they polished off their photo-shoot though! Still, I feel I did my part to help preserve the site; I was just disappointed that security didn’t hear my whistle, and come running up with their batons.

As mentioned previously, our last visitors at E 52nd Street are John and Kirsty, who have trekked here all the way from London for a four-day weekend. Truth be told, we had never met J&K before they got here, but since they were friends of Ben and Michelle we figured they’d probably be fairly safe! Plus, we’ll be holidaying with them (amongst others) in February and March this year – but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, one of their self proclaimed goals for this trip is to eat pretty much anything they can get their hands on. Wifey and I figure that the USA has two cuisines in particular that may be tricky to get in London – BBQ, and Mexican. So last night, along with Karl, we trolleyed up to Dallas BBQ to grab some ginormous portions of ribs, chicken, steak and wings. We’d never eaten there before, but reviews all raved about portion size, so we figured it was probably on the right track.

Turns out they’re also known for their “Texas sized” frozen drinks – and who are we to turn down the house special? Kirstin bravely headed up to the bar to order something for us all, and I stood behind her for translation support. First order was a peach margarita for Kristy. The bar girl said to Kirstin, “salt?”, and I quickly realised it was lucky I was there too, because Kirstin replied with, “Texas size for all, please”.

Anyway, the rest of the drinks went smoothly, as did our meals. Portion sizes certainly didn’t disappoint, yet we all managed to get through almost everything. Probably not a very friendly place for the vegetarians out there, but if you’ve got a meat craving then it’s not a bad place to stop. Prices are very reasonable (especially when J&K sneakily conspire to distract us while they fix up the bill! Thanks guys!), and I’d be shocked if anyone ever left hungry.

I think we can successfully cross BBQ off John and Kirsty’s list. I also think I’ll be at the gym for three hours today burning off the excess calories!

Something strange is going on in New York (well a lot of the USA in fact) – it’s freaky hot. It’s supposed to be the dead of winter, but yesterday and the day before, we had temperatures around 20°C! It’s very strange seeing people out on the street wearing shorts and t-shirts!

To make the most of the splendid weather, and as a farewell to Caroline whose last full day it was in New York, we headed over to Bizarro World – or more accurately, the West Side – and up to a little diner called Eatery. We’ve read countless reviews of this place, and we’ve seen it on programs that talk about the trendy places to eat in New York, so we figured it would probably be a bit of alright.

Turns out that for the most part, it was a bit of alright. The food was reasonably priced with a brunch main hitting the wallet at around 13 bucks, and for that you get a decent serving of whatever it is that you ordered. The menu itself was just about the right size – not so huge that it’s overwhelming, yet extensive enough that even the biggest whingers should be satisfied.

It seems the meal of choice for our table was the buttermilk pancakes (three of), with rum caramelised pears, plus bananas and strawberries and maple syrup. Kristy, Karl, and Casper all ordered that and seemed satisfied with their choices. Just to be different, I hit our waitress up for their variation of eggs benedict called “E-Benne”. Instead of being served on an English Muffin, it came on a Maine crab cake, which was then stacked on top of a vegetable potato cake.

On the downside, the bread was pretty festy – quite hard and almost stale tasting, actually – but I don’t know if was just a strange variety of bread or if I just scored the dodgy bits of the loaf. Worse than the bread was their “latte” – it tasted more like they’d thrown instant coffee into an espresso machine, then topped it off with super bubbly milk. Yukko!

But on the upside, everything else was tasty as. Karl and Casper both polished off their plates in record time, so I guess the pancakes were pretty decent. Kristy and I both said that Eatery is a place that we’d happily eat at again, but we wouldn’t feel disappointed if we didn’t. gerrod.com rating: 6.5/10.

Karl and Caroline have arrived to wreak havoc on the USA. More specifically, Karl will be starting work with me next week, so he’ll also be wreaking havoc in our otherwise quiet department. Let’s see what trouble he can get himself up to!

Pat is also in town for a couple of weeks holiday over Christmas and New Years, so yesterday we all got together for a catch-up. After some well earned coffee (well earned because we managed to drag ourselves out of bed), Karl and Caroline hit the Red Bus Tour; Pat and I worked up an appetite by checking to make sure the XBox was still working, and Kristy exercised her eyes reading Angels and Demons.

After about an hour, the XBox showed no signs of packing it in, so we gave it our nod of approval and headed out for some lunch at Chipotle. Pat tells us that Mexican in the UK is sub-par so it’s probably for the best that he “stocks up” while he’s in the States!

We decided to take advantage of the niceish weather by taking a walk through the city. We made it to Columbus Circle (south-west corner of Central Park) and headed inside to look at the goodies at Williams Sonoma – as well as warm our freezing cold ears and faces!

Our walk home took us through Central Park which is looking rather bleak with all the bare trees. Still, it was nice to be outdoors in the fresh air – though I think we were all thankful to enjoy a good sit when we finally made it home.

Dodgy Jo told us about two months ago that she was coming for a visit. What she failed to mention was that she’d also be leaving us again! We thought she was here for good!

But alas, she’s done a runner, leaving us miserable in her wake. Kristy even tried chasing her all the way to the airport to try and change her mind and get her to stay, but her mission was unsuccessful. Jo is now winging her way back to the land of tikka masala and garlic naans, after a brief stopover for some vodka and matryoshka dolls.

Overall, we think that Jo (aka “Shabbadu” or “Rogan Jo”) had a good holiday in New York; we certainly loved having her around. We just wish she didn’t have to leave! Dodgy Jo!

Kristy Tailford is back in town to wreak havoc in all the post-Thanksgiving / pre-Christmas sales. Of course, they don’t start until… well, Thanksgiving… so until then it looks like she’s stuck doing touristy things. And, after seeing Jo’s fabulous pictures from the Reservoir at Central Park, I decided that I needed to see it for myself (to be honest I don’t know how I’ve not seen it until now), so I headed up there with Kristy KT “Tails” yesterday afternoon.

It’s beautiful! A huge lake, pretty much smack-bang in the middle of Central Park. The air was fairly still, so we got some fantastic photos of the reflections of the buildings lining the upper west-side of the park.

Being a Sunday, there was a patload of runners doing their 1.58 mile laps around the lake. Fitness gerrod wished that he could have been one of them, but sore ankle gerrod mocked him until he was silenced.

I’ll have to get myself back to The Reservoir another time when I have more light to work with (curse these ridiculously short days!), as I think photos from the west-side (i.e. looking east) would also be a treat. Still, a short visit was not without its benefits; we got a free transfer onto a bus for our trip back home!

Kristy has been hanging to eat at The Risotteria in Grenwich Village since the day that we walked past it, and yesterday she got her wish! We were all craving some carbs after our huge workout in the morning, so risotto seemed like a sweet fit.

The restaurant is quite small, but always seems very busy, even at the unusual time of 4:30PM that we were eating. Needless to say, we all ordered risotto – Kristy got chicken with pine nuts, Jo had calamari with olives and hot peppers, and I had roast lamb with spinach and Gorgonzola. It was a tough choice though – the menu has about 25 different risottos on it, including heaps of vegetarian ones (we thought of you, Cathy!) and almost all glutton gluten free.

Not surprisingly, our meals were all delicious, and decent value for around 10 – 15 bucks for each of our huge servings. They also serve a $15 bottle of their “wine of the month”; yesterday’s was a Coppola red blend which was fantastic!

We will certainly be dining there again. gerrod.com rating: 8.5/10.

So it’s probably not much of a mystery anymore, as news of people’s visits has a way of leaking out… but Jo has come to stay with us in New York! Woohoo! She’s been trooping it out in India for the past three months, but she has come to us in desperate need of a break from curries and naan bread. And what better place for that than in the big apple!

So after a very long flight (including an expensively bizarre stop-over in Moscow), she managed to turn up at JFK late yesterday afternoon. To ease her transition back into western culture (not to mention to help navigate the subway!), I went out to meet her at the airport. It was so great to see her!

To kick off her NY adventure, we dragged her all around midtown yesterday, finishing off with a night-time visit to Times Square. Jo was most impressed by the Hershey’s store, and has also acquired my love of peanut butter cups. Yum!

As you can see though from this giant beer and plate of “take-out” sushi, it didn’t take to long for her to re-acclimatise to the western world!

Today is Jason’s last (full) day in New York. Unbelievable! It seems like he just arrived yesterday! So in his honour I took the day off work today, and since Kristy is doing night-shift this week, we all got to spend the morning together. And since it’s his last day, we left the activities up to Jason’s discretion; consequently, we went ice-skating in Bryant Park! Well, to be more specific, Jason and I went ice skating whilst Kristy and mysterious guest chickened out and watched from the sidelines.

Just like every other skating rink in the world (well, probably), the hire skates were pretty dodgy, even though they’re only a year old (versus the 50 year old skates at Rockefeller). But overall, Bryant Park is definitely the place to skate, as the only fee you pay is for the skate hire! Once you’ve got the skates (or even better, if you bring your own) everything else is free!

So even though we were both very much out of practice, we came away relatively unscathed, with only a single stack scored against Jason’s name. I’ve no doubt he’ll tell you it was due to all the water on the rink (it was very warm today so the rink was kind-of melting). And to his credit, he was pulling 360′s by the end of our session, so he was definitely more adventurous than I was!

On Monday night we welcomed Mum and Dad Harvey to New York for their second annual visit. After sleeping off a little jet lag and seeing Gerrod off to work (what a trooper!) the three of us set out for a tour of the Radio City Music Hall.

The tour (which I expected to be very kitschy) was actually really cool! The tour guide, James, reminded me of Willy Wonka with his comical enthusiasm and quirky expressions, but his passion for the theatre was obvious. He took us through the grand foyer, the auditorium and various backstage areas, pointing out trivia and history along the way.

I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to give an exciting tour of such an interesting building though. John D. Rockefeller built the theatre as the first instalment of the 12-acre Rockefeller Center, and opened it in 1932. Given that this was all happening during the depression, people were amazed at the theatre’s opulence, with features like elevators (I believe it’s the only NY theatre with them), a stage curtain woven of genuine gold thread and 30-foot long Bavarian crystal chandeliers. If you can believe the tour guide (come on, who wouldn’t believe Mr. Wonka?), it’s the biggest theatre in the world, with the biggest stage in the world, and the best acoustics in the world etc.

The bandshell design certainly was breathtaking, and the elaborate hydraulic system beneath the stage really surprised me. As did the knowledge that when live animals are used in the three-month run of the Christmas Spectacular they, along with their trainers, live below the stage.

One interesting element of the tour was meeting one of the famous Radio City Rockettes who has been high-kicking with the precision dancers for two years. She was oh-so-charming and added to the “magic” of the tour.

It’s one of those tours that actually makes you excited about the city, and at just US$ 17, I’d give it a gerrod.com rating of 10/10!