Revealing Ealing

A few weeks ago, me and the boy had a fantastic lunch to celebrate his Birthday at the fabulous Santa Maria. We started the day with a wander through the rather majestic Walpole Park with our favourite pizza place as our destination, on the way we HAD to stop to collect conkers and as it was his b'day, how could I say no? So having denied some children of a few crackers, we were seated in the back of Santa Maria for a b'day lunch. I have written about Santa Maria before -  YOU CAN REFRESH YOUR MEMORY HERE  - and everything I've already said still stands. It's highly regarded, got lots of awards and there's still a huge demand from the Ealing community for their wood fired pizza. He had one with smoked mozerella (yum) and I had one with lots of proper chillis on (ouch) - we also had wine and finished off with gelato and coffee...........the gelato was technically medicinal due to the chillis......... Love the p...

Sunday Lunch is a big deal in my life. For as long as I can remember Sunday Lunch has been a tradition, it was the one day of the week you were guaranteed to have everyone sit down together for a meal and then go for a stomp through the woods to blow the cobwebs away before starting the work / school week again. As well as the bonding time with friends and family, it goes without saying it was also probably the best meal of the week as Momma Rev cooks the best Sunday Lunch in the land (and if not the land, then definitely the Midlands). Now, I don't live near enough to pop in to my folks for a single meal and, not being especially inclined to cook the monster meal myself, we have been known to go out for Sunday Lunch. This being something I find very enjoyable (papers, glass of wine, yummy food, no washing up.......so good!) and something I want to do more made me think that I could make a feature of this and set up the Ealing Sunday Lunch League. ...

It has taken me a long time to get to this post.  Not because Walpole still has bits to be opened / completed, but because I've been doing a few straw polls to try and get to the bottom of what people think about the revitalised Walpole Park. While the majority of people are impressed with the way the Heritage Lottery investment is being spent, some people are being incredibly negative about it (someone on Facebook even referring to the whole park as 'crap') with the main (but not only!) bone of contention being the new gravel inhibiting kiddies on scooters. Having written a really long post about this, I've deleted it and decided to not bother as we all have our opinions and I cannot be doing with people moaning at me, instead I will say 3 things: 1)  I LOVE the park! I feel very lucky to have this and the other green spaces so close to where I live - it keeps me sane! 2) I believe the excess gravel will be swept away and removed once it has bedde...

Before I start this post, I just want to be clear that I am not going to attempt to explain what the Hindu procession (that runs in a circular route from the Shri Kanaga Thurkkai Amman Temple and round some roads in West Ealing) means, what the significance is or any other detail I will most probably get wrong. So, all I am going to share is a flashback to a beautiful day, with the beauty coming from the theatre of it all rather than the weather! Apart from the above pic, the below are in pretty much the order that it happens (sorry if I got a few out of sync) - enjoy!   I would love to know more about this so I can do a more insightful post next year, so if anyone can enlighten me please get in touch revealingealing@gmail.com x