Restaurant Review: Cal's Own, Newcastle

Pizza heaven

Imagine for a minute that you're called Cal, and then further  imagine that you've decided to open a pun-titled business. What are your options? Maybe a Cal-ender shop? Or you could flog Cal-or gas, or perhaps even set up a Cal-centre (sorry, that's truly crap). Thankfully for the good people of Newcastle in general, and Heaton in particular, Cal of Cal's Own went down precisely none of these avenues, instead selling pizza, both in titular folded, and regular format. Thankfully indeed, because on the evidence of our recent visit it's by some distance the best pizza in town and, actually, I'm buggered if I can remember one I ever had, anywhere, that was better. 

Wet and then dry as life springs forth

Sunday Glummery

We've had a good couple of days of days activity on the plot, first in the rain on Sunday, followed by a quick  dash down in the evening sun after work yesterday. The amount of green, relative to unplanted brown, is increasing all the time, which is making things start to look a bit more productive and full of life.

Restaurant Review: The Broad Chare, Newcastle

The dining room at The Broad Chare

You know that feeling you get when something you both fully expected, and wanted, to be great turns out to be actually not that special at all? I experienced exactly that sense of anti-climax with the last Radiohead album. Repeated listens revealed nothing new, and I had to give up and accept it was just...pretty average. Radiohead being who they are, this was probably a deliberately contrarian ploy on their part to question the viability of the album as a musical form. I'm going to assume that The Broad Chare weren't similarly trying to problematise the three-course meal as a format of dining during our recent visit, and that the fact we had a fairly mediocre meal was down to error rather than design.

Sun, Songbirds and... decomposing marrows

Gathering Rhubarb in the Sun

Just another absolute stonker of a day in allotment land today. Light cloud with periods of bright (and hot!) sunshine made for basically perfect conditions. I've managed to pick up just a touch of sunburn; you never hear of it!

Magic Times as the Sun Shines

The plot on Saturday

The last couple of days have been the sort that need to be thoroughly enjoyed and then just as thoroughly committed to memory, in order to sustain good humour and perseverance during periods of less favourable climatic patterns. These are the fine and heady times when the sun shines, things grow and the world seems a generous and benevolent host. I've never seen the plots as busy, which is no doubt partly due to the fact that rents were due, but people were definitely making the most of the loveliness.