A Day in the Country (or maybe just Guilford)

I woke up yesterday at 9! On a weekend! My darling cousin Yolanda called to make sure I'd rolled out of bed and was on my way to do things like shower and and brush my teeth, and other things that make travelling with a person more pleasant.

She called me again at 9.30 to ask what I was doing.

'Putting on clothes.'
'Good. You need to leave the house in about fifteen minutes.'

So scratch bothering with any makeup. It takes me about half an hour to put on eyeliner most days. It's not my fault that liquid eyeliner is so fiddly.

So why was I up so early on a Saturday? To go strawberry picking! So I ran out of the house and had just enough money on my Oyster card to get to Waterloo where I...waited, and waited for Yo and Rosemary. I thought I was late but after trying a gazillion times to call them both I figured that they were both still on teh tube.

Hah!

Hehehe. So I had time to have a bagel for breakfast while waiting for them. We missed the 10.45 train to Guilford but managed to catch the next one.

So Guilford is technically not really the country. Which reminds me of a coversation I had once with my mother's friend who lived out in the suburbs.

'It's nice to be in the country isn't it?'
'Oh bless. You townies think this is the country!'

Yo and Rosemary enjoying my witty anecdotes

Guilford may not be technically country but after about 3 weeks of living in London I'd say it's pretty country. They had all the key ingredients to be country:

ducks!

horses!

and to top it all off...sheep!

even the view from the train was green and quaint

We got to Guilford and Cubillas picked us up and took us to lunch at the White Horse, which is not actually in Guilford but in Shere. A pub that was once frequented by sheep stealers (ooo...danger) and smugglers. We didn't see any sheep stealers around after our very hearty lunch.

Then we decided to take a walk around which is when we discovered all the country animals. We also got lost and had to ask a woman where the Shere was. She gave Cubillas this *stupid city fol tourists* look before telling us that all we had to do was walk down a hill and go left.

We did that and found that we had only been 3 minutes from where we parked our car. >.< style="font-style: italic;">wild.



I didn't think that strawberries would grow so close to the ground but they do. I guess it's true that kids these days have no idea what food looks life before it's packaged and delivered to the supermarket.

The strawberries were sweet and juicy and they tasted like no other strawberries I've ever had. Maybe it was getting to pick them up that made them taste sweeter but I think it was largely the fact that they were so ripe and that they didn't have to sit around waiting to be delivered anywhere.



We found freaky looking little berries. Look at this one. It's got a face!



It wanted to hang out with my tattoo. I wish I had brought it home. If not to eat at least to scare the cat with. Hehehe. Shhh...I put it back amongst the leaves.


Cubillas found this one that has 'horns'. I don't think it got taken home either. Poor little freaks.

We even picked rhubarb! And asparagus! I have never tasted rhubarb before and I'd never seen asparugus growing either. Check out the asparagus:

That's how it grows! It literally looks like someone took packets of asparagus and stuck them in the ground. The asparagus brought out Rosemary's violent side. She was so excited to snap off the asparagus.

'I like the SNAP sound it makes.'

I got as much rhubarb as I could. This is what it looks like kiddos:


I'm gonna make rhubarb and strawberry pie. I'm soooooo happy with all the strawberries we got. Yo ate some of hers and tried to get me to give her some and I said, 'No!'

Rose kept giggling at how vehement I was at protecting my strawberries. What? It's not easy finding nice ones okay. It was a good day. And this city girl says it was definitely the country!