2013 Picnic Accessory Roundup

Well well my fair chaps and ladies, another picnic season is upon us! My, how time flies. After three full summers in the UK, I look forward to my fourth with equal parts vim and vigour and a wee sprinkling of delight. Let's play a little catch-up, shall we? Due to the summer of becoming a lady as detailed in the posts below, I managed to attract a proper British husband and now live a life of quiet splendour as a Scottish beacon of domesticity.

 

Lisa has also done quite well for herself, jumping over all the hurdles of UK citizenship with style and aplomb, earning herself an official "Lady" title in the process.

    

 We are mighty pleased with ourselves.

 

 But enough about us. It's time to provide you, dear readers, with the latest accessories to ensure that you approach this year's picnicking with style and grace. The ability to transport the elements of your picnic in style is key to your success. This gorgeous all-in-one picnic hamper from the Gourmet Trotter Company has everything you need to turn envious heads from Primrose Hill to Loch an Eilein.

 


Kick off your shoes and put your best foot forward in these picnic socks. We're hoping the trail of ants will work as a mini ant-scarecrow of sorts and keep the real beasts away.

The last thing you want is for your wine to warm up as you trek through the wilds of Hampstead Heath in search of a free patch of grass. Prevent this horror with an insulated wine tote from Moka. You'll probably need at least one per picnic participant, so stock up!

There's nothing as infuriating as a napkin fluttering away in the wind just as you were trying to delicately dab the BBQ sauce off of your nose. Prevent this with a handy vintage napkin holder. 

Finally, on a balmy summer's day the urge to picnic can strike quite suddenly and viciously. Be prepared at all times by carrying around a picnic basket as a purse. Boho chic never goes out of style, and it's the perfect size to sneak your Scotch eggs and split of champagne into the office. 

Picnicking Abroad: Guernsey

Dates: Saturday, August 7th - Monday August 9th
Place: Various Locations around Guernsey

As the summer days have grown ever so slightly shorter and no less gray, Lisa and I began to worry about our plan. Had we really become more ladylike in the slightest? Although we had made inroads into improving the quality of our picnic fare, (in that it was no longer wrapped in Sainsbury's plastic), we had horribly slacked with our dress, manners, and choice of picnic locations. We had begun to entertain the idea of tater tot casseroles.... sliced processed cheese wrapped around hot dogs and eaten with our fingers... jager bombs instead of wine: something had to be done.



When friends and family members love each other very much, and see a member of the tribe in peril, they may choose to stage what is known as an intervention. According to LoveFirst.net, a leading resource into the art of interventions:

"Family intervention uses the power of love and concern to break through denial and get your loved one into treatment. By organizing family members and friends in a very specific way, we are able to get results that were impossible in the past. The keys to a successful intervention are planning, preparation and technique."

Perhaps with this in mind, Lisa's husband Stephen arranged for us to go visit his lovely family in the very civilized Isle of Guernsey for a weekend of support, treatment, and instruction into the true art of English politesse.

The treatment began with a foray out to the neighboring island of Herm on the delightfully speedy "Sweet Aber." We had a real live English Lady to join us for instruction this time, Lisa's mother-in-law, Rosemary! We were giddy with excitement yet tried to maintain our composure!



We also had a very charming chauffeur to take us out for our maiden picnic voyage in the English Channel, the corresponding father-in-law, Terry!!



We learned that real English Ladies do not eat actual food on a boat going 30 knots into the ocean. Thank goodness we had this guidance, as we two bumbling oafs would have most likely attempted to bring a tub of nachos out otherwise, with our current all too frequent lapses in judgment. Instead, we were treated to champagne, chocolates, and strawberries. It's a minimalist aesthetic in the sense of picnic foods, yet decadent at the same time... perfection in short.



We learned to hear no evil, see no evil, eat no evil.



Our Guernsey boat picnic was but step one of the intervention, and helped us realize that we have always been cut out for the nautical lifestyle.



After this initial intervention and tutelage, we were ready to branch out on our own.

Flying high from our previous triumph, we ventured out to Port Grat, a relatively isolated beach that we were also allowed to bring our very special picnic guest out to.

Our special gentleman caller's name was Lucky. He was quite enthused to be hanging out with us, as most of our callers are.



We had brought along a very lovely selection of sandwich items, cakes, and fruit. However, we'd prefer not to talk about that as what we really had a good dose of was sand, which I've heard from reputable sources is high in calcium and iron. Therefore, it's a good thing that we ate so much of it! It was a lovely seaside picnic, indeed.



After eating, we engaged in such sportsladylike activities as the old standard, fetch, with only the limpest of wrists:



Blub Jazzercise:



and a very old-fashioned ladylike past-time, Contemplating One's Own Problems While Waiting for Something to Happen:



Thank you Guernsey and the Willey family for helping us reach half of our potential, we hope to carry on and reach new heights of picnicking!

Brunch with the Biebs

Date:Friday, August 6th
Place: Bunhill Fields, Shoreditch

Hello, I am Justin Bieber. I believe in a more wholesome Ladylike world, to which I have devoted my angelic voice. My favorite Lady movie is The Notebook, which has been well documented in interviews, and my favorite way to while away the hours is through making Ladies' dreams come true. Today, I have chosen to grant the wishes of Rachel and Lisa, by accompanying them on a cemetery picnic in Bunhill Fields. Because that is what I do, like a magical fairy genie.



I chose to bring Rachel and Lisa to Bunhill Fields because they like scary things, and because it is the final resting place of such dissidents as Daniel Defoe and William Blake, which I knew they would well appreciate.



Although according to sources such as Teen Beat my favorite foods are spaghetti and McDonald's, Lisa prepared an awesome courgette pie and broccoli/artichoke medley. The Ladies also provided me with all my daily antioxidants through the combination of a full fruit salad and pint of blackberries, and we all shared a Cadbury chocolate of course.



The current lore in Shoreditch is that once upon a midnight hour, Lisa dared Rachel (or bribed her with one English pound) to request one of my songs from a Very Very Hip London Shoreditch DJ. Rachel fought with all her might to make my voice be heard throughout the land, but it was not to be, for the DJ misheard my name. Instead of "Bee-Ber" as it should be pronounced, the man in oversized glasses pronounced it "Bye-Buhhhhhhh" which happens to be the pronunciation of an Austrian DJ. This was a fatal mistake. To this day, Rachel and Lisa have both been condemned to wear my face in shame throughout the dissident cemeteries of East London. FOR ALL ETERNITY.





LISA!



YOU SHALL BE MY BRIDE FOREVER AND EVER!

Research

I recently decided to Google 'picnic' to look for words of wisdom, or diagrams of some sort, from past ladies-in-training to make sure we were on the right track. What I came to face-to-face with was nothing short of ridiculous, telling me that other people are clearly not taking the art of picnicking as seriously as we are. Below were some of my personal favourites.

Um, why would you do this to your child?

I don't know what kind of picnics they had in mind, but this is NOT what ladies do!

I suppose we are OK if we don't end up looking like this:

Actually, these are just awesome:

We are looking for a volunteer to help us out with this:

Any takers?

Date: Tuesday, August 3rd
Place: Holland Park

After complaining heartily just that very picnic morning about all the delicious English dairy products making me fat, I decided to show the English Dairy Industry that I am in charge of my own destiny and my own kitchen by crafting two salads with dairy of other nationalities: a potato salad made with GREEK yogurt and a caprese salad made with ITALIAN mozzarella. Lisa supplied the Quorn fake beef slices, crackers, and a delightful greek salad (with greek feta perhaps?) Yes yes. It was time to go to Holland Park.



We chose Holland Park because of its size, as well as its many promised features that include a Japanese Garden, Fish Pond, Tennis Courts, and Adventure Playgrounds. That and the fact that I still have not been over to that area of town and wanted to walk around Notting Hill for a bit, which felt to me like a colonial Caribbean town, if I had any idea what a colonial Caribbean town really felt like. There were also opera singers in the park performing "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" which lent a whimsical touch to the afternoon.

It was another GLORIOUS ENGLISH DAY!!!!




We put on special ladylike outfits for the occasion.

Lisa donned her babydoll skull dress.



And I put on my very special gold sequinned shoes.



We found a nice patch of dead brown grass to sit on, and proceeded to eat, drink, and make merry, because this is really what we excel at in life.





Despite the clearly fantastic scenery and weather, and the perfectly appropriate picnic hour of 4 pm, there were surprisingly very few other people in the park at the time. Not a single teenager even! However, we still managed to make some new friends. This little fellow was the perfect match for Lisa's outfit.



Not to be outdone, I had to make a new friend as well. I lured him over by waggling my shoe ever so slightly.



Please meet my new friend Henry!



There is no end in sight to the abundance of wildlife and majesty of nature in Holland Park.

Things We Learned...

The people that know me best know that I love to create a "Things We Learned..." list of engaging and amusing things I have observed in a new place or situation. Being  pupils of respectable behaviour, Rachel and I thought it appropriate to reiterate what we have discovered so far:

1. I am incapable of shoving food into my mouth during a picnic, making us wonder how I handle eating at a restaurant

2. Rachel attracts all sorts of insect wildlife, so it's a mystery that we haven't been stung to death

3. London has loads of great picnic spots, but we tend to pick the days with unfriendly weather

4. We always intend to dress frilly and dignified but are just too lazy

5. It's totally okay to laugh so much that you snort a mimosa out of your nose

6. Most parks have a map of where you are, but it doesn't matter because we manage to get lost anyway

7. We pretty much hate everyone and have probably talked unladylike about you

8. Paddle boats are the best thing ever

9. It's completely logical to think that because you walked for 4 miles in one day ONCE A WEEK that you are super fit

10. I need to work on my SLR camera skills because all of the pictures are not intentionally blurry

11. Norwegian dudes like to say things are "stupid" and talk like The Terminator

12. We are NOT photogenic

Please revisit this post as we will be adding new things we learned as the summer continues!

Picnicking Abroad: Paris

One of our foreign picnic correspondents, Elliot, has just kindly contributed a snapshot of his picnic on-the-fly on a Paris afternoon. Paris has no shortage of scenic picnic spots, and the Tuileries is no exception.

Delicieux!