First Pimm's

Earlier this month, we went to a local fayre. It was a fairly hot day, and a sunny one at that, so my wife felt like drinking Pimm's. She doesn't like alcohol much, she doesn't drink much, if at all. I often end up finishing her drinks. But there are a few drinks she sometimes enjoy the taste of, once in a blue moon, and Pimm's is one of them. Probably because it tastes like fruit juice. We were with a friend, so I ordered two pints of Pimm's for the ladies and one beer for me, which I carried over our table thanks to some cardboard cup holders. Getting the drinks from the stand was a short but epic journey. So yeah, first Pimm's of the year.

Imperfect Pimm's

My wife is maybe not the most typical Englishwoman: she dislikes tea for instance (which might sound like she's an anarchist). She also very seldom drinks alcohol. But there is one very typical English drink she truly likes and it is Pimm's. Probably because it is fruity. I recently bought her a can of Pimm's. Now, Pimm's is generally drunk with fruits in it: strawberries especially, oranges and for some reason cucumber. For a typical look, see this post. Now, for the first evening, we did not have strawberries and the idea of having only cucumbers in the glass did not seem right, so she drank half the Pimm's with nothing in it, which made it quite boring. The next day, I bought strawberries and decided to prepare her a proper glass. Unfortunately, I cut too many strawberries and cucumbers and there was too little Pimm's left, so it ended up looking like this. Thankfully, she enjoyed it anyway, especially since it was far less fizzy.

Pimm's o'clock

My wife recently went to a "pub in the park" event, which basically meant that there were stands for food and drinks in the biggest park of our little town. Among them, there was this one, offering, well, you guessed it, Pimm's. It was a bit cool then for Pimm's, I think, which tastes much better on a hot, or at least warmer day (or evening), but I thought the stand looked quite original and I loved the slogan they came up with to advertise the drink. Pimm's o'clock indeed. As the weather warms up, it will be soon enough.

Perfect Pimm's

We went to the First Communion of the daughter of a friend of my wife yesterday (more on that on another post, maybe) and there was a reception afterwards given by the Irish grandmother in the honour of the girl, with food and drinks. The lady had said champagne, but it turned out that the alcohol available there was... Pimm's. A jug of Pimm's, to be precise. You can see it on the picture. This is proper party drink. It had the ideal look, with the fruits in it and the ice and it also had the right taste: quite often Pimm's turns out to be too sweet, too juicy tasting. This one, you could taste the alcohol, it gave it a nice kick. It was not perfect weather for such drink, as it was not very hot and it was cloudy, but it was a perfect Pimm's.

Time for Pimm's

It is not summer yet, not technically, but the weather is summery enough, which means it's time for Pimm's. In any case, May is the month when one should start drinking it. I rarely drink Pimm's, I need to be in the right state of mind to drink it: the weather has to be nice, for one, then it must be as hot as it is sunny, but not too hot as it is a treacherous drink: it can be drunk as easily as juice and goes easily to the head. My wife had this can of Pimm's a few weeks ago, when the weather was not quite Pimm's proper, and it tasted exactly like fizzy strawberry juice. Right now would be ideal.

Pimm's and Mozart in the park

One cannot seldom evenings as ideal as the one I've had last Sunday. There was a representation of Cosi fan tutte by Mozart in the town's most important park. Not a live one, it was on a big screen and from recorded stage performance dating back from last year, but all the same. It was Mozart, for free, on a gorgeous evening of June, in a beautiful park. And to top it off, they were serving Pimm's. Not for free, it was two pounds a glass, there was a good deal left near the end of the evening, two pounds a pint and one pound a half. But it was for charity, so there was no reason to feel guilty about a few drinks. I missed the beginning of the opera, otherwise I watched the whole thing. It was a pleasure to rediscover Cosi fan tutte, another great subversive collaborative work between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. It is the anti love story. And it was a rediscovery in more than one way for me: one of the characters has the same name as me, but in Italian: Guglielmo. And he is played by a baritone, which is my voice. If I ever go back on stage and sing Mozart, I want to sing Cosi fan tutte. And to end this post, here is one of Guglielmo's arias, Donne mie la fate a tanti, sung by Luca Pisaroni. Okay, so I don't have his voice, especially not after all these years of not working on it, but I think with enough work I could pull a decent performance.

A great unknown line (number 20)

I thought I would put here another great unknown line. I have not done it for a while. This is another one from me, not because I find myself particularly witty (seriously, I don't!), but because they are easier to find.

So yesterday, my parents, my wife and I went out all afternoon in a nearby town, to celebrate my birthday and make the best of a very sunny day. I had my first Pimm's of the year in a pub. It was only half a pint 9and overpriced I think), but full of orange, lemon and lime slices. After I drink, I usually eat them, I like to bite into raw lemon and lime, especially on a hot day. My wife had a Pimm's too and I was about to have her lemon slices, but the waitress came to clear the glasses. I first asked her to leave the glass, but then I thought it was really being silly for slices of fruits, so I said:

"Oh that's okay, I will get my vitamin C somewhere else."

Kind of obscure, not really that original, but still funny.

Black Pearl

I went to the Duke of Cambridge this afternoon, and I tried a Black Pearl, from the Wooden Hand Brewery. It's a dark (read: black) beer, the kind of thing I would appreciate more during winter or autumn, but it tasted nice anyway. I was in the mood for a Pimm's, as it is so hot here, but they ran out of Pimm's today.

Saturday is another sunny day

Is it going to actually be summer for all summer? I sure hope so. It's sunny anyway. I am in the mood for some Pimm's, for walking outside, for reading outside (I am deep into Persepolis and the character's European experience, I expect to finish it today, then I'll read something more escapist), for listening to summery music (I think I might drive my wife crazy with Underneath the Mango Tree, which I will probably listen to a thousand times today, I wish I had some Harry Belafonte CD's, I can't find what I want on youtube).