Wednesday 7 August 2013

Day 219 : there's a penguin in my drink!

We’re enjoying the ambience of the rooftop of Moorgate 8. I can see a great sunset tantalisingly reflected in the glass buildings opposite but I can't get a good view of the actual sunset. The rooftop here is not quite technically the entire roof, but a balcony that wraps around about two thirds of the building. And of course the missing piece is the due West bit. I'm thwarted!

Drinks have been laid on for us, wine, beer or water. I had so much wine in France, even if we didn't have enough at lunch, dinner and post dinner there were daily wine tastings (in case we’d forgotten how wine tasted in the interim hours we’d not drank any) so I fancied something different. On a previous occasion here they'd made me a delicious cocktail of raspberry, ginger and lime so I hankered after a repeat performance. The bar staff accepted the challenge and product a ruby red drink, bursting and viscous with fresh raspberries, heady with a hot kick of ginger and zingy with lime juice.

We’re sat outside, basking in the twilight and I'm showing some of my photos from France. We get talking about my teeny, tiny penguins which are in my handbag and the idea of a little mise-en-scène with a ice cube springs to our collective mind. Naturally despite several attempts their diminutive flippers do not want to stand on an ice cube and very soon penguin overboard, one plummets into my drink beak first.

My drink is rather thick with fruit so the penguin progresses very slowly through my cocktail. Eventually it resides invisibly at the bottom of my glass and I can't find it. I also can't quite fathom if the penguin could possibly shoot up the straw if I sucked hard enough. I'm fairly sure my evening would not be improved by choking on a penguin.

I gingerly drink my delicious cocktail and finally nestled amongst the squished raspberries and ice cubes is a slightly pink (and possibly drunk) penguin. I liked the slowly dive-bombing penguin, it made a rather surreal image for my collection.

 

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