About 4.30pm, we decide it’s time to head to our friend Saffron’s house in south Portland. We expected this to take an hour… of course the seafood festival closed many roads, and adds an extra half hour onto the journey, taking us into rush hour traffic.
The satnav is showing 2hr, but I later realise this is because I have toll roads switched off, so that could have saved some time, but then, Saffron needed to finish some work off, so actually it all worked out ok with the extra time taken.
During the journey, my cheeks started burning! Like, really really scarily hot, scalp tingling, and a pulsing pressure headache, like all blood had been sent to my head. I message Saffron, and she thinks could be an allergy to the lobster, do I have any anti histamines? I do, but where, I can’t remember, as I’m feeling more woozy and dizzy, and now breathing feels funny too (but could be the slight panic). So after manically searching all the crevices of every bag we have, I remember that I put them in my phone case. I gobble one down, and 10 minutes later, thank goodness, the burning subsides and I begin to feel more normal. 45 min left to drive to get to Saffrons about 7pm.
Oh it was so wonderful to finally be there and to see her, in a gorgeous little 1950’s American house. The crickets were singing so loud, and the dusk was upon us. We all got changed and ready to go out for some food.
Saffron suggested a few places, but the local Vietnamese restaurant followed by a ‘Dive bar’ called Howard was the order of the evening.
I had a rather oniony (picked the huge chunks out for the sake of the household – everyone could have been gassed!) ginger sauce chicken wok stir fry with sticky rice.
The dive bar was cool, despite the initial apprehension of a solid scruffy black door with no windows, unable to see what lay ahead. They had lots of screens with varying American sports playing, rock music playing (Chili peppers) and I felt really comfortable. It closed at 10pm(!), so at 9.55pm, we legged it over to another local place that also closed at 10pm, that served a South Pacific ceremonial drink of Kava. As I don’t generally drink alcohol, this beverage is alcohol free, but claims to give either a heady or heavy effect for the consumer. The kind owner explained with great passion exactly what each did, how the root of the lava plant is either young or older to give the differing effect, and also, why it’s banned in the U.K., due to incorrect usage of the leaves and other parts of the plant that mess up your liver. So it’s safe. As our friend Saffron is an experienced Doctor too (of medicine, not art or anything), I felt comfortable to try it. She warned me, as kava is of the pepper family, it can give a slight tingling/ numb sensation.
I choose to take a traditionally served heavy kava (to aid sleepiness- not that I needed help!), gulped down on its own in a coconut shell, served with a piece of pineapple to chase. They do many more interesting mocktails with it, but I liked the idea of honouring the tradition. ‘Bula’, as they say, which is equivalent to ‘cheers’ or ‘good health’.
