The days immediatly after The Fat Duck

It is as though all time was measured from the ludicrous,wonderful, singular, theatrical events of our March 1, 2011. 

Well. Not really, but The Fat Duck experience is memorably added to the list of one-off events in our lives.

It is to be expected that after a four hour lunch with 9 matched wines one would not readily contemplate a large evening meal.  The four of us had therefore previously decided to return to the Hand and Flowers for a quiet champagne and a dip in our hot tubs to relax prior to retiring. Jon and Kylie's tub was broke. They came to share ours.

It may not be news to many that Jon, Kylie, Gail and I do not play well together. 

We tend to muck up a bit.

The cheese and wines (8) were really lovely as was the company but the evening did wear us out a little and the next morning was not , how may I say, mutually vibrant. 

I do not need to explain the photos of our Hand and Flowers room and yard activities that follow.

 Well, just a little explain.  The basket was our breakfast delivered at 10 the next morning, the covered hot tub was also next morning and yes, it was private to our room.  Quite posh.

The days that came next saw us touring through Marlow and then on to Henley-on-Thames, cold and grey but dry and pleasant days of recovery.

And then a short drive for an overnight and a french meal of moulles Provencal and cock-au-vin in Henley-on-Thames.

We were heading slowly towards Reading where we were to meet up with our Tokyo-met friend Pauline who works as Estate Manager for the Duke of Wellington's lands down that way.  We shared a fine lunch in the farm shop cafe and were then taken around the grounds in a personal Jag chauffeured tour.  Well the Jag was Pauline's daily drive and she was the chauffeur but never the less it was very very special to have such an opportunity.  These shots are the ones we managed to take between endless catch up chatter.

  

 

The photos show the house and stables, the coffin cart of the Duke of Wellington, imagine it if you can all the solid bronze polished and shining in the sun, there is a shot of diorama of the funeral event at St Paul Cathedral where the cart was displayed until the family requested it be returned thank you very much...  Then various pics of the grounds, the shooting seats for game and ferral cat killing, a plinth under a very famous tree, famous for what remains a mystery to us, Pauline is the Estate Manager not the tour guide, and finally the magnificent bronze horse and dragon in the house grounds.   What a great day.

Without a pause but requiring a tank of petrol en-route (one pound thirty-one pence a litre!) we were heading off to stay with Peter and Ann in Winchcombe.   Lovely couple of days catching up and a nice drive in the Cotswold's countryside to a fine lunch experience of lovely fish and chips followed by some more scenic touring. a pre-diner snifter at the home and off for a fine stew in the local pub.

 

 

 





These pics and a safe and quick 177 mile drive home to Wetherby bring this blog entry to a close and we await the coming weeks with  hearts glad and minds full of expectations for what the Spring of 2011 will bring.

February - Capel le dale, boston spa and peterborough

February was a cold damp but quite lovely month for the first wife and I. There were writers meetings and real estate adventures and even some coffee project development days but as this is an adventure blog I'll stick to them.       

The first was the mid week day we decided that we needed a bit of a Dales tour as we hadn't been "dalesing" for some time.  Gail picked out a little pub in Capel Le Dale (pronounced; kaplydle, to sort out the tourists I figure) the menue of which had be given a line of print in our local rag, The Wetherby News.  As you can see from the shots below it wasn't crowded mid-week.  The bar wench was lovely young and chatty though, Mum was out the back ironing and doing the cooking, Dad was in Australia holidaying with his Adelaide frends.  Lunch fare was sumptuous, voluminous and most toothsome.  The desserts though, recommended in our local rag with much praise, lived up to, nay, exceeded expectations. 

Mine was the chocolate torte tower with raspberry jus and fresh fruit with vanilla curd buttermilk ice cream, dressed with tempered dark chocolate and sugar art.  Gail's was some mango/citrus and coconut brulee with coconut ice cream and mandarin/mango/orange salad. Portions were huge and the bar wench then tempted us with home-made fudges, chocolate truffles and other boxed morsels which we bought home.

  This whole day out was a delight that took some recovering from but there was little time.  Although Gail was working the next day Rob G. had invited me to the Boston Spa (neighbouring village) Beer Festival.  These festivals I have mentioned before, every town/village around here now holds at least one a year.  There are plenty of local micro ale breweries and endless church halls, child minding centres and public buildings needing the earned funds.  It is a phenomenon most recent.   I think the Thorner Hall Roof fund one we went to in 2007 was the first in the area (see previous blogs) and I have been unable to keep up with them all although I do have a good collection of various festival pint glasses so I have not been remiss in my attempt to experience them.  The Wetherby church tower one was a hoot in 2009 the sunny Ripon Cathederal one in 2008, I could go on, but the Boston Spa village hall one was good because of the company, the ale and the fact Gail did join us all in the local Thai restaurant after her work and all our ale ran out and we had got hungry.  A great night/day.  

The shot above is Peterborough cathedral and the crowds are queuing for Flog It, a BBC antique/collectable TV show, which was being filmed when we visited.  We were in Peterborough for a property experience which could take pages here so I won't.  Peterborough is south of Wetherby by a couple of hours of motorway.  It has a 40% London commuting population and is in the middle of a billion pound regeneration project which is seeing public grant money being spent on public space and infrastructure.  This has resulted in a vibrancy not seen in areas not so lucky.  It is a nice city/town and we may visit again if things work out.

February being a short month there is not much else to tell.

Oh. Gail's Mini has a bitch in a box which tells her where to go (this BMW based sat nav is so frustrating it doesn't deserve a name, while my Tom Tom's voice is an Aussie called Ken and the previous car's was happily known as Beryl, the Mini just has the bitch in the box). Anyway.... the bitch died while Gail was relying on her to navigate the seedy back streets of Manchester one ice-cold, wet, dark February night after a 16 hour day at work.  It took Gail three service stations and one Chinese restaurant before she found anyone who knew where the hotel she was booked into for the night was.  Not happy.  We checked the Mini into the BMW service mansion and were told the car's diagnostic on-board computer showed a couple of thousand faults and needed to be killed and resuscitated on another day.  Gail took the mute mini home and thanks to my Tom Tom could still get around.  Turned out the bitch's antennae had water in it which of course dried out the same day the new part arrived.  To be fair, there are few days here where the car gets to dry out so the new part was welcomed.  All is now well but the Bitch in the box has not changed one bit. 

Aussie Day Fireworks Wetherby

As I said in the last blog, others took photos of the Aussie Day 2011 in Wetherby.  I thank Karen and her wonderful skills and camera for the following pics which go a long way to capturing the mood of the night. 

Thanks again to everyone for making it such a hoot!

 

Faces from the left
Kylie, Jon, Rob, Angela, Cora, Andrew(Bickie), Carolyn, David,Vics,Ste, Hannah,Maria 

 

No guests were harmed in the making of this party.