Getting Loose

Between 3 & 5 p.m.

We went to an afternoon tea.  It was everything I had ever thought it might be.  Ours started at 3:30 p.m.

Ken and Hazel took us to a 4 star hotel at Runnymede.   Now you Americans, without double clicking on the name, do you remember what happened there?

As you can see in the pic, we got hot tea, (well . . . Ken got coffee), sugar, milk, four kinds of finger sandwiches (the requisite cucumber, egg & cress, smoked salmon, and ham), jam, clotted cream, scones, fruit cake (but not like the American kind), strawberry tarts, etc.  There was so much, we just couldn’t eat it all.  But it was a proper English afternoon tea.  However, they admitted hardly anyone does this anymore.  Times have changed.

That happens to be a pic of Hazel.  Guess what she does?  She teaches IT in college to adults who think they might be hopelessly lost in ever being able to use a computer!

After having a wonderful time at this venue and even going outside to look at the Thames which flows just at the edge of this property, we motored around and went to the town of Windsor.  We drove by the castle, and it turned out that the queen was there, for her flag was flying.  I had to get back, though, for I had an impending meeting to attend at the Rotary.  I was so sorry to disappoint her Majesty’s request for an audience.

I can’t get over being in a land with so much history and tradition.  Here we think a building is old at 50 years.  Some of these buildings are hundreds of years old and in excellent repair.

 

Takin' in the Pride

Well, Mytes, ‘ere’s where we ite our mid-afternoon meal at the Paddington an’ all.

 

I ‘ad a plite uv Oxford bangers an’ mash, and the Mrs. ite a rack o’ ribs. 

 

I washed mine down wiv a pint o’ cider, thou knowest, an' the Mrs. ‘ad a diet Coke.

 

We ite so much that we rolled to the Lancaster Tube stop.  It was qui' a sight if I sie so me-self.

Cornish Cream Tea

After the tour of St. Paul’s, it was time, thou knowest, for a spot o’ tea.  We decided to try out Tea in all places, at PaterNoster (that means Our Father . . .) Square across from St. Paul’s.  We both decided to have a Cornish cream tea.  I had a flavour I have never tasted before—Puerh Gold Tip.  It was an interesting taste.  I would say sort of an acquired taste.

And no, I did not put the jam in the tea.  I put it on the scone that came with it, on top of the clotted cream that I put on first.  You talk about smooth and good. 

I wonder if the church in the Village could make a go of this . . . after all, St. Paul's has a restaurant, a cafe, and a refectory.

Oxfordshire

Kathleen and Peter were very generous and took us motoring out to Oxfordshire.

Now let me explain to my American friends.  “Shire” was originally an old name for county.  So Oxfordshire (pronounced OX-ferd-sher) is Oxford County.  In a lot of ways, that area is like home for Peter who is in his 80’s.

On the way to Burford, we went through Oxford University.  It was amazing to see this campus.  It has to be one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world.  I’m not sure that I saw Christ Church (the college where John Wesley studied), but I might have and did not know it.

On our way to eat, we stopped at Huffkins
to have a spot o’ tea.  It was great.  High Street which this faces must have a 1:4 elevation rise!  The Mrs. And I walked around town, and they were having a bazaar in the basement of the Burford Methodist Church (Zoom out and it's to the right of the Gallery) there on High Street. 

We then stopped at the Church of St. James the Great (zoom in all the way to the point and double click on the church at the top of the picture)  across the river at Fulbrook.  This church has been in existence since the 1200’s.  Absolutely astonishing to me.  They finally decided to take out a few pews from the back of the nave, and use more flexible seating to have a social area in which to visit and for community use.  Since doing that, the church has had more people to come to it.

We had lunch at the Masons Arms at Fulbrook. 
It was a pub at which we ate a wonderful meal. 
(The insides were really much darker.  The camera inside of my telephone compensates for the lighting in a way over which I had no control).  I had Oxford sausages and for dessert I had Apricot pudding.  But it is not pudding as we think of in America.  It is much more akin to the style and substance of bread pudding, albeit there is no bread in Apricot pudding.  (Just like Yorkshire pudding is not pudding as we think of it in America, but a baked, stiff, puffy, wonderful delicacy that was eaten before the main course, filled with gravy so that guests and family members would not eat as much meat!)

From there we saw a lot of the country side.  I have a couple of pics from St. Edward’s at Stow on the Wold (that's the name of the town). 

You have to almost be rich to live in England.  Two of our dollars about equals one pound (£).  Some of the residences out in the country with their dry stack stone walls were breath taking.  It was like in one of these kinds of places that people like John Lennon or Madonna would be living I suppose.

A very moving day and we covered lots of sites.

The Fox Inn

Sunday after church Pam and Alan took us out to eat at The Fox Inn. 

In the region of London that it is in (I think either Hanwell, or Southall, or Norwood, I’m not really sure which one--somewhere in Middlesex County), it was voted the best pub for 2010.  I think that pub is short for public.  I’d never realized that before.  It was not a dark and dank place.  In fact, we sat outside, as the temperature did not get over 78° F, (that’s like 25° to the young folks over here.  The older ones well remember using Fahrenheit!) and the humidity was pretty low.

Anyway, we had a great Sunday lunch. I had lamb roast, mashed potatoes, sautéed vegetables, etc.

One of the things of which I had been totally unaware was a waterway system called The Grand Union Canal.  It used to be very busy with commercial traffic.  That is not as much true anymore, but we got to walk a little ways from the pub and there we were on the banks of it.

Here is a cottage along its banks. 

We walked some to what I assume was the west, and saw several locks along the channel.  The locks were built in different years 100+ years ago, and they are all operated by hand!  I saw this very guy open this particular lock and move that huge black and white lever in the front of the picture.  I went up to him and asked, "Are you some kind of a canal official?  or can anyone with a crank work these locks?"

He said, "Anyone can."

I said, "Humpf."

Here is a lock closed, and the you get to see the water rush out as it begins to be opened by hand.

One interesting sight was the locks by the old Hanwell Lunatic Asylum.  You could see an
an archway (right beside the Mrs. & Pam--in fact the trail used to go up over that archway--just to the right of them are the asylum locks) that had been bricked up in which canal traffic brought into the sanatorium their coal and foodstuffs.  At one point in time, I believe it was the largest insane asylum in the world.  Which is interesting to me in that the town in Iowa in which my parents grew up had, north of town, at one point in the 1930’s the  
largest building in the world under one roof.

Andrea Ristorante Italiano

Last night we met the Rowley's at Andrea's.  It was fun catching up with them.  But as far as the venue, honestly, I wasn't that impressed.  It was OK.  But I doubt I'll be back. 

Time of Rest

I’m better than I used to be. It used to be that I was so caught up in trying to justify my existence, to always discern some kind of measurable progress, that I almost never took a day off.  After all, I reasoned, many of my parishioners don’t, and farmers can’t. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It wasn’t until I was appointed to my 5^th church, that already, before I ever even got to the campus, they had a legacy of being closed on Friday. I was shocked.  I could not believe that.  I thought, well, I’m coming in on Friday anyway, work without air conditioning if I have to, I don’t care what.  I’ll at least work half a day.  That will seem like a day off in part.

But early on at that appointment, when parishioners would catch me at the church they’d say things like, "What are you doing up here? This is supposed to be your day off!" "You need time for your family." Etc., etc., etc. Until finally I began to realize that the expectation was, unless there were some emergency, I, too, was entitled to a five day work week like everyone else.

Now, that’s a pretty difficult thing to swallow when you have spent enormous amounts of energy trying to justify your existence, your pay, show progress for the money and faith that people are investing into you, etc. But over the years, I have come to enjoy my time off. I don’t always do as good as I should, but I certainly do better than I did some 33 years ago!

So, I worked out today, went to Rotary, visited with a parishioner at his house and saw how beautifully it was laid out, took a nap, went out to eat at a neat Mexican restaurant, tried to go see a parishioner in a hospital (with my wife which is highly unusual) and the guy was already checked out, so we walked across the street and strolled through a mall that is gentrifying (which I virtually never do), and in essence had a very relaxing day.

Japanese Food

Well, let's see.  We've been to Chinese, Korean, and tonight we went to a very fine Japanese restaurant on the corner of Durham and Washington called Soma (I wonder what it means . . . in Greek it means body). 

Our daughter was in town and she loves sushi, and every time she visits, I try to make sure we get to a restaurant that does good sushi.  Soma does.  It was one of the best I've had in sushi (not that I am an expert!).  We started off with a Kobe salad, and then several kinds of sushi, and ended up with a decadent chocolate dessert that we all shared.  The ambiance was arresting.  Believe it or not, it was an old reconverted Eckerd's drug store, but the lighting and texturing was so visually appealing and stunning.

If you are into Franco-Japanese food, and especially sushi, I highly recommend Soma.

Chinese Food

Well, now that I think of it, I have been indulging in some non-Western eating establishments.

My wife and I met up with two other couples at Fung’s Kitchen.  I believe it to be the best Chinese restaurant in Houston.  I have never had a bad meal there. We had a great time.

I had a fried eggplant dish that I thought was supposed to have been stuffed with beans, but I don’t remember tasting or seeing any.  The dish had a little kick to it.

We all tasted each other’s food and all the dishes were great.  I really like hot sake.  The waiter had a great sense of humor.

Most of us were familiar with another little Chinese restaurant out near Pearland, Texas where most of us had lived at one point or another, and I kept saying, "Doesn’t this just beat the pants off of La C____?"

And they all agreed that it did.

I asked, "Aren’t you glad I suggested this place to eat?"

And they said, " Oh, we are so glad you suggested this place."

I asked, "Have you ever had better Chinese food anywhere?"

And they all, almost in unison said, "Oh, no, we have never had better Chinese food anywhere."

I asked, "Wasn’t it worth the drive to fight the traffic to get here at 5 p.m.?"

"Oh, it was so worth motoring into this section of town right by Sharpstown Mall!"

I just couldn’t seem to ask a question but what they all just unanimously agreed with everything I was saying. I call that EIRP—Excellence in Restaurant Picking.

Ethnic Dining

I can’t say as though I could point to a time or place when I have knowingly eaten Korean food. But last week, my wife and I ventured out into the unknown just to see.

We went to "Bon Ga" which is on Long Point Road in Houston not too terribly far from the villages where we live. It was excellent. We had a meal composed of at least five different meats (such as Korean bacon, boneless beef ribs, etc.) The waitress grilled those meets right at our table in front of our eyes. We then used lettuce wraps to fill with meat and several side vegetable dishes brought to us. We really, really liked it very much, and I definitely want to go back and try something else.

Oh, and we also had kimchi—a Korean pancake like frittata—as an appetizer. It also was excellent.

Venture out. Try some Korean food. I think you’ll like it.