Bubble & Squeak, What a Treat!

Bacon, Eggs, Bubble & Squeak

Here’s a dish I’d never heard of:  Bubble and Squeak.  I recently went to the Canteen, a restaurant around the corner which I really like, particularly since they serve my favorite meal, breakfast, all day long.  Checking out the menu for a breakfast item, my eyes fell on this one:  Bacon, fried eggs and bubble and squeak.  What’s “bubble and squeak” I ask the waitress?  Sort of a little cake with potatoes and kale (I think she said).  I remembered for sure what it was a few days ago, but now all I remember is that it was a little fried cake that the bacon (ham) & eggs sat on and it was gooooooooood!  And, oh by the way, if you didn’t know before, “bacon” in the UK translates as “Canadian bacon” to Americans.  If you want American-style bacon, ask for “streaky bacon.”  Yum!

What A Day!

Train & Rainy Window

We’ve all had them, sure!  No worse when they happen to you than when they happen to someone else, but, still, frustrating!  Yesterday was one of those days.  Here is the message I was typing up to put on Facebook when I found I had no internet access:

“Errrggghhh!!!!   20 min train ride & I have left my book at home. Can I just look out the window & enjoy the scenery or must I sit here & stew because of the book & the fact that I had to run to catch the train & I dressed in too many layers this morning.  My hot natured self had thought it was pretty cool last night!   Wembley stadium already?  Be there in a min. "share" "not connected to the Internet". Errgggghhhh!!!  Dadgummed iPhone!”

The rest of the story: 

Almost at work.  Last stop before mine – South Ruislip.  Just a few minutes before my stop…. Now it seems possibly it’s been too long since the train should have stopped.  Yes, indeeddy!  The train didn’t stop at my stop but went all the way to Denham!  Deboard at Denham, buy a ticket because the Oyster card doesn’t work out here.  Wait outside in the fresh air 30 minutes for the next train back, entirely happy now that I’ve dressed in too many layers.  Back on the train & 10 minutes to my stop.  No conductor checks the tickets.  I could have gotten away with not having bought a ticket (£2.50), but would that have been the right thing to do?  Yes, I believe it would.  I didn’t mean to go to Denhem.  That was a mistake.  That train should have stopped at my stop. 

Now, I’m at work and not feeling so good.  Scratchy throat, burning chest.  I believe I’ll take my achy self home, medicate and rest.  Yes, I will.  And by the way the word from the Chiltern Rail folks at Marylebone Station is that the schedule changed a few weeks ago and that train no longer stops at my stop; I need to take the train that leaves 3 minutes earlier than that one.  This I would have known sooner had I made the 7:30 train more often.

See what happens when you leave everything to the last minute?  See what happens when you forget to be thankful that you LIVE IN LONDON!!!!!!!!!

Walking Home from Marylebone Station & Stuff

Walking Home from Work

My friend Jeannette says she thinks that in years past the fan lights over front doors were used to identify the houses sort of like a numbering system (“scheme” is a more appropriate British term than “system” – a lot of schemes going on over here). I didn’t research this, so can’t swear to it. Jeannette qualified her musing with “or something like that.” Maybe there were a large number of immigrants or illiterate people for whom this system was useful. It’s an interesting notion anyway, isn’t it, to think that maybe your home was “outside edge scallop fanlight house” or “12 pane/3 row fanlight house” or something like that.

On this night as I was walking home from Marylebone station, I thought about Jeannette’s comment & decided I’d share a few fan lights with you. Would have been better pictures had more people been home, but perhaps I’ll get those fanlights another time! Most of these houses are on Gloucester (“Glouster,” of course) Place, the street that runs parallel to Baker Street. Looking down one of the connecting streets (between G & B) yields the view of the pretty white-painted, pink up-lighted, Sherlock Holmes Hotel. Maybe if I’d used my real camera and messed with the settings about 5 minutes, you’d have a prettier view of the hotel, but just work a little yourself & use your imagination!

Another side-street view shows the BT (British Telecommunications (think AT&T or Ma Bell)) tower, a well-known silhouette on the London Skyline. And high above Baker Street and my street shines the big bright blobby moon!

Now here is my street which is an alley or “mews” street between Mama Gloucester and Daddy Baker. My neighbours (guess I must have turned on “British” English at some point; my spellchecker no longer likes “neighbors”) and church friends told me that much of the area where I live was bombed out during World War II; thus for a long time, my street was a big wide vacant pavement stripped of it’s old “mews” houses until recently my (leasehold – see Portman blog post) landlord put up this row of brand new mews houses.

And what the heck is a mews you may be musing to yourself? Well, a mews is an alley or small street behind or to the side of mansions (now mostly rented flats, but Madonna’s place somewhere near here could most likely still be called a mansion) where servants lived and stables were maintained. They’re usually narrow row houses where all floors are rented as a singular unit, as opposed to a flat which is commonly one floor of an old mansion house. (A flat might be a wide as a mews house is tall!)

On the other side of my street, just before you come to my house, notice the recording studio on the right. Obviously refurbished, it’s huge round windows are reminiscent of the 60s or 70s and stand in contrast to the little neighbouring mews houses with their stable-looking garage doors. (My friend who lives near here in an authentic mews house couldn’t get her first-bought car in the garage & had to sell it & get a skinner car!)

Finally we have arrived at my house with its bright red door and when you open the door you see the very modern kitchen to the right and the very lovely soft-toned oak stairs straight ahead. I have not been able to bring myself to discard the sad pair of Clarke clogs on the steps. I do love my Clarkes. At least 10 years old, these were my second pair of Clarkes ever and apparently the heat from being shipped over here & stored in who knows how high temperatures was more than their poor soles could bear. On a recent shopping outing, I thought my feet felt airier than normal. When I looked down I saw that my poor Clarkes were yawning at me! The tops are still good and have served me so well, I may look up one of those brass plating outfits that does baby shoes & see what they can do for my beloved, trusty Clarkes!

A few more pieces of trivia. . . . 1) Oyster Card: This is what gets me to work & back daily. I “top it off” at Marylebone Station whenever it runs low & can use it instead of an individual ticket on anything that’s part of London Transit (trains, buses, tubes). 2) My coin purses: I carry two – one with American money & one with British money. If I’m going to the continent (oh, so sophisticated, now, aren’t you, country girl?) I replace the American money with Euros. 3) Electricity: This deserves its own paragraphs.

Electricity: After reading up on the electrical situation here, I got rid of all my 110V stuff except an extra sewing machine I had and a couple of things I brought inadvertently (really hard to go completely through all your stuff). So the UK surge protector has plugged into it the kind of converter you need (this particular one can be used most places worldwide) to essentially convert between the differing plug styles. You only use converters for things that already have the capability of using either 110V or 240V or anywhere in between. That big boxy looking thing you see is an actual transformer that reduces the voltage coming out of the wall to something a 110er can take. This is for short term use only, though; they say long term use will eventually eat the 110er up!

Electricity2: Notice the very nice modern, guest bathroom. How many electrical plugs do you reckon you’ll find there? To my surprise the answer was ONE AND ONLY ONE PLUG THAT CAN ONLY BE USED BY AN ELECTRIC RAZOR!!!!! Too dangerous to have electrical appliances in the bathroom. Period; end of statement. Although other countries with 240V flowing through their walls reckon that it’s not too dangerous to use a curling iron or blow dryer in the bathroom, UK knows better. After that big fire in the mid 1600s, they are taking no changes here! (p.s., that big fire is why all the buildings here are now brick.)

And here’s a bonus comment: What do you call a half bath near an entry for guests to use? Powder room? Half bath? Toilet? Loo? None of the aforementioned is correct. This room is called a cloakroom. Why, I am not sure. You may be able to hang one cloak on a door hook, maybe two, but that’s about it. Maybe it’s too unseemly to mention real function of the room to guests, requiring one to “cloak” its purpose with a more polite term.

The Portman Estate, Did You Say

“That’s who owns the property where you live,” said my friend, Susan, in response to my question, “What is the Portman Estate?” My curiosity had been aroused by the arrival and my subsequent perusal of this magazine in my mail slot: http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/magazine/2009-autumn.pdf
I asked Susan whether she got the magazine in her mail slot. She said she hadn't – that the Estate didn’t own her house, even though she only lives about a block away from me.

I had remembered that (at least in large part) property in London is leased, not owned, but I assumed that the government let the leases. Not so. Apparently, the aristocracy owns much of the property. A little investigation revealed that the 999th Viscount Portman (number really slightly lower) owns the property I rent from my landlord. The Estate is 110 acres of prime London real estate in “W1,” the prefix for my post code which is a much more upscale area than I could afford to live did I not receive a nice housing allowance.

A number of other “Estates” also hold significant sections of London; although a large part of their property consists of amazing public parks (Regents, Hyde, etc), the Crown (yes, the monarchy) Estate is one of the largest in London.

For Sex and the City fans, check out page 42 of the above magazine. The illustrious designer Jimmy Choo owns a shop of imaginative shoes somewhere in the Portman Estate vacinity, too!

Just in case this isn’t all you ever wanted to know about the London leasehold system, start here for more info:
http://www.richest-people.co.uk/who-owns-london/
http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/
http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/directory/maps.html

Amazing Salamanca/Accidental Madrid

Spain Oct 09

Oh, me, oh, my! Well, if you didn’t already read about it on Facebook, you should have! Especially since all my Facebook data roaming posts cost me ₤122! Indeed! Much of that money/time was spent bemoaning the fact that I missed my plane in Madrid, had to stay 2+ extra days because it was a BIG HOLIDAY WEEKEND in Spain!!!! Who knew that Spain also celebrates Columbus Day:):) know it’s hard to believe that between the 5:10 p.m. Thursday missed plane and the 6:30 a.m. Sunday "caught" plane, there was not one single flight to London. I can’t swear there wasn’t. All I know for sure is that there wasn’t another flight among the 4 carriers in Terminal 1 and that if I had taken the time to visit the other terminals to check, I would have missed RyanAir’s generous offer of flying me back to London for an additional ₤100.

Live & learn! Live & learn! Next time I will arrive in the city 3 hours before flight time and I will pay closer attention to the metro stops to make sure I don’t miss the desired change by about 8 stops and I will make sure I know which of the 4 terminals my flight leaves from. Sometimes you get lucky; sometimes not so much.
Despite the bad luck turned good (I really did enjoy my experience in Madrid), I had a wonderful time visiting my Friend, Karen. Karen had visited me earlier in London in September & then went to Spain for a ~2 month sabbatical from her job as a Spanish language professor at Tennessee Tech. She stayed in Salamanca, a lovely city of about 100,000, that is absolutely gorgeous. I stayed with her in the Hotel Don Juan, about a block off the Plaza Mayor (“main plaza”). Visually, Salamanca is a sight to behold. The stone used for all the old buildings in the historic district where we stayed had a beautiful golden hue that seemed to make life just a little richer, warmer, as if everything were viewed through a lovely translucent jar of honey.

I visited the old and new cathedrals, two of the many in Salamanca, the university (from about 1200 – the oldest in Spain and 3rd or 4th oldest in Europe), and the Art Deco/Nouveau museum that Karen tried to get us thrown out of by taking photos of God’s amazing view from the museum balcony. I must admit it was a very cool museum, even with silly rules about not photographing their multitude of little known or appreciated Deco/Nouveau stuff. Especially silly rules, in light of the fact that the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid welcomes photos being taken of their original Picasso and Dali pieces.

Karen & I had wondered about the red faded writing we saw on the old sandstone buildings. A very informative tour (at least to Karen: the tour was in Spanish) revealed the mystery. Turned out to be 14-15th century graffiti: Students who passed their exams celebrated by writing on the walls in bull’s blood (from bullfights, of course).

Check out my Facebook entries/photos about my trip. I feel I only scratched the surface of beautiful Salamanca, and agree with Cervantes that once visited, Salamanca must be revisited.

My Friday off Work

Regents Park & Rowing

(double click photo to see more & rose pics should say Queen Mary's Garden (not St. Mary's)) I just knew I would love CWS: Compressed Work Schedule. As many of you probably know, I’ve always been something of a workaholic. I always feel compelled to get to a good stopping place and that time is not necessarily at 4, 4:30, 5 or later! Well, my new work schedule is 9 hrs per day Monday through Thursday, 8 hours one Friday and ZERO hours the next Friday. Yes, (9X8)+8=80. Last Friday, I had my first Friday off and boy, did it feel luxurious. Slept late (yes, I am well known for that, too), had a little breakfast, went to Starbucks & got a laté (lah tay), then to Regent’s Park (maybe ½ mile from my house) to admire the beautiful flowers, greenery, and water.
At first I just meandered about the park, taking it all in. It is a huge park with a zoo at one end and a college right in the middle. It has runners, walkers, strollers, bike riders, lovers, poopers, an all manner of human and canine beings. There was a charming area with very folksy, primitive, whimsical type tree houses, see-saws and seating areas – even a real, plastic-covered library in one of the tree houses.
After this bit of wandering I decided I would rent a row boat, row out into the middle of the lake, lie down in the boat and read my book. Oh, yes, I was sure rowing would come naturally; after all, I have paddled a canoe! Sadly, my assumption was hardly on the mark. With the wind blowing about 30 knots (Does that sound right, Tom Bentley? I just made it up.), I kept going around in circles & getting blown back to the dock. The oars wouldn’t stay in their hooks, the arms wouldn’t go the right direction, and I was expending a heck of a lot of woman-power and getting nowhere quick.
Finally a young man working at the dock took pity on me & offered to help. With some oar wrestling, I managed to get to where he was. He hops in and smoothly demonstrates proper rowing technique. He says (in some foreign accent that I imagined to be Italian/Venetian) “Look, it’s easy.” Well, I felt bass ackwards sitting backwards in the boat and my arms kept feeling like they were doing the opposite of what they should be doing when they were doing the right thing. So after a 5 minute lesson, Mr. Venice hopped out (please don’t tell me that those Venetian paddlers stand up & don’t really row; I thought of that, myself) and I’m back to my circles. Mr. Venice calls, “Want to trade for a paddle boat?” “No,” I say. I’m determined to get to the other end of the lake. And so I do, but only in time to turn around and row back to the dock – no reading or napping in the boat this time. But I felt pretty good considering I was the only woman rower I saw, and considering that the rowers were outnumbered by the paddlers probably 10 to 1! Although I certainly wouldn’t characterize my rowing as smooth, I enjoyed the heck out of it & will definitely row again. After finishing the boating, I found myself a cozy little bench behind some bulrushes and read for about an hour. What a lovely, leisurely day!

Paris Coach Trip July 2009

Paris Coach Trip

(Double click photo to see more pics) We left early Friday morning, having gotten up at 4:30 a.m. to be sure we boarded the coach at 6:05 a.m. Quite a hard thing to do for a non-morning person, but knowing I was returning to Paris was a lovely incentive to rouse me out of the bed. I hardly could have imagined going there once, yet here I was RETURNING! We took the tube to the Great Portland Street station & met the coach at the International Students House right off Marylebone Road. My friends from work, Lexcie and Wendy, had organized the trip for us, having found the information on this web site: http://www.internationalfriends.co.uk/.

I couldn’t recommend the coach trip with this company more highly. The tour guide, Andrew, was quite the historian, giving us the background we needed to properly appreciate the sites we visited. Plus, when we experienced two detours in getting to the Louvre because of the Tour de France finale, he not only managed to get us to the Louvre, but also pointed out an additional site on the way (site of Napoleon’s signing the Lousiana Purchase) we wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

From London we headed to Dover (of “White Cliffs” fame) to catch the ferry. A few miles from Dover we experience a BIG traffic jam and didn’t find out until we were almost there that our ferry company (P&O) had had a computer crash & wasn’t able to board anyone until the computers were back up. We were delayed for maybe an hour. After boarding the ferry, we all de-boarded the bus & got in the breakfast line at the cafeteria on the ferry. I think it took about an hour & a half to get into Calais from Dover. Then perhaps 2-3 hours (I forget so quickly) to Paris. Awhile before arriving in Paris, our guide handed out maps of Paris for us to peruse.

In Paris we checked into the All Seasons Hotel in Bercy, a historic area on the Seine famous for being the warehousing district for wine coming into Paris. Wendy dubbed her room “MyPod,” a apt name since the hotel décor was a cool mix of futuristic “Jetsons” and sixties “Mod.” After a quick trip to the ATM for some Euros, we head out for a panoramic tour of Paris on our coach, hitting many of the highlights of the city. Later in the afternoon we boarded a boat on the Seine at the Eiffel Tower and cruised eastward all the way back past the Ile de St. Louis, then turned around and backtracked to the “Tour Eiffel.” The boat was equipped with receivers we could use to hear commentaries about the sites we were passing – lovely churches, monuments, and gorgeous bridges.

At the conclusion of the boat ride we could choose to stay at the Eiffel Tower or go back to the hotel. We stayed & all 4 of us went all the way to the top! And what more romantic thing could happen than that a fellow dropped to his knees and proposed to his girlfriend right there on top of the world. One very surprised girlfriend, ooohs & aaaahs all around. We ate dinner on a boat parked beside the Tour & had crepes avec chocolat & chantilly (whipped cream). Then down the street to the Metro stop & back to Bercy. One jam-packed filled day!

On Saturday we started with Montmartre, first climbing the steps to the beautiful Sacre Coeur at the height of Montmartre. Sacre Coeur is less than 200 years old, but the chapel beside it, St Peter’s was build in about the 12^th century. It is lovely and has in its crypt a statue of St. Denis (the Christian martyr for whom Montmartre is named) holding his head in his hands (he was supposedly decapitated).

We then walked back down the hill to see two of the “windmill” cabarets (outside only), the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin Gazette. After Montmartre we visited Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite. Beautiful stained glass, rosette windows. My photo is of the West window which depicts scenes from the Old Testament (East window: New Testament).

In the afternoon we went to the famous country home of French kings & queens, Versailles, about 10 miles outside Paris. Now, THIS is a palace! Humongous! I believe it was Louis XV who rented out rooms at Versailles to the courtiers in the wings of the building. Across the way, facing Versailles are also huge buildings that mimic the palace in architecture – these were horse stables! The palace was quite crowed this day with all sorts of people, but I do believe that Italy was empty for the day as the place was filled with Italians. All Versailles is amazing, but the Hall of Mirrors is absolutely exquisite! After Versailles, dinner and souvenir hunting in the Latin Quarter.

Sunday morning and I woke to a dead camera, so no pictures of the Louvre, but if you are adventurous you can check out my facebook site for photos my friends took there. No doubt the paintings and sculptures at the Louvre felt honored to be included with us in many outstanding, and highly respectful photos.

After the Louvre it was home again, home again, jiggity jog & the trip over in reverse. One more thing I must comment on, though, is the scrumptious scones with clotted cream we had on the ferry back! Absolutely mouthwatering.

The weather for the weekend was cool and lovely – quite a contrast from the hot April/May weather my friends, Eleanor, Karen, Kristi & I experienced last year. Andrew commented on the same subject.

And speaking of Andrew, we found that he came by his historical knowledge quite honestly, having taken a history degree from Oxford. He leads tours to Stonehenge, Bath, Stratford-on-Avon also and my friends & I hope to catch him on one of those in the future.