Gianni (https://acrossthehogsback.wordpress.com) and I met for brunch at the Darwin Brasserie at the Walkie-Talkie building today. We haven’t seen each other for a while, life has just got in the way, so I was looking forward to catching up. And having a jolly good feast. No breakfast for me.
At the time of writing, the Walkie-Talkie is the fifth tallest building in London, and is given its nick-name because of its shape. The building, completed in 2014, is not, in my opinion, particularly attractive from the outside, and it infamous for the fact that its concave mirror effect windows reflected sunlight on vehicles parked below in Eastcheap causing significant damage. Oh yes, some of the tour guides I know have had a huge laugh about the architect’s lack of knowledge of basic physics. The wind tunnel created by this building is another testament to that. It’s a good job I’ve got short hair.
For me though, the building redeems itself for its sky gardens, which were opened in January 2015 and span the top three floors. The view is tremendous, and made better because you get to see the Shard (still not my favourite building in the world, but better than looking at the Walkie-Talkie).
Back to brunch. We walked past the fairly centrally placed cold buffet table on the way to our table, sufficient to get the gastric juices flowing. A sofa for the back seat and a chair on each of two sides, I had a choice, but decided to sit on the chair opposite Gianni; the palm tree close to our table might have decided that my food was a trifle too tasty…
For the cold starters there was a choice of Bloody Mary Prawn Cocktail (delicious), various fruit juices, the Milkshake “Bar” (a smoothie made from tomato, blueberry, kale, vanilla bean, berries, banana and caramel. I didn’t have one, didn’t have space for that, but will ensure I do for next time), a selection of fruit, the Bloody Mary “bar” (three different types of Bloody Mary, and yes I did, and yes, it was delicious), an asparagus vinaigrette (asparagus with truffle, peas, broad beans and goat’s cheese, although it was just asparagus and peas by the time I got to it, not that it mattered, asparagus is good enough for me), delicious York ham, smoked salmon, Parma ham and salami, and a selection of salads.
I love cold meats, and salads, so this was a good start for me. The ham and the parma ham were very good quality, the new potato salad was tasty, but not like the one my Mum used to make, all of the starters were appetising and flavoursome. Gianni had an oyster and Chinese chilli Bloody Mary, I went for the original. Excellent.
Gianni ordered corned beef hash for her main, while I chose the full English. It was a tough decision, the roasts looked good too. My only complaint was that the black pudding (which I don’t eat very often) was disappointingly dry; Gianni was a little disappointed in her hash – it had brown sauce at the bottom, which wasn’t to her taste. Good job that the desserts made up for it.
They had a selection of cheeses and doughnuts, as well as blueberry cheesecake, lemon posset, crème brulee and a blueberry smoothie. Oh and what I thought was stewed apple, but it turned out to be stewed apple and pears with cinnamon, which was a pleasant change as I don’t eat pastries. There was also fresh fruit, so pretty much something to suit everyone.
Gianni finished off with a Pimm’s No 1 while I had a glass of Pinot Grigio… A very good finish to brunch. One of the things I liked about it here was that I didn’t feel rushed, even though we were there for about two and a half hours. We probably should have gone for a long walk afterwards but it wasn’t to be on this occasion. We settled for taking photographs.
That’s the rhyme I learned as a child, when I always looked forward to what we knew as Firework Night. At school, I was taught that we celebrated to mark the anniversary of the time when a group of saboteurs, led by Guy Fawkes, tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. That all sounds fairly simple and I’d be surprised if most of us hadn’t shared that sentiment of getting rid of the government at some time or other. Was that really all there was to it?
The short answer is no, it was far more complex, as most of these things are. To understand what was going on, we need to have some understanding of the political and sociological climate at the time.
The Gunpowder Plot was uncovered in November 1605, finally and completely on 5 November 1605. James VI of Scotland had become James I of England and Ireland on 24 March 1603, a Roman Catholic king in a predominately Protestant (largely, but not exclusively, Church of England) country. Although Protestant, the religious unrest that had stated when Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church persisted. James succeeded Queen Elizabeth on her death.
Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s half sister, had been a Catholic, and was nicknamed Bloody Mary because of the atrocities against protestants during her reign. Elizabeth was a protestant, although less intransigent in her views about religion, but nonetheless, it had not been a happy time for Catholics. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had, in her day, been involved in uprisings against Queen Elizabeth I, James I’s predecessor. Guilt by association rules, ok.
James was considered the only viable choice to succeed Elizabeth, who had died childless, thus putting an end to the Tudor dynasty. No doubt there were others born out of wedlock who would have had a claim to the throne, but James was already a ruling monarch. Possession is nine tenths of the law.
Notwithstanding that Elizabeth herself was more accepting of religious tolerance, the same cannot be said of her privy council, consequently, in the last 10 years or so of her reign, Catholic persecution intensified. By the time Elizabeth died, Catholics had to take mass in private, and were required to attend Protestant services. Not popular.
The Catholics expected James to be more tolerant of them; and to start with, things went well. However, one of James’ trusted advisors was Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Secretary of State and James’ so-called Spymaster (he was one of the judges at the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Cobham, in their alleged attempts to remove James from the throne). Cecil had served under Elizabeth, as had his father before him; he was in a powerful position. Much of what Cecil had done was to the good of the people, but there was a Protestant backlash, particularly for those in favour of even more reform, such as the Puritans and Calvinists, against the lessening of penalties, etc, towards the Catholics. Cecil believed it was necessary to do something to placate them: he was probably right, because within 40 years, the country was in the grip of a civil war. Not purely religion based but religion certainly played its part.
Thus, Cecil advised James to, once again, increase the penalties towards the overtly practising Catholics.
Against this backdrop was the constant plotting against each other of the ruling families in Europe, perhaps because it took the heat off their intra-family fights and plots (they didn’t have family counsellors in those days), and they were usually happy to assist anyone who came up with a half decent plan to de-throne another monarch with a view to getting hold of that throne. Two such plots to de-throne James had already been thwarted by 1605.
There were constant rumblings in the country to put a different monarch on the throne, reform the way that whichever religious faction was out of favour was being treated, etc, etc.
Enter stage left, Robert Catesby from Warwickshire, a fairly well off, and a recusant Catholic (ie he refused to attend Anglican church services). He recruited a group of men, including the infamous Guy Fawkes, to help him with a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament when James was present at the State opening. The idea was to kill James and replace him with his daughter Elizabeth, another Catholic; anyone else who was killed or injured would have been collateral damage. I don’t know how involved in the whole thing Elizabeth was, it seems a bit harsh to want to see your own father dead, but that sort of thing was common back then.
The plotters rented a house near to the Houses of Parliament, which had a basement that was underneath it. (You’d have to visit to understand, the whole of Whitehall area had an underground system beneath Whitehall Palace and the Palace of Westminster – the Houses of Parliament. Allegedly, the two were also linked. It was, still is, like a rabbit warren. It wouldn’t have taken much to find a way underneath the Houses of Westminster.
A certain Lord Monteagle, who was the brother-in-law of one of the plotters, received an anonymous letter telling him not to attend parliament for the State Opening (I wonder whether his sister was the author?). Monteagle passed the letter onto Cecil. Being the shrewd politician that he was, Cecil didn’t take action straight away, he decided to wait until he had the “bang to rights” so the plotters had no reason to suspect that they had been discovered.
On 4 November, the day before the State Opening was due to take place, Cecil gave the order for parliament to be searched, standard procedure nowadays, but not so then. During the search, Guy Fawkes was found and arrested. He was taken to the Tower of London and tortured for two days before he told all. That was pretty impressive for what he would have undergone, in those torture was torture, all hot irons in your delicate bits and pieces and other things that I really don’t want to dwell on too much.
Those two days gave his colleagues time to make their escape. They made their way to Holbeche House in Staffordshire, where a number of them were killed in a gunfight with the King’s men. Those who were still alive were arrested and returned to London for questioning, or interrogation, depending on your perspective.
The questioning lasted for three weeks, until Cecil was sure that he had extracted everything they knew. Over two days in January 1606, eight of the plotters, including Guy Fawkes, were hanged, drawn and quartered. (They’d hang someone until they were nearly dead, then remove their entrails, and then chop them into four. If they were lucky, they died before that bit happened.) Three more plotters were arrested and executed over the coming three months. Those who had died had at Holbeche were exhumed and posthumously beheaded.
Far from making life easier for Catholics, in the aftermath of this plot, James feared for his life and throne more than ever and, consequently, a number of new laws were passed to restrict the roles of Catholics in public life and taking away their right to vote. These laws were still in place two hundred years later. So much for love thy neighbour.
We made our first visit to the National Memorial Arboretum on Thursday. It was one of those clear, crisp days that we get in early October; a perfect day to be outside. The Arboretum doesn’t charge an entrance fee, but it does ask for donations, which we were happy to make; the three of us are keen supporters of our armed forces. There is plenty of parking space at the Arboretum, with disabled parking near to the entrance.
The Arboretum is built on a 150-acre site that used to be gravel workings, the brainchild of former Royal Navy officer, David Childs. He says that the idea came to him in a dream, after visiting Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC. We do pomp and ceremony better than any other nation here in the UK but we are utter rubbish at honouring our war heroes. (Let’s get this out of the way now: I know that not every soldier, sailor, airman or marine is a hero. My Dad told me that, and he should have known, he fought in the Second World War. He told me that some of the things our troops did were awful, what we would nowadays treat as war crimes. I don’t and won’t glorify any of that. But the majority of our troops, just the same as the majority of other men and women, try to do their best. They hurt when they are wounded, they bleed when they are cut. Young men and women, too young in so many cases, go to fight wars in which they have no personal investment, sometimes because joining up is the only job they can get. If you don’t believe me, come meet me for a drink one night, and I’ll prove it to you.)
So, now I’ve got that out of the way, I take my hat off to David Childs, but I really think that this should have been a government led initiative. It wasn’t. We are where we are. Let’s move on. Childs managed to get the site and the Arboretum pays £1 per year in rent. Way to go, David.
The location of the Arboretum is almost fated – it is adjacent to the confluence of the River Tame and the River Trent. The waterways nestle against the grounds nicely on one side, it gives the impression of protecting the grounds from any interference; like a moat round a castle.
As you enter the Arboretum, there is a chapel on the right hand side, where a little service, an Act of Remembrance, takes place every day at 11am. This is the only place in the country where a service like this happens daily, and it’s quite rightly a non-denominational service, incorporating the Last Post and Reveille. We went to the service on the Friday, it was very moving, and a charming little chapel.
Back to the Thursday, we wanted to find the police memorial area – known as The Beat. We’d been told that there was a memorial there to someone we knew, so we wanted to pay our respects. We walked down one side and the memorial we were seeking was on the other side, so it took us quite a time to find it, with the help of one of the volunteers, but the memorial to Detective Constable John Fordham was there. It was fortuitous that the volunteer helped us because he told us that he was giving a short lecture shortly after, at the Shot at Dawn memorial.
Geoff decided to take a trip on the land train, whilst Kate and I went to the lecture. The memorial is dedicated to the 306 soldiers who were executed for desertion during World War I. The talk was given by one of the 200 odd volunteers at the Arboretum, Martin Turner.
The memorial is headed by a statue of Private Herbert Burden, who enlisted just before World War I started. Like so many other young men, Herbert lied about his age in order to be able to sign up.
He was trained in England and posted to France. There is a certain irony to this – had he not lied about his age, he would not have been posted overseas. On 26 June 1915, Herbert was directed to join a party that was extending trench lines, but he went missing. He was picked up a couple of days later, and told the authorities that he had gone to meet a pal of his who was stationed nearby. They clearly didn’t buy his story because he was court martialled and executed on 21 July 1915. It is believed that Private Burden was the youngest of those executed – although the army thought he was 19, he was actually only 17 years and three months old. The first soldier to be executed was Private Thomas Highgate, on 8 September 1914; the last two soldiers were Privates Louis Harris and Ernest Jackson, on 7 November 1918, just four days before the war ended.
There are 306 posts at this memorial, one for each of the men who were executed. There is a small plaque on each one giving the name, age, regiment and the date of execution of each of the soldiers. Another 40 soldiers were executed for committing what are known as non-military crimes – for example, murder.
During World War I, a number of soldiers were said to suffer from Shell Shock, a poorly defined condition that covered physical or psychological symptoms, and was also sometimes just defined as cowardice or lack of moral fibre. By World War II, the term Shell Shock was replaced with Combat Stress Reaction, but the symptoms may not have been exactly the same. Different war, different fighting conditions, so in a way, we’re comparing apples and pears. I suppose nowadays we’d use the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but if I’m honest, I still think these conditions are poorly understood. Human beings are so diverse, it’s difficult to specify these things.
To say that life in the trenches, where the soldiers spent a fair bit of their time, was grim, is a massive understatement. The trenches would often be ankle deep in water, and soldiers would frequently be standing next to the corpses of their fallen colleagues. The trenches were also infested with rats; two types, black and brown. The brown rats were particularly feared and disliked, they fed on the remains of the dead soldiers, and could grow to the size of a cat! Rats reproduce at a terrifying rate, and a female can birth to up to 900 offspring a year. No wonder the trenches were overrun with them.
As if rats weren’t enough to contend with, the soldiers were infested with lice, largely because standards of hygiene were, understandably, so poor. The lice caused what was known as Trench Fever, a disease that started with pain and then went onto to produce a high fever. It could take up to twelve weeks to recover from Trench Fever, away from the trenches, and sadly, the cause wasn’t discovered until 1918. There were also frogs, slugs and any other creepy crawly things that you find in stagnant water. Many soldiers chose to shave their heads completely to avoid getting head lice.
I’m honestly not sure how well I’d cope with all of this, and I’m not sure that struggling with coping with it constitutes cowardice, although of course I understand why the military authorities didn’t want people going on the trot. In any event, the families of the 306 men executed for desertion started a campaign to have them posthumously pardoned. These 40 were not pardoned, but the other 306 were, as a result of a campaign by the families.
Martin explained to us that the firing squad was comprised of at least six men, mostly from the same regiment as the man to be executed (I wonder whether that was done as a deterrent?). One of the rifles (and none of the firing squad knew which one it was) did not have any ammunition, so the squad members could tell themselves that they had not fired the fatal bullet.
The memorial is situated at the far end of the Arboretum because it is where the morning sun is first seen. Some small comfort for the families, I suppose.
After this very sobering event, Kate and I went back to meet Geoff, who had been hugely impressed with the Land Train ride. We decided that we would all take a trip on it the following day. We spent the rest of the day looking around that side of the Arboretum, the side we’d been in all day.
The following day, we got to the Arboretum early so that we could attend the service in the chapel. It was a very moving service and a fitting tribute to service personnel from the whole world over. Then we all went on the land train, which goes slowly enough for you to see all the memorials it passes while a recorded message explains what you are seeing. I’ll be honest, I love walking but I would never have known where to go without going on the Land Train.
The Land Train ends at the piece de resistance, the Armed Forces Memorial, situated at the top of a little hillock. The memorial, made from Portland Stone, commemorates all of those who have died whilst serving since the Second World War. I’m not sure which is more of a leveller: the number of names that are already there or the fact that there is still so much space for more names.
We spent the rest of the day exploring zones 1, 2, 3 and 4. (They mark it clearly in zones on the maps, which is really helpful.)
Royal Engineers Memorial
Highlights for me in the Arboretum were the Royal Engineers memorial (because my Dad was in the Royal Engineers), the Royal Naval memorial, more correctly known as the Naval Service Memorial. The latter was commissioned by the Royal Naval Association, is made of 13 glass panels of different colours, described by designer Graeme Mitcheson as “sails of coloured glass,” representing the Oceans of the world. A bowed figure stands at one side. We were told, although we didn’t see it ourselves, that when the sun shines through the spaces in the panels the shadows form the shape of a warship.
Also the woodland area made up of an oak tree planted for each merchantman sunk during the Second World War. An incredible tribute and good for the environment too!
Truth to be told, there is so much at the Arboretum, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as somewhere to visit. Two days probably wasn’t enough, and there is so much work going on at the Arboretum, that I will need to go back again in a couple of years. It is an amazing memorial, and made me feel very proud.
Our trip to Staffordshire ended on the Saturday, my birthday, by going back to the Waterfront at Barton Marina for lunch. We didn’t need the car to get home after that, we could have rolled home, we ate so much. Kate and I went for a walk along the canal when we got back home, and chatted to a few people in the narrow boats. Kate got her first taste of closing a lock gate; I’ll get those two out on a narrow boat yet.
We drove home on the Sunday, having had a tremendous week. Back home to normality and everything else that life throws at us.
Continuing the tales of Staffordshire…. Kate and I decided to go into Lichfield by bus on the Wednesday. The weather wasn’t great, it was cold and wet and we didn’t want to go the Arboretum in the rain. Geoff didn’t fancy shopping for some reason so we went alone.
Unfortunately, and rather foolishly, we hadn’t checked the bus timetable before leaving the cottage, and arrived to discover that we had 50 minutes to wait before the next one arrived.
“Let’s have a bit of a walk, there must be another bus stop down here somewhere, the bus has to go this way” said I.
“Ok,” said my poor, unsuspecting friend.
That was my school girl error. By the time we had walked to the main road at the end of the village, we realised that there was, in fact, no bus stop further along that road. It wasn’t that my sense of direction was out of whack, far from it; just that buses being buses, they rarely take the most direct route. It kind of the defeats the object of being available for all if they do. As I later discovered, it picked up the same road further down, having done a very circuitous route around the houses. At least our walk killed a bit of time.
We walked back to the bus stop and waited. Once we boarded, it was quite an efficient journey, serving the local housing estate. The bus eventually terminated at the bus garage in Lichfield, which is very close to Debenhams. It would have been rude not to stop off and check it out before moving on…In fact, we looked around quite a lot of the shops before stopping for lunch and then going onto the cathedral. I rather think it’s a genetic thing for women and shops.
After lunch, we visited the beautiful cathedral. There has been a church on the site of Lichfield Cathedral since 700AD. Originally a small Saxon church , it was replaced by a larger Norman church in the twelfth century. Work started on the current cathedral in around 1215, but it took 150 years to complete. St Chad’s bones were interred at the cathedral, which attracted hundreds of pilgrims until Henry VIII commanded that this church, along with so many others, during the Reformation.
If you’ve never visited, may I suggest that you put Lichfield Cathedral on your bucket list. It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful buildings you will ever see. The high, vaulted ceilings are absolutely stunning, and the stained glass windows are pretty magnificent too. It has that typical sense of serenity so often found in cathedrals, I always feel very peaceful when I visit.
Lichfield is not only notable for its cathedral, some famous people were born here too. There was Samuel Johnson, of course, of the dictionary fame, but there was also Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, Anna Seward (eighteenth century poet, aka the Swan of Lichfield), Erasmus Darwin (physician and grandfather of Charles of Origin of the Species fame) and David Garrick (playwright and actor, after whom the Garrick theatre in London is named. There is also a Garrick theatre in Lichfield itself named after him). It’s a pleasant little city (if that’s not an oxymoron) with it’s little river and old Georgian buildings. If we’d had more time, we could have done more of the touristy things but it was a pleasant way to spend a day.
A bus ride home to settle down for a quite night in, ready for our trip to the Arboretum the following day.
I’ve just come back after a few days away with my friends, Kate and Geoff. We’ve been saying for ages that we want to visit the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, so we decided to extend my most recent visit to include this.
Geoff had booked a little holiday cottage close to the Arboretum in a village called Alrewas. It’s a little village on the Trent Mersey canal, very close to the Arboretum. It has three pubs – we tried two of them – and three restaurants – we all tried one, Geoff tried two of them. With a local supermarket and a lovely butchers, we had everything we needed for our week.
The Arboretum is 150 acres in size and is somewhere best seen in dry weather. Day one of our holiday was wet, so we deferred our visit in favour of a trip to Barton Marina.
Barton Marina is a beautiful marina linking into the Trent and Mersey Canal. It has berths for 320 boats, with facilities for the boaters. I’m not going into detail about that, but if you are interested, check out
It was lovely for us to see all the narrow boats, and to watch one being reversed into its mooring – we shouldn’t really have stood and watched, it’s bad enough when someone watches me reversing in a car. And I think it’s harder in a boat (yes, I have been on a narrow boat and have “driven” one). There are more canal boat stories to follow.
Up until 1994, the land surrounding the canal was farmland, when work started to extract over one million metric tonnes of gravel and sand to build the marina and two fishing lakes. The marina opened for business in 2001.
The landside of the marina is not huge, I’ve been to bigger ones, but it is lovely. There are some lovely little shops here – what I would call quite artsy shops, but I suppose would be more correctly called artisan shops.
We started off having coffee in the tea rooms, which had some beautifully painted accessories for the narrow boats – kettles, coal scuttles and the like. Then we had a good look around the shops, and spent a bit of time in some of them. Well, more correctly, Kate and I had a nice little shop. Geoff was very patient with us. Geoff said that he would treat us for lunch at the The Waterfront Pub. It would have been churlish to refuse…
The Waterfront, as the name suggests, is on the waterfront, and the restaurant overlooks the marina. We were lucky enough to get a table right at the front.
Geoff had the creamy garlic mushrooms, with toasted ciabatta, which he enjoyed. Kate and I both chose the fresh warm asparagus and parmesan salad – the salad was actually asparagus and rocket (one of my favourites) and was warm enough to start to melt the parmesan. It was delicious.
For his main course, Geoff chose the beer-battered cod and chips. It was huge! He’s quite a particular eater, and I can honestly say that I have never seen him enjoy a meal so much! Kate and I both had one of the specials – pan fried hake on a bed of crushed potatoes with fricassee of pea and bacon. You don’t see hake on the menu very often nowadays, so it was a no-brainer for me. I thought the fricassee was a bit rich, but it was rather lovely.
We went back to our cottage after that. There are more tales of my trip to come in the next post…
Hot Chocolate recently returned from her holiday in Jamaica. I can’t tell you how well she looked; rested and glowing, and with the long plaits she’d had done just before she went away, she looked about 12 years old. That didn’t stop me going out with her though. I can take it.
We’d pre-booked dinner at the The Cookbook Café at the InterContinental London, at Hamilton Place, just off Park Lane. It’s about 20 minutes walk from Victoria Station, so, apart from the fact that I took us the wrong way round the Hyde Park Corner roundabout so we had to dice with death at one point, it was quite a pleasant walk.
This restaurant is one of several in the hotel, and has won a Three Star Award from the Sustainable Restaurant Association, a not-for-profit organisation set up to help restaurants, and others in the food industry work towards sustainability. I didn’t know that when we booked it; we’d found one of those deals where you pay a reduced price – this one was for a three course meal and Free Flowing Bubbles.
We’d chosen to have an early meal, partly because HC had only flown home the day before and partly because I’d been working and hadn’t had time to eat, so we knew we’d both be tired and hungry. And anyway, in the words of the Fabulous Frankie, “she’s always too hungry for dinner at eight.” Not too tired or hungry for non-stop chat throughout the meal though. When we worked together, we chatted when we had downtime, but now that we don’t see each other pretty much every day we just seem to have a lot to catch up on. All the time. You’d have to know us to understand the conversations, they seem to flip about a lot, but we know what each other is talking about.
Our lovely waiter offered a choice of three sparkling wines: a French white methode champenoise, a sparkling rose and Prosecco. The girls like Prosecco, so that was easy. We also asked for some tap water, which came up in bottles with mint leaves – very refreshing.
Obviously, as we were there on a meal deal, we didn’t get the full menu, but that didn’t matter at all, there was a good selection. And as soon as I asked for gluten free bread, they brought that up too. Another thumbs up.
Smoked Duck with Quails’ Eggs
We both decided to go for the smoked duck breast to start. It was a cold starter, served with quails’ eggs and some salad leaves and mayonnaise. I think we were actually silent while we ate this, at least to start. I think I’d probably expected it to be hot, or different, but it was lovely, with a very subtle smokiness to the duck.
Roast Lamb
HC chose lamb for her main course, served with green beans and mash, I chose the chicken. For dessert, we both went for cheese. The food was good, no complaints from either of us. Nothing else to say there. Good, honest food.
Grilled Chicken
The Cookbook Café prides itself on its suppliers. Clearly, not all the food is UK produced (I don’t know anywhere in the UK where they grow cocoa trees) but they choose Fairtrade and locally produced where possible. As someone who is concerned about food miles, and the way her food is produced, these are plusses for me. (I don’t say that I always eat organic or buy Fairtrade, but where I can… And I am very fussy about my meat, and so is HC. In fact, I think I should write a blog about our meat supplier at Smithfield…But that’s a story for another day.)
The restaurant also runs food festivals from time to time; it also runs events such as Cocktail and Dessert Master classes. At £35 a throw, I think that’s pretty good value. Particularly as I am sure you get to try whatever you make.
There are also brunch menus for Saturdays and Sundays. Eat as much as you like and drink endless Bellini’s or Prosecco. Eggs, waffles, ham, smoked salmon, traditional roast dishes and desserts… I think I may be going back for many visits.
I don’t spend every Friday going out for lunch, honestly I don’t, it’s just happened that way over the past few weeks. So, on Friday, Nicola and I went to Hix in Soho, for our annual birthday lunch.
I’ve been there before, but it was a first for Nicola, so I really hoped it would be good, as I’d recommended it. We were seated at the far part of the restaurant, which meant that we had a good view of the room. Our waiter was a lovely young man named Jacob, who was very knowledgeable about the restaurant and the food.
We couldn’t decide what to drink so we opted for Prosecco, as it was a special occasion – we were celebrating both our birthdays. Lots of chatting and catching up was taking place, so Jacob suggested that we might like to try the Cockle Popcorn while we were making up our minds.
“What’s that then?” we asked.
Cockle popcorn and pork scratchings
Jacob explained that they were Carmarthen Bay cockles coated in a gluten free flour and deep fried. Such a simple idea and yet so tasty. Nicola liked them with vinegar, I preferred them without, but then I’m not a huge vinegar fan. Still chatting, and looking at the menu, we then chose the freshly cooked Moyallon pork scratchings with Bramley apple sauce. They were good. We were still chatting. We had another round of both, which was actually a huge mistake because we were starting to get full before we’d even ordered the mains.
Still undecided about our main courses (clearly, we were not having starters after all those cockles and crackling), Jacob came to the rescue. He suggested Dover Sole, which Nicola chose, with new, buttered potatoes. I’ll be honest, I always think sole is a bit over-rated, so Jacob suggested I go for the griddled St Mary’s bay scallops with chanterelle mushrooms and Maldon sweetcorn, with fries on the side. They were lovely but not hot enough for my taste, even the second time round. Sorry, but if it’s meant to be hot, it’s meant to be hot, in my book. The staff were very gracious about it though. We had a garden salad with the main course, which was interesting, if a bit earthy in flavour. It tasted as though it had nettles in it; maybe it did.
Dover Sole
After all that food, we had to have a bit of a rest before dessert, although the menu did look enticing. The young lad at the next table had the Peruvian Gold chocolate mousse, which looked, well, gold. In the end we shared cheese – Nicola doesn’t like blue cheese, I do, so it made sense, and that way we didn’t have too much. Jacob also brought us each an espresso martini. Considering that I don’t like cold coffee, I managed to polish that off very smartly, can’t imagine why…
Then we felt it was necessary to have port…
There was some interesting artwork in the restaurant. I couldn’t see it until I turned round, but there was a mobile made from Fray Bentos pie tins. For those of you too young to have a clue what I am talking about, Fray Bentos is a city in Uruguay where the main industry used to be meat processing. The tins were quite distinctive in that they were fairly shallow in size, about an inch deep, I think. I seem to recall my mum making a hole in the lid to release the pressure and then heating the tins in boiling water… The mobile is the work of Sarah Lucas, called Pie Mobile (I said Kiddley Diddley Eye).
In the private dining room there is a display by Douglas White called Nest which is a combination of tree roots and basketballs. It’s different… On the main wall in the restaurant is an Angus Fairhurst print, which, although red in colour, looks to me like a forest.
There are nine separate venues for the Hix chain, including the Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis. Perhaps I should make it a mission to visit them all.
My friend Paul and I save regularly to go to good restaurants, places we wouldn’t normally be able to afford. We’ve been to Gordon Ramsey at Royal Hospital Road a couple of times (absolutely incredible) but this time we went to The Greenhouse in Hays Mews, Mayfair. It takes us quite a while to save for this type of restaurant, but we think it’s worth it and the Greenhouse was no exception..
Hays Mews is a funny little road, it runs straight with another road adjacent, also called Hays Mews, so we walked down the wrong part first, but that didn’t matter, we had plenty of time.
Once we found the right part of the road, we could see the restaurant clearly, it has huge plants visible outside from the end of the road. Don’t ask me what they are, I’m not that good at botany.
As you enter the restaurant, you walk through a decked garden. Just green plants, no flowers, but maybe that’s just the time of year. Still, it was lovely to walk through it.
It was raining when we arrived, and the young man at reception opened the door for us and quickly took our wet umbrellas away. Coats away, and we were shown to our table. They very kindly brought me a little table for my handbag, telling me it was bad luck to put it on the floor. And then, a trolley appeared in front of us with a variety of champagnes. Paul and I both like Veuve Cliquot, so we started with a glass each. We also ordered some water. One of the things I liked was that we were given time to relax before any menus were brought up, and relax we did, whilst sipping our champagne.
Paul’s olive bread roll
Then we were brought up fresh bread, gluten free for me, with two butters, one of which had seaweed and Maldon sea salt in it. I’ve never had that before but will definitely try to get hold of some, it was so delicious.
We were given a lunchtime set menu as well as the A La Carte. I always like to look at the set menus, just to see whether I’m missing anything, but generally tend to order from the A La Carte, and so it was on this occasion, for both of us. Our waitress, if that is the correct term to use here, she may have been the maitre d’, checked the food allergies of which they’d been informed, and told us we could order anything from the menu and they’d let us know if they couldn’t cater for us. Fortunately, we both ordered things that didn’t require any changes.
Orders for food placed, we were brought the first of two amuse bouche. I honestly can’t remember what they were, except that there was a slight hitch with mine because they had gluten in them (no big deal, and I know I’m quite difficult, so I quite understand if restaurants don’t always get it exactly right as long as I don’t actually eat anything that will cause me a problem).
First amuse bouche out of the way, Paul studied the very comprehensive wine list and found a white for me (my favourite Chablis) and a red for him.
Second amuse bouche. We both had one that was called harissa, and tasted very much like houmous, but they were all lovely and very different flavours. Each of us tried both wines, and we were very happy with them both, so all was well with the world.
Native Lobster
Paul had ordered the native lobster with watermelon, peanut satay and lime. It looked absolutely gorgeous, with the watermelon and the lobster being almost the same colour and size, placed decoratively around the plate.
Orkney scallops
I had Orkney Scallop with verbena, green zebra tomato and samphire. It came up in a jelly, which worried me a bit because I’m not a fan of jelly, but actually it was lovely. The verbena gave it a very interesting flavour, and I’m not using interesting in my usual euphemistic sense; it really was lovely just not what I’d been expecting. My only other experience of jellied seafood is jellied eels and I don’t like them at all, but once I’d put them out of my mind, I was fine.
For the main course, Paul had chosen the Welsh organic lamb from the Rhug Estate, with houmous, kombu (a type of kelp) and lemon, which Paul loved. I chose the wild sea bass with celeriac, coconut, wasabi and cos lettuce (that’s twice in the space of a week that I had cooked lettuce and it was lovely both times, better than raw. A new vegetable for me to prepare at home.)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but whenever I go to these “designer” restaurants, I always think I’m going to come away hungry, because the portions look small (but then they do always put them on ridiculously large plates, which doesn’t help) but I end up at the end of the meal wishing someone would tuck me up in a ball so I can roll home…
Notwithstanding the fact that I was doing nicely by this point, I still managed several different cheeses from the trolley…. With more of the lovely bread. Paul had a fennel dessert with lemon and Agoureleo olive oil. They actually brought a little jug of olive oil up and poured it over the dessert before Paul ate it, which was novel. He said it was unusual but rather lovely.
At the end, when we had tea and coffee, we were brought some jellied fruits and chocolates.
The whole meal was delicious but different, in as much as the flavours were just a bit different, with what seemed to me to be quite a strong Moroccan influence. It’s no surprise to me that the restaurant has two Michelin stars. The chef is Armaud Bignon, a Frenchman who has previously worked in Paris and Greece, where he took his restaurant Spodi to be the only two Michelin starred restaurant in Greece.
On Friday, I went, with Bro and Little Sis, to the V & A, to see the Shoes: Pleasure and Pain Exhibition. I’d finished my other jobs early, so had about an hour before they arrived to sit in the garden, relax with a cup of tea and read my book.
We had planned to meet at 1pm so that we could have lunch before we went to the exhibition. I’ve never eaten there before and was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful the Garden Café is. The windows are stained glass and there are patterned tiles depicting the months of the year and the seasons on the walls. Surprisingly, the V & A website makes little mention of the architecture and design of the café. (There is information about the design of the building, but it does take a little searching for. Maybe that’s not what most people are interested in when they visit the V & A but I would like to see more information about it.)
The food in the Garden Café is reasonably priced, so we thought we’d made a good choice eating there. It’s one of those places that also does an afternoon tea deal (but check, it may not apply every day) so when you consider that entry to the museum is free, it can be a very really reasonably priced day out. We were all happy with our choice of venue.
We finished lunch with plenty of time to spare so looked around on the ground floor before going into the Shoe exhibition. I wanted to go to this exhibition because, like so many women, shoes are my big passion. My tastes have changed over the years, they are more diverse now, but I still love them all. I saw some that were very similar to shoes I used to own, it was like being in seventh heaven. I didn’t take any photographs at the exhibition because I thought they said that we weren’t allowed to, but I did see other people snapping away. It probably didn’t matter, I was drooling too much most of the time to have been able to hold the camera steady.
There were shoes from ancient Chinese cultures, Iraq, Egypt; more recent history and the modern day. I learned something very interesting about pole dancing shoes… Even my brother enjoyed this exhibition, which is going some for a man.
Then I went to stay with the boys, Paul and Paul, on Saturday night. One of the Paul’s is a very good cook, so Saturday night dinner was at home. Very relaxing for me but maybe not so much for Paul. Delightful meal though, Indian themed, which is a big favourite with me. On Sunday, we all slept late, but had decided that we were going out for the day, and the Hellfire Caves at West Wycombe were the chosen destination.
The caves extend for about a quarter of a mile underground, excavated between 1748 and 1752. They are below St Lawrence’s Church and Mausoleum; all of these were excavated or built by Sir Francis Dashwood (I always thought when Jane Austen referred to the Dashwood’s in Sense and Sensibility it was a fictional name, but maybe not).
The local area had been used for open-cast quarrying since way back, the chalk being used for roads and the foundations of houses. Sir Francis decided that he would extend the quarry to ease the local unemployment problem, caused by three years of successive harvest failures. It also doubled as a way of obtaining materials for a new road between High Wycombe and West Wycombe. What is not clear is why Dashwood did not just extend the existing quarry, as opposed to having the excavations done as caves… Perhaps there was an ulterior motive…
The Hellfire Club was not an exclusive name, it was used by a number of clubs frequented by upper class gents in the 18th century. The one in question here was more commonly known by the catchy little title of the Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe! Members of the club dressed up as monks and addressed each other as brother. Female guests dressed as nuns. Word spread that satanic rituals took place, I suspect it was far less sinister than that, just somewhere that the well-heeled could enjoy some undisturbed drinking, feasting and whoring, not necessarily in that order.
After the death of Sir Francis, and the demise of these Hellfire clubs (I guess everything goes out of fashion), the caves were not maintained and started to become dangerous. It wasn’t until 1951 that they were opened to the public for a small fee (one shilling a visit, along with a candle to light the way, which, I think would be about £1.50 in today’s money. It’s £6 to get in today.)
The caves have been cleaned up (and shored up in places) and electric lights have been installed – but don’t run away with the idea that the caves are lit up like the Blackpool illuminations, there are places where a torch would be very useful. There have been reported sightings of bats in the caves, although fortunately, I didn’t see any (I’m not great with anything flying close to my head); there are also reports that the caves are haunted. I have to be honest, I didn’t get any sense of that either but don’t let that stop you from visiting.
We walked up to the church and mausoleum afterwards – what a fantastic view, and good exercise. The church (St Lawrence) is beautiful and definitely worth a visit. They do afternoon teas there too, on a Sunday.
I was at a loose end on Sunday, hadn’t planned anything, but it was a beautiful day, if a bit chilly (first thing, anyway) so I thought I’d get myself off on one of my London walks. I usually plan and book in advance, but I just hadn’t organised myself that much this time. I did a little search online and came across a free walking tour of Royal London. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even notice the name of the company, I liked the look of it and so I booked it. I can tell you now though, it’s
The meeting place was Green Park Station, by the statue of Diana, the huntress. I must have been walking around with my eyes closed for the last however many years because I didn’t even know where this statue was! Of course I do now. It’s not my favourite piece of art work, so maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it before.
Diana is the Roman name for this goddess, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, twin sister of Apollo. Her Greek name is Artemis, parents Zeus and Leto. Interestingly, her brother is called Apollo in Greek mythology too.
Anyway, I was there early and did a bit of people watching whilst I waited for the tour to start. Then I saw the orange umbrella referred to in my booking email so checked in for the tour and had a little chat to the company rep and tour guide while we were waiting for other tour visitors. I found out quite a lot about the tour company and liked what I heard. It seems a very friendly company.
When we were all assembled, our guide introduced herself to us as Morgane (bit of Arthurian legend going on there methinks…) and took us off to a less crowded area of the park. As there were only ten of us, Morgane got us all to do a quick intro – we were quite a varied group, we had a Japanese lady, a couple from San Francisco who were over here for a year to work, a Spanish-Indian lady who is married to a South African, to name but a few.
I’m not going to pretend that everything I was told on this tour was new to me, but even if you’ve read it here before, it’s worth repeating. I’m guessing that the non-natives didn’t know it all anyway and I can honestly say that I never come away from a tour without learning something new.
Morgane told us that London was founded about 2000 years ago by the Romans, but further east, over in what we now call the City, and it was called Londinium in those days. Green Park used to be a swamp (most of Central London was little more than a swamp, or at the very least, marshland, back then) and the bodies of lepers were thrown in it… What is now the site of St James’ Palace used to be a hospital for lepers so that makes perfect sense. Who wants to be dragging those dead bodies too far? I rather think those few hundred yards were far enough.
Sometime later, the land became a private park for the King, Charles II, and subsequently a public park. Back in the 18th century, when it first became a public park, it was actually on the outskirts of London, and was home to robbers and ne’er do wells, so the rich chaps who walked along here, perhaps on their way back from their liaisons with the ladies of the night down the road in St James’ Park (which was a red light region before it all went up market) were often robbed. It was ever thus: one part of London goes up, another down, and you just have to have your wits about you and get your horse-drawn carriage to pick you up to get you home safely.
Front of Buckingham Palace
From here, we walked down to Buckingham Palace, built in 1705 by the Duke of Buckingham. If you’ve never taken a good look at the Palace, I’d urge you to do so. It’s a stunning building and there is way more to it than the frontage that we all see in the photographs. This is a newer addition to the building, the rear being built in sandstone. Better still, go on one of the tours. The time is nearly up for this year, but it’s open annually from the end of July to the end of September, and the state rooms are a sight to behold.
Opposite the palace, at the bottom of Green Park is the beautiful Canada Gate, a memorial to the one million Canadians who served with the British Forces during the first and second World Wars.
Next we walked along the Mall. As you walk along this road, take a look at the street lights – they are gas operated on the side of St James’ Palace, which was the original road, and electric on the other side. There are other gas-lit lamps in London, too.
We stopped off outside Clarence House, which is another place that is well worth a visit. It was built 200 years ago by John Nash and is now home to the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles. There were a couple of guardsmen on duty outside but they were too far away for me to see which regiment they were. Morgane told us a bit about the guards too, while we were on our walk.
Then we turned off and stopped outside St James’ Palace, built by Henry VIII. Morgane went into full theatrical mode here, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. These tour guides have to cater for all tastes so by involving their attendees, it makes it more interesting. She chose her actors well, too, going through Henry’s wives and assigning individuals a role. There were only a couple of men in the group but Morgane got one to play the part of Anne of Cleves, who reputedly looked like a man! This was a really fun history lesson about how Henry became king, right through to a potted history of his offspring. And then, Morgane threw in a fact that I rather think I ought to have known but didn’t – all the bricks used to build St James’ Palace came from Brick Lane, in East London.
We made our way along Pall Mall and stopped off at the site of a house where Nell Gwynne used to live, and then at the RAC Club, to have a peer in to see the latest car. Apparently, they have a different car in there every week. Being a Sunday, it was a bit difficult for us to see it as the doors were closed, but it we got a bit of a look. Then up to Waterloo Place to gaze upon the beauty that is the Athenaum Club, designed by Decimus Burton when he was only 24 years old. The club, a private members club, houses one of the largest private libraries in London.
From here we went to Trafalgar Square, and who can fail to notice Nelson’s Column, erected to celebrate the English victory at the Battle of Trafalgar? Morgane told us a lot about Nelson’s victory over the French and Spanish at Trafalgar in 1805. Trafalgar was the most important Naval Battle in the Napoleonic Wars, with 22 of the Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships being lost. England lost none of her ships. Morgane went on to tell us about the National Gallery and St Martins in the Fields, where classical music concerts are held daily. There is also a lovely little cafeteria in the basement, very reasonably priced and worth a visit.
Then along to Admiralty Arch, which was the home to the administration of Britain’s armed forces until 2012, when, in it’s bid to make a bit of money, the government leased it to a property developer for 120 years, so that it can become a luxury hotel. At least they didn’t sell it…. Next stop was just around the corner, to the Admiralty Citadel which was built in 1940 as the bomb proof operations centre for the admiralty. Right opposite this is the National Police Memorial, where there is a roll of honour in memory of about 1600 police officers killed in the line of duty.
Admiralty Citadel
National Police Memorial
We moved a little further on to Horse Guards Parade, and the site of Whitehall Palace, which was largely destroyed by fire in 1698 (the Banqueting House on the opposite side of Whitehall still remains). I believe that below the government buildings that now stand along Whitehall, there are still Henry VIII’s original tennis courts and some other historical remains, but most of us will never get to see them.
We stopped off to take some photographs of the Lifeguards on duty, and then walked past Downing Street. I remember actually being outside number 10 as a child on a school trip, but unfortunately, since the IRA bombings of the late 1980’s, that doesn’t happen anymore.
Morgane pointed out Churchill’s favourite pub – The Red Lion, which is not a bad little boozer, although I’ve not been in there for a few years. She recounted the tale of an encounter he is reputed to have had with Labour MP Bessie Braddock. The exchange went something like this:
“Winston, you are drunk and what’s more you are disgustingly drunk.”
“Madam, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”
There are variations on what was said, and I suppose we will never know for sure, but it’s an oft repeated story, and always makes me smile.
From here we moved down to Westminster Abbey where Morgane told us about some of the famous people buried there. The tour ended between the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, with Morgane telling us about Guy Fawkes and the lovely process of execution we English used to employ back then in the 13th to 17thcenturies.
All in all, a lovely tour, I really enjoyed it. Thank you all at weareundiscovered.com and thank you Morgane.
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