WELCOME TO MY DAY..

IT IS NICE TO HAVE YOU SHARE IT WITH ME...

LONDON....
Well, all those jokes you've heard about the English summer? You'd better believe 'em, folks! It is STILL cold; I froze as I was loading my cases into the taxi, and when I was settled on the plane the captain said, "the weather in London isn't as good as here..."
Turns out it was the coldest June day on record!!
And today the Queen had to wear a hideous shaggy coat over her nice summer dress for her birthday celebrations!
But can you imagine how all those London dry-cleaners were rubbing their hands in glee over all those lovely, wet uniforms?
Was nice in the wet air, though..the smoke from the 21 gun salute stayed over the guns..and everything was blue, green and white,with just the red and gold of the fusiliers' wet uniforms making a splash of colour... definitely Constable country!!

And only the Brits could coordinate waves of three-sets of jet planes to fly over a palace in between shots from the 19th Century Cannons that fire the Royal Salute..
To someone who was a RRA bride in 1960, and whose father proudly hung a'Kirby, Sheriff Of London, seal on his wall, this was all Lump-In-The Throat stuff.....even the hardboiled son, who claimed he would never be affected by this kitch tourist expedition, found a tear in his eye!!
So we mobile-phoned the husband, the Artillery Officer, to let him share the sound and the commands and the atmosphere, and I tried to provide a "You are Here" type commentary, which the TV Camera crew behind me decided was overriding theirs and held the microphone boom over ME and used MY commentary instead..
The British canera crew had seriously gorgeous French superviser, and that is another story, entirely!!

Did I tell you how I came to be staying at the Marble Arch Marriot?
Well, I procrastinated too long, and none of the clubs where I have reciprocal membership had vacancies for four days straight...especially not with the Trooping Of The Colour about to happen, so I bit the bullet and liberated my Marriot Rewards card..
..but the moderately priced London Marriots were booked out too..which left the Marble Arch Marriot....
..which has won me, totally..I mean...can you imagine, in Australia, the chef making up a jug of bearnaise sauce specially????

I would have had trouble getting out of Heathrow with all that luggage except that a lovely Cockney porter, (Hi Ralph!!) rescued me and stayed with me in the biting wind until we were next for a taxi....and the cabbie drove at 200 k an hour with one hand, chatting on his mobile with the other.
But the room has a shower , and a frig and a heated bathroom floor and lots of hangers and a data point which the desk staff configured for me at once... I was talking to my husband in Australia before I had done any unpacking...

And after I'd organized everything to my satisfaction and had a quick sleep, (woken by the sound of bagpipes), I found a warm outfit, (which everyone had said, "dont take..too heavy, too warm!!",and went for a 1mile walk either side of this hotel...
And I saw food shops and restaurants and moneychangers, and food shops and restaurants and supermarkets,and food shops and eatereis and luggage shops, and food shops and moneychangers and restaurants and restaurants...
and I bought some wines and mixers at a Safeway with a totally Chinese staff...
And I looked at cherries the size of our cherryplums, and tasted apricots that ours used to taste like...
And wondered if these apartment blocks lack kitchens, that so many folk were eating out this cold thursday night....

So I thought, "when in Rome"...and changed into a seriously dignified silk suit with a pleated skirt, and put on my bronze highheels,and went down to the Pavilion Restaurant to utilize the voucher they had pushed under my door while I'd been dozing...
and the ratio of males to females was 4 to 1, and I was the only unaccompanied female, but the staff went out of their way to make me feel welcome as a serious diner, and the wine waiter even assumed I might know something about wine...something else that wouldn't happen in Australia...
Between us, we settled on a South African Merlot Cabernet Shiraz, which they have corked and saved for me to finish another day..
I've never tasted smoke in a wine before...but it was a seriously good choice..
And instead of the scraping of smoked salmon you get in Australia, they serve it the way we serve chicken.... in large helpings...and whoever worked out that smoked salmon and redcurrants go well together should be mentioned in the next honours list..
And a jug of still- foaming bearnaise sauce,(thankyou, Paul!), a little heavy on the vinegar, especially with Dvorak's Song To The Moon' playing between sets of live double-bass is the kind of sublime experience that makes time stand still...
Was only the attentive, loving companion missing..but guess one can't have everything all the time!!

And they didn't hurry the service, so I had lots of time to look around, and listen... would you believe..the tubs and planters of indoor plants are REAL?
(they don't seem to be as big on the silk flowers as we are in Oz!)
and I'm finding I am starting to understand the French I am hearing all around me..and in the plane, the inflight magazine,Voyageris written in English and French, so I was practicing on the french articles and finding I could get the gist quite well..
Will be a different story in Belgium, I guess, with everyone speaking full pace!

But you can definitely see the Arab influence in Britain, too...
I mean..just go out the door here and walk around..."Halal" is a much-used word in shop-signs!!
And it was announced this week that Chicken Tika is now the most-eaten dish in England,(after ten days in Leeds/ Bradford I can believe that!!), and each hotel I have stayed at has listed Chicken Tika on its room -service menu.
The Pavilion Restaurant here at the Marriot has a candelabra set beneath the kind of wrought-iron canopy under which the Sheik of Araby would have felt quite relaxedly amorous..
And of the six waiting staff, none appeared to be of British descent...
And, do you know, you can't peruse a shopping centre without coming across job advertisements, dozens of them..
the most foreign thing of all to an Australian abroad!!

Son no 1 and I shopped at a Testro supermarket, after I made him look at Mark and Spencer and Selfridges food, because he is still freaking out at the prices and translating everything into Australian dollars...NOT a good idea, so it looked like munchies in the hotel room for the rest of my stay here...
We won't starve..he is a Master Munchie from way back, and even he admitted the Munchie choice here is remarkable!!
Course I embarassed the heck out of him by talking to the checkout girls...who are requitred to sit down in English supermarkets!
Wait till I tell that to OUR supermarket girls back home!!

The son, Chris, landed in around 7.30am from Australia, still aghast at having to spend all night on a plane..even though he had a whole row of seats to himself!
Seems the hotel desk staff tried to joke with him, but didn't manage to engage his sense of humour!
Nor was he impressed when his mobile phone (the one he was born with attatched to his ear), wouldn't work straight away, or when none of his phone numbers would give anything but a wrong number tone, and when the fair Lisete was too busy going to do the banking work he's left her to talk to him..or when his house, when he called home, appeared to be full of male friends engaged in spirited conversation!
But he manfully put off sleeping to help me find a Post Office, and then to carry the parcel to be sent home back to another Post Office to send it, and then we found Oxford Street and hit the shops in a serious kind of way..I mean, I didn't KNOW Lady K shoes actually come in COLOURS!! In Australia, no way..black, brown, navy, white!!

Wonder how one gets a Lady K franchise??
Son wants to be the first Australian to open up a Boots-type pharmacy supermarket as soon as the law about qualified-ownership-only changes..he sees the millions beckoning!
Still, he was wearing a Parka and beret manufactured and marketed by his own firm, Monkey, and has a super new businesscard which I will show you as soon as I can organize a scanner..I am seriously handicapped without my scanner!! He has a video camera with him..says he is filming everything for the new baby, but whether we can work out how to use it to scan in graphics to this laptop remains to be seen..
Which makes three of my children (ALL of them come to think of it), with whom I have shared a room in the past three weeks...seriously funny that we four have to travel so far to get to share accommodation , but after a few days flatting with my daughter I can see why we don't do it more...
But we made a serious video of red double decker buses .suspect Martians using telephoto lenses would think those are Earth ants..and now I know what my daughter meant by `London Bus Overkill'!

And tonight I shouted him dinner at an Italian Restaurant as a reward for accompanying me, (I was DRAGGING him, actually), to the Queen's Birthday Celebrations,and these two colonials raised on Royal Regiment Of Artillery traditions were totally bowled over...especially later, when we found he had captured the whole Roya Family on his little videocam viewer...
But he tends to be claustrophobic and had to pull out of Carnaby Street, (Liberty, I love you!) and hates the rain, so England is not for him!! He insisted we buy umbrellas but then he freaked out at the price and refused, but couldn't stand getting wet, and hailed a taxi..leaving me to haul down my very wet new umbrella and climb in
I could see his point..negotiating Brit shopping centre streets where everyone is using umbrellas is a serious health hazard. But I don't seem to have his problem with the crowds,which seem to me so wellbehaved and friendly..could it be my training in school locker rooms and corridors is now standing me in good stead?

Then today, my last day, we took his wife's advice and covered Camden Market.....and he actually bought his umbrella..and some shoes, and a belt...and some records...and this was serious crowd country but he coped very well..and we had the WORST cup of coffee of our entire lives...
how DOES one make coffee that tastes of napthalene???

So..just a few hours now, (and there is a TUBE STRIKE tomorrow), I'm heading off to Belgium , where Chemgineer, old friend from Wellesley Women's Centre Chatroom days, is going to show me round and smile indulgently at my French,( which I tried out on the Spanish waiter tonight), and there is a chance the new baby might be born while I am there!!
And my next stop is Vermont, where I'll be meeting Rudco from my chatroom.....trying to persuade him to play tennis with me but he says he can't on doctor's orders!!!
He wants me to cook an Australian meal for him..says he is in a culinary rut..
Hmmm....he's probably expecting steak and eggs and Fosters when I'm into ratatoille and aubergines cooked in yoghurt!!
And the next stop is Atlanta...who carries my suitcases there, and what I cook, is still being negotiated
But since I am paying a GREAT DEAL to have kitchens in both Williston and Atlanta, it will definitely be something good!!

BUT I'LL KEEP YOU POSTED!

Love to everyone over 50,and everyone on our side! -from ..Robink

WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

WANT TO LOOK BACK AT SOME EARLIER PAGES?

June 4th:
June 5th:
June 11th:

Sign My Guestbook

View My Guestbook

Please mail all your questions,answers and comment about this home page to: robink@mail.austasia.net

BACK TO THE OPENING PAGE:

BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS: