On the Reputed Wretchedness of British Cooking

Man, what a brilliant day.

Before I go any further, however, let me say that Curt and Alana got everything taken care of, so they’re good. Down quite a bit of money, but after all- it’s just money. They have new passports and all that jazz, and even moved to a slightly more spacious hotel to help cut back their stress levels. Barbara spent the day with them (and Eel, of course) putting things to rights. Our half of the cat herd, however, was already committed to Other Plans.

Nate, Jeff, Elizabeth, Don, and I met up at 0730 to mosey down and pick up our rented car (a Mercedes, of all things) for our great adventure down to Portsmouth and Stonehenge. Jeff was our designated driver, and can I just say- he was amazing. He didn’t hit anyone, including his four backseat-drivers who were over-anxious to “help” as he navigated the insanity that is London, all while driving on the wrong side of the street while sitting on the wrong side of the car. I probably would have cried, if it had been me. As it was he only had two wee incidents: he managed to knock his side-view mirror back at one point, and then kind of ran up onto a curb at another- but that second one really wasn’t due to being an American or anything. It was retardedly narrow there at that juncture.

Anyway, we developed a “system” to warn Jeff when he was drifting too far to the left (which he tended to do, a direct result of the whole sitting-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car thing). The system consisted of making bird calls, so that there were not-infrequent outbursts of “Ca-caw, ca-caw!”, “Tookie tookie!”, and “Peep! Peeeeep!” from the various passengers. It was funny enough to keep the stress levels manageable.

Portsmouth was absolutely lovely. We parked a good way from the harbor and hoofed it, discovering along the way how absurdly polite the drivers are. Four times out of five at any given crosswalk the cars would slow down and wave us across with a smile. Brilliant!

Once we made it to the harbor the first order of business was, of course, fish and chips (specifically from Britannia Fish & Chips, for the curious). Now, you need to understand that, for the most part, I don’t eat fish. But when I am in a foreign country I make it a point to eat their specialties, so I was committed to at least trying the fish and chips, and moreover to doing it up proper, with salt and vinegar.

Oh. My. Stars it was delicious! So fresh and tender and flaky and not at all “fishy” (we had cod, although haddock was also available). We sat on the pier looking out at HMS Warrior, devouring our new-found mana. Several groups of school children were herded past us on their way to the historic dockyard, and more than a few hollered out, “I smell fish and chips! Aw man, they’ve got fish and chips! I want fish and chips!” It made me feel quite smug.

(HMS Warrior/Me drawing HMS Warrior)

I managed to get an all-too-brief sketch of Warrior in before Nathan made a fuss about needing to get a move on. And so we moved on to HMS Victory, which was definitely the entire point of coming to England, so far as my husband was concerned. It was great for me, too, because I finally got a better understanding of the anatomy of the ships that Jack and Stephen sail in.

(Nate and I pay our respects to HMS Victory and Lord Nelson/a more dramatic rendering)

From there we took a brief detour through a few of the museums (and I got a better idea of the depth of the national obsession with Lord Nelson) before hopping back in the car to Stonehenge (pretty much my entire reason for coming to England). It was the craziest thing, because you come up over a hill as you’re driving and boom- there’s Stonehenge, just sitting there in the middle of the field! And it’s hilarious because you could tell precisely where the boundary rope was by the perfect circle of ants (aka people) surrounding it.

(Yeah, that's right- my husband took this shot)

We paid our £6.50/head to get in (cheap by my new London standards…) grabbed our little audio tour-guides, then got to walking.

(Standing. With some Stones.)

It was just… awesome, especially for heathen little me. The stones are not as large as I thought they were- which is in no way to intimate that they’re small, because they’re not- they’re freaking huge. But I guess they were even bigger in my head. According to my little tour-guide, the way they’re cut adds to that illusion. Anyway I managed to sit and sketch it for a while until Nathan came back and got me because the others were getting antsy (are we seeing a theme starting to develop here?). Fortunately I got a gorgeous burst of sun right at the end, so I was able to lay in some nice shadows…

(Sketching said stones)

We had originally thought we might visit Avebury to see the standing stones there, but we decided we needed to go ahead and get the car back to London, so off we went.

Once we got back we split up for supper- the others wanted something quick and easy, but Nate and I wanted something authentic (we generally do- we even try to avoid chains in the states). There was a little pub maybe a block away called The Marquis of Westminster, so he and I slid over to check it out. We settled ourselves into a tiny tiny table and I immediately felt at home. It reminded me a great deal of the Moon & Sixpence in Portland, which is a good thing. Nathan ordered a lamb, mint, and ale pie with a pint of ale, and I ordered up the meat platter, along with a pint of pear cider. We chatted about what a great day it had been while we waited for our food.

Our food came and threatened to overflow our wee table, but we made do. I took a bite of mine and moaned in food ecstasy- Nathan had a similar reaction to his. Then we swapped bites, and after I tasted his I announced, “If anyone ever again tries to tell me that British food is bad, I will punch them in the throat.”

And I stand by that statement.