Back to Blighty once again, to enjoy relaxing times 'en famille' and with old friends …
No surprises regarding the weather, as the plane descended through England’s oh so familiar blanket of grey cloud, accompanied by the pilot announcing the ‘summer’ temperature in the low 60’s!
I was well prepared, knowing that my winter attire is perfect for a tropical ex-pat visiting England, regardless of season.
It was great to see my family once again, and it is funny how all the familiar sights transport one mentally back in time ... I was to spend three weeks in England, which would allow me to see and do all those special/traditional things. I had planned a fun timetable of events, albeit rather challenging coordinating schedules with friends and their busy lives, families and summer hols!
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| Market Town of Uppingham |
I spent most of my time with my Mother who lives in the small market town of Uppingham, which is so quintessentially British in style, retaining all of its original features despite the passage of time. The focal point of Uppingham is its market square, particularly every Friday when the colourful market takes place, proffering a wide variety of local farm fresh produce. Uppingham has managed to survive the pressure of large-scale commercialism threatening the existence of small individual businesses. It is heartening to see a thriving butchers, bakers, florist, cobblers, stationers, post office, traditional pub, antique shops, second hand book shops, and even a traditional sweet shop with glass jars full of delights to be weighed and packaged in small papers bags! Such attention to detail with all the benefits of small-scale individuality. If only society at large would realise that ‘less is more’!
The trip commenced in style at Rushton Hall with my sister Emma. Set in vast landscaped grounds, this former family home has been authentically transformed into a hotel. The de rigueur Spa is equally harmonised with the architecture, and was the ideal spot for an early Christmas treat, relaxing in its sauna, steam room and refreshing pool, followed by a pedicure and healthy lunch!
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| Burghley House |
Burghley House, another quintessentially English country abode, was the next venue for a fun day out with my Mother, sister Emma and her two energetic boys Louis and Henry. Burghley House is famed for its annual horse trials, a great tradition that my family has enjoyed over the years. It is also an interesting place to visit in itself, including the orangery restaurant where we had a good tea room-style lunch. This was followed by a walk around its beautiful surroundings, complete with manicured gardens and deer park.
Another memorable occasion was at Uppingham’s Lake Isle Restaurant, where Emma and I spent more sibling time together whilst enjoying great cuisine. This included artistic creations such as baked St Antony goats’ cheesecake topped with rocket; butterflied Cornish sardines with a fresh tomato compote; strawberry wine jelly with clotted cream ice cream and pink peppercorn shortbread or a warm chocolate and beetroot brownie with pecan and orange ice cream – yum! Our European neighbours would certainly be surprised by England’s progress in the culinary world!
From sibling bonding time to special moments with nephews … looking after Louis and Henry, whilst Emma and husband Russell busily packed for their three-week holiday in the French Alps. Respectively four and two, Louis and Henry are both full of endearing character with innocent excitement for life. Their enthusiasm for their “Special day with Aunt Rachel” was most touching. We had a fun time at Wistow Hall Farm, which has a ‘Maize Maze’ – an impressive labyrinth within an eight-acre field of maize. The pattern of the maze changes each year; this year it was a rather authentic-looking bumble bee, which could be seen from a viewing platform. It was the first time the three of us had experienced a maze, which made it all the more exciting, especially as it required good map reading skills to negotiate the route inside the 2 metre high maize ‘walls’ towering above our heads! The boys did jolly well, keeping up their interest right to the end, when we enjoyed a yummy ice cream treat to restore our energy levels.
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| English Afternoon Tea |
I am a great fan of English afternoon tea and everything associated with it – the charming cottage-style tea room with its floral china and tiered cake stand laden with a selection of homemade scones and cakes such as lemon drizzle, rich fruit, coffee and walnut. This is all accompanied by the traditional selection of teas: English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Darjeeling, and a few ‘modern’ herbal alternatives. Throughout my three-week visit I certainly managed to enjoy my fair share of scones and Earl Grey, enough to last me for the next year on St Barts! I enjoyed these tea room moments with friends and family; it is a great place to catch up on times past … So much so that my good friend Daniella and I were totally oblivious to the fall of dusk in the fragrant garden of Oakham Castle Tea Room, where the polite staff were eagerly waiting to retire for the evening!
I had a super couple of days in London, revisiting the familiar sights of ‘my home ground’ 1988-98. I wandered through the streets of Chelsea and South Kensington, and was pleasantly surprised to see that very little has changed – including the plant pots outside Drayton Gardens mansion block, where we used to live! The elegant shops continue to adorn Wilton Street en route to The Conran shop, which still majestically presides over the corner of Fulham Road and Sloane Avenue. PJ’s fun brasserie timelessly attracts the ‘in-crowd’; whilst just across the road, Butler and Wilson continues to decorate the décolleté of many an ‘It Girl’.
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| The Tate Modern Museum and The Millennium Bridge |
I left these familiar sights to visit pastures new, namely the impressive pedestrian Millennium Bridge and the Tate Modern Museum, fascinating additions to London’s repertoire, established since I left in ’98. With its selection of modern art dating from 1900, the Tate Modern is apparently the most frequented modern art gallery in the world receiving 4.7m visitors per year. I visited a few of the esoteric exhibitions, which were fairly interesting, but I was more impressed by the building itself – the old Bank Side Power Station complete with a five-storey high turbine hall. How paradoxical, to replace enormous electricity generators by ‘fine art’! It would be fascinating to hear what the industrious engineers of the 1900s would have to say about this …
I left the Southbank and its mélange of architectural conversions, restorations and renovations to visit friends in one of London’s archetypal residential districts, Clapham Common. It was a pleasant contrast to the rather frenetic Southbank and calmingly restorative to meander across the leafy common bathed in evening sunlight. Amongst the many identical streets with rows of Georgian-style houses, I managed to find the delightful family home of long-time friends, Jenny and Edward and their four delightful children. I had a wonderful evening ‘en famille Funnell’ in their warm and welcoming abode. J and E had not changed an iota, the only reminder being the presence of two charming teenagers and four-year-old twin boys!
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| Harvey Nichol's Fifth Floor Café |
The next day, was spent with my Mother, whom I met off the train at the now very stylish St Pancras station, which I must say far exceeded my expectations and is to rival the likes of Grand Central Station New York. We made our way to Harvey Nicks Fifth Floor Café, where we met my very glamorous young (well 30, but relatively speaking) niece, Hayley, for espressos. I was surprised to see that HNFFC was stuck in the same time warp as my other favourite landmarks; the only alteration to the décor being ‘bumps and bruises’ on chairs and tables, making it look rather tired or perhaps it was meant to be ‘shabby chic’? The time just flew as we chatted away like sisters, and I totally forgot the tight schedule of the day and ‘prize’ theatre seats awaiting!
I literally whizzed my Mother around the fashion halls of HN, admiring Stella and Alexander’s creations on the way down to scarves and cosmetics … before rapidly remerging into the bright sunshine of Knightsbridge, where we jumped on the back of a double-decker bus heading towards Piccadilly Circus! Luckily, we had just enough time to see the ‘BP Portrait Award’ exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square. It displayed incredible talent and highlighted the many ways of interpreting the human form and portraying it on canvas. It also confirmed that there are many highly skilled artists in this world, who possibly remain undiscovered all their lives … perhaps the BP award was this group’s 5 minutes of fame or perhaps it was their lucky break to bigger and better things ...?
And luck was certainly on our side, as we were just a stone’s throw away from the Comedy Theatre where we arrived on time to see Howard Pinter’s gripping play, ‘Betrayal’. This was made all the more poignant by the fact that it starred one of my favourite actresses, Kristin Scott Thomas! It was rather strange to be in such close proximity to someone made so familiar through films; I felt like I was in the presence of a friend. That said, I became totally ensconced by Pinter’s love triangle, so wonderfully enacted by Kristin S-T, Ben Miles and Douglas Henshall.
The spell of the theatre was broken when we stepped out into buzzy Piccadilly, where we were to make our way to The Wolseley for an early supper. We briefly popped into Fortnum and Masons to look at the wonderful timeless displays of goodies, so elegantly packaged. It was all rather tempting, albeit practical food items disguised as ornamental souvenirs – rather frivolous but great gifts for friends!
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| The Wolesley Restaurant |
The Wolseley Restaurant is in the former Wolseley Motors’ prestigious car showroom, built in 1921. Likened to a “Grand Viennese Café”, its art deco design is also symbolic of the decadent 20s with polished marble pillars supporting high vaulted ceilings suspending over-sized chandeliers. The waiters and waitresses equally looked the part in their black uniforms fronted with long white aprons, completing the continental café image. We raised our glasses of chilled rosé in honour of our wonderful day, an early Christmas gift to one another. On perusing the menu, we found the repertoire to be rather traditionally British in style with Cornish crab, Jersey rock oysters, fillet of Loch Duart salmon and Scottish kedgeree, with the odd continental addition of moules frites and Wiener schnitzel. The desserts were similarly combined including British ‘nursery’ favourites such as treacle tart and steamed marmalade and whisky pudding, competing with our European neighbours’ crème brûlée and Black Forest gateau. We certainly enjoyed our pre-Christmas treat and felt nicely tired as the train slowly pulled out of St Pancras beginning our journey ‘home’.
My trip to the big city was then followed by an interesting couple of days in the beautiful English county of Oxfordshire. I spent a memorable afternoon with Godparents, enjoying a long lunch in their summer conservatory overlooking their duck pond and fields beyond. After many a reminiscence over cups of coffee, I made my way through the winding country lanes to find another quintessentially English abode, this time of university friends who live just outside Henley-upon-Thames. Amanda and Steve are another couple of friends untouched by time, and it is hard to believe that the tall, eloquent teenagers are in fact their children versus their peers! It was so good to see such friends again; however, it makes one quite nostalgic wishing to live closer in proximity …
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| My Mother at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford |
Another special occasion was celebrated early, when my Mother and I went to Stratford for her October birthday treat: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in the beautifully restored/renovated Royal Shakespeare Theatre, plus pre-theatre dinner in the roof terrace restaurant. The theatre was also celebrating a birthday – its fiftieth year since Sir Peter Hall founded the Company in 1961. In honour and support of the theatre and in memory of my late theatre loving Father, my sisters and I had previously arranged for one of the theatre seats to be dedicated to his name. Despite the challenge of booking tickets for the ‘first public performance’ of this great play, I managed to get seats just next to my Father’s. It felt like a family theatre trip of old, and was extremely moving to see my Father’s name inscribed on the dedication plaque – I could strongly sense his pride!
It was lovely to visit the spa town of Buxton where I had a super day with my Mother-in-law. We met in The Hall Hotel where we enjoyed a nice lunch prior to walking around the Pavilion Gardens just opposite. Buxton is a pretty town, very Victorian in style and wonderfully preserved. It is also known for its opera house, which hosts a fine repertoire of productions.
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| My Goddaughter, Charlotte |
Last but not least was a fun few days in Surrey with my elder sister Alison and her three lovely children, ten-year-old Harry, eight-year-old Charlotte and three-year-old Georgia. We had fun together at their country club, the children playing tennis whilst we swam and had saunas, before we all enjoyed a light lunch together en plein air. The time could not pass by without visiting a couple of teashops where I enjoyed my usual Earl Grey and had a delicious rock bun, which could be a close rival for the ubiquitous scones! Charlotte and I continued the baking theme to make a batch of birthday cupcakes (complete with Uncle Philip’s Madagascan vanilla), in recognition of Charlotte recently turning eight. C did the most of the weighing, pouring and mixing, with a little bit of Aunt R’s guidance, especially when it came to the logistics of the not-as-easy-as-it-looks icing bag! Thankfully, the liberally scattered ‘hundreds and thousands’ hid a multitude of sins, making the end result rather impressive!
This was the veritable ‘icing on the cake’ of my pleasant visit to England – a most memorable occasion, and even the weather was on good form!
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| The Icing on the Cake(s)! |
