Pre-reno DP

After waiting for months and months, our great friend and confidante (aka Reefi) just received the phone call from her builder that he's ready to tackle her renovation.  Oh that's good, what is the start date so I can get the plan together and prepare?  Wednesday.  What, this Wednesday?  Crikey!

Reefi is the kind of person who always has at least one person staying with her.  Right now there are three of us, two of whom have gone through large renovations before and recently.  So we were quite happy and prepared to help pack up the kitchen and put everything in the loft, help clear the space being demolished, and help plan the space and visit suppliers to confirm flooring, cabinets, etc. etc.etc.

And have a dinner party!
Did I say that she is a social sort of person?  Who else would throw a party for 10 people on the eve of seeing the entire back end of her house taken off?  In packing up the kitchen we found a bottle of Bolly (as you do.)  That's not going into the loft! 

So we toasted her last party before the reno. in style.

Of course it was a wonderful meal.  Reefi is someone who can just casually make a few salads and boil some potatos and end up with plate after plate of fabulous food,

although it was interrupted as we all ran to the telly intermittently and cheer Britain in the second night of Olympic athletics events.  And it was a memorable, golden night too.  Jessica Ennis won the heptahlon.  Greg Rutherford won the long jump.  And Mo Farrah won the 10,000 m.  All three won decisively, too. 

And if that didn't lift our spirits, our other re-reno. ritual did.  The two younger members of our party were particularly thrilled to be handed crayons and given carte blanche to write on the walls that are soon to be removed.  Some of us were more artistic than others, as per usual in a multi-national cultural event. 

And every event needs an audience so some of us were just happy to have another glass of wine and watch. 

Or do the washing up.We made it to bed just before 3am, so gold medals all round.

Olympic Event #2 - Rowing

Now, this is more like it!



A lovely sunny day with big puffy clouds sweeping over Eton Dorney.  Commentators who really know the sport and really know the competitors and really get the crowd going.  Wonderful seats near the finish line and opposite the medal ceremonies.  A long sought British gold medal and two British bronzes.

Here they come!

Pushing through the last few meters





Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins win gold

Victory lap

Our view of the medal ceremonies

We were up early as the train journey was an hour and we knew the place would be packed. It was extremely well organized and we barely stopped walking in between train and bus and venue, with lines of double deckers waiting in turn.


Everyone who helped guide the surge of people was pleasant.  We had packed water and wraps, so we felt smug to see the food line-ups.  The coffee one was long, but the one for beer/wine/cider was longer (it was 9am!).  The longest of all was the one for sausage in a bun, a breakfast of choice for many Britons anywhere!


Colourful crowd

There was a breeze all morning, and a bit of rain at one point.  We wrapped ourselves in our flags but it never came down enough to pull out our clear Team GB rain ponchos (thank you McGowans!)

T-shirt courtesy Dottos and Austins






After the races, there was such a crush of people exiting that we walked the other way, to the start line 2000 m down the way.  There was a big section of grass littered with people in front of giant screens showing others sports in progress.  

A band played.  Children (and Martin) posed for photos by the Olympic rings. 

We settled down and watched this man

Roger Federer

beat this man 

Juan Martin del Potro

Well, I watched and Martin had a nap, his hat over his face - the perfect summer afternoon.


Olympic Event #1 - Fencing

Well, we reasoned, when else are we ever going to see fencing?

We entered the rather enormous North Arena 1, which provided some indication of the immense size of the Excel Centre as it infered there had to be at least one other North Arena and at least 2 South Arenas.  We were like a river of flesh, directed to flow through various streams, not quickly but steadily.

North Arena 1 was divided into two long sets of bleachers facing each other, and large rectangular platform between (14 metres long and 2 metres wide) for the competitors, plus room for officials, coaches, etc..  At the far end was a wall, and the near end facilitated media and commentor seating.  The place was packed and very warm and stuffy.  Our seats were high up, and the platform below was lit with lines of coloured lights, which looked like the set of a bad sci-fi TV show. 

Our tickets were for the men's epee and the women's sabre.  There are 3 disciplines in fencing at the Olympics: foil, epee and sabre. 

In foil, points are scored only when the tip of the blade touches the torso of the opponent.  The epee blade is shorter and less flexible than the foil. Only the tip of the epee can score a point, not just on the torso but any point on an opponent's body, from head to toe.  Sabre users can score with the tip of the blade, but also using the sabre's edge as well as its tip, and on opponents' torso, arms or  head. The first person to get to 15 wins. If both feet of one fencer leave the strip, the other person is award a point.

Of course we didn't know any of this.  My only knowledge of fencing derives from old Bugs Bunny cartoons and B films, both of which seemed to feature tall aristocratic men with thin moustaches leaping from stairs to chandeliers to tables and swishing long blades of silver left and right before lunging forward to stick the blade through the villan's heart. 

You'd think that the audience would have received some details about what we were about to see.  the rules for example, or the difference between the dicsilplines.  But no, the comentators did not consider the conveyance of information an appropriate use of the microphone, although they certainly loved using it for the over-theatrical introduction of names.

I have a feeling that I will not take up fencing, nor attend any more compeitions.  From my vantage point, the art of fencing seemed to comprise a bit of jumping forward and back, waving the blade a bit, then leaping forward in a wild lunge while removing their masks and uttering an unhowly screeching yowl.  Then a point would be awarded or not and the entire performance happened again: hop, hop, hop, lunge, aaarrrrrgh!

Bit it was a wonderful to watch the performances of players from South Korea, Venezuala, Norway, Ukrainia, USA, Russia - such as vast array of countries.  And we witnessed a changing of the guard: Limardo Gascon (men's epee) became Venezuela's first gold medallist since 1968, having beaten the world champion (Italy's Paolo Pizzo) in the quarter-finals. In women's sabre, Russian world champion Sofya Velikaya was beaten by Korea's Jiyeon Kim.

I love the Olympics!

Getting our game faces on!

Our summer's main event is the Olympic Games in London, England.  We had submitted requests for about 40 different events between us in the ticket lottery and got only one (thank goodness for our credit card!), but it was a good one - athletics (track and field) so that's when we changed our original summer plans.  We bought more tickets when available through reselling (at our price range) and have been lucky to be able to snag 6 events.  We knew then that this would be a very memorable summer.

But we also knew that spending 2 weeks in London in the middle of summer in the same year as the Queen's 60th jubilee - at the Olympic Games - would make us a bit crazed, so we decided to add a few weeks on either side as sort of a crescendo and rallentando to the craziness.

And now here we are, in London, with our comfortable clothing, our flags, and our patience, ready to take on the Games. Yay!!!!

Our first day started with the Olympic Journey, at the Royal Opera House.  A good friend who works there ensured we got signed up for it and we showed up at the allotted time. 

No queue.  (None!)

The exhibit itself was not bad - tracing the history of the ancient games and then highlighting the exploits of some of the Olympic greats (Jesse Owens, Larisa Latynina, Olga Korbut, Cathie Freeman, Krizstina Egerzsegi, Teofilo Stevenson, etc.)  and displayed all the torches and medals from previous 'modern' Games.  It was a large room and there were, oh I don't know, maybe 30 people? 

I know!  We were as amazed as you are!  Where are the hordes?

Let's try for one of the international houses.  Brasil House is at Somerset House which is not far from Covent Garden and a lovely venue so off we went. 

No queue.

No event either.  A bit of a rah-rah travel piece on Rio (which will host the next Games in 2016) and a modern art exhbit that was quite good and that was it!  Apparently there is music in the evening but we can't wait around for that.  We need some Olympic spirit now!

So what then?  While walking along the Embankment we spotted a sign at Inner Temple inviting us in to the Belgian house.  Well ok, it costs 5 euros but we'd never been inside (it being an ancient Inn of court for lawyers and judges) and there would be beer of that we were certain.  So we bought our wrist bands and walked in.  Inner Temple dates back to the 12th century and some of The Da Vinci Code movie was filmed there.  We entered the great hall to find a wonderful old room of stained glass, high wooden beams, crests and bits of centuries-old armour.  And beer!

We were lucky to snag a table, got a couple of Stellas and watched Flemish television on the big screen. 

Beside us were a few others using their own cycling strength to power their iphones.  Gnarly, briny seafood, frites, waffles and pastries were available. 


At one point several previous Belgian Olympic medal winners were trotted and cheered at.  The screen indicated Team GB's Bradley Wiggins (this year's unexpected Tour de France winner - seems like a long time ago and it's only been 10 days!) won the road race - and the crowd roared. 

Oops, left it a bit late!  We had to hustle to get to the Excel Centre for our first event, but we got there in record time only because London is incredibly quiet.  Here it is a midweek rush hour and there were less people about than a Tuesday evening in February.  Well, ok maybe not quite.  But it had the same effect compared to expectations.  No problem getting the top seat in the bus.

If we didn't know better, the atmosphere was as if the Games did not exist.  Lucky for us they do!

Downton Abbey

We are fans of a British television series called Downton Abbey.  It's not particularly high brow, but it has that Englishness that everyone thinks of when thinking of England - a fabulously big house in beautiful countryside and full of huge oil paintings of long but not lost ancestors, beautiful gowns and jewels on a bevy of beautiful young ladies, high born people with their loyal servants, and a round of dinners and parties and dances and "at home" afternoons, all sweepingly depicted with the gentlest of hands.

There's also got to be at least one rebellious youth who chooses love over duty, one underhanded servant who gets their come uppance, one low born but deserving person who ends up with a vast inheritance, and at least one old battle axe of a woman who speaks her mind no matter what the consequences.  Downton Abbey has all of these and many in multiples.  Not to mention a scriptwirter who is a lord and at least one Dame in the cast of actors.

The site used for the TV series is a place called HighClere house, the seat of the Earl and Countess (I wonder if an 'Earless' is a widowed Countess) of Carnarvon and his family.  The family still lives in it, but like virtually all families who own enormous piles, they have to open it up to the public to earn enough money to keep it.  So it must have been a great joy to have a television series use the house (and its interiors too) and one that is so wildly successful as to have a second and a third series, let alone a Christmas special. 

The place was certainly hopping when we were there, but as most of the visitors were quite elderly citizens who had arrived en masse in large buses and coaches, perhaps 'hopping' is not quite the right word.  Fashion-forward Martin was a bit piqued to see a very elderly gentleman wearing a sweater of the exact hue as his Armani Exchange pullover!

Gillian, a fan of the show as well, went round the house with us to look at the fabulous central room and all the other rooms that the series used, with printed notesindicated which character is supposed to have used which bed, etc. 

HighClere is not open to the public on the weekend, because it is rented out as a wedding venue, which would no doubt help the financial coffers immeasurably.  Its a very distinctive setting that is grand grand without being overpowering, like a Versailles or a Blenheim Palace for example. the grounds too are lovely and provide many good vantage points for picturesque photos.

The oddly square tower is so out of proportion to the rest of the building, which was carbunkled on top of what looked to be a nice but indistinctive Georgina house in teh 18th Century.  Highclere's image was used everywhere, including the sandwich wrappers, which might be the most amusing souvenir, as we felt the shop was very dull and leaves a lot to be desired, although

Butlers, but never Earls or Countesses