Thanksgiving in London
Nov. 26th, 2000 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetWith Jason having gone up to the office in Cambridge every day last week,
the weekend felt like a real weekend for the first time in ages.
On Thursday I made a frozen turkey breast for dinner, in honor of
Thanksgiving, with stuffing and gravy and corn and sugar snap peas. We had
a frozen apple & blackberry crumble for dessert, since I didn't see any
pumpkin pie. We stuffed ourselves and talked about all the things we are
thankful for in this wonderful year. After dinner I called Beckie's place and
talked to her and my folks. Jason tried to reach his family, but the phone
in Boise was busy.
On Friday Jason went to work and I went to King's Cross and found the
furniture place I'd picked out of the yellow pages as possibly having what
we need. It didn't, but there was a sign saying that their warehouse was
"just two minutes away," so I walked the ten minutes around a long block and
found the warehouse. It had more of what I was looking for and I bought two
small bookcases and one large one, to be delivered on Monday.
I made dinner and then waited for Jason to get home. His train was delayed,
so he was almost an hour late, but dinner survived. I had found a 1 lb. bag
of frozen boneless rabbit chunks at Sainsbury's and the recipe on the back
sounded tasty enough for me to try it: Slow Cooked Rabbit with Roasted
Vegetables in a Tarragon Wine Sauce. (Recipe on demand.)
On Saturday we were slow getting started, but finally made it out of the
house and to the National Portrait Gallery, where we made it through all of
the top floor before Museum Feet set in. That took us from the earliest
portraits, of the Tudors, through the Elizabethan era (including the only
portrait of Shakespeare thought to be from life--Joseph Fiennes wasn't such
a bad choice, really), the Stuarts, the Jacobean era, and up through the
Hanoverians to William III. We'll have to go back for the 19th & 20th
centuries. It was really nifty to see pictures of the characters familiar
to us, not only monarchs, but also artists, authors, and scientists.
Leaving the gallery, we strolled up into Leicester Square. Noticing an ad
for Charlie's Angels, we decided to see it. We bought tickets and then went
to a bookstore to while away the hour we had to wait. I'm down to the end
of my reading pile and was excited to pick up a new Pat Cadigan, a mystery
set among Kabbalistic Jews of 15th century Portugal, and Iain Banks' new
Culture novel. Jason got the most recent of the Peter Hamilton series he's
been reading, which should stall him long enough for me to finish my book
and get to the Banks book first.
Charlie's Angels was a lot of fun. There were lots of jokes based on the
silliness of the original show and lots of camp and LOTS of cleavage. The
soundtrack really put it over the top. In addition to every cheesy song
from the 70's with the word "angel" in it, there were some pretty funny uses
of more modern hits.
We wandered through Chinatown for a while before settling on a place called
Fugama, where we had hot & sour soup, grilled dumplings, beef with ginger &
spring onion, and my new favorite: king prawn fried noodle. We were sitting
next to a table of gentlemen who turned out to be a rugby team from
Cambridge, down to see the National Championship. They were very friendly
and gave Jason lots of advice on enjoying Cambridge.
Leaving the restaurant, Jason realized that he'd dropped his phone
somewhere. Our bet was the theater, so we walked back there and they had
it! I wanted to walk off dinner a bit, so we strolled down Long Acre Lane,
following the Picadilly line past Covent Garden to Holborn, where we got on
the tube and came home.
Today we met Barbara at the Charing Cross station and took the train down to
Greenwich. We had a mean time, wandering through the stalls of their
weekend market and avoiding the rain in a convenient noodle shop. We bought
the first thing for our walls, a watercolor of pansies. We've got a lot of
walls! Barbara had a date this evening, so we parted from her and came home
to try some of the new food I've found at Sainsbury's: frozen salmon en
croute (ok, but not stellar) and rice pilau (yummy) with sugar snap peas and
salad.
steve called, which was lovely, and we chatted for half an hour. Now
Jason's vacuuming the shelves in the study and I've promised to read to him,
so I'd better get upstairs.
the weekend felt like a real weekend for the first time in ages.
On Thursday I made a frozen turkey breast for dinner, in honor of
Thanksgiving, with stuffing and gravy and corn and sugar snap peas. We had
a frozen apple & blackberry crumble for dessert, since I didn't see any
pumpkin pie. We stuffed ourselves and talked about all the things we are
thankful for in this wonderful year. After dinner I called Beckie's place and
talked to her and my folks. Jason tried to reach his family, but the phone
in Boise was busy.
On Friday Jason went to work and I went to King's Cross and found the
furniture place I'd picked out of the yellow pages as possibly having what
we need. It didn't, but there was a sign saying that their warehouse was
"just two minutes away," so I walked the ten minutes around a long block and
found the warehouse. It had more of what I was looking for and I bought two
small bookcases and one large one, to be delivered on Monday.
I made dinner and then waited for Jason to get home. His train was delayed,
so he was almost an hour late, but dinner survived. I had found a 1 lb. bag
of frozen boneless rabbit chunks at Sainsbury's and the recipe on the back
sounded tasty enough for me to try it: Slow Cooked Rabbit with Roasted
Vegetables in a Tarragon Wine Sauce. (Recipe on demand.)
On Saturday we were slow getting started, but finally made it out of the
house and to the National Portrait Gallery, where we made it through all of
the top floor before Museum Feet set in. That took us from the earliest
portraits, of the Tudors, through the Elizabethan era (including the only
portrait of Shakespeare thought to be from life--Joseph Fiennes wasn't such
a bad choice, really), the Stuarts, the Jacobean era, and up through the
Hanoverians to William III. We'll have to go back for the 19th & 20th
centuries. It was really nifty to see pictures of the characters familiar
to us, not only monarchs, but also artists, authors, and scientists.
Leaving the gallery, we strolled up into Leicester Square. Noticing an ad
for Charlie's Angels, we decided to see it. We bought tickets and then went
to a bookstore to while away the hour we had to wait. I'm down to the end
of my reading pile and was excited to pick up a new Pat Cadigan, a mystery
set among Kabbalistic Jews of 15th century Portugal, and Iain Banks' new
Culture novel. Jason got the most recent of the Peter Hamilton series he's
been reading, which should stall him long enough for me to finish my book
and get to the Banks book first.
Charlie's Angels was a lot of fun. There were lots of jokes based on the
silliness of the original show and lots of camp and LOTS of cleavage. The
soundtrack really put it over the top. In addition to every cheesy song
from the 70's with the word "angel" in it, there were some pretty funny uses
of more modern hits.
We wandered through Chinatown for a while before settling on a place called
Fugama, where we had hot & sour soup, grilled dumplings, beef with ginger &
spring onion, and my new favorite: king prawn fried noodle. We were sitting
next to a table of gentlemen who turned out to be a rugby team from
Cambridge, down to see the National Championship. They were very friendly
and gave Jason lots of advice on enjoying Cambridge.
Leaving the restaurant, Jason realized that he'd dropped his phone
somewhere. Our bet was the theater, so we walked back there and they had
it! I wanted to walk off dinner a bit, so we strolled down Long Acre Lane,
following the Picadilly line past Covent Garden to Holborn, where we got on
the tube and came home.
Today we met Barbara at the Charing Cross station and took the train down to
Greenwich. We had a mean time, wandering through the stalls of their
weekend market and avoiding the rain in a convenient noodle shop. We bought
the first thing for our walls, a watercolor of pansies. We've got a lot of
walls! Barbara had a date this evening, so we parted from her and came home
to try some of the new food I've found at Sainsbury's: frozen salmon en
croute (ok, but not stellar) and rice pilau (yummy) with sugar snap peas and
salad.
steve called, which was lovely, and we chatted for half an hour. Now
Jason's vacuuming the shelves in the study and I've promised to read to him,
so I'd better get upstairs.
