A Visit from Robert
Jul. 30th, 2001 03:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetHaving spent Tuesday lazing around, recovering from Ireland, planning to
clean like a madwoman on Wednesday in preparation for Rob's arrival on
Thursday, I was fairly shocked to answer the door on Wednesday morning to
find Rob standing on the doorstep. We'd miscommunicated his arrival date!
So there he was and wonderful to see him.
The three of us had an early lunch together and then Rob went with me to the
grocery store. He had hoped to push through until 8:00 or 9:00pm, but by
2:00pm he was really falling over, so he napped until I had dinner (lasagne)
ready and fell into bed again afterwards.
On Thursday I spent most of the day puttering, while Rob went off to do a
London Walk around Westminster and see the Cabinet War Rooms. In the
evening, Jason & I met Rob in Little Venice and took a walk along Regent's
Canal from there to Camden, guided by a real canal enthusiast from the
Inland Waterways Association. He wasn't a great guide, but it was a
beautiful walk. At the end of it, we hopped on the tube up to Hampstead and
had steaks for dinner at the Gaucho Grill before heading home.
On Friday Rob spent a few hours alone at the British Museum and then I met
him at the National Gallery and we walked through their collection for a
couple of hours. We grabbed a drink and a bite to eat at La Dome Cafe,
since we'd skipped lunch, and then met Jason at South Kensington for a pub
walk there. It was guided by Nick Day, the best guide we've had in London.
He's an actor (a bit bitter that the director of RSC's Merchant of Venice
chose her boyfriend for Shylock over him--and we're bummed, because he would
have been great) and has wonderful presence and manner. He led us through
the mews and byways of Old Kensington for nearly three hours, introducing us
to three interesting pubs along the way.
Once Nick turned us loose, we went looking for dinner. The first place we
passed was Isola, and though all of us confessed to being dubious later,
noen of us mentioned it until we were all sitting down. Oddly, the only
thing I really liked about the place was the food. I had beef carpaccio and
the veal chop with capers in a rosemary sauce, served with an odd
potato/spinach cake encrusted with shaved almonds. Jason had the roast
chicken on a bread salad, which was juicy and wonderful. Rob had a tasty
pumpkin ravioli. That was the good part. The decor was extremely trendy,
the music was painful, the service was slow and the prices were high. But
we had fun together and that's what counts. On the walk back to the tube we
got to witness a man apparently trying to fight his way *onto* a bus, with
two transit officials physically preventing him and trying to get him to let
the bus go, while his girlfriend screamed "Don't touch my boyfriend!" and
whacked the two officials with her purse over and over. I guess sometimes
alcohol and public transportation don't mix.
On Saturday we had a pretty slow morning. Rob headed out to meet up with
Barbara and Jason & I took the train up to Cambridge in the afternoon to
meet Keir & Karen Novik. They picked us up at the train and took us back to
see the new place they're renting, a lovely duplex with an enormous back
garden (maintained entirely by the landlords next door) that opens onto
wheatfields at the back. We talked and talked all evening, while enjoying
wine with corn chips & salsa and then with grilled lamb chops and then with
a lovely fruit salad. We finally went to bed around 11:30pm, but found our
room so hot and the bed so squishy that we slept rather badly and I did
something to my neck that's making it pretty painful to turn my head. We
got up and had breakfast with our hosts and chatted some more before being
taken back to the train. It was so nice to see them again!
On Sunday Rob did some laundry and I worked on various projects during the
day, while Jason caught up on some work he wanted to get done. In the
evening we went down to London Bridge and had dinner at fish! I had a dozen
rock oysters, while the guys split an order of Welsh rarebit with smoked
haddock. Rob's main was sea bass with hollandaise, Jason's was mackerel
with olive oil, and mine was scallops grilled with herb garlic butter. They
were served with their feet on, which was a little strange, but very tasty.
We had coffee and Rob and I ordered dessert. Someone came to say that they
were out of the one I wanted, which I said was fine, nevermind. Then they
just didn't bring Rob's. We had to go through several iterations of the
bill to get the puddings off it, but eventually we were able to head back to
King's Cross, where we said goodbye to Rob. He's headed up to Edinburgh for
a presentation on Tuesday. Jason & I came home and I had a long bath,
hoping to fix my neck.
clean like a madwoman on Wednesday in preparation for Rob's arrival on
Thursday, I was fairly shocked to answer the door on Wednesday morning to
find Rob standing on the doorstep. We'd miscommunicated his arrival date!
So there he was and wonderful to see him.
The three of us had an early lunch together and then Rob went with me to the
grocery store. He had hoped to push through until 8:00 or 9:00pm, but by
2:00pm he was really falling over, so he napped until I had dinner (lasagne)
ready and fell into bed again afterwards.
On Thursday I spent most of the day puttering, while Rob went off to do a
London Walk around Westminster and see the Cabinet War Rooms. In the
evening, Jason & I met Rob in Little Venice and took a walk along Regent's
Canal from there to Camden, guided by a real canal enthusiast from the
Inland Waterways Association. He wasn't a great guide, but it was a
beautiful walk. At the end of it, we hopped on the tube up to Hampstead and
had steaks for dinner at the Gaucho Grill before heading home.
On Friday Rob spent a few hours alone at the British Museum and then I met
him at the National Gallery and we walked through their collection for a
couple of hours. We grabbed a drink and a bite to eat at La Dome Cafe,
since we'd skipped lunch, and then met Jason at South Kensington for a pub
walk there. It was guided by Nick Day, the best guide we've had in London.
He's an actor (a bit bitter that the director of RSC's Merchant of Venice
chose her boyfriend for Shylock over him--and we're bummed, because he would
have been great) and has wonderful presence and manner. He led us through
the mews and byways of Old Kensington for nearly three hours, introducing us
to three interesting pubs along the way.
Once Nick turned us loose, we went looking for dinner. The first place we
passed was Isola, and though all of us confessed to being dubious later,
noen of us mentioned it until we were all sitting down. Oddly, the only
thing I really liked about the place was the food. I had beef carpaccio and
the veal chop with capers in a rosemary sauce, served with an odd
potato/spinach cake encrusted with shaved almonds. Jason had the roast
chicken on a bread salad, which was juicy and wonderful. Rob had a tasty
pumpkin ravioli. That was the good part. The decor was extremely trendy,
the music was painful, the service was slow and the prices were high. But
we had fun together and that's what counts. On the walk back to the tube we
got to witness a man apparently trying to fight his way *onto* a bus, with
two transit officials physically preventing him and trying to get him to let
the bus go, while his girlfriend screamed "Don't touch my boyfriend!" and
whacked the two officials with her purse over and over. I guess sometimes
alcohol and public transportation don't mix.
On Saturday we had a pretty slow morning. Rob headed out to meet up with
Barbara and Jason & I took the train up to Cambridge in the afternoon to
meet Keir & Karen Novik. They picked us up at the train and took us back to
see the new place they're renting, a lovely duplex with an enormous back
garden (maintained entirely by the landlords next door) that opens onto
wheatfields at the back. We talked and talked all evening, while enjoying
wine with corn chips & salsa and then with grilled lamb chops and then with
a lovely fruit salad. We finally went to bed around 11:30pm, but found our
room so hot and the bed so squishy that we slept rather badly and I did
something to my neck that's making it pretty painful to turn my head. We
got up and had breakfast with our hosts and chatted some more before being
taken back to the train. It was so nice to see them again!
On Sunday Rob did some laundry and I worked on various projects during the
day, while Jason caught up on some work he wanted to get done. In the
evening we went down to London Bridge and had dinner at fish! I had a dozen
rock oysters, while the guys split an order of Welsh rarebit with smoked
haddock. Rob's main was sea bass with hollandaise, Jason's was mackerel
with olive oil, and mine was scallops grilled with herb garlic butter. They
were served with their feet on, which was a little strange, but very tasty.
We had coffee and Rob and I ordered dessert. Someone came to say that they
were out of the one I wanted, which I said was fine, nevermind. Then they
just didn't bring Rob's. We had to go through several iterations of the
bill to get the puddings off it, but eventually we were able to head back to
King's Cross, where we said goodbye to Rob. He's headed up to Edinburgh for
a presentation on Tuesday. Jason & I came home and I had a long bath,
hoping to fix my neck.
