pumpkinstrokemarrow

The fad continues, with one posh outing and one not so posh. Posh outing involved boiling up the barley with celery. Frying some diced tenderloin in butter, then adding finely chopped onion. After a while stir into barley. Just before serving stir in some button mushrooms: stalks finely chopped, caps segmented. No E numbers. Looks very pretty: interesting composition of greys: deep porriage, dark porriage, porriage crush, sunset porriage and grey. Tasteful even. Like many things, better on the first outing than the second, by which time the goo has emerged from the barley and has a tendency to set into a grey jelly. Not so posh outing was much the same thing, but with pork mince rather than tenderloin. Not quite as good but still good gear. Now down to the last packet of pearl barley. Will the fad run to replenishing supplies? Kilo bags rather than 500g bags?

Moving away from the nose bag, there has been a bit of a go at heritage. First outing to an ancient stable known as the Durdans. A collection of ancient stables plus a large indoor riding school. It seems that stables of this sort do not make much money, even in horsey Epsom, and his Lordship of Halifax (this, I think, being the current owner), thought he might turn a quicker buck by having the stables refurbished as houses, a sort of urban barn conversion, and having the riding school refurbished as offices on two levels - ground floor and mezzanine - in this way not having to mess about with the structure too much. I thought the riding school might do rather well as a Tesco Suburbo - a sort of hybrid between the Tesco Centrals and the mega Tescos we have already. But most of the older, middle classes of Epsom are very firm that all this is very bad. The stables should stay as stables. Bit like those people who bleat about pubs and shops closing without ever putting the money their way that might keep them open. All very sad that this anachronistic way of being carried about should struggle, but the world has to move on. And on the plus side we can also think of all the grain we would save if all these unnecessary horses were abolished. Think how many more starving Africans one could feed.

Second outing to Clandon Park and to the house in the park. Rather a handsome affair, said to be something to do with Palladio who, according to the guide book, was rather severe about the placement of internal doors. Lot of rather fancy old ceilings, some rather florid with large unclothed ladies and gents in high relief. In one room, the gents even needed to get a foothold on the cornice to keep themselves aloft - one foot in the middle of each of the four sides of the square, properly Palladial. The most interesting items for me were the Chinese china birds. Lots of them, never seen anything like them before. I asked if a pair of large china fish were Chinese and was informed rather fussily that they were majolica (some of the rather posh trusties even sported Italian accents when talking about Italian products). I learn from the trusty OED that majolica is just china which has been coloured up with enamel. Not too interested in the Italian figures from Commedia dell' Arte. All very clever, but I would sell it straight away - although the monkey orchestra is worth a mention in dispatches. Take the cash alternative. We also noticed that posh people go to IKEA too. Some of the lamps I recognised from my last penance at Purley.

Outside, we find that when the place was first laid out, they were very into lots of trees laid out in lines and grids. Lots of avenues. All over the place. But Capability Brown took one look - I suppose he might be thought of as the Delia Smith or Gordon Ramsey of his day - and had the lot down. Fake natural was in and lines were out. And so things have remained to this day.