Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Return to the circus
Rather than wait half an hour for a train to Victoria, we decided to go to Waterloo (at £4.79 a head for a day return. Bargain) for a visit to St George's Circus which neither FIL nor BH had ever been to. Started off with lunch at Super Fish along from the Old Vic, which scored with FIL as they did grilled fish, that is to say fish without the gluten filled batter. Then onto St George's Circus to inspect the obelisk erected in honour of King George III in the late eighteenth century. Rather battered, presumably by the weather. Exactly a mile from several important places, for example, Palace Yard in Westminster. Presumably the thing was more or less in the country at the time it was put there; not clear why the circus it stands in the middle of it is named for the saint rather than the king.
Then, quite by chance, on to St George's Cathedral. Impressive place, if a little cold, rather in the way of Guildford Cathedral or Liverpool Cathedral (Anglican variety), this third incarnation having been built in the fifties after the second incarnation, built by Pugin in the middle of the nineteenth centry, was badly knocked about in the second war. I particularly liked the stained glass and the lady chapel. Impressed by the pews made of solid tropical rain forest and amused by the conveniently hingeing (doesn't look right. But hinging looks worse) kneelers attached to them. High altar rather low key. Perhaps the furniture is kept under lock and key when it is not being used. Unusually, all the worshipers, few enough in number, were men. No pious ladies with rosaries. But the cathedral was very up to date in the sense that there were video monitors attached to most of the columns in the nave. Presumably so that those who did not have a good view of the high altar did get one.
To round off the proceedings, to the Imperial War Museum, which FIL had not visited for sixty years and I had not visited for more than 10. A FIL connection being that the place had once been the large mental hospital which he had worked, after its removal to Denmark Hill. I rather liked the way that it was still an old fashioned museum with lots of interesting things in glass cases, with just enough educational padding to give them a bit of context. For example, the fancy dress worn by Lawrence of Arabia, copied for the film of the same name. Not to mention the collection of tanks and other large things in the main hall. I think I would have found one of the first world war tanks there rather claustrophic as well as being very noisy, with the engine being mounted in the middle of the passenger compartment. And I learnt that a lot of the artillery of that time still had cart wheels, made mainly of timber. Fascinated by the model of a chunk of trench and by the trench experience. This last being a more modern form of museum fare which I often find rather noisy and tiresome. But not on this occasion. Some interesting paintings on the second floor, first world war ones being rather better than the second world war ones, and rather fewer in number than I expected. I wonder where all the rest of them are.
Yesterday was the day of the clafoutis, made with some of the excellent Kent cherries I had acquired from Cheam. The first of the season and better than the Spanish ones we had been eating. BH claimed that clafoutis is the pudding of the year and so it was necessary to give it a go. Rather like a cherry version of toad in the hole, only not so crispy. In fact, the instructions made a point of saying that it tasted better when it had stood for a while and calmed down a bit. Not good to eat it straight out of the oven. Good the way it was eaten, so we now have three more to try from our cuisine familiale, published by the mouse mountain in Paris in 1958, and a rather differant sort of cook book from those which are published now: all recipe, few instructions and very few pictures. Although those that there were were very tastefully coloured, with good balance. One of the three recipes was with dried fruit (apparently an Italian variant), one with black cherries and one with kirsch. The ordinary clafoutis being a speciality of Limousin (a place which might be on the eastern border of one of our former colonies, the dowry of one Eleanor) and known to some as old French tart.
# posted by Jim @ 11:30 AM 
