Monday, November 16, 2009
New shops
The BH decided that it was time for a new shopping experience so I whisked her off to the new to us shopping centre - not that is really the right term for turned out to be a rather mixed development - at the junction of Bressenden Place and Victoria Street; the thing with a large glass roof sloping down to a point at the junction. Fortunately, in addition to lots of chain food outlets of the better sort, there was also a middle sized Marks & Spencer, always good for a shop for any self respecting shopper. And then there was Army & Navy down the road to round out the experience. Not bad stock but rather hot and noisy so we escaped into Westminster Cathedral, where, for the first time in my life, we attended a proper sung mass. Quite an impressive business with quite an impressive choir which managed a lot of noise considering their relatively small numbers - maybe 24 boys and 6 men. Good setting. Start off a bit surprised by the yellow columns to the canopy over the altar but they work well with a bit of light in the gathering dusk. (The larger Catholic churches generally seem to be quite good at light management and light effects). A reasonable smattering of Latin. Not much audience participation by Prot. standards. Surprised to find that ladies have a semi-sacerdotal role. Allowed to dispense the communion bread (wine seems to have been dispensed with. Maybe too many winos about), to give readings and collect money.
Then, after aperitifs in a Fuller's establishment which had been a bank in Vauxhall Bridge Road, decided that local nosh from Wilton Way/Warwick Road was the thing. After wandering up and down for a bit lighted on what turned out to be a very entertaining establishment called Preto. All looked very new, although without the smell of new paint or new carpets, neither of which is good for appetite, so new in fact that the web site (http://www.rodiziopreto.co.uk/) is still under construction. A Brazilian steak house which meant that you got access to a stationary buffet and an endless supply of barbecue meat, this last carved at your table off natty stainless steel skewers, for a fixed price. We started off in the sin-bin, despite the place being fairly empty, perhaps because we looked a bit old or perhaps because we had not booked. But after a while we got promoted to the main room, with splendid seats right under a giant telly showing a more or less pornographic film of some Brazilian fiesta. I was pleased to see that Brazilians do not appear to admire the skeleton thin in the way that our media thinks that we do; BH rather gob-smacked, although not too bothered being the odd glass of the red stuff down by this point. Place more less full by the time we left at around 2130.
Meat generally very good. Lots of beef of various shapes and sizes. Barbecue chicken hearts made a savoury novelty. The only failure was some lumps of chicken wrapped in very salty bacon. We also learned, as a bonus, of another use for boned loin of pork (see 11th November). Wrap it around a skewer and barbecue it a la Brazil. Boiled rice excellent; much better than anything I have ever managed.
Woke up the following morning very concerned about ivy. Seemed to have acquired a house of rather complicated shape, probably rather elderly, with chunks of said elderly roof covered in very fierce ivy. Now ivy is all well and good on walls; don't care too much about what it might do to them (in our case being cement rendering so reasonably impenetrable to ivy attack), but not too keen at all on the stuff getting into the tiles. Different matter altogether. Hence the waking up rather concerned.
# posted by Jim @ 8:51 AM 
