Algonquin Provincial Park

I've already mentioned two YouTube videos about the park, one from the Friends of Algonquin Park and another by Ontario Parks.  But here is a less official video taken by RV Lifestyle, an older RV couple from Detroit who drive up to Algonquin Park for an RV road trekker get-together.   Two takeaways from their trip are the logging museum because there is an interpretive trail that shows how the loggers lived.  You can watch its 15 minute video The Loggers of Algonquin Park ahead of time so the kids don't have to sit through it.  It is well done and informative.  And second, it hadn't occurred to me how little light pollution there would be that far north so that we'll be able to see the Milky Way.   I'll even buy Milky Way Midnight Dark candy bars for the occasion.

By the way, our RV friends mention that late summer and early fall is a better time to go because of the bugs.

Civic Holiday or the August Long Weekend

We hit the jackpot!  We'll be starting our vacation week in Canada during their August long weekend which marks the halfway point in summer and which is called by different names in different provinces and cities.  One website said:   "It is probably the busiest day on highways as tens of thousands of families go camping, to cottages etc this weekend."  But there are no events scheduled in Algonquin Park for those days as of yet, so maybe it really isn't that "national"?  We can check their Events Calendar later on to see if that changes.

On the other hand, Muskoka is already planning for it:  Discover Muskoka August Long Weekend Events.   Will will be happy to know that they typically have a Session Muskoka Craft Beer Festival.   The information on the website is for last year but I assume it will eventually be updated.  Session Muskoka is held in Bracebridge, about half an hour south of Menominee Lake.

Another event for Will -- who can take Isabel along this time -- is TreeTop Trekking in Huntsville.  Unfortunately you have to be 9 years old so the boys are too young.  Such a disappointment.

There is a Santa's Village Theme Park near Bracebridge but it looks like it's for younger kids and the general admission is $37.95.  We could almost buy 2 youth kayaks for what it would cost for a family of 4.  There are also fireworks the night of Monday at Gravenhurst, at the tip of Muskoka Lake.

For Jen there is a Muskoka Lakes Farm and Winery where they harvest cranberries, make cider from apples and cranberries, and make wine from cranberries and blueberries.  It's about an hour away to the west.  We could drop Will off at the craft beer festival and drive on to the winery, skirting around lots of lakes.  All I can say is that by the end of this trip we should have our fill of water and should be ready for a desert vacation!  Hm.  Maybe it is time to buy some kayaks for the kids.

Menominee Lake Here We Come

We've bitten the bullet and reserved an AirBnB in Canada on Menominee Lake about 7 hours north of Pittsburgh.  It's about 6 kilometers north of Baysville and 19 kilometers south of Huntsville in an area pockmarked with hundreds of little lakes.  It's about 140 miles north of Toronto and around 100 miles northeast of Collingwood which is on the Georgian Bay.  (That's where my grandmother was born.)

That's Toronto at the bottom of the map covered up by a bunch of stars and the Google logo.

Three fourths of the family is going to make it:  the two of us, Camila's family and Will's family.  Juan is using up his vacation and money on the Disney Cruise as we speak, which sounds pretty good to me at the moment.  We're going to Canada instead of the Outer Banks this year and the weather should be significantly different.  With all those little lakes and ponds I hope there aren't too many mosquitos but I've got two bottles of Off with DEET left over from our Punta Cana vacation last year.  I never used it once there so hopefully it will continue to be unused this summer.

We hope to get to Algonquin Provincial Park, the original destination of this trip.  The Friends of Algonquin Park video traces the geological formation, prehistory and history of the park.  Highway #60 runs for 56 kilometers through the lower half of the park and provides camping sites, interpretive walkways, a museum and visitor center.  For more information on the recreational offerings, watch the Ontario Parks video.  The rest of the park can only be accessed on foot or by canoe.  The west entrance to the park is about 42 minutes (48 kilometers) from our AirBnB but the Visitor's Center is near the eastern entrance about an hour and 15 minutes (94 km).  Google Maps gives Canadian distances in kilometers and although you can change that to miles in the Options, I figure we might as well get used to them.  It's easy to convert from kilometers to miles:  you just multiply by 6 and move the decimal point one place to the left.  So 100 kilometers would be 60 miles.

By the way, Isabel says she has dibs on the top bunk:

Grandma's Recipes

Using okara to stuff fish

I am always amazed at how many videos there are on Japanese culture and how YouTube has become a platform for them.  My latest discovery is a series of small vignettes called Grandma's Recipes by Yu Nakamura about disappearing recipes from rural Japan that are kept alive by old women.  The videographer explains what they are doing this way.

"Our team especially tries to focus on eccentric, lovely but “Rock” ladies above the age of 80, who have lived through World War Two. We interview them with great care, and through their recipes which represents the relationships they share with those they care about, we are able to uncover great depth in their life stories. We want to spread those stories to the young generations living today. We believe that if we can share the stories of those beautiful and loving ladies to the world, regardless of borders and languages, people may appreciate even the dinner table just a little bit more."

"There are many grandmas over the age of 80 who have collected many "wrinkles" of joy throughout the years.  We collect those "wrinkles" in the form of their favorite recipes and we try to understand the depth of their life stories." 

The photography is beautiful even if you don't want to try the recipes, the majority of which seem to be Osechi, New Year's dishes.

• Sansai (Wild Vegetables, picked in Spring)
• Grandma Mitsuko from Haida making whole fish sushi.
• Tatsuko - san, a shoyu-maker from Fukui, making a soup for New Year's
• Osechi made by Keiko oba-chan in Tokyo, nishiki eggs and other dishes
• Teacher Tsunko on Noto Island making cod for "Kishu-sai", the festival of fishery.

Down Fulham Road

As far as I can tell, there's no reason to walk the half mile down Fulham Road to the Fulham Broadway Centre.  There are few sites to see along the route except for the Brompton Cemetery and the Chelsea Football stadium (Stamford Bridge).  It's very residential so we might as well take the #211 bus (Hammersmith) or the #14 bus (Putney Heath) that stops in front of the house (stop HB) down to the Fulham Broadway Station (Stop M).  Either bus will get us there in 5 minutes.  Of course it will set us back £1.50.


The Fulham Broadway Centre is a shopping mall with a Sainsbury Superstore (M-Sat 7 am to 11 pm; Sun 12-6) and a Wilko hardware store (they only have 14,000 items, not 55,000 like Farmer Brothers).  You can check out Sainsbury's groceries online.  I'd like to pick up some Seville orange marmalade to go with our morning crumpets and some tea, depending on what they have in the house.  Do you think we can survive without coffee?

Oh, but look!  Sainsbury's also has lots of packaged scones and even a Paul Hollywood famous scone mix!  I think I'd rather buy my scones fresh from a bakery but perhaps Fernando would like to try his hand at baking them.  We'll also need some clotted cream to go along with the scones and Sainsbury's carries clotted cream from Rodda's of Scorrier, Redruth, Cornwall.  And we should have some jam other than marmalade to go along with the scones.  I'm making my shopping list already.

I figure we can get some sausages for bangers and mash for one of our breakfasts but I really don't like the consistency of the fillers in bangers so maybe just some regular sausages.  But then this "bangers and mash pouch" came up in a search.  Shall I bring one home for Louise?  They also have an Organic Lamb & Chickpea Tagine with Prune & Cous Cous and advise: Do not allow your baby to suck food directly from the pouch in order to properly develop feeding skills.  Wasn't the suckable pouch the point?  To keep them happy and quiet in the car or stroller?

I'd also like to pick up some gin for Penny.  Or how about Ceders Distilled Non-Alcoholic Gin?  Made with classic gin and rare cape botanicals.  Is this what is left over after distilling out the alcohol?
Or perhaps Sainsbury's Blackfriars Gin, "Taste the Difference" (Sainsbury's slogan) that is "suitable for vegans". And did you know that Hendrick's is "Best enjoyed, from glass or teacup, as a most enchanting Hendrick's and Tonic - served with plenty of ice and three slices of cucumber."   From a teacup?  Like for breakfast?

My goodness!  I better get out of the supermarket or we'll spend all day here!  Plus there's a Whole Foods just down the road...  There are a lot of small fast food chain restaurants and a Starbucks in the Fulham Broadway Centre as well in case we need a quick bite to eat: Nando's, Prêt à Manger, Pizza Express, Yard Sale Pizza, Oyster Rooms pub.  But perhaps the restaurants on the street would be more interesting.  Just past Whole Foods on the left,  there's a German Doner Kebab takeout followed by a French gelateria Amorino, and a restaurant supply store (Nisbets).  There are quite a few chicken and pizza takeaway shops.   On a side street,  Jerdan Place, there's a French chain restaurant (Côte Brasserie) with set and a la carte menus and further down Fulham Road is a Turkish restaurant, Best Mangal.  If you are homesick, you can walk up North End Road for a KFC and McDonald's or up Walham Grove for a Papa John's Pizza and a Ben and Jerry's.

I'm assuming we want something more British so just half a block up North End Road from Fulham Road is Waitrose, a supermarket specializing in British products and right now featuring the current season of the Great British Bakeoff (Paul Hollywood is the only host left from the original 4).  They also have a better selection of craft gins and porridge.  Fernando could get a kilo of porridge oats for £1.39!  That should keep him well stocked!  Maybe we should go here for our marmalade, clotted cream, and tea.  Next door to Waitrose on North End Road is the Mountain Warehouse where I might be able to pick up a walking pole for the Road Scholar program.

North End Road seems to be the shopping street in Fulham and Google Street View shows a street market.  In fact on September 22 there's going to be a traffic free Autumn Market there.  Too bad we'll miss it but there's a regular North End Road Market Monday to Saturday, from 8am to 6pm so it's something we could explore the Friday we get there!

And finally, at 314-18 North End Road, there is a PoundLand, right next door to McDonald's.  Apparently there is no bus service up North End Road so we'd have to stroll up on foot, checking out all the shops in between.  Poor Fernando.

Up Fulham Road

Our house at 413 Fulham Road

Apparently I haven't gone exploring Fulham Road with the Google street view on my London map.  I spent much more time doing that for our Paris trip and for our Hong Kong trip in 2010 (street view became available for Hong Kong a few months before).  Perhaps I've been distracted by all the menus now available for pubs and restaurants and by all the YouTube videos.  Heck, these days you can really be an armchair traveler.

Sainsbury Local convenience store

The block that our apartment is on (400s) seems to be the sole surviving block of houses, the surrounding area having been taken over by commercial establishments.  We are on the corner with a signal for crossing the street and a painted reminder on the pavement to "look left" while crossing the street.  If we keep our eyes peeled to the ground, these advisories should help us survive the London traffic.  There's a Sainsbury's Local directly across the street but it was closed at the early hour that the Google mobile took its photo.

Across Fulham Road and up half a block on the one-way cross street, Edith Grove, is the HK Bus Stop for the #328 which will take us south to Kings Road.  Across the street and to the left half a block down Fulham Road is the HE Bus Stop for the #14 bus that will take us east to the South Kensington tube station (Old Brompton Road).  We couldn't be better situated for buses, which will take us to the nearest tube stations: Earls Court (.7 miles north), Fulham Broadway (.6 miles west), and South Kensington (.9 miles northeast).  There's also the HB Bus Stop in front of the house for the #14 returning from South Kensington (catch it at Stop T) which runs every 6 minutes and takes 10 minutes.

If we walk up Fulham Road towards the city, we come to Westminster Chelsea Hospital but we hope we won't have to use it.  Across the street is a Boots pharmacy in case we need ibuprofen and bath salts for our feet.  The hospital has a storefront Subway sandwich shop in case we get really desperate before 10 pm and next door is a Starbucks in case we get tired of tea.  Across the street is the B Bagel Bakery Bar which opens at 7 am every morning and further east half a block is Le Pain Quotidien, which seems more like a restaurant than a bakery.  Apparently it does have bread but it doesn't open until 8 am.  And next door is the "Touch Ironmongery" if you need some brass fixtures.

Moving up the street we find Luigi's delicatessen (M-F 8-21:30; Sat 9-7) where we can pick up some spaghetti to boil for dinner or splurge on fresh pasta or ready-made gnocchi alla Sorrentina.  We can also get panettone for our breakfast or afternoon tea.  It is probably too early in the year for the novello vinos and we'll have to get their cannolis when they are freshly made and filled.

Further up the road is Gail's Bakery, which opens at 7 am, with more than 30 breads on offer.  We'll have to check it out even if it is a chain.  Their malted whole grain sourdough bread looks and sounds good and so does their Danish whole meal spelt sourdough.  They even have San Francisco sourdough but they need 48 hours notice -- to fly it in, I suppose.  I see croissants, Chelsea buns, Soho buns (with chocolate chips), pain aux raisins, and finally at the very bottom of the breakfast menu, some drop scones.  Oh silly me.  I should have looked on the Afternoon dropdown for the scones, being as they are for afternoon tea.  Lots of other options there too for creating our own tea party.  Who needs restaurants?

And, in case we are lacking protein,  next door to Gail's Bakery is Wyndham House Butchery which offers fine meats, poultry and game,  opening up at 7:30 am M-Sat (till 6 pm).  If you don't want to cook, you can cross the street to The Kings Arms pub and have an obscene burger since it is a Younge's "burger shack".  They never call them hamburgers, just "burgers" but to their credit they do offer a lamb burger and a veggie burger.  By the way, numbers on the north side of the street don't coincide with the ones on the south side (190 vs 341) but at least they both go up as they go down Fulham.

Moving on east on Fulham we come across another "ironmongery," FB and JD Beardmore, offering the "finest English-made door furniture".  So if you or anyone you know needs door knockers or knobs, cabinet pulls or other "door furniture", you should stop in here and peruse their collection which is really very interesting and unique.

Next door is another "hardware" store, Farmer Brothers.
Established in 1842, Farmer Brothers has over 55,000 products in stock. Even staff at nearby Harrods, can be overheard saying "you'll find it at Farmers".  And it looks like Beardmore is part of their company.  How about a pair of toast tongs?  Or a wooden door wedge?  Or a kettle protector that reduces lime in your kettle for a fresher taste and more efficient boiling time?  A shoehorn with a back scratcher?  Who needs to go to a museum when you have a nearby hardware store?

And for us librarians, there is the independent Daunt Books across the street which is known for its large stock of travel literature, in case we forget our London guidebook.  It's open from 9 am till 9 pm.  For those who don't read, in the next block there's a Cineworld Cinema in a rather striking building along with another Starbucks to make sure that you don't fall asleep during the movie.  And Cineworld has a great deal:  Any film, any time and as many times as you like for just £20.40 a month.

All these stores to see and we haven't even gone half a mile from the house and in only one direction and only on one road!  On the other hand, it appears that, aside from the Orée patisserie, many of the stores beyond Elm Park Gardens are furniture and interior design shops and so of much less interest to us so it's time to head in the other direction down to Fulham Broadway.

Getting around London by Bus

We are a bit outside the center in one of the old villages, Chelsea.  Of course, it’s not a village now, but it does mean we will learn how to get around greater London.  We are not that near any tube stations so let’s look at the bus.  And we can always hop on the bus and get off at the South Kensington tube station for the Central, District and Piccadilly lines.
I happen to have a Central London bus map...admittedly it’s from March 2009, but it allows me to see the larger picture, and I’ll supplement it with one of the apps I’ve downloaded for London.
Starting from 431 Fulham Road, traveling on Fulham Rd.
The 14 will take us up Fulham past the South Kensington museums, up Piccadilly to  Covent  Garden, then up Charing Cross and Tottenham Ct. to Euston Station.  Of course it might take a while...but the apps will tell us how long.  That route will take us to the S. Ken. Museums, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury and near the British Museum
The 414 parallels the 14 to Hyde Park Corner then veers north along Hyde Park.  We could take that up to Speaker’s Corner and the. Walk a bit east on Oxford to Selfridges for their food court.
The 211 will take us to Victoria Station and on to Westminster and across the Westminster Bridge, but, again, it may take a while.  From the end of that line we can walk 14 minutes to the Imperial War Museum.
Now if we walk southerly (0.2 mi) to King's Road we have even more bus choices:

The 11 looks like a really useful route.  It travels up King's Road, past Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, travels down the Strand, passes the Royal Courts of Justice, turns down Fleet Street into the City, past St. Paul's Cathedral and ends at Liverpool Station. 

Here is an article, "London's Top 3 Sightseeing Bus Routes," from VisitBritain. 
And, of course, we will use Transport of London's Plan a Journey all the time!


P.S.  We'll always be looking for double-decker buses and will try to ride on top in the front seat,  what Mitch called "the Terror Seat,"  don't ask me why because driving with him as a passenger in NYC was "the terror seat." 

But if you want to ride on one of the iconic Routemasters, here's an article for you.

  "The heritage number 15 service is a fantastic route for tourists as it passes by some of London's most iconic sites including St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London. It's a much cheaper alternative to some of the London bus tour companies. For the best views, grab a seat at the front upstairs. "
We can catch it at Trafalgar Square and ride to Tower Hill, and it runs every 15 minutes, seven days a week, between c. 9:30 am and 6:30 pm

Quirky and Eccentric and the South Kensington Museums (Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Natural History)

 Nancy sent me a Apple News link to a story from BBC US:  Victoria and Albert Museum Tour of British Identity.

I watched the clip and thought it was a odd, limited choice of items, although I’ve since discovered there are more.  She responded that the British were quirky and eccentric.  Now, I thought that was probably a pretty dated description left over from times of independently wealthy, privately educated, upper class individuals.
Today as I read my daily Atlas Obscura posting I stumbled on a London Loves list by Angelalazenbury of 49 London sites that can really only be described as quirky and eccentric.
So I invite you to read and enjoy her list, and jot down ones you’d like to see.
Then, tell me are the British still quirky and eccentric?
P.S.  Also at the Victoria and Albert is a Frida Kahlo exhibit.  And here's a BBC article on that.  
There is probably a charge for that and other special exhibits, but otherwise the museum is free, so we can pop in and look at this and that.  The museum has been described thus, "Beautifully but haphazardly displayed across a seven mile, four storey maze of halls and corridors, the V and A's treasures are impossible to survey in a single visit."  Perhaps their new Photography Gallery will be open by then.  Here are some opinions of what to see there.  The V and A From the Collections.  TimeOut's Seven Wonders of the V and A.  And the Telegraph's How to Visit the Victoria and Albert.
We can easily get to the Victoria and Albert, and the adjacent Natural History Museum and the Science Museum by taking the 41 or 141 bus up Fulham.  Or we could walk, but I think we'd better save our strength.
The Science Museum is on Fernando's list and "it is undeniably impressive, filling seven floors with items drawn from every conceivable area of science, including space travel, telecommunications, time measurement, chemistry, computing, photography and medicine.  There are hands-on exhibits and an IMAX cinema, too.

Kids in the Wonderlab at the Science Museum

Is time for lunch, yet?  Let's wander across to Herrod's Food Hall with its exqusite Arts and Crafts tiling  We can probably get anything we want although it will be pricey, as is the entire establishment.  It's also a major tourist destination so don't expect to be alone.  Here's what Yelp says

We might also stop for coffee and...in the Victoria and Albert at the cafe in the room designed by William Morris.  Here's other suggestions for cheap places to eat near the South Kensington Museums.

Then has anyone the energy for a walk in Hyde Park?

.

Day trip to Cambridge

"Cambridge, 60 miles north of London, is world-famous for its prestigious university.  Wordsworth, Isaac Newton, Tennyson, Darwin, and Prince Charles are a few of its illustrious alumni.  The university dominates - and owns - most of Cambridge, a historic town of 100,000 people that's more pleasant than its rival Oxford.  Its the epitome of a university town, with busy bikers, stately residence halls, plenty of bookshops, and proud locals who can point out where DNA was originally modeled, the first atom was split, and electrons were initially discovered."

You'll have to excuse me for the above quote from Rick Steves, but he said it so well.  Now the Rick Steves London edition I own is 2008, so things may have changed a bit, so we'll have to verify things like timetables, and whether there are still plenty of bookshops.

Cambridge is an easy day trip.  We'll want to schedule a walking tour with the Cambridge Visitor Centre.  Ricky says that's an essential part of any visit and directs us to the Visit Cambridge website.  Surprise!  There isn't just one tour, but NINE!  Oh, but wait!  When I start selecting dates they don’t all appear.  I’m choosing Sunday, Sept. 16 because I would really, really like to hear evensong at 15:30 in Kings Chapel.

So, on that Sunday the first tour listed is Kings College and the Backs ( 2 hours/ 20 pounds) at 11 am

See the best that Cambridge has to offer in the company of an official Blue Badge Guide. This two-hour walking tour takes in some of the most famous city centre sights, with a specific focus on the magnificent 15th century King’s College and Chapel as well as the picturesque Cambridge Backs.

There is also a Cambridge Highlights Tour at 13:00 (90 minutes/12 pounds) which might even be better although I’d like an earlier hour.

This is the perfect tour for first-time visitors to Cambridge or those who are only here for a short time. See all the central, iconic sights in just 90 minutes: the Old Cavendish Laboratory where important scientific discoveries were made, the Corpus Clock, the Senate House and many of the beautiful central colleges* including Corpus Christi, King’s, Gonville & Caius and Trinity.

Official University and City Tour including King's College and Queens' College  (2 hours/ 23 pounds)

From the intimate courtyards of Queens’ College to the majestic beauty of King’s College Chapel, this 2-hour tour covers two very different royal Cambridge foundations.  Your route will meander through city streets and beautiful, riverside colleges, immersing you in the true Cambridge experience.

Any of these would be good although we should reserve before we go, and there appears to be lots of other things to do.
Here’s a list of 16 of the best things to  do in Cambridge, England from handluggageonly.co.uk
How about punting on the River Cam?  We can make a reservation for that, too, through the Visit Cambridge site.

But how do we get there?  Simple, take the train from King’s Cross.  Tripsavvy.comTripsavvy is happy to give us some options.  Looks like an off peak ticket is 17.20 pounds and it takes about an hour to get there.  And how do we get to Kings Cross?  My handy dandy London transit map says bus 414 and the Piccadilly line, and that takes about 45 minutes. 

 So, are you up for Cambridge?

Mary Berry

Who can resist a person with a name like Mary Berry?  We were introduced to her on the Great British Baking Show and have become quite fond of her.  She reminds me very much of Julie Andrews and is a refreshing contrast to Paul Hollywood.

Mary Berry and her hunk of lamb on the right

On YouTube, you can find 1970s cooking programs from Thames TV with a much younger Mary Berry who doesn't sound at all like the current one as she hurriedly chatters away showing the program host how to make Irish Stew.  (She shows how to take the fillett off the scrag end of the lamb's neck and shoulder "for them what doesn't like bones".)  Now after 40 plus years of practice, she has slowed her speech to a confident and comfortable drawl -- although I suppose drawl isn't quite the correct term to use with the English -- and she talks to the audience with a twinkle in her eye and not to her hunk of lamb.  The 1970s programs emphasize how to keep food costs low.  They mention that making your own steak and kidney pie is half the price of buying one.  Today the Great British Baking Show is profligate in its use of expensive ingredients.  We live in a very different time.

In any case, here are a few of the retro recipes, all I believe from Mary's Good Afternoon cookbook emphasizing the use of cheaper cuts of meat and cooking from scratch to save money, although she didn't come from a poor family.

1. Slade Pie.  This is a large rectangular Cornish pasty named after a woman she knew who made it.  The crust is half lard and half margarine.
2. How to Make Homemade Marmalade.  Mary uses Seville oranges and one pound jam jars with snap-on plastic lids.
3. Cooking with Lamb.  The lamb is from New Zealand and she stuffs a boned shoulder with bread crumbs, apricots, onion and parsley.  She'd serve it with layered potatoes and onions that she cooks in the oven along with the roast "to save a bit of fuel."  And she does a lamb breast with curry, saving the "free" drippings to fry the onions.

As a comparison, here are some of Mary's recent TV programs.

1. Fish pie with soufflé topping - Mary Berry's Absolute Christmas Favourites: Episode 1 - BBC Two.  Mary uses smoked and fresh haddock along with leeks and dill in a cream sauce with plenty of pepper.  She tops it with hardboiled eggs and a "soufflé of bread cubes and parmesan cheese.  This could be one of our seven fishes!
   
2. Mary Berry's Foolproof Cooking Episode 5.  Mary cooks home made tomato soup and bacon/tomato/broccoli pasta with pesto.  She still believes in "waste not, want not" and chops up the broccoli stem.  Then she makes a salmon, fennel and pea risotto and finally a passion fruit "pud".  I'd like to try the last one if only I could find passion fruit.
   

I might have to go back to the 1970s videos to get some real old-fashioned British recipes.  These days even the English have more sophisticated tastes.

You can learn more about Mary's ancestry (her great great grandfather was a baker) in Who Do You Think You Are: Mary Berry.

Yes, but will we be able to understand them?

I was watching some of the Roberts's posts that Cathy recommended and realized how focused I was on understanding what he was saying.  Admittedly the video quality is distracting, but I was really having to pay attention to understand what he was trying to communicate.  It was even worse than last week when John and Diane from New Zealand visited...admittedly the visuals were better.
So I though I would explore the varieties of English, especially since, after London, we are headed into the heartland where locals are supposed to have kept more of the dialects.
A Google search shows I'm not the only one exploring it.  In fact, it seems like an entire academic discipline, with lots of linguistic description I don't understand one bit.

Due to my limitations, I'll begin with a British Library site

The new British Library is a great place....near Euston Station, but it certainly won't be open when we rush to catch our train to Manchester, so we'll have to schedule another time to visit.
But for the time being, let's look at this one section of their website "Sounds Familiar."
From here you can listen to 71 sound recordings and over 600 short audio clips chosen from two collections of the British Library Sound Archive: the Survey of English Dialects and the Millennium Memory Bank. You’ll hear Londoners discussing marriage and working life, Welsh teenagers talking with pride about being bilingual and the Aristocracy chatting about country houses. You can explore the links between present-day Geordie and our Anglo-Saxon and Viking past or discover why Northern Irish accents are a rich blend of seventeenth century English and Scots. You can study changes in pronunciation among the middle classes or find out how British Asians express their linguistic identity.

In Regional Voices you can explore the differences that exist in spoken English as you move across the country, while Changing Voices gives you the chance to hear how English has changed in different parts of the country over the last fifty years. The Case Studies section provides an in-depth look at three specific varieties of contemporary English: Received Pronunciation, Geordie Dialect, and English as spoken in the UK’s minority ethnic communities. A selection of suggested activities and research tasks will help you investigate speech in your own community. Your Voices offers you the exciting opportunity to contribute your recordings and language investigations to the site, as part of the BL Sound Archive's ongoing survey of speech patterns across the UK.

OK....was that a bit much?  How about an article from Babble Magazine, "The Royal Family of British Accents:  the Amazing Variety of  Accents Across the British Isles."  "What does a “British accent” sound like? It depends who you’re asking and where you are in the British Isles. Here’s an overview of 7 regional varieties of British English.  If you ask people what they think British English sounds like, most would probably mention the Queen, or Harry Potter at the very least. However, across the British Isles there is a massive variety of accents and dialects; so, in actual fact, most Brits do not speak like the Queen."  Well, what do you know!
And if you want to zero in on Yorkshire accent, there is a amusing, youthful video and article on that.  And a You Tube on London Accents.  And one can really fall down the rabbit hole watching all the other videos running in a list down the right side of the page.

Now for a bit of fun:

Quiz: Do You Know The Proper Names For These British Food Items?   Britain may not be exactly famous for its food, but it is for its food names. 

 And before I loose you completely, you must practice up on the Pronunciation of Popular Place Names in London.  Just in case you get lost, your phone dies, and you have to ask for directions. 

 Hidden London has a more extensive list in case you want to practice some more.

Roberts London

Roberts is a Londoner who shoots his own selfies in video format: usually the camera is focused (or out-of-focused) on him.  But he gives us an opportunity to listen to Cockney English and to learn a little bit about London.

Portobello Road Market
Saturday morning are the busiest times to go to this market that stretches a couple miles along Portobello Road.  Robert advises going early to beat the tourists.  He also makes side stops at The Tabernacle, St. Luke Mews (featured in Love Actually and visited by all the tourists), and the Electric Cinema.


As you can see from the photos, Portobello has all kinds of stuff: bread, vintage cameras, clothing, fruits and vegetables but it does get a bit busy on the weekends.

Full English Breakfast + London Borough Market = Best Traditional Recipe
Saturday is also the busiest time at the Borough Market on the south side of the Thames (it is closed on Sunday). Roberts takes us there during the Christmas season to buy ingredients for a full English breakfast.  Previously he took us to the greasy spoon Regency Café as the best place for a full English breakfast but this time he is cooking it himself.  His coverage of the Borough Market convinces me that we should make that our destination on Saturday.

Lovely Mushrooms

The Full English

On another Saturday, Roberts goes to the Broadway Market in London Fields where he visits F. Cooke's Pie and Mash Shop, which he calls the original surf and turf meal (eels and beef).  If you don't want to eat them yourself, you can always watch Roberts eat them.  Or you can watch F. Cooke make them in The Life of Pie.

Roberts does visit Chelsea but the Chelsea Market isn't very interesting, except for the flowers -- he goes there for a duck sandwich.  In his stroll down King's Road he mentions what was there in the 1960s when Chelsea was a happening place.  He ends up at the Stockpot for another Full English Breakfast (wiff coffee), although the place specialized in Anglo-Italian dishes, past tense since it has closed.  He also mentions the classic Peter Jones department store which appears to go by the name of John Lewis now...  It looks like nothing is the same as it was in the 60s.  Unfortunately he doesn't make a trip down Fulham (Fullum) which is where we'll be staying.

Roberts has several videos on Chinatown, one is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival on September 15, 2016, but this year it looks like it is on the 24th so we'll miss it.  Some of Roberts' videos are long but others are short and he often visits a specific pub or café, like the Café in the Crypt of St. Martin in the Fields, "tranquility beneath Trafalgar Square" with "beautiful 18th century architecture brick-vaulted ceilings, historic tombstones beneath your feet and delicious home-cooked food."  

Simpson's Friday Specials

Fortunately for us, the restaurants that he visits are cheap: no high-falutin' dishes for him; he even visits Five Guys, Chipotle and McDonalds.  He does, however, visit London's oldest chophouse: Simpson's Tavern, which he calls a "hidden gem" but which I have already visited with Rick Steves and one of the Two Fat Ladies so how hidden can it be?  First he passes Mary le Bow Church and mentions its bells and also that you have to be born within earshot of the bells to be considered Cockney.  At Simpson's he orders the Friday special of Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding with sides of roast potatoes and cauliflower cheese (I wonder do they use Velveeta).  Most of the customers are guys and Roberts says "the guys come in here, they're let out of the office, you give them a sniff of alcohol and they turn into little boys."  It's raucous in the "grill room" with shared tables and Roberts likes the atmosphere but there are quieter rooms in the restaurant upstairs and there's a wine bar downstairs but who wants wine when you can have ale?

There are many more videos from Roberts in case you are looking for some specific location or want to watch the Royal Wedding.

The Great British Baking Show: Pies

We've been watching the Great British Baking Show since PBS aired the first season.  Of course we are way behind the British seasons.  The latest episode was pies and for the British a lot of pies are savory so that's why they started off with a "Wellington".  I've only heard of "Beef Wellington" but the bakers did several takes on it, with lamb, pork, fish and vegetarian fillings.  This was followed by a little feature on the historic eel pie among the working class in London which, of course, I appreciated tremendously.  Shall we have a Beef Wellington when we are there?

This week's "technical challenge" was a hand-raised pie which was also a savory pie and historically interesting, using wooden dollies to shape the pie pastry, which was then filled with chicken, apricots and bacon.  The results were uniformly disastrous since no one had ever used a dolly before.  In case you are ever chosen by Paul Hollywood to make one, here is a nice recipe that uses a dolly to make a pork pie.  There's also Paul's recipe for the chicken, bacon and apricot pie on the BBC.

Finally, the "show-stopper" was to make an "American" pie. Paul Hollywood doesn't care for American pies because he says they are all way too sweet for his tastes.  Hmmm, I don't suppose he's had a Treacle tart, a Gypsy Tart, a Sticky Toffee Pudding, a Banaoffee Pie or a Bakewell Tart recently...

In characteristic British fashion, the "American" pies they chose were not American as Apple pie, or blueberry or huckleberry pie, or strawberry/rhubarb pie or even Concord Grape pie.  They were those cloyingly sweet pecan pie with chocolate, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie with peanut butter, and banana pie.  I don't know how they missed the Boston Creme Pie!  The two Paul and Mary liked most were a key lime pie, followed by a blueberry/raspberry chiffon pie.  And they all had sweet crusts, which is not as common in the U.S. as it is in Britain.  Camila, when you do the Pie book for Cook's Illustrated, send a copy to Paul Hollywood and make sure it has a recipe for Concord Grape pie!!

Is there a British Japanology?

Before traveling to Japan, I must have watched more than a hundred Begin Japanology and Japanology Plus programs from Japan's NHK television station.  They aren't travelogues but cover the everyday culture of Japan and I wish all countries had similar programs produced by their public television stations.

So I'm trying to pull together videos on England that cover similar territory.

BBC: A People's History of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.  Unfortunately this series is no longer available at the BBC site but only as a lower quality video uploaded on YouTube.  It is narrated by Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of the Two Fat Ladies, and concentrates more on historic meals of the nobility than those of the common man.  And Clarissa Dickson Wright doesn't quite have the reserved charm of Peter Barakan.

• Episode 1: Breakfast
• Episode 2: Lunch - Clarissa does mention Simpson's Tavern as a traditional London chop house and of course she talks about the "sandwich".  The second half is more about what the common man ate covering rationing and supermarkets (the packaged sandwich) and she ends with the Sunday Roast.
• Episode 3: Dinner  - Confusing here.  Is it "dinner" as the biggest meal of the day or "supper" in the evening.

History of English Language. Four hour-long episodes by LWT,  London Weekend Television.

1. Birth of a Language   Beginning with the invasion of the Germanic tribes from Friesland in 491 AD, after the Romans left, and the subjugation of the Celtic tribes. Then the addition of the Latin alphabet from the Catholic church in the 600s, the addition of Norse from the invading Vikings and Danes in the 800s, and the defeat of the English in 1066 by the Normans, speaking Old French and concentrating the wealth of the country in fewer hands.
2. English Goes Underground.  The 300 years when English is a subjugated language as were the English-speaking people, when the Normans occupied all positions of power.
3. The Battle for the Language of the Bible
4. This Earth, This Realm, This England

The Worst Jobs in History.  A British television series from 2006.

1. Series 1 Episode 1: Roman and Anglo-Saxon (up until 1066)
2. Series 1 Episode 2: The Middle Ages
3. Series 1 Episode 3: The Tudors
4. Series 1 Episode 4: Stuart Times

That London Life: Walking London

These are YouTube walking tours done by Eleana, who speaks very fast but offers some very interesting tidbits about architectural landmarks in London.

1. City of London
2. Lesser Known London Walking Tour from Chelsea to Fulham

Afternoon Tea and Tea Etiquette

1. Visit London: Afternoon Tea in London (Ritzy tea parlors are featured without much tea but with champagne, fancy cakes and sandwiches.)
2. English Cream Tea Etiquette (Learn how to place your napkin, hold a cup, stir your sugar, and open your scone -- no hamburgers, please.)
3. Chateau des Fleurs - Tea with Adam Gottesman (This is the same tea etiquette advice but from a guy.)
4. Victoria's Insider Guide to London - Episode 4: The Best Afternoon Teas in London (If you like exquisite afternoon teas, check these out.  From Expedia.)

1000 Londoners

Each week, a profile of a Londoner is posted on https://www.1000londoners.com/ with a 3 minute film that gives an insight into their life.

1. The woman keeping traditional London alive through a Pie & Mash shop: Jacqueline, Londoner #161  (This is a very interesting profile with lovely shots of a historic pie & mash shop.  We'll have to go.)
   

Peter Ackroyd's London

Ackroyd is a prolific writer and biographer.  He has an 800 page biography of London which was also turned into a TV Series, uploaded to YouTube by various people.

1. Episode 1: Fire & Destiny
2. Episode 2: Crowd
3. Episode : Newgate to Tyburn (A colourful journey from the site of London' old Newgate prison to the site of the Tyburn Tree)
4. Episode :  East versus West

BBC: The London Markets
Hour-long programs on the wholesale food markets in London.  I can see why they are dying institutions and I hardly think women will miss them. Even the Fruit and Veg market doesn't have a woman in sight, except for a Romanian woman serving tea.  The market men are responsible for their own demise, I'm afraid.

1. The Fish Market Inside Billingsgate
   
2. The Meat Market Inside Smithfield
   
3. The Fruit and Veg Market Inside New Spitalfields