UK 2012 Issue 2

It's Saturday afternoon and we have returned from a walk around Watermead Country park, an adventure in and of itself, in time to watch the Grand National. This is apparently a big deal in the world of Steeplechase. A little background on horse racing. Steeplechase is a form of horse racing that gets its name from early races where the course was determined by racing from church steeple to church steeple while jumping fences and ditches and generally crossing any intervening obstacles along the way. The Grand National is the premier event held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool. These are a people who honour their history, the first Grand National was held in 1836!!

This years event was won by Neptune Collanges, at 30 to 1, I reckon the bookies were happy. Myself, I was rooting for Shak-a-lak-a-boom-boom, who came in 6^th. Horses seem to have some really great name, Synchronise (who fell and had to be put down), Midnight Haze, Sea Bass (ridden by a woman jockey) and Deep Purple. The race is 41/2 miles over 30 “fences” . The fences are covered with brush and what looked like Christmas tree trimmings, guess it means the bits fall away if the horses hooves touch them. Some have ditches on the other side and others have water. More than 40 riders/horses started the race but only 13 finished. Can't say I'm a great horse race fan but I found watching this race compelling. The animals are really beautiful and their form is truly elegant when they take the jumps. There are collisions and mis-calculated jumps and more than one horse finished the race without a rider. Was fun to watch a riderless horse go around the fence and go out in to the lead. Occasionally a horse with a rider would refuse the jump and go around as well.

Coming up in June (Carol bring your hat, you should be here in time to see it) is the Royal Ascot. Don't know if this is Steeplechase or some other form of horse racing but it is the one we always think of, where everyone dresses up and wears those fantastical hats. Latest news in the tabloids . . . “the dress code reminds women they must have two straps of one inch (2.5cm) or more holding up their dress. Halter necks, off the shoulder or strapless are very definitely out. Midriffs must be covered. While trouser suits are permitted, they must be full length and of matching material and colour. Jackets and pashminas are accepted by those who make the rules but, they insist, the garments over which they are worn must still comply with the code. Gentlemen do not escape the dress code either, being told they must wear a waistcoat and tie, not a cravat, a black or grey top hat and black shoes. The customisation of top hats (with, for instance, coloured ribbons or bands) is not allowed.”

Guess I can go with a dress that plunges to the navel but, I'll wear a hat that is so ridiculous no one will even notice! As for Mick, I don't suppose he ever cared much for cravats.

We have slipped in to a routine. We're up around 7 and Mick makes a cup of tea for his father, which he delivers to him in bed!! Then it is coffee for us. This is totally his territory. This is England after all, teapots there are a a-plenty but coffee pots, not so much. His mother, a great collector of gadgets, had at some point, in the not too distant past, acquired a coffee pot of which the only piece that remains in the filter section. I must remember, the gadget collection in this household is probably a blog all by itself. Anyway, a filter, a wide mouth thermos, water and coffee grounds and you have a fair approximation of coffee. I don't actually know what he does and believe I will leave it that way. The colour is definitely right, the aroma works, the temperature that too is good but you need to like your coffee to have a little, what shall we say, texture. No matter which brand of coffee you purchase, Starbucks included, the grind is very fine, more like espresso than anything else. This is after all a nation of “tea-bellies” although coffee has become quite popular, Popular being the operative word, not good.

We settle down with a cup of coffee and a Sudoku or a book. By about 7:30 Dad emerges. It is still cool in the mornings so his breakfast is porridge, he will switch to bran flakes when it warms up! Thank goodness, he takes responsibility for preparing his own breakfast, a package of instant oatmeal made with whole milk. For a lady who eats her oatmeal undercooked, as in still pretty solid, with salt or dried fruit, instant oats cooked in milk is terrifying. Ah well, to each their own bad taste. Our breakfast, on the other hand is a movable feast. Most recently I have been enamoured of peanut butter on toast, but tomatoes and cucumbers with cheese and olives is not a bad alternative. And yes, we do occasionally cook oatmeal or eat dry cereal. It's just that so many things here go by the same name but that is where the similarity ends. Porridge is gruel, thinks Dickens, cereal is Wheatabix, whole wheat flakes crumbled up and consolidated in to a brown parcel that disintegrates in the presence of milk, doughnuts are little sticky things with jam inside and English Muffins don't exist. Saving up the bacon and eggs experience for when we get away to a B&B and someone else has to prepare it, as well as clean it up.

Five days a week Lesley arrives at 8:30 and the first thing on the agenda is a good old English “cuppa”. As in a “cuppa cha” or to translate, a cup of tea. She has been coming in since Dad was taking care of Brenda, so getting on for three or four years. I think mostly she comes to visit, and Dad likes it that way. One day a week she cleans the house and in theory is available to provide whatever assistance he may need. We have left all of that in place, it is a comfort to him and a part of his routine, more than that it means continuity when we are gone. Of course I am now being spoiled. If I haven't washed up breakfast or made the bed I will find that she has taken care of it before I remember to get back to it.

Sometimes, when Lesley has time off, we get a different “carer”. Today it was Angela, a mother of three, who lives out in some small “wellies and horses” village (her description) north of here. Conversations with locals can be highly entertaining, for as has been said before, we are divided by a common language. Wellies are Wellington boots, otherwise known as rubber boots.   You find that lots of people actually hike across the fields with them and certainly the horsey set and farmers wear them. The other phrase she used that tickled me was to “wind him up”. She was referring to her daughters latest boyfriend and quizzing him in a teasing way, meant to unhinge or fluster him until he caught on to what was happening. I'm thinking it must be time to wrap this one up but will leave you with one last Englishism . . . Mick just came in asking that I help him put a “plaster” on a cut. Also sometimes known as a sticking plaster, this is the American Band-aid.