Inside the Houses of Parliament

I had to go to the Houses of Parliament for a meeting today.  As you do.

I was early for my meeting, so I did a couple of things that a tourist probably wouldn’t.

Firstly, I went into St. Margaret’s Church.  Never heard of it?  Well, that’s probably because it stands right next door to Westminster Abbey.  So you’ve got the HUGE abbey saying “look at me!!!” and it’s really easy to miss  St. Margaret’s completely (even though it’s not small), but it’s worth going in.  Admission is free, although a donation would be welcome.  St. Margaret’s is commonly known as the “parish church of the House of Commons” and was originally built in the 11th century, so there’s history shouting out from every detail inside.

It was the church in which Samuel Pepys (the famous London diarist) and Winston Churchill married their brides and Beau Brummel was baptised.  But not all the interesting bits are about famous people.  I was most touched by a simple yet beautiful hand-engraved 17th century wooden and brass plaque dedicated by a loving father to his ten-year-old daughter who died, praising her good nature, dedication and piety and hoping she would be an example to others.

It also has beautiful stained glass windows, both old and new, and while I was there a simple prayer was said that made everyone stop for a moment and think of things more important than where to go for lunch, or whether it was still snowing outside.

Having visited St. Margaret’s, I went into the Houses of Parliament and headed for Central Lobby.  You may think that if you’re not a UK citizen, you can’t go in, but during August, September and October you can book a tour.

Central Lobby is a stunning area in a breathtakingly beautiful building, as you can see here.  Pugin certainly let his talent run wild and every detail of every floor, wall, pillar, arch and ceiling is extravagant, stunning and a piece of art in its own right. Incidentally, the people-watching there is first-class too; from famous politicians and celebrities to harassed-looking young clerks and tour guides in knee-breeches, all bustling through with purpose whilst I sat there at leisure.  I’ve rarely enjoyed a ten-minute wait so much anywhere in the world.

Charmingly, it also holds the venue for my second reason for being early.  A post office.

A post office?  Really?  Yes – because I couldn’t resist writing and posting a card to my daughter in a special souvenir envelope, with a drawing of the Houses of Parliament and luxuriously embossed with the portcullis logo in gold.  And I have to say, for the sake of £2.50 plus postage I highly recommend you do so, too.  As souvenirs go, it’s pretty cool and very, very few people realise that you can do this.  The lady at Central Lobby post office stamps it with the special “House of Commons” post mark and then they give you a clear plastic envelope so your lovely message doesn’t get marked whilst going through the postal system, but arrives in pristine condition.  Great fun.  I can’t wait to see my daughter’s face when it arrives and she sees where Mummy went!

So if you’re going to Westminster remember, whilst St. Paul’s Cathedral is a must, don’t forget St. Margaret’s is there too.  And YES you CAN go into the Houses of Parliament even if you’re not a UK citizen (in the summer).  Tickets go on sale this Monday, 1st March, so get online and get booked in for the experience of a lifetime.  And don’t forget your address book…

From the Heart… of England: England in the Snow – England To Get a White Christmas

It’s below freezing here in Blighty now and according to the Met Office, we’re due for snow tonight and all over the weekend.  And here’s how my house will look again!

When I was a kid, I used to dream of snow.  My godfather was a carpenter and he lovingly made me the best sledge anyone ever had; big enough for three of us with metal runners for a super-fast descent.  He painted it bright red with a white lightning flash on the side and I loved it.  Trouble was, we barely had enough snow to scrape together a few snowballs on our way to school, let alone enough to use my beautiful scarlet sledge.  So there it stayed, hanging on the wall in the garage.

When we moved to our village twelve Christmases ago, our neighbours asked us with a worried expression, “Do you not have a four-wheel drive?”.  Oh, how we laughed.  As IF we’d ever get snowed in!  And I hung up my sledge on the garage wall and patted it gently, never expecting to be able to use it.

In February this year we got snowed in for eight days.  We’d stocked up on food, we all went skiing on the hill and gathered afterwards in the pub (very handily located at the bottom of said hill).  “So this is global warming?”, I thought to myself.  The schools were closed, the buses stopped and England ground to a halt.

You see, we just aren’t any good at snow in England.  We’re pants at it, actually.

Anywhere in Europe, and anywhere in the US where you get snow regularly everything just carries on, albeit looking rather prettier than normal.

But because we usually only get a cosmetic dusting of snow each year, we just never bother to gear ourselves up for it.  We do a bit of extra grocery shopping, pull out the ski gear and get the logs ready by the hearth.  And I think that’s about it!

So here we are, wondering if this weekend will simply bring us large, pretty, fluttering snowflakes to make everywhere look all Dickensian as we meander through the village to our carol concert at the church on Sunday, or whether we should be expecting the worst and stockpiling rocksalt, shovels and…

…well what should one do, exactly?  You see, I am a complete amateur at this (as are most Brits).  Maybe I should be waxing the runners on my lovely sledge?  Buying chains for my car tyres (can one buy snow chains in England)?  Making hearty soups?

It feels VERY unBritish to not to simply “keep calm and carry on”!  That’s what we’re supposed to always do.  Effortlessly.  No fuss.  Just do it.

Do what, exactly? Could anyone from the Northern States who’s ‘good at snow’ give me a few tips here, please?

Ta awfully!

Anna x

From the Heart of… England: Tea time!

I probably shouldn’t write this on Jonathan’s own blog but, dear reader, I could not be more shocked at his behaviour in Britain.

How could he DO that?

Weren’t you feeling a little faint reading about it, too?

I really don’t know if I can write a column for this site anymore.  I’ve come over all unnecessary.

Yes.  He ate a flippin’ burger.  He ate pizza.  He bought a Mc-bloody-Donald’s!!!

Sigh.  Okay, you redeemed yourself (slightly) with the fish and chips and I know you’re a little…discriminating when it comes to tuck, Jonners old chap, but next time you visit the UK I really want YOU to let ME send an Ocado (grocery) order to your cottage, okay?  I want you to eat like a Brit.

So on your next visit, here’s a weekend menu for you…(if anything needs explaining to anyone, leave a comment and I’d be delighted to oblige).

Saturday:

Breakfast – Half a grapefruit, porridge, cup of assam tea with semi-skimmed milk.

Elevenses – Piece of tiffin and cup of milky coffee.

Lunch – find a pub and order a Stilton ploughman’s lunch with a pint of their best bitter (or scrumpy, if in Devon).  If, being the picky eater you are you feel convinced that the majestic Stilton cheese is not for you, then try a cheese and ham toastie with pickle (that’s Branston, not dill pickle).

Afternoon tea – Several cups of assam tea and a freshly baked Derby scone (or two) with raspberry preserve and clotted cream.

Supper – Steak & kidney pudding with runner beans, carrots and mashed potatoes (accompany this with a glass of stout), followed by rice pudding.

Sunday:

Breakfast – Orange juice, FEB (full English breakfast), toast and tangerine marmalade with a cup of Assam tea.

Elevenses – what, you really think you need anything but a coffee after that breakfast?!?!

Lunch – find a pub (newspapers and roaring log fire essential) and order a proper English roast lamb dinner followed by spotted dick and custard.  And order a different pint of beer today.

Afternoon tea – you’re kidding, right?  Did you not read lunch?  Have a cuppa.

Supper – Poached eggs on toasted, buttered, wholemeal English muffins.  Small slice of madeira cake.  Glass of port.

And if, after that little lot, you’re not feeling just a little more in tune with Blighty (and proud of yourself for downing so much ‘foreign’ food in two days) then “I’ll go to the foot of our stairs”  (Lisa will translate that one for you – it’s a Northern expression) and “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle” (ditto).

So there you have it.  Britain’s food, perhaps not entirely summed up in two days, but given a jolly good airing.

So what do you reckon, Jonners?  Up for a challenge next time?  Because the gauntlet is thrown…

From the Heart… of England: What’s in a name?

Hmmm…quite a lot, actually.

I’ve read loads of articles about ’silly’ English place names such as Lower Piddle, Pratt’s Bottom, Doddiscombsleigh, Wigtwizzle and the like.  I love them, but then I was taught to love them by my wonderful father who used to make up long poems about the places we drove through on our journey to the seaside each summer.  A man who would willingly make a five-mile detour just so he could add the line “then through Broughton Poggs, where the men bite dogs” to his rhyme.  Silly, silly, lovely poet of a Daddy.

But many English Place names are incredibly logical;  a fact that seems to have passed most of my American friends by.  So I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of some of them…

Stratford-upon-Avon – okay, an easy one to start with.  The river Avon flows through Stratford and the town of Stratford grew around it (or ‘upon’ it).

Brentford – A ford is a crossing-place in a river, and so Brentford is a shallow crossing place in the river Brent.  There are lots of place names ending in ford.  Usually the first bit refers to the name of the river the ford crosses, but occasionally it can refer to other things, such as Oxford, which is thought to refer to a ford where oxen used to cross the river – “Oxenford”.

Yarmouth – A mouth is where a river flows into the sea, so Yarmouth is the town where the river Yar flows into the sea and many other coastal towns share this nomenclature, for example Exmouth, Cockermouth and Bournemouth.

Hebden Bridge – This one is pretty straightforward; a settlement which grew around a bridge built over the River Hebden where packhorses used to cross.  Edenbridge is so-named for the same reason.  However, Cambridge is a little trickier!   The river Cam does indeed flow through Cambridge (and yes, there is a bridge).  But the river used to be called the Granta, so they actually renamed the river after the town this time!

Swindon – Anywhere called “something-don” will be on a hill, as the word “dun” in Anglo Saxon meant hill.  Swindon (pronounced Swindun) was Swines Hill, where pigs were kept.  Huntingdon was “Hunter’s Hill”.

Hunstanton – Places ending in “ton” or “by” were probably farms that grew over time into villages.  Hunstanton is Hunstan’s farm.  Colby was Koli’s farm.  There are a THOUSANDS of these!

Ousden – “den” was a valley, and Ousden was “Owl’s valley”.

There are so many origins of English words, that there is no straightforward guide, really, but I’ve tried to list a few that are common to help you see why English place names are…how they are.  So hopefully when you take a vacation in, say, Devon and you stay in Lynton or Lynmouth you’ll easily remember that Lynton is the village at the top of the hill and Lynmouth is the one down the hill where the river Lyn flows into the sea.  Easy-peasy.

And Broughton Poggs?  Originally Brocturn Pogeys, an “enclosure by the stream” belonging to the Pogeys family.

Just don’t ask me about Pratt’s Bottom, eh?

From the Heart… of England: Time for an English lesson

I have often travelled on work trips to the States and been asked how long I am staying.  Before I knew better, I used to answer “a fortnight”, which met with rather blank looks Stateside.  So let me explain a few of our quirkier notions of time in Blighty…

• A ‘fortnight’ is two weeks.  It’s short for a ‘fourteen-night’ and, believe it or not, we used to call a week a ’sennight’ for the same reason (seven-night).  ‘Sennight’ died a death centuries ago, but ‘fortnight’ is still very common indeed.
• We write (and say) dates differently.  Today, according to Brits, is 20/11/2009 (the twentieth of November two thousand and nine).  In America it’s 11/20/2009 (November twenty, two thousand nine).  You see, you are “middle endian” and we are “little endian” (although I believe the International standard for dates is “big endian” – yyyy/mm/dd so we’re both equally wrong there!).
• When asking the time in the UK, it’s normal to hear slang or shortened versions.  So if the time is half past six (which for some of you in the US is a “half after six”) you may be told it’s “half six”, or simply “half past”, as we tend to assume you at least know what hour it is!  And if you are in the South it will sound like “Arf parst” and if you are up North it will sound like “Aff Passt”.
• In the UK you’ll never hear that it’s “a quarter ’til four” or “five after nine”.  If it’s before the hour it’s always “to” and if it’s after the hour it’s always “past”.  And in the UK, phrases such as “top of the hour” or “bottom of the hour” are regarded as intensely cheesy and may elicit giggles!  Although we do use more modern expressions such as “four thirty-five”.
• Similarly, you’ll never hear us talk about a “half hour”.  It’s always “half an hour”.
• You arrange to have fun “on the weekend”, but we do stuff “at the weekend” or “over the weekend”.
• When arranging dates we may refer to “Thursday last” or “Thursday just gone” (last Thursday) or “a week Tuesday”  (a week from next Tuesday).
• You’ll also hear “in a mo” (momentarily), “half a sec” (please wait a moment), “for a bit” (for a little while), “for yonks” (for a long while) and “TTFN” (short for Ta Ta For Now which means “see you soon”).
• Confusingly, “laters” (which often sounds like “Lay Uz”) doesn’t necessarily mean you will see the person later; it often means “see you around”.

And just as a foot-note;  see the big clock in the piccie above?  We all call it Big Ben.  Even though we all know it’s not actually called Big Ben (that’s the name of the bell inside that tolls the hour).  The name of the clock itself is The Great Clock on the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament.  Catchy name, huh?

Yep.  now you see why we call it Big Ben.  Can’t be bothered with all that malarkey.  Haven’t got time!

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