Old People Eating

It is the August Bank Holiday weekend and the weather is being kind. The family are slowly assembling for some time together, albeit in shifts, so it will good for us all to be under one roof for at least one night. Day one featured a father & son round of golf, in which the younger generation triumphed (again) after which we visited The Meating Room in Berkhamsted. This is a burger restaurant that offers a takeaway or delivery service but, on this occasion we decided to try the full eat-in service. We booked, but even on the Bank Holiday Saturday at 8pm it wasn't very busy. As expected the menu consisted mostly of burgers with a range of extras and side dishes. We chose two St.Peter burgers, which were cheese burgers with a selection of cheddar and salad and one Meating Room, he house special. This was much the same but added BBQ chilli sauce, smoked cheddar and turkey bacon. We also added a side order of grilled halloumi. Burgers are accompanied by rosemary and se...

Sometimes, Old People eat at home but fancy something of a treat. This was one of those occasions prompted by a local neighbour, also a long-standing and very good friend, who suggested that a beer or two and a curry might be a good idea. Not wanting to drive anywhere to achieve this we decided to visit The Greyhound in Wigginton for phase one and have food delivered for phase two. Pheriwala is a recent addition to the list of Tring's food outlets. It sits on a site previously occupied by a traditional Indian restaurant named Jubraj. The food there was good, if not stunning, and the old stair carpet that led to the first floor dining room would have had many tales to tell, if only it could have spoken, mostly about the variety of the dishes available as it looked like it had sampled many of them. At this point, Pheriwala offers only delivery or collection options, with no in-house dining. I am told that ordering on-site is done at the door so there is no stair carpet necessary. We ...

  We were up early this morning to deliver one daughter and partner to Heathrow T2 in time for their next holiday on the other side of what used to be called 'the pond', back in the days when it sounded cool. Pleased with our successful execution of the delivery we felt we deserved a treat and so made our second visit to Culture Bakery in Tring. The bakery was opened earlier in 2022 by Will, the young man who two years ago taught one of us how to make sourdough bread, and it is a great improvement from the Tring Motorist Centre that previously occupied the site. Not that there was anything wrong with the motorist centre, but from a food perspective it has been a big step up. Good, fair priced coffee and truly excellent Vienoisserie, as I have learned to call pastries. Their bread, still baked at P.E.Mead farm shop in Wilstone is available there and at other locations locally, and can be highly recommended. If you need a coffee and a bit to eat then look no further.

As we are living in our third age a visit to a West End theatre is most likely to be for the matinee performance, as it was today. This has many benefits, for example, the inbound train is not only cheaper but less commuter-filled and better value. Conversely, for the occasional travellers the station car park is hideously expensive (£8.50 for the day is steep for those of us without much in the way of earned income) even if it has plentiful vacant spaces, something that was not the case in my own decades of commuting. Another benefit is that it encourages us to 'make a day of it' and fit in additional cultural experiences. Today we began with a trip to the British Library where an exhibition entitled 'Breaking the News' illustrated how news has been gathered, edited and distributed over the last 500 or so years, and whether it can be trusted. Very interesting. Then followed the matinee performance of To Kill a Mockingbird, which deserved the standing ovatio...

  As we had some good friends staying with us for a short visit, we spent the day visiting first the windmill at Pitstone and then Ascott, both owned and maintained by National Trust. The Trust describes the mill as 'a rare and striking example of an early form of post mill'. It is set on arable land near to the pretty village of Ivinghoe and can be viewed against a backdrop of that village's eponymous Beacon, the hill marking the eastern end of the Ridgeway long-distance path which is one of England's oldest extant highways. It is a lovely icon of historic England. Whilst charming, the mill was not our principal destination for the day as we moved on to Ascott, near to the Buckinghamshire village of Wing. The house there dated from 1606 as a farm house, but had been developed over the centuries by one branch of the Rothschild family who still have use of the estate as required. Set in beautiful grounds, it holds a varied collection of paintings, furniture and porcelain...