FROM NORTH TO SOUTH

Day 1 Tuesday 5th November 

Sometimes, you go away for a holiday, but sometimes you go away to see family. It was the latter this November and it was a fine wee break to go and visit Bob's aunt and cousins.

Cousin Marilyn picked us up at a dull and grey Heathrow after an uneventful flight down from a bright and sunny Inverness. She had to pay a visit to some dolly birds at a farm shop café. Now, who am I to turn down a visit to a farm shop? We were out the car as quick as you like and I might even be smiling!

As far as farm shops go, this was right up there. Some very nice stuff and lots of interesting little titbits. Lots of fresh local meat.

Some of the meat was also in the pies!

There are also some oddities - I've never heard of Yorkshire pasta! Tea, yes, but pasta, no.

As you might expect in the Windsor area, some of the prices are a bit rich. If you are willing to pay nearly 20 quid for a Christmas Pudding, you would expect to find a few sixpences in your bowl once you had eaten the last crumb!

Needless to say, we didn't buy a pud especially as Sharon had already made one. However, if we had a bit more space in the hand luggage, we might have bought some other goodies.

Once Marylin had done her business, we set off for her house where we arrived almost at the same time as Lorraine, Roger and Aunt Mary. After a good chat with everyone, we had a lovely meal, the highlight of which was this truly magnificent Lemon Meringue pie.

We caught up a bit more after dinner, and then we had to get Mary home and head on to Lorraine and Roger's home, where we were staying for our break.

A good start to our first day in the deep south and it was great to see everyone again and dinner was a joy.

Day 2 Wednesday 6th November

As I had hoped, there was an equal emphasis on family and food. Today we were off to meet up with Marylin and Mary at one of Mary's favourite restaurants for lunch. Once we found somewhere to park, we walked down to The Vanilla Pod in Marlow. I can see why this would be the sort of place you would go back to again and again. I certainly would.

Marlow is a bit of a foodie mecca. There are restaurants by chef's like Tom Kerridge and Atul Kochhar. Notwithstanding these famous names, The Vanilla Pod sits at number 3 on TripAdvisor!

We were given some very nice bread rolls and butter. The rolls were flavoured with olives, sun dried tomato and mushroom and onion as well as some plain ones.

Next up was a little amuse bouche of a cup of delightful celeriac soup. It was really intense and as smooth as you could wish for.

My starter was Loch Duart salmon on creamed leeks. Another delight and nice to see salmon from the north west Highlands making it all the way down to the deep south, almost mirroring our own journey.

I carried on with the fish theme and had roasted cod with vanilla coco beans. I did enjoy this, but the slices of King Oyster mushroom were a bit chewy in texture for me. The vanilla in the sauce was good with the cod. I could not find out anything about coco beans but, on the plate they looked just like cannellini beans. I was not alone with the cod and those that had it enjoyed it.

Sharon and Marylin had the Beef fillet with Potato mousseline and buttered cabbage. They professed themselves very happy with their choice.

There was a rice pudding with chocolate on the menu and Lorraine had that.

There was also an Apple Tart Tatin with white chocolate. A few of us had that. I'm not sure if everyone burnt the roof of their mouth, but I did! That didn't stop me enjoying it, though.

The meal finished with some quite indulgent little chocolate truffles.

I have to say that this was a very good lunch and at £20 for 2 courses or £25 for 3, it was amazing value for money, certainly compared with Inverness. I assume this is to do with the competition for diners in Marlow, which has a huge number of eateries in the town centre.

Marlow also has a huge range of independent shops lining the streets. It is always nice to go somewhere with different shops and, had we taken bigger cases, we might well have bought stuff to take home. Instead we went for a pleasant walk down toward the River Thames. I have to say, it was a bit of a struggle getting out of the Charles Tyrwhitt shop!

The railings along the side of Higginson Park were covered in thousands of crocheted poppies, to mark Remembrance Day. The park has been open to the public since 1926, although it was a garden associated with the Court Garden mansion house, which sits in the park and was built in 1758. The house was designed and built by a Dr Battie. He was a very eccentric man. He failed to become a lawyer, and instead turned his talents to medicine, specialising in mental health. He is thought to have been the inspiration for the term going batty. The three storey house was built to his specifications, but he apparently forgot to include any stairs within the design!

The house and garden came up for sale in the 1920's and fearful of the site being developed for housing, the residents launched an appeal to buy the site for the community. The appeal was lead by Sir George Wentworth Alexander Higginson who was born in Marlow and went on to become something of a hero in the Crimean War. The site was handed over to the community to celebrate his 100th birthday in 1926. He died before he reached 101.

The walk down the street here is dominated by the spire of All Saints Church. There has been a church in Marlow since at least 1070, but this church is Victorian. It was built on the site of an earlier church, but the spire of that one collapsed in 1831. The church was then demolished and the present one built to replace it. The spire is 170 feet high and dominates the view here.

Just past the church is the Marlow Bridge. It was built in 1832, although there may have been a bridge here from 1309 forward. The bridge was refurbished in 1860 and these metal plates were put on the ends of the timbers at that time. The swan represents the Thames and Sigil de Desbro really means the seal of Desbro, which is short for Desborough. Desborough was one of three Chiltern Hundreds. A hundred was a traditional division of an English county. Marlow sits within the hundred of Desborough.

Taking the Chiltern Hundreds is a devise used when an MP intends to resign. They are not actually permitted to do that, instead they are appointed to a Crown office - in this case the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds. appointment to the office requires the MP to vacate his or her position.

It is a handsome bridge, but too narrow for Roger to drive across, apparently.

Near the bridge, on the opposite bank of the river, is the Marlow Rowing Club and there were a lot of people practising on the river.

The most famous member of the club is Sir Steve Redgrave who went on to become the most successful UK rowing Olympian.

There were plenty of birds on the water, perhaps most aptly, this Mute Swan.

We walked back through the park passing by this fine Sycamore with a banket of leaves under its boughs. The tree does have a fine form, but the interesting thing is the blanket of leaves, They haven't been blown about because there has been no wind hereabouts for some considerable time, This part of England has been cloaked in low cloud and mist with no wind, hence the leaves haven't moved from where they fell.

Leaving the park, we spotted this sign. There are a lot of Red Kites around and they clearly like a ham sandwich or two. A bit different from the usual seagulls, I guess.

After our meander round Marlow, we headed back to Lorraine and Roger's for a quiet evening and a nice picky tea.

Day 3 Thursday 7th November

Another dull day, weatherwise, but not dull in any other respect. We were having a leisurely start to the day, when Sharon suddenly had to pull on some clothes and run downstairs to rescue the bread and croissants that had been delivered earlier in the morning! The local Magpies (not the Red Kites) had decided our breakfast was much tastier than whatever it is that Magpies normally eat.

They had partially eaten the seeded sourdough and almost demolished one of the croissants - Lorraine's as it turned out.

After our lovely breakfast we were driven through to Alresford, where we were going to have a wander and look about. Why Alresford, you might ask? Well, it is the watercress capital of Britain, if not the world. What more do you need to know?

There are actually two Alresfords - an Old one and a New one. We were going to New Alresford. The old one is much smaller and, obviously, longer established, being first mentioned in a charter of 710. New Alresford dates from 1189. It was the idea of Henri de Blois, the Bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen of England. The design was largely implemented by Godfrey de Lucy, the next Bishop.

Alresford, was not, however, a terribly lucky place to live. It used to have two MPs, but the Black Death so reduced the population in 1348, so that fell to one. Then throughout the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, the town was afflicted by large scale fires. The upside to that was that the town was rebuilt in the Georgian style, much of which still survives.

It may not have been the luckiest place to be, but it was clearly good for salads, being the watercress capital. That provided much needed traffic for the railway line, which became known as the Watercress Line. It was at the railway station that we started our walkabout.

There was even a suitably green set of carriages at the station, although the trains were not running whilst we were there.

The station itself is quite a handsome building despite the later, less attractive extensions.

We were following the Alresford Millennium Trail, which took us to St John's churchyard. I was immediately struck by the closeness of the headstones in some parts of the graveyard. I searched for an explanation to no avail and can only assume this was to save space. This may be the case, as the same thing apparently happens elsewhere, but it was not the reason throughout this site and I had never seen it before.

It really was quite notable.

Just outside the church building was a set of headstones commemorating French Napoleonic prisoners of war. There was a prisoner of war camp nearby and some officers were allowed to live in Alresford along with their wives. They were only permitted to walk one mile in each direction along a toll road, so their freedom was pretty limited. A curfew bell was rung for them up until the outbreak of the First World War. Given the Napoleonic Wars ended well before that, I think a curfew bell was a tad superfluous.

The church itself, is mainly Victorian, having been almost rebuilt in 1898, although bits of it are much older. The tower is 14th Century, except for the red brick upper part which is 17th Century. The red poppies are crocheted for Remembrance Sunday.

Above the main entrance is a small stone sculpture of Christ on the cross, thought to be of Saxon age.

Inside there are some very nice stained glass windows.

A view of the church from the north

There is a market in Alresford every Thursday, but by the time we were there some of the stalls had left. There was one full of delicious looking cakes, but we didn't buy any! 

Sharon did sample some of the runniest and stinkiest Gorgonzola I think I've ever seen.

The market is in Broad Street, which is flanked by some fine Georgian houses. Given their age some are showing a bit of subsidence in the roof line, but, if you ask me, that only adds to their charm, as does the variety of colouring of the walls.

Even the garages are thatched!

Roger clearly liked the houses so much he could not supress a little jig in the street.

This unprepossessing house has a plaque. I like a plaque, so went to read it.

I even took a photo, which turned out to be a bit blurry. It said that the house was the headquarters of a US army regiment during the Second World War, just before the D-Day landings took place in 1944.

These timber framed houses are thought to be the oldest on the village and they date from the 14th Century.

You can see something attached to the wall of the house, just below the timber at the upper level. This was a Fire Insurance plaque to show that the building was insured and that the Insurance Company's fire brigade would put out any fire in the building. They would also put out fires affecting other companies buildings for a fee to be settled later. In truth, they would even save uninsured properties on the basis that they might spread to their insured property.

Here are all 4 of us at the Lych Gate. I look a bit astonished to be there, but then I know what a Lych Gate actually is and, happily, I don't think this is one, really.

Lych Gates are sometimes known as corpse gates or resurrection gates. Traditionally, they are used to shelter coffins from the rain until the clergy would arrive to bury the deceased.

Next stop was down behind the Globe pub to look at the pond built by Godfrey de Lucy (remember him?). He built the pond to provide water power downstream and he lived on the other side of the pond and commuted by boat. I made that last bit up, but he did live on the other side of the pond. It is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

There is an interpretive board beside the pond. It doesn't tell you about the Scientific Interest. What it does tell you is that a Flying Fortress, damaged in combat in 1943, was crash landed near the pond. The American pilot crash landed the aircraft in such a way as to avoid any casualties on the ground and, remarkably, the payload of ten 500lb bombs did not explode on impact, so the pilot escaped death. He had already ordered the crew to bail out when it looked lie the wing was about to fall off the aircraft.

The plane was nicknamed Lady Luck - and that was before this incident!

A little further on, we came across the house where the household pets could read!

We left the Millennium Trail and, instead, joined the Arle Valley Trail, which essentially followed the River Arle.

We soon came upon a dog's grave. It was Hambone Jr, who lived with the US army soldiers, headquartered in the house we had seen in earlier in Broad Street.

We soon started walking alongside a chalk stream, the River Alre.

Chalk streams are known for the clarity of the water. This is because the water percolates up from aquifers through layers of chalk. In the past, these streams were very pure as they did not suffer from pollutions in the same way as other water sources. Chalk streams are famous for their trout, and we saw a number of these resting in the steady flow of water.

This is The Fulling Mill. Fulling mills were used to clean spun wool, using good clean water and Fuller's Earth - a type of clay. The water here drove hammers to stretch and compress the homespun woollen cloth. Eventually, steam power displaced this method and the craft died out. The last fuller to live here died in 1846.

It is a very photogenic place.

The clear, clean water used for fulling was also ideal for growing watercress. Originally, this was something of a cottage industry, but bigger growers got involved and the industry became very large, serving London and giving rise to the Watercress train line. The river today is lined with concrete sides to prevent run off polluting the stream. The water quality is critical to the industry. It is very clean and it flows at a constant temperature of 10 degrees, keeping the cress frost free.

There were a few ducks about - clearly they get fed a lot!

Lorraine had brought some food and Roger and Sharon couldn't resist handing it out.

Word soon got out among the duck population that there was free food on offer! There were hundreds of them. It was just amazing.

A little further on was the Eel House. This dates from at least the mid-nineteenth century. It sits astride the river and has sluices beneath. Eels were a source of cheap protein. On moonless autumn nights, eels would begin their migration to the Saragossa Sea to breed. The river keeper would open the sluices below the house and the eels would be caught in traps below. These would be sold, live, to Billingsgate fish merchants. The Watercress Line improved the speed of getting the eels to market. The eel house was working beyond the 1950's, but eels became much less numerous and most eels in Europe have come close to extinction and so the industry collapsed.

Apparently, Lorraine just loves mysterious gates like this, so here it is!

We soon left the river behind and climbed away from the ducks, trout and eels towards a vineyard. I did try and find out about it, but to no avail. You would expect to find out something and that's not just a case of sour grapes.

We went downhill towards the river and the associated water meadows. The American military based here carried out significant training and manoeuvres in the water meadows, often crossing the river in armoured vehicles. These exercises were designed to prepare them for the D-Day landings in 1944. 

It is all a bit tranquil now.

We were no heading back to the centre of the village along what is said to be one of the most attractive entrance roads to a village in England. I'm not sure about that, but it was very attractive in the autumn leaves.

Despite the lure of some very nice shops, we made it to Josie's, back near the train station and car park. There we had a very pleasant late lunch. It was almost as good as the breakfast the the magpies had.

I neglected to take any photos, probably through nearly fainting due to hunger.

I did, however, remember to take a photo of the cauliflower and almond soup that Lorraine made for our dinner back at Alton. There were other courses - lamb casserole and a fruit tart, but I was too busy eating to take photos.

We spent the remains of an excellent day watching TV with a glass of wine.

Day 4 Friday 8th November.

Our last day in the deep south. No wanders round pretty villages today - although Sharon had a wee wander round the garden with Lorraine.

In reality, today was all about the lunch! We were to meet up with Toodles and Marilyn at The Bluebells restaurant in Ascot.

We all arrived at the same time and were shown to a very good table.

The warm bread and Sun dried tomato butter that arrived was very good and augured well for the rest of the meal.

I started with a guinea fowl and rabbit terrine, celeriac remoulade and a smoked garlic emulsion. Fantastic. You don't get enough rabbit on menus if you ask me.

 

Sharon had a wild mushroom and parsley tartlet, tarragon cream and toasted pine nuts. She said it was wonderful and I can agree, as I got a little bit to taste.

Marilyn had the beetroot cured gravadlax, yoghurt, baby beetroot and dill blinis. Marilyn loved this and I have to say it was nice not to see a bright red beetroot bleeding all over the plate!

I think we had most of the mains on the card, so here they are in no particular order.

Roger had spiced monkfish loin, turmeric potato rosti, mango, buttered spinach and a tamarind sauce. He certainly cleared his plate.

Lorraine and I had the black treacle glazed beef shin, sauteed mushrooms, horseradish croquette and broccoli, which was a triumph of tenderness.

Toodles and Sharon had the black pepper encrusted Cherry Orchard pork fillet with pomme puree, savoy cabbage, roasted salsify and a cider jus. Another triumph.

Marilyn had the pan fried sea bream on squid ink linguine with sea aster, anchovies, salsa verde and a light tahini dressing. She said it was exceptional.

I got a row for having pear, golden raisin and oat crumble with a liquorice ice cream. To be honest it was well worth the opprobrium.

Lorraine had a dark rum and coconut cheesecake, coconut meringues, passion fruit and a coconut and lime sorbet, which she was delighted with. 

Toodles had the same pudding as Lorraine, but without the cheesecake, which she would not have managed. They made a really nice plate for her, which was good to see.

Here we all are.

This was a really fitting end to a lovely few days. We had a great time and it was wonderful to see everyone together. Despite a combined age of about 450, we managed pretty well. 

We shall have to do it again before too long.