A Lark Ascending

I bring a walkman and a couple of those CD carry cases which are light. It allowed me to take about 50 CDs when I flew to Spain a few weeks back so I was never stuck for music when I felt like it. I usually take my own car on jaunts to Europe. One of the joys is the long drives with favourite music playing along, especially where it relates to the place you are visiting. Italian jazz in Italy, Swedish folk music in Sweden, Whack-fol-the-diddle-o music in Ireland. Marvellous. Its nice to come home to the range of the full collection. But generally I'm too absorbed in the travelling to pine very much.

A pasty! Is that Australian? There used to be a place here, Noble Pies, that made world class pasties and fruit pies. AUSTRALIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have you never tasted a CORNISH pasty!!!!! Please read: http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/history/pasty.htm I will be setting questions later! Pasty shops are springing up all over the UK at present - three have appeared within thirty miles of me in the last three years! Only a matter of time before they drive out MacDonalds in the States! (Cornwall's the toe of England on the left hand side - like Wales, Scotland and Ireland it retained its Celtic character when the rest of Britain was overrun by Romans, Angles, Saxons etc. It has a very distinctive character - even had its own language until it died about 100 years back. My Dad comes from Cornwall, I lived there for 4 years and spent many a holiday there. So I'm a bit fond of it. You should have tasted my Auntie Roslyn's pasties!!!)

Here's another one of the great culinary treats of the world:

That's more or less it. Its a soft, spreadable cheese. Originally it came in little foil triangles that were as hard to get into as shrink wrapped CDs. You can buy it in tubs now. Much easier. Very popular with kids (of all ages!).

Not at all. I've always loathed dairy products - milk, cream, yoghurt, butter, the lot (touch me and my bones turn to powder!). But for some reason I've loved Dairylea since a kid. A cracker, a bit of Dairylea, a slice of tomato and a dash of pepper and salt. Mmmm! I realise Dairylea is the Kenny G of cheeses but there you go. Maybe that's why I can't get worked up about people buying Kenny G records! I 'taught myself' to like cheese whilst at university. I can take stilton every now and then. Prefer white stilton with strawberries in (the Stacey Kent of cheeses!!!).

Expect Rod Stewart to sue Kylie for plagiarism.

That sounds more like a Yorkshire Pudding! You can also buy them frozen ('Aunt Betty's'), pop them in the oven for a few minutes and pow....nice Yorkshire puds. The rest of your examples sound way too exotic to stand alongside Toad in the Hole! Toad in the Hole is eaten by gruff Yorkshire farmers after a day ditch digging or castrating bulls. Actually, given what toad in the hole looks like I don't want to follow that image any further...

Hmm! So do you all cover your bread with roast beef and gravy? Stranger by the minute. You can also buy Yorkshire Puddings the size of a plate with meat and gravy inside; or even a cumberland sausage! A meal in itself. Now a close relative of the YP is Toad-in-the-Hole. Same batter mix. Different arrangement with bangers in the middle. Is this a "dinner roll" too?

What's a dinner roll?

Oh, I agree with you. My day job has me reading all the time. When I get home I want something with a good tale. The only 'hard' stuff I read these days is history. I think I was just a bit surprised by the runaway success of the Brown. There are loads of writers writing relatively easy reads in a similar genre but with more style. I suppose I'm more drawn to thillers and detective fiction with flawed heroes. The 'Da Vinci Code' came across as a script for an American blockbuster movie - all shiny teethed, successful heroes and heroines. It can only be a matter of time. One thing puzzled me. When the bloke and the French woman suddenly flew to England and then escaped they made there way to the underground and caught the tube. Where did they get the English money to buy a ticket? They were in such a hurry I can't imagine they'd have stopped at a cash point machine. This has worried me for the last month!

Yikes! Sugar! Four sliced pieces of tree branch, three berries, a bay leaf and sugar?????? You Americans are weird! Don't you have Yorkshire Pudding?

I read the 'Da Vinci Code' on holiday and hated it. Undoubtedly a page turner but very formulaic in plot. The writing style had me wincing; and the way light bulbs came on in the characters heads at the end of each chapter had me raising my eyes to heaven! I can see the appeal - the whole Grail thing - but I've no desire to read anything else by Brown. This was all brought home when I followed it with Henning Mankell's 'The Fifth Woman'. I've been working my way through Mankell's books over the last year. Detective fiction but with 3D characters and a real feel for the anxieties in Swedish society at present. Light fiction undoubtedly but done with great style and subtlty.

You don't know how cool! Brrr!!!!!!!! It'd soon knock the smile of that girl in the swimsuit!

For the moment I'll go out and try...

The scene next week...

The scene ten days ago!

The scene in my, er, garden 5 minutes ago!

Avebury:

As a teacher I get the luxury of a nice six week break in the summer. This makes the return to work in September all the more hellish - the getting up. So one of my favourite things is the first Friday night at the end of the first week back. The moment your head hits the pillow and you know you don't have to get up at an unearthly hour the next day. Mmmm!

That was Boscastle down in Cornwall. We're lucky in the UK in that we rarely get natural disasters - flooding seems the most common if you live in the wrong place. There's real concern for this year's harvest. If the weather keeps up it will rot in the fields. Bad news for farmers. Compared with Bangla Desh however, our worries are insignificant! Sorry, this is the nice thread... Did someone say: "Raindrops on roses..."

They announced on the news this morning that we're heading for the wettest August since records began.

Come to England! It's been raining all summer! We're all building arks!

What about "The Lark Ascending"? The Dance Theater of Harlem does an exquisite classical dance piece to this music. I bought a St. Martin in the Fields CD of Williams' music that included this piece. Such a lovely song, honestly, it brings tears to my eyes to hear it. Yes, 'The Lark Ascending' is a glorious piece, a musical encapsulation of the English countryside. Another beauty is VWs 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' - lump in throat music! Actually early 20thC English classical music in general - VW, Delius, Holst, Bridge, Moeran, Bax, Butterworth and all the rest - makes me weak at the knees. George Butterworth's 'A Shropshire Lad' is another spinetingler, made more poignant by the knowledge that he died on the Somme in 1916 before his career had really started. His name is on the Thiepval Memorial near Albert. VWs Third Symphony is another stunner. He served in the ambulance corps in WWI. The symphony is called 'A Pastoral Symphony' but refers to the Western Front - there's a glorious passage where a bugle plays out over the orchestra, evoking a still moment in that dreadful war.

The apostrophe!!!!!!