…and so taken with it were we, that we all agreed it would be a suitable venue for this slightly larger gathering. Which it was.
But first the Punch Room, which had a really good early evening ambiance – good music but not too loud – other trendy people, but not too many and not too loud. Interesting cocktails list. Nice waiting staff.
“Cheers!“, says JanieA cheery smile from Jilly, who said that she hadn’t seen John & Mandy for some decades
Mandy also looks cheery, while John is seriously choosing cocktailsDid somebody say British Gas?
The waiter took a lot of pictures of us (see headline example). We realised that the gathering included two whites, a black and (in maiden name terms) a browning. I thought we should go for a sepia version of the group photo in recognition of this colour palette.
We all go back so many years…
Then a five or six minute stroll through Fitzrovia to the restaurant, Pahli Hill . When you book, they say that you cannot dictate where you would like to sit, but I requested downstairs, where we had previously enjoyed the ambiance before and they e-mailed back to say that they would be able to comply with that request as ours was an early evening booking. John has been back there himself upstairs since our previous visit and concurs that upstairs has less atmosphere to his taste, so I’m especially glad I did that.
No pictures of Janie in the restaurant, sadly, as she took the following photos, while the rest of us focussed on eating and drinking.
As with our previous visit to Pahli Hill, by the time we’d finished with small plates and grills, we had no space for big plates, although we did find space for desserts.
It was a really lovely evening. Great food and drink, but most importantly very enjoyable company.
The plan was for me, John, Janie and Mandy to meet up with Pady Jalali, the latter visiting from the USA, for an evening meal. John, Pady and I were three of the four Keele Students’ Union sabbaticals in 1984/85.
Pady Jalali when I last visited her in the USA…a few years ago
But plans sometimes go awry and Pady had to postpone her visit to England due to injury.
Still, Janie and I had gone to all of that trouble to research a suitable restaurant…
…and we very much enjoy getting together with John & Mandy anyway…
…so the evening went ahead.
What a great place Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai turns out to be. Great food, fabulous service and excellent ambiance. Just what we like.
Janie captures us preparing to insert crab into mangalore bunsJohn has a sneaky glug of wine while the rest of us admire the enormous dosaPontificating Nicaragua or discussing the bill? You, dear reader, may decide.
We took loads of photographs of one meal. I have more photos from this one meal than I have from the whole of my time at Keele. C’est la vie.
We hope Pady will be able to reschedule her visit in the not too distant future, which will give us an excuse/opportunity to do something like this again soon.
For several months prior, we had eagerly awaited our joint birthday celebration trip. We had long since abandoned the idea of having a party for the joint 60th, deciding instead to celebrate, as we have done several times before, as a group of four.
Prequel: Dinner With John At Dai Chi, Soho, 11 August 2022
Every great epic movie or three has at least one prequel these days. In any case, John and I felt that we are so out of practice with fine dining, we simply owed it to ourselves and to the girls to have a rehearsal in London earlier in the month.
That miso aubergine and gooseberry dish was to die for…or to Dai Chi for I should say.It was all so good
A very enjoyable evening indeed. Or, as we put it to the girls solemnly, “we had indeed done our boot camp training to prepare for the culinary trials to come later in the month”.
The First Afternoon & Evening At Whatley Manor, 24 August 2022
Whatley’s up, doc?
The girls had done a magnificent job of conspiring ahead of this trip. John and I knew that something…some things…were on their planning boards, but felt we owed it to them and to ourselves to just go with the flow.
As it turned out, the first “event” for me and John was a “surprise” visit to the spa, where we enjoyed a glass of wine in a hot tub prior to full body massages.
The hot tub had so many buttons and knobs it took us most of the half hour to work out how to operate the thing. Once we had sunk our glasses of wine and soaked in the tub for that much time, we were both a bit dazed and confused. John almost forgot his glasses and I almost forgot my flip-flops. Considering that neither of us had more than one or two incidentals about our person, that was a pretty high forgetfulness rate.
The massages were excellent (the place has a top notch spa) which got both of us into thoroughly relaxed mode.
But I was not so relaxed as simply to buy the idea that Whatley Manor is a 17th century building, as one of the receptionists had suggested. In fact the building is mostly 19th century and the “mock Tudor” extension is 20th century. Worse yet, the place was originally called Twatley Manor. Hats off to the marketing folk who thought that Whatley Manor would sell better as a name.
it’s a lovely manor, whatever it’s called and whenever it was built
John and I enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine after our massages while the girls were too polite to come and find us, but soon we were reunited and got ready for the “easy-peasy” Grey’s Brasserie meal we had arranged for the first night.
John went for steak & fat-frittesMandy & I both went for the pork. Mandy’s plate colour-co-ordinated with her rose wineJanie went for the duck – it was all delicious grub, oh yes it was
In honour of my mate Philip The Bold, Duke of Burgundy, we treated ourselves to a bottle of Domaine Faiveley Mercurey La Framboisière 2019 that first night and jolly gluggable it was too.
John had begged Mandy not to arrange cake and “happy birthday singing” in a public place – thank goodness – so Mandy & Janie had conspired to arrange cake and an opportunity for “happy birthday singing” in a private place – in the living room mezzanine of John & Mandy’s suite:
Did we ask for this?So symbolic – 60 illuminated by two candles
The cake was seriously yummy death by chocolate.
Day Two – During The Day, 25 August 2022
Blowing out my own candle
The chocolate cake desert had perhaps been overkill, as we had each been given a mini chocolate cake and candle which Janie and I enjoyed as a pre-breakfast treat the next morning.
Breakfast was of course excellent – we went full English that first morning – then we realised that the scheduled good weather for our trip was being interrupted by a couple of hours of drizzle and rain. I suggested that we defer our scheduled walk until that was over – about 12:30.
We walked from the hotel – across Easton Grey bridge (over the Avon) around to Foxley and then on to Malmesbury. I’ll let the photos tell the tale of this charming walk.
Easton Grey BridgeChecking the cricket score from Old Trafford, not weather or directionsThe local moofia came over to greet usThen the Foxley longhorns let us know what they thought tooFoxley ChurchJohn can see an excellent long cut back to the manor – Mandy and I talk him out of it.A brush with an emu at a farm just outside MalmesburyAlpaca and hen at the same farmOutskirts of MalmesburyThe Old Bell Hotel, Malmesbury, possibly the oldest in EnglandRefreshments in the Old BellThen a wander around Malmesbury Abbey
We wandered around the town, thought about walking home, then called for a cab when we realised that we wanted to be fit and awake for our big dinner tonight.
The Big Dinner At Whatley Manor, 25 August 2022
Drinks before dinner
We won’t talk about John’s “poking himself between the eyes” incident before he came down to dinner, because that would be unkind, especially as he didn’t even need to confess to it given that his specs covered the tiny gash. I tried the concussion test on John, which he failed, but we concluded that he’d fail it under any circumstances, so that was OK.
After drinks in the lounge, head chef Ricki Weston (above) invited us into the kitchen for our first few nibbles and a chat.
Is that all?John & I listening intently to the descriptions of the first two nibblesJanie wandered deeper into the kitchen with her camera-phone
Then we sat down at table for the rest of the nibbles and the main dishes. At this juncture, it was out with the camera phones big time. We weren’t going to eat the hell out of this feast – oh no – we were going to photograph the hell out of it.
We all staggered back to our rooms after a wonderful evening.
The Morning After And Home, 26 August 2022
We’d had a wonderful time. We were all suffering a little the next morning, having become unaccustomed to long evenings of eating and drinking.
We mostly went a bit lighter on breakfast, although John still went for bacon and black pudding, claiming it to be lighter than my cereal and yoghurt!
After breakfast and check out, we met up in the grounds and strolled around those before heading home.
OK, so birthdays are meaningless milestones of decay…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNVmJhsLU8
…but there’s nothing meaningless about enduring friendships. We’d had such a great time – it was so special to spend that much prime time celebrating the birthdays with close friends.
If you want to see all the pictures – trigger warning – there are more than 250 of them – the Flickr link here and below takes you to all of them:
Janie and I played tennis at 8:00, enabling us to get ready and set off in a leisurely style for the inaugural finals day of The Hundred tournament.
No difficulty finding suitable parking spaces ahead of the women’s final, both for Dumbo on a street nearby and for our backsides in the Warner Stand.
Ahead of taking our seats, we ran into Alfred & Sunita, tennis friends of ours from Boston Manor. They were invitees in the President’s Box, which made our Members and Friends privileges feel positively like slumming it.
Slumming it in The Warner Stand, with no Champagne Charlies behind us todayMy double-selfie skills are coming on…
Janie in particular got snap-happy during the warm ups.
Are the cricketers below practicing for cricket or Morris dancing, I wonder, on reviewing the pictures:
Morris Dancing…Or Possibly They Can Boogie.
Throughout the tournament (this was my fourth visit to Lord’s to see The Hundred) I had relished the opportunity to help choose the walk-on music for various players, despite the fact that most of the choices were between three songs I had not heard before by three artistes I’d not heard of before. In truth, I think the “join in the fun…you choose” appy stuff might be aimed at a demographic other than mine.
But I was delighted that the first “choice of three” I was offered on finals day, as Fran Wilson’s walk-on music, included two songs and three artistes I recognised:
Yes Sir, I Can Boogie – GBX Feat. Baccara
By Your Side – Calvin Harris Feat. Tom Grennan
One Kiss – Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa
I voted for the third of those choices, but the consensus narrowly went for the first choice – a song from 1977 which I recall finding old-fashioned even at that time. I recall my mum liking the Baccara record. Mum would be in her hundredth year this year, were she still alive. Perhaps she would have embraced this aspect of The Hundred.
Once the game got underway, Janie and I competed to get pictures of the pyrotechnics that went off whenever a boundary was scored…
…or “the occasional central heating” as I called it. It was a slightly chilly Saturday afternoon, such that we quite enjoyed the bursts of warmth. On hot days such bursts can be unbearable.
Never mind. There was loads more entertainment lined up.
The men’s teams warmed up while the musical entertainment kept the crowd happy
Jax Jones was the live musical entertainment on finals day. Another artiste I had heard of – I saw him interviewed on one of the TV music channels a few years ago and was impressed by his diverse, global musical influences. Not to mention his dapper choices in headgear.
But until the day, I didn’t realise that Jax Jones was the artiste behind The Hundred’s theme tune, Feels, until he performed it:
The number that really got the crowd (including me and Janie) going was You Don’t Know Me, with its utterly infectious beat:
By this stage of proceedings I was feeling far too cool for school, so it came as no surprise to me that I recognised one of the choices for Chris Benjamin’s walk-on music; Incredible by M.Beat Feat. General Levy. Janie was suitably impressed. I was delighted that my choice was the chosen one.
Even more impressive was my timing to snap the pre match fireworks at the men’s match – we’d both managed to get to the cameras a little late for the women’s fireworks:
With all the music and pyrotechnics, you might be wondering whether there was any cricket involved. Yes there was. I should confirm that we did watch cricket that day.
Unfortunately, matters took a bit of a turn for the worse towards the end of the match. The absence of Champagne Charlies behind us meant that, instead, we had a Beer-swilling Bernard instead, who managed to kick over one of his beers, soaking Janie’s bag. Yes, she had taken a washable jobbie with her (based on previous experience) but “Bernard’s Beer-stream” succeeded in soaking the bag and seeping through to some of the contents in a mood-affecting manner.
Then my mood took a turn for the worse too, as the DJ, perhaps transfixed by the entertaining cricket match, or possibly on a toilet break, simply forgot to play Incredible when Chris Benjamin came out to bat. I should write to the Chief Executive of the MCC about this one. Relaxing the dress code – fair enough. But the DJ forgetting to play the chosen walk-on music is a breach of Lord’s etiquette and should be suitably sanctioned.
Here, to make up for the disappointment, is that Incredible track:
In truth, by the time Chris Benjamin was walking to the crease (without his walk-on music) it was becoming extremely unlikely that Birmingham might rise Phoenix-like from the hole they were in by that stage to pull off an incredible win. Here is a link to the scorecard.
Janie and I therefore took our leave of Lord’s a few minutes before the end of the match, to avoid the crowds.
We’d had a great afternoon and evening. The razzamatazz does feel like an update or reset to the short format; that should make it more appealing to the young and young at heart.
John & Mandy In Noddyland, Sunday 22 August 2021
In this crazy pandemic era, time flies by. Could it really be more than a hundred weeks since we last saw John & Mandy?
No dinner out this time – just a blissfully long afternoon/early evening in Noddyland to celebrate the joint birthdays – a week early this time as it happens.
Janie did her humus and pita bread starter thing as garden nibbles ahead of the meal.
The weather had been teasing us (pretty much all summer in truth) but even on the day there was the occasional threat of showers, including one shower just before John & Mandy arrived. But the weather smiled on us for a couple of hours enabling us to sit in the garden, chat, drink and nibble.
The showers returned just as we were preparing to come inside anyway.
Janie’s signature baked Alaskan salmon dish was the main, followed by a boozy summer pudding.
It was really lovely to see John and Mandy again post-lockdown. We had lots to chat about and somehow Zooms and phone calls can’t quite do the same job, however much of a decent substitute for the real thing they might be.
It shouldn’t be another hundred weeks until the next time.
Janie and I had another big night out the next day; a double-birthday celebration with John and Mandy at Kitty Fisher’s.
Janie likes restaurants where you can see the kitchensNibbly starters
John and Mandy had enjoyed a day out in London ahead of our dinner, so were able to tell us about that and about the kids.
We don’t have to tell them any of our news, obviously, because it is all there to be seen on Ogblog. Yet still we did tell them our news too.
Meaty main courses and crispy potatoes that aren’t chips, apparently
The food was excellent, the service lively and unpretentious. We really liked this place.
On learning that it was a double birthday, the restaurant managed a mercifully low key way of helping us to celebrate:
John and Mandy very kindly bought me a small gift while enjoying their day out earlier in the day – we don’t normally do presents – requesting photographs of the celebratory footwear.
We’d all really enjoyed our evening, as evidenced (if evidence were needed) by the exchange of messages the next day.
Meanwhile, Janie and I took great pleasure in taking and posing (respectively) for those photos early the next morning:
“Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…”“Sock Long Marianne…”
In many ways this evening had been long in the planning. Janie and I spotted Mere as a suitable place to dine with John & Mandy last summer, but in the end we opted for Dinner In Noddyland:
So good was it, that John and I decided that we “owed it to the girls” to all four have a meal there once the opportunity arose. Now was that opportunity.
We met ahead of our booking time to have a drink in the lovely bar. Janie and I got there first and I ordered a bottle of the excellent Sancerre that John and I had tried at Mere the first time around.
We also discussed many other things, not least John and Mandy’s other daughter, Bella, who looks set to go to Manchester to study – does Bella not know about the inclement weather in Manchester?
We all decided we wanted to try the tasting menu; so we did. Three of us (all bar Mandy) also went for the wine pairings.
John And Mandy taking it all in, as the sommelier explains the first of the wine pairingsHere’s all the stuff we tasted, in words.
Janie took the pictures, which explains why she appears in none of them. Take my word for it, Janie was also listening attentively, smiling a lot and enjoying the tastes, smells and the chat.
Leeks & TruffleAttentive listeningCornish CodWas I describing Hitler’s cohones at this juncture? Something like that.ScallopMandy sniffs the interesting Youngblood Grenache served with the scallopRose VealWe really do look like a couple of pseudo-connoisseurs in this pictureWhite Port to go with the cheeseCheese (mine mercifully without the candied walnut)Am I unconvinced by the final wine or just running out of steam?Apple Chocoholics delight
This Ogblog piece makes it look as though we did an awful lot of eating and drinking, which we did. But the portion sizes were such that we did not feel stuffed or sloshed at the end of the meal, just very happy.
We all four know how lucky we are to be able to eat in a place as good as Mere and to be able to enjoy the company of such good friends. It was a truly memorable and wonderful evening.
Or, to summarise in one word using John’s favourite adjective back in the mid 1980s:
In fact, Janie and I were talking through a few ideas during the spring, but events intervened somewhat. John’s mum has been in hospital since April – indeed John had to cancel one of our midweek dinners because of that crisis – so Janie wondered whether they would prefer simply to come to Noddyland for dinner this time; making timings (and even the possibility of a last minute need to cancel) less of a stress.
John and Mandy jumped at the idea.
We reckoned that these two had not tasted Janie’s signature fillet of beef with wasabi mayonnaise, so we opted for that. My job…
…apart from making sure during the event that the beef is cooked to near perfect timing such that lovers of rare and well cooked beef alike get their wishes…
…was simply to get to the Ealing-ish part of town early enough to procure/collect the ordered joint of beef and then get to Noddyland in good time. Normally no problem on a Friday but one or two work matters tried hard to slow my departure from Cityland that afternoon.
But I managed to break free and get to Hook & Cleaver in reasonable time, where Jack sorted me out good & proper with a choice cut.
You don’t mess with these Hook & Cleaver Guys
The weather was set glorious, as it had been for several weeks, which made the dinner at Noddyland idea all the more suitable. We were able to spend most of the evening out of doors, retiring to the dining room only for the main course – which really was a magnificent joint of beef – and afters. The dessert comprised summer berries with some papaya mixed in, the health benefits of which John expounded upon with glee.
The earlier part of the evening was not only blessed with exceptionally good weather, but also with delicious breaded prawn tempura from Atari-Ya up the road together with some tasty wines. No-one was drinking all that much – John & Mandy needed to drive home that night in the circumstances and in any event on a hot evening quality rather than quantity was the order of the day.
It was a lovely opportunity simply to catch up with good friends, relax for an evening and enjoy good food and wine together in the homeliest of home environments. We can do something trendy and/or exciting up town next time…if we so choose.
There was a time when John White and I (together with Mandy and Janie) would celebrate our birthdays together quite regularly. I am was born 28 August and John was born a day later, 29 August.
This age difference (of one day) entitles me to describe John as “young John” and say things like, “when you get to my age, John…”
Anyway, this year the stars aligned well for us to celebrate the birthdays together for the first time in years.
On arrival, we have a drink and a stroll around the garden
Janie asked us to look animated – there are several attempts at this one
Then we sat down to these starters
Three of us went for this excellent Ligurian fish stew
While Mandy went for the contrarian confit of duck
I couldn’t get the Snap to flash in fading light…
…so Janie let me use her smart phone instead!
The birthday boys…
…with illuminated death by chocolate birthday desserts
After dinner, back to Noddyland for a baritone ukulele recital and some more chat before bedtime.
We also had a rare opportunity to chat some more in the morning before John and Mandy set off on their way. It had been a really enjoyable get together – let’s hope we can do something along these lines again quite soon.
A generous gift of flowers and chocolates arrived before the end of the week.
We had so much fun last time John and Mandy came over with John’s cajón, we thought we must do it again this time. Between-times, I procured (at enormous expense) a tambourine and a pair of maracas, which I thought might work better than the spoons and ashtray percussion the girls provided last time.
I also had an exchange of correspondence with John, asking him to make some song choices for me to prepare.
Any Leonard. Ruby Tuesday by Melanie. Going to a go go by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles…
…John replied.
I especially liked that final idea. Very easy chords for me, too. Ruby Tuesday’s a bit slow for percussion, as is most Leonard (Cohen, John means). For some reason, I thought we might be able to speed up Sisters Of Mercy with its waltz rhythm. I also recalled that John knows all the words to Suzanne, so mugged up on that one too.
I prepared a few others, not least Give Peace a Chance, which Janie and I had seen at the Revolution Exhibition the previous week and which I had twigged was simple and very percussive. That worked very well.
As it turned out, Janie decided after a couple of the slower ones, to put on the 60s Tropical/Latin/Jazz set from the party for us to accompany, so for a while I had to try to work out keys, chords, words and rhythms without preparation and at speed. I didn’t do well at that, but it didn’t really matter; those lively tunes certainly suited the percussion instruments and at times I simply used Benjy the Baritone Ukulele as a percussion instrument myself.
Soon we realised that this music making was quite a workout; indeed John and Mandy jokingly complained that they were all dressed up for the evening but now wanted to shower and change.
But they didn’t do that; instead we all went off in John’s motor to Kensington, towards Babylon at the Roof Gardens. Bit risky booking that place in mid September, as a great deal of the charm was the idea of pre dinner drinks and post dinner digestifs on the balcony/terrace overlooking that beautiful garden. But we needn’t have worried, because the autumn weather smiled on us wonderfully that night.
On the balcony/terrace
Strangely, despite the gloriously mild evening and the fairly heaving place, not so many people chose to use the balcony/terrace, so we were able to chat and enjoy the atmosphere and the stunning view in relative peace. The restaurant itself was quite noisy. The food was good without being in any way exceptional. The staff were friendly and attentive; much better than most such gastrodome-type places.
On the balcony/terrace, this photo courtesy of the nice waitress
We didn’t stay on too late; John and Mandy needed to get back to Saffron Walden, otherwise we might have all tried the club. But I’m pretty sure that club wouldn’t have been our scene. Bring back the old Town and Country.
In short, we had a great time – what else is there to say? We always enjoy spending time with John and Mandy; we’re already looking forward to doing so again.
Janie and I arranged to see John and Mandy in their home town of Saffron Walden. They were keen to show off their new Saffron Hall. Luckily, we were able to find a suitable Sunday for all of us, with an appealing afternoon concert scheduled that day.
Saffron Hall Addendum
Janie and I played tennis in the morning at 9:00; an hour earlier than our usual Sunday slot. I was hoping to get away at 12:00/12:15, which didn’t seem too ambitious in those circumstances. Anyway, we set off just after 12:30 hoping the traffic wouldn’t be too bad. It wasn’t.
We checked in to The Cross Keys, where I had booked a luxury room. We parked Dumbo a bit awkwardly on arrival, as a large group of cyclists/diners had taken up one of the few proper parking spaces. When John & Mandy arrived, I managed to persuade one of the group to help me by moving the bikes a little so I could park properly, which she kindly did.
We were warned on arrival that Alice Coote, the intended soloist singer, was ill, so had kindly been replaced at short notice by Ruby Hughes. I think we have heard Alice Coote at the Wigmore Hall more than once; her CV is hugely impressive and her voice superb.
I looked at the addendum piece of paper (see above), half expecting it to say that Ruby Hughes is one of the better singers in the lower sixth, who has almost managed to get through Dido’s Lament without pausing for breath or singing too many wrong notes…
…but actually Ruby Hughes also has a most impressive CV and her voice was also superb. There was a small change to the programme, so we got the pieces shown on the scanned piece of paper above; similar to the original programme really.
It was a bit of a Wigmore Hall outreach gig, as Mahan Esfahani played the harpsichord in the Bach Keyboard Concerto (probably our highlight) and directed the Britten Phaedra (probably our lowlight). Janie and I are seeing one of Esfahani’s recitals at The Wig next month.
We also got two encores:
an orchestral version of a Bartok Romanian Dance
a version of a Chinese Fishing Song, orchestrated by someone who works in the Britten Sinfonia office, apparently.
The Britten Sinfonia had just returned from touring China. Slightly ironic, as John and Mandy were hoping to hear from Yining (their informal protectee) who is currently in Hong Kong trying to get back to Europe from China.
After the concert, we went on to The Tickell Arms for a really pleasant early dinner. Really good food and an interesting Languedoc-based wine list. A great opportunity to have a proper catch up and chat. Highlights were a pea and rocket soup and a superb roast pork dish. Mandy started with scallops and had room for some cheese as well; good for her. John was supposed to be on an alcohol holiday but the smell of the beer in The Tickell soon tempted him to break his fast.
After dinner, we showed John and Mandy our super room at the Cross Keys, then parted company reasonably early (perhaps 21:00 or so). I played Benjy the baritone ukulele briefly and then put on some 60s music, at which point Janie and I both fell asleep. I woke up at gone midnight to realise, to my horror, that the rather loud music was still playing. Just as well that luxury room of ours is quite isolated from the other rooms.
Monday morning, we had a superb breakfast at the Cross Keys and then, following John and Mandy’s advice, took a stroll around the stunning Bridge End Garden to walk off our breakfast. We even succeeded in entering and escaping the maze. What a pair of troopers. We won’t mention that the maze isn’t at all difficult, nor that we had to ask a couple of gardeners the way to find the maze in the first place. I admitted to one of those gardeners that needing directions to the maze is not an ideal qualification for a budding maze explorer. He replied, with a smile that “where is the maze?” is the most frequently asked question in the garden.
Enough excitement for one day – we headed back to London and spent the rest of the day picking up some items we need and sorting out some things that only seem to get sorted when you have a day off.
