St. Partick's Day

This is the first year since 1940 that St. Patrick's Day didn't fall on the 17th. Why? Because Easter is so early this year the Pope didn't want everyone getting drunk during Holy Week so the moved it back to Saturday.- you can't make this stuff up! The only problem, they forgot to tell anyone. I was in Dublin a the week prior and no one seemed to know the date had moved. I am pretty sure they wouldn't have changed their long weekend plans much even if they did know :-).

We celebrated on the 17th (we found out the change in date too late too) with our friends John and Sarah (and Hank) by having them over for an Irish dinner.

The Menu:

• Black Velvets (Guinness and champagne - Greg's peanut butter in my chocolate, two great tastiest that are better enjoyed separately in my opinion)


• Selection of Irish cheeses from La Fromagerie (served American style - before dinner)


• Soda Bread (Cooks Illustrated recipe - very easy for bread)
  
• Lamb Stew (Greg tackled this with the Cook's Illustrated recipe and it was really, delicious)
  
• Green salad (Nothing fancy, but needed to get a bit of veg in there)


• Chocolate Guinness Cake (Nigella Lawson recipe)
  

It was all really good if we do say so ourselves - I think this menu will become an annual tradition. This photo doesn't really do it justice - the orange carrots and the parsley really don't pop the way the did in real life. Our lamb came from our favorite butcher, Allen's in Mayfair and was delicious.

It was a fun night even if it wasn't really St. Patrick's Day!

Scotland Golf Days 0 and 1

Here it is. The blog entry everyone has been waiting for. More than six hundred words on Scotland golf – and this is just the first entry in a series. I would have gotten this done earlier, but work has been really busy.

I think this all got started when I mentioned that my biggest potential regret about living in London would be to move back to the U.S. without playing golf at St. Andrews. Tiff filed that tidbit away and got me a round of golf at the Old Course for my birthday. I became even more inspired in January when I was reading a book about Bandon Dunes called Dream Golf and went to Ireland and played golf. While I was on the course in County Wicklow (see earlier entry) I emailed David Wayne Totten (aka DWT or DW) and said – buy your ticket, we’re heading to Scotland for a golf tour. A strong effort by DW led to 6 days of golf in Scotland and London.

Day 0 – Monday 25 February
DWT and I are exchanging emails on the final logistics when he informs me that he pulled an abdominal muscle while playing soccer – leading to a hernia. I probably should have been worried that he could have bailed on the trip but I found the news quite funny and I’m sure he appreciated my uncontrolled chuckling on the phone. Honestly, it probably improved his golf but I did notice he was walking rather gingerly and cringing when I would drive through the roundabouts.

Day 1
Plan was to meet DW at Heathrow and then fly up to Edinburgh (pronounced Edinburrah). Unfortunately, he picked about the worst week possible from a work perspective for me because the deal I led in Tel Aviv was scheduled to formally close on Friday so I was pretty busy getting all the final details wrapped up. In fact, the lawyers that I worked with on the transaction asked me to be in Tel Aviv on Thursday and Friday, but I declined. Then, on the train to Heathrow I get an email from the VP in Palo Alto saying “I think it’s critical that you be in Tel Aviv this week. Please confirm.” No good. The thing is that I really didn’t believe that I needed to be in Tel Aviv. So, I said I would be available on email and by phone but couldn’t be there in person. The final decision was to send one of my co-workers in London in my place, although not sure what he could have done since he had none of the background on the deal. Anyway, I made it to Heathrow a little stressed and literally ran into DW sitting down, looking tired but very English in his Hampton style cap and tweedish coat. Coincidentally, Tiff had a business trip in Edinburgh and she had taken the train up earlier that day – actually she decided to use my suitcase to pack so I was left with hers with the bag tag that says “careful: my shoes are inside” – anyway DW and I circled downtown Edinburgh a bit before finding Tiff’s hotel and we were off to a great dinner at The Grain Store. St. Andrews is about 90 minutes outside of Edinburgh, so we arrived at the Fairmont (got a great £99 deal by inputting a code on their website) about 1am. As we are unloading our bags, DW notices the “careful: my shoes are inside” bag tag and gives me some crap. I was dreading that moment and in retrospect was glad to get it out of the way early in the trip. After working for a few hours, I was able to sneak in a little sleep prior to our 8:30am “links golf lesson”.

Didn’t break out the camera until the next morning, so here’s a couple of teasers from later in the trip.

English Countryside Weekend

Our English friends just moved to a place in the Cotswolds and were throwing a party which gave us the perfect excuse to book a weekend in the country. The Cotswolds are right out of a Lands End catalog if Nieman Marcus produced it - it's sort of like Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons only with foxhunting and horses everywhere...seriously. We saw this scene multiple times throughout the weekend.

I packed up my wellies and we headed out Friday night in our rental car to another cute stone cottage that we booked through Rural Retreats. This one wasn't quite as cute as our X-mas cottage, but it was fine and had a fireplace.

We had dinner a really delicious pub called the Village Inn in Barnsley. It was one of our better meals we've had in the UK and the service was wonderful (very, very rare in the UK) as we had a very charming and humble French waiter.

The next day we headed out to do some exploring in the rain. Our first stop was Burford for some breakfast. As there was no Starbucks (yet), we grabbed a so so latte from the local bakery and headed to our next stop, Chipping Camden. It's a quaint little town where we walked town a bit and then found a pub that allowed dogs (many do out there) called the Queen's Head. Surprisingly, it seemed to be full of locals who were debating all sorts of topics from politics (US and UK) to inheritances - must not have been any football or rugby games that day. It kind of reminded me of those two old guys in the balcony on the Muppet Show. It was charming. After lunch we headed to Stow-on-the-Wold (I have no idea where they get these names) were we did more wandering, saw lots of even cuter cottages with thatched roofs (this one took the prize) and then had tea at the Badger Inn - a must if you find yourself in this area.

After cleaning up we braved the pelting rain and headed to George and Claire's for their dinner party. They managed to get 20 or more of us around a table and it was a blast. Lots of food and drink, but best of all, lots of good English humor. We were the only non-English there and we struggled to give back even 10% of the wit that was going around the table that night. It was one of those experiences where you feel like you are finally getting under the veneer of a culture and really living a bit of their lives. It was great and we both felt lucky for the experience.


The next day we got a bit of a late start as Morgan (who LOVES the countryside and all that comes with it) found herself a special treat to rub herself in - not sure what it was or that I want to know, but after a bath (and three or more shampooings) she was good as new. We also had a bit of a late start as I got us quite lost (and in fairness, it was very hard to find that teeny, tiny sign) on the way to the group pub lunch. While we showed up, we were well over an hour late. W e still managed a nice lunch with a smaller group of Claire and George's friends. It was good to swap stories from the night before and get to know few people a bit better.

After that we set out for Oxford as it was on the way back to London. The architecture was beautiful and it was neat to see Christ's Church as we both become fans of the Tudors since we've moved here.


Overall, it was a really beautiful area and seemed like where fairy tales must have originated from. I can definitely see how people choose to commute 1.5 - 2 hours into London each day so they can live out here full time.

A Second Visit From Alex

Our friend Alex who we met when Greg was at Penn in Philadelphia was in town again for work and it was great to catch up with him and hear all about his new home in the suburbs of Boston with his wife, Antonella, and their three kids. We took him to our favorite gastropub and where we take all our visitors, the Anchor and Hope.

It's hard to believe that it was only six months ago we were all at the Prince Regent pub in Kensignton when Alex was here last time. So much has happened in that time - we weren't even in the James Street flat and Tiffany was counting the days until her 'tour of duty' was over!

Roaming in Rye

We piled up the Doodles (Morgan and her b.f. Hank) along with our friends Sarah and John into a rental car a few weeks ago and headed out of the city for a day of fresh air in the country. Our destination was Rye. Unfortunately, the one hour drive took more like two and a half due to a few missed turns but mainly due to London traffic.

Rye is a mid evil port town that began silting up in the 15th century and now lays more than two miles from the English Channel. It claims to have more historic buildings than any other town in England and is full of Tudor architecture and windy cobblestone streets. It was also home to author Henry James for a period of time.

Once we arrived we let the Doods get in some good romping and then we set out to find a good lunch spot. We ended up at Whites for a great meal of mussels and chips. After lunch we wandered around town past the former home of and checked out a few art galleries. The whole town can be walked in about a half hour. After a final stop at the local 'sweets shop' we headed back into the city.

Overall, I think Rye is worth a visit if you are on your way to someplace else, but probably not worth a special trip. Nonetheless, we had a great afternoon.

Emily's Visit

My dear friend, Emily, from our Philadelphia days graced us with a visit in mid February. This was an extra exciting visit as Emily lives in Richmond, Virginia so we don’t get to see each other as often as we would like and I think it’s been about three years since we last spent any time together.

We had a great weekend and managed to cover nearly every square inch of London on foot over the four days she was with us. Emily came with a clear set of objectives of what she wanted to cover which made it really easy. We took it slow on Thursday to give her a chance to rest up after her flight, but after that we hit the Tate, V&A, Portobello Road, dinner at Sketch (we sat next to former Spurs footballer, Allan Nielsen), drinks at Clarides for more B and C level celebrity spotting, a bit of dancing, and a lovely Sunday afternoon in Hampstead having roast dinner (and finally I got to try yorkshire pudding - sort of like a very eggy popover) at the Hollybush Pub and spending about three hours on the heath (sort of a more rugged park) wandering and getting lost.

Aside from having to be carried on the escalator at the tube station,

Morgan especially loved the day as after countless efforts over the past months, she caught her first bird, a pigeon. She was extremely proud and was so confused by our less that gleeful reaction her jaw dropped and the poor thing got a way - thankfully. Feathers were everywhere, especially in Morgan’s mouth . Anyway, this has produced a renewed interest in the pigeons that line the streets of London to say the least.

It was a weekend full of great talks, good food, reminiscing and lots of laughter and memories I will always cherish!