Lovely Jubblies

The Henfield Estate - where everybody knows your name.

So ignore my last post about me posting more often because apparently not only do I break promises, I also lie.

Alright well I don't really have an excuse this time, except for the fact that things seem to happen in spurts over here. So for a couple of days I'm home every night watching Supersize vs. Superskinny and being a lazy ass which isn't worth blogging about and then I'll do a lot of stuff all at once and have to do one big, huge update to catch everyone up to speed!

So, Friday Franca and I took the train up to West Sussex to visit her family friends. It was absolutely beautiful out and the train ride was really quite nice - you slowly you see yourself moving out of the big smoke and literally, onto greener pastures. We got into Henfield at about 7 pm. When we arrived we we're greeted by Mags and Nick, the grandparents and owner of the beautiful farm house we stayed in. Seriously, the place looked like something out of a Jane Austen novel (plus a tennis court, just for good measure). Then there was Huggie and Johno, the second generation, and then their kids, Millie and Ben, those rascally little children.

Franca and I are obsessed with little British kids (in a completely legal, inoffensiev kind of way). We find everything they say hilarious (think: Charlie, that really hurt!) and we often find ourselves laughing quite openly at them in public places (probably not good for that burgeoning self esteem).

Anyway I was enamored with these kids as soon as we got in the door. When we arrived, we were told I've already been assigned a nickname and I cringe, thinking of past nicknames that continue to haunt me ('VG Vagina' was especially painful).

So apparently, Huggie and Johno had told the kids that Franca and her friend were coming to visit but they couldn't remember my name. Millie (that little firecracker) says 'Oh, I know what her name is.' And the parents respond, 'Oh yah? What is it?' And she says, 'it's sense. Frank and sense.'

Frankincense. And so the nickname was born and for the remainder of the weekend, I was cense.

Friday night we ate a delicious dinner and chatted til the wee hours. Johno, Franca and I ended staying up until 5 am, polishing off 10 bottles of wine throughout the evening. I was feeling really rough on Saturday when we got up and headed straight to the pub.

Yah, this is what they do here. They drink all night, wake up and drink all day. Hair of the dog isn't a turn of phrase - it's a daily tradition. In fact, at lunch one day, Mags actually said 'I don't like any non-alcohol drinks' and I thought, at the moment, I had met my kindred spirit.

So we headed to a beautiful pub, 'The Roayl Oak' and sat outside all day enjoying Ginger beer Shandies and a ploughman's platter and enjoying the absolutely gorgeous weather. Then we went to visit with more family members and then back to the house for, you guessed it, more booze and food!

The house we stayed in was absolutely gorgeous - old wood planks, really beautiful stone work, beautiful gardens, rolling pastures, tons of bedrooms and bathrooms with a very quaint, countryside ambiance. It reminded me a lot of Milton and the house I grew up in and it was a nice nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Anyway we ate delicious dinner that evening and though we had promised not to make Saturday night another big one, we ended up staying up til 5 am again and drinking another 10 bottles of wine.

The first step of acceptance is recognizing that you have problem.

Anyway, Sunday we went to this fantastic restaurant and drank delicious wine and had a sunday roast and my first taste of sticky date pudding (damn, pudding, where have you been all my life? That stuff was delicious!) We came back to the house and played my first, thrown together game of cricket with the kids (those years of softball definitely came in handy) which was a whole lot of fun.

So needless to say I was a total mess at work yesterday and want nothing more than to crawl into my bed and sleep for the rest of my life.

One exciting part of Saturday was discussing Johno and Huggie's pubs. They own two pubs in Essex that have won pub of the year in the UK and are quite well respected. Anyway, Johno and Huggie invited Franca and I to take part in their chef for a day program, where you get to help the cooks, shadow them in the kitchen, experience a lunch and dinner service and then enjoy a meal for two that you've cooked yourself. So I told them I would blog about it and put it up on Yahoo (and here) which is very exciting. It probably won't be for a while, but I will let you know as soon as we get in there!

We're also going to Essex to visit Huggie and Johno again in a couple of weeks so more hilarious nights of drunken debauchery are to follow! Stay tuned.

Also Franca and I are meant to go to Rome on Friday but as I'm sure you know, that goddamn volcano is getting in the way - and now another one has erupted! Even if the flight ban is lifted i London, Heathrow is going to be a nightmare - but fingers crossed that everything gets sorted out by Friday.

Alright I'm sorry that this blog post was so unfunny but my brain is like a giant pile of garbage right now. I'll get it back soon and have some more entertaining posts to keep you all happy.

Alright friends, hope you had a great weekend. The weather here was fantastic and made me realize how absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous this country is when the sun shines. Enjoy your week and I'lll be in touch soon.

Cheers,

Patsy