Saturday morning I got on the bus at Victoria station and headed to Canterbury where Robin met me at the bus stop. We wandered around downtown, which was festively decorated. My favorite, and undeniably the most impressive display, was the dinosaurs that were raising money for teenage cancer research. I was too old to take pictures with them, so I took pictures of them instead.
Before getting to our Christmas shopping, we had lunch at this absolutely lovely cafe called BoHo (which Robin just informed me is frequented by Orlando Bloom. I knew it was cool.) where I tried chicken liver and bacon on bread, which was delicious! And Robin had her first souvlaki. Sometimes you do find good food in Britain, and it is such a treat. Then we had some dessert, carrot cake and chocolate cupcake (Robin thought the sparkles would be inedible, but I don't like cherries so I decided not to prove her wrong) and hit the streets. It rained a bit as we were wandering, but we managed to get all of our shopping needs done.
I would just like to take this moment to say that Christmas shopping has been a bit difficult for me this year, because I keep having to think, "Will that fit in my suitcase?" It is terribly inconvenient. This is mostly just a warning for my family.
When we decided we were done, we hopped back on a bus to Kent to go back to Robin's place to pick up her things. Then we headed back to the bus stop to catch a bus to Whitstable to Nicky and Mike's house. It gets so dark so early here, that I couldn't really seen any of the very cute village that they live in, but we explored it the next morning. We got off the bus and it was raining again, but managed to get to their house in a fairly dry condition.
This picture of Nicky and Mike is from one of Robin's previous visits. They made her Yorkshire Puddings. This picture is also pretty true to form, Nicky is doing something and Mike is hiding from the camera in the background. He did this in Belgium too, silly Mike.
Can I just say that I love Nicky and Mike? They are the sweetest people ever. They had rooms all prepared for us, hot tea, christmas presents! Ah! I am getting excited and happy just remembering. We sat down and visited a bit before dinner, sipping at tea. We attempted to watch a bit of Fawlty Towers (which I liked so much I already bought for myself) but by then dinner/supper was ready. Nicky had made some pizza, we remembered the ranch dressing (I honestly didn't know how much I liked it until I didn't have any) and sat down to a lovely dinner with wine.
We opened Christmas crackers. Mike told us all about the traditions about them, you pull them apart with someone else, and who ever gets the bigger part gets the things inside. Inside each one is a paper crown, a small 'prezzie' and as Mike says, "an absolute rubbish joke." Which was entirely true. We all put our paper crowns on and Mike told us that when you do these crackers at bigger Christmas parties, everyone has their crowns on at first, but by the end of the night the children have all binned theirs and the women have either taken them off or are wearing them around their neck and then men have fallen asleep and have them drooping over one eye. I don't know if this is necessarily true... but Mike's crown stayed on the longest, and it was drooping.
After dinner we played games. I have missed playing games a lot. We played Boggle (thanks Kyle!), which I brought with me, and we played a game that was like Pictionary and Taboo put together that I can't remember the name of, then a dictionary and drawing game over tea. Then off to bed!
Sunday morning we came downstairs and Mike made us bacon sandwiches for breakfast. Yum! And of course more tea. (I think at this point I am drinking more tea than most British people, which is a tad frightening.) We watched a bit of Fawlty Towers before Robin forced us out into the rain.
It was cold and drizzling out, but Robin wanted to try driving Mike's car, and walk around Whitstable. So Nicky and Mike lent us some macs (long raincoats) and we hopped in the car.
We went to a car park, which was empty, and Robin and Mike switched. Robin drove around the car park for a bit, sometimes when she tried to shift she reached into the door because everything is on the opposite side. Thank goodness the pedals are the same.
Then we drove into town, on the way, one of Mike's windshield wipers decided to go awol and kept flipping over. But we managed to get into Whitstable and went down Squeeze Gut Alley. It's an old smugglers alley that is skinny enough to squeeze your gut, get it?
Mike picked us up on the other side and then dropped us off in the middle of the village. On a Sunday most of the shops were closed, but there was a lovely little bookstore that I could have spent hours in, but we kept wandering around.
Whitstable is right on the coast. It is where the Thames drains into the North Sea. It was raining most of the time we were wandering around, and my cheap umbrella is basically useless at this point (it is not coming home with me) and kept turning inside out.
We saw some windsurfers (crazy people) and a craft fair (more crazy people) and a vendor there told me that she had her hat made out of possum (possibly the craziest of the lot). Amazingly there was a break in the weather for most of our trip back and the sun poked it's head out. It was a really beautiful moment.
There were some quaint beach huts that we passed. I can imagine that it would be a really lovely place in the summer time, but as the rain had started up again, along with some freezing wind, we hightailed it back to Nicky and Mike's.
When we got back Nicky threw some of our clothes in the dryer and we had some warm tea. We watched some more Fawlty Towers before we have a lovely lunch of Cotswold Pie. It is basically lamb roast with veggies, topped with mashed potatoes in a casserole dish with melted cheese on top. Yummy! Home cooked food is the best.
Then we had to get back in our clothes, pack up our things, and get in the car to go to Canterbury to see a Pantomime. What is a Pantomime you ask? Well I didn't know either.
It is an English tradition of Christmas plays. Wikipedia says, "Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences consisting mainly of children and parents, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. There are a number of traditional story-lines, and there is also a fairly well-defined set of performance conventions," which is absolutely true.
We went to see Peter Pan. We went to the Marlowe Theatre tent. Normally the Pantos are in the real theatre, but as it is being renovated they have it in a very large tent. It was probably the most ridiculous show I have ever been to that is joyfully self-aware of its ridiculousness. Mike was telling us beforehand about some of the conventions, which at the time I thought he was exaggerating, but he actually wasn't at all. Every time the goodie comes on stage you cheer, every time the baddie comes on stage, you boo. If a character holds up a sign, like 'clap' or 'don't laugh' you do it.
There are certain phrases you respond to, like if a character says, "Oh no I didn't," the audience responds, "Oh yes you did!" And there is ghost bench and they sing a ghost song, in this case a short snippet of "Ghostbusters," and when the ghosts don't go away the characters and the audience both say (bobbing their heads back and forth), "Well, I guess we'll have to sing it a-gain then, won't we. Whoop!" And then they sing it again.
They take songs from other things, in this case the sang songs from Journey, Wicked, Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay, Les Mis, and even Hail Britainia! It was ridiculous. And fun. And I can totally see why the British love it. I certainly did.
It was a great study break (as has been writing this blog) but now I have to stop procrastinating and actually get some work done. I also have to get, "Oh yes I did!" "Oh no you didn't!" out of my head as well.
Cheers!
1 comment:
I feel as though the photo of you with an inside-out umbrella perfectly sums up your essence. Classic Punky... AND I LOVE IT ;o)
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