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The rabbits we don't mind, especially now that they just munch the grass having seen off all the herbaceous plants; the badgers just dig at the roots of the plants so I only need to rake the soil over afterwards; the local fox has turned vegetarian and happily eats the fallen apples in the Autumn, though he did carry off a large salad bowl, leaving behind the meat; the cows in the bottom field are positively pretty and come and watch when I'm on the tractor, listening intently to any passing comment I have to say…..no, it's the moles that are the one and only irritant and after several months of great patience we have finally declared war on those little burrowing furry pests. Well a long time ago we thought they were quite sweet, but an average of 5 large conical hills of soil on the back lawn each morning has put paid to any former sympathy or tolerance.
With these two photos above, both were taken within a few hours of each other; one in England, the other in France. Guess which! Alan Baker of Aston Mayfair had booked us all 'Club Class' on the channel tunnel train which allowed us to drive straight on for the short trip under 'La Manche'. Our travel pack even included detailed maps of France and enough Euros to pay for the tolls on the motorways. Soon up and running again, suddenly the grey gloom of South East England became bright morning sun, open roads, and an ideal opportunity for us all to open up the cars. The Company Support Range Rover didn't do half bad keeping up, and sometimes setting the pace too! Worried that perhaps our motorway toll tickets were 'timed' from entry to departure, particularly as we were running at double the speed limit, we made stops for fuel to help average out our speed, but ultimately just threw caution to the wind in the absence of speed cameras and the likes. Our route to the champagne vineyards , lying N.E. of Reims, took us through some very pretty countryside as the cars growled through the sleepy villages dotted along the way.
The 'Royal Champagne Hotel' sat on the edge of the hill overlooking the wonderful view across the valley of carefully cultivated vines. With all the fly splattered Astons neatly lined up outside, we were greeted by the hosts with a champagne reception, the first of many a glass of the 'local stuff' that weekend. The afternoon weather was glorious and ideal to sit out on the verandah perhaps, or indeed to go looking for a hosepipe and bucket and do a spot of car washing! Well I wasn't to know that the Aston Sales team planned to get up at dawn the following day and valet the lot!
The evening meal was really delicious, served with a selection of the champagnes from the valley. Our party occupied the main dining room, arranged around three tables, with the conversation interesting and lively. The morning's itinerary involved a trip around the 'Jacquesson' champagne house a few miles down the valley, escorted by the Managing Director, Jean-Herve Chiquet who made the journey through the whole process of champagne making very interesting and informative. We started in the sweltering heat of the morning sun outside in the vineyard, gladly retreating to the welcome cool of the cellars, ending up with the wine tasting and a superb lunch laid on by the house of Jacquesson. This was all much more fun than my usual Saturday morning mole hill removal and endless grass cutting back at home!
You can see from above that the sun continued unrelenting, until our return to the hotel when a sudden thunderstorm hit, turning the roads to rivers. No point in washing the car this afternoon! The evening meal was again really good and we were all getting in to the swing of this champagne thing, served with every course (of which there were many). Jean-Herve from Jacquesson joined the party for dinner and we were all presented with a couple of bottles of his fine champagne to take home and try. With an annual production of 300,000 bottles compared with Moet & Chandon's 30 million, this Jacquesson label serves the select end of the market. We departed mid Sunday morning in convoy, heading for the town of Arras for lunch at a traditional café in the cobbled town square. Again along the route all caution was thrown to the wind with regards to observing the speed limits, but having left the motorway we trundled through the French countryside at a more sedate pace, following either the car in front or the well documented route instructions.
Just 48 hours in France and it was time to head back to the channel tunnel. All the cars had had a great run; it was a joy to open them up (not something really possible on the M25 down or back!) the food and champagne had been superb, the company really great, and the tremendous efforts put in by all at Aston Martin Sales of Mayfair very much appreciated by all. The only talk now was to decide where to go next year, with a trip down to Monte Carlo suggested. The tunnel crossing was so easy, just being able to drive straight on the train for the quick journey. In the train we were chatting to the driver behind, and I had removed the ignition key to the car. As soon as we left the train and switched on the car phone, a call was waiting from the Tracker company as they had been alerted that the DB9 was moving, but without the engine running or key in, thereby suggesting that the car had been stolen and lifted on to a truck. It was really reassuring that the alarm system worked so well and that they were '0n the ball'. We explained later that we'd been in the tunnel with the key removed. Returning to The Cotswolds early evening, the car just got a cursory clean to remove the baked on insects. I spent most of the following day giving it a full valeting to return the Aston to showroom condition. Meanwhile, with the return of the mower after a spell away (the computer board burnt out and the cutting deck was stuck on the max. 'buzz cut' setting!) it was time to get the grass mown yet again, but not before removing the mole hills first! Apart from cars, food is another subject that seems to find its way in to these newsletters, and this month's contribution is going to be about the newly famous 'Fat Duck' down in Bray, Berkshire; a small restaurant which recently acquired it's third Michelin star and unbelievably was voted the second best restaurant in the World, behind the 'French Laundry' in the Nappa valley, California. It's obviously always going to be a controversial statement proclaiming any one venue as the World's best, but we must admit when we dined at The French laundry when over in San Francisco, it was an exceptional experience, though I will always remember the day as the one time that I needed more than ever in my life to 'visit the bathroom' as the Americans would say during the drive back to the city. Having consumed 5 large bottles of Hildon water over lunch, the effect of such took their toll as we approached the crawling traffic across The Golden Gate bridge, which, incidentally, doesn't have any rest areas! So can The Fat Duck in Bray rightly claim to be second best in the World, and therefore best in Europe?…..er..no way!! However, we doubt if the owner, Heston Blumenthal would be concerned about our opinion, after all every table is fully booked 6 weeks ahead and he's raking in the money left, right and centre! What he has done is achieved something totally new and innovative in the art of cooking by adding a spot of chemistry in to his kitchen. His idea is to serve up tastes that complement each other and triggers a reaction in the brain even though the concoction on paper sounds rather extreme. Hence, my starter, though looking like a cross between a dollop of swarfega hand cleanser and vivid grass green frogspawn, it was in fact snail porridge! Meanwhile, Dennis's plate, also alive with colour, contained pepper sorbet and cabbage juice. For me it's always a really bad sign personally when I start filling up between courses with the endless supply of bread and butter whilst we wait patiently for the next 'tasting'. The 'by word' in the restaurant seemed to be 'Liquid Nitrogen' and much drama was made of dipping spoons of sorbet in the freezing liquid as the stainless steel canisters were taken from table to table, looking more like some apparatus from a sperm donor lab than a chic restaurant! Reading the cards laid around the table, (well, waiting a total of three hours for a few spoonfuls of food left us a little bored!) Heston the chef wrote asking if any of his guests identified any particular tastes or smells that evoked special childhood memories, to give him inspiration in the kitchen. I thought perhaps our Heston had been reading too much 'Harry Potter' and his adventures at Hogworts! We both thought and Dennis came up with his favourite sweets from years back, though my childhood memories tended to include the smell of damp bracken or sheepdip as we walked The Fells of the Lake District as a family 35 odd years ago. So, if in future such a dish as 'sheepdip sorbet dipped in liquid nitrogen on a bed of bracken and peat infused Herwick sheep' appears on the menu, you'll know where the idea came from!! So, with the paradox of tastes supposedly triggering our brains in to action, our only thoughts tended to be 'what a con!' Also I noticed everything seemed to be laced with sugar and I read recently that eating chocolate does trigger a chemical reaction in the brain, giving a feeling of well being, so perhaps that it was it's all about; especially required before being presented with the bill. As if that lot above wasn't scathing enough, the actual venue of The Fat Duck was cramped and the décor dull, though the interior designers would interpret the furnishings as purposefully understated so that guests could give their sole attention to their food (and mobile phones). Well, not to give up completely on this quiet little backwater of Bray, down by the river Thames, on another occasion we gave Michel Roux's 'Waterside Inn' a try, but that didn't inspire us too much either. Are we just hard to please, or is it simply that we don't get taken in by all the hype that's written about the latest fashionable restaurant to be in, and be seen? Well that could lead me on to Nobu in London but as far as Boris Becker and the cupboard incident is concerned, our lips are sealed! (which is more than you could say about his girlfriend at the time!) Just to completely finish on food for this month, 'La Taberneta' down the road from the villa in Spain where we dined several times each week must go down as one of our all time favourite eating places. Tomato soup and steak every night, complete with Swiss herbs, wined and dined within the hour, with Martina, our host keeping all smokers at bay, but alas she and Pedro took off to South America where they now have a beach bar south of Rio. However, before departing, Pedro came around to the villa and made Dennis a vat of his soup and provided him with tins of the Wurze arome spices, which he uses to this day. At the end of June, Elton John was performing at the NEC arena south of Birmingham, his concert including 400 musicians and singers from the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. Despite Dennis's protests I managed to get tickets, right at the front and close enough to try and spot the join in Elton's wig. Well I thought it was a great night of music but I'm afraid that Dennis isn't exactly Elton's number one fan. In fact he only knows one of his songs, called 'Nikita', and to add insult to injury, he didn't sing it! He made really good use of the superb musicians on stage to perform many of the more orchestral songs he'd recorded over the last 30 or more years, and he commenced with several tracks from his first album from the early 70's. I remember buying it as one of my first records, when I'd save my pocket money for weeks, and insist on listening to the whole album in one of the record booths in 'White & Swales' music shop in Wilmslow before buying. One of the worst disasters that could strike a teenage record collector was getting a scratch on your new L.P. as happened with the album 'Elton John'. After the release of one of his best albums, 'Yellow Brick Road', I think in 1973, Elton John toured England and I remember seeing him at The Kings Hall, Bellvue, Manchester, spending my weekly newspaper round money of £1.75 for the ticket. Then the audience was loud and raucous, virtually all teenagers, and a totally different scene from that at the NEC recently. The sellout house was a sea of grey hair, overweight or pot bellied middle agers; however the enthusiasm was still there and Elton was called back for several encores. There's no question about his talent and ability to play the piano. Still there's some room for improvement as far as his wardrobe goes, what with the scarlet brothel creepers, a pink silk flouncy robe, and embroided tailed jacket! To finish on the garden, the lines of lavender are now in full bloom, and we've added a couple of table and benches to the patios, made of granite, and imported by a local firm from China. I was reading today an interesting report on the massive future potential of the Chinese domestic market. The figures relating to future car sales are staggering, with one suggestion stating that when the potential 65 million car sales are realised, the oil reserves will finally dry out. (Step in Russia and their reserves!) Here's some final photos of the new garden furniture.
Well that's all from us for now. This weekend is going to be hot and sunny so it's time to get outside and enjoy the remains of the English Summer. In the meantime, our resident Mighty Mole sends his regards too!
Best regards to everyone, Colin & Dennis. |
