
It’s not every food blog you read that has pictures of toilet parts or apparatus, is it? After visiting England this last time, we talked about it several times, how practical the Brits are about flushing. Those two buttons you see there are for different quantities of flush. I won’t go into details here, but am sure you can get the picture – you use the smaller press-button for a solely fluid flush – and the larger press-button for well, you know. Why don’t we have this in the U.S.? Especially here in California where we have years of drought and currently have water rationing? Our most recent installed toilet in our house flushes with a miraculously little amount of water, and I actually don’t know how much water the British toilets use with each of the above cycles – maybe lots since they don’t have much issue with water – but the method here just seems so intelligent. Don’t you agree?

It’s also not every day I take a picture of a paper napkin. And this photo doesn’t begin to do justice to the quality and feel of this paper napkin. It was at the breakfast table both mornings we stayed at our hotel in Cheltenham. I was surreptitiously going to take mine home, hoping to find it here. Instead, I asked the hotel owner about them and she promptly brought me a stack of about six in the cellophane package wrapper. (Those I could fit in my suitcase!) They look and feel like linen napkins. But they’re not. They’re heavy and they’re paper. The design you see in the napkin is not just inking, it’s actually an embossed design. I’m smitten with these. The manufacturer (Duni) is in Britain, alas. After talking with their U.S. affiliate, unfortunately these napkins are not available anywhere here. Darn! I did my best to convince the person I spoke with that they NEED to start importing these napkins. They’d sell like hotcakes. They’re called Elegance Lily, by Duni. Weeping going on here.
In the event you are interested in the details of our trip to England, I’ve written up a PDF 1-page listing of all the places we stayed and most of the restaurants. I didn’t include prices in most places because those change. Some of the B&Bs were 40 pounds per person per night. Others were higher like 80 pounds. Each one was different, so if you’re interested, go online to the different places and check them out.
One of the wonderful things about mid-day food in England is a Ploughman’s Lunch. It has a humble background – back in the day, the plough men needed a hearty but inexpensive lunch. It got onto a menu somewhere, sometime, and has stuck ever since. Normally you only find a Ploughman’s at a pub.

This one, which we shared at the Felin Fach Griffin (an upscale hotel and eatery in Wales – we didn’t stay there, just had one lunch and one dinner there) was one of the best we’ve ever had. The bread was house made. The two pickled things (chutney and fruit pickle) were outstanding. Starting from the left: delicious local Cheddar, some whole wheat bread, a little bowl of chutney-like fruit, some celery sticks, a small bowl of Branston Pickle (or probably their own homemade version), some cornichons and pickled onions, fresh tomatoes, apple slices and some unadorned greens in the middle. The cheese was wonderful – you eat it with bread and a bit of the chutney stuff, maybe some of the Branston pickle stuff, and nibble on all of the other things at the same time.
I didn’t do a big single-post write-up about our hotel in Cheltenham. Most tourists wouldn’t be staying in Cheltenham, probably. We stayed there because our friend Pamela lives there. Instead of staying right in downtown, I booked us into a hotel up on the top of one of the nearby hills, called Cleeve Hill (with views of the Malvern hills). The hotel: Malvern View Hotel. It’s been recently remodeled (under new ownership) and the rooms are really nice. Lovely decor, and the breakfast food was scrumptious. They also have a small restaurant on premises, and we were sorry we didn’t get to eat there. The menus looked wonderful. If we stay again in Cheltenham, yes I’d stay there again, although the hotel does have a jillion steps (hard for Dave with his two artificial legs). All the rooms are on the upper floor. We did have a nice view out the window, though, don’t you think?



























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