almost home again

Posted on | July 28, 2010 | No Comments

we are in kuala lumpur right now, in the largest hotel suite we’ve ever seen.
we stayed at the renaissance hotel on the way over, and enjoyed it so much that we booked for our return.
upon arrival they informed us that we had been upgraded.
you should see this suite! it’s twice as big as our house!

we flew from london last night, after staying with our dear bodyflik friends just out of london.
we loved their lucia-pillson-like “busy, fragrant life” in a truly enchanting old english village…..with beautiful woods right on their doorstep.
wendy is planning to erect a narnia lamp post right there in the woods and i am dying to see it next year. magical!
of course, i want a narnia lamp post too, but it just wouldn’t be the same in our style of humid steamy dense jungle.

we visited hampton court for the day and picnicked lavishly in the gardens there.
maurice assured me that the chapel royal at hampton court beats sainte-chapelle in paris HANDS DOWN (he visted sainte chapelle while i was riveted for five hours by renaissance paintings at the louvre on our last afternoon….i don’t think i can even post about those yet…..it was very intense and i got a touch of stendahl syndrome).

hampton court is so very beautiful and has a much more live-able friendly feel to it than those older castles with their undressed stone and their draughts and their lack of fireplaces.
we spent an inordinate amount of time in henry viii’s kitchens, talking to a charming man who was all dressed up in tudor gear and who was most knowledgeable about all aspects of the kitchens of the tudors.
we were especially fascinated with the HUGE solid elm kitchen worktable that stands in the middle of the kitchen in front of the spit roasting fireplace.
we had quite the discussion on elm rings and dutch elm disease and carbon dating and how many men it takes to move a table that size.
it was an old and worn and scarred workhorse, and it will still be there in a thousand years.
i thought it was one of the most wonderful things in the court.

we enjoyed the maze and i remembered how to get in and out of it….you keep your left hand on the hedge at all times and keep following it, even along and back up dead-ends, and eventually you get to where you need to be.
maurice followed me through the maze, laughing to himself (because he knows i have been plotting my triumphant return to the maze for over 30 years) while our hosts snoozed on the grass under ancient manicured trees.
a very pleasant afternoon all round, and we followed it up with meals of haddock and chips, and bangers and mash at a pub that is one of the 100 pubs that claim to be the oldest pub in england.
this place was certainly pre-elizabethan with low low ceilings and little strange rooms running off in all directions and uneven flagstone floors and half timbered walls and mullioned windows of all shapes and sizes.

the next day we really only had the morning before setting off to the airport, so we visited a small but ancient year old church….unlocked with a note to please turn off the lights when you leave….with traces of the original frescoes on the walls.
the whole place was steeped with a lovely restful meditative atmosphere that has been building in layers for centuries, and we both adored it.
we tore ourselves away from there to drive to great missenden which was roald dahl’s home for thirty years.
i read my first roald dahl in 1974 and have been a devotee ever since….so it was unutterably thrilling to walk amongst the georgian and half timbered houses of the streets of the village and know that mr dahl had been there, walked the same streets and seen the same things.

we topped off the morning with a quick visit to ambers of amersham….a marvellous frock shop stuffed with beautiful designer gear in a gorgeous old old olde building….again, the elizabethan half timber everywhere, the mullioned windows, and on the way to the tea room also housed within, a large window looking out onto a stream running right under the building, which was of course originally an old millhouse.
we restored ourselves with cakes and tea and then had to tear home to pack and get to the airport.

the weather was perfect…..warm but not hot, gently breezy and even a touch of soft misty rain.
if it was always like that in england, i’d move there in a heartbeat…..but i took note of the boots and hats and gloves and coats hanging up, and heard tales of snow in the woods and that was enough for this hothouse flower!

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