Public school; chitterlings; curry

Mum arrived on Thursday evening to stay for a few days and after breakfast on Friday at the Alto Lounge we took the train over to Windsor and spent most of the day mooching around Eton, including going on a guided tour of Eton College (pictures here). Our guide was a pleasant fairly elderly woman whose four sons had apparently all been through Eton – after learning that the full fees are £30,000 per year, Mum and I were dying to ask her what her husband did for a living, but refrained. The tour includes only limited bits of the College: we had a quick whiz around School Yard and the cloisters, the oldest classroom in the College and the Chapel, before finishing in the Museum of Eton Life. So no getting to poke through boys’ bedrooms, but you can watch a video about life at Eton, showing boys eating their lunch and having intelligent group discussions in masters’ studies. (An amusing thought would be an alternative video of Eton life, showing boys getting bladdered and mooning the locals. I’m sure that doesn’t happen though.) The museum takes pains to point out that both beating and fagging have long since been abolished.

It did strike me, while wandering around Eton, as inappropriate to have a primary school called The Porny School. I know it’s because it was named after a Mr Porny (a former French master at Eton College called Antoine Pyron du Martre; how that got anglicised to Porny I'm not sure). It just seems wrong.

On Saturday morning we wandered to Reading Farmers’ Market, a twice-monthly affair held in the old cattle market on Great Knollys Street. One of the meat stalls always has an interesting selection of innards, including chitterlings (NB spelt chitlings by the stall owner). A quick Google search reveals a number of web resources for chitterlings, including The Chitterling Site. Here’s how to clean them. Just not sure I fancy eating something where the preparations include picking it clean of any faeces. One might perhaps legitimately ask whether something that requires this much cleaning beforehand is actually suitable for human consumption. Needless to say we didn’t buy any chitterlings, but did acquire some tomato plants and a lardy cake.

Spent much of the rest of Saturday sitting in the garden enjoying the sun and watching Harley skit about the garden eating the heads off flowers. Dad joined us for dinner in the evening at The Spice Oven, a cavernous Indian restaurant housed in a former nightclub¹. It has relatively restrained beige décor but recovers its kitsch credentials by having a small lake in the centre complete with fish, plants and a bridge. Saturday night turned out to be Buffet Night, which I hadn’t known about in advance, but my parents and I took advantage of the opportunity to try a few different dishes, while Ruth ordered something mild and creamy for herself.

On Sunday morning we all trooped up to the marina, where Dad had left his car, to squeeze onto Ray’s boat for breakfast. In the evening Ruth and I lit the chimenea for the first time this year and had a ceremonial burning of the goddess figure I made at Samhain. She went up a treat.

Unsatisfactory start to Monday morning when entered bathroom and realised after a few moments (it being pre-coffee) that I was paddling through water. After brief negotiations Ruth agreed to stay home and call a plumber, who duly came out and tightened various areas of slackness around the bath and basin taps. One of the few advantages of having a ground floor bathroom was that no other rooms were flooded. Apparently there had been a slow leak going on for some time, which might explain the occasional sprouting of fungus on the floor. Really must get new bathroom sorted.

¹ The Nue Valbonne, where I once snogged a bloke then stood him up the next day. In my defence it was 20 years ago and I was young and silly.