Things I Like

  • Game of Thrones

Friday, May 22, 2009

England - Hyde Heath - Buckinghamshire

May 22, 2009

I'm in England today. I got in yesterday afternoon, May 21st. I did really well on the sleep thing. Due to the lack of sleep on the plane ride over, staying awake until bedtime on the first day is problematic. But I had a couple cups of coffee space over the day and a couple of gin and tonics last night and I slept all night. I woke up at the normal 6:00am ready to start the day. Cool!

My daughter's house (I say my daughter for short even though it belongs to she and her husband and 3 children for short), is really amazing. It's really an estate on several acres. The house is 100 years old but has been newly redone. We watched a movie in the home theater last night in the basement. It was amazing. O.K. please forgive me if I say amazing too many times here :-). They have a huge family kitchen with an agha. If you don't know what an agha is, I'll tell you. It's a huge stove thing that stays on all the time. It has a little burner going inside it and this whole thing stays warm, hot really, all the time. It keeps this immense kitchen warm - well that and the radiant heating in the floors. You never have to turn on a burner because there are these big griddles on it that stay hot all the time. You only have to put your pan on an already hot griddle. You would never be able to use something like this in California but it's wonderful here.

The kids went swimming yesterday in their incredible indoor pool (see - I can say words other than amazing). I plan on getting some exercise swimming while I'm here. At least that's the plan.

My room in England is in the guest suite. It has a sitting area, complete with couch and a lovely bathroom with clawfoot tub and separate shower. The claw feet on the tub are copper as well as the spigots (I guess that's what they call them). Also, the sink is a matching copper as well as the cabinet hardware. The tiles in the floor are all 1" glass tiles which shine in the light. Very pretty.

A weird fact about England? They don't have electrical outlets in the bathrooms. If you want to use your curling iron or hair dryer, it has to be done somewhere in the bedroom. And there aren't always mirrors near the electrical outlets so it's interesting trying to see what you're doing.

I'll post some pictures of the house soon.

No comments: