Text 4641, 99 rader
Skriven 2006-08-20 22:54:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 107 at last trip part 1
===============================
I was at my father's house tending him; he was getting
a bit weak, and he couldn't really talk, his speech sounding
sort of like "Crimson and Clover" but slower. At some point
I started having the same symptoms, and my father's
doctor took a two-minute look at both of us and diagnosed
viral and possibly bacterial meningitis for us - an
antibiotic regimen was prescribed, and my father got better
- but I did not.

On travel day Carol rendezvoused with us at the house, and
the SuperShuttle came for us right on time, but that wasn't
a great advantage, as instead of picking up the two other
parties first who were far to the north, they picked us up
first and then gave us the grand tour of the area just
north of 495. We got to the airport nice and early but
things started getting kind of bad when I fell over
on the way to the check-in. After I vetoed a suggestion by
Carol that we just pack up and go home, she decreed that
should we continue the trip it would be with two wheelchairs
rather than the one that we'd planned on.

Priority security at Dulles was a snap, especially as both
my father and I could stagger through the metal detectors
without the wheelchairs.

0727 UA 918 IAD LHR 1803 0620+1 777 9DEF

A very solicitous crew.

Shrimp, prosciutto ham, St. Andre Triple Creme cheese
and vegetable crudite, tahini lime sauce - pretty
decent, although a bit dressing-logged.

Pan-seared filet mignon with bearnaise sauce, potato leek
cake and spinach with shallots and mushrooms - the best part
of this was the spinach! The meat was done gray throughout
and piping hot to the center: it may have been decent meat
at one time, but the steer certainly had died in vain. The
potato was grainy and tasteless. I didn't try the bearnaise,
though its oiliness might have helped the filet slide down.

I passed on dessert, all of which had lots of dairy, and
went to sleep, missing the second meal service.

Getting to immigration and baggage claim was a comedy, with
numerous changes of wheelchair and electric cart and
unexplainable waits in odd places. To give them some slack,
we'd reserved only one wheelchair and for the previous day.

The plan was to pick up a car at Enterprise and drive
to Winchester and then Salisbury to visit the cathedrals;
but by this time I was a less than effective navigator,
and though we went in the right directions, more or less,
it took so long that we abandoned the plan and went straight
to our hotel in Evesham. The Evesham Hotel is extremely
amusing, described as the "most eccentric hotel in Britain."
The proprietor has been likened to Basil Fawlty, and there
is a distinct resemblance in physical presence and schtick:
only here he appears to know what he is doing, and the help
like it (average term of service over a decade, with little
turnover). For starters, each room key comes with a teddy
bear, and it is not uncommon to see people strolling about
town clutching teddy bears. I forget what room my father
had, but it was comfortable; we had the Roman room, stocked
with Latin books and plaster casts of ancient sculptures. It
was a major hoot.

For dinner I started with kidneys in wine (these were not
fully cleaned, so I ended up cutting out little clots of
core: points against; then a nice lamb dish. I don't
remember what anyone else had. We had a 500 mL Warre's
Optima with this. It went well.

An exhausted night.

Brekkers was the full English with kidneys and black
pudding in addition to the usual other greasy things.
I at least passed on the egg.

The plan this day was to drive to Gloucester and
Worcester (more cathedrals) and through the Cotswolds.
We ended up doing just Worcester and a fair amount of
wandering; I hope Carol found it tolerable; my father and
I enjoyed it. Then we returned to the Evesham Hotel,
where we enjoyed the beautiful day, and then I dined on
the special of the day, Cornish lobster salad (there was
this cute writeup about how "if your fishmonger calls you
and says that he has six big lobsters, what else can you
do?" on the special sheet and a wine that I didn't
recognize but that the (4-volume, with no French or German
or sparkling wines) wine list likened to a Pinot Grigio,
which it did resemble at a couple quid less for the bottle.

Another exhausted night, becoming more exhausted as, as
people tell me, I was getting more and more useless.

___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Try Our Web Based QWK: DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)