England, part 4

The day before Easter there was a local cricket match. Now, being American, I always assumed that "cricket" was a simple chirping house bug, but of course, I was mistaken. Dave, Lynne's husband, is a big cricketer. I think it must be like football to the south. Everyone in England is into cricket. It reminded me of a game dad use to call "blue jay" which was basically baseball with only two bases instead of four. I can't tell you much more than that honestly. All I know is that it was clearly a gentleman's game since it lasts for hours upon end, and they even break for tea in the middle of the game. This isn't America apparently. Still, it was a beautiful, warm, blue, sunny day and perfect for leisurely watching a nice game of cricket from the club house porch. Had someone offered me an iced tea and cake, I might not have been able to leave. Fortunately, Lynne saved me. She is not very interested in Cricket, but supports it since her husband loves the game. She introduced me to some of her friends, and then we shuffled right out of there. The area where Lynne lives is called "The Potteries" since it was here were famous china makers first opened shop. Makers like Wedgewood, and smaller businesses alike flooded the area. Since there is a lot of burning involved in pottery making (remember you have to fire a piece of pottery at least once?), the sky during that time became black with coal dust. Even in mid day, it was black as night, which I am sure was not pleasant to live in. What I was amazed to find, was that bone china had to be fired at least two times, if not more, depending on how decorated it was. Of course, now all of that work is done in china, and nothing is hand done in England any more. And if you can find a hand painted piece it will run you about 800 dollars and up. It was really interesting being inside the museum. Actually, it was once a local pottery shop that made fine china and pottery, but was never internationally known. It was scheduled for demolition and then at the last minute, the government decided to preserve it and turn it into a museum.


Lynne's community alloment. Where people can grow their own "veg" (as Lynne likes to call it)


The museum parking lot


Inside the old china factory


Inside the kilns. This is where they would heat the pottery.


An outside view of the kilns.






We spent so long at the potteries that one of the docents had to tell us to leave. It was a wonderful museum. We actually did not even make it all the way through. Although, true to British form, we stopped for a leisurely tea in the middle of the day. It was here, at this pottery museum, that I first tasted, and have since become infatuated with, Coffee and Walnut Cake. The woman behind the counter cut a huge slice for me. It was clearly homemade with tons of coffee butter cream frosting in the layers and slathered all over the top. England really inspired me to get back into cake making. There are tons of sweets recipes on BBCGOODFOOD.COM, and I intend to try out many of them once I get back home. Of course, I will be taking all of my creations up to mom and dad's offices so I will not have to be tempted with cakes all around me. Still, I think this could turn into a fun hobby.

After the museum, we drove back to the cricket match, which was not even close to finishing. We had left Jess there because Dave's team pays Jess to score each game they play. So, she unfortunately had to work while we went to the museum. She seemed to enjoy it though.

Since Jess was not able to leave yet, we all bundled back into the car and drove to the local Loggerheads grocery where we picked up salmon fillets, coleslaw, salad stuff (including avocados), and PHISH FOOD. Okay, so those of you who are already acquainted with Ben and Jerry’s know what I am talking about. For those of you who don't, it is a heavenly chocolate ice cream with marshmallows, caramel, chocolate, with dark chocolate fishes swimming throughout. It was really addictive. I had never before tried it, but it was on sale, and so we bought a small pint. YUMM. I am going to have to try to stay clear of that in the grocery stores back home. While enjoying our lovely meal and heavenly ice cream in front of the living room TV, we were entertained by Simon Cowell in "Britain's Got Talent". One woman actually stripped on the show and got through to the next round. And people, she was neither thin, nor young. She had all of her big flab-a-lab shaking all over the place, and was not taken off stage or anything. They just censored her with little bars. British TV is certainly something different.