London – Beauperi Investments

Posted on November 19, 2018 by beauperi

I Still Call Australia

Home – Peter Allen

Wednesday, 31 October, 2018 – Smooth flight, weather OK in Melbourne

Loyal followers of this Blog. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot see the photos and / or the captions or alignments are messed up, please go to http://www.beauperi.com directly and all those problems should go away.

The meal service begins after midnight, hence the allocation of this part of the journey until the 31st.

20181030_083843 — Curry prawn noodles as a starter

20181030_232213 — Smoked Fish Salad for Julie

20181030_233929 — Malaysian Chicken Curry for Me

20181030_234316 — Elaborate cheese salad for Julie

20181031_000417 — Small cheese selection for me

20181031_002143 — Julie had not slept on the previous flight but it finally got to her

Although I am not interested in any of the movies in the selection and really needed some sleep, there is a stupid Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson movie on at a nearby seat called the Skyscraper. or something like that. It sucked me in although I never totally understood what was going on.

20181031_002438 — My personal server who ensured that I had lots of good Shiraz while on the flight

Eventually I crashed big time. I had had some sleep on the first leg but was obviously quite tired as I slept through the lights on and breakfast service and was only awakened around when we were going to land.

When we land in Melbourne, I go on to the baggage area. The Immigration camera once again rejects me so I go into a regular line but the wait was not too bad and the Lady immigration officer was really nice.

I grab my suit case and go into the rest room, disabled of course, and get some fresh clothes as the 32+ hour of flying had left me in quite a mess. Julie has to pick up the pre-ordered duty free.

When I get out of the rest room I am surprised to have Julie waiting there with her bags on a trolley. The kids had grabbed her bags off of the carousel and put them directly on the trolley. They then left to catch an Uber home. We go through customs fairly quickly and are not searched. We go to take an elevator to the first floor where the Uber rides are from but there is a big queue so we take a taxi instead, Finally home, it was nice to be back.

Observations

* I was surprised at how many same sex couples that we saw along the way in Europe. They were in a variety of age groups from young adults to very senior people.

* Many of the same sex couples were mixed race as well.

* We were quite lucky with the weather much of the journey with “heat waves” caused by the “non-existent” global warming.

* Two of the absolute highlights of the trip were late additions and ones I had been quite skeptical about. The castle outside Versailles where we stayed with the tremendous Emma and family and Luxembourg for different reasons.

* The Kids were very useful in handling our luggage. They did have there share of fights along the way.

* The Peter Allen reference. Although we saw and did lots of nice things, in general Australia has just as good and most of the time better. For example, I could not get a decent Bratwurst in Berlin but at the Vic Market the next day after we returned I had one from the Bratwurst Shop that is really good.

Bonus

Our friends David and Kate had gone one two trips with Captains Choice while we were away. They left before Julie had departed and got back about the same time as us. So to “prove our toughness” we meet them at Dainty Sichuan in South Yarra for dinner that night. They had been to the similar areas as us in Scandinavian and around, in more depth and well before we got there. There second trip was all over South America in a private jet. We really enjoyed the food at DS, the Ants climbing trees fantastic, fish slices, etc. There were no leftovers which was unusual.

Anyway, here are some of their photos from the Panama part of their trip.

Plus a couple of extra shots from Julie in London

sugar_tax heathrow — Nanny state. This is the same country that has specified that onions have t be put on a bun ahead of the hot dog or burger

Posted on November 10, 2018November 15, 2018 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Leaving London

Monday, 29 October, 2018 – Drizzly and Cold, but we are leaving town

It is time to say goodbye to London after a week there. Julie arrived late last night from Oxford and I dozed a little bit. She is up early as usual to go get bread rolls and smoked salmon.

I never knew the exact checkout time for the apartment but we select 10:30. Ryan orders an Uber which arrives on time. The driver was very aggressive weaving in and out of traffic but we make it to Heathrow in good time.

I was going to title this “The 980th reason I hate flying”. We get to the airport to check-in and the Singapore Airlines Business Class counters are not to open for another 7-8 hours. So our choice is to fight the hordes to go through economy. Julie shows the guy in charge her Doctors letter and we are sent down to a special queue for special requests. One group crowded in front of the queue and took ages with plane changes booking changes, etc. Then there was a dog in the queue in front of us. The girl in charge disappeared for ages before finally coming back.

Finally it was our turn and although she had acted like a dingbat, she was very efficient, tagging all of our suitcases with priority tags including the kids flying Economy class, move their seats up to near the front of Economy that was the only good part of this whole process. There is still another 9 hours to wait until the flight is to take off, so the kids decide to go back into London. We finally escape into the restricted area and walk for about 30 minutes to the one Singapore airlines lounge, near the boarding gate.

That whole process took around 4 hours of hassles etc.

20181029_165945 — This becomes my home for the next 8 hours

Julie went prancing around the airport for ages. She caught up with the kids on their return from town. The lounge started making announcements ages before airplane departure that the plane was about to depart. This was obviously to gather novices towards the boarding area. The lounge was mostly full with people who had seen this gross trick before.

I made myself a few Bloody Marys, found some OK French wine although it changed in place to place over the next 8 hours. The food was fairly ordinary for Singapore Airlines.

20181029_170000 — Good collection of juices and waters

20181029_170014 — The only Asian dish was Chop Suey – that went out of fashion in the 60s

20181029_170024 — The cold cuts and salads were OK, if you like that kind of thing

20181029_170035 — Sandwiches, same comment

20181029_173514 — Finally some spicy chicken wings that were quite good

The airplane is to depart at 10:45 and then they tell us they will send a cart to pick us up at 10:15. Julie had elected to walk to the gate which wasn’t too far away and when the cart dropped me off, Julie and the kids were waiting there. We get sent to a special boarding area and there are about 20 of us cripples waiting to board.

The airplane is a new wide body with extra wide seats. One means of achieving these wide seats was to cut down on storage space. Also there was no overhead storage against the side of the plane, we were in a 1-2-1 configuration and had to share the overhead bin in the middle with the passenger against the wall. Minor whinges really.

20181029_224920 — They served me a Bloody Mary as the clock reached midnight

Bonus – more of Julie’s Graduation Photos
Some of you have already seen these.

4095-319 — In clobber, apparently was very cold

4095-154 — Getting presented with the plaque

4095-316 — With the group – Paul Fischer said unkindly that Julie was over twice their age, Julie put it a different way – she was older than all of their parents

Posted on June 9, 2015June 11, 2015 by beauperi

Waddesdon Manor Wine Dinner

Saturday, 6 June, 2015 – D-Day

On Saturday morning we went to the Borough Market. We have been there several times before and it has been in other of our Blogs.

http://boroughmarket.org.uk/

We got there quite early, around 7:30 AM, and much of the market had not started or was just setting up. We wandered through to the street across from it. There was a famous cheese shop and Julie went in. I stayed out and she implored me to come in. I recognised I was in a grumpy mood which I had sworn to myself that I would not do on this trip. So I quickly wiped that off and entered.

The famous Neal’s Yard cheese shop

There were lots of big wheels of cheese

The girls let us try a number of samples. I asked for a bitey cheddar and got quite a good one, an Isle of Mull cheddar. We went out for a coffee and I decided to go back into the shop and buy 5 pounds of the bitey. Fortunately, the staff recognised that it was not by weight but by cost. I thought I had photos but I guess not.

We then went back into the market and stopped by at the fruit juice shop where we had been to before.

JV’s Beetroot drink and my Berry Delight

We wandered around the market for quite a while but nothing grabbed JV for breakfast. So we eventually decided to go into a famous restaurant – Roast – right in the market.

Upstairs at the entrance to Roast

We were among the first patrons at Roast and got a nice table with a view and sunlight.

Menu, partially obscured

JV ordered Kippers, in retrospect not a good choice

I ordered Smoked Trout omelet, a much better choice

We have a very special wine dinner to go to in the country that night, our last in London. So I go back for my usual rest and JV for her usual prance. We are to board a bus across town at the Bluebird restaurant. We leave way too early but it turned out to be a good thing. The tube station that are to go to to get to the Bluebird is closed and all lines to it. We got to South Kensington Station and they have printed sheets to tell us what to do. So we board a bus to Sloane Square. Well, the traffic in London is horrendous, for a change – actually as usual, and we are beginning to believe that we won’t get to Sloane Square in time, let alone the Bluebird. It took well over an hour but we got there with a few minutes to spare and hopped on the bus after a foray to some shops by JV.

We eventually take off, into London traffic of course. Each couple is given an afternoon tea – a hint on how long the journey will be.

The Afternoon Tea

The presence of afternoon tea must be an indication of how long a trip it is going to be and yes, it is nearly two hours especially ugly in the London part. The sandwiches were quite good with the bread very fresh. We finally arrive at our first destination.

Waddesdon Manor

Waddesdon Manor was built by Baron Rothschild a long time ago and is representative of the Rothschild empire. Our host is Stephen Lane, the marketing manager. He explains a lot of the history including the rivalry between Mouton Rothschild and Lafitte. We try some interesting wines show their expansion into the new wine areas of the world such as Chile.

We then head to another building for the dinner – The Dairy.

Entering the Dairy

Ducks on the Pond

They have a ceremony where three of the guests open a bottle of champagne each with a large knife. Naturally we push JV to be one of them.

Getting Instruction

Success

The Champagne Cork Sword

We then proceed to the dinner table.

The Scanned Menu

Dover Sole

Duo of Lamb

Truffled Camember

Thyme Poacheed Peach

The wines were quite special too. At the end, we hopped on the bus for the long ride back to London. I suppose we got back home, after a taxi ride from the Bluebird, around 2:00 AM. A great time all-up.

There were professional photographers there who took a large range of photos. I have copied below a few of these.

http://hollyclarkphotography.pixieset.com/clubdanddwinedinneratwaddesdonmanor/

Note: the cork in mid air

Posted on June 9, 2015June 11, 2015 by beauperi

Fawlty Towers

Friday, 5 June, 2015

We start the day by going to another market.

The Old Market

It may have been an old market at one stage but it was mostly modern shops with room for a number of stalls. One of the reasons we came here was for Julie to go to a Swedish place for Smoked Mackerel.

Sadly, although the shop was open, the mackerel was not going to be available until much later in the morning. So we went to a commercial place in the market.

Is that really a double serve of smoked salmon?

Huevos Rancheros, substantial

http://www.oldspitalfieldsmarket.com/

JV was quite disappointed all up. We go back to the apartment and the JV goes out prancing. Here are some of her photos.

So what does the title of this Post have to do with anything? Well, we went to a “show”, the Fawlty Towers dining experience. We had been to the original about 9 years ago in Melbourne. This, in fact, was the only show that we went to during this trip to London, quite out of the ordinary.

We learned at the Hotel where the show was based that they have 8 different trios of Basil, Sybil and Manuel. Our group were pretty good but only Sybil looked like the originals. We took lots of photos but I will only show a few here.

Basil and Sybil
Sybil

Meal – Roast Chicken

Manuel up on a patrons table – singing

http://faultytowers.net/

http://www.amba-hotel.com/hotels/united_kingdom/london/charing-cross/index.html

It was frenetic and fun. We struggled our way back home on the tube for tomorrow.

Posted on June 5, 2015June 9, 2015 by beauperi · 2 Comments

An Unexpected Adventure

4 June, 2015

When we got back from RGR yesterday, there were urgent emails from Evgeny. The theme was that the building owners insisted on having an inspection of the apartment and he needed us to be out of it for the whole day. As an alternative, he offered us a visit to a country Spa and Hotel in West Sussex the next day.

http://www.alexanderhotels.co.uk/alexander-house-luxury-hotel-sussex/

We agreed and straightened up the apartment somewhat before going down stairs to wait for the 7:30 AM pick-up. Well, an hour passed with no sign of a pick-up so as I went to call Evgeny I noted that my phone was out of order. I fixed that and he explained that a driver would be there shortly. We finally got on the road at 9:00, 90 minutes after the expected departure time.

Then because it is rush hour, the traffic is horrendous. There are two disastrous roundabouts at which we waited ages to get through. There are a lot of buses everywhere which slow down proceedings and in London hundreds of bikes which get in the way and slow things down. Additionally, there is construction going on and tons of traffic lights. All in all, that part of the trip took nearly two hours and hence we arrive at the Spa at 11:00 when we were expected at 9:00.

Things pick up from there and we are given a look around at the facilties.

The Indoor Swimming Pool

Our lunch is scheduled for 12:00 so we have time to take advantage of some of the facilities before then. I have a sauna and a steam bath before going to an outdoor spa. After there for a while, I come back in, another sauna and stem and then upstairs for lunch. JV, who had gone her separate way in the Ladies dressing room comes along a few minutes later.

We proceed to the lunch area where we are greeted by a young Asian girl who had recently completed her wine waiting diploma, very lovely girl. I ordered an Argentinian Malbec.

Julie ordered a Rose.

Note our high class dining outfit with the bathrobes donated to us as part of the overall package.

Beau Brummel

Duck Rillettes for me, delightful

For some reason there are no more photos of the food. But it was certainly acceptable. Julie had Mackerel and Salmon.

JV finishes with an Irish Coffee

After the lunch we had a 60 minute massage each – apparently I slept through most of it. Julie then had a facial. I bumbled around in sauna, steam room and in door spas. All very nice and relaxing. It was a good and unexpected surprise day.

The outdoor spa and garden

We had discussed with Evgeny a pick up time of 4:00 PM and amazingly the driver was early. It was a slightly faster trip back but as we got near London traffic was getting heavier so we jumped out at Brixton and caught the tube back to the apartment, saving a lot of time.

That night I had thought we would try to find some local eatery but Julie was well down on energy. The concierges recommended that we try the lounge on the sixth floor so we did that. The carte was not special but we did it any way.

Our building from the club

Beetroot for JV

Sausage soup

Smoked Salon for JV, naturally

Chicken Cacciatore

A big crash after a big day.

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Beauperi Investments – Wine Consulting

Tag: London

I Still Call Australia

Leaving London

Waddesdon Manor Wine Dinner

Fawlty Towers

An Unexpected Adventure