Bits of England

Meet Wenlock and Mandeville

The Parentals have some old chaps from the U.K. visiting for their summer holidays.  (And I'm going to have a hard time not using some English colloquialisms in this post).


The Williams Family have come from England to pay us a visit.  Or, rather, my parents.  And since we're all under the same roof we got a chance to visit with them for a bit before they were off to more exotic locals like, Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

They were kind enough to bring 'The Kid' a few fun things as gifts.

The fist being a couple of plush toys from the Olympic games.  Well, not really FROM the games but, inspired for the games.  Whatever.  

And a little light reading...I had no idea these books were from the U.K.  They're so universal!  I remember reading these guys (and watching the cartoons) when I was a wee one.

The home mags were fun to go through too.  They've got some seriously entertaining phrases they use in their articles.  Doesn't seem quite grammatically proper to use in published writing but then...I'm now wondering what kinds of slang/phraseology the Yanks use.

And reading some of the recipes were VERY interesting.  What in the WORLD is full-fat soft cheese?!  It could be a zillion things in my mind.  Are we talking about cream cheese?  Brie?  Then there's caster sugar, creme de cassis and Marshmallow Fluff.  Perhaps I need to expand my cooking vocabulary to a more global spectrum.

I saved the best for last.  The almighty VIMTO.

I've been trying to not hold a grudge against the Williams' for introducing this rubbish to my Mum.  Okay, not rubbish, I just wanted to use that word.  I do enjoy the Chewy Sweets.  But that's about it in the Vimto category.  Which is a very large category by the way.  I'm trying to think of a similar product from here that we make into a zillion different things.

Nothing comes to mind.

They have Vimto juice/mix, fruit leather, fruit candies, an ice-cream syrup, and a slew of other things that I can't think of just now.

I pointed out to my mother that the letters, rearranged, spell the word VOMIT.  Food for thought.  My Mum has a serious love of Vimto that she tries to feed the rest of us.  Not happening.

Just thought I'd share.

Lady Chan