Day 4 – The Witches of Eastwick-es

Having survived a day with one side of the family, it was time for a visit to the Dark Side. I mean the other side, of my family. My mum has 2 sisters and 2 brothers. Both of the brothers are out of England right now, so I met with my mum, 2 aunts and 2 cousins. I have 5 cousins on this side, but only 2 were here today. Fairly manageable by comparison to yesterday.

A train in England

Took a train to Horsham in West Sussex along with my Aunt Patti who met me on the train. It was great to see her again, and it was really nice to see the quintessential English countryside whizzing past the windows as we caught up.

The Witches of Eastwick. Mum is on the right. Be afraid.

After a fairly short ride we were picked up in a mini. England is not tiny, but often feels very small, especially when you see how many people live here. As a result, the roads are always very busy and many people drive fairly small cars. Not so much because of cost, but because the petrol is expensive and the roads are narrow and often full of hazards like parked cars.

Getting into my aunts car at the station, I felt like we were getting into a clown car, but somehow we managed. (cue humourous clown horn sound).

Yes, I know, I’m a big lazy SUV-driving Murrican, deal with it.

Me with cousins, mum and aunts

I saw my cousins and mum and we sat out the back in the lovely garden enjoying the sunshine and drinking champagne. No Carlsberg here, mate.

Oh, and before lunch I was introduced to another Marmite-related delicacy. This one is cheddar with marmite flavouring.

Not sure how great it was, I could barely taste the marmite, but the packaging with neat, so I took a photo of that too.

I have not seen my cousin Fiona in about 20 years, and she was (understandably) pleased to see me again after so many years. We had some good times together before and were right back in that mode within 10 minutes.

One of her best comments of the day was when she referred to the trio of mothers and aunts as “The Witches of Eastwick”. Seemed perfect, and gives you a sense of the sense of humor around here.

Cheddar Cheese with Marmite

Soon enough the lunch was ready. Nothing fancy, (ok, slightly fancy), just cold cuts, new potatoes, beetroot and a ton of other goodies. Good, simple food so we could focus on the important task of catching up after many many moons. The lunch was followed up with fresh berries and cream, which, while simple was really good. Everyone had a good laugh (at my expense) as I took some photos, but I’m glad I did.

Strawberries, blackberries and raspberries awaiting some cream

After a considerable amount of banter, they decided to head out to deepest darkest Horsham to take me on a tour.

Its a fairly modest town but has a reasonably nice centre with pleasant looking shops and of course, a pub on every corner. There is an area known as “car fax” which is an older shopping area and there are a few roads nearby with very old (300+ years) houses which look very English and quaint.

Someone lives here. Lucky so and so

Sadly, most of the shops were shut, including a great looking sweet shop and a meat shop which included a tantalizing list of cheeses. Yum. Luckily all the pubs were open, so we decided to visit “The Hornbrook Inn“.

When it comes to beer, I may not be an expert, but I know what I like. I love bitter and ales in general. This place had the usual lagers and such, but also carried 3 different beers from “Badger” brewery. After eliminating one beer, I asked for samples of the seasonal and the “Tanglefoot Ale”. They were kind enough to let me try both and the winner was Tanglefoot Ale. What I really love about English pubs though is that many have hand pumps vs electric pumps and that means normally that the beer is fresh and unchanged by the pub.Typically 2 1/2 pulls will fill a pint.

Three Badger Ales to choose from. Plus a clean

So what do I eat in an English country pub with a pint of bitter? What food have I not tried yet? Hmmmm. Oh yes! Fish and chips!! Doh. I ordered that and it was actually really good. Had a huge piece of fish and peas arrived in a small steel colinder , which was kind of cute.

Fish and Chips! and peas, and bread for some reason.

After we ate, we left the pub and enjoyed a lovely sunset complete with rainbow (sadly not double rainbow) and I took the train back home.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to stay put, although its looking like I will be catching up with old friends for the rest of the week. That should be interesting.

The Hornbrook Inn in Horsham, Kent

Oh yes, and as I write this, we have a HUGE volcanic ash cloud looming over Scotland and threatening to halt air traffic in Europe like last year. According to the news, it is 10 times larger than last year, although they implied the ash was larger particles and as such may not travel so far. I certainly hope I can make it to Amsterdam after all this…