Life in London - Picnic in the Park - or a Kosher Kiosk

 Photo from Facebook.

What is there to do in London? I ask relatives who live in Finchley, Hendon, and Northwood. 

The husband of one pair said, "Not much to do. Everything is closed. Except for the food shops."

I replied, "What about the parks?"

"Yes, we went for a walk in a park in Hendon. We bought some food from a restaurant, like a kiosk, order from outside. A kosher kiosk.  They bring the food out to you. We ate it sitting on a bench. They removed the tables and had four wooden benches like a pub. The benches are bolted down."

The park is near Hendon Central Station.

The park adjoins an area with a Remembrance arch. The words in Hebrew, reading from the right to left, are the consonants which spell out Le zeekderon.  

N R K Z L

A bit like speedwriting, or text messages, or acronyms

Anything more cheerful?

the kiddie playground is in use.

The park has grass and trees. Three tennis cours. A couple of basketball courts, one still in use. Nobody is playing tennis. "It's too wet for tennis."

I asked, 'What about the snow?'

' When it's snowing in Wales and up north, there's not much snow in London. It's too warm here. The snow just melts. We are quite glad of a change of seen. Since nobody is working away from home or going out to restaurants, snow does not make much difference to our lives. Just something to look at. Out of the window.'

Another couple in thei

Searching For Parks On Maps

I remember when as young marrieds we moved from a flat in Stanmore to a bungalow in Hatch End. We knew all the big parks along the main road. However, when we looked at a local map, we discovered lots of interesting open spaces.

The nearby park had two entrances, so you could do a circular walk

Another park had an exit which led to a footpath through the woods and out through a housing estate.

Cricket grounds and tennis courts were in fields which offered another chance for a walk.

Photos

The seasons provided a changing opportunity for new vistas and photos. A fountain in front of the Hatch End arts centre.

Snow in winter. Flowers planted in public places. Houses with Christmas lights. Balloons for birthdays. On gates.

Seasonal posters of offers outside restaurants. 

I researched. Every path, building, cemetery, had a story. 

Gifts in the supermarkets.

Useful Websites

https://www.facebook.com/Hendon-Park-

360 view of the area

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x487610dcac10a71b%3A0xcb4a0cde1bf29f87!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is teacher of English. (Advanced English and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, an aspiring polyglot.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs, and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

How To Be a Good Loser and Magnanimous Winner At Contests And Events

Tennis players shake hands after a match. I have decided we need a similar system in Toastmasters contests. I have won and lost many times, and seen others win and lose many times.

Shaking hands. Wikipedia.

I have been a member of four clubs, two in the UK and two in Singapore, as well as a Writer's group in the UK which has contests for writers and Writers' Summer School Which Also runs contests.

Inevitably, sometimes the losers are crestfallen. I have seen a contestant bury her head in her hands on a desk and look tearful and refuse to join in a photo. I have also seen a contestant who is autistic jumping for joy, leaving the audience embarrassed on behalf of the person who was not the winner.

After a recent contest I suggested that the losers should shake hands, like tennis players.

A mentor tried to persuade a contestant that she should not only try to psych herself to win, she should also be prepared to lose.

She said she would bang her hand on the wall, to remind herself to do better next time.

At this I was very concerned and told her,
"You must not hit your head because your brains are in your head and you must protect them against damage. You owe it to everybody else to protect your body and mind. Remember the song, 'Take good care of yourself, you belong to me.' "

I then decided to rehearse what she would say in both scenarios, winning and losing. I said, "Pretend your mentor has just come second and you were first. Shakes hands with him and wish him well in future contests."

She did so.

I then said, "Let's reverse the scenario. This time he has won and you were second. Shake hands with him and wish him well and success in the next contest."

After she did that, quite well, I sighed, "I ought to take up counselling!"

My other friend said, "You just have. That's what leadership is all about."

We are often asked, what do you think are the characteristics of a leader? What should a leader do or not do?

I now have an answer. A leader should teach contestants to remain calm in a crisis. To congratulate winners and be happy for them even when you have lost.

The TV series losers dealt with people who have bounced back. But being a good loser is more popular than note being a good loser. For example, Wiki reports:

'At the 1994 World Championships in Chiba, Japan – where the three Olympic medalists did not compete – Bonaly's final overall score was equal to home country favorite Yuka Sato, who would be awarded the gold medal after a 5-4 tiebreaker decision.^[15] Upset by the result, Bonaly stood beside the medals platform rather than on it. She eventually stepped onto the platform but took off her silver medal after it was presented to her; she was immediately booed by the crowd,'

People in walks of life succeed after surviving setbacks. One great example is Jack Ma, cofounder of Alibaba and China's richest man..

Useful Websites
Wikipedia Jack Ma
The Losers Series reviewed
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9817218/reviews?ref_=tt_urv



Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Could you get a group discount? Or a free place?

Problem
I am offered group discounts. I am not a group - or am I?

Answer
You are probably a member of a group or know somebody who is. For example:
1 Planning a wedding or a stag or hen night or weekend away.
2 A big birthday party - even a small one of you and a partner and a few other couples.
3 A music group.
4 A book group.
5 A Toastmasters group.
6 A sports club.
7 A study group - languages, taking and exam in languages, religions, attending a festival, a national day celebration.

Your group leader is probably sent loads of offers and does not tell you about them but just bins them.

Your local group probably organises lots of events at reduced prices. To give some examples:

My local gardening club goes on outings to distant public gardens. They have offers on bulbs.

My book group organises outings to plays and films.

Other groups such as U3A (University of the Third Age, for retired people) organises outings.

You could join a group in order to find somebody else doing the work of organising the trip, to get reductions, or simply to find company.

What sort of outings could you organise?

1 An evening to the theatre. A visit to a TV show.
2 A day trip to a museum, stately home, festival.
3 A weekend away during a holiday.
4 A holiday (eg a bridge holiday for a bridge club; a trip to Wimbledon for a tennis club).

Tips
For groups of ten or more:
Theatre
Pre-theatre meals
Attractions reduced if packed with other elements such as dinner, show or travel include: Arsenal Stadium Tour and Museum, Churchill War Rooms, Co Cola London Eye, HMS Belfast, Kew Gardens and Palace, Shakespeare's Globe Tour and exhibition, Warner Brothers Studio Tour, Wembley Stadium Tour, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and Tour, Windsor Castle, ZSL London Zoo, Pantomimes and Christmas shows and many more.

Do some comparison shopping and see what deals you can find for reductions for the whole group, the birthday boy or girl, the free room for the wedding couple or the group organiser.

Free Places
Many organisations offer free places or entry for carers. For example, if you are pushing a relative in a wheelchair, driving a minibus, or have four foster children, you might find it worthwhile to check everything on offer.

If you simply want to organise an event, and provide extra networking or seasonal cheer for your group, you might consider it worthwhile to pay the premium a a commercial organisation charges for organising it all for you. On the other hands, if you have time, make sure the offer price for a group is less than you can get for yourself by booking direct with a theatre, attraction, restaurant.

If you need to organise lunch boxes, or sandwiches for a summer BBQ or Xmas party for your club, or you are area director for a group of clubs, you might find it worthwhile joining a wholesaler which has membership for businesses, charities and other organisations with bulk orders for catering and supplies, such as Costco.

Websites
GROUP DISCOUNTS
www.costco.com (For the USA)
www.costco.co.uk (For the UK)
www.encore.co. uk groups@encore.co.uk / tel: 020 7492 1525.
https://carers.org/article/days-out

Happy travelling!

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and tennis people, places and products

If you enjoyed seeing the winners and audience and want to follow up on your interest, here are some links to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. Things for you to do or see:

• See Film about tennis in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis museum, London, England. (Largest tennis museum in the world according to the Wikipedia article.)
• Visit Tenniseum tennis museum in Paris, France.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenniseum 
• Visit Tennis museum in Rhode Island, USA.
• Wikipedia on tennis and winners.
• Articles in online UK newspapers such as the BBC news and Daily Mail showing audience including Kate delighted at win; ball for winners showing ladies usually seen in short tennis skirts now wearing maxi skirts.
• Sports shops online and to visit: Sports Direct.
• Check Google maps for tennis courts in your local area: near your home; or hotel; or office; where you can play or watch tennis.
• Tennis souvenirs on eBay and Amazon.
• List tennis winners of the country you are visiting so you can make conversation with: taxi drivers, passengers on coaches, business contacts, and when asked to give impromptu speeches to members of Toastmasters International Speakers training clubs worldwide.
•  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tennis_Hall_of_Fame (USA)
• Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, Church Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 5AE Phone:020 8946 6131
• https://www.expedia.co.uk/things-to-do/wimbledon-lawn-tennis-museum
• https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186338-d548466-Reviews-Wimbledon_Lawn_Tennis_Museum-London_England.html
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3683577/He-did-Andy-Murray-smiles-broadly-arrives-Wimbledon-Champions-Dinner-beautiful-wife-Kim-Sears-brilliant-straight-sets-victory-Canadian-Milos-Raonic.html
• For article on The Kensington Hotel and more pictures see my previous post in this blog.

Tennis balls decorating The Kensington Hotel, London, for Wimbledon week. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
More articles by Angela Lansbury and information about Angela Lansbury (the author not the actress - type in poet, travel writer, author, speaker to refine your search) in:  Lulu.com; Youtube; LinkedIn; Facebook;Twitter.

The Kensington Hotel and Wimbledon Tennis Balls

The Kensington Hotel is decorated inside and out with Wimbledon theme tennis balls. If you have a chance to stay at, eat at or visit the Kensington Hotel, I heartily recommend it.

They were also featuring English wine, award winning Nyetimber.

As soon as I saw the topical decorations I thought, this hotel is on the ball.

Obliging staff are on hand to fetch you a brochure or escort you to the room you need. The hall way has a blazing fire in July, and so does the inner room the other side of the wall. the reception rooms are small enough to feel cosy. The decor is just lovely.

The ladies toilet has gold taps and in the cubicles and even matching gold toilet paper holder. Of course you find a handy hook to hang your handbag.

The washing gel and moisturiser smell delightful and leave you feeling you must also smell subtly delightful. You can dry your hands on real towel, lots of small white rolled up teeny towels so yours is fresh.

I wondered whether people in the hotel were playing in a tennis match,  watching a live match at Wimbledon, or simply enjoying seeing the matches played or replayed on television.

Wimbledon tennis matches include ladies' and gentleman's singles and doubles and mixed doubles, as well as juniors and wheelchair tennis players.

Have a look at Wimbledon on their website. You find all sorts of interesting pictures of the players as well as the links to the online shop where you can buy clothing and souvenirs and also if you miss this year's event, you can find out how to visit the Tennis Museum.

The Wikipedia site has everything on one page making it easy to find the vital dates quickly.

If you need any tennis racquets or clothing to enjoy the English summer, I was just emailed by sports direct.com who have a website and lots of shops.

The hotel is party of the Doyle Collection, owned by an Irish family, their five luxury hotels being The Dupont Circle in Washington DC, The Westbury in Dublin, this one - The Kensington,  The Marylebone and The Bloomsbury in London. Their urban hotels are: The Bristol in Bristol; Harbourside, and the River Lee in Cork and the Croke Park in Dublin.

The Kensington Hotel, 109-113 Queens Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5LR, UK.
Tel:+44 20 7589 6300.
Website: doylecollection.com/Kensington

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

English tea time: cucumber, white and brown bread, high tea

Sitting down to tea, after reading books about how people live in other times and other countries, you may feel that you are leading a relatively uneventful life. Yet the tea table before you has links to other eras and other countries, or contrasts with what you have experienced previously.

Outside the window of the room where I had tea recently, at a friens new home, I enjoyed seeing every room of the house, especially the kitchen. I looked out at the back garden with the lawn, contrasting with the front driveway of many houses in the street, covered in to allow car parking. I had previously taken a tour of the house, en route to the downstairs cloakroom. Now I looked out of the kitchen window, admiring the long lawn at the back of the house.

In Medieval times you had a meadow with grass and colourful perfumed flowers. Along came lawn tennis. Then lawn mowers. So in Victorian times, in a large house with a grassed lawn, you might watch croquet or clock golf or cricket played on the field or lawn.

Afterwards, in mid-afternoon, as either owner of the property, or a guest you ate cucumber sandwiches on white bread for tea. Tea was a meal between luncheon and dinner.

In the North of England in winter you came home when it got dark and cold. Electric lights in and around the house were installed in various years, as you can check, along with street lighting. Your local library will tell you about street lighting in your nearest city, town or village.

How can you find out? When writing about an ancestor of mine who lived in the East End of London in my novel I struggled to find out. The electric lights in the USA were better documented on the web than the lighting in London.

If you go to the North of England and Scotland you can still get High Tea. This is a half way meal combining tea and a snack supper. You start with savoury and end with sweet, maybe start with hot and end with cold, such as a grill or sandwiches or toast with something on top followed by cold cakes or if you prefer, hot pancakes.

Tea Time
Some schools and old people's homes would and still do serve a High Tea or early supper, at 5.30 or six o'clock. Meals get later as you go further south. In Europe, the latest would be the 9 pm or 10 pm meal in a restaurant in Spain.

It was easier to send the hero of my novel on a trip to another city, where his relatives were excited about the new lighting, than to leave him in London, where he might have been in the dark, at least the novel's author was in the dark.

Lights
Maybe the records of the electric light companies, the sales of light bulbs and records or household expenses will also give you a clue as to whether your ancestors or the people who used to live in your house had candles, gas light, or electric lights in the city or home.

Lighting up times, dawn and dusk, will affect the working day, the building of a house, school finishing time (allowing time for children to walk home, before the universal bus routes). You are cold and tired and hungry, or hot and tired and hungry, when you arrive home after a long walk (even costume drama ladies walking for a chat or riding a horse might be tired.

In Singapore at a Eurasian club we were served hot in both senses, curried food. In India it would be rice in the north. In China you would have rice in the north, noodles in the south. Back to Singapore, majority Chinese, but the Eurasian club was for Indians or rather mostly ex-past British or other white men with their exotically dressed Indian wives, who presumably liked curry (as did nay grandfather in London who died in 1950 - never went to India as far as I know and alas it's now too late to ask my late parents or y grandparents how he acquired this taste. Maybe Queen Victoria had made curry popular in his youth. Does anybody know?

The Eurasian club served me sandwiches using white bread. They serve whatever the organisers ask for, which might be savoury food followed by cold cake or biscuit or the modern substitutes, crisps and nuts and nibbles.

Back in London, I enjoy tea with my book group friends. They are mostly ladies (some of them belong to several book groups, at least two, sometimes three groups). Occasionally this group is joined by a husband, author, or retired gentleman has the time and inclination to read the latest price-winning book and offer a verdict. We have a mix of shop-bought and home catering.

My previous post describes the 'bridge rolls'. The afternoon's hostess told us they were not bridge rolls, but better than bridge rolls, less heavy, less bready, more light and more moist. I took a picture of the wrapper. I thought it was easier to give another family member the wrapper when they went shopping, and easier for them or me to show to a shop assistant. Weeks later the wrapper picture is still on my computer, whereas a name written on a scrap of paper would disappear.

The rolls are called Mini White Submarine Rolls. The white ones look more like the traditional bridge roll. They come in packs of eight which will make 16 half pieces, enough to fill one long oblong plate. We had a mixture of brown and white rolls, which adds visual appeal.

Angela Lansbury, author, researcher, speaker.