Our very busy social week
This week has been amazing in London with consistently hot weather which has been great for the kids off school and the tourists visiting the capital. Furthermore the week has been special for Vee and me for the very full social programme that we’ve enjoyed which has been particularly busy because of Jewish Pesach coinciding with the Christian Easter.
So, on Tuesday evening, we were invited to a special Seder meal – our first – on the second night of Pesach by our Jewish friends Cindy (South African) and Eric (American) in north London’s Muswell Hill. There were 12 of us in all. The event followed a very traditional sequence from the four glasses of wine to the ten plagues as explained here. It was a fascinating occasion for we humanists and we felt honoured to be involved as goyim, but I have to say that horseradish is an acquired taste.
Then, on Wednesday evening, we took out friends to “Rules” restaurant in central London. We only made these friends a month or so ago in Beirut [see my account here] and it was fun to see them again so soon in a different capital city. Claire is British and her partner Fadi is Lebanese. “Rules” claims to be the oldest restaurant in the city and it’s the kind of place that is frequented by politicians and performers. A fellow customer that evening was Matthew Fox, the star of the television series “Lost” who is currently appearing on stage in London.
Next came Thursday evening when again we had a meal with foreign visitors to London. This time the friend was an American Jon, whom I first met in London in 1981. Thirty years later, we finally met most of his family: wife Virginia, elder daughter Alyssa and son Zach. Jon is Jewish and Virginia, who is American-Chinese, converted to Judaism so the kids are both Jewish and Chinese which is an unusual combination. We ate at an up-market Chinese restaurant called “Good Earth” in Knightsbridge and the food was delicious.
Finally we come to today: Good Friday. We started with a barbeque brunch with Eric & Cindy and Cindy’s daughter Kita in Eric’s garden in Muswell Hill. We had venison burgers and venison sausages with homemade coleslaw which was all mouthwatering. After this, Vee and I drove down to the South Bank which was buzzing, partly because of a four-day India festival and partly because of the start of a six-month series of activities marking the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain.
We met our son Richard, his wife Emily (Canadian) and their three-month old baby daughter Catrin [regular readers of NightHawk will know about my beautiful granddaughter and welcome the up-date photos below] with my brother Ralph, his partner Carol (whose parents are from the Caribbean) and their seven-year old daughter Saskia.
Great friends – Roger and Catrin
Roger with Saskia and Catrin
April 22nd, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Roger, I also went to a Pesach seder on Monday night at the home of one of my students. My first one! It was, as you say, really interesting. I no longer puzzle over why students at my school understand symbolism in literature so much better (and question it less) than do students I have taught in other schools. I thought the horseradish went a long way toward making the gefilte fish more palatable.
South Africa must have a fairly sizable Jewish community. Many of my students come from South Africa (or their parents do).