Thursday 8 May 2008

Orange you going to finish that?


We arrived at the manor and even in my jetlagged and poisoned by the car deodoriser state, I could see that it was beautiful. The gardens are so very british. Green, green, green of the kind that has never been seen in Old Junee. Positively verdant. There are immense chestnut trees, oaks, beech, redwoods, elms and cherry trees covered in pink flowers. Beneath them are bluebells and tulips and small delicate bunnies nibbling daintily on the grass. No large, crass australian style rabbits here. I think as soon as they get too big they get transported to Australia.
And the manor is very impressive, particularly from the outside.
As it was a bank holiday we had been warned that we would have to let ourselves in and that a meal would be left in the fridge for us. I thought this was odd as in Australia the only people that use bank holidays as a holiday are bank employees and slack accountants ;-) but they do love a mini break here.
We took our many bags to our room (more on that later) and headed to the kitchen.
Now apparently the food here is themed and the theme for this week is orange. yep. The staff have unwittingly embraced the billy bob diet. Though obviously not the atkins or CSIRO because they LOVE to give us carbs...lots of carbs. The more the merrier.
So the gastronomic delight that awaited us was a processed patty on a dry bread roll with curly fries. S said that he wouldn't even give the meat to our dog but then he is used to bocconcini and tuna. And the curly fries. Well it was like going to hogs breath without the hogspitality (hoho...eh). The meal was orange with nary a bit of green or a hint of vegetable (yes, yes potatoes are veggies but I don't think curly fries qualify).
Now we thought we were being harsh. Breakfast (baked beans because they are orange natch and orange juice) was okay, particularly after we got to the supermarket as soon as it opened and purchased good jam and pain de campagne. So we thought we'd suss out dinner the next night. Handily they provide a menu so you can decide whether you want to risk it or not. So we looked at the menu. I mean how bad could Pork Korma be?
As it turned out pretty bad and well, orange. It was served with potatoes, rice and naan. If the dear Dr A wasn't already dead just the thought of all those carbs would make him expire.
Tonight we're going out for dinner.

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