Spirit of Meenachil: Our European holiday-London, Balmullo and Cambridge

At long last I have been able to accomplish something I had always wanted to do—go on a Grand Tour of Europe and see all the places I had only dreamt of! My dream came true in September –October 2013 when, with financial help from Unni and Ankita, Simmy and I set off from Mumbai on the 1^st September.

The British Airways flight from Mumbai to London was quite comfortable but uneventful and we landed at Heathrow at 7.30 in the morning. Joan (my niece) and her son Mathen were at the airport to receive us and soon whisked us off to their home in Richmond, to the exclusive suburb of Kew Garden where they live. They have a sprawling place replete with gardens and front-yard and we were very comfortable during our stay of ten days there. Joan and her brood (sons Alex, Mathen and Seby, and daughter MaryAnne) took great care of us and we lacked nothing. Every morning, after a sumptuous breakfast, Joan would send us off, with an equally impressive packed lunch, and we would get back only late in the evening, after taking in the sights of London.

London was wonderful and we did all the usual things. Visited the Tower of London, saw the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace, walked up and down Tower Bridge, visited Harrod’s, (but took care not to buy anything there!), went to Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, St. James’ Park, Westminster Abbey, No. 10 Downing Street, saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, ate (and drank) in pubs, went boating up the Thames and even saw the longest-running play in history, Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap”. While the grand buildings and the sheer historicity of London was overwhelming, what impressed me even more was the charm and politeness of the ordinary Londoner. Everyone was so courteous, so friendly and so helpful. Whether it was the London Bobby, the railway clerk, or the man-in-the-street, Londoners are absolutely charming.

While we were in London, we also took a couple of days off, to visit some old friends in Scotland and Cambridge respectively. First we traveled up to Balmullo, a little village in Fife, near St. Andrew’s in Scotland, to visit the Rev. Daniel O’Connor and his wife, Juliet. Dan was the chaplain in St. Stephen’s College in my time and it was wonderful meeting him and Juliet at their charming country cottage. We had High Tea in their delightful Conservatory, where for the first time I got to eat scones! The O 'Connors also presented us with a beautiful quaich, the Scottish Cup of Friendship, after extracting a promise from us that it would be passed around and put to good use at the next meeting of the Old College Gang.

Balmullo itself is an absolutely beautiful place and we had dinner at a local pub, after Dan took us around St. Andrew’s University, (where Prince William met and proposed to Kate). The university is situated in wild and wind-swept countryside and the whole place reminded me of Macbeth, Birnum Wood and Dunsinane!

After returning from Scotland, we visited David Gosling at his hide-out in Cambridge. David is another old friend, who also taught at St.Stephen’s and is now back in Cambridge after a three-year stint in Peshawar where he was the Principal of a college. Thanks to him, we could go right inside the hallowed precincts of Cambridge and the many famous colleges there. We spent the night at his place, after a rather incongruous Kerala dinner (appams, pappadoms, coconut fish curry, et al) at a south Indian restaurant run by a man from Calicut! David is very fond of south Indian food. “Do you think they will serve pappadoms here?” he asked, rather plaintively, as soon as we entered the place. And he was not disappointed.