Brighton IV The Voyage Home
Sunday - Monday 10/22-23/06

Sunday 10/22

After what turns out to be maybe 4 hours of sleep I get up. This is a rough way to rise in the morning. Not enough sleep with a looming appointment for breakfast! Papa Tony on the other hand was bright eyed and almost literally bushy-tailed for that time of the morning! A quick cleanup and some clean clothes we are off to breakfast at the De Vere Grand Hotel where Jane and Pete are staying. It was very nice to have a leisurely breakfast with the immediate family and not have to really wake up till an hour later. Thomas was driving his Dad Pete crazy which just elicited a bunch of laughs from the rest of us. Papa Tony went up for seconds and thirds grazing through practically every thing as did John (I am back to calling him John because there are no other Johns around - thank God!). Thomas continues to have other-people's-plate envy. He wants whatever you are eating - too cute.

I must say, the occasion of the buffet breakfast brings out the worst in the British; people were cutting in line, grabbing for the serving utensils, and pushing into you to move you along. What an uncivilized group! I guess since Americans invented the buffet, I have no way of proving if this it true or not, we have some unspoken rules about buffet etiquette. For example:

• Rule #1: Don't start on the buffet 10 minutes before it closes. All the good stuff is gone and the chef on duty is worn out!
• Rule #2: Wait your turn! Cutting in line is a definite no-no unless you have a screaming child!
• Rule #3: Pushing and shoving to get to a dish is unacceptable, anyway, there is more where that came from and you will get a fresh batch and it is still free!
• Rule #5: Don't have your children push ahead in line. Everyone knows what you are up to and it is just plain rude!
• Rule #7: Holding more than two plates in your hands is just plain greedy! You can always come back for more and use a clean plate!
• Rule #9: He who has the serving utensils is King for a minute; keep at a respectable distance until they are done. It is very very uncivilized to grab serving utensils out of someone hands unless they are offered to next in line.
• Rule #13: Don't stand with arms outstretched covering 4-5 items. We all know that a number of items are appealing you just don't have to be so overt with your gluttony.
• Rule #16: Don't shout to your family while hovering over the buffet items. No one needs to consider if you practice appropriate dental hygiene or if the heat lamps will pulverize whatever happens to land on the food.
• Rule #18: Please restrain children from touching food with their hands. As adorable as they are, meaning the children, and we fully understand their impulses to gravitate toward brightly colored objects like fruit, we don't know where their hands have been!

I don't know how many rules there are but you get the point. There are unwritten rules to the buffet line that every American understands. I guess they need to be spelled out for everyone to benefit.

I gradually woke up during breakfast and it was good no one rushed me and I played with Thomas at table. I was glad that by the time I made it to the buffet I was awake enough to stay away from the black pudding. Interestingly enough, the black pudding was not as gourmet as the one in Salisbury, they looked like little cocktail sausages. Before I left to graze the buffet John told me they were there - I recognized them immediately and stayed away.

After a long and leisurely breakfast, we went up to see Jane and Pete's room and said our good byes. We had an inkling they may not want to stop by the flat if the weather continued to be bad. They had a long trip ahead of them.

We headed on home to Papa Tony's flat with the London Times newspaper in tow and retreated to various corners of the house to enjoy the rest of the day. I again took a short nap while John entertained his dad. I woke up and we had Starbucks coffee (Starbucks has invaded the UK as well) and chocolate - a tradition we have adopted in the Briginshaw-Jato household (our version of afternoon tea). Tony decided to go out and get Fish and Chips when the weather let up because he did not like what we had eaten at the pub in Rottingdean. He endeavored to get us a better experience.

Sometime later he was back with Fish and Chips and we sat down to a filling dinner. We had the traditional cod and we tried the haddock. All very nice. After dinner John fell asleep and I got to typing while waiting for the season premier of the TV show "Torchwood" to come on BBC. Jane and Pete called to say they arrived safely. The almost 2 hour season premier of Torchwood came on at 9pm which is a sci-fi show by the same guy who gave us "Dr. Who". I say "almost 2 hour" because it was BBC and there are no commercials. I am beginning to understand the need for the commercial break - breaks mean bathroom time, get coffee/tea time, stretch your legs time, be social with your fellow watchers time. It is hard hard hard to sit still for 2 hours with all the visual stimulation so yes we all got up at some point for some reason or other and missed part of the show. For now, I still like Dr. Who better even though I agree with Papa Tony that Torchwood is closer to real life.

Anyway time for bed because tomorrow is an early start (6am!) because we leave from Brighton to Heathrow and need to return the car and make a 10:35am flight. Wish us luck! Bonne nuit!

Monday 10/23/06

I started to try and sleep at 1am it does not appear I had much success until sometime after 3 - I am totally knackered because before I know it, the time is 5:50 am and it is time to jump out of bed like I had enough sleep and get that refreshing shower that makes everything seem right. About the shower/tub, every time I have stepped in it during this trip I felt like it was going to give way and send me hurtling down into the dark sewers. I know it is an irrational thought on my part but I can't help it. The other thing is Papa Tony does not have a shower curtain so the small mercies is it is a hand held shower the other end of that is I feel like a religious supplicant when I am in it. You get the idea - no need to further feed your mental images!

Papa Tony was nice enough to make breakfast which consisted of pieces of the wonderful bread he made the night before and some strong instant coffee. As a good father, he accompanies us for part of the way to make sure we get to the highway safely. Once on the highway we turn on Maude but decide to ignore her recalculation entreaties because she feels we are going into going into heavy traffic ahead. She is right but she fails to realize that her recalculated route would have added an hour to our trip from Brighton to Heathrow airport and that is entirely unacceptable. Also, since John is really the one driving and this is his neck of the woods, I am not really inclined to differ.

Arrival at the airport took some time because of the traffic but we are there on time and check-in, security, and passport control all go without a hitch. The only small disappointment is we do not get an operational upgrade to business class - the economy plus cabin is not full enough. No matter the seats are great with enough room to have a good ole snooze.

Considering I did not get to see any of London, this has been a most interesting trip. I had occasion to meet all of the Briginshaw lot in England and I also got to see where my husband gets some of his traits from. It was very funny to me that both John and Papa Tony were having a serious conversation over how many decimal places it comes to with Papa Tony being a day older than 70. They started going for who was more right and settled on he was 70.0027 years old on Sunday - Papa Tony is the mathematician and John is accountant. It would have been even more interesting if you added my father to the mix because he is a Pharmacologist and he deals in quantities as a profession. I guarantee he would have waited for the debate to be close to an end and given the final word on how old Papa Tony is when he is a day older that 70. It also made me laugh watching Grandpa B with Thomas because he talked to Thomas like a serious adult (the kid is 3!). John does the same with Thomas - maybe on a lesser scale - and it makes me wonder if he is really serious about having our kids read the NY Times by age 4.

Jane on the other hand is the peace maker that creates the smooth flow of family. She and John brought everyone together. I can't say much about the rest of the family but they are all pieces in the Briginshaw theatre that I will continue to meet over the next few years. As an onlooker and new addition to the family tree I can only attest to the symphony, chaos, and glee and have loved the privilege of being a small part of it. Rob turns 60 in 2 years - that should be even more interesting! Maybe by that time I would have figured out what Papa Tony's Japanese name "Shoto" means or by then he would have a new one for me to decipher.

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