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O, To Be In England...

Here's a British town with a comparatively short history compared to nearby places: Crewe in Cheshire.
It was built on a flat rural plain in the mid-19th century to serve the railway boom.

Nicked form Facebook -
Oil painting by Norman Wilkinson. Wilkinson studied art at Portsmouth and Southsea Schools of Art. He designed posters for several railway companies and organised the Royal Academy series of posters for the London & Midlands Railway in 1924.
The Crewe works gained a reputation for the high quality of its locomotives - by 1871, the town’s population had grown to 40,000, having been a mere 70 in 1831.
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Crewe Junction, Evening (No.2)’, 1920.jpeg
 
Wales is great too. :)
Highly picturesque, full of cycling paths, conveniently situated next to Cheshire, accessible by train.

Here is the Great Orme in north Wales. We like to cycle round the outside. Loads to see.

great Orme from above..jpgThe Great Orme and the Victorian Town of Llandudno.jpg

To reach the high bit you cycle along the promenade.

The Town of Llandudno.jpg

Obviously we're not on these photos as my hi-viz cycling apparel tends to dazzle passing aircraft.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
And what exactly is clotted cream??
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As I salivate over @maximus otter 's picture above, I will add that clotted cream is essentially thick cream that has been heated to thicken it further. It's not exactly heart-friendly but it tastes divine.

I like the Langage Farm brand myself - it's always golden and gloopy. You find a lot of shops selling Rodda's, but it's generally a bit too runny for me. Our local brand is Sutton Lucy, which is too pale for my liking. Yes, I can be that fussy.
 
FWIW - Cream tea. Yum. I split the scone into halves (has to be a plain scone, not a fruited one) then dump a dollop of jam on one half, and a dollop of clotted cream on the other half, then smoosh the two halves together and ram the result in my gob.
There is no 'top' or 'bottom'.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
LOLOL - amazing to me that over in the UK you actually QUEUE up at the bus stops, never heard of such a thing!
Over here, it's every man / woman for themselves, and don't get me started on listening to everyone screech away into their cell phones during the ride.
I remember my British grandmother and her 'elevenses' at 11:00 a.m. every morning, it's tea time, and then again at 4:00 pm, it's tea time again.
Oh and the watercress sandwiches!!
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That suprises me. I thought you Yanks were over very polite when queing etc.

An Arab-Israeli friend of mine once asked why 'us British' have to have meals at the same time every day (which I would think most people do here), where as there, there is less formality with times. I think it is a good thing to be quite strict on this though- the French are too, and also they don't eat at their desks and certainly not (my pet hate), when walking.

As for the 4pm thing, maybe some older couples still do it but I couldn't eat that early.

I remember cress sandwiches, but I haven't even seen the stuff since about 1975 let alone eaten it!
 
Don't get your 'cress' mixed up with your 'watercress', they are quite different.

And 'watercress' is distinctly English as it grows particularly in specially created 'watercress beds' which are extremely shallow areas of water which have constant running water from a 'chalk stream' passing over them.
'Chalk streams' are almost entirely found in the south-east of England.

And I think you'll find that that if you check in the pre-made sandwiches section of your local supermarket they will have an 'egg and cress' version available.
 
Trevp666 said:
And 'watercress' is distinctly English as it grows particularly in specially created 'watercress beds' which are extremely shallow areas of water which have constant running water from a 'chalk stream' passing over them.
'Chalk streams' are almost entirely found in the south-east of England.
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There were watercress beds in a village not far from where I was born (near Wantage) when I was young we did used to go there sometimes and pick it. Lovely! (Letcombe Bassett. Image from Geograph).

E4E22D62-FD46-44BD-9BF3-F41D2FA59E07.jpeg
 
Floyd1 said:
That suprises me. I thought you Yanks were over very polite when queing etc.

As for the 4pm thing, maybe some older couples still do it but I couldn't eat that early.
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Well that's the problem you see, the area we are living in is no longer 'Yanks'. For instance, our parked vehicle was slammed by an undocumented person with NO driver's license, no registration for his vehicle, no license plates, no insurance, no paperwork to be in our country, and a rap sheet going back for years. We were left with $5,000 in damages to our vehicle, which we had to pay for, along with a rental vehicle, meanwhile nothing was done to this man, he was free to go. I don't want to get political, but as you can see we are dealing with an immense illegal problem.

4:00 was 'tea time', just for a cup of tea, and 7:00 pm was dinner time, according to my grandmother. LOL
Oh and Sunday was always different - 1:00 in the afternoon was dinner time, then a light meal later on.
 
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You Brits also have 'National Health Care', while we are forced to purchase medical insurance, some plans run into the thousands per month.
We are penalized for not having any health insurance. Strange situation.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
Well that's the problem you see, the area we are living in is no longer 'Yanks'. For instance, our parked vehicle was slammed by an undocumented person with NO driver's license, no registration for his vehicle, no license plates, no insurance, no paperwork to be in our country, and a rap sheet going back for years. We were left with $5,000 in damages to our vehicle, which we had to pay for, along with a rental vehicle, meanwhile nothing was done to this man, he was free to go. I don't want to get political, but as you can see we are dealing with an immense illegal problem.

4:00 was 'tea time', just for a cup of tea, and 7:00 pm was dinner time, according to my grandmother. LOL
Oh and Sunday was always different - 1:00 in the afternoon was dinner time, then a light meal later on.
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Understood.
 
Trevp666 said:
Don't get your 'cress' mixed up with your 'watercress', they are quite different.

And 'watercress' is distinctly English as it grows particularly in specially created 'watercress beds' which are extremely shallow areas of water which have constant running water from a 'chalk stream' passing over them.
'Chalk streams' are almost entirely found in the south-east of England.

And I think you'll find that that if you check in the pre-made sandwiches section of your local supermarket they will have an 'egg and cress' version available.
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Well young Trev, I was thinking about the stuff that came in a tray and you cut the tops of and put them in your sandwich, whatever that one was called. As for pre-made sandwiches- don't touch 'em.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
You Brits also have 'National Health Care', while we are forced to purchase medical insurance, some plans run into the thousands per month.
We are penalized for not having any health insurance. Strange situation.
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Don’t make the common (and tacitly encouraged) assumption that the NHS is “free”. UK taxpayers fund its £130,000,000,000 - $177B - (in 2018) through taxes, National Insurance, etc.

maximus otter
 
Trevp666 said:
FWIW - Cream tea. Yum. I split the scone into halves (has to be a plain scone, not a fruited one) then dump a dollop of jam on one half, and a dollop of clotted cream on the other half, then smoosh the two halves together and ram the result in my gob.
There is no 'top' or 'bottom'.
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Ah, Trev - Son No 2 does this to avoid the arguments. I feel it shows a certain amount of cunning and guile, though it could also be described as diplomacy. Take your pick.
 
bugmum said:
Ah, Trev - Son No 2 does this to avoid the arguments. I feel it shows a certain amount of cunning and guile, though it could also be described as diplomacy. Take your pick.
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It could also possibly be given the alternate name of Sconcing?
 
maximus otter said:
Don’t make the common (and tacitly encouraged) assumption that the NHS is “free”. UK taxpayers fund its £130,000,000,000 - $177B - (in 2018) through taxes, National Insurance, etc.

maximus otter
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Indeed. We all pay for a service that not all of us use, which has an inordinate ability to ridiculously waste money on things such as buying plasters for a massively inflated price, and paying wages to irrelevant layers of management that would not be tolerated in any private business.
Remember the NHS is the worlds 8th largest employer, behind The US Dept of Defense, The Peoples Liberation Army of China, Walmart, China Railway, Ministry of Defence of Russia, Ministry of Public Security of China and.........McDonalds.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
You Brits also have 'National Health Care', while we are forced to purchase medical insurance, some plans run into the thousands per month.
We are penalized for not having any health insurance. Strange situation.
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Yup, we do have the treasured NHS but we pay for it in advance through stiff taxation. Worth every penny. :)
 
Well we pay ever-increasing taxes here - payroll taxes, federal income tax, state taxes, taxes on everything but necessities, services, property taxes which are skyrocketing, and our insurance costs are ridiculously horrendous (medical, homeowner, auto).
And then don't forget, we are still billed by the medical 'industry' which only covers percentages of dr visits, any type of hospitalization, tests (many of which are not covered at all, insurance refuses to pay and you are stuck paying many thousands of dollars), procedures, surgeries, etc. Even if a procedure or test is mandatory and life-threatening, you may be stuck paying. Not government-regulated, apparently. And prescriptions are another out-of-pocket nightmare, even if one is on mandatory drugs.
I believe it is an 'industry' here, you would not believe the bills I received for an emergency room visit, some people have to file bankruptcy.
Used to be that your job came with automatic medical full coverage - no more. Think I would be happy with national health care, Canada also has it.
 
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