Say cheese, please

I have a passion for cheese. England has many varieties of hard cheese that I like very much. So a visit to London is not complete without a trip to Covent Garden and my favourite cheese shop at Neal's Yard. It's easy to spend near to half an hour sampling, even though your mind may already be made up. Another excellent cheese shop, is Paxton and Whitfield, in Jermyn Street, which if you know London you will recognize as a place for excellent specialities. Both shops also do some excellent jams and condiments, which can make for some of the nicest gifts. At this time of year it's good to get a whole cheese for Christmas; Stilton is usually preferred but this year I have bought a Montogmery Cheddar to share with my Bahamian in-laws. In the Caribbean we rarely see real cheese and live with the processed variety.

I felt very sorry for an American man and his son, who went into Neal's Yard to get bread. They were tempted to sample but stopped by the cry of "Come awn. Let's go!" from him wife. Gladly, the rest of the family pounced on her for being in a hurry to go nowhere, as usual. However, my poor American, brow-beaten and sad-faced trudged out of the shop, bread under arm and not a morsel of cheese to whet his appetite. "Come back alone." I whispered to him. "I will." he replied.

Going back to England is always pleasant for me, having lived there for over 30 years. The place is always familiar, even though the physical changes are now so great that I have a hard time figuring out where I am. I would have a hard time driving around without getting lost, especially around Heathrow, near which I used to live. But London always has bounce, and a skip that I much prefer compared to New York or Paris. This time it was nice to pass through The City [London's main financial district], where I used to work and also St James's Square, near where I went to school.

Friends took me to a great fish (and chips) restaurant in Highgate last night, run by a Georgian family, and this again opened my eyes to how London has changed with the inflow of central and eastern Europeans--seemingly much more numberous now especially in the service sector. Actually, the restaurant offers much more, including wonderful grilled sea bream--part of a healthy meal that comes with just salad. They offer a few bowl of fish soup with each meal. As I have mentioned to restaurant and hotel people in Barbados, you have to give customers a few incentives.

The trip had a nice surprise because I discovered that bus transport between the Heathrow area and nearby Underground stations is free. London has greatly modernised its public transport fares and everyone talks about getting an "Oyster" (a card that has a basic amount of credit and allows travel, but the credit can be increased at will, and using it is cheaper and faster than paying individual fares).

However, "sticker shock" is also the order of the day. The pound has strengthened much against the US dollar (around 2.06 as I write), so those UK prices now sting a lot. Still, things are great value and usually great quality. My daughter, who is studying at a university in the UK this year is suffering that big time. She is normally based in Canada, so with the Canadian dollar also strengthening, she's really only traded one pain for another.

Well, I will head back to New York and then on to Barbados today. I do not relish more cold weather and sandwiching that between tropical climates is not fun. So, another few days of muffling up ahead of getting back to my life in T-shirt and shorts.