O... M... F... G...

If I thought Mr Knedlik had outdone himself in pulling off previous regimental dinners at the Houses of Parliament and Tower of London last year, his surprise production of two tickets to the Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace this July had me proven well and truly wrong here.

A traditionalist Mr K deemed all my current dresses too "young" / "trendy" / "far above the knee" for the occasion, so once again I was reluctantly dispatched to purchase something more duly "respectable". Well, what could be more respectable than traditional mothers' choice Marks & Spencers, time-honoured pinnacle of English middle-class propriety...? Luckily I bought from the Per Una range, which even at M&S is more fashionable than frumpy – I for one was just relieved to find I’m still size 8 (or 34 in European) despite all the frantic food blogging of late, a feat only achieved by compensating increased calorie intake with epic 100-length swims most days per week. Mr K by comparison had it easy – he just had to don his uniform as usual...

Strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to take photos of any of the Buckingham Palace Gardens / grounds / tea tents etc due to “security reasons”, but of course I couldn’t resist the opportunity to sneak a few pics of the oh-so-traditional English cucumber sandwiches (crustless of course), diddy slices of Victoria sponge, and mini scones with jam etc etc.

Sad to say, but in many ways I vehemently hate the “Broken Britain” of today.

It looks posh, but what you don’t see is that there is actually a modern, bog-standard canteen just to the side of it – the only times you get proper waiter service / actual decent food there is for things like Graduation / Matriculation Dinners or Formal Halls. In this case, Mr K went for the decidedly more cheap-and-cheerful Great British fry-up, with me as usual opting for the healthier salad cart option – total cost £6.30.

After lunch, we then drove out to the nearby Chilford Hall, one of 178 vineyards currently operating in the UK. We had a joint English wine-tasting tour booked here (a present from Mummy K last Christmas), which basically involved an escorted walk round the vines, an explanation of how the wine was produced (lost on me) and finally a tasting of six of their wine varieties – largely Dornfelder, Müller Thurgau, and other grapes that grow well in a cooler climate.

... before finally rounding off the day with that most revered of all British cuisine – a decent curry! :-))))

A lot was happening in the world this time last year.

Bankers (and their bonuses) were near universally reviled for effectively blackmailing billions in bailouts from the taxpayer, as the world teetered precariously on the brink of financial meltdown. The interminable Afghan War officially became the longest overseas conflict in which the United States had ever in its history been embroiled. A swine flu pandemic was on the brink of sweeping the world and killing us all (or so we were told). Even bloody Michael Jackson went and carked it...

And, amidst all the global mess and madness, the girls – Lady H, Southern Belle and I – set out on a weekend jolly of wine tasting in Moravia, figuring that we might as well at least enjoy ourselves in the run-up to impending apocalypse at any rate.

A few hours train travel out of Prague on a sunny Saturday morning, and we arrived in the UNESCO heritage site and viticultural town of Valtice, one of the main centres of the Moravian wine-growing regions, located just a stone’s throw from the Czech-Austrian border.

At the heart of the town stands a Baroque château, initially built as the seat of the ruling princes of Liechtenstein, back in the days when countries (or principalities at least) could just randomly up sticks and plonk themselves back down again on the other side of Europe.


These days the château serves the far more convivial purpose of National Wine Centre (Národní Vinařské Centrum) of the Czech Republic – our real reason for coming here in the first place! We were visiting too early in the year for the annual Valtice Wine Festival held every October, but the vast cellars of the Wine Centre are open pretty much all year round, housing one hundred of the top-ranked (or designated “Salon vín České republiky”) home-grown reds, whites and sparklings of the Czech Republic.



Various degustation programs are available here, ranging from 125 – 399kč for a pre-set, sommelier-led tasting tour round the centre cellars. Or, alternatively, you can just do what we did – namely ditch the sommelier altogether and just pay a 355kč flat fee to be let loose upon a hundred odd varieties of open wines, with just a glass and a basket of bread (a.k.a. “neutralization bites”) to help counteract at least some of the resultant damage.... Not sure who ever thought it was a good idea to give three wine-thirsty girlies pretty much free reign on unlimited fine wines, but needless to say we all lapsed into temporary “kid in a candy shop” madness in our frenzied attempts to collectively work our way up from labelled wines 1 to 100... ;-)))

Here’s us at around a civilised number 2 or 3...


Probably getting into the twenties or thirties here...


And from around the sixties we all effectively lost count altogether, though we were clearly not all that bothered about the fact at the time... ;-))


Luckily for us, one wing of the château is given over to Hotel Hubertus, an admittedly rather over-priced and distinctly shabby choice of accommodation, but one that at least has the virtue of proximity to the cellars in question. And after having tasted upwards of fifty wines each in the course of just two hours, this was quite an important, if not in our case vital, consideration.

Needless to say, I can’t recall in detail any of the many and varied wines consumed, though I do remember gravitating towards the sweet / medium-dry whites (my usual tipple of choice) and - despite the assurances of quality - still not being particularly overwhelmed by any of the supposedly award-winning reds. Not that I mean to bash Czech wines here by the way – I’ve had some really very good whites here over the years, but just have yet to find a red of equal standing...

Anyway, after an epic 18 odd hour wine-induced sleep / coma (broken only temporarily to seek out some restoratively carb-heavy dinner), the three of us re-emerged the following morning – miraculously hangover-free given the circumstances – to greet yet another day of beautiful Moravian sun. In order to (at least in part) make up for our communal excesses of the previous afternoon, we decided to make a wholesome trip over to the neighbouring manor of Lednice, 7km from Valtice directly down a long lime-tree avenue.

The landscaped parks and gardens here were all in bloom, and it was truly relaxing to just stroll gently around the lake here, feeling a blissful million miles away from a rest of the planet that was seemingly going down the toilet fast...




Still, inevitably the clock caught up with us in the end, leaving us with just enough time back in Valtice to round off what had been an idyllic weekend with a final mid-afternoon glass of white (just the one this time!) on the sun-drenched Hubertus patio and stock up across at the château wine shop, before finally embarking on the long trek back to Prague again, arriving home early on Sunday evening – a good time having truly been had by all.

Well, a year on and the world still hasn’t ended yet – perhaps there’s still time to fit in another Valtice visit in the meantime then... ;-)))

I do realize it may seem from previous entries that all me and Mr K ever do together is drink, but in fact that is only partially true. Beyond this blog, I for example am a reluctant swimming addict and amateur travel writer / photographer. Mr K, by contrast, is an avid runner, cyclist and Roman history buff. We both also really, really like Scrabble. And between all these many and varied extracurricular activities, we somehow even manage to both lead fairly successful professional lives as well.

Mr (or should I say Major) K, for example, is a military man, and having been an associated member of the armed forces since practically before I was born (ahem), has now risen to the ranks where he can pull off military jollies that I as an associated SWAG (Service Wives and Girlfriends) am fortunate to be able to accompany him on. We kind of look like this (except that I’m blonde and he’s pushing fifty…).


Of all the culinary events I am most annoyed at myself for not having properly photographed in my pre-blog existence (my one and only visit to La Degustation / several more to SaSaZu / my Cambridge Graduation Dinner and May Ball / all food I ever ate anywhere in my travelling days etc etc), the regimental dinner at the Houses of Parliament, recently organized by my very own talented Mr K, probably has to top the list.


See, here’s my invitation to prove it:


And here’s Mr K and I with our glad-rags on for the occasion. Me being more foodie than fashionista, Mr K literally had to frogmarch me out of the flat to find an appropriate dress beforehand (luckily for me we landed on the perfect one in the very first shop we went to, Orsay, priced at only about 1,200kč to boot). My mother commented that with my blonde hair styled up and Mr K clad in full military regalia, we looked a bit like an English Eva and Juan Peron.



I think that was overstating the case just a little bit – still, it was admittedly rather ego-boosting to be paparazzied maniacally at the entrance to the Palace of Westminster by the overexcited Japanese tourist contingent, clearly labouring under the delusion that we were all important dignitary type people on the way in to dine with the Queen or something.

Once through security, the dinner itself was preceded by drinks and a private tour of the Houses of Parliament, led by our hosting MP (who had a family member in the regiment, I believe). We weren’t allowed to take any pictures, so I nabbed these from the official government Flickr page. Please don’t prosecute me Misters Cameron and Clegg – after all, I did vote for you (or at least would have done if I hadn’t somehow managed to bollocks up my postal vote by supposedly missing out one tiny little part of the form, that is).




Unfortunately the tour in my case involved a minor breach of decorum in that my feet were absolutely killing me after having been cut up all day while shopping / sightseeing round London all day and then uncharacteristically forced into very high heels by night, so I discretely left my shoes in the corner of the drinks room and in the end mercifully conducted my personal tour of the hallowed, centuries-old seat of government that is the House of Lords and House of Commons walking round in nothing but my own two bare feet… Needless to say, it was all duly impressive (even if we did only see a small section of the Palace), but at 8pm there then came the call into the neighbouring Churchill Room for dinner, with our entrance being accompanied by marching music performed by a traditional military brass band in the corner.

Grace was said and toasts duly made to the Queen and Princess Anne, before dinner was finally served. The menu played it relatively safe and traditional, with a delicious roasted spiced butternut squash with root vegetable crisps to start, a filling braised game topped with puff pastry lid served with mushroom smoked garlic mash and rainbow carrots for the main, and finally a classic crème brûlée for the dessert, with everything being dutifully rounded off with coffee, petit fours and port at the end of the night.


I would have loved to take some photos of the food, but unusually for him Mr K for once put his booted / spurred foot down and bluntly told me to put my bloody camera away and stop showing him up in front of his military superiors by acting all starstruck. Well, I for one am not about to contradict a man in uniform… ;-)) For the very same reason, I was also placed on strict wine rationing for the night to ensure I didn't inadvertently pull off one of my infamous alcohol-induced narcoleptic tabletop episodes in front of regimental top brass. Still, the wine that I was permitted was nice at least… And in the event, I did for once actually manage to successfully present a demure, elegant, and educated front for the entire evening, though to be honest sudden uncharacteristic shyness at meeting all these eminent military types in such formal surroundings had for once rendered me pretty much politely mono-syllabic anyway...

This is us anyway enjoying our dinner (the two photos I have posted are actually the only two of us Mr K would permit me to take – just as well the smiley faces on top really, as of course Sod’s Law would have it that I obviously came out looking a bit of a mong in both of them).


A final post-port toast (I forget this time to whom) rounded off the dinner as a whole, with most of the party then heading back to our London accommodation for the night, namely the enduringly old-school Naval & Military Club on St James Square (think gold-plated Greek style columns, big models of boats in glass casing, portraits of long-dead Indian viceroys on the walls, absurdly strict dress code etc), for a final few rounds of after-dinner drinks in the Club bar.


Having behaved myself impeccably over the whole course of the evening, Mr K finally now saw fit to reward my good conduct with free reign on the champagne, clearly judging that I wasn’t likely to do too much damage this late on in the evening, and besides, all his colleagues were by now pretty much on the way to getting bladdered themselves as well anyway…

Which all in all pretty much wraps it up for the Houses of Parliament really, a truly unforgettable evening and probable once-in-a-lifetime experience – unless lightening strikes twice that is, it's not like I'm realistically ever likely to get invited back any time soon... In which case I guess, it’s back to my longstanding prior plan A then, which is namely to muscle my way back in at the next election to assume my rightful, pre-destined role as next great Iron Lady, once I'm in office brushing aside all froo-froo preliminaries and setting about enacting my unforgiving plans to bitchslap "Broken Britain" back into shape. Believe me, it’s just a matter of time, people…