Clay Oven

A week ago, back to Denham Grove to inspect the aftermath of their St. Valentine's Day bash. Which we were told was very busy, probably including pod action outside. With food by Clay Oven of reference 2. Amongst other things, they also do rather grand weddings, with one of their wedding rooms, in some grand hotel, being snapped above.

It was my first serious drive for a while, so I thought it prudent to take the country route, spending a fair bit of the journey on the A312. Lots of big interchanges, but easy enough to get straight over, and without the stress of thundering along a busy four or five lane carriageway.

Something of a blockage at Sunbury for Thames Water works. It was probably a coincidence that the Thames, just to the side of our road for a bit, was looking very full. Presumably the houses along the banks, despite being very big and expensive, can also be a bit cold and damp in the winter.

Some unnecessary honking, one very aggressive. Perhaps a young man with a hangover. 

Three low flying aeroplanes coming in as we passed to the east of Heathrow, one startlingly so. A new version of the aeroplane game: how many aeroplanes does one spot coming in as one passes the airport. Does it make  difference whether one passes it to the east or the west? Haven't clocked up a decent score on the regular aeroplane game for a while now.

We managed to get to our hotel without taking a wrong turning and without it coming on to rain, which was nice. As was our room, even if the bar area had not quite recovered from Valentine's, the menu for which is snapped above. Not the sort of thing one would expect in the Marquis at all. We wondered what they did at Cappadocia, being the sort of place that would be doing something - Saturday night too.

The middle portion enlarged, just in case the first snap is not legible, even when clicked.

The restaurant was quite busy, including, for the first time when we have been there, several parties going for pod life outside - pods which we supposed were installed during the plague but which have proved popular enough to stay on. Not sure that it is worth to us what I imagine to be the considerable premium. Snapped above from reference 3.

One of the couples going for a pod included a stunning black girl, stunning both in herself and in her turnout. Perhaps a model, or even a starlet from the nearby Pinewood Studios of reference 5. I thought that the chap with her looked a bit scruffy, but BH explained that it was actually high-end smart-casual.

Back in our part of the restaurant, I kicked off with a couple of ground meat patties. Presentation excellent as ever, including a green-speckled white dip which I forget to include in the snap above. Well made, but not quite to my taste. The meat had been ground rather fine, was a little dry and was very hot - by my standards at least.

I did much better with my main sauce: a ragan josh with bread - which last they do very well here. A dish which I have made a few times myself, once using goat procured from somewhere in Balham or Tooting. Here with a substantial lamb shank. A fine meal; a variation on hot meat sandwiches. BH settled for the more European escalope - which she was very pleased with too.

After all of which we settled for an early night, having remembered on this occasion to turn off the heating in the room.

In the morning, I took time to admire the simple pattern in the carpet, made visually interesting by its ambiguity. Very successfully to my mind.

Better class of fruit salad that one often gets in hotel breakfast bars.

And despite the large meal of the night before, I was still good for a couple of sausage sandwiches - but I avoided the white sour dough, opting for factory brown instead. Soft bread best for sausage sandwiches - never mind the sour business.

Winding up with a couple of quite good oranges, remarkable for the number of pips. While the oranges we get at Epsom seem to have very few, if any, pips. Ditto grapes.

As it happens, I read only yesterday at reference 6 that seedless grapes, pink grapefruit and navel oranges all arise from something called branch or bud sports - as opposed to seed sports. in which connection, I have yet to work out why navel oranges are so popular, considering that a significant fraction of the edible fruit is displaced by the navel. I think that they are more or less seedless, so maybe the point is that the punters don't like seeds, having to spit them out somewhere.

This was followed by quite a long piece on leylandii, a hybrid rather than a sport, dating from 1888 in a garden in Wales. A cross you don't get in the wild as the natural ranges of the two species involved are too far apart (on the western seaboard of North America).

On return, I decided that I was good for the motorway, but I was not impressed by the signage at junction 1, right in the snap above. Managed to take the wrong exit - but as luck would have it I was able to do a U-turn at the empty start of the A412 and get back onto the right road. Traffic violation, I dare say.

Two tweets: first a kite, seemingly common in these parts, and second a small murmuration of starlings over a field.

Three aeroplanes as we crossed the line of the take-off runway. It finally dawning on me that aeroplanes land on a flat trajectory but take off on a steep one. With the result that large sightings are much more common to the east than to the west.

Lots of hopping from lane to lane, but it made a change from having to take care at all the junctions on the country route. And we avoided the water works at Sunbury, mentioned above.

PS 1: rather to my surprise, reference 4 is the best I can do today on the goat front. I had thought there would be more, including the handy band saw behind the counter used for cutting it up.

PS 2: when we passed Pinewood Studios a few visits ago, I got the impression that chunks of what had been studio had been sold off or let out for other purposes. The footprint was not what it had been in its glory days.

PS 3: the return to plain, home cooking included mince with rice. Tarted up with a little stewed celery, most recently taken just about a month ago at reference 7. A good way of dealing with celery which might be getting a little tired - it not lasting all that well in our kitchen, a good deal warmer than the garage, if a good deal colder than the rest of the house, new back door notwithstanding.

Butter, onions, celery, an odd tomato for colour and, right at the end, a sliced carrot for a bit more colour and a change of texture. Under an hour start to finish. Little, if any, water.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/denham-grove.html. Our last visit, just about a month previously.

Reference 2: https://theclayoven.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://denhamgrove.com/.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=goat+ragan.

Reference 5: https://pinewoodgroup.com/pinewood-studios/.

Reference 6: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.

Reference 7: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/test-02.html.