London – Clinical Alimentary

I have enjoyed staying at Bankfield House and although it was a little noisy up till about midnight, I really have no complaints to make about the room or facilities. The breakfast was the usual affair of cooked English or continental and a good choice was available. To follow a Low FODMAP theme I chose porridge, a banana, 1 tomato, bacon, egg & hash browns. Again this would not be my normal choice but I did enjoy it – I haven’t realised how much wheat I actually include in my diet until you begin to have to make alternative choices. When on holiday we usually eat a large breakfast and then go on till the evening meal, it is true that to breakfast like a king really sets you up for the day. I was so full that I even saved my banana for later.

I decided to go to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate Britain, no reproduction of any of these paintings can every do them justice as it is the light and reflection needs to be

Mariana by Millais courtesy of www.wye.co.uk — Mariana by Millais courtesy of http://www.wye.co.uk

seen to be really appreciated. This was an excellent exhibition, but I have seen some of the paintings before in Manchester Art Gallery Most where most major artists are represented, including the great Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. We are lucky in Manchester to have these paintings available most of the time but some of them, one is ‘work’ by Ford Madox Brown, will have been loaned to the Tate for their exhibition. If you are in London and feel like visiting, I would recommend it!

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/pre-raphaelites-victorian-avant-garde

Britain’s ‘first modern art movement’ in Tate show (timesofmalta.com)
Brian Sewell on Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at the Tate Britain (standard.co.uk)

It’s only a dietitian or perhaps those people with gut disorders who will understand the title to this post! This week I am in London to attend the Low FODMAP training by Kings – attended a short one day course in 2009, but much more knowledge has been acquired since then and this is the first time I have had enough free time and available funds to be able to attend the complete course.

I was very surprised on my last visit to find that the loo’s at both Manchester Piccadilly and Euston are 30p!!!! What happened to spending a penny? Hyperinflation is how I would describe it, although perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at that, but at least no increases since my last visit. It does somewhat grieve me, as you really don’t have much choice in the matter when you need to go. Perhaps my insistence on arriving at stations early is the problem here, as I then have a drink to waste a bit of time and then need to empty my bladder. If I attended at the time the train was due I could wait till I boarded perhaps, but this would not make travelling any easier. I am rather a stickler for timekeeping, worse probably than John Cleese in Clockwise, so I insist on arriving well before the time I need to! Oh well, you don’t need to hear about my frustrations.

I don’t normally advocate any companies as part of my practice but I will tell you that my room rate was £29.00 per night at the London School of Economics, Bankfield House – this residence is not available in term time as it is student accommodation however I am in the centre of London for the next four days and I doubt very much you could get cheaper accommodation. It is really worth looking at various colleges for out of term time accommodation. I will let you know how I get on and what the room is like, I suspect I may get disturbed at all hours, but only time will tell. It certainly is worth considering. I am now in a cafe with free wi-fi, enabling me to write this post at will, it has been a surprise to me how much reliance I now have to access to the web. I am really looking forward to my break in London, although as those of you who followed me on my last gluten-free London trip will be aware, I always feel slightly claustrophobic in cities. I will also try to include some foodie aspects of my visit, so you don’t get bored – perhaps we should concentrate on low FODMAPs this time, as this is the main reason for my visit. Although I do suspect that this is going to be somewhat more of a challenge that the gluten-free diet, but we will see!! The following posts will be written in retrospect as I do not have that much free time to spend on blogging – or funds to buy countless drinks to justify my wi-fi use!