Monday, May 29, 2000

Went to Sandringham sans children. Toured the buildings, grounds, and church. Highly amusing cartoon originals collection in the great house, lots of classy furniture, silver, china, friendly guards, no photography. The grounds were formal but very restful, and it only rained when we had buildings close to duck into. The royal mews had a very selective transportation museum, a sample of which were the working toy cars of royalty, including electric cars, a quarter midget race car, and a 4/7th scale (I think) Austin Martin based on a motorcycle engine and transmission. The last was given to Prince Charles (I think) later in life, and probably goes way too fast to be a children's toy, actually.

We purchased a few things at the gift shop (hey, we have to do our part to help support the British Royal House, right?) including some elderberry wine that looked too interesting to pass up, and a small sample of mead.

We returned for supper, and tried the mead. It seemed familiar to me, and I finally tracked down what I thought it tasted like: Ethiopian "tej", wine made from (surprise!) honey. The tej I drank had a somewhat richer flavor than the mead, which seemed a bit young. The mead seemed rather strongly alcoholic, which makes sense since higher sugar levels can support higher alcohol production (up to a point), given proper other conditions.