Pudding, dessert, tea, supper, and dinner.

Friday night:

‘I’m going to go check out the puddings.’
‘OK, what are puddings?’

Putter over to the supposed ‘puddings’ section only to find nary a pudding, but some cakes.

Saturday night–exact same:

‘I’m going to go check out the puddings.’
‘OK, what are puddings?’

Putter over to the supposed ‘puddings’ section only to find nary a pudding, but some cakes.

Sunday lunch:

‘I’m going to go check out the puddings.’
‘OK, what are puddings?’

Putter over to the supposed ‘puddings’ section only to find nary a pudding, but some cakes.

Finally realise that something is being ‘lost in translation’. I ask Rose, ‘Rose, what are puddings? Are puddings cakes??’ ‘Mate! Yea, puddings are cakes, or desserts.’ Other people join in the conversation. In short, I learned that pudding = dessert and the use of the term follows class and geographic lines. ‘Dessert’ is posh, used by those who know French. As it turns out, ‘tea’ is used by northerners and the less-posh to denote ‘dinner’. Both ‘supper’ and ‘dinner’ are posh terms [dinner also being a French derivation]. Americans say both ‘dessert’ and ‘dinner’. Either they’re putting on airs or the linguistic class divide developed after the American uses were already established. Good thing the French link isn’t widely considered here, elsewise Americanage would have been transformed in the past ten years. In addition to ‘freedom fries’ we’d have to replace the words ‘dessert’ and ‘dinner’ with suitably Ango-Saxon replacements.

London return.

Since getting back on Thursday, I haven’t spent a night in my own flat. Hopped off the plane, got back into flat, took a brief nap, then went to my friend’s place. I accompanied her to coffee with another friend and hot pot with another group. Then we went to her home, had dinner and chatted. I stayed over then saw her off the next day. She’s back in China now. I’ll miss quite a lot having chats with her.

Got home around noon that day, puttered about, packed, ran some errands, then went to church weekend ~5.30p. Spent the whole weekend (just got back) learning about how to be a good bible study leader, why it’s important to share the truth we believe in with others, how to prepare studies and answer questions, how to encourage students and internationals to study the bible themselves. Also was really good to meet other leaders and staff members, learn from the experienced people, meet our co-leaders, etc. All in all, it was loads of training but really good fun. Played Bananagrams (with the pastor! who’s also my bible study leader. Scary.), Dutch Blitz/Ligretto, UNO. Drank lots of tea and avoided potatoes.

So back home now, finally! I’ll be heading to church in a bit; My study leader from last year is here hanging out until church time. It’s so good to come back to a solid church community. Learned loads, no time for details now.

Well, that’s me, back in London.

Incredible London weather.

It rained when I got here, and it’s been rather grey all subsequent days. I saw a touch of blue skies on Sunday, unfortunately, the wind was gusting.

According to the Weather Channel though (!):

Two pictures and a video.

Can’t upload the video, so this must suffice.