Our good friend from Ireland had sent us some Christmas money for chocolates and wine. We decided to modify the term of reference slightly and go and have a meal which we did today at Paul’s kitchen. This is presided over by Paul Hartley about whom we have written on many occasions. He is one of the world’s natural hosts and always greets us as long lost friends as I suppose we are in a way.
I know him well enough now to tease him and tell jokes at his expense and he does the same for me. I don’t know who tells the most dreadful jokes, it is somewhat of a competition. We were told that he did very well business wise before Christmas and there was scarcely a seat to be had. He spent Christmas Day on his own with his wife and the dog, having prepared a splendid turkey.
We treated ourselves to some high quality fish and chips with the chips cooked to perfection together with mushy peas seasoned with mint and then warmed. Francoise had a lemon meringue pie and I had three types of ice cream plus two drinks which came to £50.
It is a very good sign if you can tell jokes to the staff and they take it in good heart. There is a room adjoining to the main restaurant and I asked one of the staff if that was where they sent people who misbehaved and with a smile she readily agreed.
My wordplay snapped into action
When one of the waitresses asked me if I enjoyed the meal I said I was ‘replete’. This was much better than saying ‘stuffed’. We have many similar words that actually don’t mean the same thing so let’s take this opportunity to review them.
I have highlighted the words you can use to describe your own experience specifically about food.
Other words are used to describe someone else but not soft description
Yet more words describe the other uses of the word or phrase and should not be confused with the first category
Satisfied – this does not say much about the food, more about the context comer the pleasure, the satisfaction or delight of the occasion. We say that overall we were satisfied with the meal which means that if one of the dishes was not up to standard, the other two made up for it or perhaps it was the company so it’s a very unconditional word
full – we can be full of all sorts of things, full of energy, a room can be full of metals, a wine glass can be full to the brim. Again, the word says nothing much about the food itself but more about the capacity of the stomach.
satiated – this is almost a medical condition when your physical appetite has been completely satisfied probably by a combination of food and drink . If you’re satiated you cannot contemplate having anything more. I would use it more with drink than with food, but that is a matter of opinion.
stuffed – it is a misuse of language and in my view vulgar to describe the human stomach in this way; you can talk about shelves being so stuffed with books, or suitcases stuffed with dollar bills. It has a decadent aspect to it. You would not say that a church is stuffed with people.
crammed – this again should not be applied to food but more to situations. For example ‘when this speaker turned up such was her reputation that the auditorium was crammed’. or ‘the bus station was crammed with people trying to get off on their holidays’
bursting – this would be a very vulgar way of describing one’s condition. I remember the Monty Python edition where a very fat man (below) exploded because he had had too much food. His stomach literally broke open from pressure within. You can say the same with a balloon bursting. You can also say your heart burst when you saw your long lost friend. You can burst into tears or burst out laughing or burst into song, You can also say ‘crammed like sardines’
chock-full – again, this is more to do with situations than people and should not be used to describe the state of your stomach. The hotel lobby was chock full of tourists. The catalogue was chock full of gifts and offers.
gorged and gorging – this is where you have eaten greedily or to excess. Again this is a self-description better left unspoken. A person who partakes of eating in large amounts would be regarded as lacking in refinement and manners. We can gorge ourselves on ice cream and that would I think be forgiven more than gorging on a meal except if you had been unfortunate enough not to be able to eat for the previous few days. You can also gorge on books but that is regarded as respectable and a source of admiration. In eating competition people ‘stuff’ themselves rather that gorge.
glutton – they gluted themselves at the restaurant buffet or in other senses the market is gluted with oil. We can eat gluttonously, again this will be regarded as a pejorative phrase and would be used in the third person. You would not normally refer to yourself as a glutton.
I am overfull – I have heard this used more figuratively, for example I am overfull of the habits of the human race or this book seems over full of phrases. It will be very curious to describe yourself as over full
replete – a person in this state has been fully or abundantly provided or filled. I would not use it in the context of a starving person eating their first meal in recent days. Replete, like satisfied, is about your overall experience. The term is somewhat sublime and I think one step up from the word ‘satisfaction’ which has connotations more towards the physical aspect of food.
It can be used in other senses, for example a gymnasium that is replete with the very latest in exercising equipment Negatively we can say that ‘Yemenis bid farewell to a year replete with Houthi abuses. This is a word that should be used with caution in the right context.
Off to Rocky Mountain Gardens Centre where they were offering dried Elm logs, one tonne for £38 which is very good value indeed. I may go back and get some. Francoise bought yet another glazed pot. We had coffee in the adjacent restaurant (note for locals, this is shortly going to be doubled in size with a bigger kitchen).
The sky was absolutely beautiful and what a pleasure it was to drive after a couple of weeks of virtual imprisonment due to the rain and wind. Thousands of buildings have been invaded by flood water especially in Gloucestershire so their new year has been ruined. We are not in a flood plain so we are very lucky, we count our blessings …. once again.
Wide areas of Gloucester (third time since 2007) and more locally Bradford-Upon-Avon, Evercreech, Bathford and many more. It will take ‘days’ the the Gloucester floods to go down.
this was someone’s garden facing the river Avon
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