You know how sometimes you go into a restaurant and the staff can be downright indifferent. We tend to judge places on the attitude staff have towards their customers. Who see customers as their raison d’être rather than some dastardly inconvenience. So, having said all that, when we entered the Hickety Pickety Tearoom we were immediately greeted with a huge hug and a kiss from one of the waitresses. Okay, we knew her. She’s a kind of honorary daughter. We used to worry that her car seat was too big when she came to stay with her sister during the school holidays. Then we’d worry it was too small and now she doesn’t need a car seat at all. She’s at university and driving her own car. Goodness, how did that happen?
Head in the clouds
We had heard that she was working here so we thought we should pay a visit. Hickety Pickety is a wonderful place situated on a farm not too far from Lanark. Although not far from Falkirk it’s a strangely unknown part of the world for us. It’s about a mile from the village of Forth whose main claim to fame is that Scotland’s tallest man (7 foot 3 inches) came from there. It’s also 1000 feet above sea level so he could well have had his head in the clouds.
What’s in a name?
Why is it called Hickety Pickety, we hear you ask! Well it comes from a well known nursery rhyme.
It was busy so we were shown to a table upstairs. Not one of our ‘daughters’ table but that wasn’t a problem, all the serving staff were really nice. They have to be extremely fit because they are up and down these stairs all day like the proverbial yo-yos. We ordered some lunch and when we asked what kind of scones they had were told “plain or pear and ginger“. It had to done – a pear and ginger scone to share. Turns out that they do a lot of pretty adventurous scone baking so we may have to return to see what else they come up with.
When it arrived, however, it did not look too promising. It came with butter, jam and the ubiquitous Rodda’s clotted cream. Nothing against it per se but why get it from a Dutch owned company in Cornwall when there’s plenty of good Scottish cream. You all know by now that we like a slight crunchiness to our scones but this one was incredibly soft all over. Thankfully it was absolutely delicious. The pear flavour was quite distinct and the ginger gave it a soupçon of spiciness. So soft it was difficult to keep it together … topweirdscone, no problem. Thoroughly recommend this place but be warned, not everyone gets hugs and kisses.
Revolting
We’ve kind of lost count of the number of Tory Prime Ministers we’ve had over the past few years. Deluded as ever about his own importance, Boris failed to recognise that he won a huge majority, not because of anything he did but because there was no opposition worth voting for. He was at Balmoral today to hand in his resignation to a relieved Queen.
New girl, the ever so slightly mad, Liz Truss, was there as well to take on the mantle of government. Given that the role of most governments is simply to give the people just enough to keep them from revolting, Liz is going to have to pull some rabbits out of the hat if she wants to stop that happening. At the moment, there’s a lot of extremely unhappy people around. She says “What you see is what you get“. Well, that’s a pity! Luckily, like Boris, she has no opposition to speak of. If she wants she can wreak whatever havoc she wants on the country. It’s just our daughters and honorary daughters that will have to sort it all out.
ML11 8NZ tel: 01555 871486 Hickety Pickety FB
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