Tag Archives: Prince Charles

Platinum Jubilee

5th June 2022 billpaterson1@me.com 5 Comments

Don’t think you could ever call us Royalists. That system of privilege and patronage seems better suited to a bygone era and totally at odds with modern day life. Odd as it may seem, we have actually met most of the Royal family (all except Andrew … phew!) and they all seem like really nice people. We’re pretty sure they do not want to spend their lives under the microscope of public and media scrutiny so why oh why are we allowed to do it to them? The fact that the Queen is celebrating her Platinum Jubilee is, of course, a personal triumph for her but given that all other news has apparently been cancelled we’re glad it only happens once every seventy years.

We’ll do anything!

Not wanting to appear too curmudgeonly, however, we ordered a Platinum Jubilee box from Haar At Home in St Andrews. Haar is a restaurant run by Masterchef Finalist, Dean Banks and we use it from time to time. You order it online and then it just appears at the door. It’s a kind of magic! The box had all sorts of stuff – smoked trout, a variety of cheeses, olives, chutney, pickle salad, chorizo, cheese and leek bread, caviar … and, wait for it, scones with jam and clotted cream. Okay, okay, it’s pathetic, we’ll do anything for a scone.

There was far too much just for just the two of us so we had the pleasure of the company of our Trossachs correspondents to help us out. They did an excellent job though the meal was not without its difficulties. Do any of you have problems accessing your caviar? We did! Try as we might we simply could not open the tin … imagine, so near yet so far. It became hilarious as the four of us came up with ever more incredulous ways of tackling it. Eventually the answer was to go to the garage and get a set of grips. The tin had to become pretty mangled before the top reluctantly popped off. Was it worth all the effort? Yes, everything was lovely and well worth the platinum amount of money we paid for it.

Uncategorised

Anyway we know that none of you are actually interested in our caviar traumas … just scones, right? Well, they came with a generous tub of strawberry gin jam (I wasn’t driving) and another of clotted cream. The scones were really nice but a little on the big side for our taste. The chances of Charles being on the throne for seventy years are slim to say the least so none of you will ever get to sample a Platinum Jubilee scone ever again. Devastating, we know! In these circumstances we didn’t think it appropriate to categorise them. Good fun though!

meal from Haar for the Platinum Jubilee — In case you are wondering, this is what our Platinum meal looked like

What comes after Platinum?

Scones, Top

Branksome Beach Café

10th May 2022 billpaterson1@me.com 4 Comments

First leg of our road trip completed, we couldn’t get a more extreme contrast between our last post from Tebay Services and this place, Branksome Beach Café. One set amongst wild rugged moorland and the other on a beach looking out towards the Isle of Wight.

A different life

We are visiting our daughter’s new house. It’s big compared to the tiny one her and her family had in London and it’s in a very quiet street in a beautiful forested area. Without having to go on any roads at all you can take Branksome Chine (a very pretty wooded gully) down to the beach. The path drops you out right at Branksome Beach Café … how neat is that?

View from Branksome Beach — View from our seat on an overcast but warm day. France just over the horizon

Indoor beaches

In the 1930s Branksome Beach Café was Britain’s first functioning solarium. Intended to provide a year round sunbatheing facility it had an indoor beach complete with deckchairs behind huge glass windows. Now the sand and deckchairs have long gone and it has developed into one of Dorset’s landmark cafés. It also makes a claim to be the home of the rock cake! My mother made rock cakes in such a way that you never had to question how they got their name.

External view of Branksome Beach — Bill board outside the café and an actually rock cake … neither to scale

Such a claim obviously requires testing so we got a one to share with everyone at our table. Whether the claim is true or not doesn’t really matter .. it was delicious and not too rock like! Luckily, they are not claiming to be the home of the scone … that would be simply ridiculous!

Local produce

Of course, we had to test the scones. We were sitting outside on the terrace overlooking the beach but on the way in we had noticed the scones. They were quite big so having already scoffed some rock cake we opted to share one. It came complete with a pot of jam and the ubiquitous Rodda’s Cornish Cream. Since we are relatively near Cornwall we have dropped our customary objection … it’s a local product down here!.We’re sure that the excellent service, the views out over the beach and the sea were all contributory factors in our decision to award a topscone. Well done Branksome Beach Café.

Prince Charles substituted for the Queen today at the State Opening of Parliament. It said nothing and perhaps the biggest news was that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge had travelled to Manchester on a charter flight in a Michael Kors outfit. Goodness, she’s almost common! Somehow all the pomp and pageantry seems hugely incongruous in times where more and more people are being forced to use food banks. Not that we have much room to talk, sitting here eating rock cakes and scones by the beach.

BH13 6LP tel: BH13 6LP Branksome

///water.singer.cared

ps: our fabulous Toowoomba correspondents have sent us scone pictures from Angie’s Country cafe in Toogoolawah. Hands up everyone who knows where that is! Okay not too many.Presentation looks good as does the scone so if you ever find yourselves in Toogoolawah you know where to go.

Ordinary, Scones, self-service

Titanic – The Galley

2nd June 2019 billpaterson1@me.com 1 Comment

You know by now that we are on a birdwatching trip to Ireland. Well there is only so far you can take birdwatching without eventually realising that there might be more to life. Suffice to say that today some of our party decided to give the birds a rest and instead head off to Titanic Belfast. Reports we had had from old friends we met at the Jamaica Inn in Bangor were that it was not to be missed.

Titanic stories

While the rest of our party went off with their binoculars we took the train from Bangor to the Titanic Quarter station. This train does actually stop at every hole in the hedge but who cares when the hedge runs along the beautiful North Down coast on a lovely sunny day. Before too long though we were at our destination. We were promptly accosted by Betsy and Jack, a couple from Seattle who were staying at the same hotel as us. Betsy kindly took this photo of us desperately searching for the exhibition.We were slightly wary of this visit following our experience at the V&A in Dundee which we found disappointing and rather befuddling. This was different, we thoroughly enjoyed it. It benefits from having a clear and definitive story to tell rather than the slightly nebulous theme of ‘style’ at the V&A. We spent a wonderful couple of hours following the route that takes you through the entire tale of of this great ship, from its birth at the Harland and Wolff shipyard to its disastrous end. As with all these exhibitions you tend to end up with information overload. One fact, however, that stood out for us was that there were two toilets for 3rd class passengers … all 497 of them! It was a slightly different story in 1st class, of course. Maybe 3rd class was just supposed to do it over the side?

If only

If we had managed to have a scone on Titanic’s maiden voyage (we have no doubt it would have been a top one) we would never have been able to post it on this blog! How sad would that have been?

Plates?

We had many reservations about the catering facilities at the V&A and, unfortunately, the same applied here. Catering designed by academics. Okay there are vast numbers to cater for but with a little more common sense it could be done much better. Our watering hole was The Galley. It was self service and the first thing we noticed was that you had to eat your food off the plastic trays you collected it on! No plates! Okay, the trays were kind of shaped like square black plates. However, we are fans of www.wewantplates .com. It campaigns for food served on plates rather than lumps of slate, miniature shopping trolleys and the like … but trays? Okay, call us curmudgeonly. It was the beginning of a slippery slope. The scones themselves were actually quite good but given everything else that was involved this scone broke our run of good scone luck in Northern Ireland. Shame, everything else about this place is great and well worth a visit.

The Crown Bar

We then took a taxi to the Crown Bar in central Belfast. By the end of this short ride our driver had sorted out all the woes of the world and even acted as a bureau de change. The Crown is the only pub owned by the National Trust and it is not hard to see why. Extremely ornate with lots of mosaics, gas lamps and highly decorative carved ceilings. It features individual snugs designed to maintain the privacy of Victorian visitors who wanted to maintain an element of decorum. Stained glass windows featuring fairies, fleurs-de-lis, and clowns gave extra privacy.

That black stuff

We ended up sharing our extremely ‘snug’ snug with a couple from Los Angeles. On a cruise docked at Belfast harbour they had read that this was the pub to visit. They were desperate to try that black stuff (Guinness) and ‘beer’. They got a pint of each and thoroughly enjoyed them both. We had to leave so have no idea whether they ever made it back to their ship or not. Lovely people though so hopefully they did.

Ronnie Drew

We then went on to the market in Donegall Square and took the opportunity to go into the City Hall. For all the time we lived here we never before managed to get inside. It probably was not as easily accessed back then at the height of the Troubles.

Inside City Hall, Belfast — Splendiferous City Hall

After that we went to Ronnie Drew’s pub before heading back to Bangor without having noted a single bird. A great day!

It seems churlish and a tad easy to comment on British politics in a Titanic post so we will resist the temptation.

BT3 9EP tel: 028 9076 6386 Titanic Belfast

ps: the ever diligent Pedant has sent through this photo of a Lion foundry K6 in Tetbury in the Cotswolds. Tetbury is famous for its antique and bric a brac shops. Prince Charles also lives nearby at Highgrove. More importantly perhaps is the fact that Jet Black, drummer with the Stranglers, also lives there.

Scones, history and a dollop of politics