Craobh

27 August 2023 billpaterson1@me.com 5 Comments

Today, we are out wandering with the intention of finding somewhere for dinner in the evening. Not entirely random, however, we do have a little French restaurant called the Barley Bree in mind. It’s in the lovely conservation village of Muthill and we used to go there quite often to visit our aunt. The story gets a little convoluted but bear with us. Unfortunately when we looked it up on the internet it seemed to be closed and up for sale. Phone calls went unanswered. Not to worry, it had been a long time since we had been in this beautiful part of Perthshire so we decided to carry on and find somewhere in the next town, Crieff.

However, when we were driving through Muthill we passed the Barley Bree and Pat thought that it looked as if it was open. We couldn’t stop because of the traffic so we carried on another couple of miles to Crieff. Hence you find us here in the middle of the afternoon in Craobh, slap bang in the centre of town. However, wonder of wonders, in the course of the afternoon we discovered that the Barley Bree was now called the Coorie Inn (a play on the Scots saying “coorie in” meaning to snuggle). We got their phone number and voila, we had a booking for later!

Parking again!

Back to Craobh! We parked right outside and surprise, surprise had to pay via an app. After our previous experience at the Old Mill in Christchurch this gave us a touch of the heebie-jeebies. Guess what, it failed again! We asked a passing lady if she could get it to work. She just laughed and shook her head. However she did tell us that we could park round the corner for free. What a woman! Pat went off to park while I went into the restaurant. To be fair to this app called RingGo, other people seem to use the it without difficulty so we suspect that our version has developed a glitch.

Craobh is Gaelic for ‘tree’ and is pronounced “kroov”. Perthsire is famous for its big trees, hence the name. It’s a lovely restaurant with quite a few tables at the front and then several more through the back. It was completely deserted. The Mary Celeste had more folk. There was only a couple of young girls behind the counter.

They welcomed us and confirmed that they did have scones … hurrah! Then they spent some time consulting their reservation book to see if they could fit us in. Curious, because as far as we could make out every single table was available. Turned out that they were actually fully booked for dinners so were probably just checking that we were not going to interfere with their first reservations. Anyway it was great to hear that they were fully booked and by the sounds of it that was the case most nights … fantastic!

Slate plates

Since we were having dinner later we just asked for a scone to share and some coffee. It, or rather they, arrived nicely presented on a piece of slate. Obviously this would upset the bellyachers at wewantplates.com. They get terribly upset about food served on anything other than a plate. Thankfully we have never been known to bellyache about anything! We can tolerate a bit of slate … especially if it’s adorned with warm scones, jam and cream. And we did have side plates. With this sort of attention to detail we began to understand why this place might be so popular. We thought that they just managed to squeak into our topscone category. Well done Croabh!

Stranger than fiction

Goodness, it’s all going on in the world. On one hand we have a Russian president gayly murdering anyone he doesn’t approve of.

On the other we have a former US president being fingerprinted and mugshotted. As an ex-professional photographer I can honestly say that I would have been sacked if I had taken a mugshot like that. Besides the subject matter, there just isn’t anything right about it. Trump, as ever, is up to his old school boy tricks, deflecting attention so that nothing of substance ever gets discussed. And yet his supporters keep following like mesmerised cattle apparently oblivious to the harm he does to the US and the world.

In sporting news it is all about the president of total plonkers Luis Rubiales and the turmoil created by THE KISS. If any of our most imaginative readers were asked to make up a surreal, fantastical week of news it would probably fall well short of the actual reality.

Schwarzenegger says

Our dinner at the Coorie Inn was great. It’s been taken over by Andrew, Phil and Lisa … all previously of the five star Gleneagles Hotel. They’ve only had it for five weeks so still settling in but they seem to be making a real go of it. We wish them well. After a delicious dinner we discovered that they do scones every afternoon! We will be back!

PH7 3EY tel: 01764 650762 Craobh

///accompany.inkjet.ideals

ps: This notice was in Craobh …. discuss! Think we know why it’s from “source unknown”.

Ordinary, Scones

Old Mill Tea Rooms

18 August 2023 billpaterson1@me.com 3 Comments

Okay, following our disappointing visit to Alianti in Richmond upon Thames. we are still in the deep south imposing on family. To share the burden of our presence more evenly, however, we have now moved to Poole in Dorset. Here, we can live the life of beach bums. Evidently, it’s a lifestyle we can adapt to without any sort of difficulty. Today, however, we have hit the monsoon season which we’re assured will only last one day. We’ve taken a drive and ended up here at the Old Mill Tea Rooms in Christchurch.

Miraculous

The ancient town of Christchurch sits between two rivers – the Stour and the Avon and is dominated by the 11th century Priory. It was closed in 1539 during the Dissolution of Henry VIII but miraculously managed to survive. It houses the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, who Henry described as “the most saintly woman in England”. Though, it would be another miracle if she was able to maintain such a title after meeting Henry.

The roof of the Priory also contains the Miraculous Beam. The medieval builders determined that this essential beam was too short for where it was supposed to go, giving rise to much angst. Next morning, however, when they returned (presumably sober) it was not only the correct length but in its correct position. It brings to mind a quote by Noam Chomsky sent to us by our Aussie Toowoomba correspondents still recovering from the Matilda’s defeat to the Lionesses: “The general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” Given that people flock to see the Miraculous Beam we should not be surprised when they vote the way they do.

Shelley memorialh — Mary Shelley cradling her dead husband after a boating accident

The Priory also has a memorial to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who was drowned off the coast of Italy in 1882.

Cashless

But now to more prosaic matters … parking! Although Christchurch is only a few miles from Poole it takes half an hour to get here. It takes half and hour to get anywhere. It’s just the volume of traffic! You have to pay for parking everywhere. In our modern cashless society we were supplied with an app to facilitate this. A cashless society disadvantages a lot of people so we’re not in favour but increasingly we find ourselves without any. To park you just enter your location (4 digit ID) and select how long you want to stay. Not here, however, outside the Old Mill. When the app asked how long you wished to stay it wouldn’t allow us to select anything. We tried everything but eventually we gave up. Perhaps someone in the Old Mill could tell us where we are going wrong?

The girl behind the counter just shook her head and said “No-one can work it, there’s no service down here, you’ll have to use coins”. Coins? Where on earth would we find these? Our girl came to the rescue. She gave us four £1 coins from the till and said she would add it on to our bill. Phew! A couple of hours would have been more than plenty but in our excitement we fed the machine with all our new found treasure. Now we could stay all day in the pouring rain … yeah!

A funfair

The Old Mill Tea Rooms were busy busy. Maybe it was just a very good place or maybe it had something to do with wintry weather outside? There’s a funfair here and there’s nothing quite so desolate as a funfair in the pouring rain. Anyway the atmosphere in the Old Mill was bright and cheerful with lots of chatter. We had a window seat allowing us to look out onto the harbour and watch others braving the worst of the weather. Our scones came with lots of jam and cream as well as a fresh strawberry. It was thoughtfully cut in half to prevent any squabbling about whose it was. The scones had been warmed and were lovely and soft. Not topscones but we thoroughly enjoyed them nevertheless.

Newsless in Dorset

For the last couple of weeks we have been without television or newspapers. Adrift in that wonderful world of “no news”. Don’t think we’ve missed much.

A picture of the Old Mill Tea Rooms — This picture in the Old Mill pretty much sums up most people when they think of the world today.

Shelley’s wife Mary wrote Frankenstein in 1818, She also said “Life, although it may be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me and I will defend it” Go on yourself Mary!

Swans at the Old Mill Tea Rooms — Swans at Christchurch harbour

BH23 1BY Tel: 01202 474942 Old Mill Tea Rooms

///sprint.cigar.blitz

Ordinary, Scones

Alianti Bonne Bouche

11 August 2023 billpaterson1@me.com 9 Comments

You can probably tell that with a highfalutin name like Alianti Bonne Bouche that we are not in Scotland any more. We’re in London imposing on family. Even down here though the name is a bit confusing! Bonne Bouche kind of means ‘tasty bite’. We can go with that but Alianti is Italian for ‘gliders’ … no comprendes!

Confusion

Actually this place is confusing and it’s not just the name. There are no toilet or hand washing facilities and in our old fashioned naive kind of way we thought that that wasn’t allowed these days. An enquiry about these facilities elicits a brusque “don’t have any” from the unsurprisingly surly and cross legged staff. Things were not getting off to the best of starts. There were two scones on the counter and that was it. She said “we don’t have cream but there’s strawberry jam. Would we like that?” Rather than just have a dry scone we replied in the affirmative. Then she added “There’s butter as well. Would we like that?” Boy, they really know how to show people a good time down here! To be fair, she did offer to toast the scones which was great because they looked at least a couple of days old.

External view of Alianti in Richmond — Paved Court leads to Ted Lasso’s flat and the pub used in the TV series

On the upside, it was a lovely day so we sat out in Paved Court which isn’t a ‘court’, more a narrow little lane that runs down the side of the cafe. Is there no end to the confusion? From a sconological point of view, suffice to say that this experience was just a whisker short of catastrophic. The coffee was nice but other than that there was nothing to commend it. If we were ever to return they would have to drop the ‘bonne bouche’ and have a large illuminated sign advertising their brand spanking new toilets. We are not holding our breath!.

She asked!

Our sojourn at Alianti was actually very enjoyable. Nothing to do with the fare we are served but a lot to do with the two ladies sitting at the next table. They were great fun! One was from Germany but had spent most of her life in the US. She was keen to know why Scotland wanted to separate from England. So many reasons … where to start?

Internal view of Alianti in Richmond — Interior of Alianti

Norway has just published that they expect to get £120 billion in tax revenues from North Sea oil in 2023. Scotland has the same amount of oil but gets nothing … it all goes to Westminster. They then waste it on vanity projects in London. Then there’s the lies. Not little porky pie type lies but great big humungous lies. Obviously not big enough to embarrass Boris Johnson, no lies are that big but big nevertheless!

In 2014 we had the referendum on Scottish independence. We were told then that there was only a dribble of oil left. Hardly enough to last the year. Never mind the green issues, a couple of weeks ago Rishi Sunak issued 100 brand new drilling licences with hundreds more to follow. There’s loads of oil! In 2014 we were told that the only way Scotland could stay in the EU was to stick with England. Two years later Brexit ensured that Scotland was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the EU.

Two Carron K6s with Ted Lasso's pub in the background — At the other end of Paved Court, two cast iron telephone kiosks made in Falkirk with Ted Lasso’s pub in the background,

Also, never mind that Scotland has a devolved government that wants independence or that almost all the Westminster MPs who represent Scotland also want independence, it doesn’t make the slightest difference. All the important powers are retained by England. We could have gone on: the BBC, monarchy, land ownership, the Barnett formula but by this time she was wishing she had never asked!

Morality?

Economics are all well and good but for us it’s simply a moral question. Why should one country be able to deny another country the right to determine its own future. It’s equivalent to Canada having to ask permissions from the US. Canadians would tolerate that for slightly less than a split nanosecond!

We bade farewell to our new enlightened friends and headed off in search of a real bonne bouche!

TW9 1NF tel: 020 8332 2001 Alianti

///saying.sport.manliness

Scones, history and a dollop of politics

Monthly Archives: August 2023