Wee Winchburgh Café

18 December 2024 billpaterson1@me.com 4 Comments

We were here at the Wee Winchburgh Café yesterday only to find it closed. There was a notice on the door which read “Just had a baby, closed today, open tomorrow“. Obviously we had to come back to meet this superwoman! It turned out to be a day of surprises!

Surprise 1

Winchburgh village used to be on the main road between Falkirk and Edinburgh but it has long since been bypassed by the M9 motorway. Before the motorway we used to pass through it often. Back then it consisted of the Tally Ho Hotel and several streets of mainly miners cottages. The miners were employed in the shale oil industry … Scotland’s first oil bonanza. If you blinked you could miss it. Little did we know that it harboured ambitions to be a city. Almost 4,000 new houses are being built as we speak. The original village has been completely consumed by what is now a ginormous building site. We couldn’t find the old village and our satnav unhelply said “unmapped area”. Eventually we had to stop and ask someone. However, when we eventually found it it was pretty much just as we remembered it with rows of little terraced houses.

When we entered the cafe the first thing we saw was a set of bagpipes displayed on the wall. A reminder to chase up our bagpipe man we talked about at the Turkish Mint Café in Stirling.

Surprise 2

Unsurprisingly the Wee Winchburgh Café is small … only three tables. When we asked the owner if she had indeed had a baby she just laughed. Turned out her daughter, who lives in Preston, had the baby and she had closed the café the day before so she could visit her new granddaughter, Sienna Rose. We were treated to some photos of the bonny baby and even a video of her sleeping.

Surprise 3

Pat asked for a fruit scone and I thought I should try one of the cherry and almond scones on offer. Initially, when we asked about cream she said that they didn’t have any. Then she came back and said she remembered she had some canned cream. And apparently, it was much better than the usual sort of canned cream. Normally we wouldn’t have what we call ‘scooshie’ cream but she sold it to us with her enthusiasm. However we weren’t prepared for the scones to come preloaded. They were presented ‘ready to eat’ complete with jam and scooshie cream. Unfortunately, the cherry almond combo didn’t quite work and Pat wasn’t too keen on her fruit scone.either. Sadly no topscone but a great community café which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Wall decor at the Wee Winchburgh Café — The Broons visiting the Forth Rail Bridge

Surprise 4

As the couple at the next table were leaving and paying their bill they said that they would like to pay our bill as well. Wow! For years we’ve been trying to perfect that art of looking like an little old couple with a purse from which we would count out the pennies one by one but this was the first time anyone had actually fallen for it. Seriously, we thanked them and as they left they simply said “It’s Christmas“. Wonderful when complete strangers do things like that! Earlier our host, new grandmother and scone loader took a phone call from someone placing an order. She finished the call with a “That’s great, I’ll bring it over to you rather than you having to cross that busy road“. It was that sort of place.

Pig cruet set at the Wee Winchburgh Café — our salt and pepper

More surprises

There’s been lots going on that’s taken us by surprise: (a) Ukraine has blown up a Russian army General in downtown Moscow (b) the Church of England is having difficulty replacing the Archbishop of Canterbury because the prospective candidate seems to have been involved in the same sort of sex abuse scandals as the man he is replacing (c) the Royal Mail, started by Henry VIII in 1516, has been sold to Daniel Kretinsky a Czech billionaire. Britain is in a right old state … but that’s not a surprise!

Thank goodness for places like Wee Winchburgh Café whose heart is in the right place. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers.

EH52 6RA 01506 200659 Wee Winchburgh Café FB

///cared.childcare.watch

Ordinary, Scones

Mint Café

12 December 2024 billpaterson1@me.com 3 Comments

You know how it is … you go into somewhere like Mint Café in Stirling for coffee and a scone and by the time you come out the world has changed. Okay, Syria to be more precise but who knows what is going to happen next. The hellish Assad regime has fallen and people are rejoicing. However, within a day of the Russians stopping their bombing of the country, Israel, Turkey and the US have started. All trying to protect their own interests but hardly an auspicious launch of a new era! There are all sorts of tensions mostly caused by slightly differing interpretations of the same religion … clerics have much to answer for! Nowhere are these tensions more evident than on the Turkish/Syria border with the third longest wall in the world separating the two countries. Only the Great Wall of China and the US/Mexico wall are longer.

Anyway, purely by accident we are here in Mint, a Turkish café. But why? Well, we were hoping to pick up a set of bagpipes in Stirling but having been unable to contact the guy who was renovating them, we decided to pay a visit to his shop.

Just our luck, when we arrived, it wasn’t open. The word on the street, however, was that he normally opened a bit later in the day. What to do? Our solution was to go away and come back later, hence you find us here in Mint. Not only are we here but we are the only ones here. The place was deserted … just the Turkish owner busying himself behind the counter, and us. It seemed to be a place that specialised in cakes but there was a bowl full of scones on the counter … yeah, the day was taking a turn for the better!

I’ve always had a soft spot for Turkey since hitchhiking to the country in 1970 and experiencing the hospitality and kindness of the local people. Our host was no exception ,,, he made us very welcome. He soon had us sorted with a scone and some coffee. Rather odd presentation but the scone was nice and warm with a very pleasant texture. It came with butter, jam and a dollop of ‘scooshie’ cream. The coffee was great but the rest maybe not so much. Ten out of ten for effort but some way short of a topscone.

Afterwards, we made our way back the bagpipe shop. Hallelujah, it was open!

Lifestyle notice in Mint Café, Stirling — It’s not working

Turned out that our man was uncontactable because he had lost his phone. He had a new one but didn’t want to use it in case he found his old one?? And, in spite of having had the pipes for almost three months he hadn’t even started on them. He apologised profusely and promised to get on to it straight away. He would even deliver them to our house! Chaotic is the only way to describe his business operation but the workmanship is excellent so we remain ever hopeful of a delivery before Christmas.

Being here in Mint made us feel a little closer to Syria. Bashar al-Assad and his family have successfully escaped to Russia. Presumably with him being an ophthalmologist he saw his downfall coming 😃. Sorry! The brand spanking new Syrian government has an uphill struggle ahead but hopefully they can magic up some real stability for the region.

FK8 1BJ tel: 01786 357541 Mint Café TA

///bucks.agent.sculpture

Ordinary, Scones, self-service

Pitlochry Festival Theatre

5 December 2024 billpaterson1@me.com 5 Comments

We are back home now after our short but very enjoyable break in Pitlochry. After our posts from Fonab Castle and Victoria’s we can now bring you one from Pitlochry Festival Theatre which we visited on our final day.

Advert for the Sound OF Music — The hills are alive

Currently they are putting on the Sound Of Music. Sadly though, there are no performances on two days every week and we were there on one of them. The cafe was open, however, so all was not lost. A scone coming up but first a fairy tale!

Fairy Tale

Readers could easily be forgiven for asking how a small town like Pitlochry in rural Perthshire with a population of less than 3000 has a theatre at all. The theatre could comfortable seat a fifth of the population. The story of the theatre is a bit of a fairy tale in itself and testament to one man’s vision and single minded determination.

In the early days of WWII, John Stewart, head of Skerries College in Glasgow, hid a slip of paper in a wooden post down by the River Tummel. It read ‘When peace is declared I shall return to this spot to give thanks to God and to establish my Festival’. On VE Day he did just that.

View of Port na Craig ferry site — Port-na-Craig was the site of the original ferry that crossed the River Tummel, connecting it to Pitlochry. The theatre roof can be seen behind Port-na-Craig

Whisky Galore

Because of the post war shortage of building materials he could not get permission from the government to build the theatre.

Bridge over the River Tummel — The ferry operated until 1913, when a suspension footbridge was built

As a result the theatre began life as a large tent in the garden of his Knockendarroch House. In 1952 a storm destroyed the tent almost spelling the end of the theatre. Stewart, however, formed a Society to which he gave over his house, garden and workshops. The Society was able to build a more substantial theatre at Knockendarroch and gave him permission to continue living in his own house. Success followed success and 1959 saw the world premier of Whisky Galore – The Musical in the current building at Port-na-Craig. Incredible! And we have to arrive on a day when there’s nothing on! However, the future for the “theatre in the hills” looks bright. The new Artistic Director is none other than local boy and fierce campaigner for Scottish Independence, Alan Cumming.

The theatre itself is impressive and the cafe is a fairly typical self service facility in the foyer area. It’s a large light airy space and surprisingly busy considering the time of year and the fact that there were no live performances. There was a choice of plain and fruit scones so as usual, we chose fruit. They looked as if they had loads of fruit and they did, maybe too much. Not a topscone but very enjoyable nevertheless.

Tickety boo?

Pitlochry seems like another world where everything is just fine. When you are here in the Festival Theatre it feels even more like another world.

In the real world, however, things aren’t quite so tickety boo. That Far Eastern beacon of democracy, South Korea, has suddenly and inexplicably declared martial law. Luckily North Korea has sent half its army to fight with Russia in Ukraine. Russia has also resumed fighting in that almost forgotten war in Syria. In Europe, France seems determined to make itself ungovernable. Across the pond, at the risk of giving banana republics a bad name America continues with its system of Presidential pardons. Why? The hills are alive with the sound of people scratching their heads!

PH16 5DR tel: 01796 484626 Pitlochry Theatre

///charge.choppers.talents

Scones, history and a dollop of politics

Monthly Archives: December 2024