Tag Archives: Boris Johnson

Scones, Top

Scone 54

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Now, you may be puzzled by the Scone 54 title of this post? Let us explain. We don’t normally get personal in this blog … except of course with eejits like Johnson and Cameron. Normally we try and keep things fairly anonymous because after all this is a serious, insightful, hard hitting blog that politicians and shoddy sconeries have come to fear! Yeah right! However, on this occasion we are prepared to make an exception. This is a little bit personal but, we’ll hope you agree, for a valid reason.

Good friends, A&A (we’ll keep it slightly anonymous), were celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary and as a result  invited us round to their house  for a cream tea. Now do you get the Scone 54 title?

Lucky, lucky lucky

We thought about the invitation for all of what must have been a fraction of a nanosecond … a no-brainer! What an achievement!  Not many people get the pleasure of spending this amount of time with their loved ones. Having said that, all our friends have been married for what seems like all of their lives a

54th wedding anniversary
scones al fresco

nd they are, without exception, very happy. Not sure if that says anything about our generation or the times we were brought up in but probably not. We have all just been very lucky with our partners.  At 54 years, however, A&A are leading the charge . I am reluctant to say that I was their best man because it reveals my age as being greater than mid fifties … but I was!

Scotland is having wonderful weather for April so we sat in the their back garden (COVID rules still don’t allowed us to have friends indoors) and were treated to homemade scones served with strawberry jam and lots of cream … oh, and bubbles. Can you think of a better way to spend an afternoon?54th wedding anniversary

The scones were definitely topscones … and we are not just saying that out of politeness to A&A. Just the right size, slightly crunchy exterior and wonderfully soft interior. In fact, everything was perfect.

54 at 54

54th wedding anniversary By the time we had eaten all the scones and drunk all the bubbles we wanted to carry on so Pat  invited everyone round to ours for a BBQ. That went on until well after dark and many sausages and burgers were dispatched in the process. The culmination was a marshmallow toasting session over the fire.

A fantastic way to celebrate a fantastic achievement with fantastic friends. If you are wondering what 54 years of  togetherness, making and eating scones looks like, look no further. Many thanks A&A.
54th wedding anniversary

Because Scone 54 is more of a personal post we thought we might leave the politics off to one side for a change. Then we thought that A&A would definitely prefer us to take a potshot at Boris & Co.

Westminster now seems to be abandoning the voluntary nature of the Act of Union that currently binds the four distinct parts of the UK together. It has done for over 300 years. Now they are thinking of bringing in legislation to make it illegal to have a referendum on Scottish Independence until Westminster thinks it’s a good idea … in other words, sometime never! The Union will be maintained by force of law. The people of Scotland won’t have a say in their own future. That’s UK democracy! Au contraire Boris,  the Scottish people will have their say and you better believe it. With a bit of luck you will go down in history as the man who broke the Union! Okay, that’s it, another marshmallow please.

Scones, Uncategorized

Wayzgoose Diner

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More news from our Bathurst correspondents as we in Scotland gently edge towards the same sort of freedom that they enjoy. Freedom to not only leave the house but to venture further afield … and to meet people … yeah! We’re not complaining, we are very happy with the way the whole COVID-19 thing has been handled in Scotland but like everyone else we have almost forgotten what ‘normal’ actually means. In New South Wales our correspondents can at least move around the state … and this little corner of Australia is four times the size of the UK! Anyway, today they made their way to the village of Leura and the Wayzgoose Diner. And what sort of name is that anyway? In their own words:

Welcome to Leura“Today we passed through Leura, a village halfway between our home in Bathurst, and Sydney. A spot we often stop at when travelling to Sydney. As it was coffee time, we called into the Wayzgoose Diner, and decided to sample their scones. To our surprise the scone arrived in a terracotta flowerpot, in which it had been cooked. Quite a nice scone, if a little odd looking with its tapered bottom”.

Flower pot scone at the Wayzgoose Diner
A flower pot scone

Intrigued by the name “Wayzgoose”, and thinking it was some sort of Canadian bird, I googled it and found:

“A wayzgoose was at one time a celebratory dinner given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St Bartholomew’s Day (24 August). It marked the traditional end of summer and the start of the season of working by candlelight.”

Working by candlight … those were the days! Our correspondents also sent these clippings about the Country Women’s Association (CWA) from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sconversations for the anxious and depressedSMH clippings for the Wayzgoose DinerKnead to know


In another cutting a Mrs Whitton explained that the secret of a perfect scone “Don’t knead the dough. Don’t fiddle or keep laying or touching it”. You have been told!

SMH clippings for the Wayzgoose Diner
Mrs Whitton and a tray of 40 scones


As always, a huge thanks to our Bathurst correspondents. But, would you believe it – another Aussie report has just come in! This time from our Brisbane correspondent. We think the intention was to assure Pat and I that not all Australians are as boorish as him.

Apparently, at a recent function, he was belittled, berated and generally ridiculed by colleagues for putting jam on top of the cream on a pikelet (crumpet) he was preparing to eat. Serves him right … not going to get any sympathy from us. But good to hear that Australia is not indulging in those devilishly delinquent Devon ways.

Back in the UK, Boris promised that everything would go back to the way it was once Brexit was achieved. And so it has, one of the few promises he has kept … rioting on the streets of Northern Ireland. Thanks Boris, you could do well to heed Mrs Whitton’s advice.

Scones

Hot cross buns

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Gosh, it’s Easter again and who would have thought it would be the second one in lockdown. Our traditional family holiday in Inverness has been cancelled so we are not in the best of moods about that. Easter is a jolly time however. A bit like Christmas but with magic rabbits and chocolate eggs so much more believable. And, of course, that seasonal favourite, hot cross buns! We thought that, to get into the Easter spirit, we should have a go at making them … it’s not easy, in fact, it’s a right palaver!

In our naivety we thought it would be like making a scone. Not a bit of it! It’s much more akin to making bread. You mix up your flour with sugar, spices, yeast and the zest of a lemon but then you have to leave it for a hour or so to proof. And hopefully double in size!Hot cross buns in the making Then you have to knead it again, add sultanas and peel then leave it for another hour. What? Do they think we have nothing better to do? Oh, alright, we don’t!

Hot cross buns, piping the crossAfter that you form the dough into smaller balls and leave them for half an hour to increase in size. Then you have to pipe a cross on top with a mixture of flour and water. By the time we were finished Pat was definitely hot and definitely cross which is no doubt how they got their name. No it wasn’t. Unbelievably they got their name from the fact that they should be served hot and they have a cross on top … and they’re buns!

Breathalyser food
Hot cross buns being glazed with syrup
glazing with hot syrup

Originally they were a pagan thing to celebrate the Goddess Ēostre and in 1592, Queen Elizabeth I decreed that they were so good they should only be eaten  on Good Friday or at burials. Must be great to have that sort of power. Just think what you could do with it? Greedy folks should be careful, however. They can have a high alcohol content (all that yeast and fruit) and throw you over the legal limit.

We would like to report, after going to all that trouble, that our hot cross buns were a major success. But no. Flavour was good but unfortunately they were a wee bit on the firm side. Not the nice soft consistency we have come to expect of this type of bun. Interesting exercise but I don’t think Pat will be repeating it any time soon!Hot cross buns

Elections

In Scotland we have the mouth watering prospect of six weeks of electioneering leading up to polling day on May 6th. Lots of empty words and empty promises to look forward to. Alex Salmond has popped up again (hell hath no fury like a former First Minister scorned) with his new Alba party. He is less popular now in Scotland than Boris Johnson, an incredible feat in itself so we can only imagine it has more to do with his own deluded conceit than anything else.

Happy Easter everyone, the weather is scorchio today so enjoy it while you can. Fingers crossed,  this will be the last lockdown Easter.

 

Scones, Uncategorized

Morrison’s afternoon tea box

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Morrison’s afternoon tea box, okay, maybe this is the actual bottom of the sconology barrel? We have, of course, been here before. About eighteen months ago we were at Morrison’s Café and not only that, we had two mini-Vikings with us. We were buying costumes for Halloween so that we could go round our neighbourhood scaring everyone half to death. Remember … we were once able to do that! Before COVID and Brexit that was called ‘normal’. Anyway, the mini-Vikings abandoned us on Saturday so that they could go back to school in London.  Pat is, once again, flying solo on the baking front.

Surprise

Coronavirus restrictions mean that we are still not allowed to go anywhere. Mind you, everything is closed so there’s nowhere to actually go anyway. In these circumstances we thought it might be worth trying Morrison’s Afternoon Tea Box. The advert looked quite good (see title picture) and it was only £20 or £25 if we wanted to upgrade it with prosecco. And it would be delivered to our door at no extra cost. Predictably perhaps we upgraded … why not? It arrived bang on time and we were excited to see what it would actually be like. We  were more than a little surprised, however, when we opened the box and saw what we had bought.Contents of Morrisons afternoon tea box

DIY

It wasn’t so much an afternoon tea as an afternoon tea kit. More a box of groceries from which it would be possible to make an afternoon tea if you were so inclined.  A whole loaf, a jar of pickle, two boxes of cakes, a large chunk of cheese, a packet of ham, tea bags, carton of milk, big pot of jam and a large (burst) packet of lightly salted crips. Enough to make afternoon teas for a small army. Crickey, we could have just gone to the shop and bought all this stuff.

Morrisons shopping listWe decided to look it all up online and see how much it would have cost if we had done that. Sad, we know but we had nothing better to do! You will see from the results that we would also have been cheaper. We would have saved £0.48. To a tight-fisted Scotsman that’s equivalent to at least two mouthfuls of beer. We really don’t know what Morrisons is thinking about with this product. To be fair, when we went back and checked the advert it did list everything underneath the picture. We should have looked more carefully.

Morrisons all butter sconesAnyway, once we had recovered from the realisation that there was nothing else for it but to knuckle down and make our own afternoon tea. We duly set about making the sandwiches, decanting the cakes and unpacking the scones. Eventually we sat down to relax in front of the fire with the fruits of our labours. 

Experience

It wasn’t like any other afternoon tea we have ever had but all in all it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it was the fact that we had been more involved or maybe it was just that we were nice and cozy and catching up with missed episodes of Coronation Street. Who knows? The scones were okay but nowhere near a topscone. finished product of Morrisons afternoon teaOf course, there was enough in the box to make several more of these afternoon teas but I don’t think we’ll bother. Putting it all down to experience … read the ads carefully!

mini-Vikings back to schoolSo the mini-Vikings are delighted to be back in school with their friends, a huge relief for the home-working parents. Meanwhile Boris Johnson is reportedly building a £9m bunker beneath the Cabinet Office for use in emergencies. Is he thinking of when he refuses another independence referendum for  Scotland. He might need it.

Scones, Uncategorized

Pat’s scones

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Before we treat you to a sample of Pat’s scones let us first take a look at the current lockdown situation. It isn’t getting less severe, the opposite if anything! And the end seems to get ever further away! As mouldy oldies we are getting our jabs in a couple of weeks but even that doesn’t appear to make that much difference. We can still become spreaders and it’s not until we get the second jab that the vaccine really becomes effective and goodness knows when that will be. Argh, the joys of COVID!Pat's scones

The Ununited Kingdom

Speaking of spreaders, Boris Johnston decided, a couple of days back, to grace Scotland with a whistle-stop tour. Goodness knows why? He must know that he is pretty much universally loathed north of the border. And of course the trip broke all the rules that apply to everyone else who has to live with the disastrous consequences of Westminster’s pathetic handling of the crisis. Increasingly  people realise that  many key government functions are only weakly anchored centrally. It’s London-centric credibility has been weakened and the UK now looks more and more like a fractured state. Then there’s Brexit!

Approval ratings

At the moment neither the Tories nor Labour have a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected in Scotland and as long as Boris maintains his current attitude he will remain the SNP’s most effective recruiting sergeant. Recently, in a poll, Nicola Sturgeon gained the highest approval rating of any UK politician  … and that’s in England where she holds no sway! Remarkable!

Withdrawal

So, Pat’s scones, what about them? In the last few posts we’ve done skillingsboller and we’ve done pumpernickel, neither of which have anything much to do with scones. To be fair, we have done a scone but it was from Australia.  That’s all very well but scone withdrawal symptoms eventually became fairly severe. It’s come to this, we have resorted to making our own. Not for the first time, of course, but we don’t normally resort to such drastic measures. To get the full scone experience you really need to go out and capture them in their natural habitat.  We were also having to do without the assistance of the two small Vikings we have deployed on some recent occasions. They were doing  schooling from home.

Pat made quite a large batch and then gave me two different presentations. Pat's scone with cream and jamPat's scone with cream and jamOne with a bowl of cream and a pot of homemade blackcurrant and gooseberry jam. Every thing was deliciousPat's scone with cream and crab apple jellyThe other came with  cream and crab-apple jelly. What’s not to like? Thankfully she did not ask me to judge which was best but suffice to say they were both fab! Can’t award a topscone because then that would infer that you could come and visit and sample them for yourselves … but you can’t! Nobody can! The joys of COVID!

A scone in the shape of a heartThis was my favourite. Very small and presented just on its own I think it was supposed to convey some sort of message. Aww!

Just heard that toilet brushes have become the official symbol of the Russian protests in support of Alexei Navalny. It’s a crazy mixed up world!

Keep safe everyone!

Scones, Uncategorized

Devil’s Fart

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No, we are not talking about Boris or Donald Trump! Devil’s fart is probably more widely known as pumpernickel, a dense German rye bread that’s name actually means “devil’s fart”. Apparently it has flatulence inducing properties. Never having experienced flatulence we thought it might be interesting to try it! pack of pumpernickelAnd if the packaging is anything to go by it may have other properties as well!! Okay, okay, if this all smacks of desperation then so be it. London is in danger of being overwhelmed by COVID so restrictions are becoming ever stricter everywhere. Who knows, the way things are going, we may not be allowed to look out the window, never mind go on sconing adventures.

Internationalism

The implications for our readers continuing education is worrying, however. Hence, following our previous post on Norwegian skillingsboller, we now bring you the German devil’s fart. It comes courtesy of our Münster correspondents who gave us some as a present. Many thanks to them for introducing us to pumpernickel and helping expand the cultural horizons of our readers.

Bad smells

It used to be found only in north west Germany but now you can get it pretty much anywhere. That said, European and American pumpernickel are different. The American pumpernickel has added ingredients and a higher baking temperature to provide shorter production times. Why oh why does the US need everything ‘fast’? Just chillax and do it properly! Perhaps, with Trump and his compadres only remaining as a bad smell, they may be able to do just that. Or is that wishful thinking?

pumpernickel unwrapped
Pumpernickel loaf unwrapped

So how do you eat pumpernickel?  As novices we started by slicing it the wrong way, before realising it was already sliced. It’s pretty solid and a little bit sticky so tends to appear like one solid dark block when it’s unwrapped. A bit like a pack of cheese slices. Not an auspicious start but how would it taste? That’s all that matters after all! In order to give it a fighting chance we decided to try it with a variety of toppings – cheese and ham, cheese  tomato and chutney, salami and mustard … and lastly just with some homemade plum jam.

Honest, officer!

selection of pumpernickel bitesThe bread itself has a grainy texture and a slightly sweet flavour that’s unusual but quite pleasant. Pat gave top marks to the cheese and ham. My preference was for the salami and mustard though all of them were actually very good. Will we be rushing out in search of devil’s fart? Well, if we cannot go out for scones then we can hardly go out for that. What would we tell the police if stopped? We’ll let you know about the flatulence … or maybe not!

ps: Our pumpernickel was a present and this week we received another. A parcel of framed photos from fellow photographer Dave Hunt. He operates from his Wildgrass Studio in beautiful Glen Lyon and specialises in vintage and fine art photography. Some time back we helped him experiment with his wet plate collodion technique. None of this instant digital nonsense for Dave, no, no, no!  He has to coat a plate of glass with light sensitive material, expose it in the camera while still wet and develop it all within about fifteen minutes. If it’s not quite right you just start again … simple!wet plate photo of Pat and I

He misplaced the plates during a house move but found them again recently and sent them on. How can we describe the results? “Brilliantly vintage”, perhaps … just like the sitters! The wonderful thing is that the 5″x4″ plate is completely unique … not another like it. Many thanks Dave, we love them all. Dave also says that these images should last for 200 – 300 years … and to let him know if they don’t. If you find life a bit too fast you can find out about this technique at one of Dave’s workshops. Can’t guarantee he will have such fantastic subjects though.

Scones, Uncategorized

Skillingsboller

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2020 wasn’t exactly a year to remember what with plague ravaging the country and mad politicians reaching new levels of lunacy. These things are mere trifles, however, when we tell you that the government has now told us to cease all sconological research forthwith! Sacre bleu! Okay, they didn’t actually get in touch with us specifically and tell us to desist  but they may as well.  Current COVID restrictions mean that we are not supposed to leave home except to care for others. We thought sconology fitted that brief perfectly but apparently, it doesn’t!  So, in order to further your knowledge and broaden your cultural horizons we bring you skillingsboller … a sort of Norwegian scone equivalent.

Happy New Year

But first we would like to wish a happy new year to all our readers and correspondents, we hope that 2021 is much better than the past year. 2020 was memorable for having absolutely nothing whatsoever to commend it. A complete disaster. It did, however, serve to demonstrate the difference between the EU and the UK.

The ‘U’ stands for ‘Unity’ in both their names but the five years of negotiations combined with coronavirus have had opposite effects in both states. On one hand the 27 countries of the EU showing admirable unity with a show of democracy in action. On the other hand the totally undemocratic UK falling apart at the seams with it’s ‘Unity’ under unprecedented strain.  All seventeen of the most recent opinion polls showing a clear majority in favour of Scottish independence and N.Ireland, is now left  closer to Dublin than London. Even England’s long-standing bedfellow, Wales, is getting fed up up with the Boris shambles and Westminster’s inane dictatorial style. And lo-and-behold, on top of all that we now have part of the Tory party launching a campaign to rejoin the EU. Aaargh! As messes go, this is pretty messy.

Coffee and boller

Enough of all that! Thanks to a Viking son-in-law we used to spend a lot of time in Norway. Being there was fantastic but of course there were no scones. They did however have boller (pronounced ‘bolly’) which are to Norwegians what croissants are to the French or scones are to the Brits. They are made with cardamon spice and can often have raisins or even chocolate chips in them. Absolutely delicious. We became addicted and ‘coffee and boller’ quickly became part of the daily routine.

On this occasion, being at home without access to boller or scones of any kind, we decided to make skillingsboller. It’s a derivative of boller,  a kind of cinnamon bun. Obviously you need a recipe but you also need the help of one big Viking and two small ones. This may be a problem for most folks but not for us … because we are blessed with all three!

rolling out the boller mixture

Don’t make skillingsoller if you are in a hurry. It’s not something you can rush. It takes 2-3 hours at least. But then, why would you be in a rush when you can’t even leave home? Get baking! Be warned though, if you decide to utilise the two small Vikings it can take even longer. Particularly at the icing stage!

Suffice to say that the resulting skillingsboller was absolutely delicious, a major triumph for all concerned.

What do you want?

Emboldened by success our Vikings then went on to make normal boller. holemade Norwegian bollerDon’t they look delish! If you can’t be bothered making them you can always visit United Bakeries in Oslo. There, you will find lots of boller of all kinds and a huge bowl of strawberry jam that you just help yourself to. Ah, memories! Boller is not a scone but if 2020 taught us anything it was that sometimes we can’t have everything we want. Hopefully in the not too distant future we will all have the ability to travel again and get what we want, what we really really want … sorry! Until then stay safe  wherever you are!

Ordinary, Scones

Klondyke Garden Centre

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Even though. we haven’t been able to travel much over the past year, it’s been eighteen months since we were last here at Klondyke Garden Centre … and it’s only five minutes away? A lot has happened in that time. Back then we were on a mission and the mission was … compost and lots of it! For reasons we can’t quite remember we likened the garden centre to a drug dealer dealing in compost … we must have been high on the stuff? This time we were also on a mission but now it was pot … a big black one to be precise! Back then the café was called the Topiary Coffee Shop but now it appeared to have changed its name to the Polmont Restaurant. We wondered if anything else had changed. Well, quite a lot actually. For a start, because of COVID regulations, the layout had been adapted with greater spacing and large perspex screens between the tables. What else?

External view of cafe at Klondyke Garden Centre

Wonders

Like everyone these days we are well used to scanning QR codes to give our contact details and get access to the menu. For us, however, this one was a bit different. Once you had done all that and got the menu up on screen you had to actually place your order and pay as well. Okey dokey! You’ve heard of the paperless office, well this was the waitressless café. Lunch and then a scone to share was what we wanted and, once we got the hang of it, the process was quite easy. We went through the menu and placed everything we wanted into our virtual basket, then we paid at the virtual checkout all rather familiar really. The wonders of QR (quick response) technology! And then we waited .. and waited … and waited.

No worries!

Twenty minutes later we realised other folks, who had come in after us, were getting food. Just then a lady appeared and asked if we had ordered. We said “yes” to which she asked “did you pay?” “Yes” to which she asked “did you use ApplePay?” “Yes” to which she replied “it didn’t work, can you check your bank account?” We did and there was no sign of the transaction. She then said “No worries, I can take your order, what did you want?” Argh! Having spent what seemed like half the day in the place we were no further forward. The wonders of QR technology!

Ordinary?

Never mind, everything would be fine when our food arrived and after a few more minutes it did. It was dumped on a table quite close to us in what was termed a “food drop zone”. Thankyou coronavirus, you have much to answer for. A scone at Klondyke Garden CentreLunch was mediocre at best and our scone came without the sharing plate we had asked for but by this time we were losing the will to live.

The scone had been hot when it reached the food drop zone but by the time we got to it, warmth was but a distant memory. Accompanied by the ubiquitous Tiptree jam (£0.50). Irish butter (£0.20) and a ‘healthy’ bowl of cream (£0.60), it wasn’t actually too bad in itself but probably more expensive than a Claridge’s scone. The overall experience had us scratching our heads trying to think of a categorisation below ‘ordinary’ but we gave up. We did get our big black pot though.

Deal or no deal

A big black hole might adequately describe the UK’s imminent departure from the EU. It was perfectly summed up the other day by a picture of Boris standing next to Ursula von der Leyen during BRexit talks. A bumbling shambolic mess standing next to a perfectly presented symbol of unity. We’ll leave you to work out which was which! Whatever happened to the “oven ready deal” Boris promised months ago or the “easiest deal in history” promised by Gove. Could it be that they are just pathological liars … perish the thought?

FK2 0XS          tel: 01324 717035          Klondyke

///jars.member.stamp

PS: Many thanks to our Middle East correspondent for sending us this link to the Irish Times about dialects in Eire. It uses the word ‘scone’ as an example.    “Picture a line across Ireland from Sligo through Leitrim and Cavan over to Louth. Below it, for most people, scone rhymes with ‘phone’; above it, with ‘gone’. Near the line, usage is more mixed. The line is an isogloss, like a weather-map isobar but showing where a linguistic feature stops or changes”. You see, sconology is not just about scones … now you’ve learned what an isogloss is. If you didn’t already know that is!

Our correspondent was mystified that his Granny always  insisted on  pronouncing her scones to rhyme with gone in spite of her being located in Dublin, well below that isogloss line. Heyho, well done Granny for impecable pronouncation! He also refers to her scones as “little miracles“, well done again Granny!

Scones, Top

Corner Café – Boxed

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Two years ago when we visited the Corner Café in our home town of Falkirk it was still a new enterprise … only two weeks old in fact. Fresh out of the box, so to speak! Now, the ever enterprising owner Andrew Harkins and his team, prompted by COVID restrictions, have taken it upon themselves  to supply afternoon tea in a box. Egh? So it’s perhaps appropriate that the title of this post is not Corner Café – Revisited, because we didn’t, but Corner Café – Boxed.

The logo at the Corner Café, Falkirk Afternoon tea in a box is a bit of an oxymoron, is it not? Surely, an item of such gentility and refinement cannot be placed in a box? A cardboard box to boot! However, given that we cannot travel anywhere, the next best thing to being out for afternoon tea in some splendiferous surroundings is to have it at home. But then you have to make it! Well, for the princely sum of £20 you can enjoy the simply pleasures of afternoon tea for two in your own home. And none of the bother of actually having to make it yourself. Brilliant! But what would it be like? We had to investigate!

Headlines

Bubbles at homeBack in 2018, when we first reported on this place, the main news was about a member of the Royal family closing her own car door. The media had got its knickers in a right Royal twist. Things have moved on since then with the offending Royal banished forever to America where such unseemly behaviour is deemed quite acceptable.

We also reported that the Ayrshire Ladies tug-of-war team had won the 500kg World Championship in Cape Town. The only news from Ayrshire this week was a bold headline in the Ayrshire Daily News “South Ayrshire Golf club owner loses 2020 presidential election“. In the past Trump has said that if he loses he will leave the US and move to Scotland. Noooo … Trump for President, Biden’s a cheat!!!” Seriously, we thought a glass of bubbles was appropriate to toast President Joe and add a touch of decadence to our afternoon tea in a box. Not absolutely necessary you understand but necessary enough … okay?

What’s in the box?

boxed afternoon teaAnyway, what about a box of afternoon tea? You do have to collect it from the Corner Café yourself but they provide it with a window so you get a hint of what’s inside!  First impressions? There’s plenty in there. We might struggle a bit. When we decanted the contents on to our admittedly small tiered afternoon tea plate there was not nearly enough room for everything. It would have to be a two stage affair.a boxed afternoon tea at home

The sandwiches, rolls and pies were all excellent. Now we were getting worried about having enough room for the four medium sized scones. We were right to worry. At the end of the day, conscience of having to leave some room for cakes, we only managed one and a half scones between us. We had given them a wee blast in the oven so they were nice and warm. Generous tubs of jam and clotted cream made them quite delicious. It did no harm that, like the Corner Café, our tea and coffee was supplied by Henry’s Coffee Company. Another topscone for the Corner Café.

Wandering minds

scones in a boxed afternoon teaIn the end we did little justice to the cakes and biscuits. They’ll keep ’til tomorrow! As we sat there in front of the fire, pleasantly bloated and  full of tea and bubbles our minds wandered to things we don’t understand. That’s a lot to contemplate! We thought getting older was supposed to bring greater understanding. Not so! Quite the opposite! Voting for Trump, voting for Boris, voting for Brexit, voting for Farage?? Thank goodness for afternoon tea. One of the few things left that we do understand.

Well done the Corner Café. The fact that you can get almost everything we understand into a relatively small box is truly amazing … or is it?

FK1 1LZ.     tel: 01324 410949        The Corner Café FB

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Ordinary, Scones

Main Street Bakery

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Honestly, the things we do for our readers! Here we were in Callander attempting to expand your sconological knowledge and encountering great difficulties. Some of the cafés were closed, some were open but did’t do scones and others we had alraedy reviewed on previous occassions … argh! The weather was also being very Scottish. And you though this sconing malarkey was easy! Suffice to say, as we gambled merrily along Main Street, we came across the Main Street Bakery. No idea how it got that name!

Internal view of Main St Bakery
Who is that?
Café??

In the window they had a display of scones that looked quite good and a sign saying “fresh coffee”. Seemed worthy of investigation. Turned out it was tiny and because of COVID they were only allowed a maximum of two people in at a time. Gadzooks, there was already an elderly gentleman sitting there. He said he was leaving soon so we told him to hurry up so that we could get in. Okay, it wasn’t quite like that but he did kindly vacate the premises and we were in, yeagh!

A cheese scone for Pat and  fruit one for me. It soon became very obvious that this is a bakery with a coffee machine and not a café as such. COVID means they can’t put all the usual stuff out on the table. So while the seating area was being sanitised my scone was being buttered and jammed behind the bakery counter. Thank you COVID!!Main St Bakery logo

Rules and regulations

Tea for Pat and coffee for me. Tea was no problem but the lady said I would have to get my coffee from the machine?? A scone at Main St BakeryI said I would have tea instead but then she offered to make me a cup of instant. Instant it was. So there you have it! A pre-loaded scone, a polystyrene cup of instant coffee and some plastic cutlery. Bet you wish you had been there! To be fair the ladies keeping this place going were doing their best and we quite enjoyed being able to sit for a while and watch the world go by outside.

The coffee and the scone weren’t actually that bad but Claridges, it most certainly was not! No topscone here. While these ladies were looking after us they were also dealing with a constant stream of customers buying from the bakery. It gave us a pretty good insight into how the hospitality industry and everyone in it is having to adapt to weird circumstances.

Santa?

Andy Burnham has not been pushed out yet but his campaign to get increased support for Greater Manchester has had some effect. Internal view of Main St BakeryNow that London has become ‘high risk’ as well, support has been increased for this level … typical! Here in Scotland the lockdown restrictions have been increased and won’t be relaxed unti November at the earliest. We are starting to worry about Santa! How will he cope with all these restrictions? What happens if he catches coronavirus. Has Boris got a contingency plan for this looming crisis?  

The US Presidential election is also looming. As humble sconeys we are completely impartial and have no opinion one way or the other but please please don’t let it be Trump!

FK17 8BD           tel: 01877 330374        Main St Bakery FB

///spud.ooze.bothered

ps our Bathurst correspondent has been in touch to show us the excellent results of some homebaking and the effect of a sconefest on their friends. Looks like these were topscones!Bathurst scones, before and after

Following a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald he has also announced that he and fellow correspondent, the New South Welshman, are inspired by scones to take on a new 400km bike trail. Australian cycle trail scones

They won’t be doing it until next year but we are already anticipating  some interesting Aussie scone reports. Good luck to both.