Tag Archives: coronavirus

Ordinary, Scones

The Fish Man

Logo on the fish man's vanIt’s come to this … we’re getting our scones delivered. Of course, there’s more to it than that! We didn’t deliberately seek out scone deliveries, it just kind of happened. For many years now Scott McSharry, the Fish Man,  has been parking his van outside our house on a Wednesday evening and hooting his horn. The horn has  a magical effect on the neighbourhood. Suddenly, from no-one being around,  there are loads of people emerging from their homes and all heading in the same direction. Scott’s a bit like the pied piper except this is Falkirk not Hamelin!Logo on the fish man's van

It wasn’t always like this. Scott used to have a wee van and he sold fish from Pittenweem … maybe some eggs if you were lucky. Recently, however, he acquired a much bigger van and now you can get  bread, cakes, tomatoes, strawberries, eggs …. and, would you believe it … scones. All his produce is wonderful so we thought his scones would be worth a try as well.

 

Scones to your door

A scone from the fish manWe ate ours in the garden in the sunshine  with a bowl of whipped cream and some of Pat’s crab apple jelly. What wasn’t to like? Nothing as it turned out. The scones were a tad on the large side for our liking. They tasted good and that’s what matters at the end of the day. Most of our readers are unlikely to be able to use the Fish Man’s services and, of course, they were not exactly ‘presented’ so no topscone. Nevertheless, useful to know that you can always get a scone even though you can’t be bothered baking or going out.

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Pingdemic

With most of the COVID restrictions being lifted we can go anywhere though, in Scotland, the wearing of masks is still required. In England, so called Freedom Day (July 19) has come and gone. No restrictions, just recommendations. This joyous occasion, however, has been anything but. Just when everyone should be able to go about their business ‘normally’ we have had a rise in cases resulting in a pingdemic. Hundreds of thousand have been pinged by the ‘track & trace’ app and forced into ten days of isolation.  Schools may as well close. Supermarket shelves are bare because there’s no-one to deliver the stuff or put it on the shelves. Complete chaos!Logo on the fish man's van

We have also learned from the PM’s old boss Dominic Cummings that Boris doesn’t actually believe in pandemics.  When he was pinged he refused to isolate. Now he is being forced to isolate in Chequers, wee soul. Everyone knows that Boris is a muppet. However, you would think that even with muppets there would be some sort of learning process. Logo on the fish man's vanNot with Boris! While people like Scott do their utmost to keep  their customers happy by diversifying from fish into scones, Boris seems to just get dafter and dafter.A good slap with a wet fish might bring him to his senses! Large wet fish please Scott!

No fixed abode          tel: 07743 861391              Scott’s Fresh Fish FB

Ordinary, Scones

Fisher & Donaldson

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Have you heard of Jeddart Justice? Originating in the border town of Jedburgh it’s where someone is hanged first, and tried afterwards.

Pastries at Fisher & Donaldson
F&D pastries

 Well apparently the good folk of Cupar in Fife once accidentally drowned a man who refused to leave his cell. Rather than cheat him out of a trial they put his body on the stand anyway. Don’t know if he was found guilty or not. We think Boris would love to dish out Jeddart Justice to a host of people but it would probably be frowned upon these days. Anyway, we are in Cupar today, not looking for justice of any kind … just a scone. Fisher & Donaldson seemed like a likely spot.

It’s that time of year! When driving up to Cupar the fields were as green as green could be … almost impossibly green. Green and gold fieldsApart, of course, from the rape fields which were solid swathes of that impossible chrome yellow. Everything looked wonderfully fresh and vibrant.

In case of confusion

The town of Cupar in Fife should not be confused with that well known song “The Wee Cooper of Fife”.  Everyone knows the words.  

There was a wee cooper who lived in Fife
Nickety, nockety, noo, noo, noo

At first this doesn’t seem to make any sense however everything becomes clear with the next few lines:

And he ha’ gotten a gentle wife
Hey Willie Wallacky, hey John Dougall
Alane quo rushety, roo, roo, roo.

A poster at Fisher & Donaldson

No messing

Fisher & Donaldson are not exactly new kids on the block. Their bakery has been supplying the local area for over 100 years. It has a very traditional atmosphere and layout though the compartmentalised layout is mainly due to COVID restrictions. Internal view of Fisher & DonaldsonWhen we asked for scones the lady serving us, who had the demeanour of someone who had been closely related to the chap in the flooded cell, wasn’t sure if there were any left. After checking she said there were two, one cheese and one cherry. Fine that was all we wanted. When we asked for cream it prompted a very straight faced reply “No … we don’t do that sort of thing!” Okay, we were only asking!

A scone at Fisher & DonaldsonWhen they arrived they actually looked rather promising. Pat’s cheese one was good and my cherry one was also very acceptable. All in all everything was fine but no topscones here today … not with that po faced attitude to an innocent cream request. We actually spoke to the lady when we were paying our bill and she turned out to be quite good fun. We must have just caught her in a moment when she was thinking of her drowning relative.

Hickory shafts

We used to go on holiday with the children to Hill of Tarvit in Cupar and had great fun. However, at that time I hadn’t realised that the local Kingarrock nine-hole golf course (founded in 1855) still used hickory shafted clubs. All my clubs have hickory shafts … that’s all there was available when I bought them? My golfing career was very short lived and although everyone laughed at my clubs I certainly could not blame them for my performances.

KY15 5JT        tel: 01334 652551         Fisher and Donaldson

///fortnight.focal.neon

You will remember in our last post from Rufflets we visited our Bathurst correspondents family who lived nearby. Well simultaneously we received a note from our correspondents  saying they had revisited the Cafe Zestt  in Crookwell and were less than impressed … scone arrived 10 minutes after their coffee was finished … unforgivable! More interestingly perhaps they also visited the Scottish Arms Hotel in Bowral and as well as all the usual Scottish paraphanlia there was a K6 telephone box …. made in Falkirk. It had a sort of old-fashioned handset inside, possibly a direct line to Boris, or more likely Nicola. Don’t think Boris would have answered, he is totally preoccupied with sausage wars!

Bowral K6 telephone box

Birthday girl

Remember I had a birthday girl on my hands at Rufflets. Well that was a few days before her actual birthday. On the big day itself friends invited us round to their place for afternoon tea. What a fabulous afternoon that turned out to be.
We sat down in their garden at 2.30 and were still there at 8.30 … that’s how good it was. Home baked scones were the highlight though I was told in no uncertain terms that they were not to be critiqued under any circumstances. But they were definitely topscones  so it’s impossible not to.

One of our granddaughters joined us for a time and just as she did so a tooth that had been threatening to come out for days, fell out. More business for the tooth fairy!She knows how to keep her granny happy though. Many thanks L&R for a fabulous afternoon … and evening! 

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, 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

Tattie scones

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.Okay, we’ve been eagerly awaiting Nicola Sturgeon announcing that we can all go as one big family on holiday to Inverness. Unfortunately she is being super cautious so we will just have to carry on crossing our fingers and hoping that the vaccination programme makes it all possible by Easter. Children went back to school yesterday in Scotland and in England on 8th March, so overall there are increasing reasons for optimism.  In blog terms, however, it means that we are descending ever closer to the bottom of the sconology barrel.  This post is all about tattie scones.

A potato scone or tattie scone as it’s known in Scotland, is fairly far removed from the oven scones that form the already rather feeble excuse for this blog’s existence. They are, however, scones so we have to give them their due. They’re just not what we are accustomed to. Our readers in the nether regions and far flung crevices of the world will probably be wondering what on earth we are on about. But what else are we supposed to do when we still can’t leave home.

Canny Scot

Anyway, one day the two mini-Vikings who helped us make drop scones in the previous post were having dinner at our house. Pat had made them mince and tatties, an ever popular dish that never usually  fails. Suddenly, one of them (as five year olds tend to do) announced loudly that she didn’t like potatoes any more. Rather than go through the rigmarole of explaining about starving children in Africa, we decide to give her bread instead. That was fine but, of course, it meant that we still had some left over mashed potatoes. Pat, canny Scot that she is, put them in a bowl in the fridge. 

Next day she announced that she was going to attempt something she had never done before – making tattie scones. Wow! Not sure that tattie scones could be classed as a Scottish delicacy but they are certainly very popular as part of a breakfast fry up. A packet of tattie scones does not cost a lot but they are simple to make. 

tattle scone preparationYou can get a recipe here but Pat simply added added a pinch of salt, a little butter and some milk to the left over mashed potato before finally adding a little flour. She then just patted the mixture out until it was roughly round in shape before dividing into quarters. Then they were transferred to a hot lightly buttered griddle (large frying pan would do) where they cooked until ready.cooking tattie scones

Ulstermen

Some people like them hot with just a little butter. Others actually prefer them cold with butter and jam. When we lived in Northern Ireland they were known as potato farls and formed an essential part of an Ulster fry. That’s something that Ulstermen have every morning but which would keep any ordinary mortal going for about a week.

Finished tattle scones
The finished article
A first

Next morning, we decide to have our own fry up. It was an altogether puny affair compared to an Ulster fry. But at least we could sample Pat’s first homemade tattie scones. The scones were heated in the frying pan along with everything else. Tattie scone fry up

We regard fry ups as a relatively rare treat. So needless to say the whole plateful was consumed with more than a little relish. Tattie scones were superb. Well done Pat and thanks to one over fussy mini-Viking without whom we would never have made them.

Scones

Drop scones

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Pancakes for Pancake DayOkay this might be a wee bit tenuous in terms of sconology. This post is actually about pancakes, Scotch pancakes to be precise or as they are sometimes known in Scotland ‘drop scones’. That, together with the fact that we are all still incarcerated in our homes and cannot get out for proper scones is our excuse for this post. Tuesday last was Shrove Tuesday and traditionally that is Pancake Day. For most of England and indeed the rest of the world this involves a celebration where large thin pancakes are made in a frying pan and tossed to prevent them burning. Some places even have pancake races whereby a number of competitors run along a street tossing their hot pancakes as they go. In Scotland, of course, we don’t indulge in that sort of nonsense. Scotch pancakes are an altogether different animal.

  • 220 g Self Raising Flour • Pinch Salt •50 g Caster Sugar
  • 2 Free-range Eggs •280 ml Milk •1 tsp golden syrup
Making pancakes for Pancake Day
Preparing the ingredients including the all important golden syrup

Making pancakes for Pancake DayIn the past, Shrove Tuesday was the last opportunity to use up fats and eggs before the start of Lent. Hardly necessary for us but we decided to celebrate anyway by making some pancakes of our own. There was more than little encouragement from the two mini Vikings who helped us in the skillingsboller post. They love granny’s pancakes!

Making pancakes for Pancake Day
Starting the serious business

Indeed, Granny’s pancakes are something of a phenomena. She creates enough pancake mixture to make at least twenty to thirty pancakes but by the time she’s finished there is not a trace. Every single last panake has vanished. All that’s left is dirty dishes. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.Pancakes for Pancake Day

Betrayal

My mother was great at making pancakes and when we lived in Ireland she gave Pat her recipe. It never worked in spite of multiple efforts. They were always pale insipid affairs. It wasn’t until we were at my mother’s house here in Falkirk that Pat noticed her adding a teaspoon of syrup. “What’s that?” she cried. “That’s the syrup” said mum, “You can’t make pancakes without a little syrup!” “But that’s not in the recipe you gave me”, Pat exclaimed. To her dying day mum protested her innocence but was never allowed to forget it.

Anyway, the mini-Vikings made me this one. It was fabby dab!my pancake

Perseverance

The wonders of pancake making are only matched, perhaps, by the wonders of landing a spacecraft on Mars. A journey of seven months across thirty eight million miles and managing to land this thing with pinpoint accuracy has to be some sort of miracle. Our mini-Vikings assumed that there had to be someone steering it and were completely mystified when told that it was unmanned. It did, however, allow me to explain all the mathematical formulae involved in such a project. Joking, of course, but I think they did come to realise that maths can be quite important. One small step for mankind! Mind you, the success of NASA’s Perseverance mission does make you wonder if there are not some more pressing problems back here on Earth.

Pat and I have both had our vaccinations as have all our friends so we are hoping it won’t be too long now before scone adventures can resume. Fingers crossed!

Scones, Uncategorized

Myrtle House Café

Do you sometimes find yourself wondering if the past year has just been a dream … a not very nice dream. And that you will suddenly wake up and it will all be over? After a while the whole COVID thing gets to you like that. One of the Australian aboriginal Dreaming stories tells of Baiame, a creational ancestral hero.

Mount Yengo
2,192 ft high Mount Yengo, the Uluru of the east

He came down from the sky to find the earth bare and dark. He decided to make it light and created plants, animals and rivers to make it beautiful. When he finished he jumped back up to the sky and, in doing so, he flattened the top of Mount Yengo. It’s a sacred site and you are requested not to climb it but we think the world could do with another visit from Baiame … there is much in need of attention.  We tell you all this because at the foot of Mt Yengo is the Myrtle House Cafe where you can get scones. Another sacred place, perhaps? 

Freedom

And how do we know all this … our Bathurst correspondents, of course. Once again we are indebted. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have a clue what was happening sconologically down under. Their latest report started by telling us that cricketing legend Don Bradman actually started his career trying to play his first love, tennis. They soon get down to the scones, however, and end up here in Myrtle House. Bear in mind that our correspondents, although restricted by COVID, have much greater freedom to travel than we do. In their own words:

“On the road again, this time going north to our niece’s farm at a little village called Laguna on the Broke Road in the Hunter Valley. Erica and husband Brett and three small children have just moved up here from Sydney to escape the city rat race. Great for Covid protection as well.

the Fresh Denman cafe

On the way we lunched on bacon and egg rolls at a café called Fresh Denman, preceded of course by a scone entrée. The scone looked great but faded a bit on the tasting, maybe a 5 out of 10. Certainly not a top scone, perhaps a middling one if that term that can be used in scone hierarchy.

Lemonade

A couple of days later we had breakfast at a café called Myrtle House in Wollombi, just north of Laguna, starting of course with the obligatory B&E roll. “Do you also serve scones” I asked our waitress. “Of course we do mate” came the reply. “In fact, they are made to the famous Country Women’s Association (CWA) recipe, lemonade and all”. After that we had to order a serving. Better than the Denman ones, but a slight taste of sourdough, must have been the lemonade. 7 out of 10.

A crape myrtle tree
Crape myrtle trees surround the cafe
The CWA

The Country Women’s Association has become a recurring theme. First mentioned when our Toowoomba correspondents wrote about it in a post from the Angel Cafe. Then we provided their scone recipe in the The Old Workshop Cafe – Again post and latterly we actually bought a virtual Devonshire tea from them (it was for a good cause) in the Machrie Bay Tearoom – Again post. 

Ancestors

The Aboriginals believed that the entire world was made by their Ancestors way back in the very beginning of time … the Dreamtime. The Ancestors made everything and therefore everything is sacred and must be treated with respect. What would the Ancestors make of the current wrangling between the EU and the UK over imports and exports to N. Ireland. In fact, what would the Ancestors make of anything these days? Perhaps the world would be a nicer place if we took a leaf out of the Aboriginal’s book. 

NSW 2325               tel: (02) 4998 3220                 Myrtle House

///supernatural.reddest.seasonal

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.

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

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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!