Tag Archives: Devon

Scones, Uncategorized

Balgove Larder

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When we got an email from our ever inventive Bathurst correspondent entitled “scones and phone boxes” we were delighted. Always keen to learn more about life down under we were full of anticipation. Perhaps another New South Wale’s scone? Perhaps a kangaroo outside a K6 phone box somewhere in the outback? So imagine our surprise when we discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. The scone news came from the Balgove Larder in St Andrews, about an hour’s drive from where we live and the telephone boxes were all local too i.e. in the UK. Who would have thought we would be getting our local sconological news from the antipodeas?

Strange things happen

Of course, there’s an explanation. Our correspondent has family near St Andrews and the pictures were from his last visit, about two years ago. Is getting local news like this weird or wonderful? We think it’s wonderful but it may also be a bit weird. Our correspondent laments the fact that he has no idea if and when he will again be allowed to visit St Andrews where his daughter and grandchildren live. Weirdly, even though it is very close to us, we are not allowed to visit either. Such are the joys of global coronavirus restrictions!

A scone at Balgove LarderIf memory serves our correspondent well, Balgove Larder was a lovely venue and the scone was also excellent. It certainly looks good and nicely presented with plenty jam and cream. Oviously Pat and I will do our utmost to confer a grading here as soon as we are allowed to travel again. Oooo, “conferring” topscone awards … sounds a bit pretentious doesn’t it. Note to self: must stay grounded!

Lunar outbursts

While the UK adjusts to renewed lockdown apparently President Trump has reported a huge dump of his votes on the moon. He has a friend who is an astronaut, a terrific astronaut, he has a telescope and he has seen them. Now, dear reader, if you wondered, even for a nanosecond, if that was true it pretty much sums up the state of American politics at the moment. Sad, sad! If Trump loses we may even miss these extraordinary outbursts. We can adjust, however. 

KY16 9SF         tel: 01334 898145        Balgove

///ripen.hotel.class

ps: Not content with simply sending us Scottish scone news from Australia our correspondent also sent some phone box pics.

K6 phone ones from Bathurst correspondent
Julie demonstrating how a remote Welsh K6 door works near Tregaron and a St Andrews Lion K6 on the right in Hepburn Gardens with our correspondents grandchildren Molly and Annie

Lo-and-behold, no sooner had our Bathurst correspont sent in his report than another one popped up … wow! This one described an autumn walk our Devon correspondents took the other day. No scones but they did spot this phone box in the village of Filleigh. Readers all know by now that we regard Devon folks as being fairly uncivilised. Goodness, cream first, what do they expect?

Filleigh K6 in Devon
A Devon K6 and some beautiful autumn colours

If further proof was needed here is the picture they sent of a Devon ‘red’ telephone box. It’s used as the village library.

We are, as always, indebted to each and every one of our correspondents. They enrich our lives (and hopefully yours) wonderfully.

Ordinary, Scones

Antonio’s Deli

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Well here we are in Antonio’s Deli! Not only in a new year but in a new decade.  A happy, healthy and sconey 2020 to one and all. We have had two weeks of grandkids over the festive season and have come out the other side in much the same way as a couple emerging from a bomb blast – wide eyed and tousle haired but otherwise unscathed … and thankful to have survived!

Things have quietened down now and as we return to some semblance of normality we venture forth like two polar bears emerging, blinking into the spring sunshine. Our last scone was at The Lobster Pot where we asked readers to interpret a puzzling diorama. You may remember some of its contents – a naked lady, a lobster, a snake and a welly wearing dog. Disappointingly, though perhaps unsurprisingly, there were no responses. The mystery remains … unless?

Logo for Antonios Deli in FalkirkThe Lobster Pot was some time ago, however, so we felt that only small steps would be advisable at first to get us back into the sconological swing. Antonio’s Deli was the answer. We can only imagine that the “bistrot” bit is a printing error. Only a short walk from our house and associated with one of our favourite Italian restaurants, Cafe Corvina. However, at Antonio’s we were looked after, not by an Italian, but a lovely Rumanian lady. She delivered the devastating news that she only had one scone left. And, yes, when we looked over at the counter, there it was, a fruit scone in all its solitary splendour. No choice but to share.

Just as we were about to cut it in half, however, we heard our Rumanian lady trying to explain to a rather distraught gentleman at the next table that there were no scones left. We called over and explained that we had the last one. Gosh, if looks could kill! We offered to sell it to him for £5 but he rather ungraciously declined.

New friend

In case it would upset him further we tA scone at Antonios Deli in Falkirkried not to issue “mmmm” noises as we ate. Not that difficult really because, although it was nice enough, it definitely wasn’t a topscone. No cream and the butter and jam came from everywhere except Scotland … and you all know what we think about that! In the end our gentleman got over his disappointment and chatted with us quite affably. He reckoned that the best scones in the Falkirk area were at Dobbies Garden Centre.  We didn’t disagree. He also gave us a hot tip for a scone in Dennyloanhead. We didn’t embrace or kiss or anything but parted as scone appreciating friends … respect!

Internal view of Antonios Deli in FalkirkVideo Games

2020 seems like the beginning of a new decade that, by some accounts, we might not see the end of. We don’t want to appear alarmist, however, what with Greta predicting imminent climactic Armageddon and Indonesia and Australia doing their level best to prove her right, you can’t really blame us for bringing it your attention. On top of all that we have Britain leaving the EU in a couple of weeks and Trump picking a re-election fight with Iran. It’s scary and almost impossible to imagine that someone sitting in an office in Arizona or Essex can, joystick in hand, kill someone driving along a road several thousand miles away. Video games but with real life casualties. To us it seems a particularly cowardly and ungallant way of conducting foreign policy.

Logo for Antonios Deli in FalkirkPresumably they could do the same to all of us? Okay, sconeys are unlikely to ever be seen as a serious threat to world peace but just think of when these deadly drones are small enough and cheap enough to be given as Christmas presents. With such powerful tools at their disposal the barbarian “cream first” sconeys of Devon might try and exterminate all right thinking sconeys caught in the act of putting jam on first. Since there was no cream in Antonio’s Deli this was not an issue. At no time did we feel even vaguely threatened.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Now that we have stuck our toes back into the scone-land water, we may venture even further next time.

FK1 1HR          tel: 01324 637000        Antonios

///friday.keeps.melt

ps Australia has more than enough problems at the moment and our sympathies go out to them. Thank goodness for our miserable, cool but moderate climate back here in Scotland … 16°C forecast for tomorrow though?? Might have to get the deckchairs out early.Australian sconeBuried in our labyrinthine computer we found this pic of our Toowoomba correpondents enjoying an Australian scone. They’ve got cream! Don’t know anything else about it but lets hope that good scone times return to Aus very soon.

Ordinary, Scones

Brian’s Café

Yesterday morning we were back at the Hippodrome in Bo’ness to see The Shape Of Water. An unexpectedly enjoyable film. It’s really a love fantasy but it also turns out to be surprisingly topical. The Americans had captured a unique South American water monster with peculiarly human characteristics. Honestly, it’s better than it sounds! Rather than let the US acquire any  advantage by studying the beast and unearthing its secrets the Russians, in the form of KGB agents, plotted to kill it with a lethal injection. Have you heard of any similar stories recently?

It is amusing to see the media in a frenzy wondering where the nerve agents directed against Sergei Skripal and his daughter could have come from. Without ever mentioning the world’s biggest stockpile of such chemical weapons at Porton Down. Only eight miles from Salisbury where Skripal was found. Interior view of Brian's Café in BonessAll fingers seem to be pointing at Vladimir Putin however and probably with good reason.

Have you noticed a rather worrying trend among world leaders recently? Putin, who unexpectedly came to power because Boris Yeltsin hadn’t enough blood in his vodka system, now finds himself drunk on power itself. He has manufactured a situation where he can remain in power indefinitely. Likewise with President Xi of China. Power is a great corrupter and both men now seem to think that they are omnipotent. Meanwhile, back in the USA, President Trump  knows he is omnipotent but, unlike Putin and Xi, hasn’t yet worked out a scam to keep the job for a life. Watch this space. Theresa May on the other hand will be forced to keep her job for life whether she likes it or not simply because it’s such a mess no one else wants it. Interior view of Brian's Café in Boness

Serafini family

Enough of all that. Just across the road from the Hippodrome is the imaginatively named Brian’s Cafe which, would you believe it, is owned by a chap called Brian, surname Curry. Its outward appearance is somewhat uninspiring and we did not have high hopes as we entered. A scone at Brian's Café in BonessThe interior is pleasant enough though and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

We were soon settled down with some tea and sharing a fruit scone. Okay, we sometimes indulge in reckless extravagance! There was no cream and the butter and jam were prepackaged but the scone itself was very good, not quite a topscone but pretty close.  The café has lots of what appeared to be family photographs hanging on the walls. When we asked about them we ended up being introduced to Brian himself. He had been sitting at another table with some friends. He’s a lovely guy who proceeded to take us round and explain his family history. Turns out that he is part of the Serafini family who not only had a cafe in Bo’ness but operated the York Café in Falkirk, a place we know very well.

Serafini family group from Brian's Café in Bo'ness
Serafini family from Barga. Brian’s aunt, Annie Curry, married Nathaniel (2nd from left, back row)

 

 

 

 

Scots locked up

What amazed us was that Brian’s aunt, a Bo’nessian born and bred, had married a Serafini and as a result was interned during WWII. It had never before occurred to us that Scots were also interned simply because of their association with Italians … unbelievable!

The Serafini's original café and their fish and chip van
The Serafini’s original café in Bo’ness  … and their fish and chip van c1950s

It was great listening to the many delightful childhood stories Brian had to tell. A far cry from today’s world of all-powerful autocrats and dastardly subterfuge.

EH51 0AA       tel: 01506 823815       Brian’s Café TA

p.s. News of an even bigger controversy came to us the other day courtesy of our correspondent, the Stenibrainfart. He reported that the National Trust in England had organised a cream tea at one of their venues in Cornwall and to publicise it they used a picture of a scone with a dollop of jam on top of the cream … arrgghh! National Trust picture of a cream tea scone

Now all self respecting sconeys worth their salt know that that is how they do it in Devon … and it’s just plain wrong! It is definitely not how they do it in Cornwall. Cornish folks have reportedly been resigning their NT membership in droves. A #JamFirst badgeThey felt so strongly they even produced #JamFirst badges to support the cause. Well done Cornwall, you tell ’em!

Ordinary, Scones

The Lyric Theatre Café

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Earwigging Swahili conversations

London means many different things to many different people. From our point of view it has too many cars, too many people, not enough time. And not enough scones.

Scones can be remarkably difficult to find in what is supposed to be one of the world’s leading cities. This is largely down to the same reason that Pat finds the capital so frustrating. Her remarkable ability to earwig other people’s conversations at one hundred paces is largely useless down here because they are almost all held in Swahili … or what might as well be Swahili. Scones suffer in the same way. Unless you go to a particularly English restaurant or café, and they can be relatively few and far between, you are unlikely to find a good old-fashioned scone. Internal view of the café at the Lyric theatre HammersmithNow all this diversity may be cause for celebration but for dedicated sconeys it can be a teensy bit frustrating. What happens though is that you sometimes find scones in unexpected places and that is always a pleasant surprise.

View from the roof terrace of the Lyric theatre Hammersmith
The garden terrace

Arts and Culture

London has lots of theatres, a fact not all together surprising when you consider that this city absorbs more than 75% of the entire UK Arts and Culture budget. Suffice to say that we found ourselves here at the Lyric Hammersmith, not expecting it to be a scone adventure. Lo-and-behold, however, there they were, plain and fruit, in the ground floor café. It had to be done.

The Lyric was built in 1895 slightly further up the street from where it now stands. After it was scheduled for demolition in 1966, a campaign was launched to save it, resulting in it being moved brick by brick to its current location. Picture of a scone at the Lyric theatre HammersmithThe café is run by Peyton & Byrne, a company which holds the catering contracts for places like the Royal Academy, the National Gallery and the Orangery at Kew Gardens .. so you would imagine that it would be good. However, even though our scones came well presented with lots of jam and cream they were not exceptional. Enjoyable enough but nothing more. Just in case you think we are getting a bit highfalutin, we were here to see a production of the Ugly Duckling in the middle of the afternoon.

Royal Prerogative

We will leave you work it out. It was fab … we understood it all! Understanding, however, is much more difficult when it comes to the current government position on Brexit. Our ‘unelected’ prime minister is invoking the ancient ‘royal prerogative’ in order to circumvent any consultation whatsoever with our ‘elected’ representatives in Parliament. Thank goodness Corbyn seems to be getting his act together at long last.

W6 0QL       tel: 020 8741 6850       The Lyric

ps: a bulletin has just arrived from our ‘south coast’ correspondents regarding the scones they found on a weekend visit to Torquay. They thought these Devon beauties were great, but not quite up to our topscone benchmark. We have never been to Torquay but now we may have to go and test them ourselves. Many thanks for the report. Picture of scones at Dot's Pantry, TorquayIt looks suspiciously like they have put the cream on first … what are these Devon folk like??

TQ2 5QB    tel: 01803 294396     Dot’s Pantry