Tag Archives: Klondyke Garden Centre

Ordinary, Scones, self-service

Klondyke Garden Centre

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It’s that time of year again! Although we have reviewed Klondyke Garden Centre several times before, it has changed so much that we feel another review is justified. We’re not apologising … Boris doesn’t have to apologise for anything so why should we? 

Choice

It’s our annual compost fix we’re after. If we don’t get it the rest of the year will definitely not go as well as it would have done otherwise. We try to restrict it to once a year … we’re not addicts … it’s for the garden. Actually, it’s for our rhubarb which we are in the process of transplanting from the garden into large pots. Reminds me of one of my dad’s favourite stories about a man passing a mental hospital pushing a barrowload of manure. An inmate pokes his head through the railings and asks him what he is going to do with it. “I’m going to put it on my rhubarb” he replied. “Oh” the inmate said “You should come in here we get custard on ours“. Okay, okay! It remains to be seen how well our rhubarb will do in pots … it’s a high risk strategy!External view of Topiary restaurant Klondyke

Anyway, over the past year or so, much work has been done at this garden centre. The car park is now vast and the centre itself is much bigger than it used to be. As well as a huge area dedicated to plants there are gift shops, clothes shops, a shoe shop and even a car wash. All this choice can be kind of bewildering and choosing  compost is no exception … ericatious, John Innes, Miracle Gro, peat free, big bag, wee bag … argh!

Internal view of Topiary restaurant Klondyke
Just part one section of the restaurant/cafe area
Technology

Unsurprisingly perhaps, it wasn’t long before the lure of the cafe became overpowering. Crikey, it’s. gone huge as well. Order and Pay at Topiary restaurant KlondykeIn our previous review we tried to use their new fandangled phone ‘Order & Pay’ system. It seemed to work but after waiting for twenty minutes for our order to appear we realised something had gone wrong. When we asked a member of staff she just said “no problem,  I can take your order” … argh! This time we ordered at the self service counter but they still seem to be using the same phone system at the tables. It must work sometimes so might try it again next time.

The  scones were quite big so we decided to share. Expectations were not exactly high but we were pleasantly surprised. A scone at Topiary restaurant KlondykeIt tasted remarkably fresh and came complete with some English jam and Danish butter. The cream was whipped and nicely presented in a little glass jar. We actually swithered momentarily about a topscone but decided that the complete package just wasn’t quite right. But a bIg improvement on previous visits. Keep up the good work Klondyke Garden Centre … it’s all very impressive.

Wallpaper at restaurant Klondyke
Wallpaper in the cafe area

Also impressive is the new Falkirk Distillery which is right next door to the garden centre. External view of Falkirk distilleryIt’s due to open its doors for the first time later in the year and who knows it may even serve scones in its restaurant. Exciting or what?

Trumpian?

Last time we were here in 2020 Boris Johnson was visiting Scotland. He reminded us how grateful we should be for the block grant … a gift from England!? He also said he had an “oven ready deal” for Brexit and Gove was proclaiming Brexit as the “easiest deal in history”. We all know that now, as we did then, they needn’t have bothered wasting their breath. With his administration still deep in the proverbial doodoo his latest imbecilic utterances about Keir Starmer and Jimmy Savile do not bode well for how any upcoming elections will be conducted. Looks very Trumpian to us! 

All is not lost though, just as we were all about to lose faith in government of any kind, up pops ex PM and arch Tory, Sir John Major, to tell it like it is … or rather, how it should be! A Tory with a brain and a heart … whatever next?

We’ll keep you posted on the rhubarb!

FK2 0XS          tel: 01324 717035          Klondyke

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And just when you thought the world could not get any crazier, we came across this car with a banana stuck up its exhaust. What’s that all about?Banana in car exhaust

Later still, I watched as a flock of siskins fought and squabbled over a load of sunflower hearts. Totally illogical because there was more than enough for them all. Unfortunately though, when it comes to our planet’s resources, we are all just siskins. That should have been a Tweet really?

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!

Ordinary, Scones, self-service

The Topiary Coffee Shop

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We were on a mission and the mission was … compost! For reasons too complex to enter in to here, we needed compost … a lot of compost! Our supplier was to be here at the Klondyke Garden Centre on the outskirts of Falkirk. They are dealers and the deal was three bags for £12. We ended up getting fifteen 50litre bags … that’s a lot of compost. Don’t worry it’s not as bad as cocaine and it’s not even a regular habit … we are binge composters. Probably won’t touch it again for a year or so.

Principles

Having got our compost fix safely loaded into the car and feeling a bit giddy just at the thought of it all, we thought we should try a scone at the Topiary Coffee Shop. Perhaps it was the mind altering effects of all that compost but here’s another confession.Internal view of the Topiary Coffee Shop at Klondyke Garden Centre, Falkirk

You all know our thoughts on preloaded scones. They are the devil’s work and to be avoided at all costs. A scone at the Topiary Coffee Shop at Klondyke Garden Centre, FalkirkWell maybe not “at all costs”. Sadly, today at the Topiary Coffee Shop, we stood there and worked it out. To buy a fruit scone and then add butter and jam, all priced separately, was going to be more expensive than a preloaded one. Unbelievably we went for preloaded … arrgghh, what happened to principles? They were, of course, overcome by Scottishness! But we should have known that too much compost was bound to have an effect! Serves us right, the scone was awful … hard and tasteless. when we informed the staff that their scones were not great they informed us they had been baked in the morning. They did not say which morning however. The coffee was good though.

The art of shaping

Topiary, of course, is the art of shaping something natural into an unnatural form e.g. hedges into swans … that sort of thing. Topiary came to mind as we watched the two Tory leadership contenders bumble their way through their hustings in Scotland. Both looked as if they would rather be anywhere else than north of the border. Neither looked like  they could be shaped into anything useful. Boris Johnston’s assertion that Scotland’s block grant, was a gift from England, didn’t help. Jeremy Hunt’s wild eyed assertion that the problem with the Scottish Parliament was that it was full of nationalist MPs, didn’t help either.

A lot more creative topiary will be required if these characters are ever to be formed into something remotely acceptable to the vast majority of Scots, however, one of them is destined to rule over us for the foreseeable future. The cream of topiarists are trying to form Corbyn into something recogniseable … anything would do! He seems to determined, however, to remain a hedge. More compost please!Internal view of the Topiary Coffee Shop at Klondyke Garden Centre, Falkirk

FK2 0XS       tel: 01324 717035        Topiary

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