Tag Archives: Poole

Saffron

19 July 2024 billpaterson1@me.com 3 Comments

We are still in Poole though technically we’re in Westbourne which, to us, just seems like part of Poole. The good people of Westbourne, however, would probably disagree.It has a slightly independent air about it. With both halves being in relative agreement our new fangled granddaughter GPS system worked well on this occasion. It took us directly to Westbourne Arcade. Pat had been here shopping the day before in Rose the Store and wanted to return to thank them for being so kind and helpful. Saffron was virtually next door.

Arcade where Saffron is — Wimborne Arcade built in 1884. Lots of shops and even a small 19 seat cinema

Numerals

It’s run by a couple of high fliers. One worked as cabin crew with British Airways for many years and the other with Virgin Atlantic. With their big welcoming smiles their experience in hospitality was obvious right from the start. While our granddaughters rearranged the sugar pouches so that they were all the right way up one of them was talking about Roman numerals. Along with all the other nonsense that comes out of their mouths we thought nothing of it. Later however their parents showed us this picture which had been done at school, not as part of any kind of project but just because she “felt like it”. The original must have been about ten feet long. In vain, I desperately looked for a mistake. There had to be at least one, but no, every one correct. Sometimes kids can take you totally by surprise.

A scone and a baby chino at Saffron — Our scone complete with cream and jam plus a chocolate babychinno with marshmallows for the girls

Fresh

We also got almond croissants for the girls (don’t tell the parents) and were informed that Americans don’t know how to say ‘croissant’ properly. Apparently they say ‘croiSANT’. Our American readers should feel free to confirm or deny this dastardly rumour being put about by young British girls. We could easily tell that our scone had been baked just a few hours earlier, it was so fresh! An easy topscone.

BH4 9AY . tel: 01202 759587 Saffron FB

///into.tinsel.decks

We came to the end of our week in Poole wondering if we had done enough to entertain our granddaughters while their parents worked. Maybe the trip to Tesco followed by another to Homebase hadn’t been enough? After a wee poetry session at bedtime the night before we were presented with this little note the following morning. It was the best week for us too. Now we just have the long drive back to Scotland.

Of course, with a Microsoft global IT outage you might never receive this post … you should be so lucky!

Ordinary, Scones, self-service

Compton Acres

16 July 2024 billpaterson1@me.com 2 Comments

Compton Acres isn’t exactly local for us. Indeed, it’s about as far away as you can get in Poole in Dorset. We are visiting our family here on England’s south coast. Compton Acres is a 10 acre ornamental garden with a restaurant/café. While the parents were working we decided to take ourselves and entertain our grandchildren there.

Personalised SatNav

It’s only a five minute drive from their house but our granddaughters, aged nine and eleven, insisted that we switch off the car’s SatNav because they knew where it was. They would act as our own personal GPS. They then proceeded to impersonate our GPS lady. The main problem was that there was two of them and they couldn’t agree. One would say “at the end of the street turn right” but the other would say “no, it’s left“. Suffice to say that after a couple of circuits of the town they eventually agreed to let us turn on the car’s GPS. As it happened we were actually almost there. If we had left them for another minute or so we might have had a triumphant chorus of “you have reached your destination” .

Monsoon

Compton Acres is the sort of place that thrives on bus parties on day excursions. It was very busy. Nothing for it but to join the queue at the self service counter. It didn’t take too long, however, and we were soon kitted out with a fruit scone to share and hot chocolate and brownies for the girls. The scone was excellent and could easily have been a topscone if it hadn’t been self-service. It was so busy that we invited two elderly ladies who were having difficulty finding a table to sit with us. They were a delight and had great chat. Having already been round the gardens they warned us that it was very slippery underfoot in places. Unfortunately, by the time we have finished our scone the rain was torrential. We decided to leave our tour of the gardens until the weather was less monsoon like.

News

In these days of wall to wall bad news one of the benefits of being away is that we hardly get any. Too busy with other things. We can, however, report that the Labour Party is now in government. People are waiting to see if they can make less of a mess of it than the Tories. Hard to see how they could be worse so fingers crossed! Of course, the news that Donald Trump had been shot also filtered through. America seems to be even more divided than the UK and that’s saying something. Hopefully some sort of common sense will prevail and the US, like the Donald’s ear will be able to heal itself.

Much greater than all of that, of course, is the fact that England’s footballers were beaten by Spain in the final of the Euros. The post mortem will go on and on and on. The last team to beat Spain was actually Scotland but we weren’t going to mention that … oops!

Lola at Compton Acres — Trying to take a picture of a cup and photobombed by one half of our GPS system

Making our way back to the house you will be delighted to know that our new personalised GPS system actually worked. It shows great promise if you can put up with the nonsense that goes with it.

BH13 7ES tel: 01202 700778 Compton Acres

///loads.crunch.wishes

Ordinary, Scones

The Courtyard Tea Rooms

31 August 2022 billpaterson1@me.com 1 Comment

Now you would think that the Courtyard Tea Rooms would be easy to find. They are on the High Street in Poole and that’s not all that long. How difficult could it be?

You will see from the title picture, however that it is just a door sandwiched between a convenience store and an Indian restaurant. Just a little door with a little sign above … easy to miss. Not a lot of people miss it however because it’s very busy so it must have a good reputation. It’s over 500 years old, not the tearooms but the building in which they are housed. The entrance is down a long passageway and then you emerge into a delightful little courtyard. There are several little sitting-rooms off the courtyard. But we chose the courtyard itself with its ancient stone slabs that many feet must have trod before us. In 1405, local lad come privateer Henry Paye had made such a nuisance of himself with raids up and down the French coast that a combined French/Spanish naval fleet plundered Poole in an act of revenge. If this courtyard could talk it would have a few tales to tell. Don’t think the plunderers would have had scones here but we thought we had better check them out anyway.

Hairsbreadth

In our previous post from the Kitchen we were served very disappointing scones. Hopefully they would be better here. The young girl looking after us was fantastic. Good happy service can change a fairly mundane meal into something special but this time we had a really nice lunch which she made extra special. Unfortunately she couldn’t quite do it for the scones. Henry Paye would probably have bisected each scone with a swish of his cutlass but we just uses the knives we were presented with. Not so heroic, perhaps but we didn’t have a cutlass. They were almost topscones. Very good, with nice bowls of jam and cream but their overall consistency meant that they just missed out by a hairsbreadth. This is a really nice place, however, and we recommend that you pay it a visit next time you are in Poole.

Back in the USSR, you don’t know how lucky you are, boy

Normally, we don’t have much in the way of praise for politicians … maybe you’ve noticed? However, we feel that with the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the USSR, we should make an exception. When you think of Soviet Presidents the word ‘charming’ is not one that comes readily to mind … but he was! Not many people could honestly say they changed the world … but he could! Although he didn’t mean to dismantle the Soviet Empire, because of his actions, it happened anyway. Momentous, and with hardly a drop of blood being shed … contrast that with Putin’s Russia of today.

The USSR is something our children have probably only heard of through a Beatles song. Strange words such as glasnost and perestroika became part of our everyday language. The collapse of the Berlin Wall … these were heady days indeed, full of optimism and hope … contrast that with the world today. If Gorbachev had been a scone he would have been a topscone … praise indeed!

BH15 1BT tel: ???? The Courtyard Tearooms FB

///mugs.vouch.scarf

Scones, Top

Branksome Beach Café

10 May 2022 billpaterson1@me.com 4 Comments

First leg of our road trip completed, we couldn’t get a more extreme contrast between our last post from Tebay Services and this place, Branksome Beach Café. One set amongst wild rugged moorland and the other on a beach looking out towards the Isle of Wight.

A different life

We are visiting our daughter’s new house. It’s big compared to the tiny one her and her family had in London and it’s in a very quiet street in a beautiful forested area. Without having to go on any roads at all you can take Branksome Chine (a very pretty wooded gully) down to the beach. The path drops you out right at Branksome Beach Café … how neat is that?

View from Branksome Beach — View from our seat on an overcast but warm day. France just over the horizon

Indoor beaches

In the 1930s Branksome Beach Café was Britain’s first functioning solarium. Intended to provide a year round sunbatheing facility it had an indoor beach complete with deckchairs behind huge glass windows. Now the sand and deckchairs have long gone and it has developed into one of Dorset’s landmark cafés. It also makes a claim to be the home of the rock cake! My mother made rock cakes in such a way that you never had to question how they got their name.

External view of Branksome Beach — Bill board outside the café and an actually rock cake … neither to scale

Such a claim obviously requires testing so we got a one to share with everyone at our table. Whether the claim is true or not doesn’t really matter .. it was delicious and not too rock like! Luckily, they are not claiming to be the home of the scone … that would be simply ridiculous!

Local produce

Of course, we had to test the scones. We were sitting outside on the terrace overlooking the beach but on the way in we had noticed the scones. They were quite big so having already scoffed some rock cake we opted to share one. It came complete with a pot of jam and the ubiquitous Rodda’s Cornish Cream. Since we are relatively near Cornwall we have dropped our customary objection … it’s a local product down here!.We’re sure that the excellent service, the views out over the beach and the sea were all contributory factors in our decision to award a topscone. Well done Branksome Beach Café.

Prince Charles substituted for the Queen today at the State Opening of Parliament. It said nothing and perhaps the biggest news was that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge had travelled to Manchester on a charter flight in a Michael Kors outfit. Goodness, she’s almost common! Somehow all the pomp and pageantry seems hugely incongruous in times where more and more people are being forced to use food banks. Not that we have much room to talk, sitting here eating rock cakes and scones by the beach.

BH13 6LP tel: BH13 6LP Branksome

///water.singer.cared

ps: our fabulous Toowoomba correspondents have sent us scone pictures from Angie’s Country cafe in Toogoolawah. Hands up everyone who knows where that is! Okay not too many.Presentation looks good as does the scone so if you ever find yourselves in Toogoolawah you know where to go.

Scones, history and a dollop of politics