Back in the day when Scotland was a proud, honest and self-respecting country rather than the rather sad colony it has become, the town of Stirling epitomised the struggle between Scotland and its southern neighbour. Its very name means ‘place of strife’. From 1296 onwards the town was frequently occupied by English forces only for them to be driven out by the Scots some time later. It has gone back and forth like a fiddler’s elbow ever since. It could be argued, it is currently under English occupation. Scotland, even with its own government in Edinburgh, has scant say over its own affairs.

Never mind all that though, we are here to do some important stuff … shopping. The short rainy trip to Stirling had become necessary because of the mere fact that there are relatively few large stores left in Falkirk. It has been badly hit by the online revolution. The same shops, however, still seem to thrive here in wealthier Stirling. There’s always been a ‘friendly’ rivalry between Falkirk and Stirling, a bit like that between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Traditionally, Falkirk with its much bigger population and heavy industries made the money: a bit like Glasgow, while Stirling, retained much more strategic and political clout:a bit like Edinburgh.

Rumbling tums

Anyway, after a wonderful few hours of retail therapy in the Thistles Shopping Centre we began to feel a little peckish. This shopping centre is the only one in the world to feature its own 16th century  jail, the Thieves Pot. All very well if you fancy a spot of incarceration but does zilch for a rumbling tum. In fact the entire Thistles Centre seemed to do little in the way of restaurants or cafés. Just wall to wall retail outlets. A short walk along Port Street, however, led us here to the Greengrocer Café. A delightful mix of café, delicatessen and greengrocery. It’s tucked away down a little lane. A nice feature is the large communal table in the main shop. However we decided on a smaller one in the main café area at the back.

The staff welcomed us warmly and we immediately took a liking to the place. Nice atmosphere, a wide range of food on offer and homemade cakes to die for. Pat was lusting after a ginormous strawberry pavlova in such a way that I had to remind her, in no uncertain terms, of her sconological duties. We ordered a light lunch followed by a shareable fruit scone. Everything was excellent and our scone was no exception. The only downside was the cream.

They had said it was whipping cream however it seemed more like the scooshie stuff to us. It was okay but, unfortunately went a bit watery, shame! But for that relatively minor issue this could easily have been a topscone.

HAL

When we finished our scone it was back out into the wet for our journey home only to be told, on the car radio, of the demise of Douglas Rain .  Brexit and Californian forest fires were suddenly of little importance. Now, some of you may not be aware of the significance of Rain’s passing but his was the voice of HAL, the computer in Stanley Kubrick‘s, 2001: A Space Odyssey.  HAL had a mind of its own and back in 1972, we gave our first ever car, a Citroen Dyane, which also had a mind of its own, the same name. Tears were shed when HAL eventually went to the great garage in the sky. Now his voice has gone too. As Trump would say … sad!FK8 2ER      tel: 01786 479159        The Greengrocer Café FB