The SPAG BOL won - the KIPPERS are for tomorrow (Friday).....
I do like KIPPERS. Happy Memories of a proper breakfast, about 40 years ago, on the first train of the day from Glasgow to Oban. More toast, Sir? More coffee?
Unlike, on Tuesday, having to seek out the Trolley Lady on a GWR express, who dispensed me coffee in a cardboard cup with a plastic lid, little packets of sugar, and horrible squirty things of milk which went everywhere except into the cup. Said Lady was at least friendly and came round twice between London and Cardiff. Ichabod.
PS Your trip to Oban must have been more than 40 years ago. When I travelled in 1978, there was only a buffet service (in a rather scruffy LNER Thompson car).
The SPAG BOL won - the KIPPERS are for tomorrow (Friday).....
I do like KIPPERS. Happy Memories of a proper breakfast, about 40 years ago, on the first train of the day from Glasgow to Oban. More toast, Sir? More coffee?
It's not like that now. Several or so years back I was on the Glasgow train from Oban when a couple of men were desperate to get past the snack trolley to get to the toilet, which is always at the other end of the train. After some huffing and puffing they managed to get past the fine Glasgow wifie in charge of the trolley, who announced to the whole carriage, "Thae men - their prostates are a' gone!" I was bursting, but didn't dare move after that.
Just sitting here at home on a cold, wet evening, glad I don’t have to go out again, glad I have a comfortable home , sad that so many are homeless, out on the streets.
Kippers come into the "foods I would like to like but don't" category - I like the taste, but can't be bothered with the bones, and I don't relish the thought of the kitchen smelling kippery for days afterwards. When we used to go to the Isle of Man for holidays, we'd always send vacuum-packs of kippers to friends who would appreciate them from Devereau's. I always intended to have kippers for breakfast when we were there, but never quite had the nerve.
In other news, if you're in a praying frame of mind, send one up that a potential job might come my way.
The Cathedral secretary e-mailed me about an advert she'd been asked to put in our bulletin for an office administrator at a church about 5 minutes from Château Piglet. 20 hours a week, doing what looks like a lot of the things I did as a volunteer in the Cathedral office in St. John's, plus sundry reception/filing/whatnot.
Sounds almost too perfect, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
After wretchedly unseasonal day yesterday, it’s making more of an effort today.
I am making a pork and pineapple adobo - and wishing recipes gave equivalent measures. 30ml of cider vinegar - none of my measuring jugs are calibrated for quantities like that : they all start at 100. And I don’t have time in media res to go find out how much that’s in tablespoons.
And 30ml of palm sugar - it’s a solid for dear sake. If they said ‘as much as would cover a florin’ I’d know where I was.
Praying for you, Piglet - this would be a lovely job for you.
I’m further north than usually found - well north of the M4 border, on the outskirts of Durham listening to glorious sunset birdsong (can’t possibly be nightingale, but would be lovely if it were). I travelled here a couple of days ago from the northern Lakes (saw an osprey on her nest) via Hadrians Wall and, having spent yesterday visiting Cuthbert and Bede, went to Beamish open air museum (OK but not as good as I expected) and then Gateshead Quay and the kittiwake colony at Baltic Flour Mill, as well as seeing the Angel of the North. I think I’ve been a proper tourist!
Leeds tomorrow then Sheffield, catching up with friends.
Kippers are never worth the bones, in my humble opinion. We had salmon for tea with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, cauliflower and broccoli in a peppercorn sauce and very nice it was too.
Presumably you didn't have access to the internet while actually cooking, but equivalents for most weights& measures are available on various sites.
For future occasions when amounts less than 100ml are called for, the standard teaspoon is 5ml, and a tablespoon is 15ml.
None of the equivalence tables helped me with a recipe for a pickle I made earlier.
The ingredients list called for 2quarts of swiss chard stems. Some of my chard stems were a foot long and over 2" wide at the base, how on earth was I supposed to fit them into a quart container?
After wretchedly unseasonal day yesterday, it’s making more of an effort today.
I am making a pork and pineapple adobo - and wishing recipes gave equivalent measures. 30ml of cider vinegar - none of my measuring jugs are calibrated for quantities like that : they all start at 100. And I don’t have time in media res to go find out how much that’s in tablespoons.
And 30ml of palm sugar - it’s a solid for dear sake. If they said ‘as much as would cover a florin’ I’d know where I was.
Two tablespoons should do the trick, Firenze. Aussie tablespoons are 4 teaspoon or 20 ml. Practically anywhere else a tablespoon is 15 ml. 2x15 should work well.
Firenze, I've just looked at my (North American) measuring spoons, and they're labelled:
1 teaspoon = 5ml
1 tablespoon = 15ml
Is that any help?
Daisydaisy - I'm envious - I love that part of England. D. and I always stop to have a look at the Angel if we've got time when we're travelling on the A1 - we think it's a Very Good Thing. We loved Beamish too, especially the piglets!
The church replied with a very detailed description of the job, and it looks very nearly perfect*, so I've sent them my CV. The closing date isn't until 1st June, so I could be on tenterhooks for ages - especially if they follow the current, barbaric practice of only contacting the people they want to interview.
* The only downside is that the specified hours would mean I'd have to miss D's Friday organ recitals, but in the cause of earning some cash, it would be worth it.
We had the best evening yesterday at the Savoy Theatre in Monmouth - Rich Hall's Hoedown. An hour of stand-up plus an hour of (I think!) largely improvised c&w music. Yes, I know, but this isn't your standard stuff - he was doing songs about the Monmouth woman who fell in love with a man from Chepstow ('felt like a curse, but it could have been worse - could have been Newport! it's a dump' *) or about a lady in the audience who did before- and after-school care:
'wakes up in the mornings coughing glitter,
scars on her ankles where the little b*st*rds bit her...'
* sorry @Baptist Trainfan - he said that in Wales the easiest way to get a laugh was to dump on the next town over. Works a treat till you get to Port Talbot, then you've got nowhere to go...
I haven't laughed so much for ages, and all for £13 each.
That sounds like a fun night out @The Intrepid Mrs S . I think that show is coming near us so I maybe look out for tickets, if it hasn't already been and gone.
I've got a nice lazy day till 3.30 mooching around at my brother and sister in laws until it's time to pick up my nephew. I may go and look at the ruined castle in their town.
PS Your trip to Oban must have been more than 40 years ago. When I travelled in 1978, there was only a buffet service (in a rather scruffy LNER Thompson car).
Presumably you didn't have access to the internet while actually cooking, but equivalents for most weights& measures are available on various sites.
For future occasions when amounts less than 100ml are called for, the standard teaspoon is 5ml, and a tablespoon is 15ml.
None of the equivalence tables helped me with a recipe for a pickle I made earlier.
The ingredients list called for 2quarts of swiss chard stems. Some of my chard stems were a foot long and over 2" wide at the base, how on earth was I supposed to fit them into a quart container?
In the UK the standard tablespoon measure is actually `17.75ml. An arbitrary decision was taken to use 5ml (teaspoon) 10ml (dessertspoon) and 15ml (tablespoon) to make life simpler. And it works, because I have a choice otherwise of silver spoons which measure 6ml 12ml and 19ml or stainless steel 4ml, 11ml and 13.5ml.
As to your second question, the answer is Chopped.
There's a proper dining car on the sleeper train to Fort William. I'm not sure if they serve kippers, as only people who book sleeper berths get to use it. Those in the cheap seats can only access a hatch from the other side for breakfast.
Best of luck with the job, Piglet. I've just been contacted re one in London, and had to remind myself that I worked there once and hated it. Being tempted to take something
a) local and
b) different.
Surely I don't have to be a tax accountant all my life, having got into it by accident. But I rather fancy I daren't change.
Re trains - don't you have to travel First Class to get a decent breakfast these days? A thing that would appal me.
I've found it's really difficult to convince employers to consider you for something else. Fortunately last gainful employment I managed to expand into two strings to my bow, so may have alternatives. Currently not working as caring.
Good luck for those looking for gainful employment. Hope this one comes off @Piglet
There's a proper dining car on the sleeper train to Fort William. I'm not sure if they serve kippers, as only people who book sleeper berths get to use it. Those in the cheap seats can only access a hatch from the other side for breakfast.
Re trains - don't you have to travel First Class to get a decent breakfast these days? A thing that would appal me.
Very few trains have proper dining cars these days. Great Western Pullman service gives First Class passengers priority, however Standard Class can fill up any spaces (they must return to their seats afterwards).
On the single daily return journey operated by Transport for Wales, the meal is included in the Business Class ticket and not, I think, available to others.
Yes, but it leaves at 10:28pm/11:15pm, you can board from about 10pm, but I'm not up for dinner on the train that late. I've usually finished work, gone home to change and collect my luggage (and pack, being me), eaten anything that needs eating in the fridge and run for the train.
I guess people coming down for a show and eating afterwards would find that more convenient.
The dining-car on the silly o'clock train from Glasgow to Oban, on which I travelled way back in 1973, was (IIRC) a standard BR Mk1 vehicle. If it had been an older carriage, I'm sure I would have noticed, being interested in such obscure things (then, and now).
As it was, hungrily devouring two YUGE™ KIPPERS (I'd been travelling all night from London, in what was probably fourth-class, or Parliamentary, accommodation) whilst viewing Loch Lomond from the dining-car window, I was happy enough.
The vast quantities of Toast and Marmalade (also Coffee) which followed only added to the pleasure!
ION, today I had Fish Fingers and Sweet Potato Fries for lunch, at our Community Centre café. Very nice, too, and AIUI Sweet Potatoes are a Good Thing.
Whilst eating lunch, with the car parked outside the cafe, I was gratified to note that a torrential hailstorm was neatly rinsing off the bird-poo etc. from the said car. Saved me £5 at the car-wash!
Makes the music-hall joke about stale cheese sandwiches sound...um...stale.
Back in 1973, and later during that Scottish trip*, I also recall changing trains at Stirling at about 3am (Scottish Railways Never Sleep). The station was busy, the buffet was open, and I enjoyed a most delicious pork PIE. Mind you, on reflection, anything might have been welcome at that hour of the night morning...
(*I travelled via Glasgow to Oban, Mallaig, Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick, Thurso, Inverness, and Aberdeen, before returning south via Edinburgh. All those lines, TBTG, are still open, though in those days there was still a good deal of goods traffic - and steam-age infrastructure - to be seen. Between Mallaig and Kyle, I used one of Mr MacBrayne's steamers).
You won't have gone from Mallaig to Kyle of Lochalsh, really you wouldn't. The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry went, and still does, from Mallaig to Armadale. Kyle of Lochalsh is on the mainland and used to have a chain ferry that went across to Kyleakin, now replaced by a bridge. Having done both of those walking on Skye and taking that Glasgow to Mallaig train in the early 80s.
I've since travelled the same train from Glasgow to Fort William, Mallaig and Oban in both summer and winter, and really, there's just a refreshments cart and only from Crianlarich south. (And I nearly posted some mugs from Crianlarich one year.)
Sorry, but this was back in the 70s. Please don't tell me what I didn't do, when I know I did it!
A small steamer plied (in summer only, ending in 1999, though I travelled on it in November 1973) from Mallaig to Kyle of Lochalsh pier/station, long before the bridge was thought of, though this was indeed the period during which many car-ferries were being introduced. mallaigheritage.org.uk/exhibit/steamers.php
All the very best to those job seeking.
Since the weather is nice, Child C is off playing in a friend’s garden. I really should go and fetch him in, but inertia has struck rather dramatically.
Tea for us this evening was spinach & mushroom curry. It was magnificent. I might possibly have overdone it....and I was planning to go running later. Bother.
We had salmon burgers, egg and onion rings (with ciabatta for the boys). I’m preparing for a difficult tutorial tomorrow morning so went for something easy.
We dashed straight from work to catch a bus to Glasgow. I had grabbed us a couple of filled rolls to eat en route. Just as well. When we met up at very early o’clock the next morning it turned out that her hosts, having eaten, offered her nothing. I had met up with the friend I was staying with in a pub in Byers Road and somehow dinner never happened.
Never mind, we thought: we’ll get something on the train. Except there was no buffet car on that service, not even a cart. All the way up the West Highland Line to Oban, eyeing the logo of the Westie terrier and thinking I could just go one of those with chips.
I think we finally got something on the Mull ferry.
... eyeing the logo of the Westie terrier and thinking I could just go one of those with chips ...
Poor wee white dug ...
The food on BT's posh menu makes me want to book a holiday that just involves going up and down that line, having a different item for each course each day! Even the pleb menu looks pretty good!
The nicest meal I've ever had on a train* was breakfast on the Belfast-Dublin run - it was a most excellent example of an Ulster Fry.
* and to be fair, I haven't had that many
It's been a dreich, wet, miserable day here, and seems to be settling in for a night of rain. In fact, it's only ten past seven, and I've just had to put the lights on.
After D's recital, we had lunch in what is probably our best oriental eaterie, Number One Noodle, where we shared a couple of skewers of chicken satay for a starter, then D. had a bowl of noodles, veggies, chicken and peanuts, and I had a not-too-spicy sweet yellow curry with rice, chicken and veggies, and lots of creamy coconut-milk broth for pouring over and supping, which was absolutely delicious.
I used to visit my sisters at University in Bath or in Bristol. (First cheap train out of Paddington on a Friday, early train back on a Monday.)
I would return by the service that got into Paddington in time for me to get to Cannon Street by 9.00.
For £7.50, IIRC, even as a humble 2nd class passenger, you could have breakfast in the restaurant carriage: cereal or porridge, bacon, eggs etc and toast and coffee ad lib, all in First Class comfort. Provided you were still breakfasting when the train left Reading, they wouldn’t bother to move you when you finished. This would have been in the late 70s and early 80s.
You won't have gone from Mallaig to Kyle of Lochalsh, really you wouldn't. The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry went, and still does, from Mallaig to Armadale. Kyle of Lochalsh is on the mainland and used to have a chain ferry that went across to Kyleakin, now replaced by a bridge. Having done both of those walking on Skye and taking that Glasgow to Mallaig train in the early 80s.
I've since travelled the same train from Glasgow to Fort William, Mallaig and Oban in both summer and winter, and really, there's just a refreshments cart and only from Crianlarich south. (And I nearly posted some mugs from Crianlarich one year.)
Certainly a few years ago, those in the know get off at Crianlarich, and use the station buffet and get back on the same train. I think I have done it once. The problem is that it is also where the smokers get off for a quick cigarette.
It wasn't open. We were there quite a while in both directions, travelling between Oban and Mallaig and back. Which means changing at Crianlarich. It was also cold and snowy enough for the Rannoch Moor signals to need operating by hand. Glenfinnan Viaduct is very pretty in snow.
There used to be, way back when in the late 70s, early 80s, a viewing carriage on that line. We planned to travel in it, until we realised the over enthusiastic tourist in our carriage had just heard about it and was heading that way, so voted for a more peaceful journey.
The other way to get fed well on that route is take the Jacobite steam train, not that I've tried it, but they are only serving cream teas now.
I remember going to Glenfinnan viaduct to show my children the steam train going through
I’m very tired, having spent several hours this morning teaching (in a real class room for a change) and I just want to curl up and go to sleep. But I have now finished all my formal teaching for the year so that’s a relief.
Enjoy your break, Heavenlyannie - I reckon you deserve it!
It's a nice, but blustery day here, and (predictably) the only rain that happened did so when we we were between Costco and the Pigletmobile, although in fairness it was just a few drops. Just as well, as we had a humongous bag of seeds for the birdie bistro to manoeuvre into the car.
You've heard of omelette Arnold Bennett - lunch chez Piglet today was what I call omelette Gordon Bennett - with bacon, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and chives. We finished off some leftover salads with it and it went together rather nicely.
You've heard of omelette Arnold Bennett - lunch chez Piglet today was what I call omelette Gordon Bennett - with bacon, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and chives. We finished off some leftover salads with it and it went together rather nicely.
Made dinner for sister and family tonight. I got four containers of bolognese sauce out of the freezer and put some pasta on to boil. I popped the sauces into my big pan and put it on the stove but the smell was not quite right. On investigation I found I was heating up one part bolognese to one part beef vindaloo and two parts insanely hot chilli. They ate it with plenty of parmesan anyway.
I have been Deeply Disillusioned by M&S as a food supplier. We did a shop for weekend meals, and they pretty well all failed. I got some prawn bhunas, because we had gamers coming round and I wanted a quick ready meal. I took little part in the gaming, since I was busy being sick (not food poisoning, just didn’t agree with me).
The pricey lamb cutlets were much inferior to the ones from our local butcher or, indeed, Morrison’s.
The potatoes parmentier just about passed muster, but they were teamed with haddock and spinach in a cheese sauce made from scratch.
We used to find most of Marks & Sparks' ready meals were pretty OK (this was back in the 80s and 90s), and their snack things like pâtés and dips were second to none. But I recall one occasion when we bought sirloin steaks there, and they were rubbish - the texture was almost like liver, and we were Not Impressed. Luckily we had an excellent family butcher just up the road from where we lived, and his steaks were tender, flavoursome and huge.
Lunch today, I'm almost ashamed to say, was chicken strips, a hot-dog and fries in the Costco café. We needed petrol, and after dropping me at the shop to get a few bits and bobs, when D. came back to pick me up, he said we might as well eat there as it's ridiculously cheap - the aforementioned repast cost $10 (£5.70) for two including pop. Not quite my ideal Sunday lunch, but at that price ...
One of the shepherd's PIES we made yesterday with the intention of eating it today will do for tomorrow.
Comments
A humid, rainy, day here. Not much wind, but lots of leaky sky...which has just, this minute, begun to leak once more.
I need advice - urgently. Should I compensate for the Gloomy Weather by having KIPPERS for tea, or SPAG BOL (Mr. Tesco's finest)?
Both need to be consumed today (yes, I should have looked at the use-by dates).
Since you ask, I have no WINE at hand to go with either, but only BEER.
Don’t like kippers so the spag Bol wins in my opinion. (But I might also ignore the dates...)
I do like KIPPERS. Happy Memories of a proper breakfast, about 40 years ago, on the first train of the day from Glasgow to Oban. More toast, Sir? More coffee?
It's not like that now. Several or so years back I was on the Glasgow train from Oban when a couple of men were desperate to get past the snack trolley to get to the toilet, which is always at the other end of the train. After some huffing and puffing they managed to get past the fine Glasgow wifie in charge of the trolley, who announced to the whole carriage, "Thae men - their prostates are a' gone!" I was bursting, but didn't dare move after that.
Kippers come into the "foods I would like to like but don't" category - I like the taste, but can't be bothered with the bones, and I don't relish the thought of the kitchen smelling kippery for days afterwards. When we used to go to the Isle of Man for holidays, we'd always send vacuum-packs of kippers to friends who would appreciate them from Devereau's. I always intended to have kippers for breakfast when we were there, but never quite had the nerve.
In other news, if you're in a praying frame of mind, send one up that a potential job might come my way.
The Cathedral secretary e-mailed me about an advert she'd been asked to put in our bulletin for an office administrator at a church about 5 minutes from Château Piglet. 20 hours a week, doing what looks like a lot of the things I did as a volunteer in the Cathedral office in St. John's, plus sundry reception/filing/whatnot.
Sounds almost too perfect, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
I am making a pork and pineapple adobo - and wishing recipes gave equivalent measures. 30ml of cider vinegar - none of my measuring jugs are calibrated for quantities like that : they all start at 100. And I don’t have time in media res to go find out how much that’s in tablespoons.
And 30ml of palm sugar - it’s a solid for dear sake. If they said ‘as much as would cover a florin’ I’d know where I was.
I’m further north than usually found - well north of the M4 border, on the outskirts of Durham listening to glorious sunset birdsong (can’t possibly be nightingale, but would be lovely if it were). I travelled here a couple of days ago from the northern Lakes (saw an osprey on her nest) via Hadrians Wall and, having spent yesterday visiting Cuthbert and Bede, went to Beamish open air museum (OK but not as good as I expected) and then Gateshead Quay and the kittiwake colony at Baltic Flour Mill, as well as seeing the Angel of the North. I think I’ve been a proper tourist!
Leeds tomorrow then Sheffield, catching up with friends.
My garden is also grateful for the rain.
Presumably you didn't have access to the internet while actually cooking, but equivalents for most weights& measures are available on various sites.
For future occasions when amounts less than 100ml are called for, the standard teaspoon is 5ml, and a tablespoon is 15ml.
None of the equivalence tables helped me with a recipe for a pickle I made earlier.
The ingredients list called for 2quarts of swiss chard stems. Some of my chard stems were a foot long and over 2" wide at the base, how on earth was I supposed to fit them into a quart container?
Two tablespoons should do the trick, Firenze. Aussie tablespoons are 4 teaspoon or 20 ml. Practically anywhere else a tablespoon is 15 ml. 2x15 should work well.
1 teaspoon = 5ml
1 tablespoon = 15ml
Is that any help?
Daisydaisy - I'm envious - I love that part of England. D. and I always stop to have a look at the Angel if we've got time when we're travelling on the A1 - we think it's a Very Good Thing. We loved Beamish too, especially the piglets!
The church replied with a very detailed description of the job, and it looks very nearly perfect*, so I've sent them my CV. The closing date isn't until 1st June, so I could be on tenterhooks for ages - especially if they follow the current, barbaric practice of only contacting the people they want to interview.
* The only downside is that the specified hours would mean I'd have to miss D's Friday organ recitals, but in the cause of earning some cash, it would be worth it.
We had the best evening yesterday at the Savoy Theatre in Monmouth - Rich Hall's Hoedown. An hour of stand-up plus an hour of (I think!) largely improvised c&w music. Yes, I know, but this isn't your standard stuff - he was doing songs about the Monmouth woman who fell in love with a man from Chepstow ('felt like a curse, but it could have been worse - could have been Newport! it's a dump' *) or about a lady in the audience who did before- and after-school care:
'wakes up in the mornings coughing glitter,
scars on her ankles where the little b*st*rds bit her...'
* sorry @Baptist Trainfan - he said that in Wales the easiest way to get a laugh was to dump on the next town over. Works a treat till you get to Port Talbot, then you've got nowhere to go...
I haven't laughed so much for ages, and all for £13 each.
Mrs. S, basking in sunshine and remembered glory
I've got a nice lazy day till 3.30 mooching around at my brother and sister in laws until it's time to pick up my nephew. I may go and look at the ruined castle in their town.
Indeed it is. KIPPERS for tea today, I think.
And best wishes to all for success in job-seeking!
We are off to pick Spencer up - then the peace will be shattered
Good luck with the job @Piglet, it sounds ideal.
In the UK the standard tablespoon measure is actually `17.75ml. An arbitrary decision was taken to use 5ml (teaspoon) 10ml (dessertspoon) and 15ml (tablespoon) to make life simpler. And it works, because I have a choice otherwise of silver spoons which measure 6ml 12ml and 19ml or stainless steel 4ml, 11ml and 13.5ml.
As to your second question, the answer is Chopped.
a) local and
b) different.
Surely I don't have to be a tax accountant all my life, having got into it by accident. But I rather fancy I daren't change.
Re trains - don't you have to travel First Class to get a decent breakfast these days? A thing that would appal me.
Good luck for those looking for gainful employment. Hope this one comes off @Piglet
and for the cheap seats:
https://www.sleeper.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SeatedMar18.pdf
On the single daily return journey operated by Transport for Wales, the meal is included in the Business Class ticket and not, I think, available to others.
I guess people coming down for a show and eating afterwards would find that more convenient.
There are 5 menus which change weekly.
As it was, hungrily devouring two YUGE™ KIPPERS (I'd been travelling all night from London, in what was probably fourth-class, or Parliamentary, accommodation) whilst viewing Loch Lomond from the dining-car window, I was happy enough.
The vast quantities of Toast and Marmalade (also Coffee) which followed only added to the pleasure!
ION, today I had Fish Fingers and Sweet Potato Fries for lunch, at our Community Centre café. Very nice, too, and AIUI Sweet Potatoes are a Good Thing.
Whilst eating lunch, with the car parked outside the cafe, I was gratified to note that a torrential hailstorm was neatly rinsing off the bird-poo etc. from the said car. Saved me £5 at the car-wash!
Actually, that sounds quite delectable!
Makes the music-hall joke about stale cheese sandwiches sound...um...stale.
Back in 1973, and later during that Scottish trip*, I also recall changing trains at Stirling at about 3am (Scottish Railways Never Sleep). The station was busy, the buffet was open, and I enjoyed a most delicious pork PIE. Mind you, on reflection, anything might have been welcome at that hour of the night morning...
(*I travelled via Glasgow to Oban, Mallaig, Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick, Thurso, Inverness, and Aberdeen, before returning south via Edinburgh. All those lines, TBTG, are still open, though in those days there was still a good deal of goods traffic - and steam-age infrastructure - to be seen. Between Mallaig and Kyle, I used one of Mr MacBrayne's steamers).
Is Outrage!
I've since travelled the same train from Glasgow to Fort William, Mallaig and Oban in both summer and winter, and really, there's just a refreshments cart and only from Crianlarich south. (And I nearly posted some mugs from Crianlarich one year.)
A small steamer plied (in summer only, ending in 1999, though I travelled on it in November 1973) from Mallaig to Kyle of Lochalsh pier/station, long before the bridge was thought of, though this was indeed the period during which many car-ferries were being introduced.
mallaigheritage.org.uk/exhibit/steamers.php
Since the weather is nice, Child C is off playing in a friend’s garden. I really should go and fetch him in, but inertia has struck rather dramatically.
Tea for us this evening was spinach & mushroom curry. It was magnificent. I might possibly have overdone it....and I was planning to go running later. Bother.
We dashed straight from work to catch a bus to Glasgow. I had grabbed us a couple of filled rolls to eat en route. Just as well. When we met up at very early o’clock the next morning it turned out that her hosts, having eaten, offered her nothing. I had met up with the friend I was staying with in a pub in Byers Road and somehow dinner never happened.
Never mind, we thought: we’ll get something on the train. Except there was no buffet car on that service, not even a cart. All the way up the West Highland Line to Oban, eyeing the logo of the Westie terrier and thinking I could just go one of those with chips.
I think we finally got something on the Mull ferry.
The food on BT's posh menu makes me want to book a holiday that just involves going up and down that line, having a different item for each course each day! Even the pleb menu looks pretty good!
The nicest meal I've ever had on a train* was breakfast on the Belfast-Dublin run - it was a most excellent example of an Ulster Fry.
* and to be fair, I haven't had that many
It's been a dreich, wet, miserable day here, and seems to be settling in for a night of rain. In fact, it's only ten past seven, and I've just had to put the lights on.
After D's recital, we had lunch in what is probably our best oriental eaterie, Number One Noodle, where we shared a couple of skewers of chicken satay for a starter, then D. had a bowl of noodles, veggies, chicken and peanuts, and I had a not-too-spicy sweet yellow curry with rice, chicken and veggies, and lots of creamy coconut-milk broth for pouring over and supping, which was absolutely delicious.
I would return by the service that got into Paddington in time for me to get to Cannon Street by 9.00.
For £7.50, IIRC, even as a humble 2nd class passenger, you could have breakfast in the restaurant carriage: cereal or porridge, bacon, eggs etc and toast and coffee ad lib, all in First Class comfort. Provided you were still breakfasting when the train left Reading, they wouldn’t bother to move you when you finished. This would have been in the late 70s and early 80s.
Or more accurately Manches
Certainly a few years ago, those in the know get off at Crianlarich, and use the station buffet and get back on the same train. I think I have done it once. The problem is that it is also where the smokers get off for a quick cigarette.
There used to be, way back when in the late 70s, early 80s, a viewing carriage on that line. We planned to travel in it, until we realised the over enthusiastic tourist in our carriage had just heard about it and was heading that way, so voted for a more peaceful journey.
The other way to get fed well on that route is take the Jacobite steam train, not that I've tried it, but they are only serving cream teas now.
I’m very tired, having spent several hours this morning teaching (in a real class room for a change) and I just want to curl up and go to sleep. But I have now finished all my formal teaching for the year so that’s a relief.
It's a nice, but blustery day here, and (predictably) the only rain that happened did so when we we were between Costco and the Pigletmobile, although in fairness it was just a few drops. Just as well, as we had a humongous bag of seeds for the birdie bistro to manoeuvre into the car.
You've heard of omelette Arnold Bennett - lunch chez Piglet today was what I call omelette Gordon Bennett - with bacon, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and chives. We finished off some leftover salads with it and it went together rather nicely.
Sounds delicious, great name too!
The pricey lamb cutlets were much inferior to the ones from our local butcher or, indeed, Morrison’s.
The potatoes parmentier just about passed muster, but they were teamed with haddock and spinach in a cheese sauce made from scratch.
The moral is, shop local and make it yourself.
Lunch today, I'm almost ashamed to say, was chicken strips, a hot-dog and fries in the Costco café. We needed petrol, and after dropping me at the shop to get a few bits and bobs, when D. came back to pick me up, he said we might as well eat there as it's ridiculously cheap - the aforementioned repast cost $10 (£5.70) for two including pop. Not quite my ideal Sunday lunch, but at that price ...
One of the shepherd's PIES we made yesterday with the intention of eating it today will do for tomorrow.