Saturday 07/03/09

Swore I was going to stop posting at weekends and reclaim my life, but what the hell.

Overhead in the caravan:

The Chairman is in the kitchen liberating a piece of cheese from the fridge (Hay calls it raiding the fridge); Hay is in the bedroom. The cheese wrapper is making more noise than the Chairman would like it to, but the cheese wrapper is not on his side.

“Badger! What are you doing?”
“Having a piece of cheese.”
“Why?”
“I’ve not had any lunch.” Bear in mind it was 10:45 and it was the first excuse I coulf think of.
“Well have some lunch then.”
“What the hell do you think I’m eating? Scotch mist?”

Overheard in the car:

Hay is driving to see a sub 1k car in Trowbridge, taking instruction from the Chairman’s satnav, and not knowing exactly where we’re going anyway - the Chairman having programmed the satnav with the destination.

“I wouldn’t have gone this way.”
“But you don’t know where we’re going.”
“Well, I still wouldn’t have gone this way.”

We called in at Bradford-on-Avon and had the most wonderful lunch at a most visually unprepossessing place called Canterbury House (pictured below) on Silver Street. Hay had a Broad bean, pea and Roquefort risotto while I had a venison and root vegetable pie with peas and thick-cut chips.

Hay’s risotto was superlative and my pie was easily the best pie I have ever tasted in my whole life. We simply had to compliment the chef on not only the quality but also the quantity. With 2 bottles of Weston’s premium organic cider the bill came to only £20. We were mightily impressed. During the financial crisis it only opens on one Saturday evening per month for a themed event. Well worth a visit for lunch though, if you happen to be in the area. The next themed night is on the 14th March and you get 4 courses for £20 per person. I don’t know how they do it for the price.

Unprepossessing! It's a stupid word, don't you think? Analyse and discuss.

Called in at a local kitchen shop and found these incongruous devices:

They’re percolators, but the perked coffee goes into a ceramic coffee pot via the metal gizmo going into the spout. Weird, but really stylish, simple and functional.

If you’ve never been to Bradford-on-Avon, here are a few photos to whet your appetite:

The photo above is The Bridge, a somewhat famous Victorian tea house.

To conclude the car story, we eventually saw a rather nice R registered, metallic blue Nissan Micra for £1195, on which Hay made an offer of £1k, to the vendor’s entire satisfaction. Not exactly sub 1K, but near enough as to make no difference.

Have you looked at any recently ploughed fields? Try spotting a field that’s in the process of being ploughed and see if there are any birds following the plough. All the farmers are saying that whereas this was common 10 or 20 years ago, you rarely see birds following ploughs anymore, as the soil is almost totally devoid of life now through constant ploughing.

There’s a new film coming out called Young Victoria. It’s been plugged to death on TV to the extent I would never actually wish to see the bloody thing. The advert break starts with the advert and then finishes, not 3 minutes later, with the same damned advert – as if you’re going to forget it when this is repeated at every ad break. The company doing the promotion should perhaps analyse the risk before engaging in saturation advertising.

The number of people who have reported diarrhoea and vomiting after eating at Heston Blumenthal’s Michelin-starred restaurant, the Fat Duck, has risen to 400. The Health Protection Agency said cases reported to the restaurant had risen since media coverage of the outbreak. I think they’re treating those complaints coming from Australia and Argentina with suspicion.