Tea and cakes and things I like

Christmas and New Year were great, which for me means quiet and relaxing.

I worked on Christmas eve and day, which meant I just got to do the fun things like open presents, eat delicious food and listen to carols being sung while missing the clearing up parts, which seemed like pretty clever planning to me.

Then we went back to that England to the civilised Sussex village my parents call home, where I mainly spent time sitting by the open fire, knitting or reading, slowly getting covered in dog hair. I also visited my grandma, who’s a pretty opinionated 89 year old, who spent the time giving out about her cleaning lady who does too much chatting and not enough cleaning. “She keeps telling me about her mother in law and I couldn’t give a toss.”

For new year we went to Bournemouth, which was terribly exciting. I was witness to the ‘binge drinking’, and saw lots of people wearing not enough clothes for the freezing weather. They’ll all have nasty colds now, I’ll bet. Warm coats, hats, scarves and gloves, that’s what they should have been wearing.

Anyway, my new year’s eve went as follows. Didn’t fancy eating anything served in our hotel, so went to “Coffee and more” for yummy beans on toast and tea.

The tea was good, I like having my own pot, and it was a generous portion - I got a good 2 mugs worth out of it. No picture of the beans on toast, but they were great. 2 slices of toast, with real butter on them, and exactly the right amount of beans. It was so good I had exactly the same thing again as my first breakfast of 2006.

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After breakfast we headed to Studland Beach for a nice healthy bracing walk. By healthy and bracing, I mean, freezing and very, very wet. It wasn’t at first, but the weather hit quickly and we were drenched. It was great though, can’t beat a walk on the beach in the rain. My only complaint was that I had been promised the sight of some nudists, and I was let down.

They must have all been hiding in the dunes.

Anyway, there’s nothing better after a brisk walk in the rain than visiting a warm country pub (or in this case, The Manor House Hotel) for a cup of tea and some cheese and pickle sandwiches.

The tea was Twinings Assam, and it came with an extra pot of hot water, which I approve of wholeheartedly. The whole experience could only have been improved by a milk jug, instead of those horrid little cartons. Anyway, the company was great and I warmed up considerably, so I was very happy.

Situated on the quays, a short walk from bus and rail stations, and, importantly, the office, Dooleys is now officially my favourite work related hotel.

It was lovely. The staff were unbelievably polite and friendly, in a genuine way too, not a fake, “It’s company policy that I smile at you” sort of way.

The room was big, with a desk and a side table and chairs, there was tea and coffee there (not an option in one of the hotels I stay at). The bed was big and comfy, and there was a nice thick blanket too so I was warm. There was a bath in the bathroom, not just a shower, and there was plenty of hot water. It was all big and clean.

I needed to do some work in my room, and it was really lovely to work in - there was proper lighting, so I could see everything, there were plugs by the desk, and there was wireless internet if I’d needed that. You had to pay for that though, would have been nice if it was free.

My only tiny complaint was about the breakfast. The food was ok, the tea came in a good sized silver teapot, which was lovely. However, I had to listen to the person in charge of breakfasts giving out to the poor waitress, which is never nice to hear (and seems to happen in a lot of hotels). My biggest complaint thuogh, was the music. Why, over breakfast, should I have to listen to “mambo number 5″, “the macarena” and what sounded like the 1996 Maltese eurovision entry? I gave up on my tea and book, and went back to my room.

In other news I currently dislike my job immensley and want to leave. I don’t care if someone from work reads this. It’s making me miserable.

Another work trip. As I’ve been relieved of the car I was looking after, my train journeys will become even more frequent. This time I was returning from Drogheda, a trip that my local train station attendant had refused to sell me ticket for, as “I don’t know how much it costs”. I’ve seen this guy lose his temper before, screaming blue murder at a mother and her young daughter one morning, for trying to buy two tickets, so I wasn’t going to push it. The nice girl at Connolly sorted it out for me though. (Note to self: must write that complaint/thanks letter).

Anyway, back to the tale.

They got on at Balbriggan. Three of them, two girls and a boy. I wasn’t quite sure, but I think that he was the brother of one girl and the boyfriend of the other. Maybe they were all just very close. Cousins perhaps. It would certainly explain things. The blank, featureless faces of the simpletons they were. Some genes went wrong somewhere along the line.

One of the girls didn’t want to sit by me. I know this because the other girl (we’ll call her “Diamante”) and the boy sat opposite me, and the first girl (we’ll call her Glossal) looked at me, took in my unfashionable warm clothing (trousers, practical shoes, thick coat and scarf), the fact I was reading a book and wore no make up, and declared “I don’t want to sit here, lets go somewhere else”. Which was just dandy by me.

Off they went down the train, which was obviously filling up by now as they returned after a few minutes, and sat down with me again.
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Pics from Provence here, in completely random order at the moment.

The carriage was quiet at first. Just me, my cappuccino and my book.
Then the old ladies came. Some alone but most in pairs, they shuffled along the aisle, halting every few steps to regain their balance, dragging their bags on wheels behind them. There was a chill in the air: the train heating is only on during the summer months, and the frail bodies of the elderly ladies did little to alleviate the cold. If one person is supposed to give out the warmth of a heater, these were malfunctioning single bar electric ones.

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Recovering bulimic?
Miss the bittersweet taste of stomach acid?

When I was at primary school we were taken on many school trips to Amberley Chalk Pits, now called Amberley Working Museum. I only vaguely remember it, so decided it would be a great place to go and visit on the last trip home.

It was great. In an eccentric English way. Completely nuts in other words.

The printing room had loads of old (and working) printing machines and typesetting stuff.
There was a telephone exchange where you could ring a phone the other side of the room and watch the machinery connect you.
There was a wood turner.
The radio and communications display had a guy sat in a booth with a ham radio, listening to another guy talking in Conneticut. He was very pleased about this. Amazed in fact. I feigned interest (hi Lucy) but I think he saw through me, and if I could have heard his inner thoughts I’m sure he would have been muttering something to himslf about young people and the internet and no respect.
There’s a big collection of old buses at Amberley, and a working train line.
The walking stick maker was off that day, but the clay pipe maker was in, making his clay pipes and telling us all about them.
The elecricity display was cool - they had a medical section with home ECT machines.

The kinda sad thing about it was that it’s staffed by volunteers, who are all about 80 now and, well, a little bit odd. I’m not sure what will happen when they start dropping off.

The main draw for me is that part of A View To A Kill was filmed there. It plays the Zorin Enterprises mine. I remember being very impressed by that as a child, although it did make the suspention of disbelief a bit tricky when I watched the film. The thing is, in any other struggling museum that had been used as a film set, you’d see the whole area dedicated to it, with a life sized Roger Moore manequinn and all. At Amberley, they put the railway tracks back to where they should be, let everything grow over so it looks nothing like it any more, and try to forget about the whole thing. Well, that’s not strictly true: There was a poster display about it. Literally. A poster made up of a couple of press cuttings glued on to a large piece of cardboard. It was quite sweet really.

Anyway, all in all it was a lovely place to spend an afternoon. The only thing that let it down was the cafe. I had high hopes for a good pot of tea and some homemade cake. The photo of the best they could do is below. It speaks for itself. I’ll bring a real picnic next time.

I’ve a lot more to see..

create your own visited countries map

Some of the photos from Helsinki are up here.
Just a few. Tallin, Aland Islands and Turku will follow soonish.

This afternoon we went out to Kildare to the Japanese Garden. Been meaning to for a while, especially since we got back from Japan.
I think our first mistake in appreciating the garden was in having been to Japan. Formal gardens there are exquisite - everything has meaning, so, crucially, not a leaf is out of place and they are immaculate, yet lush and beautiful and passionate but calming too.
Japanese gardens Irish style are a bit different. These were designed by a Japanese father and son, and seem to have been in the hands of Irish people for some time now.
Today was first communion day for a good few kids, so small brides of jesus were running around in bright white dresses just waiting to have ice cream dropped on them. Visitors here fell into two categories: Tourists (mainly American naturally) and Communion Parties.
The garden is small, and feels quite claustrophobic. There’s a guided path around, with lots of signs and numbers corresponding to expanations of the meaning in the guidebook. This is a nice idea, wo help people with the interpretation, but in such a small space meant that everywhere you looked the asthetics were somewhat spoiled by a large plastic sign informing you that you were about to enter the tunnel of ignorance or some other part of life. Being offered the choice between the “Path of Life” and the “Easy Path” did teach me a valuable lesson though.
Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. I’m a snob, so the common people everywhere were bound to upset me, and with the signs removed, the garden tidied, some carp in the carp ponds, and the wires and waste pipes hidden from view, it might have been ok.
Weather was nice though.