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  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    After a productive few hours at London Heathrow, it was time to board the flight to Glasgow from the domestic gates. I don’t normally take domestic flights for environmental reasons, but more on that later in this post. The boarding process was smooth and efficient, although there was a situation that I’ve never seen before that no-one in Group 1 boarding came forwards, and there were only two of us in Group 2 boarding. The member of staff at the gate said to me that this was unusual, although it wasn’t for lack of customers as the flight was nearly full. I think that more customers are just remaining in their seats until the end of the boarding process, which is what I tend to do if I have an aisle seat.

    The meander down to the aircraft, which I unfortunately couldn’t take a photo of as it was hidden behind the air bridge at both ends with no viewing points from the terminal. The aircraft was an A320, registration code G-TTNR, and it was only delivered to British Airways two weeks ago.

    The aircraft was spotlessly clean and things feel much cleaner than they used to when boarding British Airways flights. There were no maintenance issues, although the aircraft is only two weeks old and so it would be a little strange if there were.

    Every customer was given a Dettol wipe if they wanted to clean their seat area a bit more.

    Ready to depart. I’m still intrigued at watching the bags that customers try and fit into the overhead lockers, with some clearly never going to fit. But, I don’t get involved with such dramas…..

    I had an emergency exit row seat and there was no-one sitting next to me, I’m guessing due to BA’s Theoretical Seating platform.

    The flight was scheduled to depart at 20:15, but the boarding process was so smooth that the pilot made an announcement to say he was ready to go early. Air traffic control were happy, so we left at 20:06. The flight was also meant to arrive at 21:40, but we landed at 21:17, so much earlier than I had anticipated. Above is Heathrow whilst we were taxiing before take-off.

    British Airways flights in Euro Traveller have reverted to offering a free drink and snack. This was the crisps and water offered on this flight, sufficient I imagine for most customers given the short journey.

    The disembarkation process was by seat row, so customers were told to remain seated until their batch of five seats rows were announced. An American in the row behind me said “you’d never get this in the United States, everyone remaining seated” and I must admit that even I was surprised at the compliance. I didn’t have much interaction with the crew, but they offered a friendly hello and goodbye, so that’s good enough for me on a flight of this length.

    Back to the environmental issue that I mentioned earlier. I’m a huge advocate of the rail network and have been delighted at the improvements that have been made over the last two decades. But, for these long journeys, the rail network cannot match British Airways in cost, in comfort, in efficiency or in its ability to allow customers to get work done. This sort of journey should be viable by rail as the best option for the environment.

    Looking back to my LNER journey a few weeks ago, the company is just badly run as far as I’m concerned, and they can’t even get seat reservations right, let alone have enough staff to deal with the problem customers. Long journeys need to be handled more elegantly by rail companies so that customers are actually comfortable. At the same time, British Airways has worked out how to transport people cheaply, with excellent customer service and handles customer loyalty well. And, they’re doing it with the advantage that it’s a much quicker form of transport. There needs to be a much greater capacity on the mainlines from London to Scotland if they want people to get out of cars and off planes to go back onto the rail network. This is all happening whilst the HS2 East leg looks to be cancelled and that wasn’t meant to open until 2033 anyway.

    The nearest best option is the sleeper service and I enjoyed using that, but it’s being threatened with strike action which makes it hard to rely on. If they retain some of their social distancing so as not to pack out the carriage, then that becomes more viable as there are lounge areas and it’s a comfortable enough way to travel. I accept that it’s possible to use coach services and these are much cheaper, but the length of journey and lack of comfort are challenges here. I got the long distance National Express service from Newcastle to London and they hadn’t even bothered to provide seats at the bus station (or outside it in my case, as the bus stations is shut for many departures) for waiting customers and had drivers smoking in the entrance to their coach. I can’t quite imagine the pilot standing in the British Airways cabin vaping away whilst vaguely looking at customers walking by.

    On many Amtrak services in the United States, a staff member welcomes customers and shows them where their seat is and writes their destination above the seat on a card. There is a substantial amount of leg room, there are observation cars, a buffet car and the whole service feels spacious and comfortable. It’s easy to get work done and there’s a loyalty scheme which rewards frequent travellers. On long-distance rail services in the UK, there’s no-one greeting customers, there’s often not even a seat (or someone else is sitting in it), there’s a poor loyalty scheme, crammed in seats, no observation cars and inadequate dining cars. But there’s not much point in offering that to customers given that the network is so busy already.

    So, in short, this was a near perfect flight experience for me and I can absolutely see why customers are choosing this form of transport. I have no need to take domestic flights on a regular basis, but I was surprised to see just how efficiently British Airways are managing the process at the moment. Given the problems with using rail for long journeys, I suspect that the best medium-term strategy is finding more environmentally efficient air travel and I know that funding is pouring into that. Otherwise, we’ll have another 50 years of people staying in their cars and driving everywhere, which really isn’t ideal as it’ll lead to no end of new road projects.

    Anyway, rant over and a very lovely flight from British Airways.

  • Heathrow T5 (BA Galleries South Lounge in August 2021)

    Heathrow T5 (BA Galleries South Lounge in August 2021)

    This is my first flight in nearly a year, a domestic flight from London Heathrow T5 to Glasgow Airport. I don’t like taking domestic flights for environmental reasons, but the rail network didn’t give me many options on this one in terms of the price. Things are going to have to change to improve capacity, customer service and pricing if people are going to be tempted away from their cars and from airlines.

    I’ve always liked this “welcome to our home” messaging from British Airways at T5. I was able to use premium security several hours before my flight as I like to arrive early at airports in case of a disaster en route. I then meandered around a rather quiet airport to the T5 Galleries South lounge.

    There’s a new scanner at the entrance to the lounge check-in to avoid needing to go to a staff member. Anyway, it rejected my boarding pass and the kind and patient lady overseeing it mentioned “they’re new and don’t work very well”, but it was soon over-ridden when I used the more traditional staff member at a desk set-up. The lounge felt quite quiet and there’s no self-service offered still, everything is ordered on-line by customers and it’s brought to the table. Staff in the lounge were all personable and kind, it’s a friendly and peaceful place at the moment.

    Having quite a lot of time to get things done I was able to work my way through the menu, this is the Sticky Ginger and Tamari Chicken. I’ve never heard of Tamari, but a quite Google search tells me that it’s a Japanese version of soy sauce. This was really pleasant, tender chicken with a rich sauce and fluffy rice. And some green stuff. Incidentally, on another point, there are power points available so that my devices could charge up throughout the afternoon.

    The beer choice was Heineken, which is a completely pointless drink as far as I’m concerned. BA have reverted to having a whole range of wine, but absolutely no beer of even average quality. I hope that the Brewdog tie-up can be brought back soon to rectify this little omission. I’m sure that normality will resume soon enough in this regard.

    The beef chilli with sour cream and rice, again all very nice.

    I had a quick vodka and Coke, because the Pineapple Ciroc sounded very lovely. And it was, I’m a fan of that now.

    Photos of part of the lounge.

    My dessert of carrot loaf, or whatever it was called. It’s like a stodgy carrot cake.

    At this point a lounge manager walked around politely telling everyone that as it was quiet, they were closing the Galleries South lounge down for the day. She added that customers could go and use the First Class lounge instead, somewhere that I haven’t been for over five years.

    I had finished for the day with food, but there was a different menu on the on-line ordering system in the better lounge, so I felt the need to have a little try of the Barbacoa beef tortilla. This was a step-up in terms of the food quality, very tender beef and the sour cream complemented it well. Quite messy to eat though, but an innovative little dish. Other options I could have gone for were the red wine & mushroom pie and the Caribbean spiced chicken.

    The infamous (well, on Flyertalk anyway) lounge horse lamp…..

    Then the walk to my flight began, through a very empty Heathrow T5. The whole experience is somewhat different to what it was two years ago, but I think it’s all nicer now for customers, although that’s partly just because it’s quieter. Anyway, all very lovely, and a pleasant way to spend a few hours before the flight.

  • London – Hackney (Borough of) – Shoreditch – Goose Island (Sixth Visit)

    London – Hackney (Borough of) – Shoreditch – Goose Island (Sixth Visit)

    Firstly, I accept it’s perhaps a bit much to be writing about Goose Island again, although I have to add that they were my pub of the year in 2020 and so I’m allowed some exuberance here. NB, I also accept having a pub of the year is a bit self-indulgent as well, but here we are as they say….. The actual reason I want to write about this visit is there was a beer that I thought was quite beautiful.

    I won’t write about the bar itself again, I’ve done that to death already. But, this little snack selection from Nanny Bill’s (the in-house food provider) really was rather lovely. The Aggy Fries are rosemary salted with garlic mayo, parmesan cheese, Frank’s hot sauce and spring onions. And they were beautiful, at a hot temperature and the flavours all went nicely together. Those buttermilk fried chicken strips were also beautiful as they were tender, hot, interesting and the coating had a pleasant taste. But, delightful at this was, the beer is the main part of the Goose Island show, the food and staff are just the near perfect complements to it…..

    The Vermont Sticky Maple, a strong 11.3% ABV imperial stout from The Bruery, from Placentia which is in Orange County, in a region of California that I know very well and is perhaps one of the areas of the world that I love the most. Anyway, my reminding myself that I love California to one side, this is a rich and interesting beer.

    The Orange Line beer from Goose Island themselves, a New England IPA with tropical fruit running all the way through it, a lovely light flavour that would go well on a summer day in Maine. A smooth taste and packed with hops although I didn’t get the “flavour of straw” that one person decided they got from this. What flavour does straw have anyway?

    And the shining light of the evening, the Escape Pod Cherry Edition from Pressure Drop Brewing, a small brewery from Tottenham in London. This was quite magical, with rich and smooth flavours of chocolate, vanilla and cherry, and strong aromas of cherry. As may already be evident, there was no shortage of cherry here. A deep mouthfeel with that velvet sort of texture that these imperial stouts can bring, with no harshness from the 10% ABV. The aftertaste was balanced and decadent, a lovely alternating taste of chocolate and cherry. It was like a Christmas chocolate and very memorable, one of the best beers that I’ve had. Quite marvellous.

    As ever, the staff at Goose Island were friendly, engaging and knowledgeable. The bar was clean, the environment was laid-back and this is as far as I’m concerned one of the best bars in the world. And I am unanimous in that…..

  • Eastbourne – Marine Pub

    Eastbourne – Marine Pub

    I have to credit this rather lovely pub in Eastbourne with some really engaging service on Friday evening. The 2020 Hike Norfolk trip to Eastbourne had to be suspended given the national pandemic, but we had 40 people signed up to go and the Marine were ready to cater for that number. To thank them for their assistance with that, I thought that I’d turn up with the 6 or 7 people from this year’s event that I thought would come along on the Friday evening. Given I didn’t know how many people there would be wanting to go for a pub meal on the Friday evening, I decided to risk just turning up.

    With Ross, Dave and Steve with me, we turned up to the pub at their opening time of 18:00 and to my great concern, there were already about 20 people standing outside the pub. This really wasn’t ideal at all if it meant that the pub would be full. We reassured ourselves that at least we’d get a table and everyone else could always walk to McDonald’s. It transpired though that this was just another pre-booked group and they were being catered for in the conservatory area.

    What the pub allowed us to do was really very kind. It primarily involved moving all their furniture around (and I think it’s fair to say that I had this situation sorted….) to suit our needs. It then transpired that there were 14 people all wanting food, which isn’t quite what I expected. However, the pub catered for that whilst remaining friendly and pretending that this wasn’t a bit annoying. I have to say, if I ran a pub again, I’d likely be surprised to see a 14 strong party turn up without a booking. But, these are challenging times and I imagine the money was useful.

    The beer selection was adequate, with London Pride and Harvey’s Bitter available as the only two choices, so I had half a pint of each. They were well kept and presented a useful option, with a regional nod given the Harvey’s which is from nearby Lewes. The beers tasted as they should and they weren’t served too cold, as that always annoys me (I mean relatively, there are other things that annoy me more, like loud people in libraries).

    The food menu and there was a specials list as well.

    I had the pie last time I came here which was excellent, but I decided not to risk the steak one which was their offering this time as I worry there might be fatty meat (I’m a bit picky). Instead, I went for the fish and chips which was reasonably priced and neatly presented. And this was really rather excellent, with a crispy batter which had a depth of flavour, fish which flaked away and no greasiness to the whole arrangement. This was well towards the higher end of the quality range that I’ve experienced.

    Overall, this was an exceptionally well run pub with the staff having excellent customer service skills. They were helpful even when some of our party presented a 10% off voucher and then tried to pay at the bar despite being asked not to. Not that I’m one for gossip or tittle tattle. Although, to be fair, we were a very well behaved group (well, I was) and weren’t loud, so they didn’t have to deal with any noise issues. They did have to deal with Dave getting shots, but he’s very social and endeared himself to them anyway.

    I would absolutely book here again if I return to Eastbourne, because this high level of customer service for large groups is rare. For the perfect visit, being able to work out who ordered what is something pubs are doing better, and it was a bit muddled up here. I’d also ideally like some more craft beer options, but I appreciated that their real ales were well-kept. Anyway, it’s easy to find fault and I thought that the pub did a great job with a lot of food all being ordered at once. Very lovely and I’m grateful for their assistance in getting us a suitable section of the pub with nearly no notice.

  • Eastbourne – Eagle Pub

    Eastbourne – Eagle Pub

    The Eagle in Eastbourne appears to be one of the few pubs left in the town that I haven’t visited and I was intrigued to see why it seems to have lost its entry in the Good Beer Guide which it had for a decade. The pub was formerly owned by the Kemptown Brewery before later on being taken over by Whitbread and turned into a Hogshead. Rebranded as a Beer Engine pub it was renovated in 2009 when it was owned by Enterprise Inns.

    The beer selection wasn’t overly exciting, it was limited to Harvey’s Bitter and the Butcombe Bitter. The latter was well-kept and tasted as it should, but the choice of ales here isn’t anything really of note. CAMRA also issue a warning note that the pub charges disproportionately for half a pint, something which I don’t like. It’s also hard to ignore that the beer prices here are set at London prices, they’re just perhaps too high for Eastbourne and I can see why they’re losing customers to places such as Wetherspoons. There’s nothing here which justifies being in the Good Beer Guide, so it seems right that it was taken out. The service was though excellent, a really engaging and conversational member of staff, so there was nothing wrong with the welcome.

    It was all very clean and open inside the pub, although it wasn’t particularly busy despite it being lunchtime.

    I quite like seeing pool tables in pubs, or ideally bar billiards tables, but this perhaps doesn’t quite fit here. There isn’t a vast amount of seating in the pub as there is, so they’ve lost a few tables that could be placed here. It all looks a bit crammed in and this review from a few months ago is pretty damning:

    “Really shocked to make my first visit now I have relocated for work to be told that I have sat on a table for 6 (to watch the football match) and will need to move if a larger party come in. How to make someone feel welcome – not.”

    I’d agree, that is a dreadful attitude from the pub. I accept that secretly a pub will want a customer group that fits exactly the table size that they have, but this often doesn’t happen for all manner of reasons. I feel for that person, who came here to find a new local pub as he had moved into town and was made completely unwelcome. And what choice does he have given that the pub has got so many large tables and so few smaller tables?

    I felt welcome in the pub and the staff member was friendly, with everything being clean and organised. The problem here is that although nothing particularly is wrong, the pub doesn’t offer me anything interesting to write about. It’s really all quite bland, despite it being clear that huge efforts are being made with the pub’s appearance.

  • Eastbourne – Glastonbury Hotel

    Eastbourne – Glastonbury Hotel

    I extended my trip to Eastbourne at the last minute, so the price of the accommodation options were rather more decadent than I would ideally like. However, the Glastonbury Hotel was reasonably priced, although a quick glance of the reviews showed that they were all over the place in terms of what guests thought about the place. However, they weren’t bad enough to stop me booking, although I was unsure of the quality of the experience that I had ahead.

    The pre-arrival e-mail explained that I mustn’t smoke, bring alcohol into the hotel, be excessively loud, break anything in the room, check in after 21:00 and so on. I understand that they’ve clearly had problems with rule breakers, but inconsiderate guests will do those things anyway. Hotels are really meant to be places that someone looks forwards to going to, a list of warnings isn’t a great start.

    However, the check-in at reception was friendly and personable, so all was well. The bar area had a lot of chairs crammed in, but it wasn’t entirely clear when and if it was actually open. The hotel also has a snooker club underneath it, but there was no mention of that to guests, a puzzling omission of information. The locking system for the room door was also explained to me, something which numerous previous reviews have touched on.

    Given I had booked the cheapest room, I was surprised to be given a room with such a lovely view of the coast (the cheapest rooms normally get a view of the car park and air conditioning units). The balcony stretched along the front of all of the rooms on that floor, which I didn’t overly like, but there’s something very authentic about a seaside stay when it’s possible to hear the waves crashing onto the beach.

    The room was also fine, with the bathroom looking like it has just been modernised. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the room was spotless, but it didn’t give me any concerns in terms of the cleanliness. Everything was functional and there were no noise issues either internally or externally during my stay. The lock on the room was fiddly, it needs to be turned on the reverse and it sometimes wouldn’t turn, so a slight faff. The hotel would perhaps be wise to replace all of the locks, maybe even going as far as switching to use key cards rather than physical keys. The water in the hotel also seems to be either cold or scalding hot, of which never are really ideal.

    The hotel corridors were a complete maze and there was a lot of paper signage to try and get guests to their rooms. I must admit to needing a few attempts to remember where the staircase was that I needed to get to my room, as there are several going off to various other parts of the building. There are fire doors in some inconvenient places when using the stairs, although the hotel doesn’t have much choice in that. There’s definitely still a feeling of the 1960s with the hotel corridors, all rather dated. However, it’ll cost a fortune to modernise all of this, and even if they do that, then I likely wouldn’t booked here as it would be too expensive. Personally, I suspect that they’re probably best to leave it, just improve the signage a little (and the fire signage definitely needs looking at).

    I do wonder as well what the history of this building was, I’ve been fascinated before about what hotels used to be like. When the Queen’s Hotel was constructed in Eastbourne in the 1880s there were just a couple of bathrooms in the entire building and a limited number of toilets were located in a different wing. Guests would be used to trundling throughout the hotel in the early twentieth century to use the facilities, causing no end of issues over recent decades when trying to cram en-suites into rooms in these Victorian hotels.

    And the views in the evening, definitely rather pleasant.

    I liked this hotel, despite its obvious flaws. I got the impression that the owners are trying to steadily improve it, whilst trying to cater for coach parties and the budget end of the market in the meantime. It’s likely an exciting challenge, clearly they’ve already gone some way in terms of the modernisation as my bathroom was modern and relatively new. The public areas need a lot of improvement, they seem very underused and that ground floor area near reception would make an ideal craft beer bar……

  • Norwich – The Malt and Mardle Micropub

    Norwich – The Malt and Mardle Micropub

    The lovely people who established the Malt & Mardle micropub in Norwich did a little interview with me a few weeks ago, shortly before they opened their new venue. This was the first time that I’ve had a chance to actually visit their pub, which is located on Magdalen Street in what was until recently a motorbike shop. As I mentioned many times before, I very much like the whole micropub concept and have been intrigued to see how this was working out.

    This is a nicely done board, clear and informative. There’s a nod towards local breweries with the cask and keg options, but there’s a more national approach with the bottles menu, including some from the rather excellent Brew By Numbers brewery. I note, with great approval, that the half pint options cost exactly half of what a pint costs.

    The interior, with hops hanging from the ceiling. I’m not sure what I think about the beers being poured from the cupboard, it’s something a little unique. I liked that the owners were pro-actively visiting tables to talk to customers, just the sort of vibe that a micro-pub needs. There were some more challenging customers shouting and yelling about, who I did think might find the local Wetherspoons as more appropriate, but I decided not to tell them that. It was good to see that the pub was nearly full when we arrived, although there’s the inevitable limitation that a micropub has limited seating, so customers might struggle to find a table at whatever time they visit.

    The Wild Stallion from Wildcraft Brewery, a beer I must admit to not really engaging with as it lacked any real depth of taste to it and I was hoping for something richer. I hear generally positive things about Wildcraft, although I’ve yet to have a beer from them which I could say was above average, but I’ll persist with my efforts to find one. Nathan muttered about his Malt Coast IPA tasting of blue cheese, I’m not sure what has gone wrong there.

    Anyway, if it was up to me, I think I’d have a little look at the draft beer selection to find something slightly more decadent and sexy. Having said that, I very much like this pub, the concept, the people and the set-up. I hope that it does really well and it’s in a part of Norwich which is now very on-trend for decent beer given the nearby Artichoke, Plasterers, Kings Head and Leopard. I’m very content with this pub exists and look forwards to seeing how they evolve. It’s a difficult time to have opened a pub and the owners deserve lots of praise for their bravery.

  • Southern Railway : London Victoria to Eastbourne

    Southern Railway : London Victoria to Eastbourne

    And another little adventure begins, I’m leaving London (and Pret) behind for a brief time and popping to Eastbourne, the jewel of the south coast (or something like that anyway) for a walking expedition with Hike Norfolk.

    Southern Railways sometimes have an annoying habit of only announcing the platform about four minutes before the train departures, which can be a bit fiddly in a railway station the size of London Victoria (although that can lead to interesting scenes watching people running or tripping towards the train desperate to get it in time). Fortunately, this one was announced over twenty minutes before it departed.

    I like the clear signage of when the next direct train to each location is, although slightly less convenient for those who wanted to go to Arundel or Bognor Regis.

    OK, I’m going to struggle to make this sound exciting as very little happened of note. But here’s the train and the boarding process. Normally on this service a fair number of the passengers are going to Gatwick, but for obvious reasons, that wasn’t happening on today’s service.

    The train did get busier and tickets were checked by a friendly and jolly member of staff. He was checking the tickets carefully and I always get worried when the guard stares at my ticket for more than two seconds in case something is wrong with it. This isn’t entirely rational as I know bloody well that the ticket is correct, I think it’s just a British thing. Anyway, it was fine.

    Coffee and a railway ticket, what more could anyone want for a train journey…. For anyone who gets this train hoping to charge their electrical devices though, they will be disappointed. There are a reasonable number of table seats available on the train and there’s also a small First Class section, although it didn’t look very busy.

    Given the company named here, this reminded me of something that my friend Liam would put up…..

    Welcome to Eastbourne, or as the station refers to it as, “the sunshine coast”. Eastbourne Railway Station has ticket barriers, although they weren’t in use today, so I could meander through (slightly annoyed at the lack of checks because these sometimes create drama from passengers who have lost their ticket between the train and the barrier, but that’s a different matter).

    And looking back at the train that I arrived into Eastbourne on. OK, this isn’t a very exciting report of a rail journey since nothing much of note happened. But that also means it arrived on time, which was handy (although meant I wouldn’t be claiming any Delay Repay). The journey cost £8.50 with Southern Railways, which seems quite a fair price given the distance travelled. And hello to Eastbourne.

  • LDWA History Group – York Visit

    LDWA History Group – York Visit

    And a little advert below for the LDWA’s history group, which can be joined by any member of the LDWA. It was thought a marvellous idea for me to lead a two-hour history walk for anyone who wanted to come along during the NEC weekend a couple of weeks ago. Rather pleasingly, I can report that there were no disasters. No-one got lost, stomped off, complained (to my knowledge) or left the LDWA. I’m fairly sure that the redoutable Stuart Bain (the NEC’s Environment and Risk Officer) was impressed as well. Win-win!

    The city walls around York, which are some of the most complete in the country. York Minster looks rather beautiful from the walls as well. I must admit to quickly rushing around the walls before the walk started to check that they were still there, although to be fair they’ve lasted quite a few centuries. I also had to check, several times, when they shut, which was fortunately just after we would be leaving them. As can be seen, there was a lot of preparation here…..

    A photo opportunity with the York sign in front of the Minster, and a view from the city walls. The handy thing about leading a two hour history walk for the LDWA is that the distance was much shorter than our usual efforts, so it was likely just under five miles in length.

    As another one of my irrelevant asides, I was one of the people who complained a few years ago at the hideous development that English Heritage were planning at Clifford’s Tower, ploughing straight into the mound with a new visitor centre. If I may say so, the proposals from English Heritage were arrogant, insensitive and showed a complete disregard for heritage, the latter of which really isn’t ideal given their name. In 2018, English Heritage scrapped the visitor centre element and said in a statement:

    “English Heritage also has a new director for the north of England, Andrea Selley, who has been listening to the views of the local community. And while the proposed visitor building would have sat within a relatively modern part of the mound (dating from the 1930s) and did not pose a risk to the archaeology, it was clear that many people love the shape of the mound and disliked the thought of its circumference being broken. Because of these reasons, English Heritage will not now place a visitor building within the mound.”

    Why they got so far with their proposals is another matter, but I digress…. Their new project is much better and respects the site’s integrity.

    Coppergate, which is actually named after coopers, the men (as it was usually men during the medieval period who made barrels, casks and the like.

    And some photos of York at night. I’d stress here that I didn’t get everyone lost for hours, I took these photos after the pub visit and on my way back to the hotel. I look forwards to leading a history walk in whatever town or city the NEC next spend a weekend in. Here’s to the next LDWA adventure!

  • Hike Norfolk – Social Day

    Hike Norfolk – Social Day

    Last weekend was one of the most important dates in the Hike Norfolk social calendar, the annual summer get together. Richard’s house has been replaced with a more decadent affair this year, adding extra excitement to the mix. There’s usually a walk to go along with the social element, but I couldn’t be bothered with that. We can go walking any day after all.

    I decided to put myself in charge of the catering for the event, which was handled very professionally I thought. I was fortunate to have Bev come along to Morrisons to assist with the purchasing of essential supplies, which was rather useful. I let her push the trolley as it’s important to involve everyone in the project. We were going to start with purchasing bread, but noticed that the fruit and vegetables were being reduced in price. I thought getting this at a bargain price was a very good idea, I begrudge spending money (albeit not mine) on fruit and vegetables.

    I got bored of the fruit and vegetables quite quickly. The kind man at Morrison’s also didn’t seem annoyed that he had to place six loaves of bread in the big cutting machine, so that was helpful and saved some cutting later on.

    And a behind the scenes photo of the food preparation arrangements, with strict food hygiene procedures in place. I spent most of the time supervising arrangements, fortunate to have Richard buttering bread, Bev neatly arranging salad around sandwiches, Dave slicing things and Susanna putting the filling in to the bread. A very handy little team. It was also apparent that we had purchased too many 25p bags of salad, a reminder that it’s best to buy it when cheap to avoid expensive waste.

    Crisps and fruit, what more could people possibly want?

    And the sandwiches all neatly compiled, collated and ready for service. I have to say, I’m really very good at this food organising I think. I mentioned that to numerous people. We had a whole Smörgåsbord of sandwich options, including cheese & pickle, cheese & onion, ham & mustard and beetroot salad. Despite Bev’s best efforts to make the beetroot salad sandwiches look tempting, they were the least popular which is no real surprise.

    We were lucky to have some members bring their own cakes, including a Victoria sponge, a meringue and numerous other delights. And they were all excellent, much appreciated by everyone in attendance.

    And the party in full swing. Well, the photo that I can safely upload anyway, it’s fair to say that some members of the group are quite rowdy and so photos later on wouldn’t be appropriate to post. There was plenty of gossip and I thought that it went really well and we received some lovely feedback after the event. Which means that there seems to be more than enough demand to do all of this again. Anyone interested in attending just needs to join Hike Norfolk   🙂