Brilliant sunshine today, plus me feeling better after a seriously sore throat, made us get up off our asses and plan a trip out.
Haddon Hall, near Bakewell was the target.
There is such a real sense of the history of England here - a well preserved and restored medieval country house, parts of which date back pre 1200.
It is a seat of England's landed gentry, having been in the same family's ownership (to this day) since it was built.
In some ways it is more interesting than nearby Hardwick Hall (Elizabethan) as Haddon Hall was built originally in Tudor times.
I can only say, visit if you are able to and if you have any sense of the history and civilisation which built England from a small, insignificant island to a world power.
(I can recommend the delicious home baked scones in the Haddon Restaurant!)
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I recall going there many years ago - as you say, well worth a visit.
Reminds me too of a family trip which included going through Bakewell when we saw a young girl walking towards us who was, to say the least, somewhat garishly dressed.
Suddenly my daughter, then in her early teens, piped up from the back: "Look Dad, a real Bakewell tart."
Made our day.
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Should you find yourself in Bakewell, and just want to fire some calories down your crop without ceremony, eschew all the twee teashops and overpriced purveyors of Traditional Bakewell Tarts and Puddings and head for the Granby cafe, off the beaten path in the little market arcade down Granby Street.
Frankly it's a sandwich shop with a griddle, a chip fryer, and a toastie maker rather than a panino press but the teapots are big and they do what they do well, and it's silly cheap. The English breakfasts are available all day too.
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Erindors and I lunched at the Granby on Saturday after a look round the charity, shoe and jewellery shops.
Took the mobile weekend cottage to Upper Hurst Farm nr. Hulme End for a long weekend. One of our fave sites.
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I usually head for the. Costa in Bakewell. About the only place you can get a decent coffeedespite the number of rather twee cafes and tea rooms.
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Costa. Says it all really.
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Nothing wrong with Costa. Decent coffee,comfortable seating , free wifi and newspapers, what's not to like?
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>> Nothing wrong with Costa. Decent coffee,comfortable seating , free wifi and newspapers, what's not to
>> like?
>>
Their cups. Stupid great clumsy things, remind me of summat that should be under the bed.
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I'm a tea drinker; and shallow cups like theirs allow the tea to cool too quickly. I find them to be too thick too. Sooner pay a few bob extra and go somewhere where they serve tea in a decent china cup.
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Absolutely. Cups matter. As do glasses.
Champagne, wine and beer require different containers, as do tea, coffee and coke. You can be drummed out of your club for not appreciating that.
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>> Absolutely. Cups matter. As do glasses.
>>
>> Champagne, wine and beer require different containers, as do tea, coffee and coke. You can
>> be drummed out of your club for not appreciating that.
I used to think that kind of thing was rubbish, but I was converted by a Costa coffee.
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>> Nothing wrong with Costa.
The clue is in the name, as MD implies.
The whole coffee thing is basically a time and money-wasting scam. For all I know, it is the undiscovered principal cause of Britain's productivity mystery.
A pox on them.
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I agree and the product is grossly overpriced.
A pot of tea for two, was on offer for a bit under three quid, at the last three venues where we visited. Best brew was at the Railway Museum.
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I hate Costa. Overpriced, saturated with sugar and apparently cannot be consumed without tossing the empty carton out of the car window and into the hedgerow.
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>>The whole coffee thing is basically a time and money-wasting scam
Overpriced, quite possibly, but a scam? Have you been binge-reading the Mail again?
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We had time to spare in London a few weeks ago so wandered to St Pancras before we returned via Euston. Cup of tea ordered... except it came in a glass! And so they provided a cardboard holder. This was the area outside the hotel.
And (a) not cheap and (b) a service charge added. Not even a good cup of tea.
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Cup of tea served here in a tulip shaped glass on a funny shaped plastic plate. No milk. No sugar. I'm getting used to it. One has to. I brought out proper Yorkshire tea for the girls working in resort.
At least later this month I can enjoy a proper pot of tea, stewed, in a china cup. Milk first.
These foreign sojourns might be ok for warmer temps & blue skies, but they fall down badly on the important stuff.
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And as for the Tuborg lager... Roll on taking afternoon light refreshment in Kirkby Lonsdale
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>> And as for the Tuborg lager... Roll on taking afternoon light refreshment in Kirkby Lonsdale
Is that the best there is LL? Strewth, times must be hard if that's the best. Whereabouts are you?
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It's the best there is at my AI in Turkey! Efes Pilsen ( bottled) is available, brewed in Izmir, but 12/14 TL a half litre bottle in restaurants, that's over three quid! A few weeks ago in Tenner Iffy pints at decent beach front bars were still one Euro, so this place ain't cheap.
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Last time I was in Turkey about 18 months ago, you couldn't buy it in the restaurants (religious reasons) so you had to buy it from the hotel, i want to say it was 20TL a pint for efes. It was definitely £4 a pint, no other beer for sale that i remember although there was about 5 different types of efes.
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Current tourist rate 3.84 TL/£. Alcohol seems to be exceptionally expensive here, hence 80% occupancy rate at my hotel are Turkish people. Most of whom drink alcohol. The locals, including my friendly contact, sail over to Kos for their booze, which is where I'm going for a day out soon.
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I can't remember what the rate was last time I was there, however I remember thinking the same about the price. Although there was never a shortage of locals going for a drink. The hotel had a monopoly,
not even the supermarkets sold it. That was an expensive month.
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So much for AI if you have to drink naff beer and naff tea. Although we take Yorkshire tea bags when we go to Greece we rarely use them. I'll see how it goes on Monday.
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I drink far less alcohol on holiday than I do at home, especially when AI. Sounds strange but true. When you have access to a few cracking local pubs back home I take full advantage!
In warmer climes a couple of chilled half pints of some tasteless, but refreshing, chilled lager is all I consume all day. Them maybe a glass of chilled wine at lunch, G & Ts all afternoon, then more wine in the evening.
I quite enjoy strong black tea, with maybe a twist of lemon. Not as good as a proper pot of tea back home though. Nothing is!
Gotta go... Off to sweat out last nights excesses in the hammam before a few hours on the beach and a bit of snorkelling.
Enjoy Greece... I'm visiting Kos next week with my 'Turkish delight'.
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>> And (a) not cheap and (b) a service charge added. Not even a good cup
>> of tea.
And (c) take off the service charge.
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>> Overpriced, quite possibly, but a scam? Have you been binge-reading the Mail again?
Never touch the Mail, except early on a Saturday when I volunteer for 3 hours or so at the local community shop and my first job is to help unpack, sort, count and assemble the papers.
You are right. Costa etc. is just the standard consumer economy rip-off, or a brilliant example of added value marketing, depending on which way round you hold the telescope. Plus a bit of oligopolistic market distortion perhaps.
I used the word 'scam' slightly hyperbolically. Clearly it is what it is, it is offered, the buyers know what the deal is and they decide whether to buy one. In that sense, it is not a scam nor is it criminal (non-hyperbolically).
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>> A pox on them.
Post of the year so far for any right thinking person.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 5 Oct 16 at 09:58
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As a non-right thinking person somewhat bemused.
Do Costa drag you into their premises and force coffee down your throat?
What on earth is the problem that you have with a successful British business that
Has brought a service that millions of men women and children enjoy to nearly every high street in the country.
Try being a little less miserable if you can. Life will seem better.
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I do smile at the younger generation(s) who, it seems, can't go anywhere without a coffee or bottle of water to slurp at. I guess I am too miserly to join that particular club (why pay for water, and why not leave it till you can sit and enjoy a coffee...)
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But if you like drinking a coffee while you walk around, why wait?
I must admit I'm often wandering around with a coffee. I don't slurp though.
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I'm not a big fan of eating or drinking "on the go". Much prefer sit down at a table. Oneof those generational things I suppose.
The fact that you can find places like Costa or independent cafes on every high street surely has been one of those changes for the better in British culture.
Thirty years ago you would have had to either find a department store with a restaurant or a "greasy spoon" type cafe down a back street if you wanted a cup of tea or coffee. Now you have a huge choice of places to go. Got to be progress surely. Just look at how they are used by all segments of society from business men to pensioners, from mums with push chairs to men seeking a refuge from shopping.
Our local hospital has replaced its rather dingy depressing and unwelcoming cafes with Costa franchises. Huge change for the better
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Here in Settle the local Booths supermarket gives free coffee if you buy newspapers or some other thing. You see the local school kids walking around with their coffee fix, young mums and old pensioners.
Personally I give it a wide berth. The same mealy mouthed local people who go on & on about supporting local business, yet are happy to see the demise of two local paper shops because the supermarket gets their news trade. Probably the same folks who visit their local pub twice a year yet would be appalled should it close down... Rather like the Maypole at Long Preston which was a great locals pub, just not supported by them, and now it's been closed for ages many complain about the lack of facility.
As an ex retailer I always support smaller independent businesses... Especially in my local community. Next thing you know Booths will open a cafe, to compete against the four existing locally owned ones who do a great job for locals & visitors alike
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. Rather like the Maypole at Long Preston which was a great locals pub, just
>> not supported by them, and now it's been closed for ages
I think I used to go there on the 90s. Right hand side of the road going into the village, right near a junction?
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Booths isn't a Tesco. It's family owned for a start.
You don't need to buy anything to get your free coffee. Showing your Booths card is all it takes to get your daily caffeine fix.
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In the retail ecosystem Booths occupies the name niche as Waitrose.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 10 Oct 16 at 18:16
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They do a very nice organic tripe.
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>>
>>
>> Thirty years ago you would have had to either find a department store with a
>> restaurant or a "greasy spoon" type cafe down a back street if you wanted a
>> cup of tea or coffee.
>>
Give me a traditional greasy spoon any day.
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Thirty years ago you would have had to either find a department store with a restaurant or a "greasy spoon" type cafe down a back street if you wanted a cup of tea or coffee.
I think there still would have been the traditional tea rooms then, i wonder when they'll make a comeback?
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Oh, there's loads of traditional tea rooms still about - we spend a bunch of time floating about various villages in the UK on day trips etc. I'd say many of them still have a tea room of SOME sort, with cakes on cake stands and little paper doilies and all that. Good stuff, we like those.
Failing that, it's a garden centre or a hotel lounge. Failing that, a pub. Failing that, a flask in a layby. Failing that, nothing. Failing that, a Costa/Starbucks type place.
Tis very heaven.
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I guess you are in the minority then. If people really preferred them someone would have opened a chain of them and be making a fortune.
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>> I guess you are in the minority then. If people really preferred them someone would
>> have opened a chain of them and be making a fortune.
>>
A minority for what, thinking they might come back? I don't know, I've not researched it, it was just an idle comment.
People thirty years ago probably wouldn't have thought there would be multiple coffee chains in every high street. Yet here we are.
It's quite clever what a bit of marketing can do to make the fashionable unfashionable or vice versa.
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No Iwas just contemplating that if people really preferred greasy spoons to coffee shops in the high street there would be a massive financial opportunity for someone who started a franchise. Sadly I don't think there is.
I don't think you can put the rise of the coffee shop purely down to marketing. There was a massive gap in the market for something that was a social space, accessible to all, was clean and comfortable and was modern. Starbucks saw that and the other chains followed. Costa realised that a more "British" feel than Starbucks would be more popular with many hence their success.
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I don't know, but I was talking about tea rooms rather than greasy spoons. Two different things.
No of course not the product or service has to be there as well of course. But many things fall in and out of fashion and some come back round again. I just saying it wouldn't surprise me if tea rooms came back into popularity.
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>>it wouldn't surprise me if tea rooms came back into popularity.
I'm not sure that they're out, are they? There seem to be lots of them.
Its a different market though.
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I'm not sure that they're out, are they? There seem to be lots of them. >>
I think they are less popular now than in the past.
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I think they already have - Valerie's Patisserie chain is growing fast
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There are still some about and I suppose the appeal is precisely that they are not yet another chain all selling the exact same product and kitted out identically wherever you are in the world.
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>> There are still some about and I suppose the appeal is precisely that they are
>> not yet another chain all selling the exact same product and kitted out identically wherever
>> you are in the world.
>>
That is of course as much a chain's strength as thier weakness. I normally use a small independant cafe in Norwich that I have been going to for the past twenty years. It's a bit different and serves good coffee and exceptional food.
If I'm in a strange town and looking for a sit down and somewhere to read the paper over a coffee and snack I would seek out local Costa. It's a standard product and I know it will be acceptable if not as good as my usual cafe.
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>>why pay for water,
Well, you don't have to. Fill your bottle from the tap at home.
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Back to the original topic, went to a model rail show yesterday at Gaydon (yeah yeah...)
Anyway the price included admission to the motor museum so spent a couple of hours in there.
Great museum, really close access to the cars, and the usual scary number of "I've driven one of those" or "I used to have one of them" moments.
Best bit though, from a car point of view was the new building opposite housing what they called the "collection" with one floor full of Jaguars and the other with a variety of old vehicles across the JLR and all the BLMC companies including lots of Land Rovers etc
Really good interesting collection, well worth a trip, and if you gift aid the entry fee you can return free for the next 12 months.
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Should any of you be in Glasgow on a wet day (lots of them) the Riverside Museum (aka the Transport Museum) is worth a visit. Great for mechanically minded kids of all ages. Free entry, £1 for four hours parking.
www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/riverside/Pages/default.aspx
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Another good day out. - Stuartli
