Not The Easiest Journey Home
I’d arranged to come home via Manchester, effectively retracing the steps I’d taken in the morning. There are just three trains from Blackpool which sensibly meet Virgin’s fast services from Glasgow; 17:03, 18:21 and 19:21. Last year, I’d tried to come home on the 18:21 route, but I missed my connection, so as Preston is a gluten-free desert, I went home via Carluccio’s in Manchester Piccadilly rather than wait for an hour in the rain on Preston station.
So I’d thought that I might as well get an Off Peak ticket back from Manchester and if I had time, I’d have supper in Carluccio’s.
But I hadn’t bargained for a long time on the bus getting to Blackpool North station because of the illuminations and then a slow train to Piccadilly, which meant all I had time to do there was pay a visit to the loo and buy some sandwiches in Marks and Spencer. I was surprised they still had some gluten-free sandwiches left and had actually reduced them.
At least the sandwiches tasted fine as I came back to London getting in just after 22:00.
I do hope after the electrification of the Blackpool line, that there is a convenient train direct from the town to London on a Saturday afternoon. Virgin are starting direct services soon and they’ll take a few minutes over three hours, whereas today I was on the train for four hours and twenty minutes.
When I got to Euston, 73 buses were thin on the ground, so I walked to Euston Square station to get a Metropolitan train to Whitechapel for the Overground. And they were rather rare too, so I ended up going to Moorgate for a bus. And guess what? I had to wait twenty minutes for a 76! Where were my preferred rides of a 21 or 141?
Eventually I got in just before 23:00.
Services between Blackpool and London must be improved.
Virgin’s Sub-Standard First Class
I usually travel First Class to football outside London.
First Class to Ipswich isn’t much, but it’s only a journey of a few minutes over an hour and they do throw in free and excellent wi-fi.
It doesn’t compare well with the new offering, I had a taste of, when I went to Cardiff on First Great Western. But the offering I got to Manchester from Virgin on my way to Blackpool was very poor.
I had thought before I travelled, that I might upgrade to First Class on the way back for £15, but I didn’t bother.
Alan Williams in the November 2014 Edition of Modern Railways has a go at some First Class offerings, criticising seat allocation, bad views and catering amongst other things.
If companies are going to offer better travel for an extra price, they ought to do it right. It should include.
- Proper seat choice on the Internet. I think East Coast do this!
- At Seat Service with proper china
- A comprehensive snack offering to suit all tastes, including coeliacs and vegans
- Complimentary bottled water
- Free easy-to-access wi-fi.
- All seats should have a decent view, like Chiltern Railways offer to everyone on their Mainline service to Birmingham.
I think Virgin should question, whether they are offering the right service. I know it was a Saturday, but it was even inferior to East Midland Trains to Nottingham.
Dinner In The Gherkin
I went to a dinner last night at the top of the Gherkin, that was organised by an event club to which I belong.
The dinner itself was pretty good and the views were superb.
The View From The Gherkin At Night
But the club has been recently taken over and the new organiser was showing all the skills that Ed Miliband has shown with the Scottish Labour Party.
I doubt I shall be going to any of their events again.
My First Shop-Bought Fishcakes In A Dozen Years
I was in Marks and Spencer at Eastfield and looking for a piece of fish for my supper, when I saw some gluten-free fishcakes.
I probably haven’t had any since Waitrose in Newmarket stopped selling their locally-sourced ones in about 2000.
But I do like fishcakes and except for the odd meal in an expensive restaurant, I’ve hardly ever eaten any in the intervening years.
I actually bought one packet of the salmon and one of the cod, so tonight, I ate one of each and put the others in a sealing container for perhaps Sunday.
They didn’t disappoint, after I cooked them in the oven at 220°C for 16-18 minutes.
I think it’s true to say that these and other products in Marks and Spencer’s Made Without Wheat range, taste so good, that even the most fussy of eaters couldn’t tell the difference between these and the standard products.
The only problem with their gluten-free products is finding the new ones in the store.
I found these excellent fishcakes totally by accident.
Pontypridd And The Station
I came back down to Pontypridd to take the line back up to Merthyr Tydfil.
I had a pleasant lunch there in the very busy Cafe Royal. I’ve never had a chicken curry, which contained very recognisable strips cut from a couple of large slices of chicken.
The station is at present having a ten million pound upgrade, which includes a new bay platform, so that extra trains can run to and from Cardiff.
Lifts and a new footbridge are also promised. There are full details here.
If Network Rail, their architects and buildings do their usual standard of work, then this could be a station of which the town can be very proud. Unlike many stations, it appeared to be right in the heart of the town.
The Best Meal I’ve Ever Had On A Scheduled Train
I’ve eaten on many trains and used to regularly enjoy breakfast on Ipswich to London in the past, when they had a dining car. In some ways the most memorable was a return from Teeside to London behind a Class 55, where the driver showed what a Deltic could do.
I’ve also travelled with C on the Eastern and Oriental Express.
But no meal on a train could compare with the one I ate going from Paddington to St. Ives in one of First Great Western’s InterCity 125s. They call it Pullman Fine Dining.
I had found out that they were serving lunch on the 11:30 from Paddington, so I booked myself on that train. There was a bit of a mix-up between the train times and the web site, but as you can see, I got my high-class lunch.
As a coeliac, what really impressed me was the professional way they dealt with allergies. In fact, if anybody wants to open a restaurant, they could do no better than copy the openness.
The two courses I ate were excellent, as was the service.
I do hope that this form of catering leads to similar offerings on other lines.
There was only two things wrong with the meal.
I had to eat it by myself and it would have been so much better with a travelling companion.
The other was that First Great Western don’t have a card, which says when this service is offered. I’m off to Cardiff on Tuesday, so could I get lunch on the way down?
A Cure For Obesity
There was a discussion on BBC Radio 5 yesterday about the link between obesity and lack of exercise. So I texted in my four pennyworth.
I’m going away for a few days, so I cleared up the junk mail in my hall. There was enough from fast food restaurants to heat my house for a couple of days. Perhaps if you’re obese you could be sentenced to delivering these leaflets, as the exercise might help.
The program liked it and read it out.
But on a serious note, should it be made illegal for fast food companies to distribute leaflets through peoples doors without a paid-off licence.
Perhaps someone should be paid to distribute simple recipes through the doors.
How many people receiving a very tasty and healthy recipe from say Sainsburys, would actually buy the food and cook it?
I’ve lived with only two women for most of my life; my mother and my wife. Neither were innovative cooks and often we ate the same food in rotation. As an example, I can’t remember either finding a recipe in the paper or seeing it on the television and then cooking it.
I may lack cooking skills, but I am not unadventurous, so if I see a simple recipe, I’ll often buy the ingredients and cook it.
Perhaps to improve the food in this country, we all need to be less afraid of experimenting.
Last night I cooked this simple fish recipe from Mary Berry. Tonight, I’ll cook a sausage and bean casserole from Lyndsey Bareham in The Times. This gives me two portions, one for tonight and one for the fridge. As I’m going away tomorrow until Friday, the second portion will be there ready when I return late on Friday, if I need it.
Is This The Ideal Bread For A Lone Coeliac?
Yesterday, in Marks and Spencer, they had sold out of my usual bread, so I bought a pack of Brown Bloomer Slices.
There are six or so slices in the pack, which costs £3.15, and it is pretty good either fresh or as toast, as the pictures show.
I hope you don’t get the impression that I live on toast and jam, but I am partial to a cup of tea and toast in the afternoon, if I’m at home.
These slices are ideal for me, as they are good untoasted and cut in half they fit my toaster. The toast isn’t bad either!
This loaf would be good, if you’re having a coeliac friend staying for a couple of nights or just coming round for a meal, as the way it’s packed it will keep for a day or two.
But for my purposes of a coeliac living alone, it does everything I need and as a loaf seems to last about three days, that means it probably costs me around a pound a day or fifty pence a slice. As my daily State Pension is around twenty pounds a day, I think I can afford it.
One problem is that as the bread has no crusts, which might cause friction in some families.
I wonder how many cafes and restaurants will start using this bread, as it seems to be in most Marks and Spencer’s stores, except possibly those in stations. The pack size would satisfy a couple of patrons on perhaps two days.
Marks and Spencer have either designed the product and pack size very carefully or they’ve just struck lucky.
I don’t care as the product is excellent.
Before Overground – Bush Hill Park
A Pleasant Tidy Station In The Suburbs – Rating 7/10
Bush Hill Park is one of the few stations, that is in reasonably good nick.
The station isn’t step-free, but if you can arrange that you always get on and off the train so you can walk out directly, you can avoid climbing over the footbridge. Network Rail says this about the station.
There is step-free access to each platform, but not between platforms.
For a station in a residential area, it’s well surrounded by shops, with a good sprinkling of cafes and restaurants. There is even a pub, that could be reasonable.
So it could be one of those stations, where you go to have a meeting for business or pleasure.
Before Overground – Cafe Issues
The stations to be incorporated into the Overground from the Lea Valley Lines have a sprinkling of cafes, like this one at Hackney Downs.
I got a nice cup of tea there, but on chatting with the owner, there are issues that London Overground need to sort out with these little cafes and other shops in the stations.
I also feel that in some of the smaller stations, the only decent small premises are the booking office, which was often closed. As it is Transport for London’s policy to do away with booking offices, perhaps some could be revamped as retail premises.
At Rectory Road, there was only one lonely guy sitting in the booking office. He should be on or watching the platforms, not hidden away!
The Anonymous Widower 