Anyone for Squirrel?
I always refer to squirrels as American tree rats, because of the damage they do to trees and because they chase our native and much better red squirrels away. They were one of the first American cultural imports, like burgers and baseball caps, that we can well do without!
So to see that Budgens are now selling them in Crouch End is good. As they say in Suffolk, “Make the buggers work!” That was originally said by a farmer and horse-coper called Dick Freeman, when I told him that my business partner and his wife, had been offered a local speciality in Geneva; raw donkey meat. They had been horrified as at the time, as they had had a pet one called Robin. Dick hated donkeys with a passion, as they give worms to horses.
Our housekeeper at Debach was partial to squirrel and told me that young ones were very nice if fried in a little butter.
Remember though, I am of an age, who was brought up when meat was rationed in the 1940s and early 1950s. As rabbit was off coupon and my father had a customer, who could get it, we had quite a few rabbit pies in those days.
I still like rabbit and would try squirrel in a decent restaurant. After all it’s gluten-free isn’t it?
I doubt I’ll ever go again due to my health, but on Salina in the Aeolian Islands, rabbit is the local speciality, as rabbits are wild and plentiful. The rabbit at the Hotel Signum is exquisite. It’s an ambition to go again and a goal to aspire to.
A Strategy for Over-60 Visitors to the UK!
Travel when you get older can get strenuous and tiring. But on the other hand, a country like the UK, where there are plenty of pretty good small hotels, restaurants with rooms and B&Bs in addition to expensive ones where you can really pamper yourself, is probably the ideal destination for the senior tourist.
I have just had it confirmed by a man close to the Fat Controller at ATOC, the trade body for the train operating companies, that Senior Railcards are available to anyone with the appropriate fee of £26 for a year, on production of a passport, which proves they are over 60. Holders get a 33% discount on all Standard and First Class tickets. So you don’t need to do too many trips before you have reclaimed the fee!
As an example of what you can do, take my trip to London from Cambridge last weekend. I visited the Olympic Park, Canary Wharf, Croydon and the National Gallery, all in a few hours on a ticket that cost just £21.10. If I’d wanted to see a play or have a meal, then I would have had time and my train ticket would still have cost the same.
My only problem with this sort of Awayday is getting to the station, as I can’t drive and taxis are just too expensive. But stay in Cambridge, Oxford, Reading, Bristol, York, Liverpool, Coventry or any one of a number of historic cities and towns, with plenty of attractions of their own, perhaps a nearby airport to get there from outside of the UK and good rail links to lots of other places worth visiting.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that the UK has one of the youngest train fleets in the world. On all the trains I used on the trip last weekend, not one was old and decrepit. Two were old, but very comfortably refurbished.
Remember too, these things about the UK.
- A lot of national and many local museums are free.
- Most major towns and cities have a decent live theatre.
- We have some of the best restaurants in the world. But if you are on a budget, it is generally not a problem these days, especially if like me you like Indian or Chinese food, as every B&B owner knows where the best local ethnic restaurants are.
- The shopping ranges from the expensive and swish down to some of the best street markets in the world.
- For those who like walking, we have them at all levels of difficulty. My favourites are to go up Primrose Hill, walk along the Thames and explore Hampstead Heath in London. But there are endless and many walks that are easily accessible from train stations.
- If you like horse racing, we have dozens of tracks from the grand to the somewhat quaint. All are different and few are the boring ovals, you find in many countries.
- You can choose times that fit or don’t fit in with annoyances like children going to school, harassed commuters as they go and come back from work and those dreadful flying midges in Scotland. This web site has details on the latter.
Hopefully, this blog will detail some places to go.
It’s Just Two Years to the London Olympics
AS it is just two years to the London Olympics, the BBC has had both television and Radio 5 broadcasting from the Olympic Park today.
On the Radio 5 phoe-in this morning, you got the usual doom-mongers and those from Scotland and the North decrying what they think is a waste of money. I got on and spoke badly about what I saw at the weekend and the public transport legacy. Others put it much better about how they were going to enjoy the Games.
I ended by imploring Nicky Campbell to use the North London Line to get home to Clapham. I forgot that he should go to Willesden and then take the West London Line.
Beware of Baboons
Baboons are the hooligans of Africa, and as this story from Cape Town shows they can do a lot of damage to get what they want.
I was first made aware of the habits of baboons in of all places, Penang in Malaysia. C and I were waiting for the cable car, when we met a friendly Canadian couple and their three early teenage children. The couple, who were both teachers, had sold everything and were taking a family trip round the world, staying generally in a couple of dollar a day guesthouses. They had crossed the Sahara in a truck, travelled overland to Kenya by a variety of means and then from Tanzania, they’d crossed to India in a dhow. I asked if they’d had any problems and they said no, except for the baboons. They told of how they could open the most secure of cases and would do anything to steal food. They had had another problem incidentally, when their son had broke his humerus in Nigeria, only for it to be set perfectly, by the local bonesetter.
Ever since that conversation I’ve always been wary of baboons.
I remember an incident at Cape Point, near Cape Town in South Africa. There is a tea bar there and the baboons were all on the roof, trying to steal food, as they always do. But they had found that if they put their backside over the edge of roof and defecated, they could get a lot of laughs and hopefully someone would drop a burger or a sandwich. I have seen some revolting behaviour in my time, but this ranks with the worst.
Their behaviour was little better in Gambia on one of my last holidays with C and in Kenya, they were always looking to create some trouble.
So keep clear of baboons.
I’ll always remember that charming Canadian family and wonder if they ever wrote a book about that adventure of a lifetine.
Home at a Price
I got to Cambridge on time, had time to do food shopping for Sunday lunch in the M&S at the station and then took a taxi home.
But it was a price worth paying for an exciting day! But it does seem wrong, that to get from Cambridge station to my home, cost nearly twice as much as all the rest of the travel. But there is no other way! There isn’t a bus at all between Cambridge Station and the nearest large village. Surely someone, could come up with an Internet-based share taxi service!
Keep Right
Keep right is the rule of the Underground and it was introduced in the Second World War to make sure that American servicemen used the escalators properly.
It works well with my good right hand always on a rail, except where for some reason , some of those coming out of a station say use a keep left-rule of their own making.
But thinking right meant that when I went down the escalator at Leicester Square, I chose the up escalator, possibly because it was on the right and aqlso because there was no-one on the way up. But holding on to the handrail, I was able to turn easily and quickly, and walk the few paces off.
So at least it was 9/10 for balance and agility, even if my eyes and brain perhaps scored a seven.
Chaos In Trafalgar Square
I left the National Gallery and walked down the side of the square to the Trafalgar Studios to get details on Shirley Valentine.
According to another bus stop, from outside the theatre, i should have been able to get a bus to King’s Cross for the train home. But works in Whitehall meant that the bus stops had been suspended. So I walked towards Parliament Square to find a bus to take me somewhere in the right direction.
Five minutes later, I found a 24, which would take me to either Leicester Square or Warren Street.
I boarded and then spent forty-five minutes stuck in a traffic jam caused because car drivers couldn’t turn up the Strand or use the bus lanes because of road works. So they just illegally parked or blocked the buses instead of retreating south down Whitehall. The chaos wasn’t helped by all of the tour buses trying to do similar things. So we just sat and waited and fried. A lady in a burqa told me she might faint, but luckily we limped to Leicester Square and we all got out safely.
Bumping My Way Back To Civilisation
My friend had to go to see his MP near the Horniman Museum (Worth a visit I’m told!), so about three we took a bus, that would both drop him at the museum and take me to a station, that would allow me to get to hopefully Charing Cross, as I wanted to visit the National Gallery.
I got off the bus at Forest Hill, crossed the road and tried to find the station entrance. It was confusing and not very well signed. But it did have a brick flower bed in front, which I bumped into, as it was about knee-height and obscured by the other people in front of the station. If there had been flowers in the bed, I would have seen it. Luckily no harm was done! I then found the door, opened it and used my ticket to open the barrier and get myself on the platform. My friend had told me that I should take a London Bridge train and then walk over the bridge to get a bus or a tube train, as the Jubilee Line wasn’t running.
I didn’t wait long for a London Bridge train and before long I could see the familiar sights of the City.
Approaching The City
Note Tower Bridge peeping over the buildings in front.
I got out at London Bridge when the train terminated and started to look for someone who might know where I could get a train to Charing Cross. I couldn’t find anyone, but I did see this obstacle kindly placed in the middle of the platform.
Seats on London Bridge Station
Luckily I saw them and had time to get the camera out to photograph them. But to illustrate my hand problems, note the finger in front of the lens.
What idiot decided to put seats like that in a place where someone with limited visibility might miss them? If they had had seat backs or hand been occupied, then they would have been easier to see. As they would have been if they had yellow arms, like London Underground ones do!
When I found the platform for Charing Cross, I asked a helpful stationman and he said that the seats don’t have backs because of health and safety issues. Obviously not mine or others with limited visibility.
I suppose that yellow or orange arms, as that would break corporate colour-scheme rules!
An Expedition to the Deep South
London is a city split by the River Thames into two distinctly separate sub-cities.
If you were born and have lived a lot of your life in the north, then you rarely cross the river into the south. I’ve got friends in the south, who feel exactly the same about the north. Although, we would both admit that we might just cross the river to see the attractions just on the other side. I did think that this might be a white middle-class thing, but discussing it with a man of Caribbean extraction, who had lived most of his life in Tottenham, he felt exactly the same.
There are two big differences though between north and south.
The north relies heavily on tubes, such as the Piccadilly, Northern, Central, Victoria, and Jubilee Lines, whereas the south depends largely on the suburban electrics of the old Southern Railway, which wind their way everywhere in a pretty comprehensive manner. But the old Southern Railway never had the Underground’s organisation and welcoming corporate identity!
The north too, has a defined ring road, the North Circular Road, whereas the southern equivalent is just a signposted route on inadequate roads. So northerners going south, always end up getting frustrated and lost. Especially as most from the north only ever go to the south to get through it to go to places like Gatwick or Brighton.
You can also argue that most of the major attractions are in the north. If you take major sports venues, only The Oval and Wimbledon are in the south and both can actually be reached using the Underground, so you don’t have to fathom out how the electric trains work!
So it was with trepidation that I set out from Canary Wharf to visit some friends, who live in the deep south near Croydon. Their nearest station is Anerley, so that would mean taking the DLR to Shadwell and then walking a few yards to the East London Line station of the same name.
Shadwell Station on the East London Line
The new station is functional and pleasant, but suffers slightly because of a cramped site, penned in between Listed buildings and the Thames Tunnel.
Shadwell Station looking North
The platforms looked a bit narrow and they are certainly not as wide as those on the North London Line. But I suppose they are well within safety limits.
I had to wait about twenty minutes for my train to West Croydon, as I had just missed one, but soon I was off south through the Thames Tunnel and on to Annerley.
It was at Annerley that my problems started, as all the old prejudices about the impenetrable jungle of South London kicked in. I misread the map at the station and instead of turning left out of the station approach onto the main road, I turned right and walked a couple of kilometres before I called my friend for rescue. At least he realised what I’d done wrong and thankfully came to get me in his car.
So there was no harm done and a couple of coffees warmed me up and got me ready for the return.
An Affordable Breakfast With Style
When you are a coeliac and like me recovering from a stroke, you have to be careful where you go for a meal. You must be sure of the food and because you might get into a mess and drop something or even everything all over the floor or yourself, it is probably a good idea to go to an establishment with staff waiting at tables.
All of this was illustrated very well, when I turned up at Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast or was it an early lunch?
It was sunny, so I sat outside and then ordered an Eggs Florentine without the bread and an orange juice. I’ve done this several times now in various of their cafes and no-one has minded, that I have modified their standard menu.
Gluten Free Eggs Florentine at Carluccio's
It was delicious and after adding cappucino, it cost me just £11.95, although I did add a generous tip for good service and such things like an extra serviette to make sure the mess was kept to a minimum.
I’m afraid that I tend to plan my trips around places where I know that I can eat well, easily and gluten-free. Unfortunately, not many places I hope to visit on my travels have one of Carluccio’s caffes. But it’s getting better as Leicester has no joined the list. But I suspect, I’ll be long gone before they reach Midlesbrough. They won’t be there for my trip in two weeks time.
The Anonymous Widower 