FOOD & DRINK

Mission Control has moved temporarily to the South West. We have tried various hostelries en route ~ an excellent Butcombe in Lyme Regis followed by a beautiful Thatchers in the Blue Flame in Nailsea.

There followed a bit of a burn down the M5 to find our present home in Mousehole. It's a fine spot with none of that frosty nonsense of East Angular. Indeed the palm trees in our garden are positively thriving. It's nothing to do with the North Atlantic Drift, GLobal Warming or its proximity to the equator. No, I put it down to the excellent 'Doom Bar' and the fine range of St Austell Ales in the Ship Inn. Tested so far: 'Proper Job', 'Tribute', 'Tinners', and 'HSD' along with a fine rum & shrub.

So ~ the drink's good; how's the food?

Tonight we ate at 'The Cornish Range' ~ a smart little seafood restaurant with rooms in Mousehole. Seemed to be full of the London Set and the prices reflected that too and everything went well until the food arrived. It looked and tasted really good, but Good Lord Above! I know I bang on about the size of my belly but, Heavens to Murgatroyd! The quantities served in this establishment are huge!

My starter chowder was enough for a main course. When my main course arrived I just couldn't help laughing out loud.

I had chosen a 'luxury fish pie' but what appeared was a bowl the size of a large dog bowl full to the brim accompanied by two of the biggest doorsteps of garlic bread known to man. They had been hewn from the granite bread cliffs with large axes and dunked in a bucket of garlic butter and then left to set for a day or so.

How on earth the chef expected to receive clean plates back from his diners I cannot imagine.

So ~ if you haven't eaten for a week the Cornish Range is for you. We are here for a while and will not be going back.

The picture is of Mousehole harbour where the have these very pretty lights throughout the village at this time of the year.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW.

It's been a week with the white stuff now and we are all getting used to it, so before it all disappears here are some pictures. If you wish, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

 

 

 

I thought I would add this one in as we haven't had a window picture for ages and there will be those that pine...

WINTER SOLSTICE

It's the darkest, the shortest and today has been the rawest, day of the year.

Like the Atlantic rollers crashing against the barnacled, primordial black rocks of Land's End, the hordes of Christmas shoppers bump and bash against each other, in the last throes of their buying orgy. Above the swirling tidal surge of humanity, tall dark tower cranes stoop impassively, just observing; their steel skeletons cold, brittle in the sodium glare from below.

These giants will have been built, dismantled, lifted, bolted and rebuilt countless times throughout Britain. Like old medicine men, they can tell whoever is prepared to listen what is to come.

They have seen a solstice or two.

They know that from today it can only get better. The weather may well be getting more and more raw and more and more days will feel ever more spiteful but the word is that a corner has been turned.

About time too.

TGO CHALLENGE 2004

Tullochmacarrich, North Eastern Cairngorms: Click on image to enlarge

I was browsing through some old files earlier this afternoon when I came across a TGO Challenge Trip report I wrote for the TGO magazine - They didn't use my text but they did use most of my pictures in the October edition of the 2004 magazine along with Steve Smith's excellent prose.

Anyway, for keen prospective TGO Challengers, there might be something in it that you might like to see. I have bundled it onto Google Documents so all you have to do to see it, is click HERE

HALLELUJAH!

With thanks to the little brother with no hair..

MAP TEST 3

GOC 2010 DAY 2: Click on the map to make it bigger!

Let's see if this is any clearer. I have just been speaking with Uncle Darren and he tells me that the original advice given to me does in fact work and that I am just a dumb cluck (or words to that effect - he is a bright bloke and I am a knuckle-dragging dunderhead when it comes to things technological...)

This time, when you click on it, it should be mightily huge and gob-smackingly brilliant and you will all want to bow down to me and want all my babies. You will desire me to be King and stuff and sort out this terror of Global Warming and the crisis in the Middle East whilst I'm at it. Okay - No Problemo then... So let's see if it works...

MAP TEST 2

Lets try it this way now - Hopefully, when you click on it it will become sharper? Won't know until I try..... Ho hum...

MAP TEST

There are some clever devils out there in the blogosphere. If this works and you can actually see Day 1 of our route for Next year's Chally, I will be amazed... It didn't work as I was instructed:

"Well, plot the route in Anquet, take a Screen Print (Ctl + Prt Scr), paste it into a piccy editing program and trim to size. Easy!"

I had to save the thing as a pdf, (that was tricky too) and then import it into Photoshop to trim it a bit and then convert it into a jpeg.

Perhaps more trouble than it's worth? What do you think?

You see, I am thinking of printing off all my LEJOG days like this and having them as pictures alongside the text for each day of the blog... or something like that anyway, if the Big Bad Ordnance Survey Don't Come And Sue My Arse Off for doing it. I shall post more about this later. I feel the sap starting to rise again and I am now ready to have more conversations with the BBOS.

AN OUTDOOR BLOGGER GOES FOR A WALK

It's this fella's fault that my legs ache today.

You see, he invited a few of us along (well when I say 'a few' what I really mean is twenty five) for a spot of lunch in a pub in the White Peak. Now these legs aren't used to this 'walking' business at all - this is an outdoor blog, all said and done - and you can't possibly expect me to blog about being outside if I am out there in the cold damp air, actually outside, can you? I  need to be here in my office, in the warm, with the cat on my lap, slurping a rather nice cappuccino and pulling ideas out of the skull cinema to share with you.

Well after a bit of prodding Lord Elpus & I decided to see what all the fuss was about - we would get in the car, drive all the way to some countryside and then go for a walk with a ragbag of ramblers. This 'countryside' thing was fascinating: It was like Suffolk and Cambridgeshire but a bit more crumpled up and with Rivers and trees and stuff, too.

(It did all smell a bit like the muck-spreader had been out for a week beforehand.)

Mill Dale (Click on picture for larger image)

Ramblers

Sunset

Shirl

Rose

Lord Elpus

So - in a typically Lord Elpus Winter Walk sort of way, we all finished in the gloaming, in the cold, in the middle of nowhere with mud up to our eyeballs.

Mileage: A few too many.                                                                          

Food and Drink: Laphroaig & three rather fine pints of Black Sheep and Fish&Chips.

Photo details: Box Brownie, no filters, apart from those pinched from Shirl's fags.

TGO CHALLENGE ROUTE: DOCTORED

Perhaps that should have said 'vetted' but with others having had bad experiences with vets recently, I thought it best to play safe.

Yes, Lord Elpus has had our route returned to us with a big tick and a gold star and absolutely no red ink! Our doctor this year was once more the excellent Bert Hendrikse - an athlete, a Dutchman and a chap whose legs disappear into the stratosphere before reaching his armpits. I walked with Bert and his partner Suus, a long time ago from Braemar to Tarfside. He was astonishingly quick. And a real gentleman.

Bert has made some interesting comments:

• Day 1: ... will also be a very rough section...
• Day 2: An area of unusually rough and steep complexity, very wild and beautiful as you climb these Munros. You'll be on your own for the cheese & wine party.
• Day 3: The river can be a problem in spate...
• Day 4: The top section of the bealach will indeed be wet & boggy
• Day 5: (Camping at 3,000ft) Fingers crossed for a nice sunny day...
• Day 8: Camping on the Cairngorm plateau can be rather windy...
• Day 9: If you want to do more Munros, I suggest.... (IS THIS MAN MAD?)
• Day 10: I recommend that you order your tea & scones from Stan & Bill beforehand, to avoid disappointment. Your next day will be a very, very hard day...
• Day 11: ... a vast area of peat hags....more to come over the next two hills as well...you can't avoid the peat...
• Day 12: ...another dreadful day....

So it all looks very rufty-tufty and up to scratch then. Well done to us!

With all this rufty-tufty stuff I had better pull on the slippers and get out for a walk - it will come as quite a shock to the legs. I had better warn them. Lord Elpus & I are joining a bit of a bun fight on Sunday.

BIRTHDAY BOY

It's relentless. Every year, without fail, I get older.

To ease the pain of this year's slide into decrepitude we took my sorry carcass down to London yesterday afternoon to have a mooch about and a little something to eat for my B'day Pressie.

But we started with a waltz around the West End; two pubs and a couple of cafes.  Patisserie Valerie was well below par - it seems to have been hi-jacked by hefty American & elfin Japanese tourists. It must have been published in their guide books. We shall probably give it a miss for a few years until it calms back down, which is a shame as it used to be a perfect little coffee shop.

Christmas is a good time for mulled wine, whisky, little poached pear tartlets in the Royal Academy (supplied by Sketch) and a stroll through the Burlington Arcade. The shoppers were all out in force but they seemed less urgent this year. Have we all got more polite or am I slowly getting more tolerant of shovey-pushiness on the pavements in my increasing dotage?

Anyway, we did well and finally made it to a lovely little eatery in Bruton Street. It was gorgeous. I had fois gras, red mullet and cheese cake. Lynnie had ravioli, turbot and creme caramel. That all sounds simple but it was simply fabulous. You don't hear much of the chef in the media, Philip Howard, but, by 'eck! That lad can cook...