A month or so ago we renewed our Senior Rail Cards, which entitle us to cheaper train travel around the UK. It was with some trepidation that we organised travel to our son’s home in Buckinghamshire. Train travel has been problematical for a good part of the year. The outward journey went smoothly: the return journey involved a lot of standing around at Euston station watching a noticeboard that kept telling us our train to Manchester was increasingly delayed. But we got home safe and sound, without too much trauma, unlike the people in this account of travel from London to Edinburgh.
Of course, if you can travel by helicopter or private jet, you don’t have such problems.
One part of the account tells of a group of schoolchildren and their teachers. Avanti West Coast’s solution of providing taxis from Preston (where their train terminated prematurely) to Edinburgh didn’t work for this group as it would have involved putting groups of unaccompanied schoolchildren into taxis. In the end they organised a coach and bought all the children chips to keep them going! Crazy times!
I thought about chips as I made my way to the supermarket this morning. I had caught the bus which follows the scenic route through Diggle instead of going directly through Uppermill on its way to Greenfield (location of the supermarket) and beyond. This bus takes us past the famous Diggle chippy, which we have not visited for some time now. Our failure to organise “chippy hikes” is another story, possibly for another day. Anyway, as we sailed past the chippy I found myself thinking back to the days when you could buy a portion of chips for sixpence - that’s six old pence! About 2 pence in today’s currency. In my youth you would go into the chipshop and order “six of chips”, in my case often to eat walking along the streets of Leeds on my way home from university.
Last Friday I paid an inordinate amount of money for a variety of items ‘n’ chips (fish ‘n’ chips, sausage ‘n’ chips, scampi ‘n’ chips) for a family supper. But we were 5 adults and 2 small people so it was never going to be cheap. However, I witnessed another customer order a “lite bite”, which I think was fish with a small portion of chips; it cost her £13.95, which seems a little extortionate to me. This is why families end up at McDonald’s!
Thinking of food, it is interesting that when a person is a rubbish cook, in English we say that person “can’t boil an egg” while in Spanish they say, “no sabe freir un par de huevos” - s/he doesn’t know how to fry a couple of eggs. (Please note that the Spanish use more eggs in their expression!) Both these methods of cooking eggs are not as easy as the expressions try to make us think, but there it is. Here is a link to an article about how adding a fried egg can enhance food.
I was amused to read this section: “The addition of a fried egg is often enough to turn any dish into a breakfast thing, but Angela Hartnett argues that her wild mushrooms on toast with fried egg could just as well be served as lunch or dinner. Well, I may not use wild mushrooms and I may not add garlic and thyme to my version but I have been serving “mushrooms on toast with an egg on top” as a main meal for more years than I care to remember. Occasionally I add a slice of ham under the mushrooms.
So, eat your heart out Angela Hartnett, this is not “your” dish at all!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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