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  1. #1051
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    Superb tale, sir!!!!!!!!

  2. #1052
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    Anyway, now that's all cleared up...

    I have three main regrets about my pilgrimage. The first was that I never tried the rhubarb cider. Sorry Shutree, it was there to try but as it was I hid my cider in a cold box in the RAV4's boot so my mum didn't have a go at me. I didn't want to start taking flagons of scrumpy back home.



    The second was, that I never got a chance to wear my Captain's hat... unfinished business there Reg Dingle.

    And the third was that my mum only served up steak and kidney pie once, in nearly five weeks. OK, so she's 86, but even so...

    We left Somerset last Monday, took the car back on Sunday, so Saturday was our last proper day.

    My mum finally offered up steak and kidney pie for Saturday lunchtime. The pastry was a bit broken but the taste was superb. My daughter's favourite meal in the whole, wide world.



    Can you believe that my mum hadn't served up lamb for our entire trip? That last weekend we had some serious catching up to do.

    What I'd give to have this choice in Korat!



    And get this... there was no suitable lamb shoulder for me, so Walter took out more and butchered it in front of us. Bet ya don't get that in Patters, HW?



    But anyway, the last day of having a car we had a final task.

    Across the Mendips to Cheddar for our last ice cream. On the way a lovely Mendip late summer scene... no combine harvester of course.



    The final ice creams of the pilgrimage. A Raspberry Ripple overlying a Lemon Curd for me and a Cookies and Cream over a Vanilla Honeycombe for the daughter. Lovely... with fudge sticks. It don't get better than that.



    But anyway, before Sunday's roast lamb lunch I had to continue my daughter's education in all things British so we popped into a local curry house.

    While we were waiting...



    And back home... a chicken tikka masala to ease the daughter into traditional English fare... and a lamb jalfrezi for meself. I always go for lamb... either a jalfrezi or a rogan josh.

    Her education complete!



    Our last day... Sunday roast lamb...



    And after lunch, while the daughter spent the afternoon cooking up tiffin with her Grandmother...



    I could relax...



    Luvvly Jubbly!

    The next day we were off, the end of our pilgrimage.

    After being fleeced by Arrow Taxis... I truly had a couple of surreal experiences which really made me think this really had been a pilgrimage...

    The first was that someone had left their discarded trolley by the trolley rank outside the Bristol Airport Terminal... thus saving me £2 that the thieving b@stards want... to use a trolley to take your luggage to their gates...



    The second was that, after sitting on the plane for a few minutes, it started spitting with rain... the first for weeks. How freaky was that... 5 minutes after boarding? We'd had clear blue skies for almost our entire pilgrimage... and it starts raining when we leave. Wow!!!



    And the third... a hated Lufthansa plane on the tarmac... they have now agreed to partially recompense me for my disaster journey getting home a couple of months ago. Freaky stuff, but i still won't fly with them again.

    Goodbye Somerset until next time. I love to visit you but it will never be home again.



    The mum's house, the big oak tree and the river we failed to catch trout in, all visible in this pic. That's why I always book a port side seat when flying out of Bristol.

    The end!

  3. #1053
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    ^ Not sure what happened here... I seem to have double post after editing. Mods, the first can be deleted but it doesn't really matter!

  4. #1054
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrWilly View Post
    Nope, the ships had to be self sufficient.
    Thank you for your reply.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    The end!
    Indeed, Happy Trails.

  5. #1055
    Making people dance. :-)
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrWilly View Post
    the ships had to be self sufficient.
    Some amazing sheet, in terms of food.

    Feeding 850 sex-starved men (unless they did a bit of Bendy-Mendy n Dill sausage stonehenge'ing) with 3 square meals a day, men that needed to be kept in fighting shape, for (presumably) months on end.




    Shurely they had lots of fishing lines off the bac... stern, right?

  6. #1056
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    ^ What Is the Origin of the Saying "Square Meal"?

    The term square meal is a nautical term from the days of old sailing ships. Any significant meals (usually the last one of the day) would be eaten off a square-shaped wooden plate, which also served as the tray. A decent meal on board became known as a square meal.

  7. #1057
    Making people dance. :-)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    What Is the Origin of the Saying "Square Meal"?

    The term square meal is a nautical term from the days of old sailing ships. Any significant meals (usually the last one of the day) would be eaten off a square-shaped wooden plate, which also served as the tray. A decent meal on board became known as a square meal.
    What Is the Origin of the Saying "Square Meal"?

    The term square meal is a nautical term from the days of old sailing ships. Any significant meals (usually the last one of the day) would be eaten off a square-shaped wooden plate, which also served as the tray. A decent meal on board became known as a square meal.



    "Square Meal" | Origin and Meaning.
    #doing.a.chitty


    #we.want.originality

  8. #1058
    A Cockless Wonder
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    ^^^^^Perfect epitaph to the pilgrimage with the patchwork countryside out of the KLM port-hole.

    HMS Victory was the highlight for me.



    I have been practising some nautical napping techniques thanks to this thread.

    Senorita Surabaya asked me what I was going to do with my new rock garden when she saw it was finished. The first idea that popped into my head was a hammock and I suspect the idea was subconsciously conjured from reading about life onboard the Victory.

    She then walked over to rummage in the back of her cavernous Tardis-like truck and retrieved this bewt.

    A pilgrimage across southern England-img_20220819_165713-jpg

    It was a surreal experience to go from the nascent spontaneous idea of maybe getting a hammock to actually having one in the space of 30 seconds.

    I had forgotten how somnolent the swinging motion is. I reckon those sailors probably slept quite well.

    I was on triple-shot macchiato to stop me nodding off today trying to finish the end of Ian McEwans's Machines Like Us

    A pilgrimage across southern England-img_20220820_162028-jpg

  9. #1059
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    Brilliant thread Khun Mendip. Think you missed a trick though. As you stayed at the Vauxhall Travelodge you could have popped into the Oval, fixtures permitting, and introduced your daughter to the glories of County Championship cricket. A steady 3 runs (maximum) per over may have stimulated a life long passion for cricket into her. Alternatively after 2 days watching, and you patiently explaining the finer nuances, the Evening Standard headlines may have read something like: "Pre-Teen Daughter Batters Father to Death in Vauxhall Travelodge".

  10. #1060
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    It could all have been so much cheaper and less stressfulllllllll

    Busman’s holiday: Cornwall for a fiver

    Armed with one of the new rover passes, Phoebe Taplin explores the county’s coastline

    The feathery tops of the tall Cornish tamarisk hedges are just at eye level. Beyond them, swallows are swooping low over the barley. I can smell wet hay and honeysuckle, feel salty rain on my face and see out of narrow sunken lanes to the endless, wind-whipped sea. Unlike car drivers, winding blindly through the banks and hedges, I get spectacular views up here on the open top deck. And, thanks to a new rover ticket, the journey is a bargain too. The best way to see Cornwall at the moment is by bus.

    In April 2022 Cornwall council introduced new fares, including a £5 all-day ticket that offers unlimited travel across the whole county on buses, including several open-toppers, run by any company. The Cornwall day tickets are valid on any bus, anywhere in the county. You could even travel all the way from the Eden Project to Land’s End if you wanted to spend four hours each way watching the Cornish scenery from bus windows. I buy my day tickets on the First app, but you can simply get them from the driver.

    Hugging the pink-rocked Devon coast, with water often just outside the train window, the railway line to Cornwall is one of the UK’s great scenic journeys. People seem to be put off by the idea of being limited if you turn up without a car, but there’s a (mostly) fabulous bus network. From St Austell station, the No 27 bus takes 15 minutes to reach YHA Eden Project, where I’m staying in a gleaming Airstream caravan with a comfy bed inside and a firepit outside.

    Bees are humming round tall crimson thistles and pale spires of toadflax the next morning. This is Pollinator Pathmaker, a new artwork at the Eden Project by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, blooming for the first time. It’s a garden created expressly for insects. Nearby, more bees range happily over the rock-roses, and wild orchids have seeded themselves in a moth-magnet prairie. Eden’s massive greenhouse domes, in nearly 30 acres of gardens, still manage to look futuristic two decades after they first opened. In the Mediterranean biome, the air smells of sage and citrus blossom, and three ancient olive trees, lowered into place in 2019, look at home among poppies and love-in-a-mist.

    Eden’s green focus fits well with exploring by public transport. The hourly No 25 bus from St Austell stops near Charlestown’s Shipwreck Treasure Museum (£12.50; shipwreckcharlestown.co.uk), a salvaged labyrinth of barnacle-crusted porcelain, jet buttons and barrels of coins. The bus rolls leisurely onwards to Fowey, a small coastal town pronounced to rhyme with joy, and I climb through wild-garlic-pungent woods to St Catherine’s Castle (free; english-heritage.org.uk).

    This is Daphne du Maurier country. The coast path sinks to a water lily lake at Polridmouth Cove, which features in Rebecca; inland, up a wooded track with bursts of purple rhododendron, there’s a glimpse of Menabilly, du Maurier’s home and the inspiration for Manderley. I stroll down through the woods to the Rashleigh Inn at Polkerris, facing west across water turned gold by late afternoon sun (mains from £15; therashleighinn.co.uk). A local red ale goes well with smoked mackerel and tangy pickled pink onion, but doesn’t make it easier to climb over the final cliff into Par.

    Buses are great for linear walks — no need to get back to a parked car. The last direct bus to Eden has gone, but later services stop in St Blazey Gate. From here, I follow a sunken lane a mile or so back to my caravan with dappled light falling through high arched beech trees. It’s one of the loveliest paths I’ve ever walked; if I’d called a taxi, I might never have found it.

    A holiday by bus doesn’t have to mean budget accommodation. I’m spending my last couple of nights on the craggier north coast at Watergate Bay Hotel, with its new beach-loft bedrooms and full-size, sea-view pool (B&B doubles from £220; watergatebay.co.uk). It’s just a minute’s walk from the Phoenix bus stop on the open-topped Atlantic Coaster route between Newquay and Padstow. A massage using salt that smells of rainy herb gardens and orange groves leaves me so relaxed I don’t want to move. A few steps away is the new beachside Restaurant Emily Scott, where the six-course tasting menu features local delicacies such as Padstow lobster, gurnard in sea buckthorn and Cornish saffron bun ice cream (£75; emilyscottfood.com).

    The next day dawns grey and drizzly, so I opt for an hour-long bus ride through misty green hills to Truro, where the spires of a fine late-Victorian cathedral tower over quays and cobbled alleys. Chatting to a fellow passenger helps me plan the day, which starts with a wander around the Royal Cornwall Museum. There’s an antique coach, an Egyptian mummy and a room full of multicoloured rocks that celebrate Cornish mining: shining ruby-purple cuprite and long crystals of tin ore (£7.50; royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk).

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-busmans-holiday-cornwall-for-a-fiver-8lc2crn6n

  11. #1061
    A Cockless Wonder
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    Epically awesome toober doco on the mighty HMS Victory


  12. #1062
    A Cockless Wonder
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    It is not labelled as Part 2 but I think this must be part 2 - released 4 days ago

    I have not watched it yet but if it is anything like as good as part 1 ye be in for a timber-shivering good time ha haar


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