Port Sunlight delight

I surveyed the remains of a convenient and reasonably cheap breakfast of the kind can be bought in supermarket restaurants, motorway service areas or department store coffee shops. The table was littered with empty paper packets that formerly contained salt, pepper, brown sauce and sugar. There were the empty plastic drums that held the UHT milk, each one holding just less than the milk I require for one cup of tea. There would be occasions when there would be a used tea bag, but at least this time we had an individual, stainless steel tea pot. The table was a heap of litter, all of which was unlikely to be recycled. It appalled me.

No wonder it is cheap. You do all the work apart from cooking of the food and putting the items on the plate. You are even required to clear you own table and place your debris in the appropriate place. People talk about quality of life, but for me with this kind of catering there is little of any life enhancing quality. It represented, I suppose, good value for money as something no doubt very similar was available in our Liverpool hotel, but for nearly three times the amount.

I do not wish to be too downbeat about it, because being in Port Sunlight the day before was a world away in many ways. We had arrived at lunchtime and decided to eat before wandering around Lord Leverhulme's grand soap opus. I sat as Trish queued, but at the moment of being served, a fire alarm sounded. No one moved. In fact there was a moment when all the people in the fairly busy restaurant stopped doing what they were doing before carrying on as before, confidently declaring that it was more than likely a false alarm. Eventually, we were asked to leave the restaurant and assemble on the car park by an assistant from the shop ajoining. We walked past many tables full of abandoned meals and cups of coffee and tea. Like listening to the William tell overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger, it was difficult to look at these tables without hearing the words Marie Celeste forming in the mind.

This event made up our minds to find elsewhere for refreshment. The Port Sunlight garden centre was clearly another debris style eatery which we left and went on the tea rooms close to the railway station. And it was here that we had a good old fashioned afternoon tea, ordered by talking to a waiter, who began by explaining apologetically that unfortunately that there was only one slice of Victoria sponge cake left. I looked towards it as it sat on its plate in the cake cabinet. As a slice, it was a very generous one. We were asked to select two kinds of sandwich to precede the cake and what kind of tea we would prefer. All ready, we were relaxed and anticipating a delight. There was no disappointment. Tea arrived in a pot pot, covered with a tea cosy. The presence of the tea strainer told us the tea was loose leaf - not the bagged version. The sandwiches and cakes turned up on a pot tiered cake stand, sandwiches on the lower plate with the cakes above. Butter, cream and jam were in a little open pot container. Sugar of course was in its own bowl, made of pot of course. The milk was fresh and jugged - this is not a contradiction.

The sandwiches were finger style, made of sliced bread with the crusts removed. In all we could share four varieties of freshly made sandwiches.

I know that this kind of service and preparation is still to be found in many places, but I suspect, until I research such places, at a price and certainly not in any abundance. But the quality this experience had added to the enjoyment of our visit to Port Sunlight has made me want to shun plastic packet, debris ridden self service forever.

Rumpies,stumpies and knobs

Queen's promenade does impose itself on the sweeping bay. Rising 4 to 5 storeys high, the edge to edge hotels and boarding houses present a quite forbidding wall. They have names that give off status and class. The Savoy, the Empress, Claremont, Sefton and Ascot. They are splendidly iced cake edifices projecting from the promenade like a row of teeth. Part of the facade is called grandly the Empire Terrace.

There are no concessions to it being near the seaside. No arcades flash, fast food is restricted to one fish and chip shop and where one buys a bucket and spade on this extensive sweep of coast is not obvious. To say Douglas is behind the times is an insult to this insular gem. It does remind many of some aspects Britain of the 1950s, but it is the nicer aspects and they were probably wished for again if readers of the Daily Express and Daily Mail are to be believed.

The place is clean, free of graffiti and the drivers are courteous to a point they stop as you even consider crossing at a pedestrian crossing. Although there is a MacDonalds, I cannot tell you where, but there are several mainland high street chains such as M&S, Next and TK Maxx.
The island is not time locked but showing that it can change.

It is not without its grimmer side. Ramsay, the island's second largest town has much run down property but is about to have a spanking new swimming pool. It already has one, but there is to be another one. It is being built along side some very crumbly buildings, much in the style of Douglas' seafront, but very downmarket. Seeded shrubs and weeds have established themselves in the crannies and gaps in the crumbling walls. Above the door of a former hotel cum pub, someone has placed a temporary sign calling the decaying shell of a structure "Bleak House". Perhaps its about to go, to be replaced by a further sporting and recreational structure. The town's rugby club is further along; this leads to a skateboard park and BMX circuit. Youth is clearly catered for. Its all between the coast and the pride of Ramsay - Mooragh Park.

The park reminds me immediately of parks from my child hood. Everything is there and everything is clean and orderly. There is a large boating lake surrounded by neat lawns and planted borders. A novelty putting course, complete with windmills and castles is being played on by families. Eight or nine youths are playing tennis; a round robin affair with half of them on one side of the net with the opposition the other side. Each takes it in turn to keep the rally going.

Further on, there is is a jumpers for goal posts football game, which has been temporarily stopped for a ball in the boating lake moment. One boy, possibly the culprit of the errant kick which resulted in the ball bobbing in the water, is gingerly edging himself into the water. What was heard next sums up for me the tenor of the island. The onshore discussion, by his dry friends, centred around the need for something to throw and hook over the ball. One of them ran towards the lifebuoy station. As he drew the others attention to the possibility of using this life saving equipment, his friend politely reminded him against using it by saying, "You can't use that. Its not allowed." The lifebuoy was left alone. That there were lifebuoys available was enough for me, but clearly this was a moment of faith in the younger generation, at large in public.

Apart from Ramsay, which had its charms, there is Peel. A seaside place of bliss. A castle to explore, a great sandy beach, a busy harbour landing langosutine and squat lobster, a possibility of seeing whales and dolphins and the best ice cream on the island. Port Erin has much the same, but openings to the north and south of great coast walks. Castletown, the ancient capital....... I will go again.

The islanders appear proud of their heritage and independence. The population of just over 80,000 contains only about 50% Manx born citizens. But in the the Matcham gem of a theatre, they play the anthem at the end of the performance and the audience stand and the audience sing, though not lustily, their own national anthem. In my child hood, I recall the mad dash by my parents and many of the audience from the cinema at the opening note of our national anthem.

A few years ago I went to the Isle of Arran in the waters off the Firth of Clyde. It was my first holiday in Scotland, chosen due to its claim that it was advertised as Scotland in miniature. The Isle of Man is England in miniature. Rolling lake land fells, dramatic Cornish coasts, midshires rolling farmland, villages and seaside towns and harbours. But that is where the comparison stops. Inside my head. The independent Manx mind would not have it. They are part of the British Isles only. Separate to the United Kingdom and the Great Britain, they would not allow such a comparison to be made or used to promote itself. They are Manx.

Oh , yes. Rumpies and stumpies are Manx cats. Knobs are Manx humbug.

End game - Fin de Jeu Pyrenean

A day by the sea at Collioure gave some of us the opportunity to have moules et frites , unless you were the carnivore who only considered a source of protein as viable if the animal had four legs and had hair. The town has moved on since 1905, when Henri Matisse arrived, painted pictures pulsating with light and colour this giving birth to Fauvism. It still is an artists town, a bit like St Ives here in the UK. There are streets given over to small studios and the around the harbour artists are offering their take on the landscape and culture. It is now very much keen on tourism.

Given over from a fishing port, mainly anchovies, to a port of call for tourists, it was busy, doubly so as it was market day. So much was the decision taken to harbour tourists and not fish that the fishing fleet was told to virtually pack up.

After lunch, we took our own route around this picturesque and popular place.
We were clearly on the homeward leg of the walking trip, but feeling we had achieved a worthwhile thing and would love to do more, perhaps next year. We assembled as arranged at the railway station to return for the last night at Hotel des Elmes.

Another dinner back at Banyuls sur Mer was not being looked forward too. The reservation about lack of volume of food, recorded in an earlier blog, was joined by another one because the previous evening meal was on an open air terrace, though with a canvas roofing. This delightful setting was spoiled by being us surrounded by smokers. Only when smokers eat, they tend to have a cigarette between courses. At least that's what I did when I was addicted. Smokers seem to have taken over the outdoor terraces, so much so that it is more pleasant, as a non smoker, to sit indoors, despite the weather being inductive to being outdoors.



We asked to sit indoors and, with the acceptance, all the formality of the previous night seemed to go. Why there was even an alternative for David. he had no more than began to give the slightest hint of disapproval to the fish, when the maitre eagerly offered him a meaty alternative.



And so the meal went well. Tomorrow afternoon we would set of for home