It also happened to be the day I earmarked for a little day out with the delightful assistants.

Our first stop was Le Jardin Cafe at Kinross, about 45 minutes into the journey.

It was over 4 hours since I’d had my breakfast, so I was ready for a little something, and I opted for a pot of tea and one of their delectable apple and cinnamon scones:

The two assistants chose coffee and fruit scones. The scones were accompanied by dishes of outstandingly delicious apple and plum jam, which were heartily consumed.

Suitably refreshed, we buzzed off on the road again into lovely sunny weather, heading for the county of Dumfries and Galloway.

Due to misunderstanding my road atlas, I didn’t quite manage to reach my desired destination and ended up not in the village of Moniaive as intended, but 40-odd miles away in the town of Moffat.

Moffat is a place that offers several attractions to the tourist, one of which is a big sheep (a ram, in fact) on a plinth above a drinking fountain in the town centre. Rather curiously, it has no ears, and apparently never has had any:

The Moffat Ram – a trifle deaf perhaps, but a fine fellow nonetheless

It was sculpted by celebrated Scottish sculptor William Brodie, and gifted to the town in 1875.

Another point of interest in the town is the Moffat Toffee Shop:

A Moffat institution, not to be missed.

This splendid shop has been in existence (although not always on these premises) for about 120 years, and is still run by the same family who started it up in the late 1800s.

I’m getting ahead of myself here but after our lunch, which I’m about to detail below, the delightful assistants and I entered this haven of confectionery, where I captured them attempting to make off with two large tubs of sweets:

Assistants trying to abscond with stacks of sweets

They managed to restrict themselves to 200g bags of two types of sweeties, and I purchased some deliciously melting praline delicacies, which I meant to photograph before we wolfed them yesterday. I do still have a bar of interesting chocolate to try, however:

A treat still to be savoured.

To get back to the proper order of things, before we went into the sweet shop, we wondered where we might partake of a little luncheon.

Although Moffat is a busy tourist centre, particularly in the summer when coachloads of visitors appear, it’s not what I’d call a hot spot for tremendous tearooms.

Given this state of affairs, we decided we’d try one of the hotels for our meal.

The first one we looked at is quite a landmark in these parts, indeed it bills itself as ‘The Famous Star Hotel’. I suppose it has good reason to claim this accolade since it features in the Guinness World Records as the world’s narrowest hotel.

The Star Hotel with a crow helpfully flying over the roof to give scale to the picture.

It’s only 20ft wide, but it’s one of the tallest buildings in the main street and it stretches out a considerable way at the back:

If you look along the side of the Star Hotel you find that it goes back a fair distance. I think it looks like a steam engine at the front with a string of railway carriages behind.

We mulled over the menu outside, but felt we needed a little more stretching of the legs before sitting down again and so wandered along to another hotel.

This rather magnificent building was designed by Robert Adam and was built in the 1750s for the Earl of Hopetoun:

There were several seating options, including the sun lounge:

But it was such a glorious day that we chose to sit outside:

The back of the building proved to have some nicely rounded walls. Our table was just behind the tall dark green tree left of centre below:

As is the norm in Scottish hotels, there was one token veggie option on the menu (a pasta dish, which is frequently the case), but I wasn’t in the mood for pasta so I plumped for fish and chips:

The assistants both went for cottage pie, which came with lovely baby carrots:

I must say, the fish was particularly good, the peas eminently edible and the chips nice and crispy. The assistants declared their meals equally acceptable.

Despite tantalising choices on the menu, we decided to save our puddings for a tearoom on the way home, but we did enjoy sitting in the sun admiring the Moffat House Hotel garden and an attractive little seating area that would be delightful with rambling roses growing over it and a cream tea spread out on the table:

On our way out of the hotel, delightful assistant no.1 spotted an extravagantly finished banister rail. This is part of the original, and extremely impressive, Adam-designed cantilevered staircase that spirals up inside the building. I imagine he made it swirl a bit extra at the bottom for aesthetic reasons:

After leaving Moffat, we stopped to look at some fair weather cumulus clouds which were bubbling up from the skyline:

As usual, my post is elongating beyond a healthy length so I’ll save our afternoon snacks for a separate article.

When I unwrapped it on Christmas morning and saw that it was indeed a box of something, the dimensions immediately suggested a pair of shoes.

Here is the Christmas box unwrapped on the left, with a rather natty shoe box on the right to show the similarity in size:

The wording on the box, however, suggested something quite different:

This might lead you to believe that there was wine inside. However, this chum, despite being something of a wine connoisseur himself, knows that I don’t drink the stuff. What, then, was in the box?

Something much more up my street:

Having so much other rich food at Christmas, I wanted to keep this special box for a later date. It is definitely a sharing present, and was given to me with the intention that I share it with my delightful assistants.

I’m excited about all of it, but I’m especially looking forward to trying the tea:

And the cake:

And the jelly babies:

And the pudding:

And the biscuits (which I will be very happy to dunk in the tea, to allow them to fulfil their duty):

I look forward to reporting on the tasting of these in due course.

Having seen what was in the left hand box in the first picture, you might be curious to see what was in the right hand one.

The box itself is rather decorative, with pretty tissue paper covering the the shoes inside:

The shoes:

These are in fact the shoes I got married in. The marriage is, alas, no more and sciatica prevents me from tottering around in heels these days, but I do still take these beauties out of the box every now and then to have a look at them.

As you can see, they’re not only decorative on the top, but the soles are covered in rabbits popping out of teapots:

The shoe is lined with turquoise velvet, the outside being finished in pink velvet with tinselly coloured stripes and a big bow at the toe. The heel is chunky, pink and translucent, with a leaf motif and a blue bit at the end:

This morning I began re-reading the first page of what I’ve written, and discovered that it’s so mindbogglingly tedious that I can’t even reach the bottom of the page without yawning my head off and wishing I was watching paint dry. Is this because I’ve read it so often, or is it because it genuinely is mind-bogglingly tedious?

I’m not sure, but it puts me in the sticky situation of not knowing what to do next. I could put the first 10,000 words to the back of my mind, pick up where I left off and keep writing regardless, or I could completely start again, rehashing the whole thing from scratch, or I could give up on it altogether, and accept that I will never write a novel.

Just at this moment, giving up seems a) the most sensible, and b) impossible. Even if every word I write is utter drivel, I don’t think I can stop myself from having a go at bashing out chapters of the stuff. Although I do think most of what I’ve written so far is excruciatingly dull, something inside me can’t seem to give it up on it.

Given this sorry state of affairs, having a bit of a whinge on my blog seemed like a refreshing balm for the soul. In fact, I feel better already, and would like to now make up for my moaning with pictures of a nice lunch I had last month in the utterly splendid bookshop and cafe, ReadingLasses (it specialises in books by women writers – rather a clever name, don’t you think?), in the small town of Wigtown.

I’ve written before about this place (here), and my most recent visit – while on holiday in Galloway with the delightful assistants – was as pleasing as ever.

It was exceptionally busy the day we popped in for luncheon, there being a busload of about 30 American tourists just having shipped in, shortly to be followed by a second busload. Each of them wanted to pay for their own meal, which led to a great deal of queueing and till-side confusion when it came to settling the bills. The way the shop is laid out, there’s not much space at the till area, indeed if you have more than one punter standing there it feels a tad cramped. We were seated near the till and the spectacle of politely shuffling tourists, peering at their strange currency and trying to remember what they’d eaten and therefore wanted to pay for, afforded us great entertainment. A small dog, that I think lives in the shop, added to the hullabaloo by getting in amongst the feet of punters and waitresses, and was clearly much excited by the sociable atmosphere.

I had been hoping for the shepherdess pie I had on my last visit here, but it wasn’t on the menu, so I plumped for a delicious sounding three bean chilli (vegan, to boot) instead. It came with crisp French bread, tortilla chips and some lettuce. The chilli was extremely hot, but the side items and a lovely glass of cool tap water helped to cool down my burning mouth. It was tasty and satisfying:

Thanks to it being, although quite substantial, also fairly light, I had room for a pudding. The puddings here are as good as the main courses, and I was tempted by the rice pud I had enjoyed previously, but then I remembered the chocolate brownie.

On the whole, I’m not much of a one for brownies, being suspicious of the sort of uncooked texture of the middle, but I had tasted one here before and recalled how exquisite it was. I took the plunge. It was served hot with ice cream, and I paired it rather decadently with an excellent decaf cappuccino:

I don’t know if that appeals to you or not, but I wish I could let you taste it. It exceeded my expectations, and even now I can lapse into a state of bliss just thinking of how the chocolate melted on the tongue and how the texture and warmth seemed to nourish my blood and make me fitter, stronger, and almost invincible. (This might be stretching things a bit, but it did make me feel magnificent, despite its artery-clogging potential.)

I can’t resist another picture of it, to emphasise the pleasure:

Delightful assistant no.1 also indulged in a dessert, and the rice pudding called to her. It was, to be truthful, more a plate of cream with some rice in it, which exactly suited her tastes:

And so, when I feel useless and unable to achieve what I’ve set out to do in the novel-writing department, at least I know I still have the ability to consume and enjoy delicious fare. Not perhaps the world’s greatest ever achievement, but eminently satisfying for me all the same.

It’s called Wigtown and it’s home to more than 20 book-related businesses (quite impressive for a place with a population of only about 1000), many of which are second-hand bookshops. One of them claims to be the largest second-hand bookshop in Scotland:

Those twisting pillars on either side of the door are made of piled up books covered in wax:

I remember the first time I went to Wigtown I had an unnerving sense of unease. I had no idea why I felt the way I did, but I had a strong impression that something wasn’t quite right. I’ve since visited it with three different friends, on separate occasions, and to my astonishment each one of them, with no prompting from me, reported the same strange feeling. My parents went there before I did and they felt it too.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this, in case you want to visit the place yourself and will now be predisposed to sensing something, but I feel I can’t write a post about Wigtown without mentioning it. If you’re curious, the explanation my parents gave me for it, and which seems quite convincing to me, relates to the story of the Wigtown Martyrs.

On to more cheerful matters – books galore! Despite the unsettling atmosphere of Wigtown, I do enjoy visiting it because of the marvellous range of bookshops on offer, and The Book Shop is definitely one of the highlights:

When I was there in April I noticed that a couple of the bookshops had closed down, perhaps due to lack of business (Galloway is a pretty quiet corner of the country and Wigtown is a very sleepy little backwater), but a fair number seem to be thriving and are still packed to the gunwhales with interesting tomes. The Book Shop has many different nooks and crannies, and books covering virtually every topic imaginable. If you like books, it is an absolute joy to wander round:

Amongst all the books, there are some curious ornaments, including a violin-playing skeleton suspended from the ceiling. I assume the poor fellow was hoisted up there after he’d passed on, and didn’t actually expire in situ, violin in hand:

Beneath the skeleton, in the bottom left hand corner of the above photo, you might make out a table with paper cups and things on it. This is a tea and coffee station, from where one is free to help oneself to hot beverages. There are a couple of comfy chairs next to it, upon which you may perch while you imbibe, and peruse a book or two. When I visited, the fire in the fireplace was blazing away and it was very cosy:

Knowing that I was bound for another bookshop that contained a more elaborate tearoom, I didn’t indulge here, but instead continued to wander round looking at books and reading messages in unlikely places:

As I say, I was saving my appetite for another bookshop that contained a tearoom. I’ll keep the details for another post because there’s quite a bit to say about it, but just to whet your appetite here’s a picture of the tasty fruit scone I had there. The jam in the background was astonishingly good. I wasn’t sure what the flavour was, but according to the waitress it was a locally made plum preserve. They had some jars of other jams on sale, but unfortunately none of the plum; if there had been any, I would have purchased one to take home:

I have another blog (on Blogger) that I often forget about, but I was reminded about it today and thought I’d do a little post for my dad’s birthday on it. Rather than repeat the post on this blog, you might like to have a look here:

A nice cup of tea

Although I don’t post on my other blog very often, I had it before I joined up with WordPress and there are some other bits of my life on there, including me at work (in theory I work offshore, but it’s more than 6 months since my last contract, and at the moment I can’t do it because of my wrist trouble). It’s so long since I’ve been to work that it feels quite nostalgic looking at the pictures. Here’s a taster:

A nice cup of tea

This place only opened in 2010 but has become very popular and was fairly hotching when we rolled up. Thankfully, someone had just vacated a nice corner table by the window, so we nabbed it in a timely manner.

There was an old-fashioned dark wooden bar near the entrance, with cloched cake stands gleaming temptingly. We both thought that the mirrored bar and style of wooden chairs made it feel a bit French. I took my chance for a quick photo when there was no-one sitting directly in my line of vision:

What we chose to have wasn’t very French, but it was a bit exotic. I went for falafel (Middle Eastern in origin, I believe), which was served very simply with a tub of Greek yoghurt and a beetroot side salad:

My assistant opted for a Greek salad, which was fairly swimming in olive oil but was declared most acceptable. She ordered some of the cafe’s own superbly crusty homemade bread to go with it, which could also be bought in loaf form to take away.

We didn’t have room for a pudding but on the way out I spotted these marvellous large meringues. They must have been about 5 inches in diameter:

On another occasion I may have to pop back and sample one.

The nearest town is about 40 minutes’ drive away along twisting humpity roads. If you’re looking for a bit of wild scenery and some very fresh air, this might just be the place for you.

The tearoom is in the main street.

The interior is immediately welcoming and, I think, surprisingly modern for somewhere so rural.

In addition to dining chairs (nicely provided with comfy cushions on the seats) there are four very attractively striped easy chairs, which I have tried out in the past and found most comfortable.

On this occasion, I was with four other members of my family, celebrating my sister’s birthday.

The tearoom is divided into two rooms, with a large window or two in each, allowing lots of natural daylight in. We sat next to this window, looking out into the main street and the hills around the lochside. There’s a picnic table outside, which I imagine would be lovely to sit at on a sunny summer’s day. Although the tearoom is on the main street, it’s a quiet little place.

I was torn between one of their soups of the day and one of their seeded rolls with truckle cheese and their own beetroot chutney. I’ve had the latter before and it was extremely good, but remembering that last time I’d found it very filling, I went for the soup. It wasn’t exactly the small option, served in a substantial bowl with a large chunk of crusty wholemeal bread on the side. The bread was amazingly good, warm and crisp on the outside and soft and tasty on the inside. Excellent. My brother and I had the pea and asparagus soup and my dad had cream of mushroom:

My sister had a cheese and ham panini which came with a lovely looking side salad, and a specially requested portion of the tearoom’s chutney on the side because she likes it so much:

My mum had a seeded roll with Rannoch smoked chicken and chilli jam:

I must admit, I was pretty full after my soup, and had struggled to finish such a large bowlful (they’re not mean on portion sizes, that’s for sure!) but I was also very keen to have a cake and so I found a little room for a coconut slice – mostly coconut sponge, then a little jam underneath and a thin sliver of pastry on the bottom. Jolly nice it was too:

The birthday girl had one of her favourite chocolate brownies:

My brother had cranachan cake (cranachan being a Scottish dessert containing oatmeal, cream and raspberries):

My mum had a piece of tiffiin but the photo I took was very fuzzy so I’ll gloss over that and move swiftly on to my dad’s choice of a quite splendidly chocolatey chocolate cake:

I borrowed a forkful of this cake in order to take a photo of it up close, but mysteriously it just sort of vanished and at the same time I was aware of a supremely chocolatey taste in my mouth.

Hot beverages accompanied these cakes for most of us, and I chose Rooibos tea. The black tea my mum ordered came made up in a teapot but the Rooibos came with a teapot of hot water and the teabag on the side. Apparently this is how they serve herbal teas, and my sister prefers it like this for peppermint tea, which she often chooses. However, next time I’ll ask them to put the teabag into the teapot and make it up for me, because Rooibos is like black tea in that it needs boiling water on it to infuse properly. Nonetheless, the small teapot filled a generous big mug, and looked intriguingly black and unidentifiable due to the colour of the mug. I felt mesmerised gazing into the dark watery depths:

Like many other tearooms, this one has a gift shop selling a variety of items including candles, pictures, cards and crockery:

There are some framed photographs and paintings by local artists and I particularly liked this red squirrel stretching it’s little jaws with a big nut:

After lunch we took a stroll along the beautiful lochside, where the clouds were starting to look very menacing. I’m glad to say we got back to shelter for birthday cake just as it was starting to rain.

When I made spiced pear scones the other day (click here) the following recipe is more or less what I used. (Because I’ve made scones so often I’m afraid I don’t always accurately measure ingredients).

I use the rather old-fashioned imperial measures because it’s what I was brought up with, and since the numbers are smaller than measuring in grams, they’re more practical for my easily confused mind.

Ingredients

4 oz self raising white flour

4 oz self raising wholemeal flour

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

2 oz margarine (you could use butter instead, but I use Flora spread)

2 oz soft brown sugar (any sugar would do, I just fancied using the soft brown stuff, and I think it was 2 oz I used, although I usually only use 1 oz, but I thought it might need more with the pear in it, in any case they weren’t too sweet)

1 level teaspoon of mixed spice

1 level teaspoon of cinnamon

1 rounded teaspoon of nutmeg (I don’t honestly know how much spice I used, I just shook it in, but I think I used more nutmeg than anything else)

1 Conference pear, peeled, de-seeded and chopped into chunks

1 egg, beaten

A little milk (again, guessing here, but it may have been a tablespoon or two, it depends on how big the egg is and how wet the mixture is before you add the milk)

Method

1. Set the oven at about 220 degrees Celsius (I used a fan oven at 220 and then turned it down to 210 after the first few minutes of baking so that my scones wouldn’t burn) with an oven shelf ready at the top of the oven.

2.  Mix flours and baking powder in a bowl, rub in margarine (you could use an electric mixer for this job but I always do it by hand because I find it quite therapeutic).

3.  Add sugar, spices and chopped pear to flour mixture and mix well.

4.  Add most of the beaten egg (keeping just a little aside to paint onto the scones before baking – this gives the scones a nice shiny glaze) and enough milk to make as wet a mixture as you can handle without it sticking to your hands and the rolling pin.

5.  Spread the area you’re going to roll the scone mixture out on with a bit of flour (I have a flour shaker filled with plain white flour, but you could use self raising, it really doesn’t matter).

6.  Divide the dough into two and, handling lightly, roll out each blob into a round about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick (this was a bit of a squishy job for me because my pear chunks were quite large).

7.  Cut each of the rounds into quarters (you could just mark the round and cook it all as one, dividing the scones once cooked which would make for more triangular scones, or you could press each scone out using scone cutters, which is what I normally do) and put onto a baking tray.

8.  Brush the top of each scone with the beaten egg using a pastry brush (I have occasionally smeared egg on with my fingers if I haven’t had a brush to hand) and bake at the top of the oven for 11 minutes (it could be 10, it could be 12, but I generally do it for 11 because I’ve found that this is what works with my oven).

The picture below shows how mine turned out. I did open the oven door quickly after about 7 minutes and turned the oven tray round but that’s only because my oven doesn’t cook evenly, you shouldn’t have to do that.

Happy baking!

I’m having a day at home today, writing and getting odd bits and pieces tidied up, so rather than go in search of such a thing in a tearoom (and what are the chances of me finding exactly what I was after? Quite slim, although I do know of one place in Dunkeld that sometimes features spiced pear scones on the menu), I decided to make some myself. Here’s the result:

I’ve just had one with butter (well, truth be told, Flora spread) and a nice cup of tea.

Pears are, in my opinion, a good addition to scones because they keep the whole thing moist and they melt away in the mouth when cooked (they’re also one of my favourite fruits and, apparently, one of the foodstuffs least likely to cause an allergic reaction). I peeled and chopped one Conference pear into chunks and I was pleased to see it in evidence in the finished article:

At the same time as enjoying my English Breakfast tea and pear scone, I also enjoyed a couple of blogs. If you’re not familiar with them you might like to have a little look. I only came across the first of these today but was very glad to have found it:

http://jowoolf.wordpress.com/

I’ve been following the next one for a short while, and am always cheered by the excellent photography:

http://thenaturephile.com/

This morning’s post by Finn (of thenaturephile.com) contains several superb photographs of blackbirds, as well as an entertaining drama starring the birds in his garden. I’ve borrowed one of these marvellous photos to give you a taster, but you’ll find plenty more wonderful pictures on the blog itself:

When I’m doing my ‘proper’ job at sea, there are teams of cooks who look after all the catering during the voyage. No unauthorised personnel are permitted to cook on the boat and so what we eat is determined largely by the cooks onboard. Being a reasonably health-conscious* vegaquarian, this is not the ideal situation for me, because meals are largely meat-based and there can be a lot of fried food. There are certain foods I miss at sea: my breakfast bagel, scones, cakes, and various veggie food I enjoy cooking at home, and although I would like to take more of my own food with me, there simply isn’t the luggage space. However, one thing I do always make room for in my luggage is a big bag of Twirls.

The Twirl first burst onto the scenes in the 1980s, and is now Cadbury’s best-selling chocolate bar. Hardly surprising, when you eat one and realise the absolute genius of the product.

It is based on the concept of the Cadbury’s Flake, which has been around since the 1920s:

The Twirl, in its standard form (there are several deviations available), consists of two bars of Flake, each coated in a thin layer of chocolate. The Flake is a single bar, slightly longer than the Twirl, and exists without the extra chocolate coating:

Even if you’re not familiar with Cadbury, you may well have seen a Flake, or something like it, sticking out of an ice cream, for the Flake has been a popular addition to ice cream cones throughout the decades, in the form of the ‘99‘ (there are suggestions about the derivation of the name on Wikipedia, which can be viewed by clicking on ’99′ above).

The Flake came into existence, the way many great inventions do, as a by-product of something else. In the 1920s some eagle-eyed employee of Cadbury’s noticed that when excess chocolate dribbled over the moulds used to create other bars, it fell off in folds leading to the trademark flakiness so central to both the Flake and the Twirl:

I do remember having a passion for Flakes pre-Twirl, but since I was born in 1972 I didn’t have much opportunity to establish them in my diet before Twirls came muscling in and stole my heart. The question that has been troubling me is this: is the Twirl really better than the Flake?

Today, I set out to find the answer. In order to start my investigation, I had to obtain both a Flake and a Twirl, which was an extremely easy task as my local shop very handily stocks both in profusion.  I got them home, opened them up and, as you can see, took some photographs of them, before diving in for the taste test. As shown below, the Flake (on the right) is slightly larger in perimeter than the Twirl:

The outside edges of the Flake are heavily textured with lots of visible folds, while the Twirl is encased in a smooth outer shell that barely suggests the interesting structure beneath:

According to the ingredients and nutrition information on the packaging, the two products are almost identical. They only differ in tiny ways in terms of typical values per 100g. The Flake apparently contains very slightly fewer calories, a bit more protein, a little less carboyhdrate and just 0.1g of a difference in fat, fibre and sodium than the Twirl. Why these differences should exist at all, I really can’t tell but perhaps one of my intelligent readers could enlighten me.

So, down to the important bit of all this: eating them. I started with a bite of the Twirl, which was quite a clean and neat operation:

And then, carefully because I know what sort of crumb trouble can ensue with this manoeuvre, bit into the Flake:

As you can see, eating a Flake is a messier procedure than eating a Twirl, which is the major thing against the Flake, in my opinion. On the up side, if you eat it carefully enough and manage to save all the crumbs (particularly if you catch them in the wrapper and make a chute out of it, down which the crumbs can slide straight into your mouth) there is the enjoyable prospect of the ‘extra’ bits at the end when you’ve finished the main body of the confection.

But what of the taste? Well, at first I really didn’t detect any difference in taste, but the more I went on with it the more I became convinced that the Flake tasted slightly creamier. However, I’m a bit suspicious that this could actually be down to the texture rather than the taste. Since it doesn’t have the outer coating to break through, the Flake melts immediately in the mouth whereas the Twirl takes a bit longer to disappear on the tongue. Could this result in a creamier tasting Flake? I don’t honestly know. I think I will have to try and induce some volunteers to test this out in a blind tasting.

So, what is the result of this investigation? Well, based on this one trial I think that if I had to choose a favourite taste and texture combination, I would – surprisingly to me – choose the Flake. On the other hand, in terms of portability and ease of scoffing, I would opt for the Twirl. I should imagine that this means I will continue to take Twirls offshore with me, but perhaps when I’m at home I’ll veer more towards the Flake.

Welcome back old chum!

* you may take issue with this, given the number of cakes I devour, not to mention bars of chocolate

Here’s a typical packet of maltesers (I was going to buy the standard sized bag but this one sitting next to it jumped out at me):

Here’s a little group of Maltesers:

If you’ve ever been to Britain, a 1p coin might help you to imagine the size of a Malteser:

Or perhaps the relative sizes of a sunflower seed, pumpkin seed, Malteser, Scrabble letter and 1 Euro coin may be more useful:

Each Malteser consists of a thin layer of chocolate surrounding a ball of honeycomb crisp. If you’re careful, you can nibble the chocolate layer off, leaving the honeycomb centre to enjoy separately. Alternatively, if you bite straight through both chocolate and honeycomb you get a wonderful combination of the two:

Astonishingly, Maltesers have been manufactured, by Mars, for about 75 years, and this year they will become Fairtrade certified. They are currently one of the top 5 confectionery items sold in the UK, and keen swimmers will be relieved to hear that, unlike the other bestsellers, they float in water:

The world record achievement for the most Maltesers thrown and caught in the mouth within one minute is held by Americans Ashrita Furman and Bipin Larkin. Ashrita provided the champion mouth that caught the Maltesers, while Bipin Larkin’s victorious propelling action lobbed the winning number in. According to the Guinness World Records website, the triumphant pair managed an impressive 66 Maltesers inside 60 seconds in September 2010. Ashrita’s website claims that he beat his own record by an additional 4 Maltesers in June 2011, again with Bipin Larkin hurling them in, making a new world record of 70.

The standard size pack of Maltesers (37g) contains only 187 calories, which has led to the advertising tagline “the lighter way to enjoy chocolate”. Since they are relatively low in calories, covered in chocolate and almost contain honey (there’s no honey in the list of ingredients, but they certainly have a honeyish malty flavour), they are more or less verging on being a health food. As with all medicine, they need to be taken in moderation, but given that they’re so light, they’re unlikely to cause significant weight gain.

Small horses enjoy them too (if you click on the link below you’ll see the proof – I took this photo a few years ago and can’t now find the original on my computer):

Shona enjoying Maltesers

For more information on Maltesers, please see their very own website: www.maltesers.com

I realise that choosing such a similar type of tearoom again suggests I may be distinctly lacking in imagination, but the trouble is it was an excellent tearoom and my favourite tearoom experience of last week.  (Incidentally, I really don’t know why the marriage of tearoom and antique shop should be such a perfect match, but it does seem to have something going for it.)

Here’s a shot of the front door and entrance area of the shop:

This antique shop and tearoom is only a few miles from where I live, and I’ve driven past it many times, observing the signs advertising tea and cakes, but never darkening its doors….until 2 days ago. As for why it’s taken me such an appallingly long time to visit, I really don’t know, it’s a puzzle. I think I had an idea that it might not be up to much, that the signs trying to lure me in were only empty promises. Why I should think this, goodness only knows, but I’m afraid I can’t offer any other explanation for my behaviour.

I was favourably impressed on entering the shop, not only because it had a very nice feel to it, but because such a warm welcome was extended to me and my glamorous assistant. I hadn’t been too sure if we’d actually get a cup of tea because the sign on the door said that the tearoom was only open until 3 pm and by this time it was about 2.45 pm. However, when I questioned the lady in the shop about this she exlaimed very merrily that the tearoom was certainly still open and they would be delighted to serve us with some refreshments.

In order to reach the tearoom we had to pass through another room that contained a grand piano, among many other interesting items:

Many tearooms sport PVC table covers (easy to keep clean, which I suppose is why they have them), but this is the first time I’ve seen them covered in pleasing farmyard birds:

There were several tempting looking cakes and traybakes on display, but I thought the plate full of dark brown cake modelling a bit of walnut on each slice looked particularly appealing. I wasn’t sure what it was, although whatever it was I was sure I would like it since I’m quite partial to a walnut. When I asked the waitress ‘What’s that cake with the walnut on it?’ and she replied, ‘Walnut cake’ I was completely convinced it was the cake for me:

It was extremely good – moist, flavoursome, sweet, cakey and absolutely stuffed with crushed up walnuts:

I washed it down with 2 cups of excellent decaf coffee, which came in a cafetiere. If an eatery in Scotland doesn’t have the sort of Italian-style coffee making apparatus popularised by places such as Starbucks and Costa, when you ask for a decaf coffee you do sometimes get granulated instant coffee from a jar. I have nothing against coffee out of a jar but I was very pleased that the decaf coffee in this tearoom was of a higher quality and exceptionally smooth in taste, just the way I like it. I don’t know what type of coffee it was but it reminded me of Taylor’s Lazy Sunday.

One unusual feature of this tearoom is that every table has its own unique hand bell, that can be rung if you want to alert a member of waiting staff, or perhaps just make a bit of a racket (I did ask the lady in the shop about the bells and she said people often picked them up out of curiosity and when she went to help them they explained that they hadn’t meant to ring them). The one on our table reminded me of a ship’s bell:

The bell on the table next to ours had a small pheasant perched on top of it:

But perhaps my favourite one was the little windmill:

After a most relaxing and enjoyable afternoon refreshment, we had a look round the antique shop, and were encouraged to pop across the courtyard outside to another part of the shop that was entered through a separate door. Inside, I was surprised to find one whole room laid out like a bedroom (but without a bed):

I didn’t purchase anything in the shop, although I was very tempted by a desk (in the first photo next to the front door). If I can gather up the cash for it I might just go back and see if it’s still there later on in the year, but I’m quite sure I’ll be back for the tearoom alone very soon.