Triple-Barrelled Puzzlement

Christmas Dinner in Ravenglass – December 2009

We are intrigued by who goes to an upmarket hotel for Christmas, what they do and what they are thinking – in a hotel owned by the triple-barrelled Gordon-Duff-Penningtons.

On Christmas Eve we had booked for dinner in the hotel in Ravenglass, quite an upmarket hotel, called the Pennington Arms. Much of the area around Ravenglass is owned by the Gordon-Duff-Pennington’s (triple-barrelled) who live at Muncaster Castle. Muncaster Castle is their ancestral home and a very fine castle it is, in very fine grounds ablaze with rhododendrons in the early summer, and even containing a small church. That I know all this about the Gordon-Duff-Pennington’s home is because straightened circumstances in the form of a crumbling, very expensive-to-fix building have obliged them to open their house and grounds to the paying public.

The Gordon-Duff-Pennington’s have also begun renting some of the houses on their estate to visitors, and it was one of these that we hired for a weekend last April for a family party. On the Sunday evening the boiler failed, and we called the help number and round came Iona Gordon-Duff-Pennington to try and sort it out, which she was unable to do so she called the local handyman and he couldn’t fix it either, so she opened up the adjoining letting property for us so we could shower. Dealing with household emergencies on a Sunday evening in April is one of the necessities of life, if you are a Gordon-Duff-Pennington whose fortune has its limits. Iona is probably in her early forties.

Anyway, the G-D-P’s have recently refurbished to a fairly high standard the long-closed pub in Ravenglass, called as it always was called, The Pennington Arms, and opened it as an upmarket hotel, which since they owned the building and the land it stands on, probably made sense.

We’ve looked into the dining room of the Pennington Arms on previous occasions and it has always looked rather empty, so we booked to eat our dinner in the bar, but when we arrived we could see that the dining room was fairly full, if not exactly jolly-looking, and the bar completely empty, and the manager lady suggested we eat in the dining room for extra ‘atmosphere’, so we agreed.

This was at 7.30, and to our surprise, most of the people in the dining room were onto at least their main course. In fact apart from two gay men who arrived shortly after us, we were the last in.

It became clear that most of these people were staying at the Pennington for Christmas, just one other table appeared to be solely diners.

So who is it that goes to the Pennington Arms in Ravenglass for Christmas?

Two couples there as a foursome, one of the men in a wheelchair, with little to say to each other and probably in their 60s.

One of the Kaczynski brothers (the twin brothers who were president and prime minister of Poland and who are famous for each being unkindly described as looking like a potato) and his wife – not him of course, just someone who looks like him – and these two, man and wife, had absolutely nothing to say to each other.

A couple in maybe their forties, he with a ponytail and she slim and dark-haired in high-heeled shoes, also with nothing to say to each other.

A sixsome, seventy years-old or more, one of the men dressed in a business suit and tie.

The two gay men, one in his fiftes the other possibly younger. In suits but no ties. Rather gangstery-looking.

A few other forgettable couples.

And no one very jolly.

The food was very good. Hilary started with a terrine (ie a forcemeat, or mixture of ground lean meat pressed together) of chicken and duck wrapped in bacon with an apple and pear chutney, and I started with scallops sitting on a slice of black pudding and that on a mound of pea puree (which all went very well). Then we both had lamb shank on colcannon (Irish mashed potato with cabbage), with an ‘anise and rosemary jus’ – actually there was a taste of star anise and of rosemary, which was nice, and then I had a well-made panna cotta and Hilary some chocolate and coffee ice cream that appeared to be homemade. All quite classy and with a bottle of Argentinean red wine and a bottle of Willow mineral water came to £72. Not cheap, but not absurdly expensive for what it was.

And, as with so many including the BBC website sometimes, they spelled panna cotta as panacotta, which for we congenital proof-readers and stern guardians of the language jars horribly. I don’t at all mind the words being run together, but I do mind panna being spelled as pana. Panna cotta is literally translated from the Italian as ‘cooked cream’, which is essentially what it is.

And not only a spelling mistake, but no discernable ‘atmosphere’ in the restaurant.

The following day, Christmas Day, we took a walk through the woods and circled back round by the Pennington Arms, arriving just as the diners were being served their turkey. We peered in the windows as surreptitiously as possible, being glared at by Lech Kaczynski so needing to be brief. The roast potatoes didn’t look all that appetising.

Did these people have a jolly Christmas at the Pennington Arms? What did they do? Did they ever manage to talk to each other? These things we shall never know.

We, meanwhile, ate well, drank well, walked well, got plenty of sleep and read lots. Maybe the people at the Pennington went home saying the same, though we didn’t see any of them out walking.

And by Boxing Day lunchtime, they all seemed to have disappeared. There was no one in the dining room when we passed at 1.15, and no one when we passed again at about 7.30 that evening.

I subsequently looked at the Pennington Arms website, which now wants to call the Arms the Pennington Hotel. The people we saw were, it seems, actually there on Boxing Day, they had gone to Muncaster Castle with a packed lunch for a ‘Festival of Lights’, whatever that is, and were due to eat dinner again at 8pm.

More about happenings in Ravenglass at A Railtour Comes Upon Us.

Continental Markets

Kendal, Cumbria – November 19th 2009

Continental markets are a bit strange at the best of times, but in the year’s worst downpour, they’re sad as well as strange.

Kendal had put on a ‘Continental Market’ during the time that Cumbria suffered its highest rainfall ever recorded – what a shame! We went there on November 19th, the day that there was severe flooding over many parts of the Lake District.

The continental market was rather sad to see, for not only was in bucketing down with rain, it was windy and the only people who might have qualified as potential customers all had their heads down and collars pulled up. I attach a few pics, not very clear as it was not only wet, it was also quite dark.

Continental markets are a nice idea in principle, but I find them rather samey: French sausage, French cheese, German sausage, the people doing the selling are clearly from France or Germany or wherever is appropriate to their product, so I suppose they travel from place to place, staying in hotels, and trying to clear a few vanloads of produce. Whether this is economically sensible for them, I don’t know. I guess it’s touch and go.

One of the stalls selling French sausage had oddly-translated display tickets, and I wondered whether this was done on purpose so as to seem quaint and foreign. It had ‘Sausage Coated in Chile’ (I like that one, even if it is contrived), ‘Sausage in the Goat’s Cheese’, ‘Sausages of Duck’, ‘Sausage Has the Garlic’ and ‘Smoked Sausage Pork’s (pig)’. Possibly we’re getting a little picky as we grow older, but none of these looked to be especially good quality, so we didn’t buy anything.

A Rainy Day

This page has now been moved to landofsomehope.blogspot.com.

A Railtour Comes Upon Us

Ravenglass, West Cumbria – June 2008

A Train Arrives

We were in Ravenglass for the 800th anniversary of the granting of a town charter, see Ravenglass Charter Fair.

We went and stood on the footbridge over the mainline railway, as a special railtour train was due. The train had left Cardiff at 6.10am in the morning and had stopped at Bristol, Cheltenham, and Birmingham, together possibly with some other intermediate places, to bring a trainload of people to Cumbria. Some of the passengers had got off at Grange-over-Sands and been taken by bus to Lake Windermere, and others had continued on the train to Ravenglass, where a special steam train on the narrow-gauge railway had been arranged to take them up the valley and back again, while the mainline train went and turned round at Sellafield, so it could collect its passengers for their return journey home facing the right way, some two hours later. We stood on the footbridge while the special railtour train arrived, and the people still remaining on it got off and filed past us on their way to the narrow gauge station.

Inelegant, is Probably the Word

Inelegant, is probably the word. Mostly men, mostly grey-haired. I kept thinking of that song, Ziggy is a bloke with a stubble on his chin, he looks like suvving the cat's brought in. Diamond-patterned pullovers and sagging stomachs, and a shuffling gait.

They filed past us.

On the railtour train you could travel first class or second. In first class there appeared to be an at-table dining service, whereas in second you brought your own sandwiches to keep you going from 6.10am until the train was due to arrive back in Cardiff, some time after midnight. All the carriages, first- and second-class, were rather old, in various shades of reddish-brown, blue and cream.

These railtour trains, I am fairly reliably informed, get fully-booked.

A highlight of this particular trip from Cardiff was to be the return leg, when the route would take the train on some lines around Manchester, usually reserved solely for freight trains.

A Delight of Hawking Sounds

The diesel engines, for there were two at the head of the train, were once used on the lines to Fort William and Mallaig. Class 37s. Upon leaving Ravenglass station they made a noise a bit like you can do by exhaling with your lips almost closed and relaxed, while hawking with your throat. This seemed to be a feature, as it was greeted with great satisfaction by those watching. Presumably the drivers knew how to generate this noise by pulling the relevant levers, and so delight their audience.

D More-I C

In my wanderings around the globe, I spend more time being amazed than I do understanding anything. Railtours such as we witnessed that weekend are immensely popular with a certain (rather inelegant) sector of the population, while some of us spend our time juggling the commitments of work and family. There are lots of people out there in the world who are different from me, which should be rather surprising as I’m a fairly run-of-the-mill character, but I think I’m past being surprised, I just gape in wonderment.

More about the happenings in Ravenglass at Ravenglass Charter Fair.

Ravenglass Charter Fair

June 2008

If your gob has a full set of false teeth, learn to smile with your mouth closed.

A Fair, an Audience

The 800th anniversary of the granting of a town charter to Ravenglass: marquees casting shadows over groups of people selling pots and jams and second-hand books. And in the main street, entertainment; Morris-dancers, step and clog dancers, a brass band and street entertainers.

The visitors with grey beards and their wives liked the street entertainers. They laughed, or more precisely they lowered the bottom half of their mouth and raised the top to reveal a fluorescing array of unlikely-looking dentures, all neat and white and with a stuck-on look.

Street Entertainers

The street entertainers were very proficient. Two men who did tricks, like juggling three knives while balancing on an eight-foot-high unicycle. That's very clever. And putting a household rubber glove over your head, down as far as beyond your nose, so you can blow out though your nose and the rubber glove inflates. It inflates and inflates and inflates until at some point when it looks like it might burst you quickly push it upwards with your hands and it flies way up into the air as the air inside it escapes. That's original. And an escapology trick, escaping from a linen sack after having had the hands padlocked together.

The teeth in the audience glowed in appreciation.

Fookin Whackem

But I was uncomfortable watching the Morris-dancers and step-dancers, I wanted to choreograph them, I wanted to say to them, throw yourself into it, good people, with all your being, and when you whack them sticks together, don't flinch and blink, fookin whackem. But I didn't say that as currently it's none of my business; one day, perhaps, when I’m retired and have time to take up Morris dancing.

If You’re Going to Wear a Hat

There was also a brass band, the Egremont town band. It's very good that Egremeont has a town band, it's good that any town has a brass band, not least Egremont, but I wanted to say to the conductor, yes, I know it's a sunny day, but if your band members are going to wear a hat, let it be a corporate hat – that motley collection of flat caps and upturned linen flowerpots of different shades of pale just looks sloppy, looks not a million miles divorced from the handkerchief on the head, knotted at the corners.

And what I’d like to know is: those street entertainers, who put so much time and emotional effort into their act and presentation, and probably get paid an hourly rate that’s barely worth contemplating, and possibly work as tax inspectors or bank clerks during the week; what do they do it for? Why? That’s the question on my partly-closed and suitably relaxed lips, as I watch the lips of the rest of the audience part to reveal a fluorescent and unlikely-looking grin.

A Wedding in West Cumbria

July 2007

Lunch in the café

Today we went over to Ravenglass. One of my pleasures when we go to Ravenglass (west coast of Cumbria, see www.visitcumbria.com/wc/raveng.htm) is to have lunch in the café on the station of the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. The food is not what you’d call classy, in fact I always have the same thing: meat lasagne, chips and salad, and with the salad there’s always a tinned-pineapple ring, which I never eat, though Sam and Zoe were with us today and they fought over it, to go with the baked potato with cheese and coleslaw chosen by Zoe, and the baked potato with tinned tuna in mayonnaise and baked beans for Sam. That’s the food you can get in the station café. It’s not everywhere you can buy such vomit-promising nosh, and long may it survive.

The wedding breakfast – two-handed style

While eating my orange-coloured lunch, I enjoy overlooking the station platform where all manner of pot-bellied and limping people, dressed in the depth of fashion, come and go from and to rides on the steam trains. Today, as we’ve witnessed before, there was a wedding that had a ride on the railway as part of its schedule. The previous wedding we’d watched from our vantage point was notable mainly for the photographer who was dressed in a bright green tie and bright green shoes, which together with his lack of a chin made him look like a frog.

But today’s wedding was perhaps even more extraordinary. Two antique red buses brought the wedding guests, looking uncomfortable in their unfamiliar strapless dresses and sparkling high-heeled shoes, down from Muncaster Castle, where the wedding ceremony had evidently been held (I talk about the Muncaster Estate elsewhere; owned by the Gordon-Duff-Penningtons, yes indeed, triple-barrelled surname, for whom I feel rather sorry in many ways, but more of that on another page), the guests then boarded the carriages of the little train for a ride up the line. Nothing unusual in that. What was most unusual, however, was that each of the guests was handed a brown paper carrier bag containing a packed lunch, which consisted – for the bride and groom were sitting together in an open carriage right in front of us so we could see this – of two white baps with a filling that we couldn’t determine but seemed to be rather buttery. Both bride and groom ate and enjoyed their baps two-handed, that is, they each took a bap in both hands and chomped, massively. And then when they’d finished, and without wiping their mouths, they gave each other a kiss. Bleah!

English Country Restaurant

May 2006

We went out to dinner last weekend, to a pub with a good reputation for its food, in a village called Great Salkeld. All very peculiar and old-fashioned. We declined to sit in the deerskin-backed armchairs with a drink while perusing the menu – how passé that would have been had we done that! This was in contrast to the folks who arrived in their fresh-washed rugby shirts, their womenfolk in high-heeled shoes with straps up the ankles, who apparently treated this procedure as the norm. No!, we went straight to the table like urbane familiars, and sat under the disapproving eye of the stuffed head of a large Aberdeen Angus bull, and ate a rather old-fashioned meal of slices of duck with onion ice-cream. Now I know that onion ice-cream doesn’t sound old-fashioned but it really is archetypically that, it sounds like it’s supposed to be up-market but didn’t go with the duck at all, or at least none of our group thought it did. And the boss of the place who came to take our order said he could recommend the fish, which comes from Lake Victoria and is a river fish so is quite mild-flavoured and so large in size that we could be absolutely sure that the fillet we would receive was completely free of bones, this causing Hilary to exclaim with a laugh something to the effect that, Oh, we’re Cumbrians, we are!, we can’t be doing with bloody bones!; an observation on society that was apt, if potentially ill-judged. Quite why the fish has to be imported from Africa – ah well, we know the reason why. So I don’t think we’ll rush to go back there again. If only someone would open a decent restaurant round these parts.

In the Footsteps of Tony and Cherie

August 2002

We’ve just returned from a few days in Ravenglass on the west coast of Cumbria in the company of Tony and Cherie. Well, not exactly company, they arrived in Whitehaven to see the tall ships one day later than we did, and we got there one day after the ships had, annoyingly, sailed away. I hope that Tony did what we did in the absence of ships, and looked in Estate agents’ windows to see that, in Frizington, you can buy a terraced house for £14,000. The only downer is that you have to live in Frizington which, whilst safe from muggings and with hills all around, is a bit short on things to do, like work for example.

Whitehaven, despite the money being spent on tarting up its harbour and museums, is a very poor and depressed place. I wonder if Tony detected this. I bet he didn’t. Then on the afternoon that he and Cherie chose to ride on the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway, we’d decided to do another stretch of the Cumbria coastal path, which we’re covering in sections. It’s an excellent long distance footpath, though you have to be a bit persistent to deal with all the places that the farmers have knocked down the waymarkers and put barbed wire over the stiles, but apart from that it’s ever such varied walking, and no one seems to know about it, so we saw nobody at all on our eight-mile afternoon stroll in the sunshine, while Tony sat in the little carriage with Leo and the nanny, and Cherie rode on the steam engine footplate with Peter the driver, and whether the excitement of it all contributed to her current misfortunes, I’m not unkind enough to speculate on. At the head of the line they were whisked away in cars with dark-tinted windows and taken to the Woolpack for lunch – not one of the better pubs up in those parts in our opinion, but chosen because it doesn’t involve too many single track roads and has exit by road from two directions – apparently this was crucial in deciding the lunch venue. All the minders had a glass of orange juice each, apparently. The regular people go to the Ratty Arms (yes, really) and drink lager, even though the man will serve an excellent pint of real English Jennings if you ask him.