Tag Archives: indian meal

Saturday 8th June 2013 – IT’S NOT EVERY DAY …

steam locomotive romney hythe dymchurch railway dungeness kent uk;.. that you are woken up by a steam locomotive these days.

But it does happen every now and again if you play your cards right. and so here I am down on the beach at Dungeness and, true to form, rattling past Caliburn in his nice little spec underneath the old lighthouse went one of the locomotives of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

“Romney Marsh” I hear you say. That’s right. He played on the wing for Queens Park Rangers and later for Manchester City.

But anyway that was where I spent the night of Friday and Saturday although it was really Saturday morning when I arrived.

And I also told you a little fib about being awoken by a steam locomotive, because about 10 minutes earlier I had been burnt out of the van by the heat and that’s the first time that that has happened this year.

So Dymchurch and Romney Marsh – I was here for a variety of reasons.

dymchurch abandoned railway station kent uk

  1. it’s by the sea
  2. it’s the furthest south-east point of the UK, closest point to the Real World
    3. it’s something like “home from home” because keen readers of this rubbish will know that I’ve stayed here before
  3. I wanted to look for the remains of the old standard-gauge railway that ran down to here (and indeed I found plenty, including the remains of the platform and the base of the station buildings)
  4. Most importantly, though, it was only a short drive from where these famous roofing tiles were awaiting collection.


    5. On the way to the tiles I made a detour to the old Lydd-Ferryfield airport, the home of the service that used to fly you and your car across the Channel in a fleet of weird converted Bombay bombers to Le Touquet and now the home of a flying school and a few private planes.

    supermarine spitfire lydd ferryfield airport kent ukand once again, if your luck is in it’s really in becuse what should arrive at the same time that I did but a Mark XIX Spitfire, ex photo-reconnaissance, making an emergency landing with an overheating engine, according to one of the mechanics who had been called out.

    Having blagged my way out onto the tarmac for a closer look, even I was able to diagnose the fault – clogged radiators.

    Maybe a bird strike or maybe simple lack of basic maintenance, but there you are. No-one these days seems to be able to understand the principles of basic maintenance unless they have a computer handy.

    The pilot was quite garrulous though, and we spent most of the time chatting about the Lancaster bomber that I’m trying to save from disaster, with me trying to enlist his support.

    Afer picking up the tiles I went to do the rounds of the supermarkets and tool shops, being entertained by a Red Arrows just off the coast of Folkestone on the way. Pretty disappointing, because no-one crashed or landed in the sea, and we didn’t have a mid-air collision either. Not much point in having the Red Arrows if you ask me if they can’t entertain the crowds properly.

    In one of the supermarkets though, passing through the checkouts, I was asked if I had a bag. I replied that I did, but that she was outside in the car. And seeing as how it was Saturday night, while waiting on the ferry terminal I guzzled down the take-away curry that I had bought from an Indian in Folkestone.

    “Pushing the boat out” in many senses of the word.

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Friday 4th March 2011 – We had a lovely lunch too.

There’s more than enough food in an Indian meal, even for a gannet like me, and so we had a tapas-kind of affair with a table groaning under the weight of Indian leftovers and so on. Absolutely gorgeous.

But the highlight of the day was Terry’s new toy. It really is superb and cut the terrace tiles with no effort at all. Terry also had a play with it and found that he could even cut strips of tile just 5mm wide. That is impressive. And if you work out how much you lose on broken tiles and how much you lose because you can’t cut slivers of tile, then this machine will pay for itself in a matter of months in the hands of a regular tile fitter, simply on the grounds of reduced wastage.

So while Terry was tiling the balcony (with an occasional hand from youts truly) Liz carried on wallpapering the living room and I got stuck into the cupboard under the stairs. The aforementioned living room is now wallpapered and has had the first coat of paint, and the cupboard has been repainted and the filthy paint-stained floor has been scrubbed.

The two  most time-consuming parts of the work are the living room and the terraces and they should be finished early next week. All that then remains is to tidy up and touch up the rest.

MInd you, I’ve said things like this before.

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Thursday 3rd March 2011 – I’ve just had a gorgeous tea ;-)

A vegetable massala with rice and garlic naam. Terry had a chickem korma and liz had a vegetable biryani. Poppadoms, other naams, all kinds of stuff as well. A real Indian banquet from the takeaway in … errr … Folkestone. No point in letting a flying (or tunneling, even) visit to the UK go to waste.

caliburn eurotunnel channel shuttle calais france folkestone UKSo a nice early start to the Eurotunnel depot, blagging my way onto an earlier shuttle and I was in the Sainsbury’s with a plate of beans and chips before 09:00 UK time.

As soon as Screwfix opened, I was there. Only half of the mastic we needed, one of the saws wasn’t in stock, most of everything else was there, but “the tile saw is only available on 7-day order. Come back next week”

And so a frantic call to Terry back in Belgium and he tracked down an even more powerful tile cutter for just £20 more – in Crawley! So seeing as I was halfway there, what’s another 80 miles between friends?

It took three of us (me and the two guys in the shop) to load this machine into Caliburn.

hastings sea front derelict pier burnt down sussex UKOnce I’d organised that, I went to the seaside for lunch. A nice bag of chips (and malt vinegar) on the seafront at Hastings overlooking the ruins of the pier.

After lunch, back to Ashford and the Tesco’s there for the pile of food shopping (you didn’t REALLY think that I had just come all this way for an industrial tile cutter and nothing else, did you?) and then to the Sainsbury’s at Folkestone again for whatever I couldn’t get at Tesco.

Final job was the Indian takeaway and it’s a good job that the staff arrived early, otherwise I would have been pushing it to catch my train back. They cooked while I babysat their kids (the things I have to do to keep my staff happy) and then a thrash through the traffic onto the train, and a thrash back home.

708 kilometres, a mere trifle you might think. It’s about the same distance as going back home again. But it was a lovely day out though, and the meal put the icing on the cake as it were.

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Saturday 2nd October 2010 – THE WEATHER CHANGED …

home depot windsor ontario canadaAs you can tell from the photo here. You can also tell that I’ve found my spiritual home part II – a Home Depot. It didn’t take me long, did it?

You can see Casey over there on the left, reversed into a parking space. And here I had an unusual encounter – someone actually came over to me and asked me why I had reversed in. I replied “because I can – I’m a European”. But the real answer, as everyone knows, is so that I can make a quick getaway if I spot any of my creditors approaching.

I’ve stocked up with a pile of electrical fittings – you ought to know by now that I use North American fittings (the plugs and sockets) for my 12-volt DC domestic circuit – and a few other bits and pieces that will come in handy back home in France.

I’ve also bought a SatNav. If I’m going to be here for a lengthy period wandering around in all kinds of obscure places, I’m going to be struggling for accommodation. I’ll have a few addresses gleaned from tourist information places, but I’ll need to know how to find them. I don’t want to be driving half-way around Labrador in a snowstorm late at night. And I’d have a mobile phone too if I could – but that’s far too complicated to arrange just like that.

I’ve also had a strange but interesting encounter in a Zellers shop. Grandma, Mother and daughter aged about 18, if that, dressed in headscarves and … errr … traditional dress. remembering my unfortunate encounter back in 2002 and how it set me back a little in 2005, I went to seize the initiative and interrogate them.

Apparently they are Mennonites, and believe that man is snbordinate to God, and Woman is subordinate to Man

So now I know.

nash rambler american estate windsor canadaOld cars a-plenty too, far too many to post here. But this one is exciting.

If you came with me when we drove through the Utah Desert in 2002, you’ll recognise this as a Nash Rambler American. But this one isn’t as good and has no running gear. But being an estate version, this is an extremely rare version.

canadian national pacific 4 6 2 steam locomotive river front windsor ontario canadaI went off down to the waterfront this afternoon and found my steam locomotive. It’s an old Canadian National 4-6-2 “Pacific” called “Spirit of Windsor” and being “restored” by the Southern Ontario Locomotive Restoration Society.

But restoration here, as in the USA, consists of nothing more than slapping thick coats of gungy black paint all over the rust.

detroit michigan usaFrom the waterfront, there is, as you might expect, a really good view of the city of Detroit. That’s the USA across the river of course.

And I discovered all kinds of things along here too, including the remains of the old car ferry that used to cross here before the tunnel was built, although how it managed it I really don’t know given the volume of marine traffic along here.

motel windsor ontario canadaAnd so back to my motel to pretty myself up ready for my meal with Katherine.

And you can see why I feel quite at home here too. It reminds me very much of Liverpool, or my garden anywhere that I have ever lived. There have always been a few cars parked up on bricks in my drive of course.

Katherine and I found an Indian restaurant where there was a running buffet – all you can eat for … errrr …$6.99 a head. And it was the best Indian meal that I have ever eaten outside Stoke on Trent. After that it was to Tim Horton’s for coffee along with dozens of other people – what a way to spend a Saturday night!

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