I received the Lakeland Christmas Catalogue last week and this year I have decided to restrict purchases for me to six items as I commence a serious effort to lose fat in the run up to a time of excessive good eating and drinking. Some choices were easy. I have always adored Nougat from childhood but had to wait until adulthood to savour the cubes filled with candid fruit, cherry juice, honey and pieces of nuts, Almonds and Pistachio in one selection and Hazelnuts, Macadamia and Almond in the other. Then there is hard Turron, a Spanish sweet made up of crushed almonds and egg whites baked hard and covered in rice paper. Last year a local store had a supply at half the price and I bought what proved to be six month's supply. I also like the soft Turron a form of almond paste with a similar appearance and texture to soft fudge.
More difficult is the choice of a chocolate small cups filled with praline. Champagne, mocha and such like, the various truffles, and some boxes with unusual fillings such as lemon meringue pie, rhubarb or Gooseberries fruits. I choose a box of 45 coins size chocolates with superior cocoa from Venezuela to Ghana but later changed myind. Then there are the liquor chocolates with spirit cups or perhaps 20 bottle shaped chocolates in a crate. This meant leaving the fudge and the Turkish delight, the biscuits, the puddings and the cakes. I left the liquor chocolates this year for chocolate covered Brazils. My final choice is a box of mini Florentines. I only discovered the Florentine when attending performances of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at the Newcastle Playhouse Theatre and going for a meal beforehand and unable to resists their large Florentines with a cup of coffee after the main course. Writing this is my first great test, rather like an alcoholic confronted by a selection of single malts.
This talk of food also reminds of the excellent meal eaten in a public house restaurant in Newark on Tuesday, a chicken and bacon salad with a mustard and something dressing. You can have a two course meal for £10 and if there are two of you get a free bottle of wine in addition. I had hoped to explore Newark on the day in the so called summer when watching Durham cricket at Nottingham had to be called off because of constant torrential rain. I had spent part of the day waiting for the rain to stop in three car parks. One by the river under the imposing remains of the Castle, said to have been founded by Egbert, the King of West Saxons, and then rebuilt by Bishop Alexander in the twelfth century. It is a long tall building designed for siege and prolonged battle and was once known as being the Key to the North, and the infamous King John died at the castle which was also a stronghold for Charles 1st in the civil war enduring three sieges and then dismantled in 1646 with the surrender of the King. I stopped by the Morrison's' Car park and then a giant, on the way out of town superstore, amazingly a Woolworths, amazing because so many of the town centre stores have closed.
Newark on Trent, to give is full name, is a small town of some 25000 people, smaller than Beverley although larger when combined with the continuous built up area of the next parish. While Newark does not have a Minister dominating skyline for miles around the city or a vast open space to walk, or the race course, it has the Castle, the striking parish church of St Mary and the River Trent. It is also one of the few towns these days with two railway stations with the East Coast Main Line and a route across England from Nottingham to Lincoln. The town used to be on the main road between London, Newcastle and Edinburgh but in 1964 the then Minister arranged for the by pass and therefore over thirty fives years of using the A1 as an alternative to M1, often stopping overnight around Grantham, I never took the short journey into the town centre.
On Tuesday I left my vehicle in the large long stay car park near the river and walked to the bridges which divided the two locks which are feature overlooked by places to sit and to take tea in warmer weather. It was sunny today but not warm. Walking about the street full of good architecture I was struck by the similarity with Beverley in that the planners have successfully ensured that new developments fit into the atmosphere of the ancient town. Its history as a market town is maintained with a large market square which became a centre of the wool and cloth trade before Victorian times when industrialization brought ironworks, engineering, brewing and sugar refining to its outskirts,
It is thought that the town first developed as part of the Roman Fosse Way and at one point it is believed that in time of King Edward the Confessor the town was owned by Godiva whose claim to fame where her horseback ride in the central Midland town of Coventry. Around 1400 records showed that the adult population aged over 14 years was 1178 excluding clergy and the beggars which made it one of the largest towns in the UK. After the town recovered from its role as a Royalist centre in the civil war it became the property of the Duke of Newcastle as Lord of the Manor and he was responsible for the raised bridge over the river and for the Town Hall which remains as a listed I building. The town doubled in size as a consequence of the developments during the industrial revolution and buildings from this period such as the Free Library, the hospital and the School of Science and Art remain to this day. Sugar beet refining has continued along with some engineering, especially of Farm Machinery. There is now one of the major manufacturers of cakes to a supermarket chain and the distribution centre for the Dixon/Curry's electrical goods and camera store chain. Later while researching for this piece I came across a site for the Newark jazz Festival which commenced in 2006 and is held over a weekend in May.
Yesterday was the day of recovery with an enjoyable evening as England for the first time ever won the fourth successive game in competition to reach the finals of the World Football Cup. As with the previous three games it was not always pretty to watch and there were times when the performance was ordinary, yet the final score could have been more than the three goals to a good goal scored by the other side, Belarus. The notable aspect is the approach of the Italian born manager who takes nothing for granted, is building up a sense of team rather than individual super stars, has established good discipline and is prepared to change tactics if the first plan does not work
I then enjoyed a film which was generally criticised when it was first shown, and which much justification. Eragon asserts that it is the same rank same rank as Lord of the Rings and with Brideshead revisited Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlisle and John Malkovitch in the cast expectations were high. In fairness there was similarity in breathtaking scenes of countryside beauty, filmed in Hungry and the High Tatras of Slovakia and there is one scene where the army of the baddies prepared to attack the goodies which has something of the scale of Lord Of the Rings but overall it fails badly sticking too closely to the first episode of Star Wars although a film about the last Dragon and its Rider. As with Lord of the Rings there are three books and two further films were promised. In order for such a film to work the audience has to quickly believe the fantasy and I cannot see too many adolescents agreeing that it passes their test. However it passed the time while I waited for the third Presidential debate to begin.
More difficult is the choice of a chocolate small cups filled with praline. Champagne, mocha and such like, the various truffles, and some boxes with unusual fillings such as lemon meringue pie, rhubarb or Gooseberries fruits. I choose a box of 45 coins size chocolates with superior cocoa from Venezuela to Ghana but later changed myind. Then there are the liquor chocolates with spirit cups or perhaps 20 bottle shaped chocolates in a crate. This meant leaving the fudge and the Turkish delight, the biscuits, the puddings and the cakes. I left the liquor chocolates this year for chocolate covered Brazils. My final choice is a box of mini Florentines. I only discovered the Florentine when attending performances of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at the Newcastle Playhouse Theatre and going for a meal beforehand and unable to resists their large Florentines with a cup of coffee after the main course. Writing this is my first great test, rather like an alcoholic confronted by a selection of single malts.
This talk of food also reminds of the excellent meal eaten in a public house restaurant in Newark on Tuesday, a chicken and bacon salad with a mustard and something dressing. You can have a two course meal for £10 and if there are two of you get a free bottle of wine in addition. I had hoped to explore Newark on the day in the so called summer when watching Durham cricket at Nottingham had to be called off because of constant torrential rain. I had spent part of the day waiting for the rain to stop in three car parks. One by the river under the imposing remains of the Castle, said to have been founded by Egbert, the King of West Saxons, and then rebuilt by Bishop Alexander in the twelfth century. It is a long tall building designed for siege and prolonged battle and was once known as being the Key to the North, and the infamous King John died at the castle which was also a stronghold for Charles 1st in the civil war enduring three sieges and then dismantled in 1646 with the surrender of the King. I stopped by the Morrison's' Car park and then a giant, on the way out of town superstore, amazingly a Woolworths, amazing because so many of the town centre stores have closed.
Newark on Trent, to give is full name, is a small town of some 25000 people, smaller than Beverley although larger when combined with the continuous built up area of the next parish. While Newark does not have a Minister dominating skyline for miles around the city or a vast open space to walk, or the race course, it has the Castle, the striking parish church of St Mary and the River Trent. It is also one of the few towns these days with two railway stations with the East Coast Main Line and a route across England from Nottingham to Lincoln. The town used to be on the main road between London, Newcastle and Edinburgh but in 1964 the then Minister arranged for the by pass and therefore over thirty fives years of using the A1 as an alternative to M1, often stopping overnight around Grantham, I never took the short journey into the town centre.
On Tuesday I left my vehicle in the large long stay car park near the river and walked to the bridges which divided the two locks which are feature overlooked by places to sit and to take tea in warmer weather. It was sunny today but not warm. Walking about the street full of good architecture I was struck by the similarity with Beverley in that the planners have successfully ensured that new developments fit into the atmosphere of the ancient town. Its history as a market town is maintained with a large market square which became a centre of the wool and cloth trade before Victorian times when industrialization brought ironworks, engineering, brewing and sugar refining to its outskirts,
It is thought that the town first developed as part of the Roman Fosse Way and at one point it is believed that in time of King Edward the Confessor the town was owned by Godiva whose claim to fame where her horseback ride in the central Midland town of Coventry. Around 1400 records showed that the adult population aged over 14 years was 1178 excluding clergy and the beggars which made it one of the largest towns in the UK. After the town recovered from its role as a Royalist centre in the civil war it became the property of the Duke of Newcastle as Lord of the Manor and he was responsible for the raised bridge over the river and for the Town Hall which remains as a listed I building. The town doubled in size as a consequence of the developments during the industrial revolution and buildings from this period such as the Free Library, the hospital and the School of Science and Art remain to this day. Sugar beet refining has continued along with some engineering, especially of Farm Machinery. There is now one of the major manufacturers of cakes to a supermarket chain and the distribution centre for the Dixon/Curry's electrical goods and camera store chain. Later while researching for this piece I came across a site for the Newark jazz Festival which commenced in 2006 and is held over a weekend in May.
Yesterday was the day of recovery with an enjoyable evening as England for the first time ever won the fourth successive game in competition to reach the finals of the World Football Cup. As with the previous three games it was not always pretty to watch and there were times when the performance was ordinary, yet the final score could have been more than the three goals to a good goal scored by the other side, Belarus. The notable aspect is the approach of the Italian born manager who takes nothing for granted, is building up a sense of team rather than individual super stars, has established good discipline and is prepared to change tactics if the first plan does not work
I then enjoyed a film which was generally criticised when it was first shown, and which much justification. Eragon asserts that it is the same rank same rank as Lord of the Rings and with Brideshead revisited Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlisle and John Malkovitch in the cast expectations were high. In fairness there was similarity in breathtaking scenes of countryside beauty, filmed in Hungry and the High Tatras of Slovakia and there is one scene where the army of the baddies prepared to attack the goodies which has something of the scale of Lord Of the Rings but overall it fails badly sticking too closely to the first episode of Star Wars although a film about the last Dragon and its Rider. As with Lord of the Rings there are three books and two further films were promised. In order for such a film to work the audience has to quickly believe the fantasy and I cannot see too many adolescents agreeing that it passes their test. However it passed the time while I waited for the third Presidential debate to begin.
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