A Look Back – A Channel Ferry Crossing, 1066 and a Coincidence or two.

It was really cold and rather unwisely we just didn’t have any suitable clothing.

We had all packed for Portugal and southern European temperatures and it hadn’t really occurred to us that temperatures might drop quite rather rapidly as we travelled north through Spain and France so we looked rather silly in Dieppe in December in hopelessly inadequate little nylon jackets.

This was 1983 but briefly moving on almost thirty years to 2011 I moved to live in Grimsby and how could how possibly have known then that Dieppe/is was the twin town of Grimsby.

We could see from the windswept seafront that conditions in the channel were not that good so we were probably going to get a great deal colder before we hopefully arrived  home.

So we made a plan.  It was a very good plan.  We wouldn’t go to look around the town as intended but instead go directly to the port, get in the queue (line) and  we would be first on the ferry and get a good seat in the bar in the warm where we could have a drink and a meal and enjoy the crossing home and so we immediately returned to the car and made sure we got our first place on the boat.

On the Sealink ferry named Senlac.

Even in the protection of the harbour the ferry was swaying rather dramatically from side to side and the staff had to be very careful about getting vehicles on board.  Richard got us on safely and the reliable green Escort was directed to a perfect place where we would be sure to drive of first in Newhaven.

On board we went directly to the bar, found a table and ordered beers and settled in ready for the scheduled four hour crossing.  The boat continued pitching heavily from side to side and we spilled some of our beer.  A member of the crew told us that there was a force seven gale and if it reached force eight the ship wasn’t suitable for a force eight gale and  that we wouldn’t be sailing anywhere.

I wasn’t too disappointed by that piece of news I have to say and secretly  hoped that the winds might get up some more.  I could have happily spent a night in Dieppe.

Some relevant trivia – wind speed is measured on the Beaufort Scale which was developed in 1805 by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort who divided weather conditions into twelve categories for the purposes of reporting consistency.  Force seven is a near gale, force eight is a gale and so on all the way to force twelve, which is a hurricane.

We didn’t get the force eight as I hoped for and almost on time the ferry cast off and now that there was nothing to hold it to the land it immediately started to roll even more fiercely.  Anthony was the first to go and without an explanation he left the lounge in an almighty rush and that was the last we saw of him for the entire journey.   Tony was perfectly alright and went to the bar and bought a meat pie but Richard and I felt a little queasy so we finished our drinks and went outside where we hoped the fresh air might be beneficial.

Conditions were really bad, really bad and things didn’t look good at all and the ferry was finding it difficult to even get out of the harbour but when it did then matters took a turn for the worse.  Officially, according to the Beaufort Scale, in a force seven, sea heaps up and white foam from breaking waves begins to be blown in streaks along the direction of the wind.  Well, it was certainly heaping up today and spray was coming up over the sides and once outside the protective walls of the harbour the ferry started to bob about like a discharged champagne cork.

Quite by chance I came across this picture somewhere here on the internet.  It is a picture taken of this actual crossing.  What a coincidence.  The photographer was a man called Paul Smith and he  gave me permission to use it and I once had a link here but it has gone dead so I have removed it.

The Dieppe to Newhaven route was an unhappy one, the boat was too small, owned jointly by British Rail (UK) and SNCF (France), was plagued by industrial action and never turned a profit.  In 1987 the route was abandoned and the ship sold to Ventouris Ferries in Athens where it went into service in the Greek islands.  Gone now to the big shipyard breakers yard in the sky for sure.

More trivia.  Senlac Hill in Sussex is the site of the battle of Hastings in 1066 and inside the ship were reproductions of the Bayeux Tapestry.  I am willing to wager that if William the Conqueror had had to deal with a force seven gale in the English Channel that English history might have taken a completely different direction.

Anyway, here are some Norman soldiers from my lead models collection…

This picture shows that the Senlac wasn’t that big at all, about half the size of a modern cross channel ferry, no bigger than a Russian oligarchs modern private yacht, so quite unsuitable then for a four  hour English Channel crossings in December.

I never thought that I would ever come across this boat ever again.  So, now, here is the amazing coincidence bit of the story.  Believe it or believe it not, twenty-five years later in 2009 I was in the Greek Islands taking a ferry ride from Folegandros to Milos and surprise, surprise here it was, new livery and a few alterations.

It was a different ferry experience that day I can tell you.  Top deck, sunshine, blue sky, bottle of Mythos and a sea as flat as a pancake.

Read the rest of the story Here…

It’s About Time

It is a rather outrageous claim I am inclined to agree but there is no disputing that the Greenwich Meridian passes through the Town of Cleethorpes and the Council have erected a monument to celebrate the fact.

The line runs north from the Channel coast at Peacehaven, shaving Lewes and East Grinstead in Sussex before heading through the suburbs of south London to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, where the meridian was first calculated in 1851.

A brass line at the site marks the division between the eastern and western hemispheres and is a popular place for people to be photographed with one foot in each. Visitors do exactly the same thing in Cleethorpes.

The meridian continues north through Leyton and Walthamstow in north- east London to Waltham Abbey in Essex. Then it passes the eastern edge of Royston in Hertfordshire and the western side of Cambridge before crossing the Fens and running up through Lincolnshire, just missing Holbeach, Boston and Louth.

In total the imaginary line passes through six counties – Sussex, Greater London, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (just about).

From Cleethorpes it crosses the Humber estuary and the Holderness peninsula before heading out into the North Sea and up to the North Pole, touching no more land on the way.

Only six other countries besides England are host to the Greenwich meridian. It runs down through France (through the City of Le Mans) and eastern Spain (close to Zaragoza) and that is why these countries should be in Western European time zone.

From Europe across the Mediterranean and then through four nations in Africa – Algeria (the largest country in Africa – good quiz question), Mali, Burkina Faso and then Ghana before heading to the South Pole. These are the only six countries in the World genuinely in both the East and West hemispheres.

I live about six miles from Cleethorpes, in the Western hemisphere.

Some pictures of Cleethorpes…

 

So, briefly I have to return to the issue of Central European time.  Some readers have expressed a preference over Western European time but as I see it that is only beneficial if you live in Spain where there are naturally longer hours of sunshine anyway.  If UK was on Central European time it wouldn’t get light in the morning (in December) until nine o’clock and that would interfere with my preferred golf tee times.

Ten Years Ago – Northern France

The chosen route took us past Boulogne, Wissant, Wimereux and Ambleteuse, all places that we had already visited and we had a mind to stop in Audreselles which we liked the look of but was busy to busting on the day that we had arrived so we had had to drive straight through.

Luckily it was nowhere near as hectic today so we could take our pick of the car parking spaces in the market place and then we took a walk along the beach and an adjacent coastal path.  Along the way we stopped to watch the surf and a local man pointed out to us a dolphin that was swimming close to the shoreline and regularly breaking the surface of the water and we were excited about that in the way that humans are always unnaturally thrilled about seeing dolphins.

Read the Full Story Here…

Ten Years Ago – The Battlefield Site of Agincourt

Looking through old picture galleries and blog posts I hadn’t realised how many times that I had visited Northern France in August.  This time I was with my son and visited the museum at Agincourt …

Having visited the British and Commonwealth War Graves, the site of the German coastal fortifications and Napoleon’s La Colonne de la Grande Armée in Boulogne we were getting an appetite for more military history so thought we might be able to visit a couple of sites that hadn’t previously been part of our plans.

Driving south our first visit was to the site of the Battle of Agincourt where almost six hundred years ago the English King Henry V defeated the largely superior French army of the time during the Hundred Years’ War (which incidentally lasted for 116 years, but the Hundred and Sixteen Years War doesn’t sound quite so catchy).

Read the full story Here…

Ten Years Ago – Bonaparte and Boulogne

I like Northern France and the Côte d’Opale but  the weather can sometimes be an issue.

After a very slow start to the day we sat in the garden and watched the weather gradually improving as the grey cloud gave way to white and then eventually to blue sky but it was still windy and Richard was still complaining when we packed the car to make a return visit to Boulogne.

Read the full story Here…

August Harvest – The Courgette (Zucchini)

I say tomato.  You say tomayto.  I say courgette. You say zucchini.

Today I proudly present a courgette harvest.  From only three plants in the vegetable garden I get a crop like this at least once a week which means having to find something to do with them.  They are probably the most reliable and generous plant in the plot.  They are the plants that just keeps giving. 

They are so versatile that they even look good in the flower border (header picture).

They are not indigenous of course, like a lot of our vegetables they were introduced from north and central America only comparatively recently.  The Italians took to them first, cultivated and developed them and called them zucchini, the French second and called them courgette.  In the UK we favour the French word.  Italian immigrants returned the cultivated zucchini to the USA and consequently they have zucchini.

Today, the World’s largest producers are China and India and the Ukraine.

Interestingly in Australia it is a zucchini but in New Zealand it is a courgette,  Canada is split between French and English speaking provinces.

It’s hard to think of any truly native vegetables, apart from seaweed, samphire and fungi. About the nearest we have would be things like sorrel, carrots and parsnips, which are all descended from native wild plants.  Vegetables did not form a major part of our diet and family menus until the nineteenth century.  

It wouldn’t have suited me to be eating swede, turnip and wild beetroot, for certain my Mum would have been constantly nagging me to “Eat your vegetables, they are good for you”

Before moving on let me make it absolutely clear and to avoid any possible future  litigation that I am not saying that my Mum was a nag!

Cereals remained the most important staple during the Early Middle Ages as rice was introduced late, and the potato was only introduced in the 16th century, and much later for the wider population. Barley, oats, and rye were eaten by the poor while wheat was generally more expensive.  Today we get vegetables from all around the World fifty-two weeks of the year.

Anyway, what to do with a glut of them.  Earlier this year we went to the Greek island of Skiathos and on the menu at our favourite taverna was deep fried courgette in tempura batter which we ordered probably every day, it was so good.  Probably not that good for you I have to say, courgettes are not high in culinary food value and deep frying isn’t so good either.  On the positive side they do count as one of the ‘Five a Day‘.

We have given it a try and although it tastes really good we haven’t yet mastered the presentation but we still have plenty of growing time to go to get it right.

Kim makes courgette fitters…

What we mostly do with them is make ‘Courgetti Spaghetti’, cut them into strips, fry in lemon juice and chilli flakes add them to pasta and anything else that is to hand.  We have tried prawns, sausage, salmon, mushrooms and Halloumi cheese (not all together obviously) but our favourite is bacon lardons (unsmoked) and a generous covering of Parmesan cheese.

By the end of the growing season we have had enough of courgettes but for now it is still only August.

This is how we enjoyed it last night…

When I was a boy we didn’t have pasta, my Dad liked regular English food and that didn’t include pasta, rice (except in puddings) curry etc.  In 1996 I went on holiday with him to Sorrento in Italy where hotel food consisted mainly of pasta.  He went hungry for a couple of days but eventually gave in or suffer terminal malnutrition.  I seem to remember that he liked it, a sort of Road to Damascus moment and  pasta was always on the menu at home after that.

 

 

 

 

The Tale of a Lobster Tail

I mentioned this in a previous post – Bridlington is the lobster capital of Europe, landing over three hundred tonnes of North Sea lobster a year and this staggering amount is more than anywhere else in Europe. 

According to the Government’s Marine Management Organisation, lobster fetches the highest average price of all species landed by the UK fleet at over £10  per kilogram, they account for only two per cent of the weight of shellfish landings, but twelve per cent of the value. Which is why Bridlington, which lands almost no actual fish, is Yorkshire’s most lucrative fishing port. The shellfish it lands is worth £7.2m  more than all the fish and shellfish landed at Grimsby and Whitby combined £4m of which is accounted for by lobster.

As we completed the beach walk and entered the town via the harbour I thought that I might find a fishmonger and get some lobster to take home.  

This proved to be rather more difficult than I imagined.  Almost all of the lobster is exported to Europe  because in the UK we don’t eat a lot of lobster and they certainly don’t eat a lot of lobster in Bridlington because it is just too expensive for a town teetering on the lower end of the UK deprivation scale – 5 out of 10, so just below average.

I found it difficult to even find a fishmonger and when I did the lobster for sale looked rather pathetic, not like a premier display of sea food that I was hoping for so I quickly abandoned the idea.

Instead I thought that we mind find a seafood restaurant and have some lobster for lunch.  We found a likely promising place on the harbour and scanned the menu in the window.  Plenty of fish on offer but by the lobster choices was a hand written note – not available today.  That was the end of the quest for lobster in Bridlington.

So instead I will have to tell you about my disastrous lobster meal in La Rochelle in France twenty years ago in 2003.

To set the scene I have to go back five years when I was there on a business trip looking at Semat Refuse Collection Vehicles and the company salesman took us out in the evening to a restaurant called Andre’s, a top class sea food restaurant on the harbour.

Back to 2003 now and with the family I was showing off and booked a table at Andre’s with the intention of eating lobster.  Everything was going to plan,  I ordered, Sally my daughter, selected crab and Jonathan, my son, went for the steak and then the evening fell rapidly part.

The waiter came to the table and introduced me to a live lobster for my approval.  I wasn’t expecting that and neither was Sally who immediately burst into tears.  This really spoilt the evening, no one wanted the lobster after that and I had to eat the whole thing myself and most of the crab as well.  Jonathan carried on as nothing had happened and made his way through his steak dinner.

For a few years after that every time Sally asked for money for this, that or the other and if I said no she would recall the expensive incident and just look me in the eye and blackmail me with the line – “Dad, do you remember – €50 for a lobster!”

On the final day at Skipsea Sands Holiday Park we drove north of Bridlington to Sewerby Hall, a Grade I listed Georgian country house set in fifty acres of landscaped gardens.  There is a very good herbaceous garden that Gertrude Jekyll would have been proud of but it was too early in the year to see it at its absolute best.

The Hall itself was interesting with rooms decorated and furnished in keeping with the period, a film show, a dressing up room and some interesting reconstructions and story boards.

When we had finished with the Hall we walked three miles to Bridlington, this time along the North Beach.  We planned to stop for a drink but there were some black clouds beginning to form so we walked the three miles back to Sewerby Hall in about half the time that it took to walk the opposite way.

This was our fourth time at Skipsea Sands Holiday Park and we agreed that it could well be our last but never say never again and who knows?  It costs less than £10 a night to hire a holiday home (caravan) at this time of year.  Maybe we will be back again same time  next year.

National Baguette Day (USA)

An interesting one this one, a French baguette is way off being the most popular bread in the USA  but they still give it a celebration day.  Bread in the USA has a lot of sugar (insane amounts of sugar) and preservatives (insane amounts of preservatives)  but a traditional French baguette will only last about a day before it goes stale and hard and needs to go in the bin.

Some say Napoleon Bonaparte created the French baguette to allow soldiers to more easily carry bread with them. Since the round shape of other breads took up a lot of space, Bonaparte requested they be made into the skinny stick shape with specific measurements to slide into the soldiers’ uniform.

Maybe true, maybe not…

Read the full story Here…

A Virtual Ancient City

On the boat ride back from Delos to Mykonos  I thought it would be fun to recall all of the other ancient sites that I have visited and assemble a near perfect virtual ancient city.

Read the full story Here…

Saint Joan of Arc and the Risk of Cross Dressing

I interrupt my sequence of posts about my visit to Sicily with another Saint tale…

The French seem to take this ladies wearing trousers thing rather seriously and after November 1800 it was technically illegal for a woman to wear trousers in Paris without a police permit.  Just over a century ago, exceptions were introduced for women riding horses or bicycles. Otherwise, the by-law remained in force.

Read the full story here…