I should really have gone to
the Amazement festival today, especially as I would have to miss out on
tomorrow due to the show, but Saturday is the only day that I get to spend the
whole day with Mandi. As I have to work on Sundays, I now make a determined effort
to have Saturday as my one day off in the week. It may not seem like it
sometimes, but I work bloody hard during the week, (now with the added stress
of making a film about The Sunday Alternative
in a very limited time) and value snatched moments of time off.
Last night I asked Mandi if
she would like me to cook a hearty breakfast for us, as I enjoy doing a
Saturday breakfast and haven’t done so in ages. She turned me down though, as I
take too long over it, (perfectionist you see) and she wanted us to go to town.
This led to me suggesting a breakfast in a café, which in turn led to a
conversation about where to go. She suggested the café in Victoria Centre
market, which I turned down as ‘gammy’ and suggested Bobbers Mill Transport
Café, which she turned down as not being in town. It is on the way to town but
would have delayed our journey. Mandi then asked if I’d like to go to the place
we went to last week before we went to London, which gave me the rare
opportunity to use the phrase ‘wrong type of sausage’. I am very fussy when it
comes to the fry up and the slightest error on the café’s behalf can spoil it.
This morning we had decided on
Chucks Wagon in Broadmarsh, (I have left the apostrophe off the name because
that is how it appears on the sign).
They scored a generous eight
out of ten, the breakfast itself was nearly perfect but the service managed to
get a couple of small things wrong. I had a large breakfast and Mandi had a
bacon cob, which I personally would have sent back because they buttered the
bread, oblivious to the fact that fried food does not need butter. My tea was
served in a mug with a chip in, and even worse than that, the hot water came
from an urn. I don’t like water that has been allowed to sit, I empty and rinse
out the kettle at home between uses, so would have preferred the café to
install a boiling water tap or at least a kettle. My tea had small spots of
film on the surface, but as it was the only option I drank it. It didn’t taste
too bad, so I let it pass despite it losing points.
My breakfast was nearly perfect. Two sausages, two eggs, beans and tomatoes (you should never be made to choose), two hash browns, four rashers of bacon (they had forgotten to cut the rind off), mushrooms, and two slices of buttered toast. They either forgot to give me, or don’t provide slices of ‘moppy bread’, and the mushrooms weren’t great. I got the impression that they had been heated up on more than one occasion. Lastly, they used chopped tomatoes when everyone knows that you’re supposed to use plum tomatoes. They only lost two points due to the fact that despite these shortcomings, it was a very enjoyable and filling meal. I will however be writing to them to comment on the cup, rind, wrong tomatoes, mushrooms, and the ‘moppy bread’ issue. This is something I only thought to do today while talking about it with Mandi afterwards; the café was full of customers who could potentially all have been given an eight out of ten breakfast when they should be getting a ten. We went through what the letter would say, and I thought about ending it with a polite note saying that I hope they found my comments helpful, and that I would be back again soon to see the improvements for myself. The good thing about radio is that they won’t recognise my face when I go in, (although they could recognise my voice I suppose) but for good measure will use a false name in the letter.
We didn't really do anything else besides a bit of shopping, although I did find a ghost sign that I hadn't spotted before and some interesting signage.
The sun was too bright to do it justice
This shop has been empty for ages, but from the recently uncovered sign you can see that it used to be an old-fashioned corner shop, the like of which was once on every street. I'm ignoring the apostrophe errors in the more recent sign.
Long closed down mobile phone shop. Who remembers Cellnet and One2One?
As I still call it!
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