20 east

Slapped me in the face like a wet kipper! The instant we stepped out of the arrivals hall into the English cloud-drizzle I was faced with one example of the very essence of why I’m never going back:

In the good old days it was called the “Post Office” and it did what it said on the tin, it delivered post. On the whole it did a good job with cheery ‘Posties’ braving all weathers to shove stuff through your letterbox at 5 in the morning. If you needed to buy a stamp or whatever there was a very cute Post Office in every village and high street in the land run, orginally, by a Miss Marple type and latterly by an Asian version of the same but all very nice friendly people. It was truly a British Institution and something to be proud of.

Then some businessmen came along and money got involved and it all went tits up! Some time ago they had the world record for the biggest rebranding farce in history when they decided to call it “Consignia”, not too long after my old company, Grand Metropolitan, decided to call itself “Diageo”! Was there something in the water around that time, was there a rampant alien name generator that exercised strange powers over heads of enterprise? Anyway, a few marketing/brand gurus got very rich and a lot of people got stupid sounding companies.

So, having ditched the Consignia idea they went back to ‘Post Office’ but unknown to me, until this trip, they have decided to add themselves a tag-line of “delivering value”. What does that mean exactly? This is just one of those vacuous collections of letters and words that people insist in splattering all over the planet because they think they have to go a little bit further than is advisable.

STOP IT! NOW!

As mentioned earlier, we’re just back from our latest short UK trip and this time we flew with bmibaby from Warsaw to East Midlands.

Zosia was very excited by the yellow buses at the other end.

On the flight back, as a way of calming myself down from the ‘patronisment’ I had just received from the plane-waitress-cum-cleaner who ejected me from the forward bog and directed me all the way to the back of the plane with one of those “well that’s why we put the curtains around…” (so the captain and us waitresses can take a pee in our own private toilet), I got to thinking about just how lucky we are to have our start and finish destinations so close to airports with a direct link. From our apartment to Warsaw airport takes around 30-40 minutes on average and from East Midlands to my parents must be about the same. So, given that the only advantages would be not having to put up with snotty plane-tea-ladies, saving perhaps an hour each end on the whole check-in routine and having a more comfortable seat, we’ve decided not to buy our own private jet this year!

Having always lived within reasonable striking distance of a decent airport, I do take it for granted nowadays. How grim must it be to live in the middle-of-nowhere Poland and be travelling to the middle-of-nowhere England. What would that be; Kalisz or Białystock to Keswick or Barnstaple? Hours driving to get to the airport and then more hours driving when you land. No thanks.

Smelly flight-conductor aside, bmibaby did a god job. Far better than Easyjet and for as long as they keep the route and the prices, we’ll be sticking with them in future whenever going ooop North to see the family. When doing London, I think we might stick with BA to Heathrow. They’re the ones with the really stuck-up safety-demonstrators!

One amusing incident was reading the bmibaby in-flight magazine, the snappily named “Yeah Baby”. They had a section giving the highlights of each destination they serve so I read the one on Warsaw. Here’s what Joanna Koper of the Warsaw Tourist Office gave as her three reasons to go to Warsaw:

1. Staroswiecki Sklep – (8 Szpitalna street) a Wedel hot chocolate cafe.
2. Motorisation & Technology museum in Otrębusy. Located 10 minutes from Warsaw (LIE LIE LIE!) this pistonhead’s playground………….I can’t go on.
3. Biała Flota boat trips – on the Vistula……..the one with all the sewage and nothing to see!

Whatever drugs Ms Koper is on must be very seriously hallucinogenic to have come up with that list!

This place calls itself a “family run gastro-pub” and has the tag line “Derbyshire tradition, contemporary style”. You can find it on Main Street, Birchover, Matlock, Derbyshire or if you have any kind of GPS whatsit you can go here: Latitude – 53° 9′21.49″N, Longitude – 1°38′52.61″W.

If you need more info you can call them on +44 1629 650302 or go to their website.

This is what it looks like:

It’s just across the road from the world famous (not) Birchover Millenium Stone:

Why would you want to go there? Well, for one, it’s in the midst of the beautiful Peak District countryside and so you can use it as a refuelling station whilst out rambling. For two, the food is absolutely delish!

Here’s Auntie M’s steak with a construction of man size chips, onion rings and a scrummy big mushroom;

and here’s my Cumberland sausages with mash, black pudding and onion gravy – slurrrp! (hard to keep me away from black pudding / kaszanka these days!)

The starters, we had a crab salad and prawns, were excellent as were the deserts, a vanilla crème brulée with passion fruit sorbet.

Here’s a table full of happy eaters!

They say…

Here at the Druid we produce everything to order from fresh, using only local produce from within the Peak District. Unlike other restaurants, there are no pre-made dishes. Because of this, during busy times there might be a slight delay. Please be patient, we feel the end product is well worth the wait.

…and we agree with them, it is well worth the wait and the wait was not overly long either.

The third reason for going there is that after the meal, if you’re not in the midst of a ramble, you can take a short stroll down the country lanes

or climb the rocks at the back of the pub to find the spooky Druid’s cave and get some nice views over the surrounding countryside. Here’s Zosia trying to look druid-like at the same time as trying not to fall 100m from a rocky outcrop onto the road below!

Go there, you’ll enjoy it!