The 'C' Word

Somebody has finally chosen to fight back. August Bank Holiday (tomorrow) is usually the date the starting pistol is fired for Christmas.



One year it was a hot September day and wearing shorts and a t-shirt I wandered into BHS (in Churchill Square, Brighton) and the whole of the front section was given over to gifts, cards, decorations etc PLUS Paul McCartney singing 'Simply - Having - a - Wonderful - Christmas-time'. When I mentioned it to the staff they had already desensitized themselves to it. I genuinely avoided the store until week 2 of December!



In Leeds someone has threatened to superglue shop locks if they put out the Christmas cards before November and I can appreciate their sentiment if not their means.



There are some reasons for bringing the word out early. Saving for Christmas for example - putting a little aside each week to spread the cost over the year. Most supermarkets have such a scheme and some offer rewards. How times have changed! As a child in the 1960s and 70s my mother used to collect stamps in her 'Christmas Club'. Then the 1980's onwards saw the borrowing boom and it was OK to put Christmas on the cards and pay it all back later. Wasn't this the case until a year ago but what's the betting people are saving again or planning a more frugal festive season? No harm there!



Even at the Avalon, Brighton, I have to bring the word up soon. We need to decide when to open, what days to string together as a mini-break, what to offer as extra to make a good value holiday etc.



Rest assured however the reindeer won't go up until the very last minute. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking it was only a short while ago that I was putting all the stuff away in the loft!



When did all this early Christmas stuff start? Again I don't remember as a child hearing much about it until mid-November when we started preparing for the school carol service. Even when I was in St John's choir, Woking, we didn't start rehearsals until November. The festive season used to last about a month - not four.



We all realise when watching Christmas Specials on TV as the season genuinely gets underway that recording took place in the late summer or early autumn. All that fake snow, jumpers and sitting round a log fire took place as we baked outside (well, theoretically as baking weather seems to have deserted us of late). Perhaps it spread out of one of those recording studios. The audience left in festive spirit and gave an impromptu August carol singing concert somewhere near Wood Lane, Shepherds Bush and like Swine Flu it spread across the nation.



Seasons Greetings to you all, this August Bank Holiday - and get that Paul McCartney song out of your head right now!

Paella

Now there are only so many times you can have a succession of suppers (dinners if you're posh) of spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, chilli-con-carne, burgers, fish pie, steaks, chops or chicken.

Sharing a household with somebody with Asperger's Syndrome (a newsworthy topic at the moment) means that we have to take turns at choosing the meal for a particular night. There are three of us, and at the beginning of each new year our inititals are carefully put in the diary for each day and that's that - the nights are set and (without banana republic scale bribery) we must stick to our turns. If my birthday falls on George's turn and I choose to eat out I must miss my next turn because he missed his, regardless of whether we - including him - eat at Rules in Covent Garden for £300.00!

So I try to vary what we eat from time-to-time and come up with exciting stuff. Sometimes to great effect, sometimes disaster. I've already mentioned Delia's 'How to Cheat at Cooking' book and have tried something from that. Well, the result was good, but the cost! I suppose you pay more to cheat but Braised Steak with wild mushroom and Madeira Sauce? We may as well have flown to Madeira for the experience.

In between were spaghetti bolognese and chicken so my next effort was Paella. Have you ever tried making this? For a start the shopping list easily fills an A4 sheet, possibly more, and that's with about 6 or 7 items already present in the spice rack and storecupboard. Not saffron sadly - highly expensive and I'm not convinced it adds much to the overall taste when you put in a 'pinch' - itself adding another £1 to your meal. George nearly took the jar to Customer Services to complain someone had already taken the saffron out but no, if you look closely, there's a smattering in there in orange cellophane. Raw prawns, squid, clams (there were millions on the beach last week where those rock pools were but I'm not sure I fancy anything from the sea here), chorizo, chicken thighs, dry white wine, hot chicken stock, fresh parsley, thyme and so on...

I started 'preparation' as Mr Worrall Thompson euphamistically puts it - 1 hour he says. Maybe, with a team of eager apprentice chefs keen not to be shouted at. About a week is what it felt like. I put together spoonfulls of this, pinches of that etc but after an age barely seemed a quarter of the way down the list.

I tried one of Delia's 'cheat' devices - the Mini-Chopper - instead of chopping a large onion and a red pepper by hand. After searching the kitchen for whatever valued space I'd stored it, checking it thoroughly to make sure it had gone away clean the last time, clearing an area to use it near a socket, actually peeling and quartering the onion and de-seeding the pepper by hand, using it and watching it dice the onion apart from two wedges that seemed untouched but once they too were chopped the whole thing was a puree - likewise with the red pepper which it treated in the manner of a juicer - dismantling and washing it, drying it and boxing it up and packing it back in the cupboard I could have done the chopping by hand and gone for a couple of pints in the process. Breadcrumbs, that's all it's fit for.

Eventually the last ingredients were prepared - not cooked - but ready to start and I went to join Tom and George in the pub much later than planned. We got back an hour later and, yes, Anthony was right it took about 30 minutes to cook. The 'one pan' meal used a couple of others for the prawns and squid and apart from welding a couple of tablespoons of rice to my proud new stainless steel heavy-based deep frying pan the whole thing was delicious. I should have taken a mouth-watering photo (is there such a thing as a mouth-watering photo?).

While maybe not regressing to Vesta's packet Paella (a real treat in 1971 Woking and I wonder how much saffron it has in it?) I think I'll have to come up with something of a cheat's version since Delia missed this one out of her book. One that recognises we have both limited lives and pockets. Or maybe I should just accept that we do not live in Spain where all this stuff is readily available and stick to what I know.

Tonight it's my turn to choose again and we're having chilli-con-carne with hand-chopped onions, chillies and garlic. Less than a fiver too and with some giga-hot chilli flakes from 'Chilli Pepper Pete' in Brighton Marina that knock your socks off...

Hasta la Vista, Amigos

What Ferne Arfin REALLY does...

... is not write stuff for the New York Times. Not yet anyway but give it time who knows?

Ferne writes for http://www.about.com/: United Kingdom Travel . She corrected me on Facebook which it seems gets ever more popular. I now have 19 friends which is, of course, untrue.

So my bit of name dropping failed on that occasion. However I cannot resist regaling you with some of the famous people who have stayed at the Avalon, Brighton (if I have ever put this information in a previous post please forgive me but you will soon realise if you are out for a beer with me that if I have an amusing anecdote or snippet of information, telling it once is rarely an option).

We had the sister of the man who used to be the voice of Bungle on Rainbow. We had the understudy (and I think subsequent lead) for Michael Banks in the West End production of Mary Poppins. We've had a viola player from a Netherlands symphony orchestra.

I am really sorry if you have stayed with us and I have forgotten to mention you. Please remind me if I have missed you off our illustrious Hall of Fame.

In the 1960's - and I was not here then - allegedly Dusty Springfield used to come back to the Argyll Bar and stay 'til dawn, her famous beehive often precariously askew as she ducked under the front bay while tottering up the basement steps. The Argyll is what the Avalon was called. One previous owner fell in love with Bryan Ferry - from a distance you understand - and renamed the place after his hit song. We could have been the 'Let's Stick Together Guest Accommodation'.

England have just won the Ashes seconds ago...

We were in the Sunday Times

Wouldn't it be nice if they told us! There I was taking a booking from the man with a vintage Bentley (picture to follow at Christmas because we'll use it on our advert then assuming Windows doesn't crash and take my whole virtual world with it) and he told us he'd read all about us in the July 2009 Travel Supplement.

Today we received the said page in the post as promised. Susan d'Arcy (Resident luxury travel expert) had kindly mentioned us for a 'romantic weekend away with pooch' place to stay. Sorry I'll rephrase that in case of misunderstanding - that's a romantic weekend away but you can also bring your pooch.

I've never really thought of this place as romantic although when you are deeply in love even a 1970s caravan in a layby on the A3 would suffice. The romance in Brighton is the whole experience - sunset over the sea, a nice meal in the Lanes, a stroll along the pier, clubbing til 4 in the morning then back to the B&B ears ringing for several hours. OK scrub that last one.

I reckon a dog could possibly put the dampener on a romantic weekend away. Suppose Fido doesn't like your partner? Suppose Fido insists on climbing on the bed and taking the middle space keeping you apart? And refuses to move. The whole thing could get tricky.

Talking of travel writers I've kept in touch with Ferne Arfin who writes articles for GoUK (she's done stuff for the New York Times - that's me name dropping AGAIN!). She came to stay last year with Wallace - a little human disguised as a West Highland White Terrier - and wrote an article on Brighton. We were 'shabby chic' which, I have since read, is quite the thing in the States these days. She should go to Gordon's Wine Bar on Villiers Street by Charing Cross Station in London where it could be described as incredibly shabby, incredibly chic.

Ferne blogs her way around the world - she must spend many hours tapping away on keyboards - and is on http://gouk.about.com/b/ . Her articles are well written and thoughtful - you get a true traveller's perspective.

A little bit of the Kings Arms

This picture used to adorn a corner of the Kings Arms in George Street, Kemp Town, until a few months ago.

When Colin and Julie left after nearly 20 years the pub underwent a total refurbishment and is now a tasteful mix of beige and dark wood and soft lighting. Along with a tasteful mix of customers I hasten to add.

Beforehand it was like a pub we all knew when starting out in the 60's and 70's and the sad thing is you cannot find many of them around any more.

The Kings Arms had many fans (us included) and many detractors because it did not fit in or even try to fit in with the 'Gay Village' which sprung up around it over the years. It was also a very doggy pub - they had four large ones at one point. We loved it but that's because we got used to it.

I bought the picture from the new tenants yesterday and cleaned it up (enough nicotine on there it should have come with a health warning) then popped it in Nelson's place (sorry Horatio but you'll soon be above Lady Emma Hamilton, as it were).

If anyone knows the name of the original please let me know (info@avalonbrighton.co.uk). It's a proper oil painting from the Faques Gallery (better than calling it Fakes I suppose) on Upper St James's Street and I have seen it online before. It looks decidedly Pre-Raphaelite to me. The damsel is tied to a tree but her rescuer in shining armour is just sheathing his sword having just run through the baddie. Thankfully she seems unharmed and the baddie only got as far as revealing a bit of her shoulder.

Also in our dining room from the pub is a ship in a bottle - the Mauretania. I was always convinced this was one of those ships that had sunk or been torpedoed but that was her sister ship the Lusitania. This one had an illustrious career until 1935 when she was scrapped due to the depression. There's a poignant photograph on Wikipedia showing her at the scrapyard beside the Olympic before being broken up. Just think, but for an iceberg 23 years earlier the picture might have been of three ships...

There's a black and white Jack Russell in this picture. I took it because she was blissfully happy skipping over the rocks chasing stones.

When I downloaded it I spent 10 minutes trying to find the dog!

From Brighton take the seafront road to the marina and follow the undercliff path behind the marina.

Where it ends and the beach opens out again, at low tide it is like this. Rockpools, hermit crabs, cockles and mussels (and Russells).

The undercliff is a pedestrian only path used as a sort of M25 for cyclists only faster. Don't get me wrong - I fully agree with shared usage including on this one. I just feel sad that once clad in lycra and a snazzy helmet some cyclists become invincible and totally oblivious to any other path users.

Don't ruin it for walkers, dogs, kids and even cyclists who welcome the flat route to saunter along the seafront. Your 'official' route is at the top of the cliffs but the undercliff is flatter, faster and nicer. Just remember it's flatter, faster and nicer for everybody...

Cheating is a must

I just happened upon Delia Smith's book 'How to Cheat'. This book should really be called 'Cooking - A Reality Check...'

Now running a guesthouse can provide time in the afternoon for the preparation of our evening food. We get time to buy, prepare and generally process different ingredients for our evening. But if you work in an office and pick up your dinner on the way home, well! A chicken carcass, giblets and vegetables plus seasonings simmered gently for some hours to make the perfect stock? Which counts as a minor ingredient in the whole dish? Get real. That is restaurant food and belongs firmly there.

So Delia has come up with a book that recognises at last that in addition to kitchens we have lives.

I remember so well how sniffily it was greeted by foodies, reviewers and some chefs. If all they do apart from write is pop into the kitchen to spend a day crafting something that is demolished in 30 minutes (15 if they're really good) then good luck to them.

I'll stick for the life too. I tried the very first recipe tonight (the cheesy roast potatoes - there was no ready grated Gruyere so I admit to doing this but it took less than 1 minute so doesn't count) and the whole dish plus gammon steaks took less than 30 minutes and did not leave a whole fridge full of stuff I hope to use but throw after 4 or 5 days.

Well done Delia for turning your attention to us on planet earth and giving us hope. I have some of your other books too and when I have the sort of time usually set aside for jigsaw puzzles or reading novels I'll be back in those creating the longer versions (this sentence seems to presume Delia has time to read obscure blogs but maybe nowadays she has the time with all these cheats!).

Elms

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's I was vaguely aware of Dutch Elm Disease until I met two lovely people - Gladys and Oliver Colbert, now sadly no longer with us but who took me under their wing like a surrogate son - who were keen horticulturists and pointed out the ranks of dead elms littering the countryside of Surrey.

I noticed that elm saplings lived for a few years but the moment they reached a substantial size the disease took hold and killed the trees.

In art classes at school in the mid-1970's I used to look at landscape drawings and paintings with these fabulous trees.

As time passed our interests change - I no longer wanted to be an astronaut (actually I never wanted to be an astronaut I wanted to be in the RAF as a Fighter Controller so running a guesthouse was the next best thing) - and I washed up in Brighton in 2001.

The following year I suddenly realised that most of the trees as you come into Brighton, all around Preston Park, the Level, Royal Pavilion Gardens, Old Steine and Victoria Gardens are all mature elms.

It seems the beetle that carries the fungus which is Dutch Elm Disease is unable to cross the South Downs. This doesn't mean they are safe - signs appear frequently and drastic lopping or even removal is required. But there are hundreds of them and very grand they are too.

I hope one day, with GM technology or microbiological technology at our disposal as never before, we can conquer this disease and replant them in our countryside so that future generations can enjoy it in all its diversity.

All gone

We are experiencing a silence quite unlike anything heard for some weeks. Last night in the small hours I had to put the radio on fearing I had gone deaf.

The lady who lives behind shifted the young seagulls to an unknown place. She's not an unkind person but having them in her yard for a couple more weeks would have been too much. She couldn't use the yard, her cats refused to go out there (they are terrified of the birds) and she couldn't even open her French windows as they would have been straight in and onto her sofa.

Both parents squawked and wailed for a while but have now left. There are still a couple of sets of late developers on neighbouring roofs. Watching them fly for the first time is a heart-stopping spectacle. When they get high enough they spot the sea and are drawn there by instinct. They gather on the beach like a coachload of unruly schoolchildren. They wheel and dart in the air showing off their new-found skills (in contrast to the majestic adults who glide past in a stately manner). It's a sad fact that until they are older they do not know the danger of traffic and many fly straight into cars and buses.

However although they are an endangered species that is not the case down here. The place is over-run with them. And long may it remain so.

Gone - sort of

Another series of frantic squawks and then - silence (for a while). I rushed up to the landing which has the window leading onto the flat roof and there were no birds.

This was the first chance to actually sweep down the roof to try and return it to something acceptable. It was a mass of slimy bitws, bones and moss. As soon as I clambered out and started it was immediately apparent that the parents were still around and being very protective.

This is because both birds are now in the yard behind - where one of them originated anyway. Other chicks have been successfully reared here in the past so hopefully there'll be a happy ending.

... and then there was one ...

It was a hot and sultry night. There was a lot of noise overhead. 3am - whaaaar! whaaaar! whaaaar! Squeak. Thump. Clank.

Then something strange happened. The whaaar was much quieter. More - distant? Then quieter still.

I fell back to sleep and woke slightly later than intended but to virtual silence (obviously there is no such thing as real silence in Brighton). Tom went up to check during breakfast and confirmed only one bird remained. Strangely the one that fell into our yard last night.

We could hear the other one several roofs or yards away wondering what he'd done. As one neighbour commented (it's an incredibly neighbourly place) it must take a lot of courage to launch into the air with full intent for the first time.

This afternoon, in bright sunshine, remaining bird has settled into the bowl of water I put out for him to drink. It must be a nature thing - he's knows that he should be on the water but as yet has not spotted the sea so a ceramic bowl of filtered tap water must suffice. How long will remaining bird stay?

Seagull Update 7 August 2009

Much of what I am telling you was already posted on the website http://www.avalonbrighton.co.uk/ under 'News' but because it was getting a bit long I've decided this is a better place to ramble on about things in general (and feisty seagulls in particular on this occasion).

Nobody visiting the coast can ignore the huge white turkey-sized herring gulls, and lesser black-backed gulls we have flying, roosting, dive bombing, bin raiding, top ridge of church roof sitting or generally noise making in our city.

Anybody visiting the Avalon will be aware we follow the affairs of the seagull kingdom with some interest. After all, they disappear for months on end over the winter and return faithfully each April to roost on their favourite roof.

This year we have been honoured (ha!) with two chicks on our flat roof although how they got there is a bit of a mystery. Actually I think one was catapulted there and the other I put with it when it (also mysteriously) appeared on the flat roof next door and promptly fell with a plop ontp our shed roof from which I undertook a rescue mission so hazardous it nerves me still.

It was my suspicion from day one these two seagulls were not siblings although they instantly bonded on our flat roof and the parents of the first one seemed happy to rear them both (to the intense displeasure of the parent of the second one). The lady who lives behind the Avalon found one of the chicks dead in her yard and I think the other was conveniently popped onto our roof by somebody.

However they are now quite big and almost ready to fly away leaving us with some well needed noiseless nights and a guano encrusted flat roof.

My next door neighbour recently asked when 'your seagulls will be big enough to leave' like I had bought them at a pet shop or hatched them myself under a heat lamp. The answer however is soon as they now shriek with a mixture of delight and fear as their wings strengthen. I try to imagine what it is like as a bird watching your parents come and go and other seagulls gliding effortlessly in the skies above while you have puny little fluff coated wings that get you nowhere. A bit like chickens. Did chickens ever fly?

However back to our fellows - their wingspans are now quite impressive. I just went up to leave them a bowl of water which they drink, splash over themselves then stand in. One 'flew' the length of the roof and I reckon only has days to go. He is the dominant one - bold at the window and only backing away slightly when I open it. The other is a bit more reticent. I think the bold one is the herring gull as he was slightly bigger from day one. The other is the lesser black backed gull, offspring of Fred and Rose.

The parent of the herring gull has kept a vigil on the flat roof next door and makes a terrible fuss whenever I go into the yard or open the window to give them water or croissants. I've included a picture of her.

As I write this one of the seagulls has just come crashing down into the backyard in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings. Both parents went nuts and a melee ensued across the neighbourhood. I grabbed a towel and threw it across the bird (which must know me by now), wrapped him up and quickly legged it upstairs and popped him back on the roof. Were the parents thankful? Hardly, the black-winged parent came for me but just held back. All is quiet again now though. The whole episode over in about 4 minutes. It's lucky I was here though. A few years ago we went out and left the back french doors open and came back to find a seagull sitting on our sofa watching Sky News.