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Simply Scottish, Jedburgh
Jedburgh Abbey is a stunning ruin. A monument to an advanced, organised, well-developed and intelligent system which functioned to the benefit of most of local society. Until it was laid waste to by revengeful single-issue small-minded English vandals on a regular basis in the 14th Century. I cannot conceive of this sort of thing ever happening…
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Elderslie Coffee Co. Stoddard Square, Elderslie, Johnstone
Cutting thorough the outlying Glasgow feeder towns can turn up the odd establishment of great functionality to us, my PMiaV contingent. In a small rank of shops with a handy free carpark is the Elderslie Coffee Company, with its own adjacent Butcher’s shop. What a find. The coffee shop opens at 6am apparently too. At…
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Coast, Langbank, Port Glasgow
Trundling to Port Glasgow in the wagon I noted the jaunty nautical portholes of Coast from the A8. I later returned to Langbank, the Riviera of Port Glasgow, where I enjoyed a choice of free parking. I savoured the view across the Clyde to Dumbarton Rock, rather than actually having to be in Dumbarton. Coast…
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West Oxon coffee safari: Aston Pottery. Linwood & Co. – Bampton/Witney/Moreton-in-Marsh. Blake’s Kitchen, Clanfield. The Lotus Retreat, Faringdon.
Returning to the earliest of one’s ancestral stomping grounds can be a salutary experience. Especially walking a familial hound around the cemetery. One just seems to recognise so many surnames on the headstones. Sorry about all that. On with the light (commercial van-based) comedy. An extended safari south of the border, far south, has a…
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Spitfire Espresso, High Street, Glasgow
What must ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,’ (and sisters, indeed any intelligent life-forms capable of driving an L3H2 Transit van and being creative about double-parking) struggle against in a dystopian world of generic coffee consumption? My undeniable answer is dire, soulless Costa Coffee franchises. Other café corporations spreading mediocrity and peddling…
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Lily’s Larder, Leven Road, Lundin Links, Leven
Lily’s is a spacious and warm escape from the dreich February winter climate of Fife and is surrounded by ample free parking. I was going to say that inside one can escape the all-pervasive golf focus emanating from St. Andrews. But one can’t. Outside, the Ladies Lundin Links is across the road. Inside, hyper-real golf…
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Cottonrake, 35 Commerce St, Glasgow
Commerce St is in every way pleasing to the passing PMiaV. Well worth a shufti. Interesting establishments selling food and kitchen hardware from around the world proliferate, van keys can be duplicated cheaply, laptop chargers bought at a reasonable price, vapes purchased in bulk and the attitude of the local drivers to Glasgow’s parking laws…
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94 Coffee Shop, Waddeston, Aylesbury
On occasion, business forces Sancho and me south of the Border into the sparsely inhabited wilderness areas known to its pitiful and scattered inhabitants as the Home Counties. Cafés and coffee shops are truly hard to find in this apocalyptic zone. Those few businesses in this cursed area are often backward compared to the cutting-edge…
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Empire State Coffee Artisan Roasters, Dundee
I do appreciate artistic vision in a caffeine refectory. Not that I immediately comprehended it, but that was down to the earliness of the hour and the thoroughness of the previous evening’s abandon. Empire State Coffee Artisan Roasters is located on Whitehall Crescent, tucked under the Malmaison hotel: that refurbished marvel of C19 hotel design…
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Patricia’s X SLB, Govanhill, Glasgow
God forbid you should have to park your engine of economic generation for any length of time in Govanhill. Nae spaces here pal. But, like many decisions in contemporary society, the reluctant but sensible choice seems to be Lidl. With their 90 minutes free car park. Around the corner in Victoria Street coffee beckons at…
