TIBBETTS, LUNDY ISLAND – THE ANTIDOTE TO CIVILISATION

I have only myself to blame. I don’t ‘do’ the outdoors, nature, or exercise. As usual, foot engaged in mouth before brain had the opportunity for more measured, sensible, input.

Fortunately, I do like a challenge, especially when it comes to pushing the boundaries of my own levels of tolerance when it comes to personal comfort; all in the name of sampling life’s wide, and very varied, variety. Always look on the bright side of life as they say; easier said than done under some circumstances.

Hugging the bar on MS Oldenburg, bouncing our way across the Bristol Channel from Ilfracombe to Lundy Island, I declined to repose on deck with all of the other hopefuls, thankful that I have long since stopped suffering from sea-sickness. Just in case, however, we had stocked up on a very fine full English at Adele’s café prior to our departure, just in case the contents of my stomach decided on a swift departure, which thankfully did not occur. It would have been such a waste.

Full exposure to the elements for the next 4 days in a basic remote hideout called Tibbetts, owned by The Landmark Trust, seemed like a good idea at the time. It will be fun, I told myself, living without the benefit of electricity and the only source of water being by the operation of a pump. That was until I read the small print. Silly girl, serves me right.

In my haste to honour a promise to take a long-standing girlfriend to the island for her 60th birthday, I had completely failed to notice that the aforementioned property is almost two miles uphill from our arrival point at the jetty; uphill, and on foot. Any enthusiasm I may have had at the start of the journey was soon dispelled. Fortunately, the weather was in benevolent mood. Nonetheless, the total journey time was not much under 2 hours, largely on account of my complete lack of fitness. This was not a competition I told myself, for who could get there first. Much to Rosy’s disgust, we were last. Any excitement I might have possessed at our first sighting of a baby seal belly-flopping its way to the sea was short-lived.

On checking in at the estate office, and again, seeking sustenance at the island’s pub, Marisco Tavern, I could not help but observe the wry amusement that greeted us when we revealed our final destination. ‘Going glamping are you?’ It did not take us long to establish quite why. Tibbetts is the remotest property on the island and bang slap in the middle. A granite signal and watch station, and built in 1906, Tibbetts has largely remained unaltered.

With its match-boarded walls and Wenlock stove, we were guaranteed a cosy retreat. For my part, having trekked this far, there was little hope that I would want to repeat the journey except under extreme duress. Sadly, our experience of the cuisine in the tavern at lunchtime on the day of arrival, a pretty dire Lundy lamb pasty, left little desire to return. Luckily, we had had the foresight to place an order for basic food provisions before our arrival, so spent our time subsisting on sausages, bacon, eggs, wine and chocolate; not the healthiest of diets but certainly one of our number (not me!) intended to spend her days tramping around the island to walk off the calories. Whilst I appreciate the difficulties of obtaining supplies when everything, literally everything, has to be brought over from the mainland, I found the quality of food available in the shop disappointing and lacking in imagination. Likewise, the offerings in the tavern, which at lunchtime, were largely based around baguettes, burgers and chips.

Despite assurances as to the time it would take us to reach the property, and I am no slouch when it comes to walking on the level, it took us the best part of 40 mins. from the tavern. This was not a journey I would willingly do after dark. Adjacent to the track we passed a small herd of rather large highland steers, with rather large and intimidating horns, but we were soon to learn that by and large any animals on the island were tame although it was wise not approach them, just in case.

What a welcome sight it was. A solid, compact, granite structure surrounded, fortress-like, by a tidy stone wall. Small but perfectly formed, with unobstructed 360’ views of the sea in splendid isolation; the complete antidote to civilisation. Were our efforts to reach it worthwhile? Oh yes indeed. 

Whatever our expectations, this diminutive property did not disappoint. As with all Landmark Trust properties, great attention to detail provides quirky, interesting features, and although not offering plush comfort by modern day standards (the shower, situated in the old coal shed, is actually directly above the loo, providing an interesting bathing experience) everything had been thought of, right down to the Wenlock stove being lit, plentiful supplies of matches for our gas lamps (the only form of light at night) and the very welcome hot water bottles. As both us of us are bad sleepers, a sure sign of our multitude of post-menopausal ailments, I was grateful for the seaman’s bed which doubles up as a settee in the living room, leaving Rosy the choice of one of four bunk beds in the bedroom.

Being a townie, and unused to the rigours of outdoor life in the country, I had of course failed miserably in the suitability of my packing for the venture. Convinced that it would be cold, wet and windy, I had loaded up my luggage with woolly jumpers and the like, which were never to see the light of day. Such necessities as walking boots and socks had not entered my head. Hence, when our luggage did not arrive until several hours after our arrival I was left waiting for my spare pair of shoes, without which, unlike Elvis, I was unable to leave the building. The soles of the pair I had been wearing for the journey, admittedly fairly ancient, decided to part company with the uppers, leaving me stranded until the appearance of reinforcements. In the meantime, Rosy had made the reverse trip back down to the tavern with the promise of a talk by the ranger. Not wanting to be entirely left out, on retrieving my luggage, I hitched a lift on the Land Rover back down to the tavern, catching the tail end of a really good overview of the wildlife on the island. The beef cattle are sent to the mainland for slaughter, but the sikka deer, soay sheep and goats, being classed as wild game animals are butchered on the island. As hunters were seen during our stay, with culling underway to control numbers to a viable level, we eagerly awaited their appearance on the dinner menu, only to be disappointed. As far as I could tell, almost all of the meat used is frozen and much else that is served up, such as desserts, bought in, rather than being made on site. Alas, there was no evidence of fresh fish either, apart from a crab salad I observed in passing, which was marred by the pile of frozen prawns covered in marie-rose sauce.

Undaunted, we decided to give the tavern’s food another go, ordering a Lundy lamb tagine with couscous, only to be disappointed once again. Too bad. I was certainly not going to be making a daily trek down for such poor fare; back to the chocolate and wine diet, with a brandy chaser to ensure a good night’s sleep by the fire, snug as a bug.

On a more positive note, without exception, the skeleton staff who man the island were helpful and informative, gathering in the bar to exchange gossip and news. It was as a result of one such encounter that a young man, who had arrived earlier in the season, with his fiancée, had kindly donated her hiking boots for my use, after she had left him in the lurch.

The nights were truly spectacular. Unpolluted by light, the total darkness and clear skies gave full rein to the magnificence of the Milky Way. Waxing lyrical? You bet, although for future visits I am inclined to avail myself of the helicopter that lands just by the village, saving that long, long trek up hill. 

IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT HOTEL & THE PERFECT MEAL

As a chef and professional hotel and restaurant inspector for almost 30 years I am regularly asked to recommend places in which to eat or stay. Often this is to celebrate a special occasion.

My response is always the same. Before I can be sure of making any suggestions, I have to do my homework and ask a few questions.

As much as I have had some truly memorable stays and many fabulous meals in places all around the world, there is no such thing as the perfect restaurant or the perfect hotel, for a number of reasons.

When it comes to food how important is price? Is the desire for a traditional Sunday roast or the latest in fusion cuisine? How important is the venue location and the environment?

Is location and a room with a view important for somewhere to rest your head, or is the room itself and the facilities on offer more important?

Eating out and sleeping in rooms alone for much of the time I have plenty of opportunity to focus on aspects that others might overlook. Even when not on ‘inspection’ duty I find it impossible not to cast my professional eye over the proceedings.

Some places will appeal to me but not to others, and much will depend on the occasion; a romantic dinner for two, a family gathering, the chance of a budget mid-week break, a lone business trip or a girlie weekend. All of us will want different things at different times in our lives. The success or failure of what we choose to do in our free time with our hard-earned cash is as much to do with the choices we make as the experience we end up with.

Places to eat or in which to stay are living breathing things, a moveable feast if you will. As hard as they may try, in this people industry disasters will happen. Every place has its ‘off day’. It is par for the course. What matters is not so much what goes wrong, as long as it is not repeated, but how the mishaps are dealt with and managed. Or better still, having the ability to spot a blip and intervene before it escalates to a full-blown complaint and public disapprobation.

Whilst the traditional guides have taken something of a step back since the advent of social media, like it or loath it, sites such as TripAdvisor can now play a significant part in building or damning the reputation of even the most highly regarded establishment.

Personally, I rarely use such sites, preferring to make my own decisions based on my own research; a look at a website, a scan of the menu, or a quick phone call can tell me all that I need to know. For somewhere I am familiar with, how can I be sure that at the next visit it will still pass muster?

I just love 5 Star luxury, without the pretention, and at the other end of the scale I adore ‘down and dirty’ street food. What I loth, with a passion, is the indifferent poorly run establishment where they care little for me as a customer and skimp on everything. I am looking for generosity of spirit as much as anything. A smile costs nothing. Places that I might once have favoured can quickly earn my disapproval, and especially where restaurants are concerned, a change in personnel can have a significant impact.

It may be that you are seeking a quick, cheap and cheerful turnover with low customer expectations, except perhaps to have a good time without breaking the bank. At the other end of the scale are what we think of as high-end luxury establishments where perfection, or as near as damn it, is expected. At this level there can be the dangerous tendency to over promise, only to disappoint when you fail to deliver. Fairly or unfairly, I tend to be toughest on those places I like the best; because I want them to be the best.

In recent years, and more so since the Brexit vote, obtaining, and keeping, good staff is a problem across the industry; all the more reason to keep the ones you have got if they are performing well.

All too often, especially where tight budgets are concerned, there is the temptation to cut corners in the belief that either customers will not notice, or will accept a lesser standard of service or quality than they have become used to. Unless there is no need for repeat business this is merely a recipe for disaster and word of mouth is a powerful thing.

The key to any successful business in the hospitality industry is knowing your market and how to reach it, attention to detail and well-trained staff, who can have a significant impact on sales, who have the confidence and authority to make decisions, and a passion for pleasing the customer.

It is after all the customer that pays the wages, despite what greedy shareholders may want their staff to believe.

COUNCILS GOING BROKE

It should be no surprise to any of us that across the country local councils are in dire financial straits. For several years central government has been busy offloading their obligations onto local authorities, sometimes with the carrot of interim funding, which soon dries up, and at other times with not a penny to fund the extra responsibility. We have often seen these additional duties then devolved to town and parish councils, who are expected to take up the flak, or incur the wrath of the local electorate when they cannot afford to step into the breach. 

As the situation has worsened, those councils hardest hit are resorting to cutting back to such an extent that they are eventually to meeting the minimum statutory requirements, and nothing more. Hence, when facing such severe financial constraints, we find that things we have taken for granted over man years, such as leisure facilities, libraries, regular road cleaning and adequate transport are suddenly reduced or cut altogether. Then of course there is an almighty outcry.

But, we have all been complicit in this unhealthy, and unsatisfactory situation. Whilst there has been an obsession with keeping taxes down I believe this has been the wrong way to go about things. What should have happened is that we should decide what services we desire, at what level, calculate how much it is going to cost to provide and then stump up, however painful that might be.

There is of course the argument that councils have not operated efficiently, certainly in the past, but that is no longer necessarily the case. ‘Efficiency’ savings have meant that staffing levels are cut down to the bone and it is increasingly difficult to provide any level of service that the general public now find acceptable. The knock-on effect of this is that morale is at an all-time low and it is increasingly difficult to recruit replacements for those who up sticks and decide to go elsewhere.

Like or not, we cannot have it both ways. We have choices to make. We can either sit back, moan like hell and see the continued erosion of those things we hold dear or we can roll up our sleeves, muck in and play our part. We don’t have to pass by the litter that adorns our streets, we could offer an elderly neighbour a lift into town, do a bit of weeding along the path…. so many things that we can do to make life better for all of us.

One thing I am clear about is that at all costs we must protect the most vulnerable, if for no other reason than that the cost to us, both financially and as a society, is too high for us to bear.

HELP OUR HOMELESS

Local front page headlines this last week implored us to help our homeless. It is a plight becoming all too obvious as we go about our daily business within town centres. There but for the grace of God goes each and every one of us.

For 30 years I have been involved in helping the homeless in one way or another. It began when I was living in New York and used to pitch up at the local convent several times a week to make 300 bologna and cheese sandwiches for the queues that would gather outside. Since then, on and off, I have tried to do my bit, including providing a home for a family one Christmas.

I have been homeless myself twice, once as a child and later as an adult, after returning to England when my first marriage failed. It was thankfully a brief blip as I had the good fortune to have friends to fall back on to help me pick up the pieces and move on.

Now in my sixties, in recent decades, with the rapidly increasing pace and complexity of our daily lives, I believe that life has become much more stressful. Whereas in the past vulnerable people would have close family and friends to turn to now there is the tendency to seek out others who are willing to listen and understand their situation; collude with them if you like. Those that can relate to them are often in the same boat, so the vicious cycle continues. Eventually for them the resilience we possess is completely absent.

What worries me is that we all seem to have become so judgmental. There are many reasons why people become homeless; instead of seeing the dishevelled, often half crazed, person in our wake and giving them a wide berth, avoiding eye contact if at all possible, lest they accost us for money, or worse, we must look beyond the outward manifestation of what is a very complex, and socially costly issue.

In the vast majority of cases their situation has been caused by a combination of physical and mental health issues, which in turn can have come about due to a whole range of problems; relationship breakdown, lack of employment, abuse, gambling, alcohol or drug addiction. The list is endless.

No normal healthy person suddenly decides to make themselves homeless, or become addicted to an expensive habit; something that they know will cause them harm.

At the very least we need to attempt to show some compassion for their plight. Rather than show contempt, try to engage with them as human beings. Even something as simple as a smile can make them feel human again, if only briefly. Offering them something to eat, and giving them a choice, reaps huge rewards.

Many of us volunteer at shelters over the Christmas period, but we must remember that there are another 364 days in the year.

Private Kraków : Photographic Journey Through Time + A Special Recipe

It was great to hear from Polish friends Paula, Michalina, Tomek and Sabina this week!

They shared with me, and now I want to share with you a new artistic tour they’ve created which they were talking about when we cooked pierogi together. This is now becoming a reality!

“This tour connects learning and making pinhole analogue photography together with walks in the town, hearing amazing local stories and getting the most beautiful spots to keep it as postcards and also have an interesting portrait in the Kraków sights. We also go into the dark room and develop the pictures together so that everybody has an amazing souvenir to take home from the trip. We created this tour with Urban Adventures very recently but the photographic group Polish Obscura and the whole project is already lasting for few years. We make together a lot of workshops and events. If you wish to see some of the work we did, have a look at our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/polishobscura/

The details and photo gallery of a tour is on our Urban Adventure site here:
https://www.urbanadventures.com/Private-Krakow-tour-photographic-journey-through-time”

If you’re travelling to Poland this is a unique way to experience local life in Kraków, the most artistic of Polish cities - become an artist for a day. Join their passionate photographer and guides, who are founders of the artistic group called Polish Obscura, and travel back in time to capture historic Krakow as they would have done in the late 19th century, with a handmade camera.

On a separate note they also shared with me (as promised) a recipe for Lavender Liqeur

Lavender Licqeur :

LIST OF INGREDIENTS :

7 big spoons of dry lavender
3 big lemons
1 big orange
4 cloves
1 litre of 40% vodka
400g of natural honey

HOW TO MAKE IT :

Put dried flowers of lavender into a big glass jar. Add lemons and oranges (with or without skin, I did it without). Add cloves and all the vodka. Put the jar into a dark place and let it stay like this for two weeks. Once in few days shake the jar. After two weeks add honey and let it stay for another week. After this week filter the liquor - it is ready!