After the unscheduled blip from Kurt about his use of Latin on TripAdvisor, here’s his next offering. Ed
Up at around six. A stroll on the downs. A lavish breakfast, then a few hours at this machine, manufacturing articles on theatre, music, food and horses, while the sun rises high in the preferably blue sky — and a man’s thoughts start to turn to that important event of the day called lunch.
It’s not just food, you understand, my ‘lunch’.
It includes a little drive to somewhere out in the country, perhaps, or down at the seaside, some pleasant place where I can take a long, leisurely cool drink or two, indulge in a light platter of something good to eat, and relax with a play-script, the Macbook, or even just my thoughts for an hour or even two, before starting on the second part of the day.
In France, I’d choose any one of a hundred little restaurants or bistrots for this favourite half-time in my twenty-four hours. But Britain doesn’t seem to go in so much for that kind of place and the ‘little (one-course) lunch’ seems to have become rare. It appears that, in general, you either devote yourself to a full-scale midday main meal or you go to a pub.
The Island’s pubs and I
The Island certainly gives a man a mighty choice when it comes to pubs. You never have to drive very far to find one, and I will admit to having found umm”¦ rather a large number during my time here.
However, nearly all of the pubs I have visited, from Bembridge via Brighstone to Yarmouth, have been large establishments, inevitably decorated up in the picturesque, olde-worlde, beams and horse-brasses, whitewash and flower-boxes manner. And almost all of them seem, above all, devoted to what is called ‘the family trade’.
‘Families’, it seems, descend en masse to eat the lunchtime equivalent of the ‘full English breakfast’ (with chips), or hearty sandwiches made of inch-thick bread, and served with vast amounts of lettuce and tomato, and, for heaven’s sake, potato crisps. Who on earth invented the crazed idea of potato crisps with a sandwich?
My dilemma
This is no good for me. I’m not a family, and I’m not that kind of luncher. I can’t and don’t do ‘hearty’, not even in the prettiest and sunniest surroundings. Nor doorstep bread, nor iceberg lettuce, nor potato crisps with anything. And I have to admit to not caring much for beams and horse brasses either!
Pub for pub’s sake
I’m not saying that amongst these occasionally overblown mega-pubs (and pace Mrs Cunningham, I shall not mention the names of my un-favourites), I haven’t found some decidedly agreeable ones. Because I most certainly have.
I will happily go back to the delightful Buddle Inn at Niton for their sensibly-sized crab sandwich in the sun.
I will happily go back to the Sun Inn at Hulverstone or the White Horse at Whitwell (Gänzl award for the Most Charming Barmaid), just to have a shandy on their lovely lawns, and to the Bugle in Yarmouth for its cosy cheerfulness.
I will very happily indeed go back to the less-than-mega Old Village Inn at Bembridge (‘a proper pub’) for their bangers and mash, extra-dry sherry and good fellowship, and of course I will wander regularly down to my ‘local’, the White Lion, for a pint or three and a few more tips on ‘where to go’, with and from Michelle and the lads.
But none of this solves the question of my daily lunch.
But weep not too sadly for me. For, a little research, a lot of chatting to local folk, and I have most successfully lunched. Not just once, now, but in four different places. I shall list my personal and very varied ‘winners’ for you in my next, and then you can tell me where I can find more of the same.
Please!
