A Postcard from Down South

This past week has been half term.  Well partly; it was for our youngest son.  Eldest son being at college in Yorkshire was on half term the week before, but since he's in Monday to Wednesday, we made a flying visit to the south coast for my Mothers birthday.

Like most seaside resorts Bexhill on Sea doesn't really suit the winter.  We normally visit for a week or so in August.  Now in late February, without the light and warmth of the summer sun, the windblown streets are quiet.  The cafes and restaurants that usually buzz with the activity of the city day-trippers, are dark and quiet.  They wait for the better weather along with the ever present Herring Gulls, circling on the strong sea breeze, mournfully calling to each other, denied the scraps of food provided by the careless summer tourists.

None of this bothers our Border Collie of course.  The chance to chase her ball on the beach is a rare treat.  She leaps in and out of the waves with careless abandon.  So much so youngest son has to wade into the water to retrieve her ball before it is carried away by the retreating tide.  He curses the dog, she wags her soggy tail, shakes out a mixture of water and damp sand and urges him to throw the ball once more.  At least he's finally cleaned his dirty shoes.

On Friday we make the pilgrimage to see my Nan.  Soon to be 97, living independently in the same house my Mother and her siblings were brought up in.  We have a birthday lunch with her and my aunt who lives a few miles down the road.  Nan is slowing down a bit, but she insists she's definitely not deaf as I have shout our family news to her.  She doesn't get up to the church as much as she used to, but the priest now comes to her once a week.  Almost everyone that walks past the house waves at her.  The old lady in her window is a fixture of Rye for so many, not just our large family that live nearby.

We take the chance to walk around the ancient town.  I have been coming to visit family here all my life.  The town has changed out of all recognition.  The shops are now catering for tourists more than locals.  As a kid, my cousin and I would frequent several of the shops on the High Street.  Woolworths, long since gone is a council office and library.  The banks have gone, as has Lipton's Grocers and Freeman Hardy & Willis shoes.  The bookshop remains, as does Adams.  When she left school, Nan got her first job working for the printers that was attached to Adams.  The shop with its large oak framed windows is a newsagents, stationers and most important for me growing up, a toy shop.  Walking in I remember the smell of the place.  It is almost the same as it has always been.  Copies of the national and local papers, magazines, pens, paper, envelopes and up the worn wooden staircase lots of toys.  I'm suddenly distracted by a family from the Midlands, clearly on their own half term holiday.  The children are running rings around their parents, wanting all the toys and threatening to combust if they don't get their own way.  Mum is trying to restore order with a mixture of threat and compromise in her broad Brummie accent, while Dad is wondering if it's worth trying to bribe the kids with ice cream from the kiosk across the road.

Adams of Rye

We wonder down to the Landgate, the surviving fortified entrance to the Town.  It's twin Strandgate was demolished in 1815 after falling into disrepair.  Where there was once a public toilet on the corner of Ropewalk is a Micropub.  As the drizzle begins to fall we hurry inside to find a spacious and busy interior.  It would be rude not to sample some local ale, and we are not generally considered rude.

Landgate, Rye

We walk back through the Market Carpark and past the railway station.  Further on is the Pipemakers Arms, favourite watering hole of my late Grandad, quiet on this damp Friday afternoon.

Saturday finds us visiting Hastings.  We decide to take advantage of the £2 bus fare cap and catch the 99 from the end of the road.  The top deck affords a glorious view of the sea.  Grey outlines of ferries and container ships can be seen on the horizon.  Boulogne is 45 miles away across the channel, tantalisingly out of reach.

Hastings is busier being a weekend.  Youngest son and I go in search of a Saveloy.  This bright red sausage has always been a firm favourite of mine but you just cant find it here in Yorkshire.  My wife and eldest son are less keen on them and visit a well known bakery chain for lunch instead.  We enjoy a drink at a what appears to be an Elizabethan Inn, but was in fact built in 1947 using bomb damaged materials.

Returning on the bus we are reminded why we usually drive.  

Now I like buses.  Growing up in London I would travel on a Routemaster almost everywhere.  You could happily watch the world go by from the top deck, even if the smokers made the view a bit foggy.  The conductor selling purple ink tickets from his Gibson machine.  The mothers prams tucked in the cupboard below the stairs.  The bell string along the cabin ceiling.  Nowadays of course buses only have drivers, there's no smoking thankfully and you pay by contactless card.  The quality of some of the passengers however leaves something to be desired.

AEC Routemaster the backbone of London's Buses from 1956 to 2005

A father and his friend join us with their small children on the top deck.  They swear continuously at the children for not being grateful enough for the day out they've enjoyed at the seaside arcades.

"I'm not f*****g taking you anywhere again."

"Don't eat all them sweets, you'll have f*****g dodgy poos all night."

Meanwhile a teenager in the front seat with black hoodie over his head and his feet up on the rail gets a phone call.  He puts it on speaker of course, it's his Mum:

"Where are you?"

"What?" he shouts.

"I said where are you?"

"What?" louder this time.

"Where are you!?"  Mum is exasperated.

"Glyne Gap."

"I'm going to Eastbourne so I won't be at home."

"Are you driving?" The lad is after a free trip with Mum.

"No I'm catching the train."

"Oh, right never mind."  He hangs up.

The more respectful passengers roll their eyes.  Thankfully we arrive in Bexhill and escape the circus.

We spend our last evening in Sussex drinking wine and enjoying a good laugh with Mum.  She'll miss us when we go, the boys particularly, but my Brother and family are booked in for Easter which is only six weeks away.  She needs that time to recover.

We returned on Sunday evening, a six hour drive unusually for us not disrupted by traffic.  

Arriving home we discovered that the bathroom drain was blocked.  We should have stayed on the coast.

The Ultimate Driving Machine?

Bavarian Motor Works

Growing up in the later years of the twentieth century and being a bit of a car nerd, I can fondly remember the glossy adverts for the latest models.  Each brand seemed to have their own identity.  

Everyone knows Audi was vorsprung durch technik even though we had no idea what it meant, progress trough technology apparently.  My Grandfather made a fleeting appearance in an ad for the Audi 80, as the hapless ships captain dropping the car from a millionaires yacht into the Mediterranean.  Audi's boast of the car being made from galvanised steel meant it wouldn't rust, was offset by my Grandfather reporting the car was ruined by the time they'd fished it out, off camera of course. 

Ford had a catchy jingle to go with Everything we do is driven by you.  Volkswagen had the famous Changes advert.  A recent divorcee played by model Paula Hamilton, throwing away her possessions until finding her car key.  She smiles and drives off in her Golf to the caption: If only everything in life was a reliable as a Volkswagen.

Land Rover has been The best 4x4 by far for as long as I can remember and Fiat's Hand built by robots slogan was cheekily rewritten by the comedy show Not the Nine O'clock News to: Designed by lasers, built by robots, driven by Italians accompanied by a picture of a motorway pile up.

BMW, with their rear wheel drive saloons have always marketed itself as The Ultimate Driving Machine.  Adverts would be testosterone filled speed fests, with chiselled males and beautiful girls in exclusive parts of the world.  These adverts appealed to a certain type of person which according to YouGov is:

"Male, aged 40-59, lives in East Anglia. They’re likely to hold right wing political views and work in the business, finance or consulting sectors. Your typical BMW driver is interested in motorsports and motoring, and enjoys dining out."

I think we might all add that BMW drivers tend to view indicators as an unusable optional extra but I digress.

So with this owner profile you may be surprised to learn that when we had to replace my wife's rusty Honda HRV, given that it had gained the structural integrity of a lace doily, we went for a BMW X3.  The reasons were eminently sensible.  It's a 4x4 SUV, it's a comfortable drive, it's an automatic, and most importantly it was cheap.

BMW X3

The X3 when launched in 2003 was the first mid size premium SUV on the market.  It was designed in conjunction with Magna Steyr, the Austrian tractor manufacturer who also built them until 2010.  

So from an ownership point of view I was expecting a relatively easy time, and yet the Ultimate Driving Machine is at times a royal pain in the behind.

With my mechanical skills best described as enthusiastic amateur, I have tackled the following jobs:

• Full Service and Oil Change.  Relatively simple and the car ran much better afterwards.
• Replacement of faulty Air Bag Sensor.  A real pain having to disassemble the passenger B-Pillar trim.  The part is discontinued and took a while to source.
• Repair Vacuum Leak 1.  The rubber intake boot split allowing unmetered air into the engine.  This caused the car to run rich with poor fuel consumption.  I ordered a new part from the BMW dealer and dismantled the engine ready to replace it.  I then discovered my own car had an oil leak and I couldn't drive to pick the part up.  I got the train which took three hours, I had to change at Carnforth and then had a three mile walk from the station in the rain to collect the part.  I got very wet, but the car got repaired.
• Repair Vacuum Leak 2.  A rubber pipe at the bottom of the engine perished causing high fuel consumption again.  This time I ordered a part to be delivered from a specialist.  Trouble was it never came.  I managed to find one from a motor factor 50 miles away in Leeds and had to drive there to collect it.
• Replace front brake pads.  A simple job, that caused no drama.

These repairs were relatively simple, just time consuming.  However by far the worst job on this car by a distance is the rear screen washer.  This is without doubt the stupidest piece of design in the history of the automobile.  I know that might seem a bold statement.  You might say what about the Austin Allegro and its square steering wheel?  What about the Saab 900 you could drive with a joystick?  What about the Morris Marina and its Trunnions?  Or even the G-Wizz or Suzuki X-90? There have been a lot of poorly designed and built cars over the years but, all of those pale into insignificance because the rear washer on a BWW X3 is Premier League stupidity.

Let me explain.

The car has a screen wash reservoir in the front under the bonnet.  It has two pumps, one for the windscreen and one for the rear, so far so standard.  The rear washer jet is supplied by a 6mm pipe that runs from the reservoir to the rear through the car under the carpet.  Again nothing too unusual in that except, BMW in their infinite wisdom decided to make the pipe in two sections.  The joint is on the drivers side of the transmission tunnel and is a push fit.  

So what? I hear you ask, well the problem is this.

When there is cold weather, the rear jet freezes.  When the rear screen wash is activated the pressure forces the joint apart.  As the now broken pipe is lower than the reservoir the entire watery contents leak into the rear footwell, where it soaks into the foam sound deadening material and rots the carpet.

Moreover, this pipe cannot easily be reached, that would be too sensible.  No, no, instead you must remove the rear seat, the drivers seat (remembering to disconnect the battery so the airbag system doesn't fault), and all of the surrounding plastic trim.  You then peel back to sodden carpet to reveal a small lake and the gushing joint.

The Offending Joint

Repair is the next problem.

The first time, I spent hours drying the carpet with a halogen heater and the hairdryer.  I simply pushed the joint back together.  It clicked and I thought no more of it.

Two weeks later it broke again.  This time I glued the joint.  That repair lasted a month.

This time I meant business.  I taped with PTFE tape, glued and for extra piece of mind clamped another larger hose over the top.

Summer came, the car dried out and I felt I had cured the problem, until this week when the weather went cold and the screen wash disappeared.  Yet again we have a leaking joint.

So what is the solution?  Ultimately a new piece of pipe from pump to jet without a joint.  That would involve removing the interior of the car completely and in the current freezing temperatures is not appealing.  I could send it to BMW who charge £500 to effect a repair without a guarantee it won't do the same again once the weather goes cold.  Instead I'm going to use a coupling that is used by water dispensing fridges.  They use 6mm pipe and it is possible to get a fitting to join two pieces of pipe together.  You have to order online as no one appears to stock them, believe me I trawled the local plumbers merchants and DIY stores.  I event went to a shop that sells fridges.

The Solution?

I'm writing this whilst I wait for my Amazon delivery.  Hopefully this is the permanent solution.  Anyway I've cut a hole in the carpet, just in case I need to repair it again.

A Summer Scene: Bexhill-on-Sea

 

The sun shines. The midsummer heat is moderated by the strong wind blowing in from the south west. It blows constantly, flapping the torn flags atop the lifeguard station. The people here all carefully socially distanced wear their summer clothes and bask in the English definition of summer. Two women walk into the teeth of the breeze. Their long blonde hair streams behind them as they bend to make progress along the shore path.

The sea a constantly shifting blue and green patchwork sparkles in the afternoon light. It crashes driven by the wind against the shingle shore. Away on the horizon sailing yachts make slow progress from right to left passing the Sovereign Light, its grey outline looking like an old railway semaphore against the cloudless blue sky.

Conversation and laughter drift across the browned grass. A terrier chases a ball and returns it to its family. It looks betrayed when its owner pretends to throw the ball, and it runs off anticipating its prize only to be disappointed for a moment as the ball has vanished. It bounces looking around for its toy until it is eventually thrown again. It retrieves the reward and returns to repeat again.

Cyclists weave between the strolling walkers frustrated at their lack of faster progress, whilst a group with freshly bought, fast melting ice creams, hold them at arm’s length like live hand grenades trying to avoid the drips that are running down the cones.

A young couple, with bronzed bodies walk hand in hand laughing. In the centre of the scene she trips and falls on her untied converse shoelace. They laugh harder, she is in hysterics on lying on the grass as her partner tries to help her up. He helps her to her feet and then lifts up her leg to tie her lace as she hops about enjoying his attention.

Being lunch time couples sit and enjoy their fish and chips from cardboard recyclable boxes. They keep the lids tightly closed between mouthfuls. Here is the domain of the herring gull. They float in the sky, circling, cruising looking for food. They land in the grass and try to look disinterested in the bounty they seek. They stalk the unwary diners, like ninjas in the darkest of nights.

A family throw a few chips at the gulls to get them to pose for a photograph. They arrive in numbers, calling for the senior gull to come and eat first, he arrives, larger and meaner than the rest to calm the cacophony. He eats his fill and his minions fight over the scraps. Presently the carnage ends and all that remains are small white feathers that flutter with the grass in the breeze.

A middle-aged couple walk past. They are very earnest, discussing some vital issue with great passion. The man with his flat cap and round horned rimmed glasses nods sagely as they walk, wearing a T-Shirt that proclaims the legend “Only elephants should wear ivory.” His leather shoes creak slightly.

Meanwhile the smile of the one I love encourages me.

Baking for Lockdown

During the enforced COVID lockdowns, interest in baking reached fever pitch. Now as a cook I must admit to being no more than just about competent.  I can follow a recipe if its simple, and can manage passable Roast Potatoes when the need arises.  As things get complicated though and as the amount of washing up increases, I will invariably reach for a take away menu, or something easily microwaved. 

However as the summer days stretched on I began to look back through old cook books looking for something a little different to try.  Buried deep in a box at the back of a garage lurked a slim volume from the dim and distant past, a cookbook sold by my primary school in London to raise funds for a swimming pool that was never built.  Parents and staff contributed their finest recipes and the books were sold out from what I remember.  The cover features an illustration by the famed Willie Rushton, who was a local resident.

The extremely rare Bousfield Cookbook

I flicked through classic recipes from the 1970’s dinner parties the cosmopolitan parents of an inner London school were making at that time.  Homemade delights such as Taramasalata, Spanish Prawns and Tabouleh, which for the uninitiated is Lebanese Parsley Salad.

Tucked away in the pudding section is a recipe for Crundle Pudding, which was submitted by my mother.  The origins of the recipe are lost in the mists of time, but it was made by my paternal grandmother and was passed down through her family.  It’s really quick to prepare, and is very filling.  So, for some 70’s nostalgia, courtesy of the long forgotten Bousfield Cookbook give this a try!

Ingredients:

1 ½ oz Margarine

2 oz Self Raising Flour

½ Pint Milk

2 oz Sugar

1 Egg

Jam or Syrup Sauce

 

Method:

Cream the margarine and sugar, then add the egg and beat into the mixture

Add the flour and mix well

Add milk just before baking

Pour the mixture into a greased dish (it will be slightly lumpy)

Cook for 45 mins at 190 °C

Serve with Jam or Syrup

If you're brave enough to give the recipe a go let me know how it was in the comments.  If any of you are really keen I might even share some of the other recipes from the book.  Let me know below.