Accommodation, Free and Budget Travel In London, and sandwiches for £1

Somebody on WAYN asked where to stay cheaply near the centre of London for a week.

Bikes?
Decide how you plan to travel, walking, by tube train and bus using a one week travel card, or by borrowed bike from the Santander system.

Travel Directions
Work out two places you wish to visit each day. Mark the nearest tube stations on an underground map. See if they are all within one travel zone. Decide how much you are prepared to pay for a travel zone card. If you are going to pay only for a central London card then you need a hotel further in.

Travel train zones
If you are travelling further, and paying for an all zones card, you can look for accommodation in that zone.

Mark the stations on the edge of the zone (the further out of London the cheaper), then look for hotels or rental places near those stations.

Weekly Rate
Look for a reduction on one week to compare with a daily rate.

Loyalty Cards
If you are going for a hotel chain, check if joining their loyalty scheme gives you a room rate reduction, room upgrade, or free breakfast, or free day's stay if you are in one of their hotels a certain number of days.

More Information
At suburban and central London station you find racks of information leaflets. At big stations like Euston you can pick up a leaflet showing the tube system, also another larger leaflet showing local streets and landmarks. (Useful to find your way to nearby museums, find your way back to the station, find your way back to your hotel.)

Other leaflets include a bike map. This has a handy free map of streets all over central London.

Some lines and stations have faster train times than others. Some central areas are very crowded during rush hour. If your hotel is in central London, if you have an hour to spare, you can pop out and walk about. If you are in a suburb, you may feel more like having an early night or sitting at your phone or computer or the hotel's system (check what wifi is provided) or visit a local pub or coffee bar.

Coffee Loyalty Cards
You could choose an entire system, such as Costa Coffee, or Second Cup. Collect loyalty points for free coffee. You can save money by eating a sandwich on a public bench in an indoor shopping mall (such as Intu in Watford) or in a public park. This is not just a question of coffee shops wanting to discourage people from sitting around hogging seats (which might apply in Italy, where there is sometimes a cover charge for bread - see advice on Italy and systems in different cities in the simple wiki). In Singapore where central branches ask school children not to hog tables doing homework.

In the UK it's a government VAT charge on eating in. So you'll save on that by taking away your coffee and sandwich.

Pubs
You could check a different pub each day. Alternatively, opt for one group.
Wetherspoons pubs vary their food, so one day is curry day, another something else, so you can sample a variety of meals.
Some times of day, usually early, you get special deals.

Cheap Sandwiches
Also check out the £1 sandwiches in Boots (drug store / pharmacy) and Morrisons and Tesco, but they might sell out early.)

Late in the afternoon or early evening you will see more reduced price bargains. Even Tesco Express has a reduced price section in most stores offering sandwiches and other items such as fruit and salads which are on their last day of best by or use by dates.

So there you have it, travel sorted, coffee and drinks sorted, sandwiches sorted.
More Information from:
https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See more by and about Angela Lansbury, author, on other blog posts, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, Amazon books and Lulu.com self-published print on demand books.

Second Cup coffee shop in Harrow, Middlesex

Second Cup coffee shop is to the right of St Ann's shopping mall. You can sit outside if you want to smoke, or inside in the warm. Signs say more seating upstairs.

Here's the counter. Festive lights and a tree - raising funds for a a charity.

Second cup, alas, does not mean that you get a second cup for free. (Check my earlier post or on the net to find which places offer a second cup of coffee free. I think one of the pub chains does so at breakfast time.) The name second cup means they want to evoke an image of a cup of coffee so delicious that you want a second cup. A piece of smart marketing.

Ask for the loyalty card if you intend returning. They punch a hole in your card each time you order a coffee so eventually you get a free cupful of coffee. Interesting and initially baffling that I nearly said a free cup but had to change it. A free cup is not the same as a free cupful of coffee. The 'cup' stands for the contents.

Coffees
We ordered double espresso with cream. Fine. The website is really good. It shows all kinds of teas and coffees and gives calorie counts. You might want to read it and make your choice before you go there.

Teas
A wide selection of teas was shown on a chart on the counter top.

Cakes
I liked the look of the triple deck chocolate cake - with sparkle. Then I saw the carrot cake.

The red velvet cake was appealing. What was it? They said it was beetroot.

The New York style baked cheesecake looked both moist and solid. However, it was nearly lunch time, so I opted for something more sensible.

Sandwiches
I hesitated between the chicken sandwich, which had something green, lettuce I think, and the smoked salmon and cream cheese. I had chicken at home so, despite feeling I ought to have some vegetable, I opted for the salmon and cream cheese. It was good, filled me up, tasty with pepper or poppy seeds or both.

I checked their website and found that the company started in Canada and they have franchises.
More information from:
www:secondcup.com

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Pumpkins and Papples at Cobbs Farm Shop

We visit Cobbs Farm Shop on our way to the Harrow at Little Bedwyn where we eat at least once a year. Cobb Farm Shop is always crammed with interesting things to eat and buy.

Pumpkins provided at eye catching display this autumn.

They also had a table of pumpkins to buy, classified by size. Drop them on the hole to find the size.

Want to practise carving pumpkins and raise money or give money to charity. Here's one of their posters to inspire you.

Pumpkin carving event 24th-28th October 2016. The pumpkins are 'Home-grown from farm to shop. You won't find them fresher,' their leaflet says.

P A P P L E S

Among the novelties I saw were p a p p l e s. I have had to insert spaces because the keen spell checker keeps rushing to change the word back to apples. I looked up p a p p l e s and found they are apples, which look like apples, but taste like pears with the usual juiciness of pears.

I didn't buy them on this visit. They seemed a bit expensive. However, if you need something to take to tea or dinner at a friend's or to give to a friend, especially 'somebody who has everything', this could be the answer.

We bought several vegetables and bottled products. I signed up for their loyalty card last time we visited. I took it out of my pocket when I went on my last overseas trip. However, the Cobbs Farm shop had my details on their computer and were happy to give me my loyalty discount so I was very pleased.

The complex also contains various areas, the Café, a batcher, a fishmonger, delicatessen, florist, vineyard, PYO (pick your own) and Play Barn.

Cobb Farm Shop and Kitchen
Bath Road
Hungerford
Berkshire
RG17 OSP
Tel:01488 686 770
email cobs@cobbsfarmshop.co.uk
www.cobbsfarmshop.co.uk

Want a pick-me-up snack whilst shopping? Yogurt, fat free, sugar free, gluten free, at Watford and elsewhere

Walking uphill from Watford High Street station, you cross on the triple crossing towards the shops. Take a detour into Boots and try to avoid buying. (I ended up with three nail varnishes, which I wanted, at least I wanted one or two but the offer was three for two.) The Boots entrance brings you out at the lower level passing the toilets, baby change area with the drinking water fountain. As you pass towards the escalators on your left is the Yogurt kiosk. They often have a free taster of their yogurt or you can ask for one.

If you like the yogurts, take a card which gives you a free topping after five separate purchases, and a free yogurt after ten.

I tried the yogurt with the granola and blueberry topping. De-lish.

Want Calcium?
I'd previously avoided the kiosk and went to a coffee shop because I'm wary of sugar in smoothies. However, I love yogurt, and think I need calcium more than caffeine, calcium to build nails, teeth and bones - if you've ever had a cracked nail, broken tooth, or broken bone or backache you may share my concern.

How Much Sugar?
So reading the literature and claims on the signboard about the sugar and fat and gluten content, I was reassured I was getting calcium, without too much sugar. However, do read all the literature and check for yourself that what you are choosing, whether in a coffee shop or kiosk suits your needs in general or on that occasion. If you bought a low calorie coffee from a coffee shop, but added sugar, obviously you end up with more calories and more sugar. So if you buy yogurt, then add honey, you have to take into account what is added.

Onwards and Upwards at Intu, Watford
If you are aiming for a second storey shop, you are right by the escalator. If you want to sit in the shopping mall, Intu has lots of seats. You can eat the yogurt and read the literature.

Location, location, location
As Hilton used to say about a successful hotel, Location, location, location. Where can you find Yog yogurts?
Their website lists outlets in: Intu, Watford; Brent Cross; London - several including Greenwich; Brighton and more. You can also buy their products from Tesco.

More details and locations from:

yogyogurt.co.uk

ANGELA LANSBURY AUTHOR is a travel writer, speaker and English tutor and speech coach.
More about Angela Lansbury author on Youtube, Lulu.com, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook.

Gilbert's glamorous Restaurant in historic Grimsdyke Hotel, and the meaning of Parfait, and Prosecco Wine Labels

  Grimsdyke Hotel is a Harrow Weald landmark, being the former home of Gilbert who wrote Gilbert and Sullivan operas, which are still performed there. The hotel has turned into a Best Western, which we used when we lived in the USA, as it was a collection of individually owned places with joint marketing, always a surprise, a mixture of delight and occasional disappointments, rather than the blandly predictable and reliable chains. Gilbert's restaurant has always been an elegant venue for dinner, and has a long history of two star rosettes from the AA, as shown by the plates on the wall in the entrance lobby.

   The hotel has periodic renewals which have to leave the fabric of the magnificent gabled building intact. Gilbert's restaurant is to the left of the main entrance. Since I last went there the interior seems to have been repainted with mixed results. I like everything clean. I am not keen on the brown colour scheme. I prefer clean white to contrast with brown beams. I once read that the fashion for black and white was Victorian, previously beams were natural brown rather than black.

   I can't help it, I like lots of clean white. The napkins were white. The crockery was white. Some new incongruous overhead modern lights provided extra light. But the wonderful mythological animal carvings around the fireplace did not have the impact they used to have on summertime lunchtimes and I did not see anything about the history of Gilbert & Sullivan and the hotel in the restaurant menu.

  What did I like most about my meal? The service was great. Helpful and friendly. Best of all, when I dropped a piece of cutlery, a new piece was presented wrapped with the handle in a napkin, no risk of the waiter's hands and perspiration going all over the handle - or worse, the part which touches your food, like at some other places, so well done!

   Drinks by the glass which we tried included a red rioja, and my reasonably priced sparkling white Prosecco. 

What Do Wine Labels Mean?

   I was able to enjoy a consumer's discussion of Prosecco. One member of my family is studying for the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) diploma exam. I am shortly doing the first level, a one-day course. Diploma level is much higher, level four, taking two years, taken by sommeliers, wine suppliers and connoisseurs. (After that comes Master of wine, usually taken by people working in the wine  trade.) 

What Prosecco Means

Prosecco was originally both the name of a region in Italy and the grape grown in that area. This caused confusion to the consumer. As the Prosecco wine grew more and more popular worldwide, a rival to Champagne, like Champagne, the Prosecco producers wanted to protect their reputation. Wine growers and makers in the Prosecco area thought that growers and producers of wine from other areas could take the prosecco plant and pretend that the wine was produced in the Prosecco region. It's easier to change the name of the grape than of the region. 

So if you were to buy a really old bottle, and read the label, both the grape and wine might be Prosecco. But nowadays Prosecco tells you the region. The grape is glera. If you are not into wine, you do not need to remember the name of the grape. All you need to know is that prosecco no longer identifies the grape, but refers to a region of Italy.

Chicken liver parfait. Delicious creamy parfait. The word parfait is French for perfect. It can mean a creamy pate (or a creamy cold dessert). 

I liked the dinky little holders for individual butter portions. I typed in D inky and the spellchecker turned the word into K inky.

Note the candle on the table. 

The white bread contains onion. Even better, the brown bread with walnuts. Top marks for the bread.

Beef with dumpling. Potato. Vegetable.

I loved the quilted, scented toilet paper.

You can get a loyalty card for lunch time.

I am a happy soul and I've tried to write a cheerful account of my evening out which I enjoyed. Unfortunately Mr Grumpy thought the meal was hardly better than a Harvester, hence my less than enthusiastic review on Tripadvisor. However, if you've never been to the Grimsdyke hotel and Gilbert's restaurant, you should certainly try it once. And it's the only decent place, in a grand historic hotel, for miles around which is conveniently open on a Sunday evening.

In The Area

  Before or after your calorific lunch or dinner, in summer or on a sunny day you can see a fine view over London including the Wembley Arch, from the car park opposite the hotel. 

   You can also walk, stroll or jog (mind the tree roots and mud) along the centuries old Grim's Dyke way, an extensive pathway through the trees which is marked by sign posts and on maps. 

More information from the hotel website: www.grimsdyke.com