4 cyclists and 12 days to ride from Lands End to John O'Groats to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Follow our progress with this blog with day to day pictures as we cycle, eat and drink our way to John O'Groats and onward to the Orkneys and the Stromness Whiskey Bar!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wheelton Start
A night in my own bed was bliss and it was hard to leave Wheelton this morning. Simon
I have just been told that there is such a thing as a Chorley cake, and that this is the same as an Eccles cake, only the pastry is not flaky.
Is this true and, if so, why? Is there a geographical continuum of pastry types in West-central Lancashire? Are there Bolton cakes made with filo? Are Preston cakes encased in puff?
And I'll tell you something else, further to Dan's comment - every town in the land has some sort of 'unique' speciality cake which on inspection turns out to be just another bread bun with a few currants in it.
Where do you land tonight, guys? In the time you cycled from Wheelton to Aberdeen, all I achieved was to have a four-hour planning meeting at Land Registry. Mind you, it was in the Wetherspoon's round the corner from the office.
For the record, an Eccles cake is currants in flaky pastry with sugar on the top, a Chorley cake is currants in shortcrust pastry, no sugar but extra nice with butter on (just to make sure you get your daily cholesterol intake). I can't speak for other town's currant based cakes. And I'm sorry, Rob, a chorley cake is definately not a bread bun. Where I come from (Lancashire), a bread bun with currants in it is a currant teacake. Chorley cakes, being from Lancashire, are infinately superior to Eccles cakes, being from Greater Manchester, and much less messy to eat. To my knowledge, neither of these items has been consumed so far on the End 2 End ride.
Re: Rob's comment above - Aberdeen? Shome mishtake surely! Tonight's pied a terre [not to be confused with pomme de terre or even pied (a) piper] is, I believe, the beautiful lakeland village of Bampton, near Haweswater - you may know it from the Coast to Coast walk. Home to Alexis' lovely mum Alison - that's Mark's aunt (and mine!). It's all getting very northern - cakes and all - which is a worry for me cos it means in less than 48 hours I shall be cycling with the fab four on the beautiful (but not entirely flat) Isle of Arran. Crivens! I'm nowhere near as fit as our four heroes - and it's forecast to rain rather a lot on Thursday. Jings! Maybe four hours in the pub with the people from the Land Registry is not such a bad gig after all, Rob.
Re: cakes named after northern towns - let's not forget that on the other side of the Pennines things are very different: Pontefract Cakes, hailing as they do from the Yorkshire town of that same name - contain no currants at all. In fact, they are not even really cakes - they are liquorice sweeties, usaully with a picture of Pontefract castle embossed on them. Well, eee by gum! I know, I know, it's amazing, isn't it?
Arran's fab! I was there a few years ago with Matt - some lovely long downhills over the spine of the island with good long vis and straightish smoothish roads. That was the famed two-week island-hopping holiday which was scuppered on Day 2, when we found the second island on our hop - Islay - was hosting a two-week whisky festival...
You'll have a great time! Be sure to visit the distillery on Arran, and see if that pump I must have left in the car park is still there. It's a black Zefal.
Arran certainly is fab - although being the pedant I am I do have to point out that "lovely long downhills" will be equally 'painfully long uphills' (in the rain, no doubt) when I am riding back on my own to catch the ferry from Brodick to head home to Edinburgh (the fab 4 will leave from Lochranza at the north of the island, to battle on to Lochgilphead). Still, it's got to be easier than doing 115 miles across Cornwall, so I really mustn't grumble... I'll see if I can find that pump, but no promises. And on a point of principle I shall do my best to take a healthy supply of Eccles Cakes and Pontefract Cakes for the team to consume [sorry Sue, not sure you can get Chorley Cakes in Scotland - but I can ask at Greggs the bakers, I suppose.]
I feel I should add 3 days on, just for the record, that I didn't find Rob's lost pump on Arran - sorry, but it's not really terribly surprising, is it?
I did take Eccles Cakes and a bag of Pontefract Cakes with me - and the former were duly consumed with some gusto on the ferry to Arran. The latter were received somewhat less enthusiastically and I've ended up bringing them back home with me (having carried them in my backpack across Arran and back again - along with far too many bananas plus various other comestibles that were not required! The story of my life.).
Mark was very pleased to receive the Jelly Babies and Liquorice Allsorts which I took, though, so all was not lost.
And I failed to find Chorley cakes, so if anyone can get some to the team at some point between Fort William and Kirkwall then more power to their elbow, I say. A 'next day delivery' courier might just about make it if you commission them (and a local baker), Sue! (frankly, I wouldn't bother though - especially as the Eccles Cakes proudly proclaimed on their packaging that they were 'Real LANCASHIRE Eccles Cakes' - even though closer inspection revealed that they were, in truth, made in Greater Manchester - based on local govenrment reorganisations of the 1960s/70s, anyway. Pah! You can never trust anyone who works in marketing).
A night in my own bed was bliss and it was hard to leave Wheelton this morning. Simon
8 comments:
I have just been told that there is such a thing as a Chorley cake, and that this is the same as an Eccles cake, only the pastry is not flaky.
Is this true and, if so, why? Is there a geographical continuum of pastry types in West-central Lancashire? Are there Bolton cakes made with filo? Are Preston cakes encased in puff?
And I'll tell you something else, further to Dan's comment - every town in the land has some sort of 'unique' speciality cake which on inspection turns out to be just another bread bun with a few currants in it.
Where do you land tonight, guys? In the time you cycled from Wheelton to Aberdeen, all I achieved was to have a four-hour planning meeting at Land Registry. Mind you, it was in the Wetherspoon's round the corner from the office.
For the record, an Eccles cake is currants in flaky pastry with sugar on the top, a Chorley cake is currants in shortcrust pastry, no sugar but extra nice with butter on (just to make sure you get your daily cholesterol intake). I can't speak for other town's currant based cakes. And I'm sorry, Rob, a chorley cake is definately not a bread bun. Where I come from (Lancashire), a bread bun with currants in it is a currant teacake. Chorley cakes, being from Lancashire, are infinately superior to Eccles cakes, being from Greater Manchester, and much less messy to eat. To my knowledge, neither of these items has been consumed so far on the End 2 End ride.
Re: Rob's comment above - Aberdeen? Shome mishtake surely! Tonight's pied a terre [not to be confused with pomme de terre or even pied (a) piper] is, I believe, the beautiful lakeland village of Bampton, near Haweswater - you may know it from the Coast to Coast walk. Home to Alexis' lovely mum Alison - that's Mark's aunt (and mine!).
It's all getting very northern - cakes and all - which is a worry for me cos it means in less than 48 hours I shall be cycling with the fab four on the beautiful (but not entirely flat) Isle of Arran. Crivens! I'm nowhere near as fit as our four heroes - and it's forecast to rain rather a lot on Thursday. Jings! Maybe four hours in the pub with the people from the Land Registry is not such a bad gig after all, Rob.
Re: cakes named after northern towns - let's not forget that on the other side of the Pennines things are very different: Pontefract Cakes, hailing as they do from the Yorkshire town of that same name - contain no currants at all. In fact, they are not even really cakes - they are liquorice sweeties, usaully with a picture of Pontefract castle embossed on them. Well, eee by gum! I know, I know, it's amazing, isn't it?
Arran's fab! I was there a few years ago with Matt - some lovely long downhills over the spine of the island with good long vis and straightish smoothish roads. That was the famed two-week island-hopping holiday which was scuppered on Day 2, when we found the second island on our hop - Islay - was hosting a two-week whisky festival...
You'll have a great time! Be sure to visit the distillery on Arran, and see if that pump I must have left in the car park is still there. It's a black Zefal.
Arran certainly is fab - although being the pedant I am I do have to point out that "lovely long downhills" will be equally 'painfully long uphills' (in the rain, no doubt) when I am riding back on my own to catch the ferry from Brodick to head home to Edinburgh (the fab 4 will leave from Lochranza at the north of the island, to battle on to Lochgilphead).
Still, it's got to be easier than doing 115 miles across Cornwall, so I really mustn't grumble...
I'll see if I can find that pump, but no promises. And on a point of principle I shall do my best to take a healthy supply of Eccles Cakes and Pontefract Cakes for the team to consume [sorry Sue, not sure you can get Chorley Cakes in Scotland - but I can ask at Greggs the bakers, I suppose.]
I feel I should add 3 days on, just for the record, that I didn't find Rob's lost pump on Arran - sorry, but it's not really terribly surprising, is it?
I did take Eccles Cakes and a bag of Pontefract Cakes with me - and the former were duly consumed with some gusto on the ferry to Arran. The latter were received somewhat less enthusiastically and I've ended up bringing them back home with me (having carried them in my backpack across Arran and back again - along with far too many bananas plus various other comestibles that were not required! The story of my life.).
Mark was very pleased to receive the Jelly Babies and Liquorice Allsorts which I took, though, so all was not lost.
And I failed to find Chorley cakes, so if anyone can get some to the team at some point between Fort William and Kirkwall then more power to their elbow, I say. A 'next day delivery' courier might just about make it if you commission them (and a local baker), Sue! (frankly, I wouldn't bother though - especially as the Eccles Cakes proudly proclaimed on their packaging that they were 'Real LANCASHIRE Eccles Cakes' - even though closer inspection revealed that they were, in truth, made in Greater Manchester - based on local govenrment reorganisations of the 1960s/70s, anyway. Pah! You can never trust anyone who works in marketing).
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