Amazing Elephant - go to France to see!

Our family have just returned from a 3 week trip to France and visited Les Iles de Machines in Nantes which is a life changing place. Art is very definitely alive and well in this commune of artists designers. What incredible steam punk vision of the world of Jules Verne (born in Nantes). The elephant is over 30 foot high and walks the streets with you on its back in a cabin of polished mahogany and huge pistons and rods all working as its huge frame moves ponderously along the streets. It is a great life experience. The artists vision which is now in the making for 2019 is a world tree, all made of metal with creatures alive in the tree is breathtaking. They have a scale model and the elephant can walk beneath the branches, which have caterpillars and birds that fly. Awesome and well worth going to France just to see this vision coming alive!

Website address for the Elephant

Jehovah's Witnesses good tenants

I was surprised this week while talking to a manager of a large estate in the Borders with some 100 houses rented out. He told me that many of his tenants were Jehovah's Witness and that he liked them as tenants because they were law abiding and good tenants often spending their own money to improve properties rather than expecting the landlord to do it all. "We get no trouble from these tenants at all and as every landlord knows a bed tenant can can cost an estate a lot of money, not just in fixing up the house after they leave but even in getting them out in the first place. Plus bad tenants breed problems with other nearby tenants when the house deteriorates and they often have unkempt and overgrown gardens". Overall we find this group to be ideal tenants, they are quiet and even their children are well behaved.

Rogano Restaurant Glasgow

Visited Rogano in Glasgow with a friend from Bermuda I had not seen for over 40 years. Excellent old fashioned quality restaurant, even if the waiters are from Morocco!. Its the sort of place the waiters wear full dress and bibs. Wonderful art deco interior by the designer of the Titanic interior. Food was very good. I had fresh asparagus followed by grilled bream and it was perfectly done. I would recommend this Glasgow institution, the oldest restaurant in the City, to anyone who loves fish.

Peelham Farm Organics

I met the people at a Farmers Market in Kelso last weekend and was very impressed by their commitment to good produce and by their friendly attitude. I bought some shoulder bacon which I had today with eggs and mushrooms and it was nice and juicy and obviously home made. I found it a bit porky, i.e. I could taste the pig, but some people might find that nice. But they had an impressive range of products including some nice looking chorizo. THEIR WEBSITE

They also host training days for people who wish to make their own bacon and sausages and butchery and I may well attend as I always wanted to do it myself. They offer a range of farm produced meats and downstream products such as sausages, bacon and speciality products such as carpachio. Well worth a look.

Crolla's Fish and Chips Galashiels

A nice clean shop right on the main drag through Galashiels this shop stands out having a seperate pizza shop. Its clean and nice and the fish looked good, but we didn't buy as they DO NOT SERVE mushy peas!!

I was totally shocked by this, a fish and chip shop not doing mushy peas is like a hamburger joint not doing fries. If this doesn't shock you then you don't understand the taste combination that mushy peas brings to fish and chips.

Abbey Fish and Chips Melrose

Nicely tucked away in a side street just above the town square is this newish fish and chips. Melrose had a fish and chips years ago but it fell on hard times and closed due, I suspect, to Melrose people being too high and mighty to eat such lowly fare. Well this shop won't change their opinion as its quality is well below par. Hard dry nasty chips and dry fish with no flesh. We were most disappointed by this new addition to the fish and chip scene in the Borders. The shop is overly ambitious offering kebabs, pizzas and fish and chips and I suspect doing nothing well, although a man in front of me had kebab and it looked better than the fish. One wonders how they could produce such bad chips frankly. The owner seems aloof and even his own staff look at him, as customers pile up, and he stands there doing nothing, poor customer service as well as poor quality food.

Cannot recommend this shop at all.

Good Bread - Floors Castle Shop

Floors Castle, home of the Dukes of Roxborough sits on the bank of the Tweed at Kelso. Behind the Castle and just off the Kelso to St Boswells back road is the entrance to the Castle garden center, cafe and shop. The shop is part of the cafe and has a good range of specialty home made preserves and baked good produced by the Castle Kitchens. As these kitchens also feed the Dukes family the quality is excellent. If you are a lover of good crusty bread this is a place to buy, and get bread of a quality unobtainable anywhere else in the Borders. They also sell a range of home made pies although the one I bought this week was awful as the bottom of the crust was uncooked dough and spoiled what would have been a lovely pie. Nonetheless for a tourist or family that likes to visit unique and interesting little places this is a must. The garden center is very good and has a wide range of unusual plants and some lovely greenhouses that have been used since the 1800's to feed the family with winter produce.
THE WEB SITE OF FLOORS