Sunday, January 22, 2012

long live Little Chef!


A Little Chef near Doncaster. Courtesy of Wikipedia 

This is a meander into nothing in particular but yesterday I read some news about wind turbines being put up on the Brecon Beacons, but it had been delayed by the finding of some prehistoric stones, and here I am not going to go into the good or bad faults of wind turbines.  The mayor along with many people were against the wind turbines, and he had made mention of 'ley lines' meeting at a local church ( the existence of leylines do not win the argument any day of course) and he also said that this particular area was like the M4 road in prehistory.  Well we will see what comes of the situation, but it reminded me of the journey we take to Whitby part along a motorway and other A roads.

The footprint of most motorways are the stopping places you pull in for coffee, etc, expensive and usually horrible, these bright lit places full of useless goods to tempt you are just one of the horrors you have to go through on long journeys.  But the road up North we travel along has a whole stream of 'Little Chef' a dying emporium at the moment as they close down various restaurants.  Again expensive, (always remember to ask for one pot of tea and two cups) but if you watch your fellow diners, mostly the large breakfast is eaten.  There is something very old fashioned about Little Chef, you have to wait to be shown to your table, always bright red the paintwork but clean and friendly and the tea and coffee is good. The only other road I know with a cluster of Little Chef is the one in the South-West, over Salisbury Plain to Kent, etc.

It would be a pity if the whole chain was to shut as it was innovative in its day, 67 units were closed recently, a couple of years ago they had hired the services of Hestor Blumenthal to upgrade the food but obviously it had not worked.  It is LS's favourite stopping place of course, though we never have the full breakfast, I have also been promised a 'greasy spoon' breakfast one day at a transport cafe near Chelmsford, though the offer has never been fulfilled yet......


Greenery, or how I wish  the world was at the moment!

The link between Little Chef and prehistoric motorways is of course what would the local 'eating place' be like for Neolithic people as they traversed the high dry ridgeways of the country, probably of course the nearest settlements, it was the Romans who had 'stop off' points for refreshments and a change of horses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Chef

And of course long live Wikipedia as well, which has been threatened by legal action this week...

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