Ceridwenscauldron

I just bought some rail tickets from the Trainline who have sent me a letter saying how green it is to use the train, a ticket for each persons journey, another coupon for each persons seat reservation, both of which are not valid without the other (why the reservation can't be printed on the same piece of card as the ticket eludes me), a receipt coupon for the rail fare, another one for the debit card transaction fee (an extra 50p but how else can you pay on line bloody nerve!, plus no cash handling costs for Trainline so who's winning here), another coupon for the postage fee and then another one with my name and address on it. These all came in a dinky little plastic wallet glued to the letter. This is all on top of the confirmation e-mail. All the coupons had a magnetic strip down the back which probably means lots of nasty chemicals were used to make them.

And because of the absurd nature of how its cheaper to book two separate single tickets than a return all of the above was doubled up. Now when I book a flight I can often just print a set of boarding passes on my home computer without the three sets of receipts per leg of journey, plus the environmental cost of stationery and ticket distribution. Now I'm not defending the aviation industry as I much prefer rail travel on the basis of how much more civilised it is, but surely guards on long distance trains could be issued with bar code reading devices so we could print our own tickets at home and cut out some of this waste paper and plastic cluttering up the environment.

So Trainline before you get all preachy about your carbon footprint look at how much paper and plastic you waste and ultimately charge us for!

Day two got off to a good start with some delicious Honey and Mustard sausages from Camelford's Co-Op store (£4 for two packs of six) and then we were off to the Cornish Crealy Great Adventure Park somewhere between Newquay and Padstow.

I think it cost about £11 to get in and for that you get what is essentially a huge adventure playground, plus a farm and a couple of rides - including one of those giant Viking boats that swing up and down and the Beast, a junior but still high enough, version of one of those scary platforms that go up and down a pole. Old Nick and the Powder Monkey had a great time on the rides and we all enjoyed the baby bunnies and other young animals.

On to lunch and we passed on the Dragon restaurant as it was full of rampaging kids chomping on burgers and opted for a jolly nice pasty with beans in the Cornish Heritage zone washed down with a fabulous pint of St Austell Tribute Ale. Worked out about six pound a head which I didn't think was too bad, considering some of the crap I have paid through the nose for at other theme parks.

So after a few more turns on the Viking Boat and the Beast and saying goodbye to the bunnies and the guinea pigs we were off to Padstow. Having found a precarious place to park down by the harbour we set off to explore the town. First stop was Rick Stein's Patisserie which had some very nice looking bread and cakes and some very expensive pickles and preserves. Lets face it you have to have more money than sense to pay twice the price of a Nervous Nigel pickle just because it has Rick Stein's mug on it.

So further on we found Stein's Bistro where I didn't think the prices were too bad, (especially compared to what we had paid for the somewhat pretentious meal we had the night before) although the veg was charged for separatly from the main, which can add on the pounds to the final bill. Mind you were still full of pasty so it was off for a quick pint of Sharp's Doom-Bar, named after a notorious sand bar in the Camel estuary for Old Nick and a Skinner's Betty Stogs for me. A pair of lovely pints full of hppy caramel flavours with the Doom-Bar having a slightly more bitter finish.

On leaving the pub the weather finally broke, the heaven's opened and in the five minutes it took us to get back to the car I could not have got much wetter if I had jumped off the harbour wall.

From there it was back toi the lodge where we enjoyed Mab's fish soup and then tuned into some traditional British holiday viewing Jaws was on the telly, just the thing for the summer break!

This dish got five noms from the Powder Monkey while we were in the West Country. Now although where we were staying was very pretty the nearest town, Camelford only had a wee Co-Op and an even smaller Spar so getting some key ingrediants for Shipscook's recipes was a real problem. Mind you the Co-Op did have very good sausages!

OK this is how I made it.

Olive oil goes into pan with six chopped cloves of the precious garlic brought down from that there Lundun Towne, chuck in a chopped onion and some chopped mushrooms, add a tiny pinch of salt to draw out the liquid from the mushrooms as they fry off.

As the onions soften add some chopped chicken pieces, give them a stir and once they have sealed chuck in a jar of red pesto (only remembering not to chuck the actual jar itself for health and safety reasons)two teaspoons full of Co-Op English Mustard with Cider and give that a stir, then add a good handsome slug of white wine (I used Soave) and a chicken stock cube and let that bubble away while enough pasta for everybody boils away. Once the pasta is done drain and stir into the sauce.

Serve up with good sprinkle of grated Cheddar.