Sunday Drive To Ballyquintin Point

No complaints about the weather this weekend; It has been fine. After some household chores this morning, I cobbled together a flask of tea, a large banana, butter and a few other items in a basket and we motored down the Ards Peninsula, to Ballyquintin Point.

I parked at the tiny make-shift car park and strolled about the area. There were very few people about indeed. We headed back to Portaferry, County Down, where I ambled in to the Portaferry Hotel. I fancied a prawn open sandwich - we'd had excellent fish and chips the previous evening from John Dory on Holywood Road ; predictably enough, the scourge of Sunday lunches meant that bar meals were unavailable, so I turned on my heels and walked straight out. We do not all wish to sit down to a full, twenty-course luncheon every Sunday, you know.

I parked the two-seater at a small car park near the ferry terminus, northwards and close to Nugent's Wood. It was strewn with litter everywhere. If anything riles me at all, it is low-life, imbecilic cretins, born, one assumes, in a pig sty who are too ignorant and lazy either to take their litter home or place it in a litter-bin (there was a litter bin several yards away). As to the treatment I wish these morons ought to receive, it shall remain out of print. How many generations does it take in order to behave in this manner? These people, if that is the word, must surely rank among the basest forms of human life, with absolutely no respect for our environment. Poor, native Africans with hardly a grain of rice to eat have more humanity and respect for their environment than this species which, presumably, was reared in Northern Ireland. Why do they have such an attitude and what are their parents like?

Motoring on to Greyabbey, we stopped in the Main Street, where I ambled over to the new Abbey Arms - formerly the Wildfowler Inn - and I read their menu. Not particularly impressive. Certainly not sufficiently enticing to tempt me in! Most of the food seemed to feature burger and chips, chicken-burger and chips, more burgers and chips... Don't get me wrong, I relish a real, home-made hamburger made with prime cuts of beef, proper chunky chips, and top quality accompaniments. Sadly, there was no explicit mention of that at all. The original Wildfowler Inn, twenty years ago, was so good and attracted a decent clientele too.

No matter. I have a lean piece of braising steak with, sliced onion, garlic, carrot, parsnip, honey, tomato puree, mustard, seasoning, and beef stock cooking in a slow oven for our dinner.