pumpkinstrokemarrow

I have commented before on the large café in Chessington Garden Centre, a business which profits from the large amount of car parking available and the relaxed attitude of planners towards diversification of agrictultural and horticultural premises. Today, we thought it time to carry the research a little further and try 'The Olive Tree', a rather smaller café, part of the rather more poshly located Ashtead Park Garden Centre, with the RAC golf club just along the road. The club might have been sold off to the Americans, but the place is still quite grand and it probably still needs a bit of pull to get to be a member. The only time I was there - as a guest you understand - I was quite impressed to find that they sold a very decent pint of Courage's Directors' bitter, in a comfortably shabby bar.

Back at the garden centre, 'The Olive Tree' occupied a large hanger, only approached by running the gauntlet of a lot of the sort of merchandise which does not grow, indoors or outdoors, the sort of thing that might house plants at Wisley or Kew and which must cost a fortune to heat in the sort of weather we are having at the moment. Quite a big operation with at least two people working there today, with not very much custom mid morning when we were there. There must be significant overheads to carry through the slack winter days.

One tea, one coffee and a bacon sarnee came to around £8, roughly double what I paid last week near St. Luke's. The bacon sarnee was quite presentable, although a little dry and a little light on bacon, at least compared with that from St Luke's. On the other hand it did come with a small heap of mixed salad leaves and a little bowl full of ketchups in sachets. Furthermore, they offered a selection of no less than 3 cakes - large gooey affairs looking for all the world like real sponge cakes - which were gluten free. Far more attractive selection of such things than I recall seeing. So we got a slice from one, complete with its proper little cake box, as an afternoon treat for FIL. All in all, an attractive and comfortable alternative to more traditional venues - and entirely suitable for ladies who lunch who may not care for these last.

Home to resume my interrupted reading of Hodgkin on the Anglo-Saxons, where I came across what I thought was an amusing snippet relating to the Arab conquests mentioned on 30th January. It seems that around the year 775 of the Christian era (AH 158) there was an important king of Mercia called Offa. Mercia at this time occupied a large proportion of what is now Middle England and ran to several mints, one of which minted for Offa a replica of a dinar minted for an Abbassid Caliph. The replica went so far as to reproduce - probably without any inkling of what it meant - the minter might have thought it was just decoration of some sort - the inscription which read 'There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his Prophet'. According to Hodgkin it is quite likely that some of these coins were included in the tribute that Offa thought it politic to offer the Pope. This last bit being the bit that caught my fancy: I wonder if the Pope knew what the inscription meant? Would he have cared that an important member of his flock was peddling such stuff around the world?

Grateful to the British Museum for their picture of this coin, but disappointed to find that they do not believe the yarn about the pope.