I was armed with three types of our home-grown sour-dough yeast bread, including onion and potato plus a couple of ‘normal’ yeast loaves flavoured with cherry tomato or red onion and cheddar.  Chocolate fridge cake, coffee and walnut  cake and Abernathy biscuits also featured heavily!

Oh, and of course there were Kentish apple and pork sausage rolls, from scratch almond croissants, not forgetting pineapple upside down and muesli biscuits for the semi sort of health conscious.

Bet you wished you’d gone now. 

The Village Market, held the last Friday in every month at St Margaret’s Village Hall from 9 am.  In aid of St Margaret’s Nursery and After School Club.  See you there next on Friday 24th February.  Come early or you’ll miss the pork pie.

For those of you that missed our one tweet (Twitter – the source of all secrets..) and my hasty scribble on the welcome blackboard on Saturday morning (well, you don’t want to advertise these things too much just in case anyone actually turns up!),  below is our current breakfast/brunch menu…..

 Brunch at The Coastguard

From 9.15am – 11.45am

Gypsy Eggs – Heuvos a la Flamenca – £5.00

Local free range eggs baked in a nest of spicy salami, ham, tomatoes and paprika studded with jewel-like peas and potatoes to soak up the juices – a delicious if not exactly classic combination for breakie BUT boy is this cure or cure if you’ve indulged just a tad too much the night before……

Kedgeree – £5.00

You’re by the sea.  What better excuse for the old Anglo Indian favourite of Smoked haddock, butter, curry spices, rice, eggs and did I mention butter. Eat with copious amounts of sea air and a mug of char.

Celtic Breakfast – £6.50

Well, we’re as far south as we can be so it’s your very last chance to indulge in homemade Lorne sausage, tattie scones, black pudding, bacon and free-range eggs with not a single pony nod to healthiness in sight so NO it doesn’t come with mushrooms, tomatoes, beans or anything green…….

Eggs ‘Casino’ Royale – £6.00

A covert salute to our old next door neighbour Mr Bond (well at least, his creator Mr Flemming…) we’ve taken the classic free-range eggs smothered with hollandaise and spinach on a freshly baked muffin and topped it off with Scottish smoked salmon  giving that added edge of luxury….. 

Seaside Spa Sundae – £2.50

Breathe in the sea air and feel virtuous as you tuck into a breakfast ‘Sundae’ of our own fruit and nut muesli mix, Greek yoghurt and runny honey

Vive St Margaret’s Bay – £3.50

A platter of pastries and bread made from scratch with our own fair hands – yes even the croissants….. Unequalled until you get a good few miles the other side of the Channel! 

The Butties – £3.00

Rashers of crispy streaky bacon in doorstops of white bloomer bread

Vine roast tomatoes, garlic mushrooms and herbs on toasted homemade ‘wild’ sourdough bread

For those of you that weren’t paying attention and missed out, never fear.  You can always pop in next Sunday, or the one after, or the one after that….  as whilst it might take me a while to put something into action, once it’s running,  it takes forever to stop doing it!  Super tankers and turning manoeuvres come to mind – fairly apt considering our location.  

 Breakfast and Brunch at The Coastguard, every Sunday from 9.15 until 11.45.  Wake up and smell the coffee sea air!

No, my main problem is the inherent buzzer I have in my head whenever more than 20 strides away from my kitchen/children/computer – please note this is in no particular order as all three can cause just as much angst as the other!  So if I actually manage to escape passed the St Margaret’s Bay Sign at the top without coming out in rash or my head exploding in excitement/anxiety it’s a major achievement. 

Thus it was at Dover Station with an excited sense of escapism (not sure that Dover and escapism are two words generally associated with one another…) I was almost bowled over by the cost of a small bag of minstrels.  69p to be exact for a mere 40 odd grams whilst the larger ‘Family’ pack at 225g was £1.99.  Now for a start I’m beginning to think I need to up my children’s pocket money a touch.  I remember back in the old days being given 10p by my granny for some one penny two penny sweets, well, at a single minstrel working out at about 3.5p each depending on which packet you buy, perhaps 20p for a weeks worth of sweeties isn’t really feasible even for a 4 year old!  Aside from that, I was now faced with a dilemma.  Clearly at £1.99 the fatso bag was a far better deal seeing as by my dodgy long division you get about 5.3 bags in a big one for not much more than the cost of 2 so you’d be mad not to.

The thing is – and again this might be down to me being stuck in my nice cosy kitchen for too long – what makes the small bag so expensive in comparison? It can’t be solely the packaging, transportation and don’t tell me it costs more to market the smaller one coz that’s just silly.  I reckon it’s a stealth tax on the parents of small children, small children and anyone that’s watching their weight!  Hey, I thought avoiding being Porker was current Government advice.  Ok, so perhaps suggesting that there should be a financial incentive to eat smaller packs is going a bit far but you can start to see what I mean….

Anyway, at decision time (the train pulling onto the platform) I succumbed and the big mega bag was purchased on the self understanding that I’d only eat a few and leave the rest for the girls (thereby not having to up the pocket money this week at least!).  Sadly, while puzzling out all of the maths in my head it was at about Tonbridge I realised I’d eaten the lot.  Do you have ANY idea how many calories a single minstrel has……..