onionbagblog

Ah, lookey here - it’s only the Candale & Ross Christmas Order Form - hurrah!

Christmas is coming and Nigel and Lisa are doing their best to fatten up Wivenhoe. Eat, drink and then drink some more.

Chin chin.

First things first - all food and groceries are sourced locally. Secondly, the order process is a hell of a lot easier than crashing your online Sainsbury’s shopping trolley, and ending up with a bruiser of an old bird being delivered to your door in time for Christmas Day.

Ah yes - the deliveries. This is something that Cansdale & Ross can also cope with as well. Here’s the deal: there is free delivery across all orders over £10. If you wish to buy your turkey locally, then a minimum spend of £10 on fruit ‘n veg is also required.

Gobble gobble.

But what of the food itself? As well as the traditional (and high quality) brussels, broccoli and bread sauce, the Cansdale & Ross Christmas menu has thrown up some tasty delights this year.

Banana Shallots, Grandma Wildes Butterscotch Biscuits and Tiptree Organic Chutney all get a look in. It’s the cheese menu that has got me counting down to Christmas.

Hubert’s Happy Healthy Turkeys are of course the prize draw. I’m not sure if the birds will still be smiling come Christmas Day, but the non-battery farm upbringing will at least ensure a happy, but relatively short life. Sizes start at five kilos, going all the way up to ten plus.

A simple stroll down to see Nigel and Lisa, and the collection of a Christmas Order form is all that you need. Just go easy on the cheese board and leave some for the cheese-aholics around these parts.

Splendid.

What started off as a brisk afternoon walk around the front, some four hours later and @AnnaJCowen and I finished off with a lost afternoon of conversation, photography and shopping. This town runs on Wivenhoe Procrastination Time, and it is all the better for this prolonged pace of life.

Our inability to make haste wasn’t aided by the snow. This wasn’t the South London slush that we have had to suffer for the past fifteen years. A fresh, powdery substance lined the streets of Wivenhoe. I had to hold the girl back from getting her snowboard out down Queens Road, reminding her that the area remains a no through road for traffic.

Instead we slip-slided the afternoon away with a spot of shopping at Curiosity, which soon became something of a social party. I know very few people within the town, but it seemed that Fiona’s charming second hand shop on the corner has become the centre of my Wivenhoe social circle.

To be honest and it was the first time that I have spoken to most of these new friends sober. But yeah, Simon, Neneh, Paul and Fiona - cheers for the chat, and, um, chin chin.

A brief catch up with Nigel and Lisa at Cansdale and Ross, and then we hit the Quay. Or rather the Quay hit us, with the onslaught of snow drifting in from the estuary. Now wasn’t the best time to try and capture my Christmas card photograph for this year, but time and tide (and snow) wait for no digital printer.

The plan was to head all the way out to the Creek, fumble around in some virgin snow (aha!) and then take a panoramic shot looking out towards Brightlingsea. Truth be told and we got only slightly beyond the Sailing Club and my blackberry picking location of choice, before thinking bugger this - it’s b****y cold.

A quick snap here and there, and I think this is as good it will get this year. The snow is already starting to melt, although our back garden still has some virgin spots that still need a good fumble in.

Icicles appeared overnight - perfect for the ice maiden that is @AnnaJCowen. Never mind the length, feel the thickness etc. The biggest of the beautiful structures stretches out at just under half a metre.

This has been a severe winter so far for two out of towners who are trying to leave the South London way of life behind. It’s also been a hell of a lot of fun, seeing the kids sledging during the day, and then the wobbly walks back from the boozers at night.

We could do with a Wivenhoe thaw over the weekend, just to ease the passage along the Wivenhoe Trail. A return of this weather would be most welcome in Wivenhoe in a couple of week’s time. Just make sure that the delightful Mother in Law isn’t snowed in to outstay her welcome.

Take it easy out there.

*shhh*

Did I mention that Wivenhoe’s premier coffee house has secured a 10pm booze licence? And did I tell you that the evening menu is simply the highest cuisine that you can experience this side of the Co-op? And what about the lovely Nigel and Lisa, the best-est hosts EVER! in Wivenhoe, and that they *really really* deserve your custom?

Having single handily revitalised the lower end of the town, our hosts are almost ready to softly softly launch the weekend dining experience in Wivenhoe.

The menu is an eclectic pallet, taking in Mediterranean cuisine to more traditional Wivenhoe oysters. There is a licensed bar as well, which always helps.

This is very much a soft launch from our favourite Wivenhoe catering couple.

Explore, enjoy, and indulge…

In the extreme danger of sounding like an online social calendar for Wivenhoe (which is really no bad thing…) here are a few more diary dates for you.

A brief but breathless morning shopping trip around the town, and a number of future events emerged. First off there is a book launch at the Bookshop, natch, on Friday evening from 7:30 onwards.

I was making a mental shopping list in my head as I passed by, and so in true #hyperlocal overservational style, I failed to remember exactly which book was being launched.

Whoops.

Then there is the monthly Farmer’s Market taking place this Saturday morning at the Congregational Hall, from 10am.

I’ve split loyalties between Cansdale and Ross and the Farmer’s Market for all my fruit and veg needs. The lovely Nigel and Lisa get my custom three out of every four weeks, and then to add some variety, the monthly Wivenhoe Farmer’s Market gets a look in.

Last month I picked up some gorgeous Irish cheese bread, which should help fill in the gaps in-between trips back and forth to South London for emergency supplies of Di Lieto olive bread. Oh, and as much as Nigel is something of a charmer, he can’t quite compete with these lovely ladies.

Moving on…

A poster in the Post Office is advertising a Poetry Wivenhoe evening on the 25th November at The Greyhound. Good to see that Martin Newell, the pop genius of this parish, will be performing, along with other local poets. Booze and the bard - job’s a good ‘un.

Plus has anyone else noticed the sudden haste in hanging the Christmas decorations all around the town? The Co-op seemed to be first on the case. The William Loveless Hall soon followed, with the Town Council offices also already decked out ahead of the festive season.

It’s all a photo blog post waiting to happen, I tell you, just as soon as I can find the enthusiasm to head out after dark for some hit and miss photography. It all may seem slightly early in the calendar to be celebrating Christmas, but all this planning is in preparation for the late night shopping and the arrival of Father Christmas in Wivenhoe on 2nd December.

Oh - and if you have some spare time during the day on 30th November, Broomgrove Infant School is digging around for some diggers, to work alongside Transition Town Wivenhoe to help build a wildlife pond. Dig for victory, or even for the kids, etc.

So yeah - a breathless morning walk around Wivenhoe; something (actually, someone…) tells me that if you are having a breathless walk in Wivenhoe, then you really are doing it all wrong.

*must slow down*

I only popped out for a pint of milk and a quarter pound of Granny Smith’s…

I’m never entirely sure about the merits of Liking things on Facebook - there are many things I have come across that I most certainly Dislike. But to waste away such negative feelings on sharing with your friends everything that makes you miserable, seems like a waste of a way to be using the modern interweb.

As a disclaimer, then of course I would have to add that Dislike and Wivenhoe don’t really go together. That was pretty much the whole reason why @AnnaJCowen and I moved out towards the estuary and away from the *very* Dislikeable aspects of the Rotten Borough.

But yeah - if you are the kind of Facebook fanatic that goes around actively Liking all that you see around you, then there’s a few local businesses that are worthy of a Wivenhoe click.

The Black Buoy has a Facebook page - blimey. I first found this out whilst boozing away our second Friday night down towards the front. An incredibly cheap blow up doll was propped up by the bar, gazing ahead at a Find us on Facebook sign.

Find I did, and then I started to Like the Black Buoy. I never really Disliked the Black Buoy to be honest, either online or offline. It’s a boozer; the surroundings are very special. A blow up doll adds a somewhat surreal touch.

Moving slowly up the High Street, as one always must, and you come to our old-ish new friends of Cansdale & Ross and the Corner House Cafe. I’ve blogged before about the brilliant local grocer business that Nigel and Lisa have recently opened. Across the road of course is their wonderful Corner House.

A Facebook Like is only a click away, something that I’m sure my East Midlands based sister would be doing, if she was of the Facebook generation. Her young family had a rather lovely morning in the Corner House when they came Wivenhoe visiting recently.

Moving slightly up towards the High Street and we have that other new kid on the block, Curiosity. I’m not sure what validates the old and the new, and given my relatively short time so far spent living in Wivenhoe, then much like the amazing stock within, Curiosity is positively ancient.

Much, much more to come later in the week about Wivenhoe’s latest secondhand goods shop. I briefly popped in today for a chat with Fiona, who has very kindly agreed to a video interview. I have my eye on a Victorian table, two birds with one stone ‘n all that…

My own Facebook usage is very much a dumping ground for m’blog and my Flickr photos. I don’t really engage and interact on Facebook, but I do find the news feeds of old and new friends quite useful.

From a #hyperlocal business point of view and I can see how Facebook has much to offer the local community. The Black Buoy, Cansdale & Ross, the Corner House and Curiosity, can all communicate instantly with local residents, and post up on their walls what is going on within.

I rather Like this.

*any other local businesses or organisations that would like a brief video interview, or a Facebook Like plug, then please do make contact*

Having sourced (i) broadband and (ii) a swimming pool ahead of the Great Escape (seriously,) next in the hierarchy of needs was to find a decent fruit ‘n veg shop. @AnnaJCowen and I were served splendidly back in Sunny Stockwell with organicdeliverycompant.co.uk.

And so it was with some delight that our box ticking of finding local services was soon blitzed, when we saw the recently opened Cansdale and Ross at the Quay end of the High Street.

Sad to say that Mr Sainsbury’s online is so far supplying us with bulk purchases; a giant multi-national is half decent for washing power, but not so great on Granny Smith’s.

We’re fitting the weekly Cansdale and Ross fruit ‘n veg shop splendidly into our routine. We simply walk to the end of the road, get rather excited about the splendid produce on offer, have some decent local conversation and then settle up the bill.

Wivenhoe locals will probably know Nigel and his partner Lisa as the proprietors of the ace Coffee Shop across the road. It’s the place where @AnnaJCowen first sat down back in May to ponder the house purchase.

The space for the fruit ‘n veg shop is perfect. It all appears slightly cramped and random in there, but then that’s just the antidote to all those soulless online and offline supermarket aisles.

The range on sale covers everything (and more) that you would find in a supermarket. The prices come in slightly under what the big boys are charging as well. Plus with a 10% discount across the road at the Coffee Shop, you can see how true localism genuinely works.

We clock up just under a £10 a week spend, which is great value considering we were paying £22 a fortnight back in South London. No need either for all those random veg box items. I never did understand the point of artichokes.

The produce is locally sourced, cutting down on all those nasty food miles (and easing my online shopping conscience,) not to mention supporting the local farm economy.

It was very decent of Nigel to agree to the brief video piece above. Having packed my bag, I door stepped him and asked for a brief chat. The brevity came about as a queue of eager customers was soon building up.

I keep on pushing Nigel to start selling fresh bread. He’s looking for a local supplier, and so if anyone else knows of any contacts, do speak up in the comments below.

In the meantime I keep on having to import the brilliant @bakermanisbakin’s olive bread from Di Lietos back in Sunny Stockwell, via @AnndJCowen and her weekly London trips.

I’m very happy to help promote any other local businesses via m’blog. They’re not only a great place to shop, but also to gossip…

Support localism.