Ewe's Milk Cheese and Wine!

I'll begin with a visit I made to a sheep farmer with my brother over 20 years ago, when we visited the Bergerie d'Acremont (website) in the Ardennes (above). We were treated to an array of excellent ewe's/sheep's milk cheeses, including a wonderful hard cheese and a brie-like cheese, some of which I later bought. It was mature, the rest of the people on my train home must have wondered where the aroma was coming from! 😉 Anyway, I bought 4 of the 5 ewe's milk cheeses available on my last visit to Penbuckles (website), bottom image. I'll begin this with the wine accompanying my cheese tasting. From Italy's Biscardo winery near Verona (website), their 13.5% Neropasso, made from partially dried Corvina, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, a deep ruby red wine with a cherry and plum fruity aroma and taste, slightly spicy, smooth and rich, and so easy to drink accompanying the cheese, recommended! 👍

So, to the cheeses, starting with bottom left in my photograph, the Sussex Ewe, which I think is made by High Weald Dairy (website), apologies if I'm wrong, I'll check and correct when next at Penbuckles. Whatever, it's really nice and tasty, a harder cheese with a slightly nutty flavour that brought a little chill to my cheeks, nice one! Going anticlockwise in the photograph, so bottom right, is the Wigmore, from Village Maid of Berkshire I do believe (website), a brie-like softer cheese, creamy with a very mild slightly sweet taste, and VERY easy to eat! 😁

So, to the last 2 cheeses starting with, in the top right of the photograph, from the more local The Traditional Cheese Dairy at Waldron in East Sussex (website) and their Lord of the Hundreds. A harder ewe's milk cheese, with a slightly nutty taste, quite strong and flavoursome, and again that chill to the cheeks I get from a more mature cheese, I really liked this! 😁 My final cheese, top left in the photograph, was from Devon, the Ticklemore Cheese Company (website), and their Beenleigh Blue. This blue cheese is lighter and sweeter than most blue cheeses I've tasted, but certainly has plenty of flavour, a little creamy, and yet again I got that nice wee chill in my cheeks, nice one! An overall pleasant 'tasting' with a bit more reported at my other blog. 👍

Public Consultation: Should Bottle Alley Have CCTV?

Hastings Borough Council has funding available from Central Government’s Safer Streets Fund (Government website) to use for 'graffiti prevention and to help improve the safety of public spaces.' The council is planning to use this money to introduce public space CCTV along Bottle Alley. Find out more at the Council website and have your say online.

(Mostly Good) News about Empty Buildings + Roadworks

The once gracious Post Office in the town centre, and the much newer University of Brighton building adjacent/behind it, are to become 41 flats and 667 square metres of commercial floorspace (The Argus). Very glad to see the old Post Office building will be refurbished, but sad that the University of Brighton couldn't find enough students for its Hastings campus. Oh yes, and where will the new inhabitants find to park vehicles?

And things are moving for business around Hastings Castle and St Mary in the Castle, 10 years ago our glittering 'Jewel in the Crown' (blog), but sadly not for the church itself at the moment. The management of Hastings Castle and the adjacent cafe by the top of West Hill lift, is now to be run by Troika Projects (HBC website), and the shopping arcade, design based on Burlington Arcade, is to become a food hall with 7 different ethnic food restaurant booths (Sussex World); Indian, Italian, Turkish, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Now I do realise that there are roadworks in other parts of town, and my thoughts go out to the drivers, and pedestrians, who have to put up with them. But nearest to where I live are these roadworks by The Carlisle at the seafront, and where they go on and on, no joke...

Clocks Spring/Sprung Forward!

Did you remember to change your clocks before you went to bed last night? If not, your mobile phones and computers may well show you are now up at 06.54 instead of 05.54 as we lost an hour between 01.00 and 02.00 this morning. Indeed, we 'time travelled' overnight as time moved forward, and in Britain we are no longer on Greenwich Mean Time (website)!

Some Still Closed BUT Some Opening...

Good to see the Bottle of Hastings premises has been taken over (and the same website address!) by another Wine Bar (and coffee) Shop, Hastings Wine & Coffee, 91-92 Queens Road TN34 1RL (website). I shall write more after a visit, plus about buying wine in Hastings, including Penbuckles, which shall also be coming into another blog soon!

Interesting that apparently unsellable building's frontages are being decorated, for example Debenhams (above) and the St Mary in the Castle Restaurant. I recently mentioned that Peacocks closed down 5 years ago (blog), but all that's happened since was immediate redecoration, some other work was done (?), and the doorway was boarded up when a couple of tents set up residence there; I do understand why it was boarded up, and it has happened elsewhere, but is this really the way to sort out housing problems, just push them away?