BUCKFAST

We're camping in Paignton this week. This morning we noticed we were just 12 miles from the famous Buckfast Abbey. We drove across Dartmoor to what seemed like a fairly civilised little abbey. We had a lovely lunch and walk through the lavender fields. As we went to leave it occurred to both Thomas and I that neither of us had ever tasted their tonic wine. Thomas bought the smallest bottle they had. After dinner he poured us each a bottle top full. I am now utterly puzzled as to how anyone can get drunk on the stuff given even a tea spoonful is so sweet and syrupy you can't stomach it! It tastes a bit like the vile ginger wine my old Granda's girlfriend - the scay 80-something Greta - used to give us at xmas as teenagers. We all jostled for the seat closest to the plantpot so we could dispose of it quietly! Anyone who can manage a whole glass of Buckfast must have a stomach of iron.
When we admitted to Marcel we'd never tasted it he looked shocked and said he had... strange - I thought I was paying for an overpriced house in Newton Mearns to stop him from becoming a Buckie ned. But when I asked where he'd tasted it, he said they had served it at several of the Bar Mitzvahs he'd been to recently! Newton Mearns after all! Phew!