Having left Fiona, my Volvo XC60, at the Volvo dealer in Goring-by-Sea a week ago for her annual service and MOT, I had a loan car to drive around in for the day. And it was a very nice one, a Volvo XC40 B4 AWD, a petrol-engined model, only a few months old. Here are some shots of it at the dealers, and then not long afterwards at sunny Littlehampton:
Black wouldn't be my choice of colour: I'd want blue. But hey, this was all pretty good for a loan car. Methinks they wanted me to try an XC40 out, and get tempted to buy one.
It felt spacious inside. Maybe Fiona, being a physically larger car, had more space; but I hardly noticed the difference.
Very modern console design and instrumentation. All those displays were completely digital, and went blank when the ignition was off. The graphics were crisp and very easy to read. Fiona's limited digital displays - she is mostly analogue - are rather pixellated, and contribute greatly to her 'old school' persona.
The reversing camera was more fish-eyed than Fiona's, but the view was much clearer:
Under the bonnet was an engine still spanking-clean (unlike Fiona's dusty mill):
The driver's seat was very comfortable, and I had no issues whatever with the foot-space, steering wheel, or view out:
So, if an all-electric XC60 were financially out of reach in 2027, I think I'd be perfectly content with the smaller XC40. The build quality seemed very good, although the metal panels were clearly slightly thinner than those on Fiona: the doors didn't close with quite the same heavy clunk that I enjoyed with my beloved car. But then this XC40 wasn't so high up in the modern XC range.
Anyway, here I was in Littlehampton, and not much after 9.00am. I fancied a cooked breakfast. And my thoughts immediately flew to the Dinky Doo Diner. This is a small café in Pier Road. I first saw it in 1993, and had never before tried it out. I devoted a blog post to my various visits to it, always when it was closed after lunch, in The Dinky Doo Diner on 11th June 2016. Well, it was now the right time for a meal. It would be open, and I could satisfy the curiosity of twenty-nine years' standing.
Back in 1993, it had looked like this:
By 2016, it looked like this:
And now, in 2022, this was its appearance:
It had become more ordinary over the years. Still, I was determined to see what kind of breakfast I could have, and I was hungry enough! So in I went. The present owner sat at a small counter to the left, and there were two rows of tables. Through a doorway were steps down to more seating. Somewhere behind the scenes, men were talking, and there would be a kitchen.
In the window a young couple were finishing off the same breakfast. Their portions certainly looked more than adequate. There was of course a choice in what went on the plate, ranging from substantial to humungous.
I imagined that local tradesmen wanting to stoke themselves up for a hard day ahead would make an early beeline for this café, and might return at lunchtime for a cuppa, but otherwise the passing trade, at least in winter, would be thin except on weekends. Nevertheless, I found out by asking that the man at the counter had bought the business from the original owners two years previously. He had known them. So he'd know that it would provide a steady income.
Well, I placed my order, deciding on a 'Normal' breakfast (the names for each variant weren't exotic), plus a mug of tea. Soon a woman, whom I guessed might be the owner's wife, brought this plateful:
It was as at least as good as any cooked breakfast I'd ever eaten. Perhaps not the very best - the Jailhouse Café at The Verne Prison on the Isle of Portland currently held that honour, with the Fat Frog at Liskeard coming a close second - but it was tasty and filling, and the fried bread was done to perfection (a very rare treat for me). I also liked the brown sauce. I was reminded of this greetings card I'd seen:
The brown sauce was Daddies sauce, and I thought afterwards that I'd like to buy a bottle for home. It was fruitier than HP sauce. (Hmm: I feel a post coming on, about breakfast sauces) The tea was good too. Altogether a satisfying meal.
Well, I'd finally had a meal at the Dinky Doo Diner! It had lived up to expectations. Mission accomplished at last. I wished I'd made more of an effort to go there in past years, but never mind, the deed had now been done.
