Popup Cafe - Deal, Kent

When it was still cold enough to wear my winter coat (I know we all whinge but really, British summer isn't as bad as we make it out to be) I visited my very good friend Jess in Deal - a town I know well. Some of you may know that, despite having lived in Wales for the past 11 years (minus three years at university in Cheltenham), I was actually born in Dover, Kent, and spent the first 12 years of my life there. That's how I know Jess, and that's how I know Deal. But revisiting - for the first time in eight years - it was nothing like I remembered. The quiet town I had previously written off as boring now appealed to me as a place to discover all these amazing cafes, bars and coffee shops. I was in my absolute element.

Saturday morning I spent lazing in bed watching Friends while Jess went on a driving lesson. Attic rooms are the best for this, and I soaked up every minute of the rain tapping on the skylight window. But soon it was time to get up and brave the wind (Deal is a seaside town!) and head out for some food.

Jess insisted we go to Popup Cafe, a place that had initially opened as just that, a pop up. But it was so popular that it carried on - and I'm so glad. It wasn't too busy when we arrived at about 1 o'clock. We sat upstairs - a light and airy space that reminded me of an art room at school, with recipe books on the windowsill and tables and chairs dotted sporadically across the room. The decor was right up my street - stripped back but with dashes of colour and unique lampshades and a big mirror with writing on it on one of the walls.

A lot of cafes claim to make everything homemade these days, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any good. However, trust me when I say Popup Cafe is genuinely good, homemade, quality food and drink. First there was the sausage roll and salad both Jess and I ordered...

The pastry encasing the sausage had the added treat of caramelised onions - clearly the way all sausage rolls should be done. It was served warm with a really tasty beetroot and fennel salad with red cabbage slaw - the flavour combination was spot on and servings were generous.

Of course I had room for more, so I ordered one of the doughnuts for which Popup Cafe is renowned. The choice was either jam or coconut and, as much as I love jam doughnuts, I wanted to try something new. I paired my coconut doughnut with a flat white - steamed to silky perfection, and polished it all off, no problem. When I think of homemade doughnuts I think of stiff, chewy spheres of dough, but these were puffed up and airy - like the best doughnut in the world, but better. The coconut cream was light and not too sweet, and I could probably have eaten five more.

I wanted to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner here, but we had a few more cafes to go to during my short visit. The staff here were great, though, and I'll definitely enjoy a warm welcome back when I'm next visiting.

Popup Cafe is right in the centre of Deal - just a twenty minute's drive from Dover. Find out more here. You can also follow them on Twitter @pop_up_cafe.

Growing Up

Day 13: The place you grew up

One day I woke up and I was living in Wales. I was twelve, and had been preparing for this transition for over a year, but one day it happened, and we were there. 

My dad had lived in Caerleon, a small village in Newport for a year while Craig, Emily, my mum and I stayed in Dover. I endured a year of misery at an all girl's grammar school where I made some great friends but felt like the least intelligent and valued member of the form. Craig had to finish his GCSEs and Emily her A levels, but finally, at the end of the summer of 2004 we packed up and left, Craig holding a collage of photos of his then girlfriend as she waved goodbye from our old front garden. They cried while my own lips quivered until I could not hold in the tears any longer. Dad drove the four hour car journey to Abergavenny and by the time we got there, I had forgotten my grief and enjoyed a Pick a Pizza for my first meal in a town where we lived for the third part of my childhood.

Christmases felt different. There were no Sunday afternoon walks along the seafront, penny sweet mix ups after church, no overwhelming end of year exams and impossible homework. There were boys at my school. People made fun of my accent. 

"Say no," they would say.
"No," I would reply.
"Noy," they would mock, falling about laughing. 

This was when I began to understand that there were a lot of dumb people in the world.

But there were also kind, great, intelligent and interesting people too. I became acquainted with Bethan who became my third sister while the other two grew up in cities, studying at University. She saw to countless heartbreaks of mine and failed Science exams and abandoned friendships and being diagnosed with Crohn's disease. 

In Abergavenny there was no beach, no view of Calais from the cliffs on a clear day, no Mcdonald's happy meals, no familiar faces in the streets, but there were mountains to climb, trains to catch to Cardiff, and a church where the people waved flags and hugged everyone. And, somehow, this place, where I spent just six years of my life, felt like it had equal measure with Dover in delivering unforgettable memories and experiences. When I left in 2010 I never felt happier than when I came back to visit on weekends and at Christmas, and when I moved back indefinitely in July 2013. I don't pine for Dover.

Is the place you grew up the place you were born? The place you spent most of your childhood? For me it is the place that holds the most significance in my life. Where did you really grow up? And more questionably, when?