Birthday treats
Apr. 21st, 2007 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustSince we had other committments on my birthday, we deferred treats and excursions until the Thursday after. The plan - if you can call it a plan - was to rise at our leisure, shop at the Farmers' Market (it being the third Thursday of the month), lunch on whatever purchases we saw fit, and then go to Yorkshire and find whatever entertainment would fit the time available before we were due to meet David at the Lion, dine with him and return home thereafter.
The reality was that we woke early, and set to do some work before going out. So we were home to take a call about an internet scam we hadn't encountered before - a particularly cheeky one, I thought. Then to the Farmers' Market, which was rather disappointing: there seem to be fewer stalls each month. Stocked up on meat, and some vegetable, but nothing really tempted us for lunch, and we decided to set off, and treat ourselves to lunch at the Cleveland Tontine on the way south.
The restaurant at the Tontine has an excellent reputation, and is supposed to be rather grand: its web site says: "Slightly faded elegance is the thought here - bit like a bordello, in fact. Chandeliered, gilded and fenestrated with wooden louvers the room twinkles at night and is heated by candle." If I'd known that beforehand, I might have been tempted, but as it was we had a very pleasant lunch in the conservatory, with the bistro menu, brilliant sunshine, lorries thundering past on the A19 and a delicious Minervois rosé, with the prettiest label. The staff seemed to be fighting among themselves over the music, but we had a couple of entertaining folk compilations (how often does restaurant muzak include the Incredible String Band?) before the lounge lizard music took over, and we decided it was time to move on.
Over lunch we had looked at the road atlas, and seen Shandy Hall in Coxwold marked as a visitor attraction: we'd been to Coxwold before, long ago, to pay our respects to Laurence Sterne, but knew nothing of the house: it had to be worth investigation.
And it was, although the house itself was not open that day. It's an ancient red brick building, very domestic and approachable, set in an interlocking puzzle of square gardens, and we nosed around, a little perplexed, until the curator - a friendly face at an upstairs window - came down and asked if we would like to see the exhibition in the outbuilding? He led us up the stairs into a white, airy exhibition space, hung with botanic illustrations from The Northern Pomona, a book of apples for a cool climate, with baskets of apples in the windows scenting the air. Pictures of apples are pleasant company, but the names of apples are a constant joy: Yellow Ingestrie, Pitmaston Pine Apple, Belle de Boskoop, Catshead, White Melrose...
A basket of Lady's Finger of Lancaster stood in a barred window, and our guide explained that the bars and shackles had been made for an exhibition last autumn, getting in before 2007's year-long focus on the slave trade, examining a passage of Sterne's A Sentimental Journey in which he moves from sympathy for a caged starling to condemning the slave trade as "a bitter draught". There is clearly fascinating work being done at Shandy Hall in response to Sterne's writing: declaring itself to be "*Asterisk - *The Centre for the study and development of narrative" could mean anything, but connections are being forged between different artforms and eras with an enthusiasm which is irresistible.
A walk round the garden, a stop in Helmsley to explore the bookshops, a drive across the moors and we were at the Lion at six, in time for an evening of good company and rather erratic dining: "You'll be wanting the bar menu - Oh, yes, you can have the restaurant menu if you like, but you can't mix and match - One table, one menu...". We threatened to make the dissident sit at a table on his own, and he caved in and ate from the bar menu with the rest of us. And home...
The reality was that we woke early, and set to do some work before going out. So we were home to take a call about an internet scam we hadn't encountered before - a particularly cheeky one, I thought. Then to the Farmers' Market, which was rather disappointing: there seem to be fewer stalls each month. Stocked up on meat, and some vegetable, but nothing really tempted us for lunch, and we decided to set off, and treat ourselves to lunch at the Cleveland Tontine on the way south.
The restaurant at the Tontine has an excellent reputation, and is supposed to be rather grand: its web site says: "Slightly faded elegance is the thought here - bit like a bordello, in fact. Chandeliered, gilded and fenestrated with wooden louvers the room twinkles at night and is heated by candle." If I'd known that beforehand, I might have been tempted, but as it was we had a very pleasant lunch in the conservatory, with the bistro menu, brilliant sunshine, lorries thundering past on the A19 and a delicious Minervois rosé, with the prettiest label. The staff seemed to be fighting among themselves over the music, but we had a couple of entertaining folk compilations (how often does restaurant muzak include the Incredible String Band?) before the lounge lizard music took over, and we decided it was time to move on.
Over lunch we had looked at the road atlas, and seen Shandy Hall in Coxwold marked as a visitor attraction: we'd been to Coxwold before, long ago, to pay our respects to Laurence Sterne, but knew nothing of the house: it had to be worth investigation.
And it was, although the house itself was not open that day. It's an ancient red brick building, very domestic and approachable, set in an interlocking puzzle of square gardens, and we nosed around, a little perplexed, until the curator - a friendly face at an upstairs window - came down and asked if we would like to see the exhibition in the outbuilding? He led us up the stairs into a white, airy exhibition space, hung with botanic illustrations from The Northern Pomona, a book of apples for a cool climate, with baskets of apples in the windows scenting the air. Pictures of apples are pleasant company, but the names of apples are a constant joy: Yellow Ingestrie, Pitmaston Pine Apple, Belle de Boskoop, Catshead, White Melrose...A basket of Lady's Finger of Lancaster stood in a barred window, and our guide explained that the bars and shackles had been made for an exhibition last autumn, getting in before 2007's year-long focus on the slave trade, examining a passage of Sterne's A Sentimental Journey in which he moves from sympathy for a caged starling to condemning the slave trade as "a bitter draught". There is clearly fascinating work being done at Shandy Hall in response to Sterne's writing: declaring itself to be "*Asterisk - *The Centre for the study and development of narrative" could mean anything, but connections are being forged between different artforms and eras with an enthusiasm which is irresistible.
A walk round the garden, a stop in Helmsley to explore the bookshops, a drive across the moors and we were at the Lion at six, in time for an evening of good company and rather erratic dining: "You'll be wanting the bar menu - Oh, yes, you can have the restaurant menu if you like, but you can't mix and match - One table, one menu...". We threatened to make the dissident sit at a table on his own, and he caved in and ate from the bar menu with the rest of us. And home...
