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A day in Skipton
Sep. 3rd, 2009 09:01 pmA day in Skipton starts with the drive there: not an unreasonably long way (about eighty miles) but slow driving, especially if you take the scenic route through Wensleydale, and over the pass into Wharfedale, following the river down a sequence of falls and rapids - a lovely drive, but wasted on us because we couldn't stop and look round, we were due in Skipton to visit friends who are spending a week's holiday there. And eventually we found them, and there was lunch and chat and then out to look round the market, and buy cheese, and stroll along the canal:
The Town Hall was advertising the forthcoming Skipton Puppet Festival (good grief, do they still make web sites like that? it's completely inaccessible), which looked great fun, as did the associated competition for "Faces in Spaces" - photographs of 'found' images of faces, which sounds silly, but the posters showed some wonderful examples, very simple images which didn't look like faces at all, until you saw it, and then you couldn't unsee it!
We ate at The Angel at Hetton, tucked away just off the Grassington road. We'd never heard of it, but looked through the recommendations in the Good Pub Guide, and thought it sounded the more interesting of the two in the area - but it's clearly well established, and as much a restaurant as a pub. I felt that the presentation was just slightly grander than was appropriate: if this is a pub, why are the staff all dashing about in long white aprons? and if it's a restaurant, why are we perched on pub-style seating? and why can't we order at our table instead of at the bar? The service was charming, but a little frantic (two sorbets and a glass of dessert wine were delivered as one sorbet and two glasses of dessert wine) - and so on. Despite which, the food was excellent: I had the spiced beetroot in a coconut pancake (my companions - as they say in the restaurant reviews - chorused "What? Where did you see that?" because it was hidden in the vegetarian menu, which they hadn't looked at), which was delicious, and the cheeseboard (cheese slate, as it was described, and was indeed served on a slate, an interesting selection of unidentified cheeses accompanied by two slices of fruit cake - though not, as the menu promised, walnut cake. You see why I didn't demand to be introduced to the cheeses?) The dessert wine was mine, and with the beetroot pancake I drank a glass of Yorkshire Sunset rosé (from Ryedale Vineyards, further write-up here). It was surprisingly good, well-balanced fruit and acidity, bearing in mind that I like my rosé pale in colour and dry in flavour; and it worked well with the beetroot. I could have grunk a larger glassful (something I don't often say in pubs).
The first surprise encounter of the evening: all of a sudden there was Harry, demanding to know what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and I were doing so far south.
The second surprise encounter of the evening: on the last turning on the way back to K. and B.'s house,durham_rambler did an emergency stop. There was a hedgehog in the middle of the road ahead of us, and we weren't going any further until B. got out in the rain, and moved it (which he did).
The rest of the drive home was not particularly agreeable; we took the non-scenic route (it was dark, in any case) but it was raining quite heavily, and there was water on the carriageway, and altogether not good. Worth it, though.
The Town Hall was advertising the forthcoming Skipton Puppet Festival (good grief, do they still make web sites like that? it's completely inaccessible), which looked great fun, as did the associated competition for "Faces in Spaces" - photographs of 'found' images of faces, which sounds silly, but the posters showed some wonderful examples, very simple images which didn't look like faces at all, until you saw it, and then you couldn't unsee it!
We ate at The Angel at Hetton, tucked away just off the Grassington road. We'd never heard of it, but looked through the recommendations in the Good Pub Guide, and thought it sounded the more interesting of the two in the area - but it's clearly well established, and as much a restaurant as a pub. I felt that the presentation was just slightly grander than was appropriate: if this is a pub, why are the staff all dashing about in long white aprons? and if it's a restaurant, why are we perched on pub-style seating? and why can't we order at our table instead of at the bar? The service was charming, but a little frantic (two sorbets and a glass of dessert wine were delivered as one sorbet and two glasses of dessert wine) - and so on. Despite which, the food was excellent: I had the spiced beetroot in a coconut pancake (my companions - as they say in the restaurant reviews - chorused "What? Where did you see that?" because it was hidden in the vegetarian menu, which they hadn't looked at), which was delicious, and the cheeseboard (cheese slate, as it was described, and was indeed served on a slate, an interesting selection of unidentified cheeses accompanied by two slices of fruit cake - though not, as the menu promised, walnut cake. You see why I didn't demand to be introduced to the cheeses?) The dessert wine was mine, and with the beetroot pancake I drank a glass of Yorkshire Sunset rosé (from Ryedale Vineyards, further write-up here). It was surprisingly good, well-balanced fruit and acidity, bearing in mind that I like my rosé pale in colour and dry in flavour; and it worked well with the beetroot. I could have grunk a larger glassful (something I don't often say in pubs).
The first surprise encounter of the evening: all of a sudden there was Harry, demanding to know what
durham_rambler and I were doing so far south.The second surprise encounter of the evening: on the last turning on the way back to K. and B.'s house,
durham_rambler did an emergency stop. There was a hedgehog in the middle of the road ahead of us, and we weren't going any further until B. got out in the rain, and moved it (which he did).The rest of the drive home was not particularly agreeable; we took the non-scenic route (it was dark, in any case) but it was raining quite heavily, and there was water on the carriageway, and altogether not good. Worth it, though.
