North Yorkshire delights

Not only does Whitby in north Yorkshire benefit from a glorious location, superb views and access to swathes of beautiful countryside, it also boasts at least two dozen pubs and a refreshing lack of supermarkets. There is a reasonably-sized Coop next to the harbour, but independent food shops continue to thrive in the town centre - largely, I believe, due to the lack of out-of-town supermarkets. Sadly this all looks set to change - Tesco and Sainsbury's are currently slogging it out with the planning committee for the right to build stores on the edge of the town. Current planning law and the power of these companies mean that local councils have scant defence against them - it's not legal to turn down planning applications because of the negative effect they may have on local, independent shops, while the supermarkets have the legal and financial might to fight decisions that go against them.

It's possible some of Whitby's varied shops may survive because of its busy tourist trade, but there are bound to be casualties, especially among the food stores that are off the tourist track and rely on year-round business.

Botham's, for example, has two shops - the main one being up on the top of the hill and not easy to happen upon. Curiously for a bakers it also sells sausages, bacon and cheese, as well as pork pies of course, and its own brand of teas and coffees, available loose as well as boxed.



It also sells a wide range of local speciality baked goods - including this fabulous Yorkshire curd tart. It's spicey, it's fruity and it's a bit like cheesecake in texture. Mmmm! Also on sale were plum loaf, tea bread, stottie cakes and parkin.


We managed several good walks and were very lucky with the weather. The only rain we suffered was on Friday night - apart from showers overnight and in the early morning. Here the Curse demonstrates the art of traversing stepping stones over the River Esk. I have no problems with wobbly bridges or high ladders, but for some reason find stepping stones a bit weird and scary.



No trip to the seaside is complete without crab sandwiches, here served the traditional northern way in Scarborough with crisps, a bit of salad and a pot of tea. They were heavenly.



Whitby and Scarborough are connected by a cycle trail/footpath which follows the old railway line, and I took the opportunity one day to hire a bike from Trailways and spend a few hours exploring the route on my own. The quality of the trail was very variable - in places gravelly and uncomfortable on the little shopper I was riding - and had long stretches with shallow gradients, but the views were incomparable and the blackberries along the route the best I'd seen!



Another culinary highlight of the week was meat products - from the superb black pudding that came with the set breakfast in our local caff to the fact that you could buy hunks of roasted belly pork, still slightly warm, from the butchers.

This slab ended up with chutney in between thick slices of bread from Bothams, and served as a magnificent lunch on one of our walks. We had to resist the temptation to buy another chunk to take home with us.





In Whitby, kippers are smoked by Fortune's in a small shed with an even smaller shop next door, on a street that clings to the side of the hill below the abbey. Not wanting to have to bother with all the bones that kippers entail, we settled for some kipper pate which we made into sandwiches for the drive home. Our lunch in the soulless service station on the A1(M) was much improved by the presence of these butties.

Back from the north

..but only fleetingly. No time yet for a full post about the delights of Whitby, its many pubs and its resolutely local food.

Instead I leave you with a taster of our week.



First of three good walks - about 7 miles from Whitby to Robin Hood's Bay along the coastal path. A great alternative to Whitby on a sunny Sunday, the town was heaving and we were glad to get away. A couple of pints in RHB then back on the bus for a fish and chip supper.



Our last day began with rain (the only rain all week!) so we drove to Scarborough to visit the castle and mooch in the shops. By the time we got there, however, the sunshine was back and we were able to enjoy a seafront meal and some people-watching.

In a last-minute change to the published programme, I'm off to France later today with a friend and her VW camper van for a few days. In theory I'm sad not to be on the bike, but in practice I think it would have been a gloomy and wet few days in the west of England so perhaps not the greatest time for cycling.

Holidays call

Taking a break to visit Whitby with the Curse, then I'm off solo on the bike for a week.

Back in a couple of weeks.

Knit Nurse in knitting shock

On Friday night I joined Deadly Knitshade and the Stitch London crew for a Friday late at the Natural History Museum. We taught people to knit and helped them to make knitted squid. Or should that be squids?

Loads of people turned up to see the 8m-long knitted squid that Lauren had crafted using old carrier bags, as well as some of the smaller specimens that had been made by other members of the team.

I even managed to make something myself - my very own knitted squid who came home with me later to meet Croc and Herdy. The squid pattern is very simple to do - you only need the knit stitch and a couple of stick-on eyes to make it (or you could just sew eyes on if you wanted). The pattern is available here.



Meanwhile I have cast on for something a bit more substantial. Last week I bought the Sweet Pea Coat pattern from Twist Collective with the intention of buying some yarn to make it.

Instead I dug out this beautiful Rowan Harris Tweed Chunky from my stash where it has been languishing for some years. I've cast on various garments with it, over the years, but they have never succeeded. Hopefully this one will endure.

It's going damn quick and looks good so far - my main worry being whether I'm going to have enough yarn to finish it!

Simple pleasures

'Fresh from Kent this morning' according to the grizzled old bloke on Deptford Market who sells whatever fruit or veg is cheap at the wholesaler - he's great for seasonal stuff such as English plums or greengages, and today it was corn on the cob, three for £1. Boil for five minutes or so, then add butter, salt and pepper before chomping your way through it.


I often crave greens after being away from home since it usually involves a lot of eating out. Savoy cabbage is a particular treat.

Paisley weekend

Last weekend myself and the Curse spent a few days in Glasgow - originally planned around the fact that I was doing the Great Scottish Swim but seamlessly converted into a city break when the swim ended up being cancelled because of a blue-green algae infestation.

In fact we stayed in a rather luxurious apartment on the Oakshaw ridge in Paisley, just across the road from the Coats Observatory and surrounded by beautiful Victorian buildings, lingering evidence of the town's prosperity. Paisley is about 10 minutes on the train from Glasgow and has some glorious Victorian and early 20th century architecture. My particular favourites were the Bull Inn and St Matthews Church, both designed in fabulous Art Nouveau style by local architect William Daniel McLennan.


I was disappointed not to be able to get inside the church, but we did have a few pints in the Bull, which has the most glorious stained glass windows and very characterful bar. They just need to improve their food offerings and they have a winning combination; the ale was very good.


I dug these fabulous pictures out from Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland website - they are so much better than those on the Bull's own website, and although the interior has changed somewhat since these were taken, much of it remains as it is in these photos.


I also enjoyed the Russell Institute (above) in its fine Beaux Arts grandeur - designed by James Steel Maitland in 1923 and gifted to the town as a children's clinic by Agnes Russell in memory of her two bachelor brothers who died in 1920 and 1923. The bronze sculptures of sick children around the building are somewhat sinister-looking, but the proportions of the structure and its careful details pleased me.


The Oakshaw ridge has several quaint cobbled footpaths leading up to the road, and is graced by several churches - this being the most dramatic and picturesque.

In fact, much of Paisley's architecture is beautiful. But the town centre has dozens of empty shops and bargain stores. Even M&S has ditched its regular model for an 'outlet' store.

We did not see a single independent butcher, baker, grocery store or greengrocers in the town centre - and a small Coop was the only food retailer we could get to by foot. In fact many of the units that were still occupied in the town centre were pound shops, cheap clothes stores, mobile phone stores and so on, although some high street regulars such as WH Smith, Boots, Top Shop etc still perist. In general, the number of empty units and the quality of the remaining retailers was profoundly depressing.

The council is clearly making some effort to stop the slide continuing - empty units have colourful murals stuck on their windows to make them look like they are occupied, with 'Imagine your home decor shop here!' written on them. The fact remains that two relatively recent mall/shopping centre developments are probably responsible for the fact that so many other units lie empty.

Additionally, between them, Paisley and its close neighbour Renfrew them have a huge Morrisons, an Asda, a Sainsbury's and a Tesco superstore. All of them are out of town.

The knock-on effect on the life of the town centre is clear; we also found a dearth of restaurants and decent pubs (although it seems able to support dozens of drinking barns including my favourite, 'Cafuffles'. In today's parlance, WTF?!).

Paisley deserves better.

Although one of the town's recommended restaurants had closed down, we did find Cardosi's, which offered some very tasty Italian grub, and Castelvecci which cooked up the fab northern supper mentioned in the last post.



We spent quite a lot of time in Glasgow too, enjoying a walk along the River Clyde from the so-called 'Squiggly Bridge' (above) to the 'Squinty Bridge' further west.


A couple of happy hours were spent wandering the Necropolis in Glasgow, in suitably gloomy weather. We admired the views, examined the detail of the monuments and built our own imaginary tales around the words on the headstones. Many of the graves had suffered with age and corrosion of the iron rods holding them together, and their constituent pieces were heaped randomly together. I wondered how often visitors came to some of the quieter corners and how long it was since the names on some of the headstones had been read. Sobering but fascinating at the same time.


Love the melodramatic exclamation mark on this headstone!

Northern supper

Traditional northern fish n chips, freshly cooked and wrapped in newspaper to take away.

I don't care what culinary claims they make down here in London - from more than 20 years' experience as a northerner living in the capital I can attest that you just CAN'T GET a decent fish supper here.

So we took advantage of our weekend in Scotland to savour the real thing - I believe this version was even cooked in beef fat or something similar. Don't forget to drench with malt vinegar and then salt generously. If you are feeling really adventurous and it's not raining, eat straight out of the wrapper using your fingers, while sitting on a park bench.