A real ale festival in the further reaches of Teesdale suplies thirst-quenching sustenance and an unexpected encounter with the aristocracy.

FTER last week's Arkengarthdale idyll, another splendid, sun-blessed walk on the wild side - and at the end of it, an unexpected peer and a pint.

We'd parked at Romaldkirk, in Teesdale, sloped off through Hunderthwaite and up to Hury Reservoir, turned northwards onto a narrow road signed "Unfit for Motor Vehicles" but for amblers, suited to a T.

The Boss, it's right to say, had had a bit of an uphill struggle past Hunderthwaite, but that was just a touch of hay fever - Trial by Hury, as Gilbert and Sullivan almost observed.

Thereafter the track peaks at a farm called Botany, doubtless rich in plant life, descends to Mickleton with the silent yachts of Grassholme Reservoir on the left and then back along the old railway track bed to Romaldkirk, where the privately preserved station house is still guarded by a red signal, home from home.

It wasn't coincidence that, a few miles further up Teesdale, the Strathmore Arms at Holwick was holding a beer festival - and in danger of drying up when we arrived, athirsted, about 2.30pm on Sunday.

Twenty-odd real ales, mind, and the first pump to be exhausted had been Fosters Lager. "A whole group landed, had got a bus up for a beer festival and then drank bloody lager," said Joe Cogdon, the landlord, trying not to sound ungrateful for the custom.

Once the Strathmore seemed to change landlords as often as the operator changed the reels; now Joe and his partner Helen Osborne are making a real, cask conditioned, fist of it.

The chap with a cap the size of a dinghy had eschewed the real ale, too, though what appeared to be orange juice had, he confided, a little something in it.

It was the 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a thoroughly pleasant cove who officially is Michael Fergus Bowes Lyon Strathmore but whose friends just call him Michael.

"Is this your local?" someone said.

"Well, sort of," said Lord Strathmore, whose Who's Who entry lists membership of half a dozen London clubs for more urban occasions.

Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, of course, became Queen and then Queen Mother. The 18th Earl had been her Page of Honour from 1971-73, became a captain in the Scots Guards, was a government whip in the Lords and though Who's Who lists his home as Glamis Castle - beloved of Her Majesty - now spends much of his time on the family estate at Holwick.

"You must come up and see me sometime," he said, and we shall. It may be a long day's march before a more convivial outing than that one.

MARK Whyman has written in praise of the Three Horse Shoes in Wensley - "cooking and presentation first class, Black Sheep bitter, real fire and a very warm welcome."

Lucky for some, we followed him up there and were reminded by a framed cutting over the door that we'd been there before. "Outstanding pub food," the column had concluded in May 1998.

The same door, incidentally, has a picture of a foaming pint pot with a crafty caption about beer helping ugly men to have sex since eighteen hundred and long gone.

Moments after us, a dozen Lancastrians arrived on a Wakes week, or whatever it is such things are called across the great divide. Disorientated, one asked for a half of mild and, advised of the error of his wayzgoose, settled for a ginger beer instead.

The two may be pretty similar.

The pub's been run since 1995 by John and Margaret Sparks, he an army chef for 24 years, she as hospitable as before. Those seeking rest and recuperation after a day's walking in the dales should be advised that the netties are a canny hike, however.

"Out the back," as they say in Co Durham, though strictly speaking they're out the front.

The music was 1950s: Perry Como, Michael Holliday, Matt Monroe - "the bus driver," said The Boss, knowledgeably, though she didn't know the North-East town from which Gerry Munroe hailed, or the title of his only hit.

Margaret recalled once making a plantpot out of her mother's favourite 78, Secret Love by Kathy Kirby. "She didn't speak to me for a month," she said (and now it's no secret any more.)

Bar meals are served at lunchtime and from 5pm, more elaborate restaurant food from seven. Dishes arrive steaming, like Vesuvius on time and a half.

We ate in the restaurant, shortly to become a Lancashire hot spot, starting with Thai fish cakes with a julienne of vegetables and a rather sticky sauce. Julienne is a culinary term, meaning shredded. As in wheat.

The fish cakes were too strongly spiced - the fish out of water, or sync, or something.

Escalope of pork stuffed with cheese - apricots somewhere there, too - came with a creamy leek sauce and crisply cooked vegetables and after a bit of blowing was a much better bet.

The lady had "vegetable parcels" in a good filo pastry followed by more fish cakes, sans spice, with a tomato and basic coulis. Coulis is another culinary term, generally taken to mean sauce.

Afterwards we had another pint of beer, just to see what happened next. Handsome, or what?

A COUPLE of miles down the road in Leyburn, the annual food festival drew thousands last weekend - additional custom for the Wensleydale Railway, an admirable enterprise which deserves abundantly to succeed. So why was the Leyburn station "bistro" so dreadful?

It's in a charmless, cheerless little room which in days of stokers and pokers might have been brightened by a fire. There was no hot food, no home made food, just a few pre-packed sandwiches made in Bedale and some coffee out of a push button machine.

You wouldn't have wanted the train to be late.

The Boss, who thought the whole thing would have been far better franchised to the local Women's Institute, recalled the classic film Brief Encounter in which Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson got it together in the buffet on Carnforth station.

"If they'd met at Leyburn," she said, "the encounter would have been briefer than ever."

AMONG much else on sale at the good festival, incidentally, was Richmond Ale - from the Darwin Brewery at Sunderland University - and products from Pridham's delicatessen in Richmond.

Now the two have been brought together in Pridham's beef and ale casserole. Keith Thomas, one of Darwin's founders, lives in Richmond. Yeast used in the brewing process was cultured after an analysis of samples found at Richmond Castle. It's what's called authenticity.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's green and goes "boing, boing, boing".

A spring cabbage, of course.