Miles with smiles

THE circular walk from Reeth up past the old Surrender lead mine and across into Arkengarthdale has become almost a Rite of Spring in this house, though no Spring day was ever so magnificent as that which accompanied us - jammy beggars - two weeks ago today.

It is also a perfect walk in that the first half (with apologies to mathematicians and to pedants) is longer than the second, that the second leg is largely downhill and that an excellent country pub awaits somewhere in the middle.

If the CB in Arkengarthdale matched the splendours of the day, however, the barmaid yet outshone them. Her smile would have graced the cover of Vogue, her temperament the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, her willingness was of Barkis himself.

The walk is perhaps nine miles, the first obstacle - temptation may be the better word - within 100 yards. It is the Reeth Bakery, purveyors of pristine pasties and of much else which, like the Lorelei, seeks to lure the weak willed from their purpose.

Up through Healaugh, where a cat called Rosie was missing but nothing else much happens at all, the empty road diverts past Surrender - where young boys lived, worked and died - and across the ford where they filmed the credits for All Creatures.

The heavens were alive with lark and with lapwing, the hedgerows with primrose and with pussy willow, the fields with lambs and with levity.

The road was dead with rabbits.

The Boss, she who would scream the house down if a slug came within 50 yards of it - a slug bearing gifts and a white flag, even - nonetheless took kindly to a caterpillar which sauntered insouciantly across our path.

Caterpillars were cuddly, she said. Truly it was that sort of a day.

Thence to the CB, known sometimes by its Sunday name of the Charles Bathurst, named after the 18th century land and lead mine owner of those parts whose father was Oliver Cromwell's physician. These past eight years it has been run, and expanded, by Charles and Stacy Cody.

There are many who claim that the principal reason for a good walk - there may be lesser ones - is the rapture of the first mouthful of ale which ends, or intersects, it.

Thus here, Black Sheep bitter in ambrosial fine fettle and something called the "Mirror menu" which, prettily presented, reflected well upon them all.

Though it's now an 18 bedroom inn, the Cody family have also tried to keep the CB as a pub in which locals feel welcome, cheerful little anterooms for games and for families, old pictures including one of the Arkengarthdale Show tea ladies, properly pinafored, circa 1956.

Most of them seemed to be called Harker; most are up there.

The menu is imaginative and ever- changing, shorter by day than by night, a £9 guinea fowl casserole probably the most expensive dish.

The Boss had the "five fish fish cakes" with hollandaise sauce, pronouncing them "very fishy" as if she'd expected a taste of plum pudding. She thought them delicious, anyway.

One of a range of hot and cold baguettes, the hot bacon and Stilton (£3 95) came additionally with "home cut" chips which, come to think about it, is all that might reasonably be expected of a chip.

She followed with a lemon and almond macaroon, we with a spiky orange bread and butter pudding and custard and with a stroll to the attractive St Mary's church in Langthwaite, just down the road.

Described at the door as "having no pretension to great architectural distinction or beauty", it thus earns bonus points for humility, which may be the greater virtue.

The only regret on so glorious a day, as ruefully we were reminded at every noticeboard, was that the previous evening in Reeth Memorial Hall there'd been a performance of The Wind in the Willows ("The Musical").

It was The Mole, was it not, who revelled so greatly in the Spring that he threw down his whitewash brush, said "Bother" and "Oh blow", tunnelled joyfully towards the light and found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

"This is fine," said Mole to himself, in the joy of living and of Spring without Spring cleaning, and so manifestly it remains. Spring is sprung; praise be.

* The Charles Bathurst Inn, Arkengarthdale, North Yorkshire (01748 884567). Outside playground for the bairns, no problems for the disabled. The multi-faceted Swaledale Festival (May 28 to June 13) includes a Scottish smallpipes performance at the CB on the evening of June 8.

THUS inspired, we took another walk two days later, a quick lap of St Mary's lighthouse - "a miniature part-time island" says one of the guides - and up the coast path from Whitley Bay to Seaton Sluice and into Holywell Dene.

Prosaically named, Seaton Sluice was once a bigger port than Blyth, had a glassworks turning out 1.7m bottles a year and - supply and demand - a brewery to fill some of them.

Now it may be best known for the Dene, and for a sea stack called Charley's Garden, though only the locals may know why.

The sun had repented of its temerity by then; the lunch was far inferior, too.

The Briar Dene, on the promenade heading northwards out of Whitley Bay, is Tyneside and Northumberland CAMRA's pub of the year and doubtless deservedly. Eight hand pumps parade in apple pie order beneath a stained glass dome, a sign behind the bar also offering welcome to the Briar Dene "Coca-Cola extravaganza".

The surreal thing, presumably.

There was Bluebell Bitter and Vernal Equinox, Manana, Archer's Jackass and Bazen's Black Pig Mild. Durham CAMRA branch chairman Ken Weaver so much likes the place he travels by bus - 308 from Newcastle Haymarket.

What we tried - not all of them, understand - were equally excellent, if only it had been possible to escape the pervading pong of vinegar.

The "Easter holiday" blackboard offered everything at £6.50, the wholly predictable sort of menu from which to choose not what you fancy most, but least least.

The Boss had the liver, which she considered OK, and the vegetables which she thought from the land that time forgot.

The fish and chips were ample but ordinary, all right in the sense that a chap with two broken legs is usually described as "comfortable."

The receipt acknowledged two turkey dinners. "The till only does turkey dinners," said the barmaid. That's the trouble with this technology business; it does nothing but talk turkey.

KEN Weaver's branch newsletter, incidentally, reports the 21st anniversary in the Half Moon at Durham for Keith and Pauline Draper. Last time we spoke to Keith, Bass wanted to turn the atmospheric old Half Moon into something called an It's a Scream bar. Though usually deaf in both ears, the big pub companies do occasionally listen.

JUST named Darlington CAMRA's "country" pub of the year for the third year in succession - the Quaker Coffee House again takes the "Town" award - the admirable Crown at Manfield begins yet another beer festival on Friday evening.

Around 20 ales, all prize winners at the Great British Beer festival, are promised, with live (but laid back) music on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings and Cockerton Silver Band on Sunday lunchtime.

ITS name never a-changing, The Times has stood at Dalton-le-Dale - between the A19 and Seaham - for as long as anyone can remember.

Once, memory suggests, the Thunderer's masthead - Dieu et mon droit - was emblazoned on the pub sign.

It's now admirably and immaculately run by Dave Smith, serves a good and very inexpensive hot beef sandwich but remains a puzzle. Why sign of The Times?

"No one ever seems to know," said Dave. Eating Owt reade rs will, of course.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you feed under-nourished pixies.

Elf-raising flour, of course.

Published: 27/04/2004